Book report time!
Dec. 9th, 2007 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesI've been getting a lot of reading done thanks to my hour and a half long commute every morning and every evening, and I figured I might as well review what I've been reading. I will try not to go into my usual long meandering review, because there are so many.
No promises though, 'cause you know how I go off sometimes.
- Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick
Oh, Luna, Luna, Luna. I want so bad to like the books you guys come out with. I do, seriously. Nice cover art, female authors, pretty binding, fantasy and romance. Still, you disappoint me. With the exception of Cast In Shadow, you have let me down.
I mean, when done right, mixing romance with fantasy and/or science fiction can rock the casbah. It's peanut butter and chocolate. When done badly, it's an insult to both literature and women. And possibly the readers. You're turning gold bricks into turds here, Luna.
However, I assume that since you're still coming out with books that you're getting decent sales. So maybe I know nothing. I just know that your books are like fruitcakes. They look so appealing, and the idea is good (fruit + cake, can't be bad, right?), but then you take a bite of it and remember why you re-gift the things.
So it is with Disappearing Nightly. I wanted to like this novel. I wanted to like that it was something new. An urban fantasy female heroine who wasn't a hard-boiled detective wearing leather and being cynical about the world and having superpowers solving murder mysteries while boffing vampires. In fact, no vampires at all.
Hey, a struggling actress! That's not something I've seen a lot of. That's actually kind of cool. Someone I can empathize with a bit more, 'cause *hey*, I'm kinda in one of those struggling artist fields myself (being a writer). She doesn't have one of those Mary Sue kinda names (you know the ones I'm talking about, the cool names that Urban Fantasy heroines inevitably have, the ones that sound tough and feminine at the same time). She's named Ester. That's like, your grandma or something.
It checked a lot of the boxes from what I read on the cover.
Concept was good, execution sucked.
The novel is the story of Ester, an actress who's the understudy of the lead actress in a play with a magical act. When the lead actress vanishes, literally, to everyone's puzzlement onstage during a perfomance, Ester gets involved in trying to figure out what happened. The vanishing is, obviously, supernatural and from there the plot can best be described with the phrase: "and wackiness ensues".
*sigh*
The dialogue tried so hard to be witty that it kind of hurt my head, and Ester being quirky just came off as annoying, flaky, and sort of Mary Sue in a way.
I wanted so badly to like this novel, but between the forced cleverness and the research scenes that are fluffier version of every Buffy episode you've ever seen, it didn't make sense. Besides which, Ester's involvement in things is never justified to my satisfaction.
Add in the throw away romance with the cop which doesn't make any sense, some more characters which are meant to be zany and charming but which are just annoying and a mystery that really isn't that hard to figure out and it doesn't work so well.
Thing is? Slapstick doesn't really work so well in novels. It might make a better movie or TV series, but as a book it fails.
I give it a C- instead of D for concept and for at least trying to do something besides Ye Old Anita Blake/Buffy Cloning. The attempt to mix romance, fantasy, and comedy is admirable. And I do give points for effort.
..............
- The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
I fell in love with this book from page one. We had a mad, whirlwind love affair on the L-train. It danced with me, impressed me with swordplay, made me love all of it's crazy, broken, insane, beautifully human characters and reminded me what I love in a good story and what good character writing can do.
Okay, so there were a few plotlines that were underdeveloped, but overall? This book can do no wrong.
The story is classic in it's way, it's about the madness of the upper class and a coming of age tale and a story of duels and great passion and innoncent. It's the tale of Katherine, the only daughter of a quaint little family of country nobles, who is swept up by her crazy uncle, the Mad Duke Tremontaine who is famous for his wild living, his numerous lovers, and his altogether unconventional lifestyle in the big city. He wants her to become a master of the sword instead of a proper lady, and has her trained, dressed, and treated like a boy instead of a girl. She soon comes to adapt to, and even like, her status as she gets embroiled in the events surrounding the engagement of Artemisia Fitz-Levi to the dastardly Crescent Chancellor
I fell in love with everyone. I fell in love with Katherine, who is brave and naive and goodhearted and innocent. I fell in love with Tremontaine who is insane, but has a method in his madness, and quite humane in a secret way, and a good man underneath all the layers of debauchery and scandal.
I gather there was a prequel to this novel, but hell if I needed it. The story, beginning to end, stands on it's own. There's history, maybe, that doesn't mean as much to me as it might have, but it didn't matter.
It was riveting and I gobbled it up. It satisfied me in a lot of ways, from the plotline, which held my interest to the characters, who I couldn't get enough of, to the intrigue which actually was intriguing rather than dull and pointlessly nuanced as most writers have it.
Kushner also does a great job of getting so many things right that tickle both my practical and historical sensibilities. Details from the absolute silliness of the upper classes, to the disregard for a woman's right not to be raped (even by her fiancee), to the sword fighting, to the abusive kind of prostitution that happens in societies like that, to the fact that people who have unprotected sex often enough will probably get pregnant.
As a writer, I also found this book immensely instructive. On a prose level it marveled me. Not because it was intensely poetic or intricate, but because it was sophisticated unornamented. It was funny in a very easy, skillful way, didn't draw attention to itself, and didn't try to do anything stupidly fancy.
Like swordfighting, writing can suffer when you try to show off.
I'd recommend reading this novel to just about anyone. Even people who aren't genre fans, I think, might like it. Just because it's a damn good story.
............
- Whiskey and Water, by Elizabeth Bear
I bought this at a reading that Elizabeth Bear did, because I was going to pick it up anyway and after the story about the zombie rockers, how could I not.
Having read a few things by Ms. Bear, I stand by my assertion that she's one of those writers that could have "My Way" as a theme song. You don't like how she's laying it down? You can go elsewhere, because she panders to nobody.
The plotline of Whiskey and Water picks up a few years after Blood and Iron ended, in a world that has wrapped it's head around the conflict between Faerie and Prometheus and has, mostly, adapted for better or worse. There's a tentative, tenuous peace with Elaine on the throne of Faerie and the Prometheus Club decimated, leaving only Jane and Matthew for the most part.
Then, of course, somebody's gotta go upset the apple cart. After their friend gets murdered by something that is decidedly from Faerie, Geoff and Jewels get entangled, along with Matthew (who comes upon the body) in the ensuing fallout. This leads to the doorstep of our old friend, the Merlin, and eventually even to the many versions of the Devil, who are in Hell playing the remnants of Prometheus and Faerie off of each other.
You really, really do have to read the prequel, Blood and Iron, to understand what's going on in Whiskey and Water. Otherwise you will get very, very lost. However, the good news is that you only really need to have a basic memory of the plot points of B&I and the players.
I liked this book better than it's prequel, and I think it might be because there were less ballads and more down and dirty action. In fact, if I were going to suggest a title, I would've gone with Blood and Iron 2: Now We Must Kung Fu Fight. There are a lot of duels in this novels, and in a thematic, meta-y sort of way they're the replacement for the ballads, I think. Which is fine by me.
The plot moves along quickly, and sometimes there are moments of "what the hell did I just read and what's going on?!?!" that made me have to go back and re-read several times before I realized exactly what had just happened, like having to rewind a security tape several times to see a shoplifter at work.
I give the book an A- when I think other would give a lower grade because I already knew that I was going to have those moments. If you're willing to really take the time to read more carefully than you would other books, this novel will reward you.
This novel is also, I feel, better than it's predecessor because it deals with a lot of the things that bothered me about the prequel. The mythology is more equitable, and we get everything from European myths to the Aboriginal Dreamtime. There's less specialization in one rather obscure area and a broader mix, which gives the book a better flavor.
I also loved the threads that dealt with the way New York City reacted to the Dragon's devastation and how there were varying reactions from the Otherkin who were about as silly as those people on the rooftops in Independence Day, greeting the alient to those who hated everything Faerie and wanted it dead, to people like our friend
The only thing that stuck in my craw a bit was the character of Jewels, who was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I was fond of Geoff, who had a standoffish kind of charm in the way he very much didn't want to get involved and knew that Faerie was bad news. Jewels on the other hand had that dopey, obsessive, irritatingly naive obsession with Faerie that made me want to smack her several times and say, "Don't you know that these things aren't beautiful and you're not special little snowflake, you stupid little shit?!"
Other than that, I had a good time. Even if I had to make a few U-turns along the way.
..............
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
This book is beyond gorgeous. It is, in a way, much like the geisha it tells about. It is beautiful, charming, but underneath the makeup and the glamor, tragic and quiet and so very human.
I don't have a really meaningful review to write of this book because I couldn't really find any flaws. I don't know if it was because I was so mesmerized by the complete and utter immersion in the world of 1920's/1930's Japan or if the amount of detail blew me away or if it's just a near perfect novel.
It is, plotwise, what it says on the tin. It's the memoirs of a fictional geisha who is taken from her home in a tiny fishing village, brought to Kyoto to a geisha house where she, at first, gets into so much trouble that she's just going to be a servant. However, after getting some mysterious help, she is trained to become geisha and goes through not only the sometimes brutal and painful process of becoming geisha, but also of the darkness of war that lurks just beyond the beautiful world of geisha parties, waiting to descend upon her and Kyoto and Japan as a whole and change everything.
I loved ever single thing about this novel. The details, the prose, the character who was headstrong, heartstrong, naive and cunning in turns. I loved seeing the world through her eyes, and seeing a world that I really have shamefully little familiarity with.
I'm sad to say that for all I know of Japan, especially historically, this could've been fantasy.
However, it was gorgeous and now I want to read more about Japan, and about geishas. I also now will slap anyone who thinks that geisha just means prostitute, because this book was really an education. And the way it made me love the characters, I feel defensive and protective of Sayuri and her world in a strange sort of way.
Yes, I have seen the movie and I'm glad I saw the movie first. Because I was able to enjoy and appreciate it in a way I wouldn't have if I'd read the book first. Had I read this book first, I would have just spent the entire two hours grumbling about how much better the book really was.
No promises though, 'cause you know how I go off sometimes.
- Disappearing Nightly by Laura ResnickOh, Luna, Luna, Luna. I want so bad to like the books you guys come out with. I do, seriously. Nice cover art, female authors, pretty binding, fantasy and romance. Still, you disappoint me. With the exception of Cast In Shadow, you have let me down.
I mean, when done right, mixing romance with fantasy and/or science fiction can rock the casbah. It's peanut butter and chocolate. When done badly, it's an insult to both literature and women. And possibly the readers. You're turning gold bricks into turds here, Luna.
However, I assume that since you're still coming out with books that you're getting decent sales. So maybe I know nothing. I just know that your books are like fruitcakes. They look so appealing, and the idea is good (fruit + cake, can't be bad, right?), but then you take a bite of it and remember why you re-gift the things.
So it is with Disappearing Nightly. I wanted to like this novel. I wanted to like that it was something new. An urban fantasy female heroine who wasn't a hard-boiled detective wearing leather and being cynical about the world and having superpowers solving murder mysteries while boffing vampires. In fact, no vampires at all.
Hey, a struggling actress! That's not something I've seen a lot of. That's actually kind of cool. Someone I can empathize with a bit more, 'cause *hey*, I'm kinda in one of those struggling artist fields myself (being a writer). She doesn't have one of those Mary Sue kinda names (you know the ones I'm talking about, the cool names that Urban Fantasy heroines inevitably have, the ones that sound tough and feminine at the same time). She's named Ester. That's like, your grandma or something.
It checked a lot of the boxes from what I read on the cover.
Concept was good, execution sucked.
The novel is the story of Ester, an actress who's the understudy of the lead actress in a play with a magical act. When the lead actress vanishes, literally, to everyone's puzzlement onstage during a perfomance, Ester gets involved in trying to figure out what happened. The vanishing is, obviously, supernatural and from there the plot can best be described with the phrase: "and wackiness ensues".
*sigh*
The dialogue tried so hard to be witty that it kind of hurt my head, and Ester being quirky just came off as annoying, flaky, and sort of Mary Sue in a way.
I wanted so badly to like this novel, but between the forced cleverness and the research scenes that are fluffier version of every Buffy episode you've ever seen, it didn't make sense. Besides which, Ester's involvement in things is never justified to my satisfaction.
Add in the throw away romance with the cop which doesn't make any sense, some more characters which are meant to be zany and charming but which are just annoying and a mystery that really isn't that hard to figure out and it doesn't work so well.
Thing is? Slapstick doesn't really work so well in novels. It might make a better movie or TV series, but as a book it fails.
I give it a C- instead of D for concept and for at least trying to do something besides Ye Old Anita Blake/Buffy Cloning. The attempt to mix romance, fantasy, and comedy is admirable. And I do give points for effort.
..............
- The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen KushnerI fell in love with this book from page one. We had a mad, whirlwind love affair on the L-train. It danced with me, impressed me with swordplay, made me love all of it's crazy, broken, insane, beautifully human characters and reminded me what I love in a good story and what good character writing can do.
Okay, so there were a few plotlines that were underdeveloped, but overall? This book can do no wrong.
The story is classic in it's way, it's about the madness of the upper class and a coming of age tale and a story of duels and great passion and innoncent. It's the tale of Katherine, the only daughter of a quaint little family of country nobles, who is swept up by her crazy uncle, the Mad Duke Tremontaine who is famous for his wild living, his numerous lovers, and his altogether unconventional lifestyle in the big city. He wants her to become a master of the sword instead of a proper lady, and has her trained, dressed, and treated like a boy instead of a girl. She soon comes to adapt to, and even like, her status as she gets embroiled in the events surrounding the engagement of Artemisia Fitz-Levi to the dastardly Crescent Chancellor
I fell in love with everyone. I fell in love with Katherine, who is brave and naive and goodhearted and innocent. I fell in love with Tremontaine who is insane, but has a method in his madness, and quite humane in a secret way, and a good man underneath all the layers of debauchery and scandal.
I gather there was a prequel to this novel, but hell if I needed it. The story, beginning to end, stands on it's own. There's history, maybe, that doesn't mean as much to me as it might have, but it didn't matter.
It was riveting and I gobbled it up. It satisfied me in a lot of ways, from the plotline, which held my interest to the characters, who I couldn't get enough of, to the intrigue which actually was intriguing rather than dull and pointlessly nuanced as most writers have it.
Kushner also does a great job of getting so many things right that tickle both my practical and historical sensibilities. Details from the absolute silliness of the upper classes, to the disregard for a woman's right not to be raped (even by her fiancee), to the sword fighting, to the abusive kind of prostitution that happens in societies like that, to the fact that people who have unprotected sex often enough will probably get pregnant.
As a writer, I also found this book immensely instructive. On a prose level it marveled me. Not because it was intensely poetic or intricate, but because it was sophisticated unornamented. It was funny in a very easy, skillful way, didn't draw attention to itself, and didn't try to do anything stupidly fancy.
Like swordfighting, writing can suffer when you try to show off.
I'd recommend reading this novel to just about anyone. Even people who aren't genre fans, I think, might like it. Just because it's a damn good story.
............
- Whiskey and Water, by Elizabeth BearI bought this at a reading that Elizabeth Bear did, because I was going to pick it up anyway and after the story about the zombie rockers, how could I not.
Having read a few things by Ms. Bear, I stand by my assertion that she's one of those writers that could have "My Way" as a theme song. You don't like how she's laying it down? You can go elsewhere, because she panders to nobody.
The plotline of Whiskey and Water picks up a few years after Blood and Iron ended, in a world that has wrapped it's head around the conflict between Faerie and Prometheus and has, mostly, adapted for better or worse. There's a tentative, tenuous peace with Elaine on the throne of Faerie and the Prometheus Club decimated, leaving only Jane and Matthew for the most part.
Then, of course, somebody's gotta go upset the apple cart. After their friend gets murdered by something that is decidedly from Faerie, Geoff and Jewels get entangled, along with Matthew (who comes upon the body) in the ensuing fallout. This leads to the doorstep of our old friend, the Merlin, and eventually even to the many versions of the Devil, who are in Hell playing the remnants of Prometheus and Faerie off of each other.
You really, really do have to read the prequel, Blood and Iron, to understand what's going on in Whiskey and Water. Otherwise you will get very, very lost. However, the good news is that you only really need to have a basic memory of the plot points of B&I and the players.
I liked this book better than it's prequel, and I think it might be because there were less ballads and more down and dirty action. In fact, if I were going to suggest a title, I would've gone with Blood and Iron 2: Now We Must Kung Fu Fight. There are a lot of duels in this novels, and in a thematic, meta-y sort of way they're the replacement for the ballads, I think. Which is fine by me.
The plot moves along quickly, and sometimes there are moments of "what the hell did I just read and what's going on?!?!" that made me have to go back and re-read several times before I realized exactly what had just happened, like having to rewind a security tape several times to see a shoplifter at work.
I give the book an A- when I think other would give a lower grade because I already knew that I was going to have those moments. If you're willing to really take the time to read more carefully than you would other books, this novel will reward you.
This novel is also, I feel, better than it's predecessor because it deals with a lot of the things that bothered me about the prequel. The mythology is more equitable, and we get everything from European myths to the Aboriginal Dreamtime. There's less specialization in one rather obscure area and a broader mix, which gives the book a better flavor.
I also loved the threads that dealt with the way New York City reacted to the Dragon's devastation and how there were varying reactions from the Otherkin who were about as silly as those people on the rooftops in Independence Day, greeting the alient to those who hated everything Faerie and wanted it dead, to people like our friend
The only thing that stuck in my craw a bit was the character of Jewels, who was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I was fond of Geoff, who had a standoffish kind of charm in the way he very much didn't want to get involved and knew that Faerie was bad news. Jewels on the other hand had that dopey, obsessive, irritatingly naive obsession with Faerie that made me want to smack her several times and say, "Don't you know that these things aren't beautiful and you're not special little snowflake, you stupid little shit?!"
Other than that, I had a good time. Even if I had to make a few U-turns along the way.
..............
- Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur GoldenThis book is beyond gorgeous. It is, in a way, much like the geisha it tells about. It is beautiful, charming, but underneath the makeup and the glamor, tragic and quiet and so very human.
I don't have a really meaningful review to write of this book because I couldn't really find any flaws. I don't know if it was because I was so mesmerized by the complete and utter immersion in the world of 1920's/1930's Japan or if the amount of detail blew me away or if it's just a near perfect novel.
It is, plotwise, what it says on the tin. It's the memoirs of a fictional geisha who is taken from her home in a tiny fishing village, brought to Kyoto to a geisha house where she, at first, gets into so much trouble that she's just going to be a servant. However, after getting some mysterious help, she is trained to become geisha and goes through not only the sometimes brutal and painful process of becoming geisha, but also of the darkness of war that lurks just beyond the beautiful world of geisha parties, waiting to descend upon her and Kyoto and Japan as a whole and change everything.
I loved ever single thing about this novel. The details, the prose, the character who was headstrong, heartstrong, naive and cunning in turns. I loved seeing the world through her eyes, and seeing a world that I really have shamefully little familiarity with.
I'm sad to say that for all I know of Japan, especially historically, this could've been fantasy.
However, it was gorgeous and now I want to read more about Japan, and about geishas. I also now will slap anyone who thinks that geisha just means prostitute, because this book was really an education. And the way it made me love the characters, I feel defensive and protective of Sayuri and her world in a strange sort of way.
Yes, I have seen the movie and I'm glad I saw the movie first. Because I was able to enjoy and appreciate it in a way I wouldn't have if I'd read the book first. Had I read this book first, I would have just spent the entire two hours grumbling about how much better the book really was.
