|
A few things have happened over the past week that made me I need to figure out my book review policy, for my own sake if nothing else. So I came up with Jim’s Rules of Reviewing.
So, did I miss anything important? And as long as we’re talking books, here are two new releases to check out. Seanan McGuire’s second October Daye novel A Local Habitation [Mysterious Galaxy | B&N | Amazon] is out today. I actually provided a blurb for the first one, Rosemary and Rue: “McGuire knows her fairy lore, bringing the wonder and the danger of the fair folk to the streets of San Francisco so vividly you can smell the rose goblins. Action, intrigue, and a dash of romance make Rosemary and Rue a fun, engaging read. An impressive first novel that leaves you impatient for the second.” I haven’t read A Local Habitation yet, but I’ll be bugging DAW for a copy soon. Sample chapter is available here. Also out today is DAW’s monthly anthology. This time it’s Timeshares [Mysterious Galaxy | B&N | Amazon], edited by Jean Rabe. From the description: “Take a vacation through time with the help of a Time Travel Agency offering excursions into the past and future. Readers will find themselves in exotic, adventurous locales-and in all manner of trouble and mysteries. And figures from the past will be able to squeak by the other way.” Enter to win a free copy of this one over at SciFiChick’s blog. Do it now!
A quick follow-up thought on yesterday’s post on Author Entitlement. I said the world doesn’t owe us a publishing contract, and that griping about not getting the success I “deserve” is tacky. On the other hand, confidence is a must. You have to have enough faith in yourself and your work to keep writing and keep submitting. It feels like a balancing act, trying to find just the right amount of self-confidence and ego. Too much and it’s easy to slip into entitlement. Too little and you can get discouraged and give up. It’s a little crazy, to be honest. But then, you already knew writers were nuts #
Kara Gillian is a young detective in Beaulac, Louisiana. Also, she summons demons (Like so many things, summoning isn’ t inherently good or evil; it all depends on what you do with it.) Her first homocide case is to investigate the apparent return of the Symbol Man, a serial killer who tortures his victims and covers the bodies in occult symbols. He vanished years ago, but now he’s back and killing at an even faster rate. Not only does Gillian have to track and stop her killer, she’s also dealing with the fallout after accidentally summoning a Demon Lord named Rhyzkahl, a creature powerful enough to enslave our world if Gillian makes the slightest misstep. I liked this book a lot. It fits comfortably into the urban fantasy genre: tough heroine, nasty paranormal threat, a few hot sex scenes, and so on. Sometimes urban fantasy starts to feel formulaic, but this time it worked well. Nothing felt gratuitous, and Rowland’s background as a cop gave the book a much-appreciated level of realism. Plotwise, there were a few times when it felt like Rowland was trying to hard to paint certain characters as suspicions, but overall the story worked really well, maintaining tension and raising the stakes with every chapter. There were real consequences at the end, and without spoiling that ending, Rowland managed to take one element of the story which could easily have been cliche and write it in a way that made sense and worked. You can read an excerpt at the Random House site. And book two, Blood of the Demon [B&N | Mysterious Galaxy | Amazon], comes out today. I’m looking forward to it. So, anyone else reading this series? What do you think? Haven’t posted any book reviews lately. Shame on me! Must remedy this…
“Galina is a young woman caught, like her contemporaries, in the seeming lawlessness of the new Russia. In the midst of this chaos, her sister Maria turns into a jackdaw and flies away - prompting Galina to join Yakov, a policeman investigating a rash of recent disappearances.” If you’re looking for quick-paced, action-heavy fantasy, this probably isn’t the book for you. If you’re looking for deep characterization and a much richer cultural background than your average American fantasy novel, I’d definitely recommend it. Not a cheerful book, but I enjoyed it a lot, particularly the characters from Russian folklore. I think the Celestial Cow was my favorite. Sedia has a beautiful writing style, and it’s so refreshing to read something different. #
These books are in many ways the yin to Sedia’s yang. Short, fast, and fun. I zip right through them, enjoying the ride immensely. With that said, I didn’t think this one was quite as good as the previous book, Cybermancy. Cybermancy felt like it had a clearer plot, and the issues surrounding Persephone made that book far more powerful to me. In CodeSpell, I didn’t feel as emotionally invested in saving Necessity. I did enjoy seeing Ravirn’s development. It was interesting to see McCullough show how his growth affected his relationships. Zeus was fun to meet in this one, and of course I always enjoy Melchior the webgoblin. If you like my goblin books, I think there’s a good chance you’d like this series. And if you enjoyed the first two Ravirn books, go pick up CodeSpell. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in #4. #
I’ll have more thoughts on this one later. For now, I’m enjoying learning about the Undercity, though I wish I could have gotten more information earlier in the book. The strained relationship between Gil and Melissa is painful, but believable. I don’t think it’s my favorite Michael Jasper work (I’d probably reserve that for The Wannoshay Cycle), but I’m most of the way through and hoping to finish it up before heading to ConFusion. # Your turn. If you’ve read any of these, I’d love to hear your thoughts. And what else has everyone been reading lately? Any recommendations for the rest of us?
There’s been a lot of criticism about this one. Over at i09, Annalee Newitz criticizes it as a white man’s guilt movie. Others describe it as a mutant love child of Ferngully, Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, and the Smurfs. Valid points, but they miss one very important question: All those mind-blowing special effects, and your subtitles are in Papyrus font? Really? Moving on to more serious (and spoilery) thoughts, in no particular order… Continue reading Avatar So the book giveaway ended up with 66 comments on LJ, 15 on Facebook, and 26 on the Wordpress blog. I used a random number generator to pick three winners. Congratulations to: Heidi Santavuori I’ll be getting in touch with the three of you about the details. Thanks to everyone who entered! (And for those who want to check out the books but don’t want to wait for my next giveaway, might I suggest putting in a request at the local library?)
My first complaint is that the whole thing is just a ripoff of House. I mean, really. Holmes is just House without the limp, and his sidekick Watson is totally Wilson. Come on, they barely even changed the names!!! Seriously, I enjoyed it. Didn’t think it was the most brilliant film of the decade, but it was a fun romp. I’m not an avid reader of Doyle, so I can’t say how true the film stayed to the book, but it worked for me. I do wish we had seen a little more of Holmes’ deductions over the course of the movie instead of getting the whole thing explained in one lump at the end, but I understand why they decided to tell the story that way, trying to keep the audience in suspense. My biggest complaint … involves spoilers. Continue reading Winners and Sherlock Holmes Happy news!!! The Mermaid’s Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] was the #1 paperback bestseller at both Mysterious Galaxy and Uncle Hugo’s–two wonderful and well-known SF/F bookstores–for the month of October! #
In many ways, The Enchantment Emporium feels like a typical Huff book. You’ve got the strong female protagonist, Allie Gale, a witch who inherits her grandmother’s shop when grandmother disappears. You’ve got fun, interesting secondary characters popping up. You’ve got the snappy dialogue, the humor, the Canadian setting, and all of the little touches that make a good story even more fun to read (I loved the yo-yos!) Allie is away from her family for the first time, trying to find out what happened to her grandmother while dealing with an immanent dragon invasion and worse. Warning — minor spoilers follow! I’m still thinking about this one, and would love to hear from anyone else who’s read the book. I think my biggest hesitation comes from the intertwining of sexuality and magic, and the way that’s written. The Gale family of witches is … let’s call them highly liberal. Like the royals of old, there’s a lot of inbreeding, mostly to keep the magic strong within the family. I’m okay with that part of the story. It makes sense, and it’s hinted several times that the Gales aren’t 100% human. Different species, different taboos, right? But then you have scenes of group spellcasting, where the males go rather staglike from so much power, and have to be brought back down, sexually. I.e., “That was a big ritual. I’d better do Bob to keep him from exploding.” Like I said, I’m still thinking about it. The characters are all written to be open and comfortable with the situation. So what happens between consenting adult mostly-human witches shouldn’t be a problem, right? But I guess the fact that magic essentially forced them into sex troubles me, and I wish Huff had gone a little deeper into that. I’ve heard complaints that there isn’t enough explanation or exposition about the magic system, other dimensions, and so on, but I didn’t have that problem. I think most experienced fantasy readers will be okay, but newcomers to the genre might be better off starting with one of Huff’s other works. So if you’ve read the book, what did you think? If you haven’t but read the whole post anyway, I still want to know what you think
Basically, if you liked the first book, you should definitely pick up the second. Cybermancy brings back magical hacker Raven/Ravirn and his webgoblin companion and throws them into even more trouble than last time. It’s got the same fast pacing, the same humor, but McCullough also shows a more serious side, taking an unflinching look at the story of Persephone. I really appreciated his take on that one. Ravirn’s relationship angst felt a little too predictable, but nowhere near as bad as your average sitcom, and overall I really liked this one. Book three is already on my wish list # Other new books to check out: Bitter Night [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Diana P Francis. Book one of the Horngate Witches Books. Indigo Springs [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by A.M. Dellamonica. Read the first chapter here. By the Mountain Bound [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Elizabeth Bear. This is the prequel to All the Windwracked Stars. So, anyone have any thoughts or comments on these? If not, what else is out there that we should all be reading?
In brief, Twilight is the story of Bella Swan, a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire. Then about 80% of the way through the book, some other stuff happens. That structure was odd. For 400 pages, this is a fairly typical teenage romance, except the boy happens to be a vampire. Suddenly we have evil vampires chasing Bella and everyone’s fleeing and scheming and hunting and fighting. It didn’t throw me out of the story, but I think the book could have been more effective had we seen how dangerous vampires could be a lot sooner. Edward spends a lot of time trying to persuade Bella that he’s dangerous and she’s better off without him, but like Bella, I never really believed him. I mentioned in Twilight, Part I that it was a fast-paced read. Don’t want to rehash that, except to say it holds true for the rest of the book. Whatever strengths and weaknesses the book has, I kept turning the pages, and I finished it within a few days. I was intrigued by what Meyer did with vampires, eliminating many of the traditional weaknesses. Holy symbols? Edward’s dad keeps a 300-year-old cross on the wall. Sunlight? Yay, sparklies! Edward explains that the only real way to destroy a vampire is to rip it apart and burn the pieces. Think about that. Buffy would be out of luck in this world. There’s no way a human being is going to be able to fight a vampire; the only one who can is another vampire. (Or another equally powerful supernatural creature.) Humans? Helpless as insects. The implications are powerful, but I didn’t feel like there was any follow through. Maybe it gets brought up in later books. But heck, if vampires are this indestructible, why bother to hide at all? As for Bella and Edward … yeah. This is the part you’ve been waiting for me to rant about, right? But I’m having a hard time judging Edward’s behavior the way I would a normal abuser. Controlling? Absolutely. Creepy? Oh hell yes. Breaking into a teenage girl’s room every night to listen to her talking in her sleep? The dude puts stalkers to shame. But he’s not human. He is, as the book stresses again and again, better and beyond human in so many ways. He’s a century old, powerful and beautiful and unstoppable. Why should he treat a human with any more respect than you or I treat a pet cat? I like my cats, but I don’t consider it abusive to toss one off the counter. This isn’t where Meyer was going with the book. Edward’s behavior is glossed over as part of our whirlwind teen romance. He’s treated as a normal human teenager, except when he’s not. As a normal human, he’s an abusive, controlling creep. Having been young myself, I can certainly understand Bella’s infatuation and obsession. Been there, done that (though I cringe to think about it now). I just wish Meyer had been more conscious of the dynamics she was writing. There’s so much going on here, and the book seems blissfully unaware of it. It ignores the implications of Meyer’s changes to vampire lore. It glosses over the unbalanced nature of Bella’s relationship with Edward until the very end, when Bella decides she wants to be a vampire too. (And why not? There’s no downside!) It shows us a jealous, controlling stalker and treats the whole thing as dreamy and romantic. This is where I think the book fails. Don’t know if I’ll read book two or not. But in the meantime, please feel free to jump in with your thoughts and comments.
I started by checking the front matter. This book is in its 47th printing in paperback (19th in hardcover). Dang. And I thought I was doing well when Goblin Quest went back for a 4th printing…. I’m about 25% through Twilight, and so far, the book is surprisingly readable. It’s not great, but I haven’t tried to gouge out my eyes with a spork yet either. It reminds me of Harry Potter: it’s a quick, easy read; our young protagonist leaves one life and enters another, more magical one where they’re amazingly popular; it has lots and lots of pages… Several people commented that Bella Swan is very much a Mary Sue, and I can see that. She complains about how she’s so unpopular, and in the meantime she’s go no less than four–maybe five by now?–boys sniffing after her. There’s a wish fulfillment feel to the story, which I imagine is a lot of the appeal–just like in Harry Potter. We’re only beginning to get into the Edward revelations, but I can already see where the dynamics of Edward/Bella are troubling, to say the least. So far, we’ve already seen some radical mood swings from Edward, as well as seriously controlling behavior (physically dragging Bella into his car being the most blatant so far). Pulling her away from her friends to sit alone with him at lunch isn’t by itself a pattern of isolating behavior, but I’ll be curious how many more warning signs we’ll see from Edward. Mostly, Twilight does what a lot of successful SF/F books seem to be doing these days: it makes the fantastic more accessible. Like Harry Potter, it starts in our own world and grounds the reader before bringing in the fantastic elements. It reaches beyond the hardcore SF/F readers, to whom the first 125 pages will be not only familiar but even a bit boring. Yes, we get that he’s a vampire, and we’ve read this “discovery” process a hundred times before. We’ve read it, but folks unfamiliar to the genre haven’t, which might explain why this is the book reaching a larger audience. One final thought: this book looks like it was designed to be a quick read. Larger typeface, big pages with larger margins, more spacing between the lines … physically, these pages were laid out in such a way that it makes you turn the pages faster. I find that interesting. 375 pages to go. More thoughts later I’m sure. For now, have a Harry Potter pic, ’cause it amused me.
It’s easy for fiction to become formulaic: Protagonist wants X. Protagonist tries to achieve X by doing Y. S/he fails, tries again, fails again, tries a third time, and either wins or loses it all in the climax of the story. It’s a perfectly serviceable formula, one which produces perfectly serviceable fiction. Van Pelt does so much more. In “Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go?” our protagonist and her friend don’t stop the bad guy. They’re not active characters at all, being mere observers to the SFnal drama unfolding in their classroom. Yet it’s still a tense, gripping story. And the ending, in which they learn the truth and are left with one terrifying and unanswerable question, has more impact than many full-length novels ever achieve. “The Inn at Mount Either” packs a similar punch, making the SF idea more central to the story as our protagonist explores a resort situated at the intersection of parallel universes. Van Pelt doesn’t give us the easy ending another author might have written; he adds one more page, turning an interesting story into a full-strength gut punch. He’s also playing with fascinating ideas. What if artificial intelligence was not only possible, but became so cheap that everything could have AI chips? What if space exploration could be outsourced, not to private companies, but through children’s collectible toys? (Gotta find ‘em all!) What if the universe were ending, and all that remained were two sentient machines orbiting a star? Like any collection, some stories worked better for me than others. I wasn’t as fond of “Of Late I’ve Dreamt of Venus,” mostly because I didn’t feel as connected to the characters. “One Day, in the Middle of the Night” was an interesting premise, but I felt like Van Pelt was working too hard to fit the gimmick of the story. But these were the exceptions, and even with these stories, I was still impressed by the ambition, the purpose and power of Van Pelt’s writing. Let me put it this way: reading this book made me completely rethink the potential of the short story, and the things I want to accomplish the next time I sit down to write one. The notes on my ARC say the book comes out in September, though Amazon lists it as already available. I definitely recommend this one, both as a reader and a writer. And while you’re at it, check out James Van Pelt’s home page, or go visit him on LiveJournal at jimvanpelt. |
 |
|
|
Copyright © 2010 Jim C. Hines - All Rights Reserved |
||
I got 
First up, The Secret History of Moscow 
Next up, CodeSpell 
Currently reading 
Anyway, on to the movie chat. Amy and I went out on a real, live date yesterday to see Sherlock Holmes. (Pop quiz — is it a good idea or a bad idea to take your wife to a movie that has Jude Law and a topless Robert Downey Junior?)
I just finished reading The Enchantment Emporium 
I picked up a copy of 
So I finished reading Twilight 
I picked up James Van Pelt’s first short fiction collection, Strangers and Beggars, way back in 2002 at World Fantasy Con in Minneapolis. Even then I was impressed at how much power he could pack into a few thousand words. His latest collection, The Radio Magician and Other Stories 
