27 June, 2006

Dragons, wolves and S&M

I'm currently in the middle of reading Temeraire by Naomi Novik and Diplomacy of Wolves by Holly Lisle, and indulge in a pleasant little struggle each evening when I take my seat on the train as to which one I'll plunge into.   At the moment, Diplomacy of Wolves is taking precedence, simply because I'm enjoying Temeraire more, and can't bear to finish it and then have to wait impatiently until the sequels arrive at the library.  It's a fabulous, fabulous book. 

I'm also reading Kushiel's Dart in small chunks - it's my bedside book at the moment.  I'm not enjoying it awfully much, and have been guilty of rolling my eyes on occasion - I think that if you're not interested in sadomasochism, or the idea of sadomasochism, Kushiel's Dart doesn't have a lot of appeal.  There's so much S&M sex in it, and the character, by her nature, finds so much pleasure in pain, that you really need to relate to that a little in order to relate to the character and her motivations.  I'm finding it rather impossible, but am persevering, despite occasionally making exasperated outbursts of "Oh, come on - now she's being twirled on a wheel and whipped!" and the like.  I think if it were a library copy, I would have returned it, but as it's a secondhand book I bought, it's going to continue to sit by the bed until I've finished it - or decided to give it away.

23 June, 2006

The Embers of Heaven (Alma Alexander)

I really enjoyed Alma Alexander's The Secrets of Jin-Shei , which was a story set in a fantasy-China where a women's language was spoken and a sacred sisterhood existed. Embers of Heaven is a sequel, set 400 years later, and I expected to enjoy it just as much.

Embers of Heaven seems to exist in a much more China-like fantasy-China than the China of Secrets, although this may be because I'm more familiar with Chinese history in the period that Embers is set. Embers of Heaven has a Mao-like character, Iloh, known as First Citizen Iloh, who writes a Golden Book that citizens carry around with them. There's a Cultural Revolution, a Red Army (called the Golden Wind) who change the names of streets and destroy things that remind them of the old regime - I felt like I was reading Wild Swans with different names.

I find a fantasy novel that simply takes a period of history and change the names of things quite strange. I wonder what the point of it is. Why not just write the same novel and set it in China during the Cultural Revolution? Perhaps the spiritual revival of jin-shei which our main character seeks to create may not have worked - but why not make it an alternative history novel, rather than a fantasy?

It puzzles me, this decision, and it rather spoiled the book for me, because the similarities between this period in fantasy-China and our world's China kept jarring me out of the narrative. It seemed, in a way, that by setting this in a fantasy world, Alexander discounted the fact that this actually occurred in China. I'm not sure why I feel this way, as I don't believe that writing about things in a fantasy setting trivialises them. I think perhaps it comes close when the fantasy world is so similar to our own.

Did anyone out there have a different take on this, or enjoy this book more? How do you feel about fantasy that edges so closely to our own world's history?

Magic or Madness (Justine Larbalestier)

I put Magic or Madness on hold at the library after reading a bit of the author's blog - I have found myself doing this a lot since I discovered all these wonderful blogs by writers. If an author writes engagingly, and reads the same sort of books I like, I grab one of their novels to see if I like it. Justine Larbalestier is Australian, which also made me eager to go and try one of her books - I love finding new Australian authors.

Magic or Madness is a very cool YA fantasy, equally enjoyable for adults (and probably more so if you already appreciate a good YA book). After Reason's mother is institutionalised, she is sent to live with her grandmother Esmerelda, whom Reason has been brought up to hate and fear. When Reason escapes from Esmerelda's house and suddenly finds herself in New York, she is forced to confront the truth of the stories her mother has told her all her life.

Reason is such a delightful character - in fact, Magic or Madness is filled with delightful characters, all of them complex and real. I can't quite figure out how I feel about Esmerelda, and I love books that confuse me that way. Both the Sydney suburb of Newtown and New York are invoked wonderfully - Reason is a stranger in both places, and we see them through her eyes. I loved the way Reason's mathematical abilities were worked into the narrative, and her use of the Fibonacci number sequence, which I didn't know anything about.

Magic, in Reason's world, has a terribly heavy price which, she is told, there is no way to completely escape. The end of Magic or Madness hints that Reason may find a way around this price in future books - I can't wait to find out how.

20 June, 2006

E-books on Writing

I bought a couple of e-books over the weekend, urged on by Holly Lisle's website.  They're both on writing - one is Holly Lisle's Create a Character Clinic, which I bought because I really enjoyed reading her writing essays on her site, and thought I could do with some tips into more in-depth character creation. 

The second is Lazette Gifford's The Two-Year Novel Course - Year One .  This one's enormous, and I think it's definitely worth the measly $10 for the ebook.  (I am going to be printing it and reading it that way, I think - I really hate reading things on a screen.)  I've been working through a few of the exercises in the beginning, and am enjoying it immensely.  I've seen several very positive reviews from people who've done the online course that this book is based on - some of them are here and here.

I'll update this post with my thoughts when I've worked further into both books (and presumably done a great deal more fiction writing, which is what I hope these books will kickstart - especially the Novel Course.)

Peepshow (Leigh Redhead)

I picked this up because... why did I pick this up? Well, an Australian crime writer, used to be a stripper, her main character's a stripper/private detective - it sounded fluffy and enjoyable.

Peepshow was fluffy, but it was enjoyable and essentially well-crafted fluff. I tend to be a bit picky when it comes to crime novels. Reading Peepshow, for example, I didn't give a damn who killed who - I was just enjoying the main character and the insight into what it's like to be a stripper. While reading books by PD James and Ruth Rendell, I'm on the edge of my seat wondering who the killer is - but with books like this, and Kerry Greenwood's detective novels, I tend to read them for the characters and settings rather than the mysteries themselves. Which is not a bad thing - I'd just classify them in two different genres really.

So, Peepshow - 3.5 stripping detectives, I think. Good, light fun - not the sort of novels I'd buy, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for further books in the series at the library.

Widdershins (Charles de Lint)

I really love the world de Lint creates, but sometimes I find that I don't connect with his characters. I'm not sure why. He's brought to life such a magical, crazy city in Newford, I find it kind of frustrating that I don't get completely involved with his characters. For example, in Widdershins, one character dies, while another falls down screaming next to his remains. Instead of being stunned and shocked like I am while reading other novels, I just kept going, thinking, "Eh, I'm sure something'll happen to fix it all up," and lo and behold, it does.

Perhaps that's the problem - death never really seems final in these books. And so because I don't believe anything really bad can happen to the characters - they always manage to avert all problems - I can't be truly involved in their lives either.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Widdershins - but it wasn't the visceral delight that Talyn was, for example. And yes, they're very different stories, but I should be as deeply involved in every book as I was in Talyn, and I just wasn't with Widdershins. But I did really enjoy my time in it - de Lint really makes me want to find a way into the Otherworld, or at least into Newford where you might run into an ancient fairy at the supermarket. So, kind of reluctantly, 3.5 stars. I'll probably enjoy it more on a re-read - I find that de Lint's heavily populated novels (and this one was no exception, with characters coming out of its metaphorical ears) often are more absorbing when I read them a second time. And I enjoyed the resolution that Widdershins brought us for Geordie and Jilly (although I think I might have liked them better when they were tormented. Are tormented characters sometimes just more fun?)

12 June, 2006

Book to Read - On Writing

Like many wanna-be writers who don't actually write enough, I love to procrastinate with a good book on writing or two.
  1. About Writing - Samual R Delany
  2. The Forest for the Trees - Betsy Lerner
  3. From Where You Dream - Robert Olen Butler
  4. Bird by Bird - Ann Lamott
  5. The Wave in the Mind - Ursula Le Guin
  6. The Passionate, Accurate Story - Carol Bly
  7. Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction - Lisa Tuttle
  8. Write Away - Elizabeth George
  9. Writing Fiction - Garry Disher
Books on writing that I've already read - Le Guin's Steering the Craft, King's On Writing, and almost everything by Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg (which isn't to say that I found either of those authors particularly inspirational or helpful - they're just rather addictive.) Carmel Bird's Dear Writer is excellent, and I remember enjoying Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy.

Mostly, I want to read books about writing by authors I enjoy (or have heard of and respect). I don't really expect to get much out of books on writing by someone who has published one book I've never heard of, but often I try them anyway.

Talyn (Holly Lisle)

This was a bloody fantastic book. The first novel I've read by Holly Lisle - I saw a rave review online by the editor, and decided to check it out.

Talyn is set in a world where two neighbouring peoples, the Tonks and the Eastils, have been at war for 300 years. When a peace is brokered by the Feegash, a foreign nation known for their neutrality, Talyn, a Tonk soldier, gradually discovers that the Feegash are not what they seem.

I don't really want to say anything more about the plot - it's much better to read it and watch it unfold before you. The system of magic used in Talyn is detailed, unique, and beautifully described - some of the best use of magic I've read. The characters are heart-breakingly real, to the extent that I began to talk aloud to the book, remonstrating with Talyn over her choices in relationships. This is just an excellent, excellent novel - 5 out of 5.

Now I just have to find myself another novel of Lisle's to devour. I'm thinking of trying Diplomacy of Wolves.

The Shining City (Kate Forsyth)

I was really, really disappointed with The Shining City. I mean, the "Tower o' Mists" moment should have confirmed that the book wasn't improving, but I persevered, in vain.

In The Tower of Ravens, we meet Rhiannon and Lewen. They spend the book travelling across the country towards the capital city with a bunch of fellow students and two teachers. They have their adventures along the way, we get to know them, get to know a bit about the land we're in, and the novel as a whole was all fairly engaging, despite the Scottish accents. In The Shining City, all our characters arrive in the capital city, and immediately Rhiannon is arrested and put in prison. And she spends the entire book there. She alternates between despairing, despairing some more, and having speedy sex in her prison cell with Lewen. Then getting back to despairing. Suddenly we're getting to know the royal family, having some complex history introduced into the story, and more and more characters with increasingly weird political motivations introduced. These may not be problems if you've reading the Witches of Eileanan series, but it's rather confusing if you haven't. (Maybe I would have liked this book better if I'd reading the Eileanan books. But then what's the point of it being a stand-alone series?)

It's just too different to the first book - I really enjoyed Tower of Ravens, but I found Shining City completely unengaging. I spent most of the time being frustrated with the characters, and then with the plot. With great disappointment (and a caveat that, yes, I will read the third book anyway, given that this one ended on an enormous cliffhanger), 2.5 out of 5.

The Bitch Goddess Notebook (Martha O'Connor)

This novel is published as The Bitch Posse in the US - I much prefer the antipodian title and cover. (As an aside, it seems like a strange decision to market a novel under two different titles. I guess it's two different publishing houses, or something.)

The Bitch Goddess Notebook is written by three friends - Cherry, Amy and Rennie. The story goes back and forth between their adult lives, and their experiences together as high school students. They share damaged home lives - one's mother is a cocaine addict, one's parents are alcoholics - and as adults are all emotionally damaged to varying degrees. As teenagers, they bond with alcohol and cutting themselves (and I found the sheer amount of cutting that goes on in this book stretched my ability to believe in the characters - perhaps because it hasn't been part of my life experience at all, but it just seemed a bit excessive.)

I was disappointed by the ending, for a variety of reasons. The dramatic event in the girls' past (which, it is implied, contributed greatly to their messed-up adult lives) was a little unbelievable. I don't know - the story seems to be going in a certain direction, and then suddenly, we have this very dramatic event (sorry to be so vague, but I'm trying not to spoil the storyline) and it just didn't work for me, really.

I'd say overall that I didn't particularly get into this book - mostly because it relates to a teenage experience that I never had, and I couldn't get past my vague disbelief (and occasional irritation) with the characters to get involved with the story. That said, I raced towards the end with great glee, wanting to find out what happened - I just found that I was a little disappointed when I got there. 3.5 out of 5.

11 June, 2006

Bookfest loot

I spent a happy couple of hours at the city's biennial secondhand booksale, and came home with a couple of bags stuffed with books. The complete list:-
  1. A pile of food and recipe magazines
  2. Rimrunners - CJ Cherryh
  3. In Conquest Born - CS Friedman
  4. Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
  5. The Wind-up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
  6. Small Wonder - Barbara Kingsolver
  7. Cards of Grief - Jane Yolen
  8. The Mist of Avalon - Marian Zimmer Bradley
  9. Trilogy of Death - PD James
  10. Kushiel's Dart - Jacquline Carey
  11. Post Captain - Patrick O'Brian
  12. HMS Surprise - Patrick O'Brian
  13. The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian
  14. Desolation Island - Patrick O'Brian
  15. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
  16. Murder on the Orient Express/Death in the Clouds/Why Didn't They Ask Evans? - Agatha Christie
  17. The Pale Horse/The Big Four/The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie
  18. The Clocks/Third Girl/Murder in the Mews - Agatha Christie
  19. Nemesis/Sleeping Murder/At Bertram's Hotel/The Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie
  20. Here on Earth - Alice Hoffman
  21. Grass - Sheri S Tepper
  22. The Crystal Cave/The Hollow Hills/Wildfire at Midnight - Mary Stewart
  23. The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett
Some are books I've read and wanted to own, some I've heard good things about, some are authors I wanted to try. A nice pile of acquisitions - I'm pleased. And where are these books going to go, you might ask? I've no idea. Into a box, probably, until we move to a bigger house and I can have a library. With tall, dark bookshelves, leather armchairs, an elegant little writing desk, and of course, shelves and shelves of neatly alphebetised books.

09 June, 2006

Books to Read - June/July

This is my list of books-to-read for the next month or so. A very heavy fantasy focus, as you can see - I'm falling back in love with the genre. And have got over, to an extent, my "oh my god, people will think I'm stupid for enjoying sci-fi/fantasy" stage.

1. Broken - Kelley Armstrong
2. Foreigner - CJ Cherryh
3. The Bitch in the House
4. Confessions of a Pagan Nun - Kate Horsley
5. Poison Study - Maria V Snyder
6. A Student of Living Things - Susan Richards Shreve
7. The Embers of Heaven - Alma Alexander
8. Magic or Madness - Justine Larbalestier
9. Temeraire - Naomi Novik
10. What to Eat - Marion Nestle

I've been reading a lot of author blogs lately (as you can see from the links I'm giving to authors if I know where their blog is). The somewhat uncomfortable aspect of that is that now I feel I should put more effort into my reviews, because what if they follow the link back and see what I've written?

As an example, Diane Duane actually went and commented on a very lacklustre review I wrote last month of Wizards at War. Which was extremely embarrassing, because I loved some of the earlier Wizards book, and I wished that I'd written about one of those instead. And I really didn't expect famous published people to read the silly things I write about their books. Ahem. As it happens, Diane Duane is actually her real name. I have it from the horse's mouth.

07 June, 2006

Despair

The point at which I pretty much gave up on The Shining City getting any better:-

"How was the Tower o' Mists?"

Donncan frowned.  "Strange," he answered after a while.  "It is very isolated, ye ken, hidden at the heart o' the fens as it is, and so often covered in mist."

Dude. I mean, the Scottish accents were getting on my nerves, but the Tower o' Mists just sent me over the edge.

04 June, 2006

Family History (Dani Shapiro)

I think, on reflection, that it was a mistake to read Family History so soon after reading We Need to Talk About Kevin. The two books deal with superficially similar subjects - a child who changes, who has violent and inexplicable reactions to things - but as Kevin does this in such an intense and deeply involved way that Family History inevitably looks poor by comparison.

Of course, they are very different books, looking at different issues, but the apparent similarity (a mother worrying about the mental health of her child) spoiled Family History for me. It seemed vapid, shallow, and with a completely pointless ending. Although it was well written, I didn't really believe in any of the characters. I don't want to give it a score, because I have a feeling I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't comparing it disparagingly to Kevin in my mind.

The Tower of Ravens (Kate Forsyth)

I was a little surprised to find myself thoroughly enjoying The Tower of Ravens. This novel (the first in a trilogy, I believe) is set in the same world as Kate Forsyth's Witches of Eileanan series, which I've never read, but this was not a detriment. It's essentially a world embroidered from Celtic myth (with a few other things thrown in for good measure) - not in a particularly original way, but not so terribly as to detract from the story.

Of course, there were elements to The Tower of Ravens that had me rolling my eyes. Rhiannon is just a bit too gorgeous and mysterious and wonderful to be true. Forsyth introduces a bit of conflict within Rhiannon, but not really enough to detract from the sheer gorgeousness of her. Of course, there's a tortured love story (with a man as equally gorgeous as herself) - will they ever be able to simply love on another, in peace? No, of course they won't. Don't be silly. Where's the fun if the characters aren't being emotionally tortured?

I seem to be rather conflicted - saying I enjoyed the book, then roundly criticising it. I suppose what I'm trying to convey is that it's a decent work of fantasy, suffering from some flaws, but not enough to make it unreadable. Forsyth is a decent writer, so that I can lose myself in the story despite the occasional silliness of it. Only for fantasy fans - 3.5 out of 5.

The Witch's Cradle (Gillian White)

The Witch's Cradle was a strange book - half thriller, half mystery, and very strangely paced. We begin with a couple who were part of a reality TV series on living in poverty. The public first embrace them, then turn against them when the series is aired. Then their children are kidnapped, and everything changes. And then it changes again. And again.

The Witch's Cradle is strangely plotted, almost like several ideas for stories forced between two covers. The narration often analyses the characters for us, which I found rather off-putting. The ending of this book defied belief, and I had in no way been so absorbed in the story to accept it. 2.5 out of 5.

The Betrayal of Bindy McKenzie (Jaclyn Moriarty)

Jaclyn Moriarty is one of my favourite YA authors - I've loved everything she's written, to greater and lesser degrees. The Betrayal of Bindy McKenzie was ratheer different to her previous books. Although it still communicates the story through a variety of things such as diary entries, notes, memos and so on, these are all written by Bindy herself, rather than different characters. Bindy is also a rather unsympathetic character, at least at first, although I quickly became fond of her clumsy attempts to be accepted by her peers.

I didn't expect the ending, and found it a little... melodramatic? Not very believable, in any case. It didn't spoil the book, but I wouldn't categorise this as my favourite of Moriarty's work. 3.75 out of 5.