Four books this week:
Robert T. Jeschonek - My Favorite Band Does Not Exist - DNF. 1) The author was trying too hard to be meta. There were three stories - the main story about a boy on the run, the secondary story about a fake band that he made up on the internet (to amuse himself? Perhaps?), and a tertiary story, a fantasy novel that the lead singer of the band and the boy on the run are both reading. Presumably these three stories would eventually mesh, but I didn't care about any of the three enough to find out. 2) Every Single Character had a stupid name. And a quirky schtich. It got very tiresome. 3) One of the stories within a story featured too cute renamings of months and states - Pensyltucky and such. The whole thing was just too too tedious, and so I gave up on it, less than half way through.
Thomas Frank - Pity the Billionaire - A screed, as I predicted. Franks is entertaining, but he slants his facts to suit his bias. For instance, in the first chapter he suggests that the current obsession with fiscal austerity in the midst of an economic downturn is the first time the US government has been obsessed with balance the budget during a Depression since Hoover. But FDR pushed for a balanced budget, both in his campaign against Hoover, and through his first two terms in office - he almost derailed the New Deal recovery as a result. Franks also over estimates the power of the president to effect change, especially at the legislative level. Look - it's absurd to compare Obama to Hoover, because he clearly isn't. I'm not saying we didn't need an FDR 4 years ago (or now; now would be good too), but what we got was Truman - he means well, he talks a really good game, but he's hampered by a hostile Congress and a desire to play by "the rules". The Skocpol and Williams I reviewed last week did a much better job of explaining the Tea Party, and Franks presented really the most basic and surface-y presentation of the current political situation otherwise. Still, it was a fun read, and sometimes you just want to feel angry and connected.
Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Vows Revenge - A romp. The third in the Jane Austen as vampire series. This features a whirlwind trip through the architectural highlights of Europe, a murder deliberately reminiscent of Agatha Christie, and some remarkably tender moments as Jane struggles with her sense of identity as a vampire, as a potential wife, and as Jane Austen, vampire. (I think it's clear that "identity" is the theme for this summer's reading list - I swear I'm not picking them out on purpose! It's like the arrow in the FedEx logo, seriously.) Possibly a conclusion to the trilogy, but there are enough loose ends (satisfying, but loose) that there could easily be future books in the series. I would not be unhappy either way - a strong and satisfying ending to the book, if not the series. I would have liked a historical note, though - Ford has a running theme of Jane remembering when she first visited these places, and meeting people who remember her, or seeing photos of herself - some notes on the actual events would be nice.
Andrew Fukada - The Hunt - Audio Book. This was very interesting. After my review a couple of weeks ago of the Sherlock Holmes, I was offered this book to review. I accepted, and it arrived in the mail promptly (like, the next day, which was a little freaky). Consider this full disclosure - I did receive a copy of the audio book from the publisher.
Let's dive in, shall we? The premise - vampires have overrun the world. Humans live either in farms maintained by vampires or in strictly maintained secrecy among the vampires. Apparently, vampires can't tell that you're a human if you are very very careful about personal cleanliness and such. Actually, though, humans don't live in farms anymore, because they've been eaten - delicacies eaten to extinction. So the only humans still kicking around at the beginning of the book are those living in carefully controlled hiding. Gene is one of these humans (they are called heepers or heapers - audio books have certain limitations in this regard - throughout the book - why is never revealed). His family has been gone since he was in his early teens - his dad was the last one to die. Gene maintains a facade that he is a vampire (a person, as they are described throughout) One day, the king of the vampires announces a hunt - there IS a small group of heepers still maintained in carefully controlled captivity, and a carefully selected group will be given the honor of hunting them down and eating them - how exciting! The hunters will be chosen by lottery. Naturally, Gene is selected, or else there is no plot.
Gene and a group of other vampires are sent out to the Heeper Institute, where they will have a week of training, followed by a hunt which is expected to last two or three hours. The heepers will be released at dawn, the hunters will be released at dusk, and the fun will ensue. Gene must figure out how to hide who he is and survive the experience, since he clearly can't hunt with the vampires.
Things I liked:
1) Fukada did a really nice job of world-building. He doesn't come right out and say that the vampires represent an apocalypse, but he crafts a post-apocalyptic world around them, in which technology is declining, and population is declining. Everything is described from Gene's limited point of view, and Gene knows almost nothing about the world outside of his limited experience - this was really well done. I especially liked the idea that vampires express themselves differently - they do not laugh, for instance. Instead, when they are amused, their wrists itch, and so they scratch them. "Necking" is done by putting one's elbow into one's mate's arm pit - odd, but consistent. Good stuff.
2) The use of humans as a metaphor for oppressed minority groups "passing" in the dominant society. Is Gene gay in a modern high school, pretending to be straight? Is he black in the 1950s, pretending to be white? Fukada plays this to the hilt - the physical aspects of "passing", but also the mental gymnastics - pretending to hate the very thing you are, until you start to actually hate the thing you are. This was also really well done.
3) A very minor thing, re: the audio-book-ness of the book - I liked that the narrator sounded like he was wearing false fangs as he read. Added a certain something.
Those things kept me from giving up, because the things I did not like were:
1) The gratuitous descriptions of vampires eating animal flesh. Lots of blood, lots of saliva, lots of messy adjectives - the first time, ok, that's setting. Repeated descriptions - a little gross.
2) Equally gross scenes of vampires dying in sunlight - flesh and eyeballs melting - the whole description just becoming too much, and taking too long - becoming icky, and then becoming absurd, and then becoming icky again. Yergh.
3) Gene is described as smart, but written as a moron. This, more than anything else, bugged the crap out of me. I suppose he was smart in comparison to the vampires, who are highly evolved physically at the expense of their intellect, but still - it took the boy FOREVER to figure out basic clues, and he kept wandering off to do other things rather than investigate basic things which were placed Right In Front of him. Gah. At points, I yelled at the book, which is never a good sign.
4) This is, I think, a peculiarity of the audio genre, but the pacing was very slow. I think, were I to have been reading the book myself, this wouldn't have bugged me, but action scenes took forEVER - lots and lots of monologueing, not enough doing. If it were on the page, it would have been a page turner, but when you read aloud, everything slows down - because you have to process the material and then translate it into speech, and then the audience has to process the material again. This made the last two discs of the book agonizing, because there was a lot of action - chasing, and fighting, and running, and escaping and such.
Finally, the book ends without a satisfying conclusion. There will be a sequel - this is not a case of loose ends, this is a solid case of cliff hanger. I do want to find out what happens with Gene, but I think it's good that I will have to wait for the sequel - I need time to recover from the vampire feeding and dying scenes.
Showing posts with label Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ford. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2012
Friday, June 3, 2011
Friday Review Post, 6/3/2011
Three books this week. I know! I'm as surprised as you are.
First up,
Francis Fukuyama - The Origins of Political Order
This was a monster. Fukuyama was clearly aiming for a nice middle ground between scholarly and readable, and he mostly hit it. Nonetheless, the book was very dense, and the topic was hugely ambitious. Fukuyama has set out to explain where politics comes from. This book, the first of two, starts with the philosophical construct of the State of Nature - literally, Fukuyama starts with primates. It ends on the eve of the American and French revolutions, the point at which politics and state organisations changed for ever.
In simplest terms, Fukuyama is arguing two things. 1) Human beings are, by nature, social beings, and always have been. Hobbes' position (and Rousseau's) that humans, in the State of Nature, were solitary (and, for Hobbes, brutish; for Rousseau, gentle) is wrong. Any attempt to explain group cooperation as some sort of gamesmanship - "we work in a group because it gets us what we want as individuals, even though we really don't like working in groups" - ignores the fact that, biologically, we are inclined to work in groups. 2) There is no one route to a "modern" state (one which, politically, a) has a strong central government; b) operates under the Rule of Law [the strong central government sees itself as subject to law]; c) the strong central government is accountable to the people). Fukuyama looks at a variety of states, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia, and shows how each approach modernity by different routes. This second thing is, perhaps, more important than the first. Modernity theory, especially in History, has often been condemned as Eurocentric, in that it seems to suggest that "modern" is synonymous with "western" or "European". Fukuyama argues quite the opposite - a state can attain "modernity" without looking anything like a European state. Further, not all European states evolved in the same way.
So. It was dense. It was heavily cited, and the bibliography is daunting. On some level, Fukuyama isn't saying anything that I haven't read elsewhere. On the other hand, noone else has said it all in one place before. As an historian, I liked that Fukuyama put his theory at the end of the work instead of the beginning, thus allowing his theory to flow from his evidence, rather than the other way around. As a reader, I found it somewhat distracting that he kept referring to chapters as yet un-read ("as we will explore in chapter X"). A glossary would have been nice - I don't know that he ever really defined latifundia* (maybe it was in the endnotes). If you are taking a political theory class, or an introductory historiography class, you may well encounter this work. Under those circumstances, it's worth the effort. Otherwise, maybe not.
* Basically, large farms - a situation where a single person owns a lot of different pieces of farm land. Wikipedia explains it here.
Well, so. Dr. Fukuyama wasn't exactly beach reading, so I didn't take him with me to the beach on Monday. Instead, a friend has asked, all wide eyed, if I had any Charles de Lint I could lend to him. Yes, I allowed as how I might, given that I have a whole shelf of de Lint - I gave him Waifs and Strays, but I also pulled Jack of Kinrowan off the shelf - I had, apparently, already loaned him that once. But I re-read it myself, so no harm done.
Charles de Lint - Jack of Kinrowan
This volume comprises Jack the Giant-Killer, which is de Lint's contribution to the Terri Windling Fairytales project, and Drink Down the Moon, which is the sequel. Both are set in Ottawa, in Canada, which was where I was living when I read them. Both are absolutely delightful - de Lint had just begun playing with the idea of fairies and magic impinging on our world, and these are a great example of that. Reading them made me a little homesick - not so much for Ottawa, but for being 19.
Anyway, Jacky Rowan discovers that the fairies of ancient myth and legend live more or less on top of the "real" world, leading a shadowy life that we know nothing about. Due to an accident, she is dragged into that world, and becomes the Jack of the Seelie Court (the good fairies, more or less), killing a pair of giants, and rescuing the fairy princess. In the second book, Jacky's friend, Kate, has an adventure of her own, in which she becomes, more or less, a wizard. Both are nice, simple stories with strong female characters, lots of magic and music, and some lovely descriptions of Ottawa landmarks. My only complaint is that there is no third book - the second book leaves some plot points very badly unresolved (mostly romance-y stuff) and I'd love a book to finish that story out, even if it meant buying another compilation.
Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Goes Batty
This is the second of Ford's Jane Austen books. The premise is delightfully absurd - Austen is a vampire, turned by Lord Byron (also a vampire) and currently living in upstate New York, where she has a bookstore. In the first book, Austen (as Jane Fairfax) has published a book (Constance), which, oddly enough, is viewed by many critics as being very nicely Austenesque. It becomes a modest best seller, and in this book, it is getting the Hollywood treatment. The director has decided to film in Jane's town of Brakestone (which does not, as far as I can tell, exist). Jane's nemesis, Beverly Shrop, has decided to hold a big romance convention in Brakestone at the same time. Jane's boyfriend, Walter, announces that his mother would like to come to visit, to meet Jane. At the same time. Oh, and by the way, Walter's mother is Jewish. Oh, and he may have suggested to her that Jane was thinking of converting. And Jane's editor has decided to come and babysit Jane, who is supposed to be writing her next book, which is greatly behind schedule. So, all that is happening at the same time - lovely complications.
Ford has some lovely characters, and he really puts them through the wringer, tossing in vampire hunters, bringing back characters we thought died earlier, having the movie re-set in the 1950s, twisting a sub-plot involving a pair of twins (one a vampire, the other, not) with annoyingly similar names (Ned and Ted) that no one can tell apart, and generally messing around with everyone at every chance he gets. I think, towards the end, he gets in over his head. In the last 1/4 of the book, he has one of the characters get murdered. My thought was "oh my, that's awfully close to the end of the book," and it was. Everything gets resolved, and the whole thing is pleasantly madcap, but the ending felt a little rushed, and also a little ... tidy. The characters carry the work All in all, I preferred the first book. I will read the third (Jane Vows Vengeance) if and when I see it.
First up,
Francis Fukuyama - The Origins of Political Order
This was a monster. Fukuyama was clearly aiming for a nice middle ground between scholarly and readable, and he mostly hit it. Nonetheless, the book was very dense, and the topic was hugely ambitious. Fukuyama has set out to explain where politics comes from. This book, the first of two, starts with the philosophical construct of the State of Nature - literally, Fukuyama starts with primates. It ends on the eve of the American and French revolutions, the point at which politics and state organisations changed for ever.
In simplest terms, Fukuyama is arguing two things. 1) Human beings are, by nature, social beings, and always have been. Hobbes' position (and Rousseau's) that humans, in the State of Nature, were solitary (and, for Hobbes, brutish; for Rousseau, gentle) is wrong. Any attempt to explain group cooperation as some sort of gamesmanship - "we work in a group because it gets us what we want as individuals, even though we really don't like working in groups" - ignores the fact that, biologically, we are inclined to work in groups. 2) There is no one route to a "modern" state (one which, politically, a) has a strong central government; b) operates under the Rule of Law [the strong central government sees itself as subject to law]; c) the strong central government is accountable to the people). Fukuyama looks at a variety of states, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia, and shows how each approach modernity by different routes. This second thing is, perhaps, more important than the first. Modernity theory, especially in History, has often been condemned as Eurocentric, in that it seems to suggest that "modern" is synonymous with "western" or "European". Fukuyama argues quite the opposite - a state can attain "modernity" without looking anything like a European state. Further, not all European states evolved in the same way.
So. It was dense. It was heavily cited, and the bibliography is daunting. On some level, Fukuyama isn't saying anything that I haven't read elsewhere. On the other hand, noone else has said it all in one place before. As an historian, I liked that Fukuyama put his theory at the end of the work instead of the beginning, thus allowing his theory to flow from his evidence, rather than the other way around. As a reader, I found it somewhat distracting that he kept referring to chapters as yet un-read ("as we will explore in chapter X"). A glossary would have been nice - I don't know that he ever really defined latifundia* (maybe it was in the endnotes). If you are taking a political theory class, or an introductory historiography class, you may well encounter this work. Under those circumstances, it's worth the effort. Otherwise, maybe not.
* Basically, large farms - a situation where a single person owns a lot of different pieces of farm land. Wikipedia explains it here.
Well, so. Dr. Fukuyama wasn't exactly beach reading, so I didn't take him with me to the beach on Monday. Instead, a friend has asked, all wide eyed, if I had any Charles de Lint I could lend to him. Yes, I allowed as how I might, given that I have a whole shelf of de Lint - I gave him Waifs and Strays, but I also pulled Jack of Kinrowan off the shelf - I had, apparently, already loaned him that once. But I re-read it myself, so no harm done.
Charles de Lint - Jack of Kinrowan
This volume comprises Jack the Giant-Killer, which is de Lint's contribution to the Terri Windling Fairytales project, and Drink Down the Moon, which is the sequel. Both are set in Ottawa, in Canada, which was where I was living when I read them. Both are absolutely delightful - de Lint had just begun playing with the idea of fairies and magic impinging on our world, and these are a great example of that. Reading them made me a little homesick - not so much for Ottawa, but for being 19.
Anyway, Jacky Rowan discovers that the fairies of ancient myth and legend live more or less on top of the "real" world, leading a shadowy life that we know nothing about. Due to an accident, she is dragged into that world, and becomes the Jack of the Seelie Court (the good fairies, more or less), killing a pair of giants, and rescuing the fairy princess. In the second book, Jacky's friend, Kate, has an adventure of her own, in which she becomes, more or less, a wizard. Both are nice, simple stories with strong female characters, lots of magic and music, and some lovely descriptions of Ottawa landmarks. My only complaint is that there is no third book - the second book leaves some plot points very badly unresolved (mostly romance-y stuff) and I'd love a book to finish that story out, even if it meant buying another compilation.
Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Goes Batty
This is the second of Ford's Jane Austen books. The premise is delightfully absurd - Austen is a vampire, turned by Lord Byron (also a vampire) and currently living in upstate New York, where she has a bookstore. In the first book, Austen (as Jane Fairfax) has published a book (Constance), which, oddly enough, is viewed by many critics as being very nicely Austenesque. It becomes a modest best seller, and in this book, it is getting the Hollywood treatment. The director has decided to film in Jane's town of Brakestone (which does not, as far as I can tell, exist). Jane's nemesis, Beverly Shrop, has decided to hold a big romance convention in Brakestone at the same time. Jane's boyfriend, Walter, announces that his mother would like to come to visit, to meet Jane. At the same time. Oh, and by the way, Walter's mother is Jewish. Oh, and he may have suggested to her that Jane was thinking of converting. And Jane's editor has decided to come and babysit Jane, who is supposed to be writing her next book, which is greatly behind schedule. So, all that is happening at the same time - lovely complications.
Ford has some lovely characters, and he really puts them through the wringer, tossing in vampire hunters, bringing back characters we thought died earlier, having the movie re-set in the 1950s, twisting a sub-plot involving a pair of twins (one a vampire, the other, not) with annoyingly similar names (Ned and Ted) that no one can tell apart, and generally messing around with everyone at every chance he gets. I think, towards the end, he gets in over his head. In the last 1/4 of the book, he has one of the characters get murdered. My thought was "oh my, that's awfully close to the end of the book," and it was. Everything gets resolved, and the whole thing is pleasantly madcap, but the ending felt a little rushed, and also a little ... tidy. The characters carry the work All in all, I preferred the first book. I will read the third (Jane Vows Vengeance) if and when I see it.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday Reviews for 6/4/10
Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion
This is one of my very favorite collection of books (there are 3 - Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegience, and Oath of Gold). It is due to these books that I met and married my wife. I recognized a name she was using in an online game, if you must know.
According to internet rumor, Moon's intention in writing the books was to show how a paladin should behave. She had been observing a group of role players (probably Dungeons and Dragons) and felt that they were playing the role of paladin incorrectly. These books were her response. They tell the story of a farm girl who joins a mercenary unit, and eventually becomes a paladin. The middle book in particular seems to draw very heavily from role playing games - the first half feels very much like a role playing campaign, especially the bit where Paksenarrion (the fighter), along with a rogue, a cleric, and a couple of other fighters clear out an underground fortification with traps and orcs and an evil mage. Makes me want to break out my d20.
In these books, Moon excels at world building. There is considerable detail about the sort of terrain her soldiers are marching over, and what sort of clothing people wear in different places, and the architecture and agriculture of various locales. She carefully describes the relationship between various nations, fantasy races, and religious groups. She's thought out what sorts of weapons different military units might use, and how those would interact with each other, it's all quite brilliant. Her characterization, however, is less strong in these, her first three books. Paksenarrion, of course, is well rendered, and Duke Phelan, certainly towards the end, is quite well presented as well. Most of the rest of the characters are relatively thin - some are stronger than others, but few are well rounded. Even moderately significant characters do not get last names, for instance. Moon kills off secondary characters in order to display a reaction from her primary characters - she is not callous about this, mostly, but there is a strong sense of "Paks is the one you readers should care about, the rest of these people are window dressing to make Paks look good." There is a scene, or a string of scenes, which still bother me - Paks ends up joining a holy order, and it always feels a little forced - Moon wants Paks in a particular place at a particular time, and pushes until the characters match the narrative.
Since publishing these books, Moon has gone on to become a fantastic author. These books are amazing, despite the minor flaws; later books are simply better.
Things I like: nostalgia, fantastic and consistent world building, strong story telling. Things I like less: weak secondary and (especially) tertiary characters, that one scene in Fin Panir.
Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Bites Back
This was a hoot. Ford's premise - Jane Austen did not die, she became a vampire. Now, she sells books in Upstate New York, while trying to find a publisher for the last novel she wrote when she was alive, which is rapidly becoming the most rejected novel in the history of writing. Ford writes a delightful send-up of the cynicism of modern publishing; the publicity campaigns, the shallow focus on best seller lists, the current practice of mining classic literature for quick profit (the Jane Austen Cookbook! the Jane Austen Workout Plan! the Jane Austen Guide to Dating!), the crap which bookstores stock which are only very tangentially related to books (bookmarks, ok. finger puppets of famous authors, less ok.). It was a fun novel, a romp, and a very quick read. I enjoyed it a lot.
Elizabeth Moon's Oath of Fealty
This is why I was re-reading the other Moon novels. Oath of Fealty starts amidst the end of Oath of Gold, and goes ALL over the place from there. Moon says she's been thinking about this novel, or series of novels, since she finished The Deed of Paksenarrion, and that's probably true. Her other pair of novels within this setting, The Legacy of Gird (which I reviewed a week or so ago), fills in some important background material for this novel. Moon suggests that this novel can serve as an alternative entry point into the world - I'm not sure that this is true, but if you haven't read the earlier work, perhaps it is. If you have read the earlier work, you'll probably want to go back and re-read before starting this one.
This book is fantastic. Beyond fantastic. Moon is a much more mature author here, and it shows in a lot of ways. She has a fully realized world, and has some partially realized secondary and tertiary characters from her earlier books - she takes those characters and starts rounding them out in all manner of delightful ways. First, they get full names - not a minor issue, really. We see Duke Phelan (spoiler for The Deed here: Phelan is revealed to be the long lost king of Lyonya. Becoming the new king unexpectedly is difficult, especially when the kingdom is evenly divided between humans and elves, who do not see eye to eye on many things, and have entirely different views on how kingdoms ought to be run. It is this new situation which Phelan must address, and in doing so, his character grows in interesting ways.) deal with a new situation. We see Jandolir Arcolin leading a mercenary company, and exploring the differences in which he does things, and the different social terrain he has to handle. We also see Dorrin Verrakai dealing with the residual unpleasantness of her family as she starts to grow in some interesting an unexpected ways. Finally, in a much smaller sense, we see a new Prince learning the ropes, and an old sergeant feeling his way into a new life. These characters get to experience lives only loosely connected to Paks (who shows up, periodically, but is in no way the primary focus of the novel). Moon continues to explore her world, filling in gaps, telling stories about how things work in different places and at different social levels. She also continues her exploration of the struggle between good and evil (and does so without making either good or evil boring, which is a neat trick). She also pulls off a brilliant bit of writing in that she looks at three different protagonists in three different locales, and does so without a) switching back and forth with each chapter or b) making the reader wish that they were reading about one of the other protagonists. There is only one point where the transition between protagonists is rough - she transitions mid chapter, and it's a bit jarring - but otherwise, Moon pulls off a very difficult literary maneuver, and does it with style. I enjoyed this book intensely, it was well worth the wait. My only regret is that now I have to wait for the next one.
This is one of my very favorite collection of books (there are 3 - Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegience, and Oath of Gold). It is due to these books that I met and married my wife. I recognized a name she was using in an online game, if you must know.
According to internet rumor, Moon's intention in writing the books was to show how a paladin should behave. She had been observing a group of role players (probably Dungeons and Dragons) and felt that they were playing the role of paladin incorrectly. These books were her response. They tell the story of a farm girl who joins a mercenary unit, and eventually becomes a paladin. The middle book in particular seems to draw very heavily from role playing games - the first half feels very much like a role playing campaign, especially the bit where Paksenarrion (the fighter), along with a rogue, a cleric, and a couple of other fighters clear out an underground fortification with traps and orcs and an evil mage. Makes me want to break out my d20.
In these books, Moon excels at world building. There is considerable detail about the sort of terrain her soldiers are marching over, and what sort of clothing people wear in different places, and the architecture and agriculture of various locales. She carefully describes the relationship between various nations, fantasy races, and religious groups. She's thought out what sorts of weapons different military units might use, and how those would interact with each other, it's all quite brilliant. Her characterization, however, is less strong in these, her first three books. Paksenarrion, of course, is well rendered, and Duke Phelan, certainly towards the end, is quite well presented as well. Most of the rest of the characters are relatively thin - some are stronger than others, but few are well rounded. Even moderately significant characters do not get last names, for instance. Moon kills off secondary characters in order to display a reaction from her primary characters - she is not callous about this, mostly, but there is a strong sense of "Paks is the one you readers should care about, the rest of these people are window dressing to make Paks look good." There is a scene, or a string of scenes, which still bother me - Paks ends up joining a holy order, and it always feels a little forced - Moon wants Paks in a particular place at a particular time, and pushes until the characters match the narrative.
Since publishing these books, Moon has gone on to become a fantastic author. These books are amazing, despite the minor flaws; later books are simply better.
Things I like: nostalgia, fantastic and consistent world building, strong story telling. Things I like less: weak secondary and (especially) tertiary characters, that one scene in Fin Panir.
Michael Thomas Ford - Jane Bites Back
This was a hoot. Ford's premise - Jane Austen did not die, she became a vampire. Now, she sells books in Upstate New York, while trying to find a publisher for the last novel she wrote when she was alive, which is rapidly becoming the most rejected novel in the history of writing. Ford writes a delightful send-up of the cynicism of modern publishing; the publicity campaigns, the shallow focus on best seller lists, the current practice of mining classic literature for quick profit (the Jane Austen Cookbook! the Jane Austen Workout Plan! the Jane Austen Guide to Dating!), the crap which bookstores stock which are only very tangentially related to books (bookmarks, ok. finger puppets of famous authors, less ok.). It was a fun novel, a romp, and a very quick read. I enjoyed it a lot.
Elizabeth Moon's Oath of Fealty
This is why I was re-reading the other Moon novels. Oath of Fealty starts amidst the end of Oath of Gold, and goes ALL over the place from there. Moon says she's been thinking about this novel, or series of novels, since she finished The Deed of Paksenarrion, and that's probably true. Her other pair of novels within this setting, The Legacy of Gird (which I reviewed a week or so ago), fills in some important background material for this novel. Moon suggests that this novel can serve as an alternative entry point into the world - I'm not sure that this is true, but if you haven't read the earlier work, perhaps it is. If you have read the earlier work, you'll probably want to go back and re-read before starting this one.
This book is fantastic. Beyond fantastic. Moon is a much more mature author here, and it shows in a lot of ways. She has a fully realized world, and has some partially realized secondary and tertiary characters from her earlier books - she takes those characters and starts rounding them out in all manner of delightful ways. First, they get full names - not a minor issue, really. We see Duke Phelan (spoiler for The Deed here: Phelan is revealed to be the long lost king of Lyonya. Becoming the new king unexpectedly is difficult, especially when the kingdom is evenly divided between humans and elves, who do not see eye to eye on many things, and have entirely different views on how kingdoms ought to be run. It is this new situation which Phelan must address, and in doing so, his character grows in interesting ways.) deal with a new situation. We see Jandolir Arcolin leading a mercenary company, and exploring the differences in which he does things, and the different social terrain he has to handle. We also see Dorrin Verrakai dealing with the residual unpleasantness of her family as she starts to grow in some interesting an unexpected ways. Finally, in a much smaller sense, we see a new Prince learning the ropes, and an old sergeant feeling his way into a new life. These characters get to experience lives only loosely connected to Paks (who shows up, periodically, but is in no way the primary focus of the novel). Moon continues to explore her world, filling in gaps, telling stories about how things work in different places and at different social levels. She also continues her exploration of the struggle between good and evil (and does so without making either good or evil boring, which is a neat trick). She also pulls off a brilliant bit of writing in that she looks at three different protagonists in three different locales, and does so without a) switching back and forth with each chapter or b) making the reader wish that they were reading about one of the other protagonists. There is only one point where the transition between protagonists is rough - she transitions mid chapter, and it's a bit jarring - but otherwise, Moon pulls off a very difficult literary maneuver, and does it with style. I enjoyed this book intensely, it was well worth the wait. My only regret is that now I have to wait for the next one.
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