Recent reading
May. 29th, 2006 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienImpressions and spoilers.
Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
In this sequel to Temeraire/His Majesty's Dragon,
Lawrence and Temeraire, plus assorted friends, enemies and hangers-on, take a long sea voyage to China, meeting various adventures along the way. When they finally arrive, they learn that the Chinese way of living with dragons is very different from the European way -- as different as free citizenship from slavery, in fact. It's an intriguing idea, and I'd love to see what they do with it when they finally get home again. (It's not obvious that's going to happen in the next book, though, so we may have to wait a while.) Temeraire remains a fascinating character, obviously still growing and maturing mentally if not physically, and his relationship with Lawrence develops in interesting ways. I'm looking forward to Black Powder War. (I've also picked up a hardcopy cover of Temeraire while I'm in the UK.)
Widdershins, Charles de Lint
By popular demand (as the author admits in his foreword), this is the book that resolves a lot of the issues and threads from The Onion Girl; as such it's a satisfying though at times harrowing read. It isn't as dark as The Onion Girl, but it's a lot more substantial and cogent than the intervening Spirits in the Wires. It isn't all Jilly working out her issues; there's a plot about tension between new world and old world faerie, introducing some new characters.
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
The very long-awaited new novel from Vinge is set in the world of the novella,
Fast Times at Fairmont High, a near-future world of pervasive internet applications. This brave new world is seen partly through the eyes of a group of 'retreads', people pulled back from dementia by new medical advances and going back to school alongside teenagers to learn how to deal with their new circumstances. Former poet Robert Gu and a group of his contemporaries set out to try to save a library from destructive scanning, but along the way get entangled in deeper and darker plots. It's a pleasant, engaging read, with some nice touches, like the dismissive allusion to the Tines and Zones of Thought as played-out ideas, and the invention of an as-yet-unwritten Pratchett novel. (The title didn't sound very Pratchett-like to me, though.) I enjoyed the book, but I couldn't forget that the author is a no-longer-young retired professor, or escape the feeling that he is already a little bemused by technology himself. Rainbows End is nowhere near as idea-dense as Accelerando, for example.
I was rather intrigued by the idea that pervasive, in-eye virtual imaging will mostly eliminate the need to make buildings look attractive on their own merits; it reminds me of fantasy books, like those by Iain Macleod, where magic serves as a substitute for good engineering, or any number of older tales of fairy glamours.
March, Geraldine Brooks
This novel bears a relationship to Alcott's Little Women rather similar to that which Wide Sargasso Sea bears to Jane Eyre; it gives the experience of a peripheral character in a well-loved (and long out-of-coyright) story. In this case, it's an account of the adventures of the mostly-absent father in Little Women during the Civil War, drawing partly on the character of Louisa Alcott's own father. It's very well done, and a fascinating study of a well-meaning but sometimes wrong-headed man. (Disclaimer; I haven't read Little Women in many years, so I can't pronounce on how well it fits, but it feels right.)
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
One night, the stars and the moon vanish, and the Sun rises as a bland simulacrum of itself. That's only the beginning of a long, strange half-lifetime that changes everything. The book kept me engaged through a nine-hour flight, and if I was a Hugo voter I'd probably vote for it. If I have a quibble, it's that the depictions of Arizona didn't feel quite real; it's a big state, but not really big enough to accommodate a remote ranch 'many hours from town' (where 'town' in this case is Phoenix) and I'm not sure about ocotillo hedges.
Chapel Noir, Carole Nelson Douglas
This is another entry in the series featuring Irene Adler (of the Sherlock Holmes story 'A Scandal in Bohemia') as a freelance detective. Holmes himself features quite prominently in this one; possibly because I saw the TV version of the original story a couple of weeks ago, I kept hearing him as Jeremy Brett. I didn't think some of the earlier ones were terribly well written, but this was very good, a dense psychological thriller based on the Ripper murders. (It's also fairly graphic and gruesome in places.) Unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger, and I didn't bring the sequel, Castle Rouge, with me.
Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik
In this sequel to Temeraire/His Majesty's Dragon,
Lawrence and Temeraire, plus assorted friends, enemies and hangers-on, take a long sea voyage to China, meeting various adventures along the way. When they finally arrive, they learn that the Chinese way of living with dragons is very different from the European way -- as different as free citizenship from slavery, in fact. It's an intriguing idea, and I'd love to see what they do with it when they finally get home again. (It's not obvious that's going to happen in the next book, though, so we may have to wait a while.) Temeraire remains a fascinating character, obviously still growing and maturing mentally if not physically, and his relationship with Lawrence develops in interesting ways. I'm looking forward to Black Powder War. (I've also picked up a hardcopy cover of Temeraire while I'm in the UK.)
Widdershins, Charles de Lint
By popular demand (as the author admits in his foreword), this is the book that resolves a lot of the issues and threads from The Onion Girl; as such it's a satisfying though at times harrowing read. It isn't as dark as The Onion Girl, but it's a lot more substantial and cogent than the intervening Spirits in the Wires. It isn't all Jilly working out her issues; there's a plot about tension between new world and old world faerie, introducing some new characters.
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
The very long-awaited new novel from Vinge is set in the world of the novella,
Fast Times at Fairmont High, a near-future world of pervasive internet applications. This brave new world is seen partly through the eyes of a group of 'retreads', people pulled back from dementia by new medical advances and going back to school alongside teenagers to learn how to deal with their new circumstances. Former poet Robert Gu and a group of his contemporaries set out to try to save a library from destructive scanning, but along the way get entangled in deeper and darker plots. It's a pleasant, engaging read, with some nice touches, like the dismissive allusion to the Tines and Zones of Thought as played-out ideas, and the invention of an as-yet-unwritten Pratchett novel. (The title didn't sound very Pratchett-like to me, though.) I enjoyed the book, but I couldn't forget that the author is a no-longer-young retired professor, or escape the feeling that he is already a little bemused by technology himself. Rainbows End is nowhere near as idea-dense as Accelerando, for example.
I was rather intrigued by the idea that pervasive, in-eye virtual imaging will mostly eliminate the need to make buildings look attractive on their own merits; it reminds me of fantasy books, like those by Iain Macleod, where magic serves as a substitute for good engineering, or any number of older tales of fairy glamours.
March, Geraldine Brooks
This novel bears a relationship to Alcott's Little Women rather similar to that which Wide Sargasso Sea bears to Jane Eyre; it gives the experience of a peripheral character in a well-loved (and long out-of-coyright) story. In this case, it's an account of the adventures of the mostly-absent father in Little Women during the Civil War, drawing partly on the character of Louisa Alcott's own father. It's very well done, and a fascinating study of a well-meaning but sometimes wrong-headed man. (Disclaimer; I haven't read Little Women in many years, so I can't pronounce on how well it fits, but it feels right.)
Spin, Robert Charles Wilson
One night, the stars and the moon vanish, and the Sun rises as a bland simulacrum of itself. That's only the beginning of a long, strange half-lifetime that changes everything. The book kept me engaged through a nine-hour flight, and if I was a Hugo voter I'd probably vote for it. If I have a quibble, it's that the depictions of Arizona didn't feel quite real; it's a big state, but not really big enough to accommodate a remote ranch 'many hours from town' (where 'town' in this case is Phoenix) and I'm not sure about ocotillo hedges.
Chapel Noir, Carole Nelson Douglas
This is another entry in the series featuring Irene Adler (of the Sherlock Holmes story 'A Scandal in Bohemia') as a freelance detective. Holmes himself features quite prominently in this one; possibly because I saw the TV version of the original story a couple of weeks ago, I kept hearing him as Jeremy Brett. I didn't think some of the earlier ones were terribly well written, but this was very good, a dense psychological thriller based on the Ripper murders. (It's also fairly graphic and gruesome in places.) Unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger, and I didn't bring the sequel, Castle Rouge, with me.