July Books
Aug. 4th, 2007 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienBetween the vacation and my break from writing, this is a longer monthly list than I've managed in a while. Please excuse formatting oddities; I wrote this offline on the Palm, and it seems to have acquired extra linefeeds in transit. Possibility of non-specific spoilers below the cuts.
Hal Duncan, Ink
Second half of the Book of all Hours duology, and I can't make up my mind whether it was a tour de force or a mess. It's certainly a challenging read, with its
multiple not-quite-identical timestreams and many alternate worlds, bawdy and poetic and
frequently profane. I must admit that I skimmed most of the epilogue. In retrospect, I found
myself bothered by the realization that of the seven archetypal souls only one was female, and also noting that the mythology mined is almost entirely that of the Mediterranean and Middle East; in reading, the scope felt vast enough in time and space.
Colin Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road
The veteran travel writer makes his solitary way, by bus and car and occasionally horses and camels, along the track of the ancient Silk Road from the Yellow Emperor's tomb in the heart of SARS-panicked China, skirting the fringes of Tibet, through Uzbekistan, war-torn Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to the shores of the Mediterranean. Along the way he finds the fading ruins of mosques and tombs, temples and caravanserais, and the human traces of the old trade in the form of odd Western traits showing up in Chinese peasants. It's a lyrical, low-key story, full of the sadness and bewilderment of change.
Dudley Pope,The Ramage Touch
Turned loose in the Mediterranean in command of a French-built frigate, Our Hero deploys his usual blend of chicanery and boldness in the capture of a couple of French bomb ketches, stumbles over what looks like an invasion plan, and emerges victorious as usual. Rather slow
in places, but a decent addition to the series.
Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam
In an alternative late nineteenth century where airships ply the Atlantic between Europe and
the North American colonies, Sebastien de Ulloa is an ancient but ethical vampire and consulting detective; the aristocratic Abigail Irene is a sorcerer and Crown Investigator in New Amsterdam. She drinks too much; he's so considerate and careful of the prey he considers friends that he barely drinks -- in the vampire sense -- enough to sustain himself. This isn't really a novel, more of a set of linked short stories, but there is an underlying arc, and the whole thing is beautifully written, conjuring up an atmosphere that reminds me of the work of Barbara Hambly. The last story isn't really a conclusion; I wonder whether there will be more.
Alma Alexander,Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage
In this first installment of a YA fantasy trilogy, young Thea is the seventh child of two seventh children, but, contrary to expectations, in a world where almost everyone takes magic for granted she seems to be completely without magical ability. Sent to study with an ancient Anasazi shaman, she learns more about why that might be but remains unable to use magic in her own world. Later, while studying at a special school for the un-magical, she learns that the world is in danger, and discovers a surprising way around her problem. I would probably have enjoyed this even more thirty years ago, but it's an engaging tale with its own enchantments.
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard
Vampires and romantic poets in early 19th century Europe. Although these vampires have much in common with the usual mythos, they also have ancient roots, stretching back into classical myth and maybe even prehistory. The injury and mutilation quotient is high even by Powers' standards, the alcohol consumption only average. I didn't think this was quite as good as Declare or The Anubis Gate, but I liked it better than most of the rest of this author's work that I've read.
Elizabeth George, In the Presence of the Enemy
Another Inspector Lynley mystery, though it doesn't have all that much Lynley in it. This one starts with the kidnapping of the illegitimate child of a junior minister, and I found it very well done, though many of the characters verge on caricature and I spotted the villain a few pages before the detectives did. I did detect one failure of Britishness, when a TV announcer is described as signing off with the 'call letters of her station'; British TV doesn't work that way.
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy
Not so much a sequel to Beguilement as the second half of the book, which itself turns out not to be entirely self-contained. Dag and Fawn return to his home after their marriage, only to face hostility from his family and the Lakewalker community, which is not tidily and sentimentally resolved in the end. We learn a bit more about their world, and Dag discovers new and unconventional magical abilities along the way. The ending is satisfying enough, but I look forward to seeing more of the world and these characters.
Jasper Fforde, First among Sequels
A return to Thursday Next, now middle-aged and a mother with a difficult teenage son; it takes place much closer to the present than the earlier books, which allows for some pop-culture references, including an extended and scathing riff on the popularity of reality TV.
This was delightful, clever and witty and fun, though it didn't feel quite as frenetically inventive as the earlier books in the series. Oddly and slightly annoyingly, it ends on a cliffhanger that seems to belong to a teaser for the next book rather than being an integral
part of the next one. Also, all the footnotes for the footnoterphone conversations towards the end are missing, with blank space at the bottom of the pages; I'm not sure whether this is a bit of meta messing about, or just a printing error in my (UK first edition) copy.
Patrick O'Brian, The Road to Samarcand
Traditional boys' adventure set between the wars, with young Derrick traveling across warlord-era China, Mongolia and Tibet in company with his sailor uncle and scholarly cousin,
clashing with Russian military advisors, warlike Tibetan monks, and even yeti. Almost
entirely devoid of female characters, but great fun in a period way; the one thing that really jarred for me was an incident of corporal punishment that would probably be counted as abusive by modern standards, though it seems to pass with no hard feelings on either side. There is a Chinese character in a subservient position who comes perilously close to stereotype, but he does seem to be a well-realized person with his own goals.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Children of Hurin
According to Christopher Tolkien's preface, this version was aimed at those who didn't feel equal to ploughing through the Silmarillion or Lost Tales. It's a much more coherent and less heavily annotated version of the tragic story of Turin, but it doesn't have the magic of LOTR -- no hobbits for the reader to identify with -- and Turin himself is not a very likeable character by contemporary standards. There doesn't seem to be much detail that wasn't in one or the other of the earlier-published versions. The Alan Lee illustrations are a pleasant embellishment.
Hal Duncan, Ink
Second half of the Book of all Hours duology, and I can't make up my mind whether it was a tour de force or a mess. It's certainly a challenging read, with its
multiple not-quite-identical timestreams and many alternate worlds, bawdy and poetic and
frequently profane. I must admit that I skimmed most of the epilogue. In retrospect, I found
myself bothered by the realization that of the seven archetypal souls only one was female, and also noting that the mythology mined is almost entirely that of the Mediterranean and Middle East; in reading, the scope felt vast enough in time and space.
Colin Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road
The veteran travel writer makes his solitary way, by bus and car and occasionally horses and camels, along the track of the ancient Silk Road from the Yellow Emperor's tomb in the heart of SARS-panicked China, skirting the fringes of Tibet, through Uzbekistan, war-torn Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to the shores of the Mediterranean. Along the way he finds the fading ruins of mosques and tombs, temples and caravanserais, and the human traces of the old trade in the form of odd Western traits showing up in Chinese peasants. It's a lyrical, low-key story, full of the sadness and bewilderment of change.
Dudley Pope,The Ramage Touch
Turned loose in the Mediterranean in command of a French-built frigate, Our Hero deploys his usual blend of chicanery and boldness in the capture of a couple of French bomb ketches, stumbles over what looks like an invasion plan, and emerges victorious as usual. Rather slow
in places, but a decent addition to the series.
Elizabeth Bear, New Amsterdam
In an alternative late nineteenth century where airships ply the Atlantic between Europe and
the North American colonies, Sebastien de Ulloa is an ancient but ethical vampire and consulting detective; the aristocratic Abigail Irene is a sorcerer and Crown Investigator in New Amsterdam. She drinks too much; he's so considerate and careful of the prey he considers friends that he barely drinks -- in the vampire sense -- enough to sustain himself. This isn't really a novel, more of a set of linked short stories, but there is an underlying arc, and the whole thing is beautifully written, conjuring up an atmosphere that reminds me of the work of Barbara Hambly. The last story isn't really a conclusion; I wonder whether there will be more.
Alma Alexander,Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage
In this first installment of a YA fantasy trilogy, young Thea is the seventh child of two seventh children, but, contrary to expectations, in a world where almost everyone takes magic for granted she seems to be completely without magical ability. Sent to study with an ancient Anasazi shaman, she learns more about why that might be but remains unable to use magic in her own world. Later, while studying at a special school for the un-magical, she learns that the world is in danger, and discovers a surprising way around her problem. I would probably have enjoyed this even more thirty years ago, but it's an engaging tale with its own enchantments.
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard
Vampires and romantic poets in early 19th century Europe. Although these vampires have much in common with the usual mythos, they also have ancient roots, stretching back into classical myth and maybe even prehistory. The injury and mutilation quotient is high even by Powers' standards, the alcohol consumption only average. I didn't think this was quite as good as Declare or The Anubis Gate, but I liked it better than most of the rest of this author's work that I've read.
Elizabeth George, In the Presence of the Enemy
Another Inspector Lynley mystery, though it doesn't have all that much Lynley in it. This one starts with the kidnapping of the illegitimate child of a junior minister, and I found it very well done, though many of the characters verge on caricature and I spotted the villain a few pages before the detectives did. I did detect one failure of Britishness, when a TV announcer is described as signing off with the 'call letters of her station'; British TV doesn't work that way.
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy
Not so much a sequel to Beguilement as the second half of the book, which itself turns out not to be entirely self-contained. Dag and Fawn return to his home after their marriage, only to face hostility from his family and the Lakewalker community, which is not tidily and sentimentally resolved in the end. We learn a bit more about their world, and Dag discovers new and unconventional magical abilities along the way. The ending is satisfying enough, but I look forward to seeing more of the world and these characters.
Jasper Fforde, First among Sequels
A return to Thursday Next, now middle-aged and a mother with a difficult teenage son; it takes place much closer to the present than the earlier books, which allows for some pop-culture references, including an extended and scathing riff on the popularity of reality TV.
This was delightful, clever and witty and fun, though it didn't feel quite as frenetically inventive as the earlier books in the series. Oddly and slightly annoyingly, it ends on a cliffhanger that seems to belong to a teaser for the next book rather than being an integral
part of the next one. Also, all the footnotes for the footnoterphone conversations towards the end are missing, with blank space at the bottom of the pages; I'm not sure whether this is a bit of meta messing about, or just a printing error in my (UK first edition) copy.
Patrick O'Brian, The Road to Samarcand
Traditional boys' adventure set between the wars, with young Derrick traveling across warlord-era China, Mongolia and Tibet in company with his sailor uncle and scholarly cousin,
clashing with Russian military advisors, warlike Tibetan monks, and even yeti. Almost
entirely devoid of female characters, but great fun in a period way; the one thing that really jarred for me was an incident of corporal punishment that would probably be counted as abusive by modern standards, though it seems to pass with no hard feelings on either side. There is a Chinese character in a subservient position who comes perilously close to stereotype, but he does seem to be a well-realized person with his own goals.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Children of Hurin
According to Christopher Tolkien's preface, this version was aimed at those who didn't feel equal to ploughing through the Silmarillion or Lost Tales. It's a much more coherent and less heavily annotated version of the tragic story of Turin, but it doesn't have the magic of LOTR -- no hobbits for the reader to identify with -- and Turin himself is not a very likeable character by contemporary standards. There doesn't seem to be much detail that wasn't in one or the other of the earlier-published versions. The Alan Lee illustrations are a pleasant embellishment.
