August/September bookpost
Oct. 4th, 2008 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienActually, this is just a belated August bookpost. September was entirely taken up with Erikson's Reaper's Gale, which I haven't finished yet. I feel vaguely guilty about this, but it just hasn't been a reading month; the Erikson is too heavy to read anywhere but in bed, and I've been staying up late editing photos and cutting short my late-night reading.
Elizabeth George, Careless in Red
Still shattered by his wife's death, Lynley is hiking around the Cornish coast when he stumbles over a body and gets drawn into a murder investigation that turns out to have roots going back a generation. Some of the characters verge on caricature, but the Englishness of it all is very nearly note-perfect. No, he's not all better at the end, but he's getting there.
Kate Elliot, Spirit Gate (e)
First in a series of fat fantasy books. An idyllic region loses its magical protection and comes under attack from mysterious forces of evil, which the eagle-riding police force finds itself woefully inadequate to handle; a young woman marries a nomadic army commander and sets off on a long journey into exile with him, falling in love along the way. The culture is not default faux-European, but seems to draw some inspiration from ancient China and thereabouts. (Also, ninja prostitute nuns.) There's an annoying twist at the end of the first chapter, but found it gripping enough to pick up the next volume in hardcover.
Tobias Buckell, Ragamuffin
Sequel to Crystal Rain, set mostly out in the wider universe where humanity is not doing well. Full of adventure and tragedy, but not as satisfying as its predecessor; lots of threads and characters, few or none of them completely sympathetic.
Daniel Abraham, A Betrayal in Winter
Next in the Long Price Quartet series about a world where magic is carried out by the manipulation of andat, ideas manifest in human form and controlled by poets. Several years after the events of A Shadow in Summer, the central character is drawn back to his wintry home city, where a succession struggle, even bloodier than is traditional, is going on for his father's throne. The local andat plays an almost peripheral part in the events, but we get some POV of a working poet that throws some more light on the nature of the andat and what it's like to control one. The world is beautifully and vividly realized, and the characters, even the villains, are satisfyingly complex and conflicted.
Dudley Pope, Ramage's Trial
Fresh from his triumph at Devil's Island, Our Hero reports to a West Indies port with a string of prizes and gets saddled with a convoy to escort home, at the same time learning that his wife is missing, presumed captured by the French. It turns out that the convoy includes his old friend Yorke, and Yorke's lovely and charming sister, who turns out to have a thing for Ramage. On the way Ramage has to stage an intervention on an insane -- and unfortunately senior -- Captain of another ship, who then has him hauled before a court-martial chaired by an old enemy. It's a pretty average entry in the series, with the usual large wodges of research, and no actual battles.
Elizabeth George, Careless in Red
Still shattered by his wife's death, Lynley is hiking around the Cornish coast when he stumbles over a body and gets drawn into a murder investigation that turns out to have roots going back a generation. Some of the characters verge on caricature, but the Englishness of it all is very nearly note-perfect. No, he's not all better at the end, but he's getting there.
Kate Elliot, Spirit Gate (e)
First in a series of fat fantasy books. An idyllic region loses its magical protection and comes under attack from mysterious forces of evil, which the eagle-riding police force finds itself woefully inadequate to handle; a young woman marries a nomadic army commander and sets off on a long journey into exile with him, falling in love along the way. The culture is not default faux-European, but seems to draw some inspiration from ancient China and thereabouts. (Also, ninja prostitute nuns.) There's an annoying twist at the end of the first chapter, but found it gripping enough to pick up the next volume in hardcover.
Tobias Buckell, Ragamuffin
Sequel to Crystal Rain, set mostly out in the wider universe where humanity is not doing well. Full of adventure and tragedy, but not as satisfying as its predecessor; lots of threads and characters, few or none of them completely sympathetic.
Daniel Abraham, A Betrayal in Winter
Next in the Long Price Quartet series about a world where magic is carried out by the manipulation of andat, ideas manifest in human form and controlled by poets. Several years after the events of A Shadow in Summer, the central character is drawn back to his wintry home city, where a succession struggle, even bloodier than is traditional, is going on for his father's throne. The local andat plays an almost peripheral part in the events, but we get some POV of a working poet that throws some more light on the nature of the andat and what it's like to control one. The world is beautifully and vividly realized, and the characters, even the villains, are satisfyingly complex and conflicted.
Dudley Pope, Ramage's Trial
Fresh from his triumph at Devil's Island, Our Hero reports to a West Indies port with a string of prizes and gets saddled with a convoy to escort home, at the same time learning that his wife is missing, presumed captured by the French. It turns out that the convoy includes his old friend Yorke, and Yorke's lovely and charming sister, who turns out to have a thing for Ramage. On the way Ramage has to stage an intervention on an insane -- and unfortunately senior -- Captain of another ship, who then has him hauled before a court-martial chaired by an old enemy. It's a pretty average entry in the series, with the usual large wodges of research, and no actual battles.
