Vacation reading
Aug. 23rd, 2009 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienI'm hopelessly behind on bookposts, so I'll skip over a bunch of books to what I read on holiday.
Daniel Abraham, An Autumn War
Third in the quadrology about the Andat, captive abstract principles enslaved by poets and put to work for rulers. The Galt, the higher-tech and magic-less civilisation next door, have found a countermeasure to the Andat and invade. The climax is completely devastating, and turns on what seemed like a small incident early in the first book.
Sandra MacDonald, The Stars Down Under
Sequel to The Outback Stars, in which our heroine and her rather hapless love-interest (who seems to also be some kind of Destined Mythic Figure) don't get to enjoy married life for long before being pulled back into adventuring across an alien transport network they don't understand, but which seems to be tied into ancient Australian myth. The lines between mysticism and reality get ... blurry, aliens threaten Earth, and the ending is not exactly a return to the status quo. I didn't find this as enjoyable as the first installment, and it didn't go the way I expected.
Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions
Fundamentalist robots in a near-future where the West lost the war against Islam (except that Islam doesn't actually seem to have won either) and turned against its own religious elements. I was probably not the best audience for this.
Jim Butcher, Furies of Calderon
Large-scale epic fantasy from the author of the Dresden Files; in a world where nearly everyone has at least some elementals ("Furies") to command, young Tavi has to rely on his wits amid invasion and rebellion. He seems to get by pretty well, by and large. I didn't find the worldbuilding terribly convincing -- why the Roman model? The plot is basically fairly simple; the betrayals and reversals are all on a small scale compared to the main arc, and if anything get smaller in scale as the book progresses, after a roller-coaster ride of a first chapter. It seems an odd way to structure an epic, but it kept me well enough entertained on the flight from London to Chicago.
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun
Mieville does YA with this tale of youngsters summoned to save a surreal parallel London; reminiscent of Gaiman's Neverwhere, and quite charming; takes something like the Pratchettian trope of narrative determinism and turns it on its head.
Daniel Abraham, An Autumn War
Third in the quadrology about the Andat, captive abstract principles enslaved by poets and put to work for rulers. The Galt, the higher-tech and magic-less civilisation next door, have found a countermeasure to the Andat and invade. The climax is completely devastating, and turns on what seemed like a small incident early in the first book.
Sandra MacDonald, The Stars Down Under
Sequel to The Outback Stars, in which our heroine and her rather hapless love-interest (who seems to also be some kind of Destined Mythic Figure) don't get to enjoy married life for long before being pulled back into adventuring across an alien transport network they don't understand, but which seems to be tied into ancient Australian myth. The lines between mysticism and reality get ... blurry, aliens threaten Earth, and the ending is not exactly a return to the status quo. I didn't find this as enjoyable as the first installment, and it didn't go the way I expected.
Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions
Fundamentalist robots in a near-future where the West lost the war against Islam (except that Islam doesn't actually seem to have won either) and turned against its own religious elements. I was probably not the best audience for this.
Jim Butcher, Furies of Calderon
Large-scale epic fantasy from the author of the Dresden Files; in a world where nearly everyone has at least some elementals ("Furies") to command, young Tavi has to rely on his wits amid invasion and rebellion. He seems to get by pretty well, by and large. I didn't find the worldbuilding terribly convincing -- why the Roman model? The plot is basically fairly simple; the betrayals and reversals are all on a small scale compared to the main arc, and if anything get smaller in scale as the book progresses, after a roller-coaster ride of a first chapter. It seems an odd way to structure an epic, but it kept me well enough entertained on the flight from London to Chicago.
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun
Mieville does YA with this tale of youngsters summoned to save a surreal parallel London; reminiscent of Gaiman's Neverwhere, and quite charming; takes something like the Pratchettian trope of narrative determinism and turns it on its head.
