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Hopefully It's All Spelled Right... (May Reading)
The worst part about these long entries is spellchecking them. Apparently I am incapable of implementing the "i before e" rule with any sort of consistency. And in my defense, I finished four of these after finals. I still need to get out more. To save people's friends pages, I'm cutting for length. No spoilers under the cut unless noted.
Edited to add: Not a bit of nonfiction this month. Have no fear: by the end of June I should have finished Unweaving the Rainbow, another Dawkins book. (And much lighter than The Selfish Gene. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed.) By the way, is there a Stephen Jay Gould book that won't insult my intelligence? I stalled in the preface to Full House around the fifth assurance that the "disappearance of the .400 batting average in baseball" would be explained later in the book. I would've settled for the one paragraph explanation of batting averages and a footnote explaning why I should care.
Anyway. On to the actual content.
A Darker Place (Laurie R. King): Alternative religions expert Anne Waverly gets around to integrating her shattered personality during an undercover investigation of a religious community.
I burned my way through both series LRK (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
lrk_mutterings) writes some time ago, and have been saving the standalones for comfort reading when I refuse to admit I want to know the author's parameters. A Darker Place fits the bill - there is religion, guilt, and attempts at salving guilt through strenuous action. Anne Waverly is emphatically the focus of the story, and she mostly bears up under it. The characterization is a bit shaky, though - there's several authorial comments that "this ongoing situation/dynamic shouldn't have worked out well at all, but for Anne it did." It's the sort of special character handling that makes me wince in memory of many, many bad fanfics.
LRK seems to have an ongoing interest in psychological reconstruction and self-definition; compare the shaky emotional states of Mary Russell and Anna Waverly. There's probably a way to work Kate Martinelli in there too, but I haven't reread that series lately.
I think I most liked the running alchemy metaphor/theme/whatever. Transformation as a psychological process and all that. It is elegant, and plot-appropriate, and teases the edge of my mind because I'm fairly certain I should've noticed it sometime before the last three pages.
Less cool was the abrupt ending. LRK pulled a CJ Cherryh: laid the groundwork for a clean wrap-up, then said, "if you've been paying attention you know where this is going. THE END." Functional, but not really satisfying.
There's some elegant touches, though, like the alchemy metaphors. The novel is really about Anne transforming and integrating herself, so the "lead to gold" thing works. Also, there's some nice prose touches. A rare bit of wit flashes out it's, um, strongly suggested to Anne's undercover personality, Ana Wakefield, that she reconsider going outside without certain essential coverings:
If you like LRK, you'll probably enjoy this. I can't speak to mystery readers in general, since I don't know how well this conforms to or defies the tropes of that genre.
The Knight (Gene Wolfe): Our boy Able chases cloud castle out of America and into seven worlds of legend and myth. Gene Wolfe does such intriguing worldbuilding that it took me about half the book to notice how little I like Able. I tend to forget how much I like Wolfe's worldbuilding and how indifferent I am to most of what he does in his worlds. That said, the craft is good: perhaps I've been away from fantasy too long, but I particularly liked the attention to the different perspectives beings from the different worlds would on each other. Wolfe also frames the narrative as a letter from Able to his brother, and I usually find epistolary novels too passive and contrived for words, but this one wasn't too bad. (I keep looking for the One True Epistolary Novel. There's something wonderfully tantalizing about seeing a story as told for a very specific audience. Sadly, I have yet to finish an epistolary novel I've genuinely loved. Sorcery and Cecelia left me going, "eh - wish I'd found this at twelve", and scandalously, I've yet to finish Freedom and Necessity. I keep bogging down in the first forty pages.) I may eventually pick up the second half of the story, The Wizard, but I'm not going out of my way to get it.
I reread The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Laurie R. King) instead of packing for a wedding and studying for my evolutionary bio final. Since I got an A in evol bio and I was still packed (late) Friday night, I don't feel that bad about the wasted time. Its charms and flaws remain as they always have; great comfort reading.
Swords in the Mist (Fritz Lieber): Continuing my gradual assimilation of the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" series. Two adventurers meet strange (yet alluring) women and go questing in ancient Earth history. The prose is deliciously purple, the plots absurdly direct, and the essentially serial nature of the stories baldly apparent. Great school-season reading: you can say, "gee, it's late," and put it down. Try doing that with Tolkein or Bujold. (By the way, may I just say how relieved I am that Hallowed Hunt came out after finals?) One mistake: don't rush it. I tried to hurry the last few pages one night and it just fell apart.
People are getting so psyched about the Miyazaki adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones) I snagged a copy for plane reading. A nicely crafted little YA fantasy. If this had been the first DWJ I read, instead of the third or fourth, I would've ransacked the library for more like it. If I'd done this when I was eleven or twelve, I'd still be a hardcore DWJ fangirl. Ten years later, I am impressed by the undemanding elegance of the novel's construction: very little stands out as unique or groundbreaking, but each character, plotting element, and worldbuilding touch is masterfully woven into the author's display of the story. Fantastically transparent prose. Nothing new, but the author's hand is subtle and light in the novel construction. I don't know that I would call it particularly strong, and definitely not challenging, but the construction is wonderfully self-contained - everything necessary is included, and there are no loose ends. I am in awe of the final wrapup. The only notable irritations (for me) are the scarecrow's mishandling and other characters' reactions (or lack thereof) to Sophie's curse. It's comforting, and travels well. Take it on your next plane trip, especially if you'll be stuck making connections.
Folly (Laurie R. King): A crazy woman, a house, a tragedy and a granddaughter. Think A Darker Place with multi-generational family issues and a history of mental illness. There's a heavy investment on the theme of folly instead of alchemy, obviously, with somewhat less subtlety. I don't know that psychological thrillers are really my thing; I keep waiting for things to start blowing up. And I'm not talking about the psychological stuff.
The Hallowed Hunt (Lois McMaster Bujold): Ingrey kin Wolfcliff is charged to convey a murdered Prince's body and the subdued murderess to the Weald's capital. Easy, right? If only life could be that simple.
Fairly random comments follow, because I am definitely still in the ponder-and-reflect reaction stage. Comments even more strongly encouraged than usual.
My bullet-proof narrative kink is the "who knows what?" game. Compulsive information hoarding and miserly doling out of same is a skill I lack, but recognize the significance of, so I take great joy in such actions in fiction. It's no accident that protagonists who would probably be card-counting poker fiends if they ever ran away to Vagas make me very happy, and so it should not come as a surprise that I got a kick out of HH and Ingrey.
I'm not nearly familiar enough with what really happened to comment on any historical parallels (or lack thereof). Someone who remembers something about the Holy Roman Empire other than "it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire" may wish to say something.
I liked Hallana a lot more by the end of the book than when she was introduced. Never read about brilliant, cheerful people when finals hell is looming. Though I do wonder what her kids think of her. And I have an irrational fondness for Oswin, who may not have Hallana's inspiring aptitude to chaos, but manages to come up with horrible complications all on his own. (Yes, I did like the scene where the judges question Fara - perhaps I need to abandon psychological thrillers for courtroom dramas.)
I also like Earl Horseriver, one of the more devious and nicely villainous antagonists in my recent experience. I haven't run into any really well-written bad guys lately (see above reading, and remember that I saw Hitchhiker's and RotS this month), so it was a delight to watch Horseriver's machinations. You almost feel sorry for him, until you remember that he's a crazy ex-monarch obsessed with revenge in the worst way. Compare his attitude to Ijada's offhand observation about the "New Wealdings." (Speaking of, may I just say that Why did you burden me with this bestial blasphemy?, in the paragraph immediately preceding Ijada's, is probably the most purple thing I have ever seen in Bujold's writing. Way to have dad angst, Ingrey.)
I think I am very glad Ijada was not the protagonist. She's so convinced of the essential goodness of the world. It's a nice contrast for Ingrey's conviction that everything shades to greys and blacks, but might be a bit tough to take full-on.
I liked the climax. It came out of almost nowhere and probably violates some sort of narrative convention, but I liked Fara totally telling off Horseriver. And Ingrey's proposal. And firing the woods. It works as a metaphor, or something. And I liked the epilogue: Ingalef doesn't get taken up as he perhaps deserves, but he at least is released from his ghostly state.
Interesting thing to consider: Ingrey may be the last of the Weald's shamans (and very dour and grim about it in the epilogue) but during that memorable night on the boat Jokol mentions receiving a blessing from a woman who spoke in a weirding voice. This is a book that will probably be a rewarding reread.
Overall, I think this is my favorite book in the Chalionverse/Five Gods universe. I like my plots twisty, oh yes.
Edited to add: Not a bit of nonfiction this month. Have no fear: by the end of June I should have finished Unweaving the Rainbow, another Dawkins book. (And much lighter than The Selfish Gene. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed.) By the way, is there a Stephen Jay Gould book that won't insult my intelligence? I stalled in the preface to Full House around the fifth assurance that the "disappearance of the .400 batting average in baseball" would be explained later in the book. I would've settled for the one paragraph explanation of batting averages and a footnote explaning why I should care.
Anyway. On to the actual content.
A Darker Place (Laurie R. King): Alternative religions expert Anne Waverly gets around to integrating her shattered personality during an undercover investigation of a religious community.
I burned my way through both series LRK (
lrk_mutterings) writes some time ago, and have been saving the standalones for comfort reading when I refuse to admit I want to know the author's parameters. A Darker Place fits the bill - there is religion, guilt, and attempts at salving guilt through strenuous action. Anne Waverly is emphatically the focus of the story, and she mostly bears up under it. The characterization is a bit shaky, though - there's several authorial comments that "this ongoing situation/dynamic shouldn't have worked out well at all, but for Anne it did." It's the sort of special character handling that makes me wince in memory of many, many bad fanfics.LRK seems to have an ongoing interest in psychological reconstruction and self-definition; compare the shaky emotional states of Mary Russell and Anna Waverly. There's probably a way to work Kate Martinelli in there too, but I haven't reread that series lately.
I think I most liked the running alchemy metaphor/theme/whatever. Transformation as a psychological process and all that. It is elegant, and plot-appropriate, and teases the edge of my mind because I'm fairly certain I should've noticed it sometime before the last three pages.
Less cool was the abrupt ending. LRK pulled a CJ Cherryh: laid the groundwork for a clean wrap-up, then said, "if you've been paying attention you know where this is going. THE END." Functional, but not really satisfying.
There's some elegant touches, though, like the alchemy metaphors. The novel is really about Anne transforming and integrating herself, so the "lead to gold" thing works. Also, there's some nice prose touches. A rare bit of wit flashes out it's, um, strongly suggested to Anne's undercover personality, Ana Wakefield, that she reconsider going outside without certain essential coverings:
Ana looked at the hat. It was a ridiculous piece of headgear with a low, round crown guaranteed to shift around on the head surrounded by ten inches of soft, grubby, sweat-stained brim. The ribbons necessary to hold it in place were colorless with age and had been tied together in a couple of places. She did not want to have this disgusting object between her and the magnificent blue sky.
Ana, she told herself, in Israel you cover yourself neck to wrist to ankle even in August; in New York you cripple yourself with heels. Here you will wear a hat.
If you like LRK, you'll probably enjoy this. I can't speak to mystery readers in general, since I don't know how well this conforms to or defies the tropes of that genre.
The Knight (Gene Wolfe): Our boy Able chases cloud castle out of America and into seven worlds of legend and myth. Gene Wolfe does such intriguing worldbuilding that it took me about half the book to notice how little I like Able. I tend to forget how much I like Wolfe's worldbuilding and how indifferent I am to most of what he does in his worlds. That said, the craft is good: perhaps I've been away from fantasy too long, but I particularly liked the attention to the different perspectives beings from the different worlds would on each other. Wolfe also frames the narrative as a letter from Able to his brother, and I usually find epistolary novels too passive and contrived for words, but this one wasn't too bad. (I keep looking for the One True Epistolary Novel. There's something wonderfully tantalizing about seeing a story as told for a very specific audience. Sadly, I have yet to finish an epistolary novel I've genuinely loved. Sorcery and Cecelia left me going, "eh - wish I'd found this at twelve", and scandalously, I've yet to finish Freedom and Necessity. I keep bogging down in the first forty pages.) I may eventually pick up the second half of the story, The Wizard, but I'm not going out of my way to get it.
I reread The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Laurie R. King) instead of packing for a wedding and studying for my evolutionary bio final. Since I got an A in evol bio and I was still packed (late) Friday night, I don't feel that bad about the wasted time. Its charms and flaws remain as they always have; great comfort reading.
Swords in the Mist (Fritz Lieber): Continuing my gradual assimilation of the "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" series. Two adventurers meet strange (yet alluring) women and go questing in ancient Earth history. The prose is deliciously purple, the plots absurdly direct, and the essentially serial nature of the stories baldly apparent. Great school-season reading: you can say, "gee, it's late," and put it down. Try doing that with Tolkein or Bujold. (By the way, may I just say how relieved I am that Hallowed Hunt came out after finals?) One mistake: don't rush it. I tried to hurry the last few pages one night and it just fell apart.
People are getting so psyched about the Miyazaki adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones) I snagged a copy for plane reading. A nicely crafted little YA fantasy. If this had been the first DWJ I read, instead of the third or fourth, I would've ransacked the library for more like it. If I'd done this when I was eleven or twelve, I'd still be a hardcore DWJ fangirl. Ten years later, I am impressed by the undemanding elegance of the novel's construction: very little stands out as unique or groundbreaking, but each character, plotting element, and worldbuilding touch is masterfully woven into the author's display of the story. Fantastically transparent prose. Nothing new, but the author's hand is subtle and light in the novel construction. I don't know that I would call it particularly strong, and definitely not challenging, but the construction is wonderfully self-contained - everything necessary is included, and there are no loose ends. I am in awe of the final wrapup. The only notable irritations (for me) are the scarecrow's mishandling and other characters' reactions (or lack thereof) to Sophie's curse. It's comforting, and travels well. Take it on your next plane trip, especially if you'll be stuck making connections.
Folly (Laurie R. King): A crazy woman, a house, a tragedy and a granddaughter. Think A Darker Place with multi-generational family issues and a history of mental illness. There's a heavy investment on the theme of folly instead of alchemy, obviously, with somewhat less subtlety. I don't know that psychological thrillers are really my thing; I keep waiting for things to start blowing up. And I'm not talking about the psychological stuff.
The Hallowed Hunt (Lois McMaster Bujold): Ingrey kin Wolfcliff is charged to convey a murdered Prince's body and the subdued murderess to the Weald's capital. Easy, right? If only life could be that simple.
Fairly random comments follow, because I am definitely still in the ponder-and-reflect reaction stage. Comments even more strongly encouraged than usual.
My bullet-proof narrative kink is the "who knows what?" game. Compulsive information hoarding and miserly doling out of same is a skill I lack, but recognize the significance of, so I take great joy in such actions in fiction. It's no accident that protagonists who would probably be card-counting poker fiends if they ever ran away to Vagas make me very happy, and so it should not come as a surprise that I got a kick out of HH and Ingrey.
I'm not nearly familiar enough with what really happened to comment on any historical parallels (or lack thereof). Someone who remembers something about the Holy Roman Empire other than "it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire" may wish to say something.
I liked Hallana a lot more by the end of the book than when she was introduced. Never read about brilliant, cheerful people when finals hell is looming. Though I do wonder what her kids think of her. And I have an irrational fondness for Oswin, who may not have Hallana's inspiring aptitude to chaos, but manages to come up with horrible complications all on his own. (Yes, I did like the scene where the judges question Fara - perhaps I need to abandon psychological thrillers for courtroom dramas.)
I also like Earl Horseriver, one of the more devious and nicely villainous antagonists in my recent experience. I haven't run into any really well-written bad guys lately (see above reading, and remember that I saw Hitchhiker's and RotS this month), so it was a delight to watch Horseriver's machinations. You almost feel sorry for him, until you remember that he's a crazy ex-monarch obsessed with revenge in the worst way. Compare his attitude to Ijada's offhand observation about the "New Wealdings." (Speaking of, may I just say that Why did you burden me with this bestial blasphemy?, in the paragraph immediately preceding Ijada's, is probably the most purple thing I have ever seen in Bujold's writing. Way to have dad angst, Ingrey.)
I think I am very glad Ijada was not the protagonist. She's so convinced of the essential goodness of the world. It's a nice contrast for Ingrey's conviction that everything shades to greys and blacks, but might be a bit tough to take full-on.
I liked the climax. It came out of almost nowhere and probably violates some sort of narrative convention, but I liked Fara totally telling off Horseriver. And Ingrey's proposal. And firing the woods. It works as a metaphor, or something. And I liked the epilogue: Ingalef doesn't get taken up as he perhaps deserves, but he at least is released from his ghostly state.
Interesting thing to consider: Ingrey may be the last of the Weald's shamans (and very dour and grim about it in the epilogue) but during that memorable night on the boat Jokol mentions receiving a blessing from a woman who spoke in a weirding voice. This is a book that will probably be a rewarding reread.
Overall, I think this is my favorite book in the Chalionverse/Five Gods universe. I like my plots twisty, oh yes.