Chemicals in the Air (July Reading)

[ase]

I read several popular books that I think I will get more out of discussing than I did out of reading them. Ditto with the minor novels by major authors. So comment away.

The Puppet Masters (Robert Heinlein): Mind controlling aliens invade Earth. Nudity ensues. Heinlein proves once more that he may have been ahead of his time, but not that ahead.

"Listen, son - most women are damn fools and children. But they've got more range than we've got."

How this tallies with "Mary"'s devolution from dynamic female character to plot device and wifely appendage is an essay waiting to happen. I find the limited acknowledgment that having your body possessed by an alien entity who treated you rather less well than, say, humans treat horses really disturbing in the context of Sam's final internal monologue about wiping the mind-controlling "slugs" out of existence. Oh, and don't get me started on the fun father-son non-relationship. Fold that in with the Mary devolution for a general "dear RAH, please don't try to write family" essay.

Redeeming qualities of novel: um. Justified nudity? Aircars? Secret agents save the world from mind controlling aliens? The aliens come complete with flying saucers! Okay, let's admit I started The Puppet Masters in a moment of weakness and finished it out of blind stubbornness. The plot was well done, but the characters and patronizing author voice shining though the characters drove me nuts.

The Sharing Knife: Legacy (Lois McMaster Bujold): One aspect of ideal romance plot is finding your partner and your place in a community. Being part of relationship that improves your ability to do stuff. So it should surprise no one who has read Legacy that I, um, may not be on Dag and Fawn's side.

By the end of Legacy, a number of my least favorite romance tropes have come into play: May-December, "us against the world that would divide us", new romantic partner being your everything, a plucky and precocious young female protagonist. (I really, really hate the "everything" trope. Words cannot contain the sense of entrapment and co-dependence that sort of story brings on me in conjunction with "us against the world".)

At the conclusion of the novel, Dag and Fawn have both run away from their families and communities, leaving behind their few friends. Compare this to Kareen and Mark in A Civil Campaign. If this were clearly marked as part of a larger cycle, I might be a little less unsettled, but at the moment it makes me reluctant to ever pick up another SK book ever again.

Reading Bujold mailing list chatter: readers agree the lakewalker-farmer paradigm is broken. Reader expectation is that Dag & Fawn will fix this. Frustrated reader expectations: mine. The lakewalker concern is malice control, and by extension, keeping patrols up. I think the answer to, "how do you keep your patrols at full strength?" is some variation of, "learn to patrol without groundsense." Instead of turning to breeding programs to solve the bloodlines/inheritance problems, look for Ben Franklins to throw at the problem. Look for the natural philosophers of Grace Shoals and give them the malice problem to worry at. (As someone else said, "where are the sharing projectiles?" Aha! In this thread.)

The pacing is weird, and I think that's my greatest problem with the book. I'm an SF reader, and unfamiliar with the romance tropes, but the interpersonal focus of the book threw me. Take the council scene: in a novel following fantasy tropes, this would have been a dramatic showdown where Lakewalker custom is challenged and possibly set aside. The characters in charge of deliberations purposefully (and sensibly, from a plot-internal perspective) rule this sort of decision out of order. The character decisions flow relatively sensibly, but the consequences are funky for the fantasy genre, and the plot is extremely meandering. It feels like Dag and Fawn are "solving" their problems by walking away from them. Farmer culture unwilling to embrace their relationship? Walk away from the farmers. Lakewalkers not keen on it either? Walk away. This ticks me off, because the way to solve problems of intolerance is not to walk away, but to challenge assumptions and live your life. I'm tempted to draw real-life parallels with interracial marriages in America, and the LGBT movement. Sometimes the answer is not a dramatic fantasy showdown, but proving your point by living it. And perhaps the local equivalent of equal rights litigation. Dag and Fawn's relationship does an excellent job of pointing up the problems in the parallel farmer/lakewalker cultures, and places them in a position to heal the fissure that's opened up, but the characters aren't getting to the conclusions I consider painfully obvious, and I find my enjoyment of a usually favorite author much diminished by this.

War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda (Jonathan Tucker): Exactly what the subtitle says: a nonfiction account of the evolution of chemical weapons from mustard gas to Novichok agents. This is an absolutely straight recitation of facts, facts and more facts, with very little emphasis on the interconnections between facts that makes nonfiction enjoyable for me. I also would have enjoyed more emphasis on the biochemical side, like tedious diagrams of relevant enzymes and receptor kinase cascades, this may just be my biology geekiness showing again. The focus is on development, treaties, governments breaking treaties, new development, and government budget fights. It's an excellent education on the social/historical side, but less so on the science side, because that's just not Tucker's interest.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J. K. Rowling): Last in the series. Harry must face Voldemort and his destiny. And all that jazz.

Personal reactions: Rowling's strength is unobtrusively sliding plot coupons into the narrative and charming, wacky (if sometimes massively stupid) worldbuilding, two things which I didn't really see in play in this book. The Hallows introduction was clumsy, and sort of out of left field. The epilogue demonstrates how differently Rowling and I view the world: the scene is constructed to echo Harry's first King's Cross experience as much as possible, with zero irony about any unresolved problems that might linger. Stasis is an artificial comfort, in my worldview. Where are the wizarding iPods and Hermione's cell phone going off as her assistant tries to tell her about the Very Important Work Thing? Where is the evidence that the fundamental problems with discrimination in the wizarding world have been addressed? I could get into textual analysis about Harry's desire for a "normal" happy family and how that shapes his approach to the world, but honestly, I am a big fan of zany not-normal happy families in fiction. Tolstoy said, "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" and we have been stuck hearing it since. I find this to be an over-generalization. Not everyone wants - or is happy with - a spouse, white picket fence, and 2.1 children. So the "all was well" end didn't feel well to me: rather, if felt like a happy dream of well-ness, without the pesky inconsistencies of real life to trip people up.

And yet, despite my fundamental dis-engagement with the conclusion, I found much of the book entertaining for hours in airplanes and terminals. Things I did like: Luna (always), Neville, the return of the DA. The unintentionally hysterical wand-lore. Harry's, "oh snap, I dropped the Resurrection Stone" attitude. The chaotic tumble from a sneaky mission gone wrong to the gigantic set-battle. I've been reading the books mostly to keep up with pop culture for a while, so I'm just as glad they're over, though I sort of wish I hadn't lost my copy on the plane.

The Blue Castle (L. M. Montgomery): Valancy Stirling's 29th birthday brings nothing but gloom to an old maid in the making. Not until a doctor tells her she has a year to live does Valancy choose to upend her prim life. Mild havoc and romance ensue.

The book would have been vastly improved had it started on chapter three and cut out the first 25 pages of moping. I was completely unsurprised to learn Valancy's husband was John Foster, though the revelation about his fortune was a pretty twist. Her subsequent artificial dithering, however, was not. This is lightweight LMM, which is saying something. I'm glad to have it checked off the to-read list, but I'm relieved I ILLed it, and didn't spend money on it.

Comments

There are additional spoilers in this comment.

[many-faces.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more on Pötterdämmerung. Rowling's staggering mastery of portmanteau went completely to waste, and the hitting of the "übernormal" button in the epilogue lost me even more than the trademark all-white chosen-one-isn't-really-dead sequence. To paraphrase a favorite webcomic artist (who was going on about Pirates of the Caribbean), killing off Potter only to bring him back immediately after gave his death all the plot significance of him stubbing his toe. Had Joe Dunn not recommended reading the books after seeing the movies, I never would've picked up Order of the Phoenix. My only reason to read HBP was to find out how Harry did on his OWLS, out of sheer curiosity, but the chapters leading up to that news drew me in so well that I ended up needing to find out how it all ended what will likely be a couple years before the final movie hits theaters. I'm predicting a much smaller number of horcruxes, lest DH turns into a five-hour epic.

But you have to admit, the little irony of Remus' radio callsign being "Romulus" rocked the house.

(Adam, by the way, we met at Rennfest last year at the Mediaeval Baebes show)

Re: There are additional spoilers in this comment.

[ase.livejournal.com]

My only reason to read HBP was to find out how Harry did on his OWLS, out of sheer curiosity, but the chapters leading up to that news drew me in so well

And that is why Rowling makes the big bucks. She writes in a very readable and entertaining fashion, though she could use some editing occasionally.

I'm predicting a much smaller number of horcruxes, lest DH turns into a five-hour epic.

Or just reduce the "Ron is gone, oh noes" moping time. The remaining two books will need to be brutally shortened to make it into movie format.

Re: There are additional spoilers in this comment.

[weyrlady.livejournal.com]

I found that sequence (all-white chosen etc.) to be profoundly unsatisfying mainly because she'd already set up a PERFECT reason for it, and then had to go spoil it with the whole bizarre "you chose to die so it didn't work, hahaha!" reasoning. Basically, at the moment Voldemort tried to kill Harry, Harry had essentially united the Deathly Hallows. Or he WOULD have, if he hadn't dropped the stone for no reason. According to the previous info-dumps, the one who unites the Hallows becomes master of death, which could have justified the whole all-white scene perfectly, turning it from an anti-climax into an interesting plot point. Instead, we get some strange and tortured explanation about how willingness to sacrifice oneself negates the Unforgivables? It felt unnecessary and irrelevant.

...then again, I spent most of the book being really angry at Harry. I hate the whole "no one help me, you might get hurt!" attitude, and he never ever lost it. Grar.

Re: There are additional spoilers in this comment.

[ase.livejournal.com]

According to the previous info-dumps, the one who unites the Hallows becomes master of death, which could have justified the whole all-white scene perfectly, turning it from an anti-climax into an interesting plot point.

I had totally not considered that. And you're right: that was a major ball-drop on Rowling's part.

Instead, we get some strange and tortured explanation about how willingness to sacrifice oneself negates the Unforgivables?

Rowling's big theme is the redeeming nature of love for others, so this did not surprise me all that much. The tortured part comes in when Dumbledore reveals that it's all part of his Byzantine plan. What happened to nice, simple "hit people with lethal soul-smashing weapons" plans?

...then again, I spent most of the book being really angry at Harry. I hate the whole "no one help me, you might get hurt!" attitude, and he never ever lost it.

It's part of a "lone hero" tradition that I'm not so fond of. Harry needed to accept that one Boy Who Lived vs. one Voldemort plus a small army of followers equals one dead cause and Voldemort running the world. He never really accepted that lesson, which detracted from the story. At a certain point, it's not enough to sacrifice yourself on the alter of duty: you have to accept that part of that sacrifice is letting other people take risks, even if you want to wrap them in cotton and keep them safe. Watch out, there's an essay about risk, love and growth coming up if someone doesn't stop me.

Re: There are additional spoilers in this comment.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

The tortured part comes in when Dumbledore reveals that it's all part of his Byzantine plan. What happened to nice, simple "hit people with lethal soul-smashing weapons" plans?

Actually... I spent most of the 5th and 6th book railing at Dumbledore for being so fantastically idiotic that he kept never giving any information, or really anything that would help anybody, to ANYONE. So the revelation that all of this was in fact part of a Byzantine plan actually made me happy (though, as you note, I would have been happier had said plan actually made sense).

Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I've read the first half of book two (and she really did intend them as one long continuous work, moreso than Shards of Honor/Barrayar -- the publisher split it in the middle and asked her to apply plot-spackle to disguise it), and they don't run away from the Lakewalkers, they go to them, and begin the process ... halfassedly, in my view ... of shoving the reality of Dag-married-a-farmer up everyone's noses.

I agree the worldbuilding is weirder and more scattershot and less satisfying than any other Bujold I've read.

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

... until I suddenly notice that it IS the second book you're reviewing, cough embarrassedly, and wander off. Sorry. :->

In the 1.5 I've read, I really found about .5-book's worth of plot ... which is common to the romance genre, and why I don't read much romance.

Also, the extreme May/Decemberness (despite the Lakewalkers Live Longer hints) of their relationship keeps squicking me ...

Re: Sharing Knife

[ase.livejournal.com]

I am not a May/December person. However, the authors writing that type of romance are doing something else I find interesting: wacky feminism or large explosions or some combination. I really think that splitting SK was a huge disservice to the story, and that even combining them into one narrative arc fails to resolve the fantasy problems. Dag and Fawn need to either find a solution to the cultures' communication problems or find a new group while the farmers and lakewalkers founder. (The latter is entirely too dark for LMB, but it would be a radical departure from the tropes if she took that route.)

I think another problem is that LMB wants Fawn to be really, really smart - maybe smarter than the author - and hasn't communicated that clarity of thought very well to this reader. I'm thinking of the scene where Fawn analyzes the patrol board in HQ specifically: if you've read the Steerswoman books, imagine the same scene as written by Rosemary Kirstein. If Fawn is supposed to have the sort of lightning intelligence I'm thinking of, maybe Dag is one of a very few people who can keep in shouting distance of her by raw breadth of experience. This would be a character creation failure, which would be really unusual for LMB. I think things like that in the SK books show a writer stretching in different directions than she usually does, or playing to beloved and unconsidered tropes instead of author strengths, and maybe running into some second-order story construction problems as a result. Does that make any sense?

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

This discussion is making me realize that one of my dissatisfactions with this book is that, sometimes Fawn really, really feels like a Lackey heroine, not an LMB person at all.

In Lackey books, you start out with an angsty, oppressed, smart, savvy teenager that the enTIIIIIRE WORLD is CONSPIRING against to make miserable. And then you find out that they were in fact right and the world rearranges itself for them ...

Re: Sharing Knife

[ase.livejournal.com]

norabombay called SK "the best Mercedes Lackey I have ever read". Fawn fails to subvert the associated "I am a misunderstood teenager!" tropes to my satisfaction.

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I mean, Miles was a misunderstood teenager who ends up being right, sort of, but he's also supremely flawed on every level, knows it, and has a sense of humor about it.

Fawn's just too perfect, and it makes me nervous to read her. She's too centered and mature for someone as young as she's supposed to be (though I'm sure that's what we all look like to ourselves at that age!), she's too cosmopolitan for her upbringing, and she's so ... unabashedly right, ALWAYS.

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Maybe she needs mauve eyes (that sometimes are silver) and a hidden line of descent that makes her a princess -- then, at least, she'd be consistent! :->

Re: Sharing Knife

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Huh. I haven't read Legacy yet (it's on my list for next week) but this makes me nervous, as my principal problem with Beguilement was that Fawn was, in fact, completely immature and *stupid*. I don't take well to complete Mary Sue personality changes in the middle of novels, unless there's a good *reason.* (This conditional is to stop ase from crying inconsistency! with Blue Castle :) )

("I've found a hot man!" is NOT a Good Reason.)

Re: Sharing Knife

[ase.livejournal.com]

This conditional is to stop ase from crying inconsistency! with Blue Castle :)

I knew what I was getting into when I got to the "odd-looking girl" description early on. (Yes, I'm paraphrasing.)

Fawn is sweet, but she fails to come across as the whip-smart character LMB wants her to be.

Re: Sharing Knife

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't *think* she had purple eyes, but it was definitely out there. What can I say, I actually like one or two of the Lackey books too *ducks* (only one or two, though! really!)

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Hey, I *read* Lackey. I just don't buy her in hardcover anymore. :->

Some of them are actually unique enough that I unreservedly enjoy them (I liked The Fire Rose and its world a lot, for example); even the corny predictable ones *COUGH*VALDEMAR*COUGH* I still read, because they make me sniffle soooo hard. I just wish she could buy another plot somewhere, and maybe a few less always-right protagonists.

Re: Sharing Knife

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

The ones I like are actually the Tarma/Kethry books, which do have always-right protagonists but have the saving grace of not taking themselves at all seriously. The Talia books had a little of that too, and then... they *did* start taking themselves Seriously, and I stopped reading them.

Re: Sharing Knife

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I think another problem is that LMB wants Fawn to be really, really smart - maybe smarter than the author - and hasn't communicated that clarity of thought very well to this reader.

Huh. The clarity of thought was sufficiently non-obvious that I indeed did not pick up on it at all (see my lj post)...

Re: Sharing Knife

[ase.livejournal.com]

I'll go and respond over there.

Re: Sharing Knife

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

[Now that I've actually read the darn thing...]

Also, the extreme May/Decemberness (despite the Lakewalkers Live Longer hints) of their relationship keeps squicking me ...

YES. And although Lakewalkers Live Longer is supposed to make it All Okay, it doesn't change my squickiness on it one bit. It would if Lakewalkers actually matured slower, too, so that Dag and Fawn were both in late adolescence. As it is, Dag has already married, been widowed, and had many years of a full-time hard job. Fawn... is a teenager. If I had a teenage daughter, and she declared her intentions to marry a 50-year-old widower, and tried to justify it by saying, "but everyone in his family lives really long, so we have the same lifespan!" I'd... be extremely unhappy.

Re: Sharing Knife

[ase.livejournal.com]

It's not the dying (at the same time) part that I'm worried about, it's the living (with reasonable expectations and understandings) bit that I'd be concerned with. World of yes.

Re: Sharing Knife

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm only 31, and I can't imagine myself wanting to date a 16-year-old. ANY 16-year-old. I remember my teens (and my BRAIN in my teens) far too well to want to hook myself to that kind of baggage.

Now, kids grow up different in subsistence-farming societies than they do in our modern cities, and that might affect it, but STILL. Fawn's brothers act sufficiently like city kids their age that I find her total mature self-posession unconvincing.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

DH: The thing that made me love it to bits and pieces was the *continuity*, which is a hot button of mine, and something JKR seems to do really well; and, as you say, the well-drawn minor characters. The thing that made me kind of annoyed and disliking it was the illogicality of, well, all the magic, and also the continued lack of Harry having to answer for any of his (myriad) flaws, both of which are semi-hot buttons of mine and things JKR has consistently done fairly badly. So... it was a Harry Potter book, and I actually liked it better than any since, oh, book 3, but it didn't rise past being a Harry Potter book.

Alas, I still haven't gotten around to Bujold-- it's on my list for next week! Really! so I will perhaps come back and comment then.

Sorry to hear you didn't like the Blue Castle. I think I *did* warn you that it was lightweight, which in retrospect perhaps should have alerted me that it might not be your thing. It does however manage to avoid practically all the Dag/Fawn tropes that annoyed you, which is part of what I liked about it-- I mean, she does madly love Barney, but it's the entire lifestyle that frees her and allows her to love Barney, not the other way around. And yeah, I usually try to pretend the first three chapters don't exist, though I think her family's pretty hilarious. (This is all just to say that I love the book to bits and pieces, but again, I'm a total LMM junkie from way back, and I sometimes enjoy unabashed lightweight fairy tales, which this is.)

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I personally think Cyteen is a MUCH stronger book if you just start it with the birth of Ari II ... but a lot of people don't agree with me. I couldn't read it at all until someone told me to skip to that point and start there, and I still don't think there's anything in the front matter (having read it last) that actually adds anything missable.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

That was how I initially was able to read Wrinkle in Time, way back in grade school, by jumping to the chapter "The Man with Red Eyes." The previous chapters *are* necessary for plot, but still were kind of boring when I went back and read them afterwards.

And then there's Doomsday Book, which I loved, but apparently only because I've deleted a whole half of the book from my head... most people I know don't really like it that much due to the "modern-day" bits, which I mostly just skipped over.

Good to know about Cyteen, actually, because I've been in this stasis regarding Cherryh. I really love her short stories, but my two novel forays (Downbelow Station and Fortress of Something-or-another) have not been wildly successful. I suspect though that we may be badly matched-- as far as I can tell, she likes to take a fairly small piece of the action and follow it until you realize it's really affecting the whole system. Which works well for me in a story, but I get too impatient in a novel-length setting.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

See, I like Doomsday Book's modern-life bits, because they were sooooo academic-politicksy. Which is totally the culture I grew up in. :->

Hrm. Cherryh SF you might like without having to skip the opening:

• Forty Thousand in Gehenna is a very weird book, for her, but I loved it for its alien-species anthropology. If you're into wellmade alien cultures (even if they're run by humans), also try Serpent's Reach.
  
• For Folks-On-Space-Stations-and-Ships stuff, I rather like Finity's End -- supremely subversive of the 'oppressed talented teenager' trope, because not only do we realize he's right, we realize the grownups are right TOO, and that there may not be any easy solution without someone, y'know, growing UP. Neat inside view of what it's like to live on one of the trader-family ships, too.
  
• Voyager in Night is a weird art-novel, but I found it oddly compelling, in a Philip-K-Dick 'what is reality, anyhow, and how could we tell??' kind of way.
  
• Hellburner is about fighter-jocks in space, and gets into what's going on in that huge Earth/Stations war thing in the Alliance/Union 'verse.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Actually, now that I think of it, the moral of Finity's End might be, "Yeah, life sucks for you. Sucks for me, too. World's like that, sometimes. Now, are you going to sit there pouting about it, or, y'know, get ON with it?"

[almeda.livejournal.com]

(i'm going to get hairy palms, replying to myself this much!)

I also just realized that Finity's End's protagonist is a Third-Culture Kid. Now, who was it that had an entry asking for examples of that? Hrm. Oyceter, maybe?

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Oh, the academic-politics parts were not bad. It was the hospital antics that turned people off, I think. Whereas I'm all, "What hospital?"

Hmm. ok, thanks! I'll look these up.

PK Dick-like hallucinogens I have to be in a specific mood to imbibe (really, after reading one of those things I walk around for hours thinking, "are you a figment?"), so maybe I'll wait on that one a bit.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Forty Thousand in Gehenna is a very weird book, for her

Which is really saying something. It suffers from trying to compress 300 years of history into less than 500 pages.

Finity's End is what happens when Cherryh tries to do YA.

Voyager in Night has always pleased me because I saw the twist coming.

Hellburner! Top Gun in Spaaace! It was almost worth slogging through Heavy Time just so I could crack up at Ben Pollard's obnoxious "what time is it, Dekker?" right off the top. I loved that book with a happy irrational glee.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned yet that I think the family-trading-ships culture and the azi are, together, the best part by far of the entire Alliance/Union worldbuilding? And Gehenna was settled by, effectively, feral azi.

I want more azi-protagonist books, dammit. :->

[ase.livejournal.com]

as far as I can tell, she likes to take a fairly small piece of the action and follow it until you realize it's really affecting the whole system.

Yes. I adore this, so Cherryh novels and I get along frighteningly well. I read Cherryh's novels before her short stories, and got sucked in by Downbelow Station, so I may be of little help in finding the novels you'd like. I love Downbelow Station for its unremitting grim working-out of consequences until the one moment of anastrophe, and Cyteen for what it says about intelligence, environment, and parents.

A couple shots in the dark, though. Try the Nighthorse books - Rider at the Gate and Cloud's Rider - which are technically SF, but riff off Westerns a bit as well. Rider also employs Cherryh's take on the Magical Chosen Teenage Girl trope. These may distract you from the slow pacing until the stars align and merry havoc breaks loose.

Nighthorse blurb: humans are the aliens on a planet where the native fauna are telepathic. While the god-fearing shut themselves behind wooden walls, travel between townships is protected by the riders, telepathically joined to the intelligent beasts preachers say were sent by the Devil.

Nighthorses are black. And like bacon.

It may be worth noting that Cherryh mentored Mercedes Lackey while ML was writing her first Valdemar trilogy.

Also, try Wave Without a Shore (out of print; look for the Alternate Realities omnibus). It's about art, and society, and it's shorter than many of her novels.

I think you would like the fifth Chanur book, but not the four preceding it. (This may be a biased opinion, because I got bored with the Chanur series). It's the closest Cherryh will probably get to slapstick comedy.

The Fortress books should be cool, but suffer from fuzzy magic and really, really slow pacing.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in principle I really like this, but in practice I tend to get distracted (my attention span is about three minutes) (this is part of why I am no longer in academia, although I'm finding out that a short attention span is really a problem wherever you go), and then by the time we find out what is really going on, I have lost the thread. Which is why the short stories really work for me, because it's a small enough canvas that I can keep paying attention until the end.

Perhaps I'll give Downbelow Station another shot, though. I've definitely had luck with other complex books on the second go.

Nighthorses are black. And like bacon.
Okay, this convinced me. I'm worried my library has the second one and not the first. Bah.

It is good to know I wasn't making up the slow pacing in the Fortress books, though.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Oh, attention span. Yes. There's a reason I'm refusing to start grad school until I know exactly I have a better idea what I want to do. I like to hold entire books in my head and find the links, but I'm not good with themes and leitmotifs in "real" literature. Give me a spaceship and I can talk for an hour; ask me about rain as a metaphor in Alvarez' In the Time of the Butterflies and I say, "...um?"

Downbelow Station holds a special place in my heart as part of Summer 2000, which was roughly bracketed by DbS and Cyteen, and was an important period in my adolescent rebellion.

Okay, this convinced me. I'm worried my library has the second one and not the first. Bah.

ILL is your friend. Alternatively, check your local used book stores or bookfinder.com. (Also? I have a spare copy. It's at dad's, but he and I still need to do the Las Vegas slideshow sometime this month.)

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

A followup: I started reading Riders at the Gate (I'm oh, a third through), and... wow. Yeah. I think you may have hit a home run on this one. Probably much more later, after my in-laws leave and I can dive back into it.

It may be worth noting that Cherryh mentored Mercedes Lackey while ML was writing her first Valdemar trilogy.

Let me just say now though that because you said that, I totally noticed that the nighthorses are hilariously like Valdemar companions on steroids and maybe heroin, and it makes me crack up.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I think you may have hit a home run on this one.

I am doing the quiet dance of the victorious recommendation.

[ase.livejournal.com]

So... it was a Harry Potter book, and I actually liked it better than any since, oh, book 3, but it didn't rise past being a Harry Potter book.

Exactly yes. There are things I liked, and things that drove me crazy, but the elements most likely to make me fruitbat nuts are places where Rowling and I have different opinions anyway. (Her handling of the Slytherins would drive me to tears, but I saw it coming.)

And now I can say that the third book is my favorite in the series, forever and ever and ever. It's the place where Harry's shiny world starts cracking a bit, and it does the continuity thing with the best infodumps. The time travel sequence fits together like clockwork, and the Shrieking Shack scene is an awesomely dramatic showdown.

Alas, I still haven't gotten around to Bujold-- it's on my list for next week! Really! so I will perhaps come back and comment then.

Please do! I find that hashing it out helps figure out what did and didn't work for me.

I think I *did* warn you that it was lightweight, which in retrospect perhaps should have alerted me that it might not be your thing.

I suspected it would be a bit light going in, since it's LMM, but I had a tough time getting into it after the first three chapters. It's very sweet, and would probably be perfect for undemanding reading days - sick days, comfort reading, late night "eyes are moving until mind turns off" days - and it's fun Mary Sue.

I mean, she does madly love Barney, but it's the entire lifestyle that frees her and allows her to love Barney, not the other way around.

Exactly yes. I was okay with the novel because of that. (I may also have come off as more negative than I felt; my book standards are ridiculously high.) So Valancy is pretty, and she accidentally marries money, but she gets to do these things because she made the choice to change her life and seek out happiness. I would have lapped this up at 12, and if I ever manage to unwind I would probably be very fond of Blue Castle, though probably not fall in love.

but again, I'm a total LMM junkie from way back

I know all about being a shameless author junkie, oh yes. It's all about the right books at the right times.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Her handling of the Slytherins would drive me to tears, but I saw it coming.)

YES. This was far and away my biggest problem with the book, but I've managed mostly to internalize it by now.

(I may also have come off as more negative than I felt; my book standards are ridiculously high.)

I do actually think that having ridiculously high standards is a Good Thing. I tend to fluctuate wildly in my standards... I do think I have high standards for my Very Favorites, but I'll often have serious relationships with flawed books (I do have something of a mad love for DH and Blue Castle, though I definitely admit they are not Great Literature, and have serious flaws), and wildly passionate one-night stands with other books (e.g., the Mary Russell books, which I read, posted love letters to on LJ, and then decided I didn't actually like all that much :) ).

I know all about being a shameless author junkie, oh yes. It's all about the right books at the right times.

Yes. The farther back I read a book, the more suspect my recommendation is likely to be ... unfortunate, but true. I reread Wrinkle in Time fairly recently and was shocked to discover that it was not at all the book I thought it was in grade school. (It's a lot weirder. Apparently in grade school I thought giant pulsating brains were the order of the day.)

[ase.livejournal.com]

but I'll often have serious relationships with flawed books

Oh yes. This is the only excuse for my fondness for Lackey's Vanyel trilogy. I suspect I'm reading a different trilogy than she wrote, one about hubris and fate and those wacky Companions.

There's also the nonfiction problem, where it's going to go out of date when new information surfaces. Something I should have mentioned about the chemical warfare book is the sense that the later sections of the book, dealing with more recent events, will look very different when everything gets declassified in 30 - 100 years. And reading bio nonfiction? The field is on fire. Any "cutting edge" book about HIV or cancer that's more than five years old probably has some serious gaps in its coverage.

the Mary Russell books, which I read, posted love letters to on LJ, and then decided I didn't actually like all that much :)

I love the first two Russell books with the blind and unforgiving love one has for the books one adores in the teenage years. Then LRK married Russell and Holmes off, to my displeasure, and essentially sidelined Russell's academic career in favor of Holmes' detective cases. There is a much more interesting series lurking in the margins of the actual books about the pull between Holmes' incredulity and Russell's faith, and about lessons from one's mentors vs. taking up your mentor's life.

The farther back I read a book, the more suspect my recommendation is likely to be ... unfortunate, but true.

Which is why I preface certain recommendations with, "I read this when I was 15, so..."

Apparently in grade school I thought giant pulsating brains were the order of the day.

You mean they aren't? ;-) I can't judge Wrinkle well, because it was part of the Great Gulp that set the parameters for everything else. I think it rewards rereading, though.

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

Puppet Masters - I agree with you that the plot was good, but somewhat overshadowed by Heinlein's own personal philosophy.

TSK: Legacy - I'm reserving judgment on this book until after the 3rd and 4th books come out. Beguilement worked as a stand-alone romance novel, but Legacy just screams middle book. I was annoyed that Dag didn't seem to communicate much with Fawn, leaving her to walk into potential land-mines when dealing with the Lakewalkers. Being newly-wed is stressful enough without being so isolated. And how come Dag and Fawn never had any major arguments or disagreements?

Deathly Hallows - I was somewhat annoyed at the Epilogue, but upon reflection having some sort of wrap-up was the right way to end the book. I am still annoyed about how too too precious the wrap-up was, with everybody ending up with their high school sweethearts, and Ron and Harry still being BFF's, and Slytherin still not being a desirable House. And don't get me started on how it took seven books to give Dudley any sort of personality change, and how Harry's perception of the Dursleys never changed throughout the entire series. I just think Harry would have grown up with major issues if the Dursleys had been as abusive and uncaring as Rowling painted them. (How did you lose your copy? It was a doorstop!)

[ase.livejournal.com]

I was annoyed that Dag didn't seem to communicate much with Fawn

Yes, yes, yes. Maybe I'm a little risk-adverse, but I would have serious reconsiderations about someone who put me out on a limb the way Dag does to Fawn.

And how come Dag and Fawn never had any major arguments or disagreements?

Gooey honeymoon period? It would be a much more interesting story if they did clash occasionally.

I just think Harry would have grown up with major issues if the Dursleys had been as abusive and uncaring as Rowling painted them. (How did you lose your copy? It was a doorstop!)

I tend to handwave Harry's Issues into the 19 year gap between the end of the last chapter and the epilogue. His kids had better be happy for dad or dad is going to have a freak-out.

How did I lose my copy? I finished it, propped it between me and the window, or maybe put it on the floor, and passed out. With much kicking and shifting to do something about the neck crick. I'm assuming it slid during descent, and I didn't feel like ransacking the plane for it.

The Puppet Masters

[khavrinen.livejournal.com]

Mind controlling aliens invade Earth. Nudity ensues.

Yes, my first thought when I heard that they were making a movie of it ( 1994, Donald Sutherland, Richard Belzer, Eric Thal ) was "I bet there's an awful lot less nudity than there was in the book." And I was right.

Re: The Puppet Masters

[ase.livejournal.com]

Only on HBO would the authentic PM movie thrive.

I've got to admit, it's sort of fun watching the anti-slug fashion evolution. First helmet-thingie, then mostly stripping, then stripping to pretty much nothing... bets on the howls from the Old School when the kids re-invent body paint?

[toraks.livejournal.com]

I've decided that most of the Legacy problems are Middle Book Issues and hoping like crazy we'll see what we're used to when we see the entire arc. Which may be a while, since there are still 2 and they start off with Dag and Fawn and the river.

I have a feeling that the whole story will be in the 4 book arc and much more satisfying. Unless you're right and Lois is playing around with her writing a bit too much and hitting less excellent parts of her repetoire too hard. I'd be very unhappy with that. :-(

Still need to do a reread of Legacy now that it's in my hands rather than a quick ARC run, but I'm hitting a spot in life where I need comfort reading and LMB is never comfort reading for me. (rereading The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer and will probably go on a Heyer run for the forseeable future).

I think I already commented on DH with you. I do wish JKR had stuck to her strengths -- 1, 2, & 3 were great. Or perhaps were much improved by great editing that she became too high-and-mighty for thereafter.

[ase.livejournal.com]

First - hang in there! Good luck with the cells and your menfolk. :-) I hope no one gets sick again in the near future. Enjoy the Heyer reread.

The logical arc from here is something like: Dag and Fawn go walkabout, find a McGuffin or learn something that will promote lakewalker-farmer harmony, and return to share the good news. Malices probably not all killed dead, but better ways of dealing with them are implemented. I think you're right that the full arc will resolve several of my frustrations, but I think some of them will stand. Fawn's family didn't strike me as that poisonous; Dag needs to relax and communicate more with Fawn when he sees problems they may run into; Fawn's recklessness cannot always turn out to be the correct decision. (I am a huge fan of stories where characters make devastatingly wrong decisions and learn from them. Which is why I adore Mirror Dance, even if I can barely stand to reread the first third.)

I think we didn't do the DH rehash yet; you may be thinking of another LJ discussion. It's certainly the topic of the hour!

Or perhaps were much improved by great editing that she became too high-and-mighty for thereafter.

Or that her publishers dropped in favor of getting the books out faster. The third book will always be my favorite.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Fawn's recklessness cannot always turn out to be the correct decision. (I am a huge fan of stories where characters make devastatingly wrong decisions and learn from them. Which is why I adore Mirror Dance, even if I can barely stand to reread the first third.)

Yeah... I was only okay with it because it turned out that it could have *not* been the correct decision. And even then I would like Fawn to be wrong.

So to me, the ending totally read like "Dag decides to run away from his commitments and duties and leave patrolling, where he is totally needed and knows what to do, and promote Lakewalker/Farmer harmony, without actually Having a Plan or really Any Clue of how to begin, and with the high probability that he will fail absolutely, especially given his lack of, you know, actually thinking about it at all, and Fawn goes along like a nice little wife." And I Absolutely HATED it-- I know, second half of book to come, but what sort of lame decision is that for an LMB hero? Unless it completely backfires on him in the 3rd book, which I don't hold out much hope for, I'm really annoyed.

[ase.livejournal.com]

and with the high probability that he will fail absolutely, especially given his lack of, you know, actually thinking about it at all,

Ah ha ha. So true! I felt like Dag spent a lot of the book in a "what do I want to do with this setup?" limbo, 'resolved' by the author suddenly tacking and opening new cans of worms in the council scene, right at the end of the novel. So a novel that might have been about Dag and Fawn finding their place in lakewalker society becomes a novel about them kicking themselves out. Whoops!

I'll be the first to say that the farmer and the lakewalker should be friends, and maybe a little more lakewalker transparency would be a good start, but I am not impressed with Dag's actions to promote that goal. Like you said, I'd like to see some backfiring, but I don't think that's the story LMB wants to tell.