ase

I have fever, but it's of the sort that conks me out, without completely incapacitating me between naps. So have some book chatter.

The Ghost Brigades (John Scalzi): The adventures of Jared Dirac, Special Forces clone of a brilliant rogue scientist. A sort of sequel to Old Man's War: same universe, overlapping characters. ( Spoilers and stuff. )Conclusions: good light genre fiction, but don't think about it too hard. Also, if you have a problem with cute kids, run away.

Crystal Soldier (Sharon Lee and Steve Miller): First half of the adventures of M. Jela Granthor's Guard and Cantra yos'Phelium; prequel to the Liaden novels by the same authors. I read several of the Liaden novels in my late teens, and very little has stuck with me beyond one sentence: here we stand: An old woman, a halfling boy, two babes; a contract, a ship, and a Tree. Clan Korval. How Jela would laugh. I found the writing in the Liaden novels tended to use a lot of gimmes in ways that don't interest me, but I wanted to know more about this "old woman" and her backstory, which sounded much more interesting than her arch descendants.

( Prequel writing is tough. This example didn't do it for me. )I should say that Crystal Soldier did one thing I liked: no completely superfluous B-plot to pad the page count. Also, for all my gripes about the SF content, the romance did not completely and intrinsically irritate me, as so many romance novels or stories do.

The Outback Stars (Sandra McDonald / sandramcdonald): Jodenny Scott, survivor of one of those space disasters, gears up for the next round. Terry Myell just wants the bullying to stop.

( Australia love! )Conclusions: uneven, but promising. I'll make the library hold the sequel for me.

The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K. Le Guin): Second book in the Earthsea trilogy. Reread. I read the Earthsea trilogy out of order - Tombs, The Farthest Shore, then A Wizard of Earthsea last. I'm trying to remember if I read Tehanu before Wizard, but I'm pretty sure I read the first book in the first trilogy before finding the first book in the second trilogy. Mostly sure. Needless to say, this misreading order has colored my feelings about the series in interesting ways. What do you mean, the trilogy's overwhelmingly important protagonist is Ged?

The original Earthsea trilogy might technically be considered epic fantasy, since it's the story of restoring the peace and the monarchy, but any Fat Fantasy Epic conventions are undercut left, right and center. Tombs is awesome about this: it's a classic "steal things from the Temple of Evil!" story, but it's told from the perspective of Evil's scornful young and nubile high priestess, and having the McGuffin solves nothing immediately. Magic can be flashy - and from his staff and his hands leapt forth a white radiance that broke as a sea-wave breaks in sunlight, against the thousand diamonds of the roof and walls: a glory of light - but it's also useful for curing goat diseases and mending things, like the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. At the end of the story, the hero sails into port, victorious, but the object he went to fetch is carried by the girl. I can see why Le Guin went back and tried to fix her universe years later - there are fundamental injustices, but life is unfair - but the books stand on their own just fine, I think.

Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler): Also a reread. The world ends. Lauren Olamina keeps going. One of the things I love about postapocalyptic fiction is the inevitable settling toward a new equilibrium, and Butler does an awesome job of that in this story. Historical injustices aren't repeated identically, but similar situations arise. I want to wave my hands and discuss the political setup and race and how everyone's wrapped up in their children.