add to memories

I really enjoyed Cashore's first book, Graceling. Fire is set in the same universe, albeit a few decades before, but it's more a companion story rather than a prequel.

Fire is the last human monster in the Dells. Monsters can be any animal, and they're usually brightly colored (Fire is named after her hair) and supernaturally beautiful. Fire finds all these traits a burden, particularly because her monster father was nearly the ruin of the kingdom.

But soon, she gets entangled in court politics, despite many people's suspicion of her and her background.

The book has many of the same drawbacks that Graceling did; the villains feel rather two-dimensional to me, the prose is very clunky in the beginning, and the names are... not great. However, Cashore is very good with her characters, and some of the same things I loved about Graceling show up here again, particularly Cashore's politics about sex != marriage or true love.

Fire is very different from Katsa; just as unsure in ways, but quieter and more obviously feminine due to her monster beauty. I liked her a great deal, though, and she reminds me a bit of some McKinley heroines. I also really loved the romance in this book, although like Fire, it's more traditional than the one in Graceling.

Cashore still has some rough edges to work out in her books, but I love her people and her point of view. Really looking forward to Bitterblue, whom I loved in Graceling.

Links:
- gwyneira's review

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

I read the titular story several years ago, and although I understood it, I don't think I got it.

I'm still not sure if I completely got it this time around either, although knowing the twist at the end gives the story more emotional resonance throughout instead of only at the last moment.

I picked Chiang up again despite knowing I usually suck at reading short stories because I've been listening to short story podcasts when I run, and the two of his I've listened to ("Exhalation," which isn't in this collection, and "Hell Is the Absence of God," which is) were fairly engaging.

I suspect Chiang works better for me as a audio experience; I read too quickly to completely figure out what's going on in his stories until they're already over. Unsurprisingly, the two that worked best for me in this collection were the ones I've read or listened to before, along with "Seventy-Two Letters," which I read as fantasy.

On a whole, I would say the collection is very concept-driven; Chiang usually grabs a cool, SFnal idea and centers a story around that idea.

I had issues with the portrayal of disability in "Hell Is the Absence of God" and with the parallels he draws between lookism and social justice issues in "Liking What You See." It's nothing I can quite put my finger on, save that I dislike how disability can be God-given in the first story and how much of the language in the story is about being a saintly disabled person or resenting it, but how the bottom assumption always seems to be that disability is a terrible thing to happen to someone.

I also find it very interesting that three of the stories in the collection have to do with religion. This includes my favorite story of the collection, "Seventy-Two Letters," which has golems! Sadly, they aren't the center of the piece, but still.

In conclusion: extremely interesting read, still puzzling over some of them, and I feel Chiang's brain really does not work the way mine does (not a compliment or an insult, just an observation).

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

I am so behind on posting write-ups to 50books_poc that it's not even funny, not to mention how behind I am on posting about books in general.

Maybe I should bite the bullet and create an "a: poc" tag for my own blog?

Anyway, this is a retelling of Cinderella. Ash (Aisling) lives in a world in which people are slowly starting to believe that fairies are only stories. Ever since her mother died, Ash has been drawn to Fairy, believing that she will somehow get to see her mother again through them.

To be honest, I probably would not have picked up this book had I not known that a) Lo was Chinese and b) it was a lesbian romance. I'm pretty bored of Euro-centric fairy tale retellings, and even more so of fairies. I'm not entirely sure the book overcomes my ennui for either of those things, but Lo put enough twists into the Cinderella story to keep my interest. I very much liked Kaisa, the King's Huntress, and the entire history of the Huntresses (always female). Ash herself, her stepmother, and her sisters aren't very different from the fairy tale, and I was a little disappointed, because I always want the evil step mother and step sisters to be rewritten somehow.

The book is also oddly structured in that the prince basically gets no page time, replaced instead by Ash's not-quite-friendship with the fairy prince Sidhean. I thought Lo set up some plot elements that didn't pay off, and the final resolution of the conflict went much too quickly. However, Ash and Kaisa's romance is extremely cute and sweet, and I particularly loved a few of the scenes concentrating on Kaisa's slightly open shirt and the glimpses of her neck.

( Spoilers )

Still, this is cute, and some of the awkward interactions between Ash and Kaisa remind me of Robin McKinley. Definitely looking forward to what Lo does next.

Links:
- meganbmoore's review

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

(Book 1 of the Inheritance trilogy)

Disclosure: I know and like the author and got the ARC from her. Book coming out in Feb. 2010.

In the world of the hundred thousand kingdoms, there were once three gods. But things changed, and now one rules while the Arameri, a mortal family, enslaves four other gods. Yeine's mother was the heir to the Arameri before she married Yeine's father, who was seen as a barbarian from Darr. Now, Yeine has been called back to the palace Sky, and she's immediately thrust into family politics.

I love so much about this book. First, I have a huge love of court politics and intrigue, and this book is chock full of secrets and secret histories and people never quite saying what they mean and nothing looking like what it is. Yeine is by nature straightforward and blunt, but she must adapt to Sky, which differentiated this book from others with protagonists who aren't good at intrigue. Too often I feel those other books minimize the dangers of a slip up and focus instead on what a breath of fresh air the protagonist is, or they have the protagonist know nothing of intrigue and yet come out on top anyway. Yeine, on the other hand, makes deadly mistakes, and everything has a cost.

I also love the world of the book, from the palace of Sky, balanced above the city of Sky on a thread-like column, to the legends of the three gods to the little we see of Darr's matriarchal culture. I love the bound gods and the way Jemisin makes them all frightening and awe-inspiring and yet vulnerable and hurt at the same time. I read a review somewhere and of course promptly forgot who wrote it, but the person talked about the interesting complications of slavery and power with the gods, who are enslaved and yet have enormous amounts of power, and with the Arameri family, some of whom are servants and yet still have the power to command enslaved gods.

It's a fantasy book that feels new and different, and considering that I've mostly stopped reading non-YA fantasy because I've been so bored with it, that in and of itself made me so happy. And in addition to all that, the prose is lovely. I adore the narrative voice, which occasionally rambles and talks to itself and corrects itself.

Overall, highly recommended. As I've said, I haven't been reading fantasy that isn't YA for a long time because I've felt it had very little left to offer me. I'm glad I was wrong, and this book has me craving a) more from the world and b) more wonderfully satisfying world-building and characterization in general.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

Cast in Shadow

Kaylin Neya is a private in the Hawks, something like the city of Elantra's police. (I'm still confused as to the difference between the Hawks, the Wolves, and the third group whose name I forgot.) A series of murders is taking place, and each victim is found with mysterious marks on their bodies. They're remarkably similar to the series of murder that took place when Kaylin was still an urchin in the lawless fiefs, and the markings are similar to the ones on her own body, which are a complete mystery to her.

I was reading this very slowly, so I didn't find it as intense until I finished 2/3s of it in the course of a day. I'm still not that fond of Kaylin as a character. She's perpetually late, cannot keep her temper, swears like a sailor, and has no filter between her mouth and her brain. Normally this wouldn't be a turn off, except in the beginning of the book, all the characters joke about it, and it feels like the traits are just there to make her likable, a la the clumsy YA/shoujo/kdrama heroine. I, being contrary, immediately disliked her.

However, things get much more interesting as the plot gets darker, and I began to love Kaylin when she realized being a Hawk was the center of her life.

I also admire how Sagara handled Severn; I was prepared to have the dark secret be something that I initially rolled my eyes at, since he is clearly set up to be Not Evil. What I like is how Sagara leaves things unresolved.

Overall, neat world although I still am confused about the worldbuilding. I blame that on my own brain and not the writing; I haven't been able to keep track of complicated stuff for a while, which is why I haven't read epic fantasy for a really long time.

Cast in Courtlight

Kaylin's now sent to the Barrani court, which is very political and full of intrigue and completely antithetical to her entire personality.

I didn't find this as interesting as the first book, largely because the plot is not as closely tied to Kaylin's past. And while I like books about courts and secrets and intrigues and plotting up the wazoo, it's nowhere near as fun when you have a heroine who kind of sucks at all those things.

( Spoilers )

So, hrm. Entertaining reading, and occasionally really good (I very much like the last half of book 1), but they aren't on my best of lists.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

This is the second book in the Twelve Kingdoms series, and although you don't have to read the first book to follow the plot of this one, which stands alone, this book does build on some of the worldbuilding of the first book.

A young boy is swept away from his unhappy family life in Japan, and when he reaches the world of the twelve kingdoms, he is renamed "Taiki" and told he is the kirin of Tai. As such, he has the duty of selecting the rightful king. Unfortunately, because he did not grow up in this world, he has no idea how to shapeshift or do other things that most kirin can do.

As with the first book, the prose translation feels rather flat, and I seriously question the decision to use words like "lamia" and "faerie" to describe some of the mythological creatures. I'm particularly puzzled by "lamia," which is used to describe the kirin's guardian figure, who seems to be more of a chimera. Also, although I know the original lamia story is not a vampire one, I still associate the word with vampire. Also also, I know there are fairy-like creatures in Chinese mythology (仙女), but why use the "faerie" spelling? It has connotations that do not fit the book! And from what I remember, the faeries in this book don't particularly resemble anything I am familiar with. Instead, it feels like the translator picked random terms that kind off maybe not really fit the creatures in the book and slapped them on, completely disregarding any sort of cultural background.

At least they stayed with "kirin" instead of going for "unicorn."

Anyway! Back to the plot. As with book one, the protagonist may not be likable to everyone, but I actually liked him a great deal. And because I know now that Ono tends to go for a slow build up, I was much less impatient than I was with the first book. I did manage to guess most of what would happen, but for me, the plot was less important than Taiki's character journey, which was carried off well.

Like Rachel (link below), I do wish there had been more examining of how the kirin system of choosing a king is better than a different system. On the other hand, it was good getting a look at the other kirin who was not that successful with his king.

Also, I hope Risai shows up again! She was awesome.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

In the world of Darkborn, there are the Lightborn and the Darkborn. To the Lightborn, darkness is anathema, whereas the Darkborn can be hurt by the tiniest stream of light. They both coexist in the same city without ever interacting with each other. But soon, Darkborn Balthasar Hearne, his wife Telmaine, and Ishmael di Studier, who is an outcast because he is a Darkborn mage, get tangled up in a conspiracy against both the Lightborn and the Darkborn regarding the birth of two special children.

One of the most interesting bits about the worldbuilding is that all the Darkborn are blind. They do, however, have sonn, which basically operates like sonar. Sinclair has neat details on how sonn changes social conventions; if you sonn someone too deeply in a fairly public place, it's fairly rude, as everyone else can tell how deeply you're sonning, and you can sonn underneath their clothing. It's very cool having a book populated almost entirely (Balthasar has a Lightborn friend) by blind people, although I have a few reservations about having sonn as a "special power" to still give them sight.

I also liked the looks into Darkborn society, from Balthasar, who's a bit on the outskirts, to Ishmael, who's an outcast, to Telmaine, who comes from aristocracy and has to live with loss of status due to her husband. I liked Telmaine a lot, as well as the other female characters I came across. I wish I had liked Ishmael better; he wasn't a bad character per se, but there were things about his role in the book that particularly irked me.

( Spoilers )

Anyway, now that is off my chest...

I remember tearing through this when I first read it over a month ago, and I still find many elements of the story, especially the worldbuilding, fascinating. A solid fantasy, but not (yet) something that blows me away.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

Scirye is accompanying her mother (an ambassador) and sister (female warrior) as they help protect and manage a museum exhibit of important Kushan artifacts when evil dragon Badik attacks and steals one. In the meantime, Bayang the dragon is attempting to stalk and kill the young boy Leech, who has no idea what's going on and happens to be in the museum at the wrong time with his friend Koko. They all end up meeting and questing after the stolen artifact.

This is the first book in Yep's new trilogy set in 1941, but a 1941 populated with dragons, goddesses, water sprites, and all sorts of other supernatural creatures. Although the story begins in San Francisco, it moves on to Hawaii, and by the end of the book, the gang is off to even more locales.

I'm sad I didn't get to read this as a kid; I would have loved it! Even so, I love it now as well. The entire main cast is POC; it has an awesome girl in the form of Scirye and an awesome older woman in Bayang; the plot is fast-moving and exciting; and there are miniature griffins, volcano adventures, Asian mythology, flying carpets, shapeshifting, reincarnation, old vendettas, weary assassins, and much more! If you haven't figured out yet, it was a ton of fun to read.

It does read slightly young in that it handles fairly weighty topics rather quickly, but I like that they're there, and I particularly love the character of Bayang and how she develops throughout the book.

In conclusion: really fun, and Yep creates a retro, magical setting with actual diversity. I wish I could give this to all the people who seem to think that you can only have one or the other.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

Soria is a Dirk & Steele agent who can understand and speak any language someone living is speaking. Karr is a long-imprisoned shapeshifter whom no one can understand. Together, they have adventures!

First, I would like to note that Soria's superpower is the one I currently want most. OMG. Immediate language proficiency! I swoon at the notion!

Second, Soria has one arm due to an Angsty Background that is later revealed. I am ambivalent about this. I love having a romance novel heroine with a disability in which she is portrayed as attractive, sexy, capable, and strong. Thankfully, Soria's superpower is not "compensation" for her disability and she seems to avoid many (but not all?) tropes out there. On the other hand, I was bothered by the focus on arm loss as Angsty Background (a la so much manga) and the relative dearth of characters with disabilities sans Angsty Backstory or characters with disabilities who have had a disability for a while and are living with it fine thank you.

It feels as though the stories All About Ablism or about people first adjusting to having a disability are written for people without disabilities to give them an easier way to sympathize with the character and to emphasize that having a disability is the exception and Other, and it reminded me a lot of books about characters of color that are all about OMG Racism! It Exists! And Sucks!

I am still trying to educate myself about a lot of this, so I may very well be totally wrong. I also do not want to discount the positives of having a POC (!) heroine with a disability (!!) be sexy and awesome (!!!): ergo my ambivalence. I just want more so that we aren't counting on a handful of characters to represent vast continuities of experiences.

I also found the commentary on shapeshifter interbreeding interesting. Had it been someone other than Marjorie Liu, I would have been annoyed at the implications re: mixed-race people, but since Liu has so many multiracial characters in all her books (including Soria), the chimera can be read as chimera instead of as metaphors for people. (Other SF/F authors who use supernatural creatures as metaphors for real people, please take note.)

Unfortunately, while I thought a lot about things in the book, I wasn't that into the book itself. There was a lot more adventure and not as much character/relationship, which may work for some people but didn't as much for me. I know Liu frequently has characters who are irrationally attracted to each other and trust each other, and in some of her other books, I believe it more than in this one.

Still, I loved the return of several minor characters from previous D&S books (older women for the win!), and I continue to be taunted by the presence of Eddie in books not about him!

Overall: fast-paced with lots of plot, but it didn't actually stick that much in my brain.

Comment | Read Comments () | Link

add to memories

I was actually a little afraid to read this because I know I frequently bounce off short stories and off science fiction short stories in particular—the amount of worldbuilding to figure out in a short amount of pages makes my brain hurt. Also, it didn't help that I read some of it while extremely sleep deprived.

Possibly because of that, the stories I loved most tended to be the ones that felt like folktales or the ones from a child's POV that gradually introduced you to the fantasy in the world, while the ones I categorize as needing a reread (or many) are the ones with much denser worldbuilding.

One of my favorites was "Wallamelon," with its focus on growing up and growing apart from people, along with the growing joy of learning about something. I also liked the mix of the child-POV in "The Rainses'" with the ghost story and the mystery and the legacy of slavery; I laughed at the narrator thinking an actual railroad ran underground because I think I had the same impression as a kid. I also loved the land of the dead and the overall feel in "The Beads of Watu," and "The Pragmatical Princess" made me laugh with delight. The latter isn't a deep story, but I love the dialogue between the princess and the dragon, and I really loved having a Muslim princess in a type of story that's usually Eurofantasy.

I don't think I fully understood "Shiomah's Land" or "The Water Museum," but I liked them nevertheless for the setting and the characters, especially Shiomah and the examination of love and pregnancy and children.

I think I need to reread "Deep End," "Momi Watu," "Good Boy," and "Maggies" because there was a lot of worldbuilding in there that I couldn't concentrate on. The world in "Deep End" reminded me of a short story in So Long Been Dreaming. I liked the tense, paranoid atmosphere in "Momi Watu," need to reread all the bits about computers in "Good Boy," and even though I am still not quite sure how the worldbuilding works in "Maggies," I like the main relationship between the POV character and the maggie, as well as the creepy literalness of "getting under your skin."

And even for the stories I didn't get, I love all the emphasis on female relationships. I can't even single out a particular story for it because there are so much, romantic and sexual and intergenerational. I loved all the mothers or grandmothers or parental figures nurturing young and not-so-young girls, the oral transmission of knowledge, the teaching. There's just so much there, and normally it feels like I'm going through fiction with a fine-toothed comb just to find a fraction of the women there are in this book. I am so glad it won the Tiptree.

And, of course, I love that the entire collection is so grounded in non-Eurofantasy, that space is populated with brown people, that Shawl writes about an America built on slavery and racism and violence instead of simply erasing the past and the people in it (*cough*unlike certain pioneer fantasies*cough*).

Even with my not getting all the stories, I feel like there's so much in here; it is so rich with things I did not even know I was looking for.

Comment | Read Comments | Link

add to memories

This is the first of a series of books set in the twelve kingdoms universe, although from what I've heard, all the books are only loosely connected and don't need to be read in order.

Nakajima Yoko is an average girl, save for her naturally brown-red hair (I see anime and manga influences!). Until one day, a strange man appears, gives her a sword, and transports her to the land of the twelve kingdoms. Yoko doesn't want to be there, but there's not much she can do.

Unlike almost all the other person-from-our-world-transported-to-another books I've read, the introduction of the new world is miserable. Yoko hates it and hates it and hates it, and had I not been warned that it gets better, I might have given up reading. Also, I'd seen the first five episodes of the anime prior to reading the book and really disliked it. I didn't hate Yoko as much as I did in the anime, possibly because I knew more what to expect, possibly because the book gives more of a look at Yoko's thoughts, possibly because Yoko learning to fight in the book only takes a chapter or so instead of several episodes.

The book often feels slow and episodic, which isn't helped by the occasional giant infodump. However, things really start to fall into place in the final quarter, and although the final bit is extremely infodumpy, it is infodumpy in that kind of "Ohhhh, so that's what all that meant!" way, which I kind of miss from all the fantasy series I read as a teen. Plus, the big reveal was surprising and really cool, and I ended up loving Yoko by the end.

The prose frequently felt flat to me. I'm not sure if it's the style of the original or the fault of the translator. That said, I'm really glad the publishers kept the illustrations, which I love, and I am so happy they kept all the Chinese characters in the book! I don't know how confusing they were to other people, but it helped me a lot when it came to keeping track of stuff.

I also loved the worldbuilding, which, as previously mentioned, is explained in infodumpy ways, but is cool enough that I was looking forward to the infodumps. It's extremely Chinese, and I kind of love that a ton of it is about government and ruling correctly. Well, that and people growing from trees!

In conclusion: a little clunky at times and somewhat slow to start, but the ending really made all the build-up worth it.

Also, there is a cute rat!

Question: Is the anime just an adaptation of this book? Or does it include other volumes as well?

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

Comment | Read Comments | Link

add to memories

At Wiscon this year, Victor Raymond passed around copies of a letter the nascent Carl Brandon Society wrote to the Wiscon ConCom... on May 27, 1999.

http://carlbrandon.org/wiki/index.php/Founding_Letter

I meant to type this up for the letter's ten-year anniversary, but haven't until now. I'll also upload a PDF version of the letter sometime during the week.

Ten years, people. TEN YEARS.

And POC are still being ogled at and made to feel unwelcome.

Yes, there's been progress, but there still needs to be much more.

Comment | Read Comments | Link

add to memories

(consists of The Initiation, The Captive, and The Power)

For some reason, I never read these when I was in high school going through my L.J. Smith stage, so you get my first impressions now!

Cassie is a supposedly shy and dreamy California girl who moves to the spooky New England town of New Salem so that her mother can take care of her grandmother. Her high school is run by a mysterious Club, and Cassie soon finds out that it's a coven of witches. However, she's soon entangled in coven politics. She's in love with the coven leader Diana's boyfriend Adam, whom she met previously, but she idolizes Diana and doesn't want to hurt her. Bad witch Faye is also taking advantage of this to blackmail her. And to top everything off, something or someone is killing off people in New Salem, and it might have to do with the crystal skull (!!) the coven has unearthed.

I say "supposedly" about "shy and dreamy" because in actuality, Cassie has zero personality of which to speak. You can tell because L.J. Smith has various other people describing her for us!

Back home, Clover had said once that Cassie was like a unicorn herself: blue eyed, shy, and different from everyone else.

Then we have a fellow coven member telling us how gorgeous Cassie was at the homecoming dance:

Don't be silly. It's you. You're a perfect little—gazelle. No, a little white unicorn, one of a kind. I think even Adam has noticed.

And even her rivals talk about how gorgeous she is! Conveniently, Cassie is positioned to overhear them.

She looks ordinary at first, maybe, but there are all sorts of colors in her hair; it changes depending on the light. [...] And she's got eyes to kill for [...] Not the color, so much—they're sort of grayish blue—but they're so big and sincere it's disgustinig. They always look like they're full of tears just ready to spill. Drives the guys crazy.

A unicorn, people! She is a shy, dreamy, TOTALLY UNIQUE UNICORN!

We get similar unsubtlety when it comes to other people's hair and eye descriptions, from Adam's red hair that's really got shades of every color imaginable to Diana's hair, which is apparently a combination of moonlight and sunlight. I mistakenly read the latter as "night and day" at first and pictured black hair streaked with white, which really would have been way more interesting.

However, what makes these books attractive even now is the focus on female homosocial (and barely subtextually homosexual) relationships. It's not only Cassie's relationship with the two rival head witches, Diana and Faye, but also her growing friendship with the other female witches in the coven and the shifting dynamics among all the female witches. There are five male witches as well, but the only ones who really stand out are chivalrous Adam and mysterious bad boy Nick ("He wasn't an iguana"). Even though most of the women are only briefly sketched out with fairly stereotypical traits—wise Melanie, nature-loving Laurel, sexpot Suzan, motorcycle-riding Deborah—some of them grow into more three-dimensional characters, particularly Deborah and Suzan.

I also enjoyed Faye in the end, although L.J. Smith very unsubtly characterizes her as wild, sexual, and on the dark side because... she has black hair! And wears black and red! You can also tell Diana is the source of all things good because she's blonde (or has hair the color of sunlight and moonlight, which I think maps to blonde) and wears white. Still, Smith tries not to demonize Faye. It doesn't always work, but she goes farther with it than I thought she would, and the resolution with Faye, Diana and Cassie pleasantly surprised me.

The heterosexual romance between Adam and Cassie is so boring. SO BORING. This is what happens when you take two characters who have no personality of which to speak and them put them together!

( Spoilers have undescribable green eyes! )

In conclusion: vampire kittens!

Links:
- rachelmanija's review
- coffeeandink's review

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/851124.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

The city of Merafi has traditionally been impervious to magic, but lately, the ghost of six-years-dead Valdarrien has been haunting his brother-in-law and best friend Thiercelin. Thiercelin seeks out failed priest-assassin-turned-courtesan Gracielis for help, and soon, they're enmeshed in intrigue and a plot to tear down the city.

This is a terrible summary of the book, which is less plot and more atmosphere and tangled character relationships. The city seems perpetually shrouded with fog and ghosts that people cannot see. Character-wise, Thiercelin is married to Yvelliane, workaholic advisor to the dying queen and sister of the dead Valdarrien; Gracielis is the unwilling tool of Tarnaroqi sorceress Quenfrida; dead Valdarrien is still seeking out his lost love, the Lunedithin Iareth Yscoithi who is currently in Merafi serving the Lunedithin prince Kenan; Iareth is protected by Merafien soldier Joyain.

I loved the prose and the characters and the overall atmosphere of the book. I loved the men who are driven by love and the women who are driven by duty; I loved the tangled politics and intrigue; I loved the feeling of the age of Merafi, of cobblestones and mist off the river and flickering lights; I loved Gracielis and his foppish veneer over his vulnerable core; I loved the ghosts and the weight of the dead and the way history, personal and institutional, oppresses and limits and constrains.

I loathed the ending so much that I chucked the book across the room.

( Book-destroying spoilers )

In conclusion: gorgeous prose and atmosphere, characters I adored, and I cannot recommend it because I am still so mad at it.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/848172.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

Lana wants most of all to be a diver, like her mother, but soon, changes in the environment mean the death of the mandagah fish whose jewels they harvest, along with the death of her island's lifestyle. Lana is then apprenticed to the witch Akua, and... stuff ensues. Lots of stuff!

I was extremely confused by the pacing of this book. In the beginning, it was because I had this categorized in my mind as a young adult fantasy, which I am not sure it is.* As in, we begin with Lana hitting puberty and going through a rite of adulthood. I had fully expected the book to go into why the mandagah fish were dying and what it meant for Lana, but then the book very quickly moves on to that to greater problems. The mandagah fish are a symptom, but they are not the whole mystery. The POV also switches a fair amount, which also ran counter to my expectations. Again, when I got more used to the book and started thinking of it more as epic fantasy in my head, everything made a lot more sense. I have no idea if this confusion will strike anyone but me, as it feels fairly idiosyncratic...?

Anyway. There is a lot going on in this book!

First of all, I enjoyed the setting a great deal. It's based on Pacific Island cultures, with a smattering of Asian influence (mochi!), and it doesn't feel much like anything I've read before. I also like the magic system, which is based on sacrifice and is approrpiately dark. There are also bound spirits, linked charms, volcanos, and harbingers of DOOM. Everything feels extremely complex and fleshed-out, and I particularly like seeing the differences among the islands and the cities on the islands. There's a whole lot of world in this book, which was a very pleasant surprise.

However, I also had a lot of problems with the book. After I got over my first issue with the pacing, I continued to have other issues with the pacing. The book feels like it skips from moment to moment, not always tying them together. I give it a fair amount of leeway for this, as it's the first of a trilogy and I'm guessing it's setting up a lot of puzzle pieces that will only come together in the final volume. However, I couldn't always find a thread through even the similar pieces, or the plot elements that starred the same characters (ex. Lana going from a diver to a witch apprentice to... something else). As such, it felt like a very disconnected read. I was constantly trying to figure out how much time had passed, where I was, who I was with in terms of the story, and what each character had to do with each other.

This was more pronounced around the end of the book, where we're introduced to several new characters with very little background as to who they are. This wouldn't be as big of an issue if I didn't get the sense that the new characters are going to be fairly important in the next books, and if they didn't have a very close bond with Lana. I felt there wasn't enough time dedicated to that relationship, particularly given how quickly it deepens and how much weight it's given. And there's a giant plot twist that happens about two thirds of the way in which didn't feel adequately forshadowed at all—I think Johnson tried to in the prologue, but we all know what people say about prologues.

One last complaint is that Lana never quite comes together as a character for me. Much of it is because I felt as though she was reacting to things throughout the entire book, from her rite of passage gone awry to her apprenticeship to Akua to what comes later. I didn't see as much of her making her own choices and carving her own path, more deciding what to do with her life based on the circumstances at the time. As such, it was hard getting a feel for her, since I felt like she changed depending on what circumstances she was in.

In conclusion: very rough in terms of pacing and structure, but with a lot of cool ideas in terms of the magic and the setting. And yay POC characters and world! I think it'll be interesting seeing where the trilogy goes from here, since I currently have no idea, and I suspect many of the structural issues will work themselves out once Johnson has written more novels.


* I realize defining "young adult" is an exercise in futility. My personal definition, which I was completely unaware of until this book did not fit and confused me, is that YA has a certain immediacy to it. This can either be in terms of plot, which can span a long time period but feels scarf-down-able and in the moment, or in terms of cast, which tends to be fairly small. Or, uh. Something like that. *handwaves* And of course the coming of age bit, which I think is a part of this book, but not the driving factor.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/847863.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

Moirin is a daughter of the Maghuin Dhonn (the bear magicians from the Imriel books), literally raised in a cave. But she's not fully Maghuin Dhonn either, for her father was D'Angelline, and a priest of Naamah to boot.

Like Carey's Kushiel books, this is a meaty start to what promises to be a meaty trilogy. I suspect you will already know if you will like this or not, given its similarities to Carey's other books. It begins with Moirin's childhood and gradually moves to her introduction to society in Terre d'Ange and then to "foreign" adventures elsewhere, contains the discovery of her true love, lots of sex, and the invocation of the heroes of the Kushiel books.

The main difference is that this takes place six generations after the Imriel books, which I actually found refreshing. (That, and no S&M, which I am a bit sad about.) There's still a little too much referencing of Imriel and Phedre—I would have liked their stories interspersed with other tales, so as to establish that yes, they are heroes and legends, but that they are only a handful of legends among many. Still, there was actually not as much as I had anticipated, given how much page-time Phedre gets in the Imriel books, and that was a pleasant surprise.

The other odd bit for me was the beginning, which is set in Alba. I kept thinking I was reading Juliet Marillier, given the focus on Moirin's possible witch-hood, the talk of the old ways passing, and the general setting. And then Moirin started to have sex, and I was like, "Oh yes! This is indeed Jacqueline Carey!" The strengths in the book are the same as in the Kushiel series, particularly Carey's attitude toward sex, the magical reproductive freedom granted to women in Terre d'Ange, and the way she treats romantic polygons in a way that miraculously does not make me want to throw things. Unlike the Imriel series, this is much less boring, thanks to Moirin not being overshadowed by former protagonists. Also, having Moirin as a newbie to the Terre d'Ange court scene makes things much, much more interesting.

The weaknesses are also the same as the previous Kushiel books, from the way Carey reimagines France but fails to do so for other countries (couldn't you have made Ch'in/China more female-centric instead of having that be the exception and falling into the whole "Asian cultures, they are misogynistic!" thing?). There is a huge emphasis on looks and gorgeously colored eyes and pale skin. And there's the whole "what these people need is a honkey," although it actually bothered me less than other versions of it in previous books. This was particularly surprising to me, given that the "foreign" country in question is Ch'in/China.

The other strange thing is the treatment of time periods. People have just discovered "Terra Nova" (and I dearly hope the next books are not about rescuing Indians or ignoring Indian genocide plsthxbai), so I assume the Europe-equivalent is around the 1400s. However, Ch'in is clearly modeled on Qing Dynasty China (1644-1911), and Alba seems firmly stuck in the medieval ages, if not earlier. I, however, am more irritated about the Ch'in thing, as every single person in the world seems to think that queues = China and I would like to note it is a VERY SPECIFIC DYNASTY! And that it is a Manchu thing!

But. I keep reading Carey—you can see how devoted I am because I even made it through the trilogy in which Imriel is emo—because she does some things very well.

( Minor spoilers (does not spoil ending) )

In conclusion: fairly standard Carey, I liked it better than the start of the Imriel trilogy, and I am still rather amazed I wasn't massively offended by her version of China.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/847419.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

(I'm sorry for spamming! I have a bazillion book posts to catch up on, and I should probably write up Wiscon some time as well...)

Mirasol has recently been appointed Chalice of the Willowlands after the previous Master and Chalice died unexpectedly. As Chalice, her job to connect the new Master to the land is made more difficult given that the new Master was to be a Priest of Fire, and is now not entirely human. Although it sounds like epic fantasy, McKinley adds her usual every day touches, focusing just as much on Mirasol's bees and honey as well as the "who will rule the land" plot.

I've missed reading Robin McKinley. I didn't read Sunshine or Dragonhaven when they came out, due to poor or conflicting reviews, so it's been almost a decade since I've read new McKinley. I am also desperately compartmentalizing her white guy with a tan comment about Obama because I am so tired of having writers I like flash their ignorance online.

Chalice is very standard McKinley, which is to say it is comforting, homey, and focused on small acts of niceness amidst larger epic going-ons. I have no idea how this would read to people new to McKinley; she's been a favorite author of mine since I was in middle school, so I have absolutely no distance. That said, I find her focus on ordinariness and niceness a little less comforting than I did as a kid; I keep remembering some of deepad's comments at Wiscon about how niceness is small, how it is used to limit people, how you can be nice to people and hope for change, but you cannot use niceness as a way to battle systems of oppression. None of this directly has to do with the book, save that I wonder how much of McKinley's focus on niceness and humility and being ordinary I swallowed unthinkingly as a teen and continue to retain today. It is a narrative I am extremely familiar with and used to, and ... I am not sure how comfortable I am with that anymore.

I also have issues with the notion of citizenship and rulership in the book; the focus on bloodlines and blood relationships to the land works in this fantasy but begins to fall apart when you poke at it. And one element in the ending really didn't work for me.

All this said, I loved the book and the characters, even though sometimes they were too accomodating and polite and humble for me. I love the tentativeness of their interactions, I love the story of someone rediscovering his humanity, I love the plotline of trying to figure out what you're doing while you're doing it. I especially love the bees and the honey. I am very glad I had a bottle of farmers' market honey with me as I was reading, otherwise I would have had horrible cravings.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/846770.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

This is set in the same world as Smith's Tantalize.

Miranda has always been a shy girl, but once she's turned into a vampire (or as she prefers, an eternal), she's suddenly the princess of the eternal world. Zachary's not so happy, given that he was the guardian angel who failed to prevent her transformation and subsequently lost his wings, but soon, he gets a chance to make amends while Miranda tries to hold down fort when her vampire father is away.

This has the same funny-yet-dark tone of Tantalize, albeit without all the food (woe). As with Tantalize, I am left somewhat baffled about how to react. A large part of this is the overall pacing of the book. The beginning felt slow to leap into the plot, although it contains elements that are necessary to the ending; I either wanted more romance or less so that what romance there was didn't feel as unexplained; I wanted more of Miranda's moral dilemmas and the development of them; and I wanted more of the secondary characters' development. Overall, I think the book just felt too short for me. There are a lot of interesting things going on in there, or there could be, if there were more room for Smith to breathe. And the odd thing is, I can't even highlight that many of the interesting things, since many of them are fairly standard to vampire books, from the vampire dilemma of drinking blood to human chattel to secret vampire alliances. But the way Smith writes them makes them feel different, and I especially like Miranda, who wavers between wanting to be the high school girl she used to be and the vampire princess she now is.

The guardian-angel-falls-for-ward is apparently another button of mine, despite my overall not understanding why immortal creatures would fall for high school girls. I think Smith does a fairly good job as to showing Zachary's awareness of the problems inherent in the relationship, although I flinched a few times about the watching her naked thing. For me, Smith manages to get away with not fleshing out the relationship between Zachary and Miranda because Zachary's POV and how he knows her is so strong that I could ignore that for Miranda, she's only known him for a few days.

I also had problems with the angel thing, which is par for the course. Smith takes the route in which angels and therefore Heaven and Hell are for everyone; "we believe in you even if you don't believe in us" (paraphrased). It gets around the issue of Buddhist angels and etc, but I'm not sure it's a solution that sits well with me; it feels too co-opting. Then again, I haven't quite come across a good solution to the angel-demon problem, except the manga version in which you take the names and the mythology and handwave the actual religious elements (or go for broke if you are Yuki Kaori). And that solution has its own set of problems.

All this said, these are really interesting books that make me want to poke at them. I do think Smith is still juggling pacing, tone, and character, but I enjoy how her vampire/shapeshifter/angel world feels different from others, even if I can't quite figure out how.

Plus, I liked the way she ended this. I am not sure most people will, but that is why I liked it so much.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/846257.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

Ai Ling has had a fairly good life: her father and mother love each other and her, her father has taught her to read and write, and it looks as though she will have some say in who she will marry. But then, her father goes to the capital, her mother's mood drops, and a skanky older guy tries to coerce her into marrying him. Ai Ling decides she has to find her father again, but at every turn, she's beset upon by strange creatures, from a three-breasted woman to a soul sucker to assorted other demons.

I am stubbornly annoyed that a publisher had told Cindy Pon that "Asian fantasy doesn't sell," and I sincerely hope the book's sales are phenomenal. Also, I've heard one of the big chains didn't order it... if someone tells me which one, I will go place an order at my local one. I have also gotten one of my public libraries to buy it and am going to suggest it to my other two.

The book itself is extremely fun, although it suffers a little from flat prose. Ai Ling didn't stand out for me as a heroine, but she's your fairly average YA heroine: spunky, can-do, and nursing a secret crush. What made the book for me was the sheer exuberance of it. Not a chapter goes by without another monster or a lovingly described meal, and I love that Ai Ling's appetite is as voracious as mine. Clearly she notices the important things in life! I particularly liked the climax, which has Ai Ling figuring out how to rescue herself.

My favorite parts are probably when Ai Ling and hot guy Chen Yong go beyond the Kingdom of Xia and encounter increasingly odd and interesting beings and lands. Well, that and the food descriptions, of course!

When I began reading this book, I could not get into it. I had thought it was the prose, but halfway through, I came to the horrified realization that I had been steeling myself for exoticism and foreignness, despite the fact that I very much knew that the book was written by a Chinese person who knew something about Chinese culture. There had been no exoticism that I could pick up on in the book, but the mere mention of Chinese names and ideas in English was enough to raise my guard, thanks to years and years of reading books by non-Chinese people that frequently rubbed me the wrong way, if not outright offended me.

It's never fun realizing that despite the massive effort you've spent decolonizing your reading practices, there are still (and may always be) parts of your brain that remain whitewashed.

Anyway. This is fun and frothy, and a welcome addition to the vampire- and faery-saturated landscape of YA fantasy. Also, although this book is standalone, Pon is working on a sequel/prequal. Also also, minor quibble, but every time the book used "Xian" to refer to denizens of the kingdom of Xia, I kept thinking it referred to the city of Xian/Xi'an.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/840663.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

add to memories

(Dragon of the Lost Sea, Dragon Steel, Dragon Cauldron, and Dragon War)

I read the third book a very long time ago as a kid and still remember being affected by its ending. It's nice to finally read the entire thing!

Shimmer is a dragon princess of the Lost Sea, so called because the evil witch Civet boiled it away. She's on a quest to reclaim her home, although she's not particularly in the good graces of her uncle, the king of the dragons. On her way, she meets the poor boy Thorn, and together, they look for the cauldron. But unfortunately for them, they do as much wrong on their quest as they do right.

This reads a little young for me now: it's probably aimed toward 8-12 year old readers, not the high school YA I usually read. Because of that, some of the difficulties are solved faster than I would have liked, and some problems are less in depth than they would be. However, as noted before, I remember reading the third one as a kid and loving it. Part of it was because books 3 and 4 are narrated by the irrepressible Monkey, who is as mischievous as always and having fun while his master the Old Boy (kind of like Xuanzang/Tripitaka but not quite? hard to tell).

Still, I love the relationship between Shimmer and Thorn the most. She's arrogant and prickly and not inclined to accept help, and he's always there for her, but underappreciated. The group dynamic also changes when they add people later, although for me, the Shimmer/Thorn friendship is at the heart of the series.

Yep uses a lot of Chinese mythology in this, from the dragons to Monkey and possible the Snail Woman and the Lord of the Flowers. I don't think the last two are from mythology, though I could be wrong, but I do think the Snail Woman's fan is out of Journey to the West. There's war and betrayal and sacrifice and sibling rivalry and lots of shapeshifting, and I would very much give this to lots of kids, particularly if they're looking for non-Western fantasy.

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/838176.html. Please comment there using OpenID.