Fiction Book Reviews

As I may have mentioned, I’m on something of a campaign to find and publicize vampire books that don’t suck (and yes, you can expect to see almost everything on that list coming up for review here–eventually), largely because the Twilight fad is driving me crazy and the few people who actually can write good vampire lit aren’t getting nearly as much attention as they deserve. (And yes, I will have an actual review of Twilight itself up at some point. I did, actually, had something all ready to post, and then it got eaten.) I haven’t actually read all that many yet, as the above-linked list might indicate: most of the books either have vampires as part of the worldbuilding without focusing the story on them, or they’re part of a much longer series, or both…or they don’t get my wholehearted recommendation, for one reason or another. In fact I think there are only four books on that list that I could offer to a Twilight fan and say, without any qualifiers, “You want good vampire lit? Try this.” (Those books, for anyone interested, are Sunshine, Those Who Hunt the Night, Traveling with the Dead, and Backup, and the last one is only partly a standalone.)

That’s just a very long way of saying that I’ve been hunting for more good vampire books, and in fact my list of books to read is considerably longer than that of books I have read; and that in my search, some months ago, I came across Gail Carriger’s yet-to-be-published Soulless. I like steampunk anyway, but the combination of the awesome cover and the plot description made me practically salivate. An alternate-history Victorian-steampunk London where werewolves and vampires are an integrated part of history and society? YES PLEASE. Glancing around Gail Carriger’s website and blog made me even more eager to read her book, just because she seemed like such an awesome person.

Well, Soulless was good and I’m looking forward to Changeless, the next book in the series, in large part because Gail Carriger’s worldbuilding is fantastic, but…well, I’ll just say it didn’t quite live up to my hopes. The worldbuilding definitely goes into the plus column, working supernatural beings into society in a way I’ve never seen an urban fantasy do before, and I’m eager to see a number of the characters again, especially Conall Maccon and Prof. Lyall (both werewolves, incidentally). There’s also a good deal of bickering between Alexia and Maccon that’s fun to read.

I did find the romance-novel content a bit of a surprise–I wouldn’t call it adult content per se, because it never gets quite explicit, but there’s still a lot more of the making out and the removing of clothes and such than I had any indication there would be, to the point that I’d almost be inclined to shelve it under paranormal romance rather than general urban fantasy, so that was a little odd. To a certain extent, the romantic elements almost pushed aside more important things like plot and, you know, imminent peril to life and limb (this actually happened more than once).

Bigger issues, though: Alexia is, I think, a strong enough character to carry this series, but she’s somehow both presented as such and also not allowed to be. We’re told far more than shown what she’s like and how strong-minded, contrary, willful, etc. she is, something that isn’t done anywhere near as much with the other characters–and they manage to stand on their own much better. (It might help, too, if the point-of-view were more consistent and if Alexia were always referred to as such within her own POV; switching between that and “Miss Tarabotti” for no apparent reason was a little weird too.) Much of the dialogue is the same way, in that we’re told that a character was confused or whatever when it’s already obvious from what the character said, or a speech tag is used in something of a self-conscious way that jars you just a bit, reminding you that there’s An Author writing here (”‘Manners!’ Alexia instructed”, said while she’s fending off an attack from a rogue vampire, I might add). Her characterization is a little patchy anyway, given that she’s willing to go against society and its conventions in certain respects (being a spinster, hooking up with another character, going out unchaperoned) but completely tied to said society in others (she’s mortified when her hair or clothes get messed up, despite extenuating circumstances like, I don’t know, fighting for her life, and she doesn’t consider that maybe she’d get on better with less restricting and therefore less fashionable clothes).

Other elements feel a little affected in the same way, trying for biting wit or Victorian sensibilities and not quite getting there (again, is the heroine truly going to be embarrassed by the state of her hair when she’s just narrowly escaped death?), sometimes even interrupted by patches of what really sounds like anachronisms to me. For instance: “Great, Alexia thought, I have gone from soul-sucker to electrical ground. The epithets just get sweeter and sweeter.” She’s been sarcastic before, but not quite like this, and I don’t know that this use of “great” was really in vogue at the time. Sounds a little more like something you’d see in The Dresden Files, actually. Being jerked out of the story by odd things like that was always a disappointment, because I really wanted to like it–I just couldn’t quite get lost in the story, because the writing style wouldn’t let me.

And that’s too bad, because like I said, I love the concept and think Gail Carriger seems like an awesome person. The good thing is, I think these are probably marks of a first novel, because they’re all things that can be improved with a little more security in one’s ability to write well. The characters and story here are quite good, plenty good enough to stand on their own. They just need to be allowed to do so.

(I mean, it’s still better than Twilight, because the female lead isn’t a whiny, self-absorbed brat and the vampires don’t sparkle, but still…)

(Great topic, huh? Especially since the only thing I seem to be keeping up with this this “feature”. I WILL WRITE MORE BOOK REVIEWS SOON. I PROMISE. …Just as soon as I finish my gorram thesis…)

Last November, a number of my friends participated in NaNoWriMo, something I’d sort of been meaning to do for a couple years but never had because I was always just too busy. (Objections about quality aside, NaNo would be a great way for me to focus on content and maybe learn to ignore my inner editor for a while, ’cause…as much as I love writing, my inner editor tends to be a lot louder than my inner writer. Or my muse.) This past year was definitely no different–I was on a semester abroad in England, and even though I had fewer classes than I’m used to and ostensibly less to do, I still had a bunch of major assignments I at least should have been working on, and travel coming up, and…stuff. You know how it goes.

Instead I joined WriSoMiFu , a sort of poor-man’s NaNo in that it only demanded you write something (well, the name means “Write Something, You Miserable F***”, so  yeah), whatever that something might be, for 10 minutes a day. It was a  great community,  actually, and even though I didn’t participate as much as I wanted to, it was at least a good way to track how much writing I was actually doing, since I could count things like blog entries, e-mails, and academic writing, as well as the fiction writing I actually would have done for NaNo. People in the community were awesome, too, really supportive at every check-in to people who were actually making real progress, and to people like me who…weren’t.

The really unfortunate thing was that I didn’t keep going with it at the end of the month. I meant to–I know several others in the community said that they planned to keep up whatever writing commitment they’d made, for 200 words or ten minutes or whatever. I meant to, even if it was just for my today.com blogs, which…well, if you’re following me, you know how that went. >_<

Anyway, I’m not sure how much my writing schedule actually changed when I was doing WriSoMiFu, but it was a terrific way to realize that I was doing more writing than I thought, even if I wasn’t writing as much fiction as would be ideal. Probably it would be smart if I started doing that again, or rewarding myself for every x words, or making myself sit down for a certain amount of time and just write, or…something. But that’s me and my lack of organization, I guess. How about you? Do you have any kind of schedule to keep you on track, something to make sure you get everything done on time–school assignments, fiction, freelance articles? And if you’re one of the hardy few who successfully fought through NaNo at least once, how’d you do it? (I’m guessing “stayed up until ungodly hours of the night frantically trying to hit my word count” will be a popular answer.)

(In an effort to get myself to write in here more regularly even when I don’t have time for a book review, I figured I’d start a weekly feature where I talk about matters of craft and style in writing, mostly because that’s one thing I can almost always ramble about easily.)

I had a professor who liked to talk about economy of language. Whether he was as much a good example of this as one might imagine from how much he emphasized it, I’ll leave to your imaginations, but it’s an important thing to remember for any kind of writing…and it’s not exactly something I’m good at. (You might notice just how long some of these entries are.) I go on and on forever in my blogs or any other casual-writing environment; I often find myself butting up against the maximum word limit in my papers (and then there are the times when I deliberately use more words to say what I need to because I need to hit the minimum word count). (more…)

Barbara Hambly’s Those Who Hunt the Night is an immediate lesson in not judging books by their covers–or flyleaf blurbs, for that matter. The cover is the ultimate in cheesetastic Victorian vampire camp, and the blurb is kind of sensationalistic and stupid–it’s in past tense, first of all, which doesn’t work with blurbs, and it ends with “Whether he succeeded or failed, it seemed that Professor James Asher was doomed!” If not for the fact that I checked it out on a friend’s recommendation, I’d never have picked it up based on the cover and blurb. I mean…really? They had to say it like that? With the exclamation point and everything?

It’s a good thing I ignored those two major points against it, because two pages in and I was thoroughly hooked. I was also afraid it would start slow, but instead it plunges directly into the action at the first point where things start happening: within the first two sentences Asher is aware his house is completely empty, within the first two paragraphs we find out he’s more dangerous and interesting than he might appear, and within one more page we’re getting to know his wife without actually having met her yet (and I mean actually getting to know her, not just finding out that he has a wife and she’s pretty).

That’s good writing. It doesn’t stop there, either; Asher and Lydia are wonderful protagonists, both smart and compelling in their own ways and very good together. Her medical expertise, hard-won in an era where women doctors were a rarity, colors everything she does, while he sees everything through a filter of his studies in language. I mean, would you really expect that an author could ramp up the tension in a scene and yank the character way out of his normal world just through identifying the odd patterns in an accent? Well, she does. Ysidro, the vampire who coerces Asher into helping him discover who is murdering other members of London’s undead population, is thoroughly–and properly–alien and fascinating in his own right, and yet, despite the inescapable fact that he must kill humans to survive, he retains enough humanity of his own to earn the reader’s sympathy.

Hambly’s vampires don’t sparkle. They aren’t necessarily even sexy, although some of them are. These are genuine creatures of the night, and if they’re stalking you, it’s not romantic. This is what vampire lit should be like. And I can’t help finding it terribly sad that this book is 20 years old, out of print (well, Amazon’s not selling it except used, at any rate), and mostly forgotten, while the current vampire fad is filling the shelves with dreck.

I suppose it’s always possible someone will decide to take advantage on the craze and reprint Those Who Hunt the Night. One can always hope. Maybe it would even get a good cover.

Now that I’ve actually read it, I’m doubly pleased that The Graveyard Book won the Newbery, because it’s a wonderful book with an amazingly creative premise—a boy whose family is murdered is taken in and raised by a graveyard full of ghosts, along with a few other guardians who aren’t ghosts but aren’t exactly human either (one is basically a werewolf, and the other is a vampire, which I totally did not figure out until Neil actually said so on the Colbert Report. I r smrt.). I was thoroughly taken in by the first couple pages, with the man Jack’s terrifying, methodical murder, but to be honest, I was a little concerned—that the murder would just sort of happen and we wouldn’t find out why or what would happen to the man Jack, that the book would just be a coming-of-age story for Nobody Owens without much of an overarching plot.

And then I reminded myself, don’t be silly, this is Neil Gaiman and you can trust him. I did, and he didn’t disappoint: it’s a coming-of-age story, certainly, tracing Bod’s life from toddlerhood up to about age 14, but it definitely has a plot, and it’s rich with the kind of worldbuilding and mythological elements you can play with when your character spends his life among the dead. There’s a twist near the end that I did see coming, but that didn’t bother me much; it just put me in an agony of suspense for characters who didn’t know their own danger, so of course I wanted to reach through the pages and yell at them to watch out, which at least shows that they were real enough to make me invested in them.

But I can’t give my full opinion on this without spoiling the ending, so read on at your own risk. (more…)

I’ve mentioned before that I like Neil Gaiman, which is true. I still haven’t really read Sandman, though, the series of graphic novels for which he really first became famous. The biggest problem there is that there are so many volumes collected so many different ways, and my library site…is really messed up and confusing about what’s what. The only volume I’ve read so far turned out to be number 6 of 10 collected volumes, and it’s basically a series of one-shots that insert members of the Endless into real-world history. I’d really thought it was the first volume when I checked it out.

So that’s my disclaimer: these are, essentially, my first impressions on Sandman from having read one volume out of order. Go me.

Anyway, while I did quite like it–I adore Death, Dream is kind of fascinating, and the way it weaves itself into the stories of all these historical figures is really pretty awesome–it’s reconfirming for me the fact that I just don’t like American-style comics, or possibly comics in general, and why. I do seem to remember the Firefly comics (Those Left Behind and Better Days) being drawn in a style I liked and that actually looked like the actors in question, while I don’t particularly care for the style in the Buffy Season 8 comics (I’ve only looked at a couple of each–I don’t want to buy them because they’ll take me about 20 minutes to read, but Barnes & Noble doesn’t have all of them, either), but Sandman’s just reminding me–well, it’s not like I even have that much experience with comics, but something in every style used in Sandman (and there are several different ones, but all at one level or another of photorealism) is very familiar, maybe because of my dad’s old comics (all of which are adaptations of classic novels. What, you thought I was the first geek in my family?), and it’s not a good kind of familiar. Maybe it’s the uncanny valley effect–it’s comic photorealism in the wrong way and that’s why I find most of the characters off-putting (but less so people like Dream, who aren’t entirely realistic to begin with).

And the thing is, I’m not an anti-comics person by any means. (more…)

I don’t use Entrecard quite as much as I should, but it’s a good way to bring in some traffic if you take the time to make a lot of drops. I’ve also found a lot of good blogs that way, which reminds me: I need to update my blogroll.

Whatever the case, Entrecard has started a new thing called Entrecard Market, where you can list things for sale–basically anything, apparently–but get paid in Entrecard credits. That might seem like a raw deal compared to getting cash on eBay, but on the other hand, many of the listings in the market are for the sorts of items you’d never see on eBay, like blog reviews or promotion through Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.

I just made a listing for a mix CD of your choice, in part because I’ve only ever made four fanmixes and could use the motivation to actually finish some more. Listed it as 500 EC because I really didn’t know how much it was worth, heh, although I suspect I’ll lower that before long. In my defense, though, I tend to put quite a bit of work into my mixes, and since mine also tend to go long, anyone who buys it would get 15 or 20 songs (plus cover art).

And lest you think this has absolutely nothing to do with books, well, most of the mixes I’ve ever made have been fanmixes for book fandoms. If you really want a mix for a favorite book or series or pairing of yours, good music to write to, atmospheric music for a setting you’re working with–hey, maybe I can help. For, y’know, a fee.

If you’d like to know more about Entrecard in general, check out this short video. (I didn’t realize until I watched it that I was pronouncing “Entrecard” wrong, hahaha.)

I’ve been told that Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart actually isn’t the best translation from the original German, because the English version doesn’t retain what made the other German, or something like that. When I read Inkheart after having recently read The Thief Lord, I got basically the exact opposite impression: at least compared to The Thief Lord, which had a different translator, Inkheart struck me as not only more accurate but more elegant. The former was awkward in places; I guessed that it was a translation before I knew it was. But Inkheart was wonderful. It took me a while to read because I kept pausing to savor it; the best word I could find to describe it was “delicious.” (It doesn’t help that 1) Dustfinger is awesome and 2) I already have a thing for the “power of words” trope.) It’s definitely on my list of top favorite books (and comfort reads, really); the only major thing wrong with it is that the book description gives away something the book itself doesn’t reveal until at least a third of the way through, which of course is Mo’s ability to read people outof books.

The sequels–Inkspell and Inkdeath–more or less followed the mold of sequels, in that they didn’t quite live up to the first one. I think, in part, it might be a matter of setting–Inkheart involves characters plucked from a fantasy world and transplanted in ours, while the other two spend the bulk of their time in the Inkworld itself; maybe it was the juxtaposition of fantastical and mundane that made the first book work. I’m not sure. Inkspell’s missing something that its predecessor had, anyway, and Inkdeath…

Well, I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s wrong with the final volume of the trilogy. I went looking for reviews before I read it and the general consensus seemed to be that Cornelia Funke had forgotten she was writing for children and young adults. And…that’s it in a nutshell. It wasn’t so much that she upped the adult content, because she didn’t (well, there might have been a bit more in the way of death and violence, but I don’t think it was a major difference). Thing is, these are YA novels, which means they need to focus on a young protagonist (something I discussed earlier). Inkheart did–Meggie was always the main character, even when other important characters came in and even though Mo, at least in the beginning, was the one with the reading gift. It was always Meggie’s story. Inkspell was the same way, as far as I remember; there may have been more chapters from others’ POVs than in Inkheart, but it was still her story, told through her words, seen through her eyes, affected by her actions.

*Spoilers for Inkdeath past this point, although not a lot that you couldn’t guess from reading Inkspell.* (more…)

Still busy with school, natch; not doing quite as much pleasure-reading (for instance, I read the first couple chapters of Catch-22 the other day because I’ll be presenting on it for a class, and so far I haven’t been able to force myself to read more because I hate Yossarian so much). I’m still working on some reviews. I’m also coming across far too many giveaways that I’m sure I won’t win, but you never know so why not, which is why I’m sharing them: because anybody can win and others might be interested, and…okay, it means more entries for me, whatever. (At least I’m honest.)

• Steam Powered Rings - I’m not sure how much I’ve mentioned this here, but I really like steampunk. I think the only book I’ve read that I could definitively say was steampunk would be Perdido Street Station, which is unfortunate because I’d love to hunt down some more (and could do with a bit less of the “punk” elements, more of the steam-driven, Victorian-inspired, clocks-and-gears bits). But steampunk isn’t just a genre; it’s a style, too, which means you can find things like steampunk computers, clothes, and music all over the internet, assuming you can pay for them. You can also find steampunk jewelry, and Steam Powered Rings is full of truly gorgeous pieces like this and this and this, which all adds up to a big WANT for me and then I cry because I don’t have a lot of money. But: if you’re long on EntreCard credits and short on real money, you can get a ring for 6,000 EC in the EC Market (I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of working toward this and adding up how long it would take if I made lots and lots of drops), and there’s also a giveaway during February, March, and April for a ring.
• Lil Wayne John, a web-developer and blogger, is giving away 10,000 EC credits . To enter, you have to submit your blog to the directory Link Listings, which could be useful in pulling a bit of traffic anyway.
• Christian Carders - You might have noticed that a few of the books I’ve reviewed–Soon and Firebird, for instance–are Christian fiction, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that I’m a Christian too. Admittedly, I find a lot of Christian fiction to be poorly written, which is kind of sad, and I don’t read as much of it anymore; but I’m pretty likely to talk about it when I find one, and my worldview will still probably leak in through my reviews a bit. Anyway, there’s a community for Christian bloggers with EntreCard, and if that definition fits you and you’d like to join, visit Christian Carders.
• Bloggers Give - Momstart is hosting an EC credit giveaway to benefit Bloggers Give, a site where bloggers make a difference by giving their time and resources to help those in need.

Right. Now to start that paper that’s due tomorrow. And this was supposed to be quick…

I’ve tried to explain, more than once, why I’m drawn to science fiction and fantasy. It’s a little easier when I’m talking about why I write it–I say things about how it means less research (this is not entirely true. Worldbuilding done well generally requires enormous amounts of research. But it does mean that I don’t have to drive myself completely bats trying to make sure I’m accurate to this historical detail or this aspect of such-and-such a real place–creating histories and settings of my own gives me an awful lot of freedom that way), how it allows me to explore ideas that might be rejected out of hand by readers in familiar, real-world situations but can be slipped in and actually considered if they’re dressed in new guises, and I have a virtually unlimited number of ways to look at those ideas. I love finding the universal and human among the unfamiliar and the alien. Besides, it’s just fun.

It comes down to all the same reasons, I suppose, if I’m asked why I prefer reading fantasy and sci-fi, but somehow that’s always harder to answer; usually I can’t come up with anything better than “…I don’t know, I just like it better, I guess…” It’s especially unfortunate that I often feel the need to defend my favorite genres, but I suppose most kinds of genre fiction will inspire similar reactions among people that aren’t into those genres.

Well. Not terribly long ago, I came across a link in Sherwood Smith’s blog to a review of George Eliot’s Middlemarch–and yeah, Middlemarch has nothing to do with speculative fiction, and yeah, I haven’t read it. But in explaining why Eliot would’ve made a wonderful science fiction writer, Jo Walton also manages to describe perfectly both the special freedoms and special dangers of fantasy and sci-fi:

In science fiction you can have any kind of story—a romance or a mystery or a reflection of human nature, or anything at all. But as well as that, you have infinite possibility. You can tell different stories about human nature when you can compare it to android nature, or alien nature. You can examine it in different ways when you can write about people living for two hundred years, or being relativistically separated, or under a curse. You have more colours for your palette, more lights to illuminate your scene.

Now the problem with genre fiction is often that writers take those extra lights and colours and splash them around as if the fact that the result is shiny is sufficient, which it unfortunately isn’t. So the most common failing of genre fiction is that you get shallow stories with feeble characters redeemed only by the machinations of evil wizards or the fascinating spaceship economy or whatever. What I want is stories as well written and characterised as Middlemarch, but with more options for what can happen. That’s what I always hope for, and that’s what I get from the best of SF.

If Eliot could have taken her SFnal sensibility and used it to write SF, she could have swung the whole course of literature into a different channel. She could have changed the world. All the great writers who followed her would have had all the options of SF, instead of the circumscribed limitations of the mimetic world.

Now go back and read it again, especially the first paragraph and the bolded bits. Because this…this is why I write SF. Because it’s bigger than the everyday world, deeper, wider, more fascinating. Because I dwell in possibility.

Also, I really want to read some good steampunk now, after reading about how much the advent of the railroad shows up in Middlemarch.