Books 2014: brother if you're hungry but not wounded then it's time to stop and check the map

[hawkwing_lb]

I'm not counting the books I read mostly all the way through for research. Writing them up would take more effort than I have left right now.

Books 2014: 53-65


53. Jaime Lee Moyer, A Barricade in Hell. Tor, 2014. ARC courtesy of publisher.

Read for review for Tor.com. An improvement on the previous novel. Interesting-if-flawed ghost story/murder mystery set in San Francisco during WWI.


54. Glenda Larke, The Lascar's Dagger. Orbit, 2014. Copy courtesy of publisher.

Read for inclusion in SWM column. Interesting fantasy clearly influenced by the mercantile 16th and 17th centuries. Pacing sags in the middle, much like Larke's other books. Will discuss elsewhere.


55. P.C. Hodgell, The Sea of Time. Baen, 2014. Ebook. ARC courtesy of publisher.

Read for review. The latest P.C. Hodgell novel, which I've been gasping for. It is, alas, something of a middle book. But still full of Jame apologetically breaking things.


56-59. Joanna Bourne, The Spymaster's Lady, My Lord and Spymaster, The Forbidden Rose and The Black Hawk. Ebooks, 2008-2013.

Romance novels set during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Heard of via Marie Brennan. I have a serious weakness for spies. There is not enough entertainment with spies in.


60-65. Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You, Your Wicked Heart, That Scandalous Summer, Bound By Your Touch, Fool Me Twice, Written On Your Skin. Ebooks, 2009-2014.

Historical romance novels. I probably shouldn't have bought them all, but I was at the point in the scrabbling anxiety cycle where I needed to read something - compulsively - and romance novels were safe. Duran is good at her chosen genre.

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Failed to get very far into: A.M. Dellamonica, Child of a Hidden Sea. Tor, 2014. ARC courtesy of the publisher. There's nothing wrong with this book, but it's a sort of portal fantasy and the tone and approach hasn't grabbed me.

Comments

[anne]

Did you like the Bournes? Please tell me you did. (I suppose since you listed 4 of them, that's a clue...)

[hawkwing_lb]

Yes. I enjoyed them... rather a lot. *g*

The history is a bit sketchy at points and so is the continuity, and the European powers never had a spy service that was quite so professionally organised until at least the late 19th century. But spies! And angst! And women being just as active as the boys!

[anne]

If I have to suspend my disbelief because they're *too* competent...that's OK. And the history...could be vaguely AU, and the continuity can't possibly be worse than some of the TV I've liked. Spies, angst, active women, and your recommendation gets the first one on my library hold list. (As soon as I finish me some Steerswoman. Paper books that I can't read in the dark, how do they work.)

[hawkwing_lb]

Marie Brennan has a somewhat more thorough write-up on each. But I suspect you will enjoy them at least a little. *g*

[anne]

Well, and if she likes them too...

[sovay]

The latest P.C. Hodgell novel, which I've been gasping for. It is, alas, something of a middle book. But still full of Jame apologetically breaking things.

. . . I had no idea that existed yet. Wow.

Everything since Seeker's Mask has felt like a middle book to me. I imprinted very hard on God Stalk somewhere before age thirteen; Dark of the Moon was one of the first sequels I encountered that radically opened out the world, deepening and darkening it, full of things that I still find very beautiful and terrifying (Anarchies, I'm looking at you). I remain pleased with myself for calling Kindrie as the third of the Tyr-ridan as soon as we got his anecdote about accidentally reanimating a sheepskin coat. I ordered the hardcover Hypatia editions of Blood and Ivory and Dark of the Moon off the internet in the far-off days of 1994. And then I have been progressively frustrated with the series, which seem to be taking very short blocks of time for a lot of things to rush around in, unlike the controlled scope of a year in Tai-tastigon, a month in Rathillien, or even the stormy, weird-ass hero's journey week of Seeker's Mask. (I cannot remember where I saw it anymore, but a newsgroup shortly after the release of Seeker's Mask predicted that the as yet unnamed fourth book would have to be the Ulysses of the series, with Jame rising at Tentir at dawn and bringing the entire college accidentally down around her by midnight.) Nothing since those first two has had quite the heft or edge or dark richness, and I don't think it's merely the effect of no longer being adolescent when I read them. I keep hoping, though.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Forthcoming, but forthcoming soon.

The first three books are in a class of their own. And I say this who read them as an adult. There's a structural shift in the three Tentir books: they're very much a trilogy, but almost switching genres to incorporate more of the school story, and as a unity, they feel like the middle movement of a sequence. The Sea of Time feels like a transitional bridge out of that middle movement; a reprise of some elements of God Stalk but differently configured, and it is, I think, structurally the weakest of all the books because it is a bridge, rather than successfully a thing in itself. It does not glory in its strangeness the same way the books have before - and there is an encounter between Gerridon and Jame that seems entirely too easily passed over. (I hope that is not all there is to it.)

And Tori is given far to little to do with his POV sections here.

But I still love Jame, and I'm still fascinated by the world Hodgell draws. So I'm hoping that after this transitional bridge, things will pick up.

[sovay]

There's a structural shift in the three Tentir books: they're very much a trilogy, but almost switching genres to incorporate more of the school story, and as a unity, they feel like the middle movement of a sequence.

I buy that; they are very episodic novels, with somewhat arbitrary starts and stops. I've kind of been thinking of them as one novel in installments, I just haven't liked it as much.

And Tori is given far to little to do with his POV sections here.

Tori needs an entire goddamn book to himself by this point. He's been shortchanged since he spent the entire plot hallucinating in Seeker's Mask.

So I'm hoping that after this transitional bridge, things will pick up.

Fingers crossed. The strangeness of Hodgell's world is one of its great beauties—there is really nothing like Rathillien (or the Chain of Creation) even in later fantasy, and I want to see it done right.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Agreed. On all counts - especially about Tori.

[sovay]

A comment on The Sea of Time from Hodgell herself.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Maybe the next book will be better.

[sovay]

Maybe the next book will be better.

I really hope so! It's interesting to me that she thinks of herself (upthread) as always stuck competing with God Stalk; I've measured all the books since against Dark of the Moon. God Stalk is very much its own species. It's like a Gothic novel with an entire city for a house.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It's like a Gothic novel with an entire city for a house.

That exactly. May I quote you on that?

(Dark of the Moon is such a fantastic novel.)

[sovay]

May I quote you on that?

Absolutely!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Ooh, more Jame apologetically breaking things! Excellent. And I don't mind too much if it doesn't carry the plot forward - it's just nice to spend time in that world...

Could not get on with The Spymaster's Lady at all, despite the million five star reviews... About to try some Courtney Milan - hope I have better luck.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Different tastes for different people! I hope you find the Courtney Milan more palatable - I really liked The Duchess War.