Put our backs to the North Wind
Jul. 21st, 2006 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lb673 books catalogued. This is possibly not the milestone I wish it was, because I went and bought six more today. Four of them came from America, and were cheap. One was on sale
I have no willpower, do I?
I am informed by certain of my Polish co-workers that I shouldn’t complain, though. Apparently in Poland books can cost up to the equivalent of forty euro. So take that, whinger, for whining about paying a measly twelve or so for a paperback.
Point of Honour by Madeleine E. Robins is an exceedingly good book. Set in an alternate Regency England, it skilfully evokes the flavour of the times, and one can detect a certain amount of homage to such worthies as Jane Austen and her like.
Sarah Tolerance ran away with her brother’s fencing master when she was sixteen. A dozen years later, she’s returned to England and, refusing the path of prostitution, has set herself up as something of a private investigator. Retained by a nobleman to find a certain Italian fan, she soon finds herself in the midst of ruthlessness and politics, and torn between her heart and her conscience.
Clichéd as such a dilemma might seem, Robins gives it fresh life and fresh blood in Sarah Tolerance, who seems quite the unique Regency protagonist. I intend to have its sequel as soon as possible, and to hope for many, many more.
Contact Imminent is the fourth of Kristine Smith’s Jani Kilian books, and in my opinion the weakest of the four. Smith’s strength is in her compelling protagonist, the half-human half-idomeni hybrid Kilian, caught between two worlds, and Contact Imminent does not play to those strengths. For all that, Smith on a bad day is still better than at least half a dozen authors that I can think of on a good one. Politics, interesting aliens, and occasionally things blowing up. Can’t ask for more.
I like interesting politics in books. Complicated is good. Character is good. Things blowing up in a complicated, plot-full manner? Most excellent.
And now, good night. Tomorrow is an early shift.
I have no willpower, do I?
I am informed by certain of my Polish co-workers that I shouldn’t complain, though. Apparently in Poland books can cost up to the equivalent of forty euro. So take that, whinger, for whining about paying a measly twelve or so for a paperback.
Point of Honour by Madeleine E. Robins is an exceedingly good book. Set in an alternate Regency England, it skilfully evokes the flavour of the times, and one can detect a certain amount of homage to such worthies as Jane Austen and her like.
Sarah Tolerance ran away with her brother’s fencing master when she was sixteen. A dozen years later, she’s returned to England and, refusing the path of prostitution, has set herself up as something of a private investigator. Retained by a nobleman to find a certain Italian fan, she soon finds herself in the midst of ruthlessness and politics, and torn between her heart and her conscience.
Clichéd as such a dilemma might seem, Robins gives it fresh life and fresh blood in Sarah Tolerance, who seems quite the unique Regency protagonist. I intend to have its sequel as soon as possible, and to hope for many, many more.
Contact Imminent is the fourth of Kristine Smith’s Jani Kilian books, and in my opinion the weakest of the four. Smith’s strength is in her compelling protagonist, the half-human half-idomeni hybrid Kilian, caught between two worlds, and Contact Imminent does not play to those strengths. For all that, Smith on a bad day is still better than at least half a dozen authors that I can think of on a good one. Politics, interesting aliens, and occasionally things blowing up. Can’t ask for more.
I like interesting politics in books. Complicated is good. Character is good. Things blowing up in a complicated, plot-full manner? Most excellent.
And now, good night. Tomorrow is an early shift.
