Book-reading 2006 #4
Jan. 24th, 2006 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbStill nothing else to talk about. Except moaning, of course, which I've promised myself I shan't do.
Thus, on to the books.
Tamora Pierce, First Test, Page, Squire and Lady Knight.
A young adult quartet centred around a girl who is in training to be a knight, struggling to overcome the prejudice of the people who would prefer her to fail. Well done, but a bit too YA for my taste.
Patricia Briggs, Raven's Shadow, Raven's Strike, Dragon Bones, Dragon Blood, and Steal the Dragon.
I will say this: Briggs can write. Really. These are intelligent sword-and-sorcery-esque fantasies with real character development, solid plotting, and workable prose. I'd pick out Raven's Shadow and Dragon Blood out as the best of them, but they were all really good.
Karin Lowachee, Warchild and Burndive.
Thought-provoking SF, though at times the style set my teeth on edge. For example, the first section of Warchild is written in the second person while the rest of it (same character) is written in first, and while Burndive is written in third, it finishes in first. Also, the world is almost unremittingly brutal, and the characters are as far from nice people as you're likely to get. Good books, but not comfortable.
Patricia A. McKillip, Winter Rose.
I liked McKillip's The Changeling Sea, but though Winter Rose shares the same beautiful, lucid prose, I found myself unable to connect. This is probably because I read it between 0200 and 0430 one long, insomniac night, but still. It's fairy-tale-esque, very skillfully handled, beautiful, and completely not for me.
Tess Gerritsen, The Sinner.
I don't usually read crime, but despite that handicap, I found myself enjoying The Sinner. Though the plot and resolution have a few holes, medical examiner Dr Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli are sympathetic enough as characters that I read through to the end, which felt somewhat rushed. More of a character study than a crime novel, I felt, but that could be my unfamiliarity with the genre.
Walter Jon Williams, Dread Empire's Fall: Conventions of War.
The final book in the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Williams is good. This is space opera without much shiny tech, but the characters and the plot more than make up for the lack of any glitter. In space, Captain Lord Gareth Martinez takes part in the final battles against the Naxids, while on the captured capital planet Caroline Sula must recruit and train a guerrilla army to help take it back. Really, really good stuff. Has David Weber beaten hands-down, not only because we actually get a conclusion, but because Williams doesn't explain the tech-stuff at the expense of plot, character and tension. (Yes, I do prefer character development to tech-descriptions, however shiny. I'm weird like that.)
Cate Dermody, The Cardinal Rule.
Dermody is another name used by writer C.E. Murphy, author of Urban Shaman. I'm still waiting on Urban Shaman, but judging by The Cardinal Rule, when I get it I will really enjoy it. Cardinal is a spy thriller - sort of. Those looking for espionage a la Robert Ludlum are doomed to be disappointed, but I wasn't. It's the most fun I've had reading a non-SFF novel in I don't-know-how-long, a blend of Bond-style hecticness with something of the sensibility of TV's Alias (a program I'd like if they cut out the mystical-Renaissance shit) and a plot that crosses over into what looks like SF territory at times. It's helped by the fact that it takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, and the heroine, Alisha MacAleer, is just pure fun to read. Pure fun.
Fifteen books. Yikes. That's forty books already this year, thirty-nine of them fiction, plus the non-fic book-in-progress Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy being slowly read. Also whatever I've read for college so far.
I should go to the gym tonight, but I'm not sure if I'll make it. It's 2010 here and I've been awake since 0500.
Thus, on to the books.
Tamora Pierce, First Test, Page, Squire and Lady Knight.
A young adult quartet centred around a girl who is in training to be a knight, struggling to overcome the prejudice of the people who would prefer her to fail. Well done, but a bit too YA for my taste.
Patricia Briggs, Raven's Shadow, Raven's Strike, Dragon Bones, Dragon Blood, and Steal the Dragon.
I will say this: Briggs can write. Really. These are intelligent sword-and-sorcery-esque fantasies with real character development, solid plotting, and workable prose. I'd pick out Raven's Shadow and Dragon Blood out as the best of them, but they were all really good.
Karin Lowachee, Warchild and Burndive.
Thought-provoking SF, though at times the style set my teeth on edge. For example, the first section of Warchild is written in the second person while the rest of it (same character) is written in first, and while Burndive is written in third, it finishes in first. Also, the world is almost unremittingly brutal, and the characters are as far from nice people as you're likely to get. Good books, but not comfortable.
Patricia A. McKillip, Winter Rose.
I liked McKillip's The Changeling Sea, but though Winter Rose shares the same beautiful, lucid prose, I found myself unable to connect. This is probably because I read it between 0200 and 0430 one long, insomniac night, but still. It's fairy-tale-esque, very skillfully handled, beautiful, and completely not for me.
Tess Gerritsen, The Sinner.
I don't usually read crime, but despite that handicap, I found myself enjoying The Sinner. Though the plot and resolution have a few holes, medical examiner Dr Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli are sympathetic enough as characters that I read through to the end, which felt somewhat rushed. More of a character study than a crime novel, I felt, but that could be my unfamiliarity with the genre.
Walter Jon Williams, Dread Empire's Fall: Conventions of War.
The final book in the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy. Williams is good. This is space opera without much shiny tech, but the characters and the plot more than make up for the lack of any glitter. In space, Captain Lord Gareth Martinez takes part in the final battles against the Naxids, while on the captured capital planet Caroline Sula must recruit and train a guerrilla army to help take it back. Really, really good stuff. Has David Weber beaten hands-down, not only because we actually get a conclusion, but because Williams doesn't explain the tech-stuff at the expense of plot, character and tension. (Yes, I do prefer character development to tech-descriptions, however shiny. I'm weird like that.)
Cate Dermody, The Cardinal Rule.
Dermody is another name used by writer C.E. Murphy, author of Urban Shaman. I'm still waiting on Urban Shaman, but judging by The Cardinal Rule, when I get it I will really enjoy it. Cardinal is a spy thriller - sort of. Those looking for espionage a la Robert Ludlum are doomed to be disappointed, but I wasn't. It's the most fun I've had reading a non-SFF novel in I don't-know-how-long, a blend of Bond-style hecticness with something of the sensibility of TV's Alias (a program I'd like if they cut out the mystical-Renaissance shit) and a plot that crosses over into what looks like SF territory at times. It's helped by the fact that it takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, and the heroine, Alisha MacAleer, is just pure fun to read. Pure fun.
Fifteen books. Yikes. That's forty books already this year, thirty-nine of them fiction, plus the non-fic book-in-progress Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy being slowly read. Also whatever I've read for college so far.
I should go to the gym tonight, but I'm not sure if I'll make it. It's 2010 here and I've been awake since 0500.
