What I read in January 2010
Y HELLO THAR NEW YEAR.
A few months late, but here's what I read in the first month of 2010:
SF/F
Skin Trade by Anita Hamilton. Hamilton burst into my awareness with Guilty Pleasures, a book that introduced us to a world where vampires were legal citizens, raising the dead was a viable career, and small women who collected penguin-themed tchotchkes could nevertheless be respected police consultants. Anita Blake was a young woman who just wanted to do the right thing, and although she could not deny her attraction to the sensuous vampire Jean-Claude (ahahahahahahah), she never let her personal life interfere with her job. The books were a little cheesy, but the plots were good and Anita's inner monologue was entertaining. But every book or so, Hamilton would introduce another magic power and another love interest--and by book 10, Anita had become the most Mary-Sueish Mary-Sue that ever Mary-Sued. Reading about her just wasn't fun anymore, and the plots themselves had turned from gorey police procedurals into excuses for increasingly shameless porn.
But. I just couldn't stay away. Hamilton was the first paranormal romance I ever read, and to my mind, the main progenitor of the genre. I wanted to know if she'd managed to pull herself from the brink of complete un-readability. And you know what? She actually did. Sure, Anita is still insanely overpowered. (She is the strongest necromancer ever, has vampiric strength, is psychic, has the strongest shields anyone has ever seen, can control at least five different breeds of were, has the most vampire kills in the world, plus has some sort of godlike "ardeur" power that makes her feed off of people's anger or arousal. And I'm probably forgetting a power or two.) And yes, Anita has so many beautiful supernatural boyfriends that I'm pretty sure she herself can't tell them apart. And ok, most of this book is just everyone talking to her about how she's so strong and badass and bold and sexy. And, it must be said, Hamilton has gotten increasingly awful with consent--Anita has sex with a mind-controlled sixteen year old, and in the climax of the book is basically blackmailed into sex. It's sketchy at best.
But there's a plot! And Edward's back! None of her boyfriends spend more than a few pages on-screen! Anita spends a lot of time talking about weapons and fictional laws about vampire crimes! The series has not returned to its glory days, but it's definitely gotten better since I last read it. And, though I take issue with Hamilton's views on what counts as sex, plot, and relatable characters, this was an enthralling book. Once I started it, I didn't put it down till I was done.
Daughters of the North by Sarah Hall. I hated the narrator and the book within the first five pages, and I didn't stop hating them until the very last sentence. The final page of the book has enough punch to it that, as expected and manipulative as it was, I couldn't help but feel a tad breathless.
The book follows an unnamed woman as she escapes the town in which she grew up, and finds a home instead at the Carhullan farm. Run by the charismatic ex-soldier Jackie, the farm is a women-only haven for those who want to live a more democratic, hands-on life. But the farm will provide the women with protection for only so long--so Jackie decides to take the fight to the Authority, rather than wait for destruction.
I had a lot of problems with this book. The world building sucked. There was no characterization or personality to anyone. The writing was clearly going for "literary" in a way that drove me batty. The plot has been done before, and better. The whole gender separatist thing felt so dated and unnecessary. There's pretty much no dialog. I have no idea why Hall felt the need to write this book--she didn't say anything about politics, or u/dystopias, or genders, or sexuality, or characters...the whole book feels unnecessary. If you liked this book but want more, read The Handmaid's Tale or (even better!) Joanna Russ.
Inda by Sherwood Smith. With Inda, Smith introduces a complex world peopled with strong, disparate characters. The plot itself is fairly simple: a young noble boy is sent to the martial academy, where he makes friends with the despised younger brother of the King's heir. The world building is surprisingly unique and thorough. Linguistics are important; personalities are important; tactics are important. The first half of the book is a thrilling, engaging story of warrior training and intrigue, sure to be loved by anyone who liked Pierce's stories, or Lackey's of Valdemar.
And then, Smith goes a bit awry. Inda is abruptly shipped off to sea, splitting the narrative one too many times. This is the story's one weakness: Smith tells it from every possible angle. And truthfully, I don't need to know what every single person is doing, or thinking--I just need enough perspective to know what's going on and why it's important. There are far too many characters who get narration, and it gets frustrating. Think the middle section of any of the Redwall series, or The Two Towers, times 10. It's frustrating, and slows the story down a great deal.
Still, this is a great adventure story, with memorable characters and some first-rate world-building.
The Fox by Sherwood Smith. An exile from his beloved homeland, Inda has become a feared pirate captain. He sets his crew to destroying first the bloodthirsty Brotherhood of Blood, then the Venn Empire, which is bent upon conquest. Back home, his bff Evered contends with internal plots and the uneasy responsibilities of a conquerer.
The adventure and plotting parts are thrilling, but once again Smith uses too many narrators, and switches between them too frequently. Plus, I have gotten sick of the various tricks Smith uses to keep Inda in exile.
The King's Shield by Sherwood Smith. After nearly a decade of exile, Inda returns to his homeland to warn them of a Venn invasion fleet. His old friends are thrilled to see him (not least the King, Evred, whose love for him has never died), but chilled by his news. They are all-too aware that the kingdom cannot defend itself against the overwhelming forces of the Venn.
This is another great book in the Inda series. Smith did a lot of the heavy lifting part of world-building in Inda and The Fox, so this book can focus on the characters and their adventures. Inda himself remains the least interesting character (although seeing him through the eyes of his Malrovan childhood friends gives him an extra bit of spice); the background characters are unique and well-developed. And the battles themselves are well-described and bloody. I feared for the life of every character (well, except Evred and Inda), because Smith has shown herself willing to abruptly kill anyone off. She does so here, as well, and it fits. The pseudo-victory Inda manages to pull off comes at a terrible price, and Smith makes sure the reader feels the pain as well as the triumph. But warning--much like the previous books in the series, this book ends leaving the reader wondering and wanting more. You'll want to get your hands on Treason's Shore as quickly as possible!
Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong. Elena is still the only female werewolf, but years have passed and she's become other things too: a wife, a mother, and the next Alpha of the Pack. In this latest book of Armstrong's "Women of the Underworld" series (book 10, I believe), Elena and her husband Clay travel to Anchorage, Alaska, to track down a young new werewolf. But there's far more trouble in Alaska than just Reese: women keep disappearing, and an old werewolf friend of Clay's turns up tortured to death. Elena and Clay investigate, and find a band of rapists, murderers, and criminals--all werewolves, and all panting to destroy the Pack.
The plot is simple and predictable, and the writing itself is easy to follow. There's a huge amount of rape, or attempted rape, in this book--far more time is spent getting Elena into and out of rape attempts than in exploring Alaska, or the new supernatural race discovered there. I'd have appreciated a bit more plot in place of cutesey telephone conversations with Elena's children or never-ending rape attempts.
Fall of Light by Nina Kirki Hoffman. Opal is the oldest sibling in a family filled with Talents. Every one (excepting her father) has a magical gift; Opal's is to do with light and illusion. She broke free of her controlling mother and created a new identity for herself as a movie make-up artist. Unfortunately, years of repressing her true feelings and abilities leave her vulnerable to the powerful forces haunting her latest movie set.
This book should have been fascinating and creepy--instead it was frustrating and boring. Opal notices immediately that the leading man is being possessed and that the set itself has some sort of magic thrumming through it, but does nothing about it for fear of getting a bad reputation in the movie business. One by one, everybody else figures out that something is horribly wrong--the leading man literally stabs someone ON FILM and drinks their blood--and each of them say, "eh, let's just see what happens next." The leading man himself is aware that through the set, he's being possessed by an unknown deity who wants to drink people's life force, but decides to stay because abandoning the project would be bad for his career. Um, wouldn't charges based upon the physical and sexual assault your body commits be worse? The deity eventually makes everyone on set have an orgy, again ON FILM, and everyone wakes up, figures out what happened, and then goes back to work. WHAT? No one freaks about, no one goes to the cops, no one even demands answers. There is no emotional tension at all, even after events that should cause serious consequences--like, say, getting stabbed, or getting possessed, or getting raped.
And then, randomly, the book ends. No resolution at all. Just--no more writing on the pages. Very weird, and very unsatisfying.
Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris. At age 15, Harper Connelly was struck by lightning. She survived, but it left her with a bad leg--and the ability to sense the dead. Since then, she and her step-brother Tolliver have traveled the country, solving murders and finding bodies. The closely observed details of their odd life and relationship are the strongest part of the series. Harper and Tolliver are each other's best friends and (as of the third book in the series) lovers. Harris neither ignores nor glamorizes their codependence. Over the years they've worked out systems to keep them sane and healthy (crates of secondhand books in the trunk, daily runs, which chain restaurants are the cheapest and healthiest), but if separated, each is at a loss. And although they just want to make a living, Harper has a strong sense of morality to go with her supernatural power, and so she keeps getting sucked into solving the murders she discovers. The mysteries themselves are always interesting, but also sordid and grim.
This is the fourth book in the series, and it mostly deals with Harper and Tolliver's twisted family. This book made me realize that Harris is a much more skillful writer than I realized; she'd laid hints throughout the series, and one extra clue is all it takes to make them go off like a chain reaction. Finally, Harper recieves answers--some to questions she didn't even realize she needed to ask.
Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange. This book has the most audacious title I have seen in years. In just two words, it conveys everything a reader may expect within. No mystery here: before even turning a page we know that this will be the most shameless attempt to cash in on the successes of Pride and Prejudice and Twilight yet. Yes! Let us dive into the depths of our id! Let us wallow in our love of costume dramas and supernatural romance! Let us splash around in the shallowest end of the literary pool!
Alas. This book is not so bad that it's good. It's just bad. Elizabeth is transformed into a paper-cut-out: her inner monologue has as much snap as a limp noodle. Mr.Darcy's dialog is limited to periodic pronouncements on Elizabeth's beauty or the doomed quality of their marriage. There is absolutely no irony in this book. (How does someone even ATTEMPT an Austen rip-off without including sarcasm?) The vampires--er, "vampyres", are utterly without menace. There's little dialog, no characters worth remembering, and no plot until nearly 300 pages in. Eventually (SPOILERS), Elizabeth cures Mr.Darcy of his vampyrism through the power of her lurve. And...that's it. That's the entire book.
I will never get that hour of my life back.
Fiction
Requim for a Mezzo by Carola Dunn. The Honorable Daisy Dalrymple writes magazine articles for a living and for fun, pokes her nose into the cases of her friend, Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. In this, the third book of the series, the attraction between Daisy and Alec continues to deepen while they sort out their class differences. This book is ostensibly about the murder investigation of an unpleasant opera singer, but the mystery is so far from thrilling that only my affection for the main characters kept me reading. If you liked the first two books about Daisy, you might as well read this one, but don't expect too much.
I don't mean to damn it with faint praise--I enjoyed reading this, and the writing has a cozy charm all its own. But I realized as I wrote this review that a week after reading it, I couldn't really remember the plot and had, in fact, utterly forgotten who the murderer was.
Miss Melville Regrets by Evelyn Smith. Susan Melville grew up the privileged, wealthy daughter of New York blue-bloods, assured of her comfortable place in Society. But it's the 1980s, and the city has changed since Wharton's era. The Melville money is gone and Susan's rent-controlled apartment is being sold out from under her to form condos. In despair, she sneaks into a party with the object of committing suicide. But as she pulls her father's gun from her purse, she questions why she should die and the unscrupulous businessman who bought her building should live. Filled with righteous indignation, she shoots him.
To her surprise, she is hustled out of the room by a young man before anyone even realizes a murder has occurred. He badgers her to tell him who hired her; she is amazed to discover that he is an assassin, and he assumes she is as well. And thus begins Miss Melville's career as a hired killer. No one notices a middle-aged woman in slightly shabby clothes, and years of recreational shooting have given her fantastic aim. Her self-assurred poise and wealthy connections give her just the edge she needs. And to her pleasure, her experiences as an assassin make the many little indignities and annoyances of her former life laughably managable.
But then she starts to wonder if perhaps, she has gotten just a little trigger happy. And besides, she wants to be an artist, not a killer...
Miss Melville is sensible, pragmatic, and extremely snobby in a ladylike sort of way. Her supporting characters are uniquely dotty (if not particularly believable). And 1908s New York is presented with flair and not a little bit of artistic license. A fast, fun read.
A Cousinly Connexion by Sheila Simonson. Julian Stretton was shipped off to live with his grandparents at a very young age. Years later, while recovering from being badly wounded at Waterloo, he recieves word that his father and older brother have died within weeks of each other. He is now Lord Meriden. He has seven younger siblings to take care of, and a histrionic step-mother to deal with tactfully. Luckily, he also has the assistance of the children's cousin, Jane Ash.
There isn't much of a plot to this story; it is entirely about the characters and their interactions with each other. But we get rather more nuanced moments than in Heyer, for instance. Heyer mastered all the details of the Regency, but somehow her Society always seemed like a role-playing game, with specific slots for each person. The step-mother is classic--always retiring to her rooms and using her tears as weapons. But then, while talking about her manipulative hypochondria, Jane says, "Five stillbirths" and Julian, about to say something cutting, stills. Or Will, who nurses Julian back to health but gets stiff and angry when Julian becoms a lord. Not everything is as cut and dried as in Heyer. Class is not the determiner of character--the lower class doesn't have country wisdom; the upper class isn't naturally prettier and smarter. Simonson is clearly aware of some of the darker aspects of the Regency period--she understands where the money comes from, for instance.
The characters are wonderfully drawn, and their relationships are no less engaging. Julian is kind and empathic with his new-found family, and most of the plot is about his rehabilitation of them. But when thinking about why she fell in love with him, Jane realizes it was not his kind actions or way with children--it was his sharp tongue and sarcastic quotations. What a terrible person I am! she thinks, yet the reader utterly understands. His proposal is one of my favorites--the scene is so perfectly described.
Now that I've read one of her regencys, I absolutely must track down Simonson's others.
Non-Fiction
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. A collection of chapters about what would happen to the life and non-life of planet Earth if we were gone. Fascinating tidbits, but Weisman doesn't sew them together. Definitely worth a read, though.
Doing Daily Battle by Fatima Mernissi. Frustrated by charges that feminism was a Western ideal, and that Moroccan women had nothing to complain about, Mernissi conducted a series of interviews with women from across the country, of different generations and classes, to prove the critics wrong. I'm so glad she compiled the interviews--they are priceless. Some of the women were born ~1900, and yet the interviews of those born 50 years later are startlingly similar. Huge changes occurred, and yet the same experiences kept popping up: not enough money, no control, lots of family interaction. A fascinating book, rife with notations on the details of food preparation, birth control, spiritual beliefs, and social mores that used to be unmentionable in history books.
Living in Elizabethan England by Myra Weatherly. A scattered and ultimately disatisfying collection of writing on life in Elizabethan England. Each section (theatre, food, education...) is comprised of a clipping from some other text from any time between now and the sixteenth century. I am far from an expert on Elizabethan England, but even I was bothered by the generalizations and expansive claims made by the essays. The contemporary documents are more worthwhile but far less readable, as they are mostly reproduced in the original non-standard spelling. There is nothing truly objectionable about this book, but there is no absolutely reason to seek it out.
The Meritocracy Myth by Stephen McNamee and Robert Miller Jr. Straight-forward, detailed, cited. Perfect reminder of the various influences in American society that are so often invisible.