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Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Legacy (vol. 2): Dag and Fawn, the Lakewalker patroller and farmer girl who met and married in the first volume, return to Dag’s home, where they face substantial prejudice against their marriage. Fawn lacks groundsense, the power that makes Lakewalkers special and allows them to fight against the malices/bogles that are the legacy of an ancient catastrophe. Dag’s family seeks to split them apart, but personal troubles are soon interrupted by an enormous and surprising malice outbreak. Pretty standard moves, enriched by Bujold’s ability to flesh out characters and give everyone, even the villains of the piece, understandable motivations. Solid fantasy. Note: Bujold has joined the trend among f/sf writers to include increasingly explicit sex scenes; one of these is of interest from a plot perspective. Compared to what crosses my reading list online every day, Bujold is fairly tame – like many writers experimenting with sex scenes, she does not give names or even nouns to the sex organs -- but there is a clear change in her writing, and she’s not alone (Robert Sawyer jumps immediately to mind, but there are plenty of others). Is this a change in publishing generally? Are f/sf writers now more able to add in sex, or are their editors telling them to do it, or some combination of the two?
Sarah Monette, The Mirador: The adventures of Felix and Mildmay, brothers and soul-bonded master and servant, continue, this time with even more palace intrigue and also a new POV from Mehitabel, whom we met in the previous volume. I like Mehitabel, who starts out in a difficult position – forced back into a life of spying by threats to her true love back in the Bastion – and makes the best of it. Her mercenary attitude towards sex is both refreshing and sad, because she’s not ashamed of who she sleeps with but she doesn’t do much of it for fun. I don’t find Felix particularly hateful here – he’s not especially nasty to Mildmay, which is what most people seem to care most about – but then I never had trouble tolerating him even when he was crazy and seeing animal-headed people all the time. Mildmay makes some steps towards self-understanding, and Felix – whose problem was never self-understanding – does some nice things for people who aren’t of use to him, so I’d say they both grow as people. Also, there are ghosts and ancient plots brought forward to the present day, in the aforementioned palace intrigue, though I’ve got to say that the book felt like somewhat less was at stake until the very climax, which ties up a lot of loose ends in the Mirador. I’ll look forward to the next volume.
Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible: The good buzz on this superhero novel is justified. An escaped genius villain (think JLU Luthor) and a superpowered woman newly recruited into the highest-profile superteam on the side of good (kind of like Jessica Jones, but not nearly as bitter) alternate the story of the superteam’s hunt for the villain in the context of the disappearance, and apparent death, of the most powerful superhero of all (think Superman). Grossman doesn’t reinvent the form, but it’s well-written and respectful of the conventions while still remaining a bit detached and funny about them. Smarter review than I could come up with at Girl-Wonder; interview with the author in which he is impressive also there. What Grossman said about the role of the body in the superhero narrative reminded me of Jacob’s Farscape reviews – no, don’t run away, the book isn’t like that, but Jacob is always coming back to the idea that the thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck, and Grossman makes the point that superhero narratives literalize that through the body, though the powers are often related to, or standing in for, personality.
Sarah Monette, The Mirador: The adventures of Felix and Mildmay, brothers and soul-bonded master and servant, continue, this time with even more palace intrigue and also a new POV from Mehitabel, whom we met in the previous volume. I like Mehitabel, who starts out in a difficult position – forced back into a life of spying by threats to her true love back in the Bastion – and makes the best of it. Her mercenary attitude towards sex is both refreshing and sad, because she’s not ashamed of who she sleeps with but she doesn’t do much of it for fun. I don’t find Felix particularly hateful here – he’s not especially nasty to Mildmay, which is what most people seem to care most about – but then I never had trouble tolerating him even when he was crazy and seeing animal-headed people all the time. Mildmay makes some steps towards self-understanding, and Felix – whose problem was never self-understanding – does some nice things for people who aren’t of use to him, so I’d say they both grow as people. Also, there are ghosts and ancient plots brought forward to the present day, in the aforementioned palace intrigue, though I’ve got to say that the book felt like somewhat less was at stake until the very climax, which ties up a lot of loose ends in the Mirador. I’ll look forward to the next volume.
Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible: The good buzz on this superhero novel is justified. An escaped genius villain (think JLU Luthor) and a superpowered woman newly recruited into the highest-profile superteam on the side of good (kind of like Jessica Jones, but not nearly as bitter) alternate the story of the superteam’s hunt for the villain in the context of the disappearance, and apparent death, of the most powerful superhero of all (think Superman). Grossman doesn’t reinvent the form, but it’s well-written and respectful of the conventions while still remaining a bit detached and funny about them. Smarter review than I could come up with at Girl-Wonder; interview with the author in which he is impressive also there. What Grossman said about the role of the body in the superhero narrative reminded me of Jacob’s Farscape reviews – no, don’t run away, the book isn’t like that, but Jacob is always coming back to the idea that the thing that makes you awesome is the thing that makes you suck, and Grossman makes the point that superhero narratives literalize that through the body, though the powers are often related to, or standing in for, personality.
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