Reviews: fiction

[rivkat]

Lauren Beukes, Slipping: Mostly cyberpunkish stories, with a few nonfiction essays on similar themes (living in a globalizing, multicultural South Africa where poverty and violence can either be around every corner or almost invisible). I enjoyed the stories a lot and they would make a great introduction to Beukes; sometimes the cyberpunkish vibe can get wearing in a longer book.

Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm: Alina and her true love Mal are on the run from the Darkling and his plans to conquer the world using Alina’s power. But the Darkling doesn’t take that kind of thing lying down, and after more machinations, Alina ends up back at the alt-Russia court, participating in palace politics and trying to deal with the way she’s changing as she accepts her power and the necessity of hurting at least some people in order to save the world. Worthy sequel to the first volume.

Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising: Alina and Mal are once again struggling to fight the Darkling, who controls most of alt-Russia. In order to gain ultimate power, Alina has to find and kill the firebird, a mythical creature, but there are many barriers—including the fact that it starts to seem as if this will actually require Mal’s death. It’s nice to see people love their fellow humans enough to sacrifice even romantic adolescent love for them—pretty rare in this genre for heroes, in fact—even though the ending turns rather conventional.

Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky: Patricia is a witch; Laurence is a computer genius. They meet as bullied kids and aren’t able to help each other as much as they’d like. Later, when they reconnect, it may be because one or both of them is going to destroy the world. A lot of absurdist imagery—an absurdist apocalypse, really, since this is set several decades from now when the world is falling even more apart. I wish Laurence had been the witch and Patricia the tech genius. Other than that, every individual element is well-done, but the totality left me cold.

Courtney Milan, The Countess Conspiracy: Violet is a countess and secretly the scientific mind behind the scandalous research of Sebastian Malheur, noted rake, who’s actually been in love with her since they were kids. Violet fears showing any kind of emotion because she had a traumatic upbringing and a more traumatic marriage, while Sebastian can’t seem to get anyone to take him seriously even though he always gives Violet love and support (other than a few well-justified fights). Unlike the others in this series, this book just left me cold and I don’t know why.

Charles Stross, The Nightmare Stacks: Out and about with a young vampire initiate into the Laundry, instead of Bob and Mo. He’s pretty gormless, except for being a math wizard—and that’s literal, with the Laundry. The plot is essentially: superpowered elvish princess comes to prepare the way for her people’s invasion, then falls in love with this minor functionary who is everything she’s ever wanted in a man. Does it help that Stross lampshades this very clearly as Stockholm Syndrome? I can’t decide, but I’m still reading Stross, so I guess that’s a decision in itself.

Max Gladstone, Four Roads Cross: In Gladstone’s world, law is magic is higher math, so magic flows through contracts and their loopholes can be deadly. I no longer read this for the plot—palace politics are less interesting when I don’t connect emotionally with any character—but for the worldbuilding and Gladstone’s awesome turns of phrase that pop up every once in a while, like how insects wear their shells on the outside but humans only reveal their structure under pressure. (The insect comparison is plot-appropriate.) Also I like the description of the harried associate life which turns out to be not very different than it is here, even if the bosses are actual living skeletons.

Comments

[jadelennox]

Aw, I'm sorry the countess conspiracy didn't do it for you. I kind of loved it, just because the whole premise of men taking credit for women's scientific work, which is so on target and painful for me (as for many of us) made so much more bearable and comfortable because of the mutual positive relationship between Violet and Sebastien.

[rivkat]

I don't even have a good explanation, I fear! But I liked the banter of the other books better.

[rheasilvia]

I'm very interested to read about your reaction to Gladstone's novel. I loved the first one of the series because it was so fresh and original in both world-building and characterization; I found the coolness of the narrative and the emotional detachment of the characters worked well for me because it fir the personality of the main character, and I liked her and was interested in her despite this.

The second book lost me partway through, though; I got stuck and have yet to resume reading. I found the world-building extremely interesting here, as well, but the characters felt like mere outlines to me, and I didn't develop an interest in them, their relationships or their struggles at all. Here, the coolness and detachment of the narrative definitely did not work for me. Perhaps it simply didn't mesh as well with these particular characters, for me.

[vass]

I didn't warm to the second book either, but I liked the third one a whole lot better.

[rivkat]

Hmmm... I found Last First Snow the hardest going, because the main protagonist was the kind of half-stoic that I find hard to get along with. But this one returned to a few familiar faces, including the Robocop released from her control by Justice and the Craftswoman now working for a god, which is the equivalent of working as a government lawyer and getting looked down on by your higher-paid classmates who are at private firms.

[rheasilvia]

This is good to know! Maybe I should just skip over the second one entirely, since I really would like to read more in the universe... just not that particular book. ;-)

I sometimes quite like half-stoics, but it depends on how they're handled. Guess I'll check this one out and see.

[vass]

If it helps, they're written out of chronological order. The publication order is Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, Full Fathom Five, Last First Snow, and Four Roads Cross, and Six Feet Over is coming out next year.

But the internal chronology is in the titles -- for instance, Three Parts Dead is third, and Four Roads Cross is fourth. So you'd be reading out of order even if you didn't skip anything.

Full Fathom Five was really good.

I'm reading Last First Snow at the moment, and it has Elayne Kevarian from the first book (yay!) and Caleb and Temoc from the second book (yawn).

[rivkat]

Yes! Temoc's daddy issues could have been catnip for me, but it just didn't click. I'm looking forward to the next, though, because I've gotten into the mythology.

Off-topic, but

[ignaz]

I wonder if you've seen this post going around Tumblr, and if you'd care to share some context for why AO3 has the "no advertising" rule:

http://whalehuntingboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/150945654504/psa-dont-mention-commissionspatreon-on-ao3

OP seems to be 20 and taking the news impressively well; you sort of get used to seeing people throw fits over stuff like this, so it's nice to see someone go "oh, okay, I'll pass that on" without trying to start a revolution over their Patreon links. I was tempted to reply myself, but I'd probably stick my foot in it. :P

Re: Off-topic, but

[rivkat]

Thanks--I'm pretty sure the OTW account will be responding soon, so I'll see if that helps.

[lilysea]

Charles Stross, The Nightmare Stacks

I'll check this out, thank you. ^_^

I've enjoyed Stross's other work.