Neverwhere

By Neil Gaiman.

A young man working in the securities industry in London trips over a bleeding woman while on his way to a restaurant with his fiancée and stops to help her, just like anyone would do. Right? Actually, his girlfriend Jessica stepped right over here and ended up dumping him over the incident, although that quickly became the least of his worries. (The young man actually does have a name, but it doesn't seem to be very memorable.) The next morning, the girl, named Door, sends him out to find someone she knows and soon afterward vanishes out of his life. A few hours later he vanishes, too: he finds his desk being taken away at work, no one seems to know him and most don't even see him, his ATM card stops working, and so on...

The above paragraph is pretty close to the teaser on the book jacket. Why? Because it's what hooked me on the book. Such an interesting beginning couldn't possibly end up all bad, right?

This book is pretty good. There is some kind of first-novel quality about it that reminds me, maybe, of War for the Oaks and other similar books (not to mention the actual subject matter of the book), but I enjoyed it for the most part. Objections? Well, I didn't really like how one issue was left somewhat unresolved: someone vanishes early on, but it isn't ever made clear whether she's actually dead or what happened to her. It seemed, possibly, like a cheap plot device to ditch the character like Mercutio before she ended up taking over the story. Also, the young man mentioned above must be uneducated, to say the least, to hire a tour guide named Lamia and not have the least idea what she might expect in payment.

Pretty good, although, since I've already brought it up, maybe not as polished as War for the Oaks. Maybe, though, I've just gotten more critical.

Starlight

An anthology edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

The stories in this don't really fit into any category more narrow than speculative fiction—they're all over the place. Some I thought were good, others I didn't, two I skipped. ("GI Jesus" and Michael Swanwick's story) The ones I think worth mentioning are:

Liza and the Crazy Water Man. Maybe I'm only mentioning this because it was the first one I read in the book, because I'm not sure what I liked about it. I think it was well written, though.

Sister Emily's Lightship. You're obviously supposed to assume (well, I did) that Emily is Emily Dickinson. Kind of a weird story, though.

Killing the Morrow. This could definitely be classified as horror. And adult. A homeless man hears a "Voice" one day and is told exactly where to go live. Apparently, so is everyone else in the world. Axe murder follows the completion of the Voice's project, hence the horror classification.

Erase/Record/Play: A Drama for Print. John M. Ford's story reminded me of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; funny, clever, and beyond my understanding. Also alludes heavily to Shakespeare with a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream (I think). Since I've never read the original play, I don't know how much he changed (the hypodermics, for example, are obviously modern). This one might even be worth rereading to try and figure out, but I wasn't motivated enough.

The Cost to Be Wise. By Maureen F. McHugh, this is one of the more sci-fi slanted stories in the collection. Unfortunately, it isn't really clear what to make from the story itself, while the author's bio (collected with the others at the very end of the book) indicates a book set in this world was forthcoming at the time. As it has since forthcome, I may check it out.

In summary: One or two really good stories (Erase/Record/Play definitely tops my list), but the rest were either mediocre or I chose not to read them for other reasons.

2006 in review

I want to mention some of the books that I especially enjoyed or found memorable this year. I intended to do something like this, but Elliot's similar post really spurred me along. (The only reason we're on a first-name basis is because he provides no last name on his site.)

Mine, I'm afraid, will not be so well organized.

This was the year I started this blog, a place to post only about books (I have another blog where I barely post at all). I meant to post about all the books I read so that I'd be able to look back and say "What a waste!" and cut down a bit, but that didn't really happen. A couple comments made me consider making it more useful by only posting books I recommended instead, and someone said my concise (ha) reviews were just what he was looking for.

Personally speaking, I don't think my reviews are very good. I'm not disciplined enough to write all of them ahead of time and then think about them, and I usually think of many more things I'd like to say after writing posts. A weakness in my writing is that I can hardly bear to read it later. Comments asking for clarification, or comments in general, will probably be appreciated.

So... the books.

Note: The linked book titles probably go to my original posts about those books.

Non-fiction

I started trying to read some non-fiction due to a comment by ladybug. Most of it was memorable, if not necessarily recommended, maybe because I was so intentional in reading it.

• Hunger: An Unnatural History. Exceptionally interesting book about the biology and culture of hunger. I found it from the Fanatic Cook.


• American Caesar. Biography of Douglas MacArthur. Interesting at parts, but too verbose and has dubious accuracy.


• Hiroshima. Really a long essay or newspaper article about the experiences of several survivors in Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped. Should be required reading for American history classes.


• The Heavenly Man. Remarkable story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun. It affected me emotionally when I read it but hasn't inspired quite so drastic a change in my life, if any at all. Still, well worth reading.

Fiction

I started browsing the young adult shelves again this year. (For a while I had the attitude that "Young adult is for teens", but somehow I got cured of that. Young adult is a dubious label anyway.) I also discovered author blogs after reading John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos, and found many more books by following links from there.

Most consistently interesting blog: The Superversive. This guy writes essay after essay lucidly and his unpublished magnum opus (tentatively titled "The Magnificent Octopus") also sounds quite interesting.

Note: Some of these I might have read late 2005 instead of 2006, since I don't have posts that far back to refer to. These are in no particular order.

• The Goose Girl. Great fairy tale spin-off; also check out the "companion novels" (sequels about the non-POV characters) Enna Burning and River Secrets if you like the first one.


• The Orphans of Chaos, and sequel Fugitives of Chaos. This was the book this blog started on. Fun story about 5 children held in a boarding school run by Greek myths. (How d'ya like that euphemism?)


• The Golden Age trilogy, also by Wright. Fun, clever far future sci-fi with lots of references to mythology. (Seeing a pattern?) Having read Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars in the last few days, I can see where a lot of Wright's inspiration came from, but I think Wright's execution in handling the characters and story was a bit better than Anderson. However, it was nice that Anderson's book was only one volume, instead of three.


• Spindle's End, Beauty, and Rose Daughter. Not connected narratives in the usual sense of "series", they are a set of good fairy tale retellings by Robin McKinley.


• Sunshine. Some very "adult" scenes could be excised from this without making it any less good.


• Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls. I discovered Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper series some time ago (see Wolf Hunting), and really enjoyed it. This book was her first published (not about Firekeeper) and for some reason has stuck in my memory.


• Cobwebs. Girl growing up in New York City explores her heritage... which seems to include climbing walls and spinning silk.


• The Dubious Hills. Great fantasy set in the same world as the Secret Country trilogy.


• The Prize in the Game. Reading this made me want to Jo Walton's The King's Peace and The King's Name. All three do a remarkable job of making a fantasy world that feels incredibly solid.


• Joan Slonczewski's A Door Into Ocean, The Children Star, and Brain Plague. Kind of hard sci-fi oriented around a single planet with a focus on biology in the science aspect. I especially liked 'jum (in The Children Star).


• War for the Oaks. I wasn't sure whether to mention this or not. It is worth reading at least once if you like fantasy.


• The Blue Girl. I had avoided this book because it was in the YA section, but it's quite good if you like Charles de Lint. Fantasy. Also, href="http://bookroll.blogspot.com/2006/06/widdershins.html">Widdershins is the sequel to The Onion Girl.


• Inkheart and Inkspell (two separate books). Somehow I had never heard of
  these before this year.


• The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Wolfskin, and Foxmask. Fantasies based on Celtic(?) and Norse mythology. Martin LaBar has done a series of posts on them over on his blog.


• The Swans' War. A different take on epic fantasy, by Sean Russell. The statement on his website that he was trying to avoid Tolkenian clichés adds some insight to these. They may start a bit slow but they're quite good.


• The Secrets of Jin Shei. A less overt fantasy set in a country similar to historical China. The story is much more about relationships than about the fantasy elements.


• A Fire Upon the Deep. Classic sci-fi must-read. This was a reread and I was reluctant to pick it up because of that, but pretty much as soon as I started it I could hardly stop. Vernor Vinge wrote another book about Phon's previous life, and rumor says there is a sequel to this one coming soon.


• Many of Patricia McKillip's books (some were rereads): Alphabet of Thorn, Od Magic, Ombria in Shadow, The Riddle-Master of Hed (note: part of a trilogy), The Book of Atrix Wolfe. Most are relatively short (300 pages) self-contained fantasies. Her imagery is dream-like.


• Bear Daughter. Based on Indian (sorry for the generality) folklore, this book is very readable. Some details seemed a bit simplistic to me; it might be on a level similar to Cobwebs.


• The Book of the New Sun. For people with access to Google only. I found it quite readable (especially remarkable considering how long it is) but would have missed a lot if I hadn't read what other people said about it.

Wow, long post, huh?

River Secrets

By Shannon Hale.

This book continues the story of the world of Bayern (introduced in The Goose Girl and Enna Burning) from Razo's point of view. I liked this at least as much as The Goose Girl, although you almost certainly need to read the first two in order to get the most out of the story. Razo, unlike Isi and Enna, is apparently just an ordinary guy, certain he has no talents besides stuffing "two cherries into one nostril." Obviously any story that starts off like that isn't going to end there (well, except for The Witch Queen... let's say, any good story.) Entertaining hijinks ensue. I think this book made me laugh more than either of the previous two.

My favorite thing about this book (at the moment) is the way it deals with love and courtship. Not everything is "love at first sight", and even when two characters are undeniably in love with each other their future together is uncertain, not because of outside influences ("I'm the prince and I've been promised to someone else in marriage") but just because of the way they interact with each other. This is definitely not all the book is about, but it is a significant subplot.

Definitely recommended as quite a sweet story, but you will probably need to read The Goose Girl and Enna Burning first in order to get the most out of it. I also agree with some other reviewers who said that there are a lot of names to keep up with. While the review I read blamed it on the fact that the reviewer had not read the previous books, I can say that most of the characters in this book are new and I also had a little trouble keeping up with some of the characters, although it may be my fault for reading it so fast. (I just got my hands on it last night.)

Switching to Blogger in beta

I've just switched this blog over to the Blogger beta. Let me know if anything has gone horribly wrong as a result.

The Goose Girl

By Shannon Hale.

A great fairy tale somewhat in the lines of Robin McKinley's retellings. This one is based on the Brothers Grimm tale "The Goose Girl", and was quite enjoyable to read, although there were parts where Ani/Isi's naivety was painful enough to make me put the book down before continuing onward. Definitely recommended if you like any sort of fantasy or fairy tales or stories that end well. There is one somewhat mature reference, but I find that in this case "mature" isn't necessarily a synonym for "dirty."

I didn't like it's successor (or "companion novel") Enna Burning quite as much, but it was also a decent read. I'm still waiting on River Secrets, the third volume in the series.

If you like fairy tales (and don't take yourself too seriously) you might also enjoy No Rest for the Wicked, a clever webcomic that starts with the Buried Moon and makes good its escape.

Glory Season

By David Brin.

This sci-fi book is based on a cute premise, but I found the ending extremely unsatisfying due to its weak resolution. The premise is this: humans have colonised other planets. One such isolated colony chose, close to ten thousand years ago (if I'm interpreting the years given correctly), to modify humanity so that women reproduced clonally during the winter. However, men were still required to spark the process.

Problems with this book? Maia gets knocked on the head and kidnapped a lot of times. You get tired of it after a while. Also, she finds out partway through that she and her twin sister (genetic "vars" or variants, conceived during the summer) were named after characters in an old book who... let me guess... had the same idea to pass themselves off as clones that Maia and Leie had. Why? Respect for someone who managed to establish a clan of clones is automatically higher than for genetic vars, who are cast away by most clans when they reach their fifteenth year.

Some of the plot twists (Renna's identity) are a little too obvious, while too many other questions go unanswered. And the ending is quite weak, while not appearing to have a sequel. Not a great book, but not unreadable. However: other opinions may differ. Apparently it was nominated for a Hugo award in 1994.
 

American Caesar

By William Manchester.

A biography of Douglas MacArthur.

This was a fairly interesting read, but at times it got bogged down in excessive detail, quoting various opposing letters and interviews from actors in the MacArthur saga. The author makes a big production of excusing MacArthur for many of his mistakes by saying that other parties were equally responsible. His prose descriptions of maps leave something to be desired; it would be nice if the maps were featured more prominently for easier reference.

I also have doubts about the veracity of his account. There are numerous references to other sources, but various people on the Internet seem to think Manchester is not an accurate biographer, tending to glorify his subjects, and some of the things attributed to MacArthur (constantly on the front lines risking snipers, for example, and never getting hit) seem after a while to be somewhat excessive and perhaps unlikely.

It's also not always clear what is happening at a given point. The author makes frequent forward references to events in the future and it's somewhat hard to keep track of them, especially when he refers to things an educated reader may have been assumed to know (this book is dated 1978), but I didn't. It may be helpful to have some familiarity with MacArthur's life and the twentieth century in the United States beforehand.

I only found it to be a compelling read at a few spots, so it was pretty hard to get through. That and my doubts about the book's accuracy make me uncertain about how useful it was to read. It did suggest interesting questions, making me wonder, for example, what the Chinese and Soviets thought about the U.S. during the latter time period covered. However, in itself, I suspect another book (not yet found, at least by me) could have presented the desired information in a more palatable manner.

Sailing to Sarantium

By Guy Gavriel Kay.

This book seems to lack focus a bit. Allegedly, it concerns a mosaicist named Crispin traveling to Byzantium, err, Sarantium to create a mosaic for the emperor. Unfortunately, the author seems to starting off each chapter with a new character and taking the book in all different directions, with the result that it falls apart in the end. (I know there is a sequel, but I haven't read it.)

The style reminds me most strongly of Bujold; the world Kay has created (or borrowed) is rather easy to immerse oneself in. However, I don't think his work is quite as good. The ending, to say the least, is disappointing. (Once again, this may be rectified by the second installment.) The author also uses an annoying narrative trick where, just about every time Crispin starts to get distracted by another project, someone knocks him out and carries him further towards Sarantium. It might have worked once, but more than that is too much.

The alchemy, or rather magic, reminds me of The Secrets of Jin-Shei; it is somewhat different, but expresses similar limitations. It also has an inevitably sad outcome.

An OK book, but it probably won't keep you awake at night.

The Shape-Changer's Wife

By Sharon Shinn.

I thought this was much better than The Safe-Keeper's Secret*, which I read before this one arrived.

I want to say this story is like a vignette but I'm not sure I know what that means. It has very few (about three) important characters in it and pretty much concerns itself with the interactions between them over maybe half a year. The fantasy concepts may have been trite, nothing out of the usual, but this short book (novella?) is really more about the characters. I found the ending (and the epilogue) quite touching.

Recommended. It's a fairly short story that shouldn't take long to finish, and I think the relationships and characters make it worth reading.

* I have not posted about The Safe-Keeper's Secret and probably won't; I found it pretty boring, having correctly guessed the secret maybe 30 pages into the book, and not worth recommending.

The Cracked Throne

By Joshua Palmatier.

I'm no longer sure why I liked the first book in this series. I think part of the appeal was that Varis was relatively innocent, but figuring that out from reading my old post is next to impossible.

The first three quarters of this book turned me off it, making the above question occur to me. Watch as Varis metamorphoses from an angry, paranoid, starving street rat (to use Aladdin's term; hers is "gutterscum") to an angry, paranoid, starving tyrant.

In other words, the characters (especially Varis) seem a little flat. It doesn't help that the bad guys are apparently attacking and destroying ships and who knows what else for no apparent reason (the reason is revealed in the last 20 pages of the book.)

Varis is constantly going through the crucible in this book; she apparently never has time to relax, and when she does she doesn't bother narrating. ("One month later...") It seems like all anyone wants to do in Amenkor is practice fighting her. She makes bad decisions and caters to the mob. (Can you say "fall of Rome"?) The major plot point halfway through is practically transparent to the reader but apparently not to Varis and the hundreds of personalities stored in the throne... unless they were manipulating her. The conversation is a bit slow at times.

This book was saved by its ending; if it wasn't for the last 80 or so pages I would have left thinking it was completely irredeemable. As it is, it kind of ends on a cliff-hanger and Varis as a character doesn't seem to have changed very much from the beginning of the book. Sure, she's gotten more practice fighting and using her magical powers, but it's pretty obvious that there will always be someone better than she is who is interested in taking her down.

I will have to reserve judgment until the third book comes out. Right now, I have to say I definitely wouldn't recommend this book by itself, but the trilogy may be redeemed by the third book.

Snow Crash

By Neal Stephenson.

I can't really recommend this book. Before I read it (the first of his books that I've read, by the way), I was under the impression that he was a superb writer. Maybe he is now, but this book doesn't show it so much. The amount of profanity, sex, and what seems to me to be a dated view of the future (this book first came out in 1992) are fairly disenchanting. (Sometimes a dated view is charming, but ones that involve computers very much resembling our own tend to grate on me...)

Good things about this book: The characters, even the bad ones, are pretty likeable. Stephenson has a fair sense of humour or at least of the ludicrous and made me laugh quite a bit (for example, near the beginning the Mafia sends out a black helicopter to record a pizza delivery within the 30 minute time limit so they won't have to give away a free pizza). People carry around portable nuclear reactors.

Bad things: There is a large amount of profanity. This book reinterprets the Bible in a way I assume is similar to the DaVinci Code in its irreverence (though I haven't read the latter). Reading about a 15-year-old girl having sex is sad and appalling. The timeline is extremely unclear: when things happen seems to jump all over the place, especially near the beginning, and it's really weird that Y.T. and Hiro seem to be the best of buddies a day after meeting each other. In fact, the way it's written, it seems like this whole book only takes place over a week or two, but there must be a discontinuity somewhere because near the end it's mentioned that Y.T. and Hiro have gone out for fast food together many times and gotten to know each other, which is either not described earlier in the book, or I missed it.

I probably shouldn't have finished this book; I felt near the beginning that it probably wasn't worth reading. I certainly can't recommend it; perhaps Cryptonomicon will be better. (It's sitting on my shelf waiting...)

Spindle's End

By Robin McKinley.

The McKinley version of Sleeping Beauty, of course. Humorous and entertaining throughout ("And for ecstatic visions, there was always the illegal eating of fish.") Also quite sweet, but don't prick yourself on the ending: parts of it are quite sad. Also, the first chapter, though still written in humorous style, is a lengthy exposition of the country and how magic works, and various other sections tend to get rather vague on some points. (Six or seven years of developing friendship are somehow condensed into a few pages?)

Also, how obvious a name is Pernicia? I mean, you know who the evil fairy is from the beginning when she shows up to lay the curse, but still...

Worth reading especially if you like sweet fairy tales with (fairly) happy endings, and haven't seen anything but the Disney version, where the princess (and Snow White, too) is completely helpless to do anything. This book is probably set in the same world as Damar, since there is a brief reference to a country of that name (and another to modern Earth), but since I haven't read the Damar books I don't know if this casts any more light on them. Probably not.

Update: Here is a pertinent Bible verse for (the second half of) this story: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) It rather touchingly lives up to this idea.

Hiroshima

By John Hersey.

This should be required reading in US History. In fact, I'm considering e-mailing my AP US History teacher from high school, whom I haven't contacted in three or four years, and telling her so (or at least suggesting it.)

This short book, originally a (long) article in The New Yorker, details the experiences of 6 Hiroshimans who were lucky enough to survive the atomic bomb. It really speaks for itself.

See this paper for more information on the article's publication and the public reaction to it.

Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls

By Jane Lindskold (author of the perhaps better known Firekeeper series.)

This is a pretty good book. Although the era depicted is dark and amorphous, the characters are bright and feel very real even when they aren't described very much--what you do hear about them is enough to suggest real people. There are a lot of ethical/moral choices made, making this book a good one to think about, but you don't have to think about it to understand the story. (Well... see below for a possible exception.)

The (strikingly beautiful, we are told) narrator is Sarah, a possibly thirty year old autistic who, despite her speech inhibition, is considered functional enough to be released from the Home onto the streets. She can only speak to others using significant quotations memorized from Shakespeare, the Bible, etc., but (probably initially because of her beauty, despite what we'd like to think of higher motives) manages to attract the attention and protection of the Wolf Pack, a gang modeled after the Jungle Book and lead by the ruthless and kind Head Wolf. The real trouble starts when the Home issues a readmit order for her and tries everything to get her back...

Sarah is an interesting character. Older for sure than Firekeeper, in some ways she seems quite mature and in others she is like a child. She seems to accept rape as an inevitable fact of life for her, starting from when she was 12 years old, but it is only that; she doesn't seem particularly obsessed or scarred by it. The fantasy hook is this: Sarah can hear inanimate objects speaking. She brings her rubber dragon everywhere and feeds them whenever she eats. (They are a two-headed dragon named Betwixt and Between.)

The setting is a dark, unnamed metropolis, too big to be effectively policed. (Do all the things that go on in this book go on in large cities?) The Wolf Pack consists largely of children (and some older) prostitutes, but what can anyone who cares do for them? Everyone on the streets is poor. Instead of putting up wanted or missing posters, the hunt for Sarah is turned into a candy contest of "Cream on the outside, mint on the inside--spot our girl!"

My problems with the book were the following:

One, we are told and shown over and over that Sarah can only speak through quotations. Trying to come up with her own words makes her choke. How, then, does she narrate the book? I had more trouble with suspension-of-disbelief over this issue during the first chapters than later on; there is a possible explanation fairly late in the book, but it might just be that we, the readers, are looking in on Sarah's mind.

Two, the mind-over-matter trope, also known as "All I have to do to kill you is convince your brain that you're dead!" (The Matrix, anyone?) In many cases (including this one) accompanied by other physical symptoms apparently produced by the brain, such as bleeding or bruises.

Three, the afore mentioned explanation late in the book of how Sarah could talk freely. It was trying to be scientific, I think (this book is sort of on the borderline between sci fi and fantasy), but it implied that she could imagine or dream of talking, but was unable to actually carry out the physical action.

And finally, the destruction of the Bad Guys data and computers via a computer virus. Why wouldn't they have backups? Plot convenience, I guess. (Or she intentionally left open room for a sequel, although it's not looking too likely for a book first published 12 years ago.)

All in all, a lovely read. Recommended (but it does contain some sexual references; young readers are cautioned.)

There Are Doors

By Gene Wolfe.

Bizarre would be one word to describe this book. "Dream-like" seems to be one that's popular in the Amazon reviews.

This is the story of a pretty mediocre guy going after the girl of his dreams. He (whatever his name actually is; about two thirds of the way through, I suddenly realized that it had not been disclosed) is a rather good furniture salesman, but appears to have no private life at all. When he gets a girlfriend who dumps him after a few days, he becomes obsessed with finding her, and finds himself wandering through the "doors" mentioned in the incomprehensible note she left behind.

The problem is, the doors can be any door, and so he finds himself in another world without even realizing that he's there until he's placed in a mental institution for, uh, alcoholism. Which, from everything that's said, seems to be a non-issue for him. The world is different from the Earth we know in ways that are so obvious and well-known that nobody there bothers to clue him in; the differences are one of those shared cultural assumptions that no one talks about.

A fairly interesting book, I guess. It was certainly quite readable after I started it: there are lots of questions raised and, like some other books I can't be bothered to name at the moment, Wolfe manages to convince you that all the answers are there too, if only you think about it enough. Some are outright handed to you, but others are less obvious.

An Obsession with Butterflies

By Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger: An Unnatural History.

This book started off well, with a bunch of attention-grabbing facts (who collected 2.5 million butterflies in his lifetime? find out!), but seemed to thin out factwise towards the end. As usual, Russell has a lovely, strong voice in her writing:

I can't believe they trust me, alone.

I sit at the table, waiting for David Carter.

Then I stand up, and sneak to the nearest drawer. [...]

I tiptoe down the wooden canyon, open two more drawers, three more, five more, an Owl, a Zebra Longwing, a Red Admiral. I leave them all open. The butterflies begin to stir, pushing their wings against the case, moving up, bright ghosts, through the glass into the air. (pp.152-153)

You will probably enjoy it quite a bit if you're an insect lover, and it has a fairly extensive bibliography at the end of (perhaps) more scholarly sources. However, I didn't think it was quite as well written as Hunger was.

The Wood Wife

By Terri Windling.

Sort of reminds me of Charles de Lint's stories, but it seems like Windling mixes in more of her own ideas, such as the idea of fairies having "artists" who use human lives as their clay.

The Wood Wife is set mostly in the Sonoran Desert in the Southwestern United States. Maggie Black inherits the estate of a deceased writer with whom she corresponded, but never met, and moves there in hopes of finding unpublished writing and putting together a biography of his life. She slowly falls in love with the desert and the creatures that live there, blah, blah, blah.

I suppose this is one of those pretty good books that I didn't really love because they weren't quite my cup of tea, but I still thought it was better than okay. It might be worth checking out.

The Privilege of the Sword

By Ellen Kushner.

Somehow I found this book mentioned on Sherwood Smith's site (along with it's predecessor, Swordspoint) and connected it to the ideas "fun" and "appropriate for young adults." Oops.

The story is, for reasons not really explained, Katherine's rich uncle, the Mad Duke Tremontaine, invites her to the city to learn swordsmanship. If he does, he'll cancel the pending suits against her family and pay off all their debts. This might give you an idea of the kind of person he is. Once she's in his power, she proceeds to learn swordsmanship, as promised. However, her time in the city shapes her in other ways, too... it's unclear how much of it was planned by the Mad Duke. He indisputably and unnecessarily drugs her at one point so that she won't disturb him with his lover, even though he leaves her to collapse in the same room. Ugh.

This book is well written, after a fashion (good style), and Katherine's voice narrating in various sections is part of what makes it bearable, I think. However, the flagrant sex (and homosexuality, and sexual "liberation" type themes) make it and its predecessor quite unpleasant. You're not missing anything particularly deep or moving if you skip reading this; there are enough other well-written books in the world. If you don't object to the kinds of the content mentioned above, on the other hand, you might it a delightful read, as the dozens of reviewers quotes (mostly for her several previous books, two of which are in the Riverside universe of this one) seem to attest to.

More Quickies: The end of the Shamer Chronicles, Tooth and Claw, Firebirds Rising, and Forgotten Beasts

Well, I am getting behind and don't feel like writing so much, so here are a bunch of books at once.

Firebirds Rising (anthology). Edited by Sharyn November. I enjoyed the stories in this collection more than the ones in Firebirds, which I thought were decent but not great. I particularly liked and remember The Wizards of Perfil, Quill, and What Used to Be Good Still Is, all three of which seem somehow bittersweet, with The Wizards of Perfil being more sweet and the other two perhaps more bitter, although not outright depressing. I'll admit to pretty much skipping Alan Dean Foster's story (I checked out a couple of his books once and did not really enjoy them), but the rest were for the most part quite good. Patricia McKillip's Jack o'Lantern is quite different from the usual fantasy that she writes. It seems more real, somehow. The rest are worth checking out. P.S.: Quill is not about writing like you might think, although it is the name of the narrator.

I read Singing the Dogstar Blues (by Alison Goodman) a few weeks ago because The Real Thing (in Firebirds Rising) referred to it. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either--it seemed sort of bland and generic to me, although I'll admit to being amused by Joss's origins. Otherwise, it's about a college kid who has been chosen to partner a telepathic alien in a school for time travel. The book ends but the story seems unfinished, as attested by The Real Thing which takes place somewhat later.

The Serpent Gift and The Shamer's War round out the Shamer Chronicles by Lene Kaaberbol. I think I liked them better than the first two books; they both seem somewhat deeper and more serious, although in a way The Serpent Gift doesn't seem like it goes deep enough. Perhaps the lack of in-depth angsting about certain events is a good thing, though. The Shamer's War finishes the series, perhaps appropriately, but some of the plot events once again seem a little too pat and convenient. Dina's uncle shows up, tries to take her away, strikes her down so that she can become more powerful than you could possibly imagine (my little joke), and vanishes out of the story. Almost all this happens in one chapter. There's also a short little essay by some (apparently real) professor after the abrupt end of the book, although it may not be in the American edition that was just released. I also found the fourth book to feel rather different from the first three, and wondered if it was a difference in editing between the UK and US releases, if it was just written differently, or if the typesetting and feel of the paper affected my impression so much. (I found a copy of the UK version in a local library, amazingly enough.) Despite the plot contrivances, I still think this series is worth reading for the originality of the idea and the moral issues involved.

Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton, is an odd Victorian fantasy novel. Starring dragons instead of humans. The dragons are definitely an integral part of it, but the Victorian part seems like the more prominent aspect. She won a World Fantasy Award for it, I think, but it's not really my cup of tea. (Not that I drink tea.) You might like it.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia McKillip, was one of her earlier books. (I'm not sure whether it was her first or not.) The first sentence threw me off since it was a bit cruder than McKillip usually is, but I eventually read it. I think there are probably three whole books left unwritten in about the first five pages. The first half of this book is sort of mediocre and maybe handled more clumsily than I've come to expect from McKillip, but halfway through there is a major event and suddenly the story becomes extremely intense and focused on Sybel's revenge. Sybel is especially interesting as a wizard because unlike almost every other one of McKillip's mages, she is rather sharply limited in her powers to magic related to calling minds. No shape-shifting or invisibility or listening to plants or even conjuring a simple flame for her. I would undoubtedly get more out of with a second reading, like many of her other books, but it'll have to wait a while.

Wow, am I caught up already?