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Mar. 1st, 2010 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsFirst, whoever sent me the anonymous virtual gift - thank you! It makes me grin whenever I look at my profile.
Second,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chlorrel recently lent me Gail Carriger's Soulless, and as total supernatural-romance fluff it was very enjoyable! The basic premise is an AU semi-steampunk Victorian England (of course) in which vampires, werewolves, and ghosts are a relatively accepted part of society; the scientific explanation for them is that they have an overabundance of soul. Our Heroine Alexia, on the other hand, is soulless, which does not mean anything in terms of her ethics and emotional functioning but does mean that when she comes into contact with a vampire or a werewolf she cancels out their supernaturalness and sends them back to default human state. The plot revolves around mysteriously-appearing-and-disappearing vampires and werewolves and a shady conspiracy and is mostly an excuse for Alexia to run around and hit people with her parasol, although it does also set up for some potentially interesting worldbuilding around the question of how vampires and werewolves are made.
This is the sort of book where the heroine is less upset about being attacked by a vampire at a ball than the hostess' distressing failure to provide snacks, the werewolf would be exceedingly respectable and an excellent marriage prospect if he weren't so Scottish (and possessed of terrible taste in cravats), the frilltastically dandyish outfits of Alexia's vampire BFF and his adoring man-harem are described in loving detail, and the bickering love interests keep referring to That Incident With the Hedgehog. If you like this sort of thing, you will probably enjoy this book. The author is desperately in need of a good Brit-picker, which could get extremely jarring, but since the whole point of the book is basically LOLVICTORIANS and while we're at it LOLVAMPIRES I am not complaining too much. It's an AU! Lots of handwaving. (It is, however, a fairly standard Victorian AU in other ways: namely, everyone is white, with the biggest divergence from the visual standard being Alexia's darker Italian skin tone. Which - is not that big a divergence. Also, while there are sympathetic non-straight characters, it's mostly played for laughs. Then again, so is everything else.)
A few things I did like about the romance, objectively speaking: Alexia is a twentysomething spinster and her werewolf boyfriend is over a century old, and whenever she starts going on about how she is too old and a spinster and on the shelf, he is like "seriously? I am feeling kind of sketchy with the age difference here already, an eighteen-year-old would be AWFUL." Also, Alexia is bossy and dominant and amazingly in charge, and her alpha werewolf boyfriend is totally into that, which is cool.
However, I think I have figured out one of the things about romance novels, even good ones, that often means they don't quite work for me: I have a self-control kink. The romance novels I have read are so often about the ~irresistible urges~ of OMG I FIND THIS PERSON SUPER HOT, with all the development of the people learning to like and respect each other woven in through the IRRESISTIBLE PASSION. And while this is a perfectly legitimate trope, and there is certainly nothing wrong with passion, I tend to find it a lot more interesting (and respect the characters more) when they are able to suppress that because of more pressing concerns. But this is just me! What about you guys? When it comes to fiction - or fic, for that matter - which do you like better?
[Poll #1532193]
Second,
chlorrel recently lent me Gail Carriger's Soulless, and as total supernatural-romance fluff it was very enjoyable! The basic premise is an AU semi-steampunk Victorian England (of course) in which vampires, werewolves, and ghosts are a relatively accepted part of society; the scientific explanation for them is that they have an overabundance of soul. Our Heroine Alexia, on the other hand, is soulless, which does not mean anything in terms of her ethics and emotional functioning but does mean that when she comes into contact with a vampire or a werewolf she cancels out their supernaturalness and sends them back to default human state. The plot revolves around mysteriously-appearing-and-disappearing vampires and werewolves and a shady conspiracy and is mostly an excuse for Alexia to run around and hit people with her parasol, although it does also set up for some potentially interesting worldbuilding around the question of how vampires and werewolves are made.This is the sort of book where the heroine is less upset about being attacked by a vampire at a ball than the hostess' distressing failure to provide snacks, the werewolf would be exceedingly respectable and an excellent marriage prospect if he weren't so Scottish (and possessed of terrible taste in cravats), the frilltastically dandyish outfits of Alexia's vampire BFF and his adoring man-harem are described in loving detail, and the bickering love interests keep referring to That Incident With the Hedgehog. If you like this sort of thing, you will probably enjoy this book. The author is desperately in need of a good Brit-picker, which could get extremely jarring, but since the whole point of the book is basically LOLVICTORIANS and while we're at it LOLVAMPIRES I am not complaining too much. It's an AU! Lots of handwaving. (It is, however, a fairly standard Victorian AU in other ways: namely, everyone is white, with the biggest divergence from the visual standard being Alexia's darker Italian skin tone. Which - is not that big a divergence. Also, while there are sympathetic non-straight characters, it's mostly played for laughs. Then again, so is everything else.)
A few things I did like about the romance, objectively speaking: Alexia is a twentysomething spinster and her werewolf boyfriend is over a century old, and whenever she starts going on about how she is too old and a spinster and on the shelf, he is like "seriously? I am feeling kind of sketchy with the age difference here already, an eighteen-year-old would be AWFUL." Also, Alexia is bossy and dominant and amazingly in charge, and her alpha werewolf boyfriend is totally into that, which is cool.
However, I think I have figured out one of the things about romance novels, even good ones, that often means they don't quite work for me: I have a self-control kink. The romance novels I have read are so often about the ~irresistible urges~ of OMG I FIND THIS PERSON SUPER HOT, with all the development of the people learning to like and respect each other woven in through the IRRESISTIBLE PASSION. And while this is a perfectly legitimate trope, and there is certainly nothing wrong with passion, I tend to find it a lot more interesting (and respect the characters more) when they are able to suppress that because of more pressing concerns. But this is just me! What about you guys? When it comes to fiction - or fic, for that matter - which do you like better?
[Poll #1532193]
