(no subject)

[skygiants]

Checking another Completed Series off my list, I have now finished all eleven Easy Rawlins books. I try to keep a limit on how many multi-book series I read at one time, because otherwise I lose track and then forget everything that went on in the early books, but there's something really satisfying about finishing a lengthy and definitively-ended series - it feels like an accomplishment, even if the only thing actually accomplished is many hours curled up reading (which, as you know, is something I consider a TERRIBLE FATE.)

Anyway, the books. Little Scarlet is generally considered one of the best in the series, and takes place in the aftermath of the Watts riots; Cinnamon Kiss is more melodramatic and involves The Deadly Illness of Easy's Daughter, and also makes me laugh because it's the one where Easy spends a lot of time going "hippies! Man, that is SO WEIRD, what is UP with kids these days!"; Blonde Faith is the last one, no seriously guys, Walter Mosley is SICK OF WRITING THESE, and as a book is more interested in showing how the various characters have grown and changed over the course of the series than in the actual plot (which is totally fine by me.) And they have changed significantly, which is one of the things I'm always going to really respect about the books no matter what issues I may have with them. Over the course of the series, Easy turns from a young man to a middle-aged man, changes in the way he interacts with the world, attempts to fix his own flaws, acquires kids and watches them grow up; the abused and frightened teenaged girl becomes a confident real estate mogul, the fast-talking coward turns respectable, the speechless little boy becomes a capable man and starts a family. The forties become the sixties, and the world changes. Even the Chaotic Evil cheerfully consienceless killer starts to become philosophical. Very few mystery series, I think, are willing to actually make dramatic changes in their protagonist, and even fewer are willing to shake things up for their stock characters and their setting, the things that they know sell. But Walter Mosley is trying to do something different in these books, and it shows. I have issues with some things that happen, and sometimes they do fall back too much on some of the more problematic noir tropes; I'm never going to have a passionate love for them, but I'm glad I read them all the way through.

In other, non-literary news: this weekend I kidnapped genarti and saramily, with attendant Mr. saramily, for SRS BSNS WRITING DISCUSSION, bookstore-wandering, and a whole lot of eating (milkshake happy hour! Gourmet mac and cheese! Hordes of tiny cupcakes! These are the things I try only to indulge in when people come to visit me and I am trying to impress them, which is clearly why people should come visit me). As expected, it was THOROUGHLY EXCELLENT. I did spend approximately the whole weekend wheezing, but apparently ladyfest has left Gen and I so terrifyingly in sync that we even come down with independent head colds at the same time, so at least if the Emmys go home with the death plague they will have both of us to blame and not just one! Um. :D? This is also why I am working from home today, as my boss took one look at my tissues and ordered me and my germs out of the office. I am not really complaining.