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Jun. 21st, 2008 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsBooklogging backlog catchup! Mostly these were travel reads, so my depth of understanding might not have been tops, but.
Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines: I had been searching for this book for a long time because I adored Larklight and Starcross (which everyone should read! NO SERIOUSLY) and was extremely curious about what he had done before. The answer: Dystopian Steampunk! The story takes place in a future where giant cities roll around on totally steampunk wheels overcoming and 'eating' other cities for their resources, in a practice called Municipal Darwinism. I do not think was a random choice on Philip Reeve's part that these cities are almost entirely European, and the Anti-Traction League, which opposes it, is made up mostly of people from Asia and Africa; of anything in the book, that dynamic is what makes me most interested in reading the sequels.
Meanwhile, the main character bops along the basic Boy Meets Dystopia arc: Boy Believes In Glorious Society, Boy Meets Outsider/Becomes Outsider Through Societal Injustice, Boy Discovers Glorious Society Is In Fact Dystopic Society And Vows To Fight For Change. 9/10 dystopic novels follow this pattern! The main flaw is that I did not find Boy hugely compelling at all (or Girl, for that matter, his upper-class counterpart), but I did, predictably, love Outsider, the cranky, scarred, death-obsessed, murderous teenaged girl who was RAISED BY A ZOMBIE ROBOT. I did not adore the book the way I did Larklight and Starcross, but I am interested, and will read the sequels if I can do so without harming my wallet.
Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows: I love Isabel Allende! She is a badass lady! She has smuggled out political prisoners and had death threats put out on her, and moreover when she was making a living translating romance novels into Spanish she got fired for changing the dialogue and endings so as to make her ladies more independent and badass! However, this one of her books I did not love so much, mostly because I was bored by the main characters. Irene is a beautiful, innocent, upper-class, unbelievably sweet and kind, Adorably Quirky, did I mention innocent journalist! With magical red hair! Francisco is an idealistic, handsome, secretly revolutionary photographer! Together, they . . . try to fight totalitarian regimes and fail dismally, but it is okay because they are IN LOVE.
I was ten times more interested in the undercurrent story that the main characters were investigating: the family with the switched-at-birth daughter who has fits and attracts the unfriendly interest of the government, the soldier brother whose loyalty starts to waver, the girl who was switched with the first who wonders if they should have switched fates too. These characters felt real and compelling and dominated every time they entered the narrative, and I wanted to read three hundred pages about them instead.
Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushin_doll shoved this book into my hands in a bookstore and informed me that I had to read it, and who was I to say no? I enjoyed it! It is an excellent example of a pseudo-academic authorial voice, and also a very good example of a fantasy-verse rewriting of The Three Musketeers. The author's commitment to his style kind of sacrifices depth of character, and patience is often needed to get through the long and extremely polite dialogue sequences, but if you like classic French adventure fiction, duels, scheming and intrigue (and I do) then you will probably enjoy this.
Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat: I always found The Crystal Cave books difficult to get through for some reason, but I seem to have better luck with her Gothics, possibly because I do not feel required to take them at all seriously. Bryony Ashley has a PSYCHIC ROMANTIC LINK with one of her cousins, who refuses to tell her which one he is, even though he knows who she is because she's the only girl. This means that I despised the boyfriend-in-her-head regardless of who he might be and was rooting for her to run away with the garden boy for the first three-quarters of the book. There are twin switches, and secret Shakespearian history, and a random 19th-century POV that pops up from time to time that I could really have done without, and a lot of mystery that all kind of fizzles at the end. But it makes for an entertaining airplane/bus read nonetheless.
And now I am caught up!
Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines: I had been searching for this book for a long time because I adored Larklight and Starcross (which everyone should read! NO SERIOUSLY) and was extremely curious about what he had done before. The answer: Dystopian Steampunk! The story takes place in a future where giant cities roll around on totally steampunk wheels overcoming and 'eating' other cities for their resources, in a practice called Municipal Darwinism. I do not think was a random choice on Philip Reeve's part that these cities are almost entirely European, and the Anti-Traction League, which opposes it, is made up mostly of people from Asia and Africa; of anything in the book, that dynamic is what makes me most interested in reading the sequels.
Meanwhile, the main character bops along the basic Boy Meets Dystopia arc: Boy Believes In Glorious Society, Boy Meets Outsider/Becomes Outsider Through Societal Injustice, Boy Discovers Glorious Society Is In Fact Dystopic Society And Vows To Fight For Change. 9/10 dystopic novels follow this pattern! The main flaw is that I did not find Boy hugely compelling at all (or Girl, for that matter, his upper-class counterpart), but I did, predictably, love Outsider, the cranky, scarred, death-obsessed, murderous teenaged girl who was RAISED BY A ZOMBIE ROBOT. I did not adore the book the way I did Larklight and Starcross, but I am interested, and will read the sequels if I can do so without harming my wallet.
Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows: I love Isabel Allende! She is a badass lady! She has smuggled out political prisoners and had death threats put out on her, and moreover when she was making a living translating romance novels into Spanish she got fired for changing the dialogue and endings so as to make her ladies more independent and badass! However, this one of her books I did not love so much, mostly because I was bored by the main characters. Irene is a beautiful, innocent, upper-class, unbelievably sweet and kind, Adorably Quirky, did I mention innocent journalist! With magical red hair! Francisco is an idealistic, handsome, secretly revolutionary photographer! Together, they . . . try to fight totalitarian regimes and fail dismally, but it is okay because they are IN LOVE.
I was ten times more interested in the undercurrent story that the main characters were investigating: the family with the switched-at-birth daughter who has fits and attracts the unfriendly interest of the government, the soldier brother whose loyalty starts to waver, the girl who was switched with the first who wonders if they should have switched fates too. These characters felt real and compelling and dominated every time they entered the narrative, and I wanted to read three hundred pages about them instead.
Steven Brust's The Phoenix Guards:
rushin_doll shoved this book into my hands in a bookstore and informed me that I had to read it, and who was I to say no? I enjoyed it! It is an excellent example of a pseudo-academic authorial voice, and also a very good example of a fantasy-verse rewriting of The Three Musketeers. The author's commitment to his style kind of sacrifices depth of character, and patience is often needed to get through the long and extremely polite dialogue sequences, but if you like classic French adventure fiction, duels, scheming and intrigue (and I do) then you will probably enjoy this. Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat: I always found The Crystal Cave books difficult to get through for some reason, but I seem to have better luck with her Gothics, possibly because I do not feel required to take them at all seriously. Bryony Ashley has a PSYCHIC ROMANTIC LINK with one of her cousins, who refuses to tell her which one he is, even though he knows who she is because she's the only girl. This means that I despised the boyfriend-in-her-head regardless of who he might be and was rooting for her to run away with the garden boy for the first three-quarters of the book. There are twin switches, and secret Shakespearian history, and a random 19th-century POV that pops up from time to time that I could really have done without, and a lot of mystery that all kind of fizzles at the end. But it makes for an entertaining airplane/bus read nonetheless.
And now I am caught up!
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Date: 2008-06-21 06:29 pm (UTC)Also, flail with me (http://cupenny.livejournal.com/277739.html).
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Date: 2008-06-21 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-22 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-22 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 06:44 pm (UTC)Nine Coaches Waiting I like; it is a woman (whom I quite like; I like most of her heroines) being a GOVERNESS (for a small child who is not sickeningly saccharine) with SECRET FRENCH SKILLS in ye requisite Mansion With Family Secrets somewhere in France. And of course there is a LOVE INTEREST and she is THE HELP and also he might be EVIL zomg.
This Rough Magic has all kinds of Tempest allusions. And the main character is a Shakespearian actress! On vacation, or out of work and slumming it, or something.
Airs Above The Ground has Lippizaner horses! And is still one of my primary associations with them, and they are utterly awesome incidentally. The heroine is a vet whose husband might or might not be a SPY and she has a SULKY TEENAGED SIDEKICK who's kinda awesome and did I mention the horse-based intrigue? This one is possibly my favorite, though they are all three candidates.
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Date: 2008-06-23 06:49 pm (UTC)(GEN, have you ever read any Joan Aiken gothics? I have only read one but that one was the BEST THING EVER. There are terrorists who hijack her plane, and she is like "But I really don't have time to go to Egypt," and they are like "Don't be silly, you will love it there," and she is like "No really, please can you just drop me off right outside town?" and they are like "Oh, well, all right, I suppose it's only ten minutes out of our terroristic plane-hijacking way. It is a shame though because you would really love Egypt!" AND THEN THEY POLITELY AND HELPFULLY DROP HER OFF OUTSIDE TOWN. AND THEN IT GETS MORE HILARIOUS FROM THERE.)
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Date: 2008-06-23 07:02 pm (UTC)I had half-forgotten the sulky teenaged sidekick, though he's there for the whole book and is fabulous, and then I remembered and went I MUST PUT HIM IN ALLCAPS FOR BECCA.
(...Heeee! No, I have not. Apparently I should! What's it called?)
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Date: 2008-06-23 07:05 pm (UTC)(The one I read is called "A Cluster of Separate Sparks", and I will be acquiring more as soon as I possibly can to see if they are just as cracktastic! There is a DEADLY POTTERY KILN. And KILLER BEE SWARMS. Oh my god, Gen, it's fantastic.)
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Date: 2008-06-23 07:20 pm (UTC)And totally not because we are both really predictable sometimes.
(Heeeee. Okay, this goes on the list. *makes note!* DEADLY POTTERY KILN = awesome.)