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Jan. 14th, 2009 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo I love Kage Baker a ridiculous amount and will read pretty much anything she writes. That doesn't mean I love everything she writes, or that she is the best author I know or that I would recommend her to everyone - most of her work has some pretty severe flaws, but the way she writes appeals to me so much that my overall love remains undiminished!
I was therefore extremely excited to find out that the NY Public Library had several books of hers that I had never read (some of them because they had not been published last time I checked, oh well). Last year I read a bunch of the short story collections; this year I have found a novella and a novel.
The novella, Or Else My Lady Keeps The Key, is a Caribbean-pirates-era adventure, and had some problems but was a lot of fun overall. The story of the protagonist and his Untrustworthy Lady Friend was fairly predictable, and for the second half was completely overshadowed by the infinitely more interesting story of the vehement atheist Sejanus who has the minor problem that he is being followed around by gods he doesn't believe in. Knowing Kage Baker's fondness for reusing worlds and characters - this novella is the sequel to another one that was published in a short-story collection - I sort of suspect that Sejanus and the Untrustworthy Lady Friend Mrs. Waverly will show up in other stories eventually, which makes me not complain about the lack of follow-up on the interesting bits of complexity we get with them as I otherwise might.
The novel, The House of the Stag, did not work for me so much. Well, in large part this is because of something that happened about two-thirds of the way through that is a GIANT unhappiness-making thing for me: rape as the start to a happy marriage is NOT OKAY unless it is extremely well handled. And this was not, and was moreover sort of glossed-over in a way that made me very uncomfortable. Kage Baker, I know you can do better than that!
Aside from book specifics, though, Baker's fantasy does not tend to work as well for me overall as her books that are set in the real world. And I think this is because one of the things I love most about her writing is the places where you can see her overriding dorky obsessions with certain historical periods and people and places shining through the plot. Some people might count this as a writing flaw; personally, I think it's awesome. (I especially love when she interrupts the plot to get all geeky about California history, because it's really interesting!) So, even though Or Else My Lady Keeps The Key is not the best thing she's ever written, I know she's done her research and really just thinks the history is cool, and that gets me excited about it.
Which leads me to some questions for you all, to satisfy my ever-nosy curiosity: what are some dorky obsessions you can identify in your favorite authors? Do you think that's cool, or do you tend to eyeroll when it comes up in more than one book?
I was therefore extremely excited to find out that the NY Public Library had several books of hers that I had never read (some of them because they had not been published last time I checked, oh well). Last year I read a bunch of the short story collections; this year I have found a novella and a novel.
The novella, Or Else My Lady Keeps The Key, is a Caribbean-pirates-era adventure, and had some problems but was a lot of fun overall. The story of the protagonist and his Untrustworthy Lady Friend was fairly predictable, and for the second half was completely overshadowed by the infinitely more interesting story of the vehement atheist Sejanus who has the minor problem that he is being followed around by gods he doesn't believe in. Knowing Kage Baker's fondness for reusing worlds and characters - this novella is the sequel to another one that was published in a short-story collection - I sort of suspect that Sejanus and the Untrustworthy Lady Friend Mrs. Waverly will show up in other stories eventually, which makes me not complain about the lack of follow-up on the interesting bits of complexity we get with them as I otherwise might.
The novel, The House of the Stag, did not work for me so much. Well, in large part this is because of something that happened about two-thirds of the way through that is a GIANT unhappiness-making thing for me: rape as the start to a happy marriage is NOT OKAY unless it is extremely well handled. And this was not, and was moreover sort of glossed-over in a way that made me very uncomfortable. Kage Baker, I know you can do better than that!
Aside from book specifics, though, Baker's fantasy does not tend to work as well for me overall as her books that are set in the real world. And I think this is because one of the things I love most about her writing is the places where you can see her overriding dorky obsessions with certain historical periods and people and places shining through the plot. Some people might count this as a writing flaw; personally, I think it's awesome. (I especially love when she interrupts the plot to get all geeky about California history, because it's really interesting!) So, even though Or Else My Lady Keeps The Key is not the best thing she's ever written, I know she's done her research and really just thinks the history is cool, and that gets me excited about it.
Which leads me to some questions for you all, to satisfy my ever-nosy curiosity: what are some dorky obsessions you can identify in your favorite authors? Do you think that's cool, or do you tend to eyeroll when it comes up in more than one book?
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Date: 2009-01-14 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-14 08:12 pm (UTC)