Month: January 2012

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Pratchett, Terry: (11) Reaper Man

Next in the Discworld re-read, Reaper Man. I have the impression that a lot of people think very highly of this one, but it was never on the list of my favorites and I couldn’t remember why until this re-read: like Becca, I completely forgot that there’s a part of the book that isn’t Death-as-farmhand. And while the plot that starts with the snow globes appearing out of nowhere has some good bits, like this bit of dialogue late:

“Tell me,” Ludmilla whispered to Ridcully, “is this how wizards usually behave?”

“The Senior Wrangler is an amazingly fine example,” said Ridcully. “Got the same urgent grasp of reality as a cardboard cutout. Proud to have him on the team.”

it’s still a really weird fit with the rest of the book. (For the record, though, it is kind of another “invading pop culture” story, as I was asking about last time. And this may be the book that actually breaks the Bursar.) As discussed over in comments to Becca’s post, it mostly feels like trial runs for later Ankh-Morpork stories.

However, the Death bits are really lovely and put this in mid-to-upper Discworld for me. Even if the introduction of the Auditors (who I didn’t remember appearing this early) does include this unfortunate line: “They might be numbered among those who see to it that gravity operates and that time stays separate from space.” Whoops. (And hey, if you want to learn more about why you can’t do both of those at once, Chad’s book on relativity is coming out in a month!)

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Riordan, Rick: Percy Jackson & the Olympians series

Word of mouth is terrific, because I would never otherwise have picked up Rick Riordan’s series Percy Jackson & the Olympians. These are apparently middle-grade books, but are very readable by adults. [*] The premise is that the Greek gods are real, are still around, and have a bunch of kids by mortals, who tend to attract attention of monsters as they get older so are brought to Camp Half-Blood to learn survival skills. Plus the gods get along as well as they ever did, and (of course) there’s a prophecy.

[*] I gather that, marketing-wise, Harry Potter is also middle-grade, and in some ways it’s an inevitable comparison. Both series start fairly light and get quite dark by the end, and both have one-book-per-year structure. However, the Percy Jackson books focus on the summers, not the school years, which makes them a lot tighter; the third also departs from the pattern by taking place in December.

I was warned that the first book, The Lightning Thief, is somewhat weak, which it is, suffering from too-obvious threats and a bit of a tone mismatch, especially at the end. But I could see the seeds of what people recommended it for, the humor (the first chapter is titled “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher”) and the strong female characters and the start of a clear theme that, for lack of a better way to summarize it, I will call a deliberate rejection of the lone male action hero paradigm. And it was a very fast read and I’d gotten them all from the library, so I kept going.

Things get more complicated with the second, The Sea of Monsters, and the stakes rise with the third, The Titan’s Curse. By the fourth, The Battle of the Labryinth, I’d progressed to “wow, that was good!” in my sketchy notes to myself. I think that one may be my favorite, though the final book (The Last Olympian) is thoroughly satisfying on the whiz-bang and thematic levels.

The books do require a reader be able to roll with the idea that the Greek gods are key to Western civilization and that as a result, the destruction of Mount Olympus (now atop the Empire State Building) is a genuine threat to said civilization. I mean, yes, it does at least limit it to Western, but it’s the kind of thing best not examined too closely—if one can, and if one can’t, that’s perfectly understandable.

With that caveat, however, I had a ton of fun reading these, I suspect they may become comfort reading for me, and I look forward to SteelyKid and the Pip being old enough to read them (which will make three generations of our family to enjoy them; Chad & I gave the set to his dad this Christmas and he just finished the last, which is a near-record pace for him.) If this is the kind of thing that might appeal to you, don’t let the bookstore location or the apparently-dreadful movie adaptation of the first put you off.

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Kelly, Carla: Admiral’s Penniless Bride, The

The Admiral’s Penniless Bride, by Carla Kelly is a quite enjoyable marriage-of-convenience Regency romance with some unusual touches—well, okay, I haven’t read widely in the genre for quite a few years, so maybe a matter-of-factly disabled male protagonist, Jewish neighbors dealing with anti-Semitism, and a child rescued from what is plainly stated to be sexual abuse are no longer unusual. Until it feels the need to have a plot, which is predictable and unpleasant and unnecessary. If this is your kind of thing, stop reading at, let’s see, halfway through chapter nineteen—you won’t miss a thing. Unfortunately I wish I had, because that sort of plot now leaves a bad taste in my mouth, genre furniture or no.

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Pierce, Tamora: (117) Mastiff

One time, after an incredibly nondescript restaurant meal, Chad looked at me and said, “Well, that . . . had calories.”

I finished Mastiff, the conclusion to Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper trilogy, and all I could think was, “Well, that . . . was a book.”

There’s nothing specifically wrong with it that I can put my finger on. But it didn’t provoke any particular feelings in me either, even when it should have.

Maybe it’s because it, like the second book, takes place in yet another location and thus the characters introduced in the first book were largely absent again, though I’d thought they would be important because of the frame story. Maybe it’s because I was badly disoriented when the book opened with the funeral of Beka’s betrothed and I had to go back to the last book and see if I’d forgotten something major. (I hadn’t; it happened between books.) Maybe I liked chase-the-kidnappers better in a different book by Pierce. Maybe it’s just too long. Really, I have no idea.

So, you know. It’s the last Beka Cooper book.

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Chase, Loretta: Silk is for Seduction

Random backlog catchup, while waiting for sleeping baby to wake:

I’ve not been thrilled with Loretta Chase’s recent books. I couldn’t get more than a few chapters into Your Scandalous Ways, the espionage one, because it just wasn’t any fun. Don’t Tempt Me: I’ve already filled my quota of female-virgin-leaves-harem stories with The Ringed Castle, thanks. And I stalled out on Last Night’s Scandal, the Peregine/Olivia story, I think because I couldn’t make sense of why they weren’t talking to each other, though I’d frankly forgotten about it until now and probably will go back.

So when Silk is for Seduction came out, I got it from the library (in e-book form, because the future is awesome) rather than buying it. And it turned out to be actually fun, the way that I look for in Chase’s books. Better, it’s about someone in trade: the female protagonist is a dressmaker and her profession actually matters. This is doubly refreshing in the Regency(-ish) romance genre.

The non-romance plot is pretty thin, but that’s not what you read Chase for anyway. A pleasant surprise; I’ll probably buy the next one (it’s the start of a series).

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Pratchett, Terry: (09-10) Eric; Moving Pictures

I got behind on the Discworld re-read, but the next book was Eric, about which I have almost nothing to say: it’s Rincewind, it’s slight, it’s about bureaucracy, and I haven’t read the version with pictures but didn’t feel the lack (unlike The Last Hero, which has at least one scene that doesn’t make any sense without the pictures). But then, I don’t particularly care for Josh Kirby’s Discworld art.

Next up is Moving Pictures, which kicks off the “invading pop culture” line of stories. (Or, well, is there a line? There’s Soul Music, and I suppose Unseen Academicals to a certain extent. Anyway. This is what series re-reads are for.) These have never been my favorite so I was not particularly enthused to read this one.

The University comes into recognizable form here, with Ridicully (who I do like, which I don’t think I expected at the time), the Bursar (not yet on the dried frog pills, but getting there), the Dean, and Ponder Stibbons. This book also introduces the dog, Gaspode. Otherwise, the only thing I have to say about it is a spoiler, so I will put it behind the jump.

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