Month: August 2001

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Heyer, Georgette: Grand Sophy, The

I sometimes say that a willingness to pore over the shelves of used bookstores is the surest sign that one is an optimist. Well, sometimes one’s optimism is rewarded. I visited some of my favorite stores in Boston today, and came away with 10 paperbacks for something around $20—including copies of Mirabile and Hellspark (I’m particularly pleased about Mirabile, as it’s already become one of my comfort books), a few hard-to-find things for friends, and the first of Elizabeth Moon’s Serrano series, Hunting Party (I’d read a few of the sequels and enjoyed them, though not enough to buy the first new).

I also picked up Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy, along with another Heyer, and read it on the subway & train on the way back. I’d often heard that this was a favorite of Heyer fans, and I certainly enjoyed it more than some of her others (say, Regency Buck), though not as much as The Unknown Ajax. Sophy puts the lie to the cliché that romance heroines are little weak-willed simpering things. Upon arriving in the Rivenhall family home and discovering that everyone, more or less, is unhappy, she promptly sets about rearranging things; it’s rather like watching a card trick, at the end of which the original relationships have been reshuffled into several different, and much happier, singles and couples. It’s a tribute to the skill of Heyer’s characterization that Sophy doesn’t become incredibly annoying while doing so. There is an unfortunate interlude with a Jewish moneylender; whatever the stereotype in Regency times may have been, Heyer was writing in 1950. Other than that, The Grand Sophy is very funny, with vivid characters and a nice, but not overwhelming, eye for period detail.

(Note to sf fans visiting Boston: if you stop in at Avenue Victor Hugo, take a minute to walk down Newbury to Spenser’s Mystery Bookshop. It has only a very small sf collection, but I seem to have good luck there; for instance, today I bought for a friend, very cheaply, one of Sheri Tepper’s very hard-to-find Marianne books, and a nice copy of The Face in the Frost to give to someone who’d like it. Also, the proprietor has been extremely helpful whenever I’ve been in.)

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Allston, Aaron: Doc Sidhe

Sometimes a book just happens to be wrong for a reader, through no fault of its own. Aaron Allston’s Doc Sidhe is one of those books.

I got this book on the strength of a review on rec.arts.sf.written. (I probably never would have picked it up otherwise, as the cover is terrible and the back copy isn’t so good, either.) It’s a fantasy homage to 1930’s pulp adventures, with elves and snappy clothes and big cars with running boards and something like tommy guns, and with the title character as the wise leader of a band of variously skilled people who are On the Side of Right. Harris Greene gets pulled from our world into the elven one, and falls in with Doc and his band.

Unfortunately, I kept mentally banging straight into another book when reading this, John M. Ford’s very excellent The Last Hot Time (which I will write a review of one of these days, honest). In that fantasy novel, a young man gets pulled into the household and employ of a wise leader in a place where there are elves and gangs and cool big cars and snappy clothes. Except that in The Last Hot Time, the young man’s referred to as Doc. And so, half the time we got a point of view from Doc Sidhe, usually just identified in the text as “Doc,” I’d get all confused and think he was the young outsider, not the wise leader.

This was not the best way to read a book. Especially since they’re not at all similar, otherwise.

This may indeed be a perfectly good book, but I was too distracted to really get involved. I may try it again. But first I’ll get this review of The Last Hot Time out of my system . . .

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Lee, Sharon, and Steve Miller: (01-03) Partners in Necessity (omnibus of Conflict of Honors; Agent of Change; Carpe Diem)

Finished the fat omnibus, Partners in Necessity by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. This consists of three previously-published novels in the Liaden universe, Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem.

These remind me a little bit of the Mageworlds books, in that they’re (co-written) family-centered space opera with magic/paranormal bits. They aren’t exactly like, as they’re more, hmmm, straightforward than Mageworlds—that is, so far all of the people who look like bad guys, are. They also focus a bit more heavily on the emotional wounds and scars of the main characters. I really enjoyed them, though (as I do the Mageworlds books).

Conflict of Honors is first in chronological order, second in publication order, and a standalone about how two of the characters met. The next two, Agent of Change and Carpe Diem, start a sequence which is not yet completed (the next one, Plan B, is out now, and apparently the forthcoming I Dare will complete this sequence). I just have to quote from this review of Plan B by Christina Schulman, because I don’t think I can do better in giving the flavor:

These books, collectively known as the Liaden series, were full of shooting, being shot at, running away, suddenly pulling new psychic powers out of one’s ear to avoid being shot, and lots of whimsical dialog and passionate kissing in between the shooting bits. And giant turtles.

This sort of thing is a great deal of fun to read about (especially the giant turtles) . . .

Indeed, I strongly suspect the turtles are reader favorites; they’re certainly my favorites.

Anyway, the story started in Agent of Change focuses on Val Con, a Liaden deep-cover operative who has got some serious problems with his head, and Miri, a Terran ex-mercenary who’s fallen afoul of organized crime. Evil-doers are revealed, some of them are thwarted, plots and dangers ensue, and much fun is had by the reader. There are a few minor problems; once in a while, the background material isn’t as clear as it could be, and the dreaded Foreign Language Apostrophes appear, and every so often the prose clunks a bit (I’d been putting off buying this for a while, because every time I flipped it open in the bookstore, I couldn’t quite get into it. Mostly this goes away once you get into the story.). Also, be aware the omnibus does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger (“Plan B in now in effect.”). These are minor quibbles, though; they’re great fun and I recommend them.

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Gaiman, Neil, and Terry Pratchett: Good Omens (completed read)

I finished that piecemeal re-read of Pratchett & Gaiman’s Good Omens last night, on the grounds that reading the fat in-progress three-volume omnibus at bedtime was just asking for trouble (I tend to lose track of time. . .). I still don’t quite understand why, when I first read this, it didn’t quite work for me. It certainly does now.

Someone called A Spokesman sounded close to hysteria [on the radio].

“. . . danger to employees or the public,” he was saying.

“And precisely how much nuclear material has escaped?” said the interviewer.

There was a pause. “We wouldn’t say escaped,” said the spokesman. “Not escaped. Temporarily mislaid.”

“You mean it is still on the premises?”

“We certainly cannot see how it could have been removed from them,” said the spokesman.

“Surely you have considered terrorist activity?”

There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, “Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it’s running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they’ll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you’d like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours.”

“But you said the power station is still producing electricity,” gasped the interviewer.

“It is.”

“How can it be doing that if it hasn’t got any reactors?”

You could see the spokesman’s mad grin, even on the radio. You could see his pen, poised over the “Farms for Sale” column in Poultry World. “We don’t know,” he said. “We were hoping you clever buggers at the BBC would have an idea.”

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Robb, J.D.: (13) Seduction in Death

I’ve actually finished two novels since I last updated this, but one of them was part of a three-novel omnibus, so I’ll wait until I’ve finished the whole thing to comment on it.

So last night I read Seduction in Death by J.D. Robb, the new Eve/Roarke novel (as opposed to the new story that I read a few days ago). This is more in the police procedural mode than the mystery mode, as we’re introduced to the killer pretty early on. I read it straight through and was, again, entertained and amused. Just once, though, I’d like to see Eve go up against a killer who pushes all her buttons in the other direction; instead of sexual homicides by men, multiple sexual homicides by a woman, say, who’s clearly psycho, but is targeting only rapists, child molesters, and abusers. Would be kind of an interesting change.

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Hughart, Barry: (01) Bridge of Birds

Yesterday, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, I was in a great mood because I’d just finished something important that had been hanging over my shoulder for a long time, just at the deadline, and I decided that, since I’d been inside working all week, I would go outside and sit in the sun and read (the sun makes me so happy. I’m seriously phototropic.). So, I said to myself, “Hmm, I need a nice sunny book to read. I know, I’ll re-read Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds.”

So I did. And I was very happy.

I’ve previously reviewed Bridge of Birds, so I’ll just leave you with this passage:

“Let’s get out of here.”

It was easier said than done. It would be suicide to go back into the labyrinth, and the only other exit was the small mouth of the cave. We stood there and gazed down a hundred feet of sheer cliff that could not possibly be negotiated without ropes and grappling hooks at an angry sea where waves smashed against jagged rocks that lifted through the foam like teeth. There was one small calm pool almost directly beneath us, but for all I knew it was six inches deep. The moon was reflected in it, and I gazed from the moon to Master Li and back again.

“My life has been rather hectic, and I could use a long rest,” he sighed. “When I go to Hell to be judged, I intend to ask the Yama Kings to let me be reborn as a three-toed sloth. Do you have any preference?”

I thought about it. “A cloud,” I said shyly.

. . . Li Kao climbed up upon my back and wrapped his arms around my neck, and I discovered that I was beginning to feel undressed unless I wore my ancient sage like a raincoat. I perched on the edge and took aim.

“Farewell, sloth.”

“Farewell, cloud.”

I held my nose and jumped. The wind whistled around our ears as we plunged toward the pool, and toward a jagged rock that we hadn’t noticed.

“Left! Left!” Master Li yelled, pulling on my pendant chain like the reins of a bridle.

I frantically flapped my arms, like a large awkward bird, and the reflected moon grew larger and larger, and then so huge that I almost expected to see Chang-o and the White Rabbit stick their heads out and shake their fists at us. We missed the rock by six inches. The moon appeared to smile, and the warm waters of the Yellow Sea opened to embrace us like long-lost friends.

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Jones, Diana Wynne: Year of the Griffin

Decided to go with something a little lighter than Lord of Emperors after all, so I picked up Diana Wynne Jones’ Year of the Griffin. This is a sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm, which I enjoyed; it was loosely connected to her Tough Guide to Fantasyland, a travel guide that (very funnily) parodied by-the-numbers fantasies. Dark Lord imagined if that was an actual travel guide, and what havoc tours like that would cause on a world. It was fun and original, though a couple shifts to darker tone were slightly jarring. (Deep Secret, my favorite Jones book, manages this much better.)

The sequel is set eight years later. Elda, a griffin, has gone off to University to learn magic. (She’s the daughter of Derk, the human wizard who had to play the Dark Lord for the very last tour ever. Yes, they’re different species.) The University is in a mess, with financial troubles, deeply incompetent management and teaching, and a bunch of new students with various . . . problems. Like jinxes on their magic, and assassins after them, and parents who don’t know they’re there . . .

This is a lot lighter than Dark Lord, and rather dopey—but in a way that made me speed through it with a smile on my face, not roll my eyes and put it down. The shots taken at educational policy will undoubtedly resonate with a lot of people, and the joy of learning, one of the real pleasures of school stories, is done very well. I’ve read probably a half-dozen Jones books, some of which just slid right off me (the Chrestomanci and Dalemark books, basically) for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, Jones is so prolific that if you don’t like one, people will inevitably tell you that you’ve read the wrong ones, and just try this one, and this one, and . . . If you’re wondering where to start, read The Tough Guide first, and then try this review of Deep Secret by Dave Langford (warning: it reveals a good bit of the plot, but gives a nice sense of the book). If you like Deep Secret, well, you might like the Derkholm books. Or not. (But if you do, there’s a great big “To be continued” on the characters of Griffin, if not the plot, so you can expect more . . . )

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Kay, Guy Gavriel: Sarantine Mosaic (Sailing to Sarantium; Lord of Emperors)

I’m re-reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic diptych, because, well, I felt like it. Okay, I’d seen the paperbacks in the library and thought about getting them out, but decided to wait until I was at home, and they’ve also come up recently on Usenet. I’ve just finished the first, Sailing to Sarantium.

I already said quite a lot about the book in a review, so I won’t repeat myself here. Re-reading the first book when in a slightly scattered frame of mind, though, is a dangerous thing, because I find myself chasing down bits in the second book (Lord of Emperors) that come out of chance comments in the first, or are why I like this character that was just introduced so much, or, well, you get the picture. As a result, I’ve already read most of the sequel in unordered chunks during the past few days, without “officially” having started it. (Also, while I’m very fond of the first, it is paced considerably more slowly than the second, which is packed with amazing stuff.) As a consequence, I don’t know if I’m going to read it straight through now. I might; I really love these books. They’re both out in paper now; what are you waiting for?

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Robb, J.D.: (12.5) “Interlude in Death”

I’ve got a new Eve/Roarke story by J.D. Robb, and I’m happy. Yeah, it’s a guilty pleasure (I explain a little bit about the background in a review of Conspiracy in Death). But it’s a pleasure all the same.

The new story, “Interlude in Death” (a.k.a. “I couldn’t come upwith another title using ‘. . . in Death’ that I hadn’t already used”), is a novella in a collection called Out of This World. The story doesn’t break much ground, but it moves along nicely, and the sight of Eve trying to get out of giving a seminar at a conference is pretty good. (I’m not crazy about the obligatory revelation about Eve & Roarke’s pasts, but that’s a small quibble.)

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Moore, Alan: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The, vol. 1

Last night I finished volume one of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore (which I keep wanting to call The League of Frightened Men, which is a Nero Wolfe book). This is the collection of the first six issues/story arc of a new comic.

The story opens in 1898 with a Ms. Mina Murray assembling a crew of, well, freaks, at the direction of British Intelligence. After some effort, Ms. Murray (formerly Mrs. Harker, from Dracula) tracks down and recruits Allan Quatermain (from H. Rider Haggard’s books); Dr. Jekyll (& Mr. Hyde); and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man. (Captain Nemo is the other member, but the book opens after Ms. Murray—who kicks ass and takes names, and almost made me want to re-read Dracula, which I recall as being very dull textually—has recruited him, which is good because that’s by far the least probable one for her to have tracked down.)

That we’re in an alternate England is quite clear, and not only because these characters actually exist here, though their fates are not as recorded in our world. (For instance, a postscript at the end of Dracula says that in 1904, Mrs. Harker is still married and has a son.) On page 2, our characters stand upon an incomplete bridge across the English Channel—something never attempted in our world. And we eventually learn that our protagonists have been brought together to recover some stolen cavorite from another famous character of the era . . .

This story was a pretty straightforward adventure, made remarkable by the thought and research evident in the details—cameos, world-building, and background images. (There are annotations available, if you’re having trouble identifying some of the characters—or just translating the bits in different languages.) It was an enjoyable read, but I probably won’t buy the next one in hardcover for myself. (I bought this one in hardcover as a present for Chad, and since he thinks my scruple of not reading books I buy for other people is weird, borrowed it some time after he was finished.)

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