This post contains book-destroying SPOILERS for Empire of Ivory. The non-spoiler post is here.
Continue reading “Novik, Naomi: (04) Empire of Ivory (spoilers)”
Novik, Naomi: (04) Empire of Ivory
Empire of Ivory is the fourth book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series and pretty much like the first three in its strengths and weaknesses. I enjoyed it greatly and can’t wait to see what happens in the fifth book, due next summer.
To start with a weakness, there’s pacing, specifically a slow start. By the end of chapter one at the latest, it’s obvious that the characters are going to Africa (I knew it upon reading the sample chapter included with the third book, last June; and it says so outright on the back cover), but it takes another hundred pages for the characters to realize it, though not too many more to get there. I can see the reason for most of the events in these first chapters, but still wish they passed more quickly.
I love the book after it gets to Africa, though, particularly for the chance to see another society’s interactions with dragons. The more alternate the history gets, the happier it makes me: it’s so much fun to see the ramifications played out—especially given Europe’s not-very-alternate status at the start [*]—and especially these ramifications.
[*] Novik talks about the reasons for this halfway through a Strange Horizons interview.
It’s not just worldbuilding, of course; there are exciting bits and wonderful dragons and the continued challenging of Laurence’s default social beliefs. And a dog, briefly:
Laurence had learnt the art of carrying livestock aboard a dragon from Tharkay, in the East, by drugging the beasts with opium before they were loaded on, but they had none of the drug with them at present, so with a dubious spirit of experimentation they put the whining dog aboard by main force instead, and strapped it down. It was inclined to squirm and struggle against the makeshift harness, making several abortive attempts to leap off into the air, until Temeraire lifted away; then after a few yelps of excitement, it sat down on its haunches with its mouth open and tongue lolling out, thrashing its tail furiously with delight . . . .
(Not only is this a great image, but dogs are a theme with my reading this month: Making Money, this, and (in-progress) Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog.)
I also love the ending, not because it’s a cliffhanger but because of the characterization leading up to it and the possibilities for resolving it.
Speaking of characterization, I think the book’s other principal weakness is the characterization of the supporting human characters. The minor ones are sufficiently flat that I have trouble matching names to functions; and even the ones whose names I remember, I couldn’t give more than a couple of adjectives apiece for. It’s not just that British humans in the early 1800s, even aviators, were relatively restrained—though that relative restraint is one of the reasons that the dragons seem so vivid. Instead, I think this is a result of Laurence’s point-of-view, which makes me wonder what the series might look like in Patrick O’Brian-style omniscient. (As much as I enjoyed Temeraire’s point-of-view in “Feast or Famine”, it wouldn’t be an improvement in this regard.)
A spoiler post follows.
Brockmann, Suzanne: (05-06) Into the Night; Gone Too Far
After reading Into the Storm, I discovered that Suzanne Brockmann’s current and forthcoming books feature one of my favorite characters. This gave me the motivation to start catching up on the rest of the series.
Actually I’d read Into the Night, the next un-logged book, some months ago. However, it seemed to be closely linked to the following book, Gone Too Far, and so I thought I’d wait to log them together. Except that I wasn’t impressed by Into the Night, or looking forward to Gone Too Far, so they languished, neglected.
I wasn’t impressed by Into the Night for a couple of reasons. First, the book felt over-stuffed: it had a principal relationship thread, a WWII thread, a secondary thread involving several relationships, and a terrorist plot that extended into the next book. Second, the characters in the principal relationship thread didn’t click for me. Instead of finding Mike Muldoon multi-faceted and sympathic, I felt as though he were a character designed to prove a point: look, men can dislike being treated as sexual objects, too! And Joan DaCosta’s humor came across in text as brittle instead of self-deprecating. It’s possible that they would have read differently to me on a re-read, but the idea felt like homework, and I did enough of that this summer thanks to Worldcon.
Instead, I went to Gone Too Far, which I had been reluctant to read. Not only was it was another thick book which I expected to be overstuffed, but it focused on Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke. I disliked Sam upon his introduction in the first Troubleshooters book, and hadn’t really warmed up to him in the intervening books. And I was tired of Sam and Alyssa’s angst-puppets status.
This turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. The WWII material is pushed far to the background; in its place is Sam’s backstory. While I thought making him an abused child was a cheap way to give him depth and make him sympathetic, his present-day growth means that he no longer grates on my nerves. Further, I’d expected the development of Sam and Alyssa’s relationship to be rather perfunctory, since it had stalled for external reasons only; but there was a satisfactory progression between the two of them as well. And I liked the material than spans the two books, the terrorist plot and the redemption of Mary Lou. It’s still quite a long book, but I didn’t feel it dragged as its predecessor did.
The next book focuses on new characters, which would be good except I’m pretty sure they include yet another set of angst puppets who featured heavily in Into the Storm. Oh well, at least it’s shorter.
Crusie, Jennifer, Eileen Dreyer, and Anne Stuart: The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes
The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes is a collaborative novel by Jennifer Crusie, Eileen Dreyer, and Anne Stuart (not, as one reviewer claimed, a collection of novellas). Dee, Lizzie, and Mare Fortune are sisters with hereditary magical abilities, who have been running from their wicked aunt since they were teenagers. Now their wicked aunt has found them and, as part of a plot to steal their magical abilities, has drawn their True Loves to town. (This does, actually, make sense when not summarized in a single sentence.)
I read a free review copy of this while on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and it was terrific summer vacation reading. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to review it properly before going off to Japan, and had to re-read it just now—so I can report that it is also good post-summer, post-vacation reading.
I spotted Crusie’s thread in the novel, that of Mare, right away: it is the only one with more than two characters in it. I can’t say I recognized Dreyer’s (Dee), but I used to read her work under the name Kathleen Korbel and so wasn’t surprised that it was pretty good. I’ve never read Stuart’s work, and I found her thread by far the weakest: I thought that it lacked tension and that Lizzie’s True Love was an overbearing jerk. As a result, when their eyes changed to matching colors to signify their True Love, I rolled my eyes and turned the page quickly.
Somewhat like Bet Me, this book requires accepting its central proposition—here, that True Love exists and can be recognized in the space of a weekend—for it to work at all. Neither of those are my favorite things in a romance novel, but the women—the sisters, their relationships, and their wicked aunt—ended up feeling like the center of this book for me anyway, not the romances. (Though the humor and characterization didn’t make suspending my disbelief too hard, except as already mentioned.)
As for the collaborative nature of this book, I didn’t find the styles jarring or the threads overly-repetitive, though I realize these are very YMMV things. I thought that the ending had one development too many, which may or may not be a result of the collaboration, and that the weird little town could have had its weirdness developed a little more, which is probably a result of fitting three romances and one fantasy plot into a single mass-market paperback. Overall, though, this was another good vacation/post-vacation book.
Brockmann, Suzanne: (10) Into the Storm
Suzanne Brockmann’s Into the Storm is the tenth book in her Troubleshooters series and the most recent paperback. It jumped the queue thanks to Oracne’s LiveJournal post discussing its treatment of race and gender.
As much as I appreciated the existence of Lindsey, a main character of Japanese descent who hates being stereotyped, I thought her big speech on the topic had distracting “This Is A Message” signs flashing all over it. But then, this is a known issue; I had the same reaction to a big speech against homophobia in Hot Target. I certainly agree with Brockmann and don’t doubt her sincerity, I just find these little speeches jarring. They do, however, pass quickly.
My larger problem with this book was Lindsey’s emotional problems, which drive the relationship-related plot. (A serial killer drives the suspense-related plot.) They come up so fast and with such little buildup, that at first I thought the other main character, Mark, was being an overly-confident jerk for telling her that she had such problems. Nope, not the case. And it bugged me a bit that the conflicts weren’t more balanced, that there wasn’t more focusing on Mark.
But I like Lindsey and Mark, so the relationship-related plot isn’t a total loss. And the serial killer plot is creepy and effective, if perhaps slightly over-the-top, and does a nice job of developing a new character and expanding an existing supporting character. Post-vacation, I’ve been looking for fairly light yet absorbing books, and even with my quibbles, this fit the bill well.
Pratchett, Terry: (36) Making Money
Terry Pratchett’s Making Money is a sequel to Going Postal. Having gotten the Post Office working smoothly, Moist von Lipwig is going crazy with boredom. Nevertheless, he’s turned down Lord Vetinari’s offer to run the Royal Bank, when external events force him to take it—much to the displeasure of the family who owns 49% of the Bank, and is one life away from owning it all . . .
On one hand, this was perfect for a train ride home after the culmination of an exhausting couple of weeks. It has a dog, some good improvisational moments from Moist, and a number of sentence-level jokes that made me smile. On the other, it felt kind of empty in the middle. It reminds me a bit of recent Dortmunder novels: not much happens, but in an competent and entertaining way. Except that Going Postal was so packed with happenings that this book suffers in comparison.
Also, Harper should be ashamed of itself for once again publishing a Discworld book in which the number one (1) is substituted for a capital letter i (I) and so forth.
Finally, a spoilerly remark (ROT13; see sidebar): qbrf nalbar ryfr guvax zbvfg jvyy raq hc cngevpvna?
Pratchett, Terry: (29) Night Watch (audio)
Some time ago I finished my re-listen of the Discworld books’ City Watch subseries with Night Watch, narrated by Stephen Briggs. When I first read this, I didn’t think the time-travel sections had a coherent plot. Audio helped me pay better attention to the narrative flow and understand the way the two versions of the past were in tension. Time-travel plots still make my head hurt, but at least now I comprehend the past events.
It strikes me that this and Thud! are the culmination of the books about Vimes, in the same way that Lord and Ladies and Carpe Jugulum are the culmination of the books about Granny Weatherwax. (I was going to say that Thud! was superfluous, but it contains Vimes as a father.) Unless something highly unexpected happens in Ankh-Morpork, I predict that Vimes will be a supporting character at most in subsequent Discworld books.
Westlake, Donald E.: (14) What’s So Funny?
A quick catch-up post: What’s So Funny? is Donald E. Westlake’s most recent Dortmunder novel, which is not longer that recent because this post got stuck behind quite a lot of other things.
This isn’t a great Dortmunder book, but it isn’t a brain-eaten one, either. An ex-cop blackmails Dortmunder into “retrieving” a very fancy, very heavy chess set currently locked in a bank vault while various rich people fight over it. Though it’s not action-packed, it has a particularly excellent Dortmunder moment late in the book, good contributions from the two newest recurring characters, and a portrait of life in a big law firm whose accuracy I can’t vouch for but that I enjoyed in a schadenfreude kind of way. Add in Westlake’s usual sentence-level craft, and I’m a satisfied reader.
Crusie, Jennifer: Bet Me
I liked Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me better than Faking It, her last solo novel. Bet Me has no murders and so no tone mismatch. And in what is possibly a first for me, I was able to keep track of all eight characters introduced in the opening chapter.
This book is a fairy tale—it starts with “Once upon a time” and ends with “happily ever after”—and is about fairy tales, ripping them apart and then putting them back together properly. Some small parts of the plot only make sense when viewed as part of a fairy tale; I’m not sure if I buy them even with those genre conventions in mind. Also, the middle seems a bit slow. However, it was very good post-vacation piecemeal reading and would probably be a good place to start reading Crusie’s novels.
Heyer, Georgette: Friday’s Child (radio play)
Either Georgette Heyer’s books don’t work well as radio plays, or Friday’s Child is not very good. Or, I suppose, both. But really, while I was listening to this marriage-of-convenience / lifelong-friend-with-hidden-love romance, all I could think was, “Good grief, they’re all idiots.” Maybe The Unknown Ajax would be similarly frustrating out loud, but I think I won’t risk an audio adaptation of Heyer’s books again.
Okay, actually, I had two other reactions. One was to twitch every time someone called the main female character “kitten”—talk about your diminutive nicknames. And the other was to wonder if I was supposed to think that they were having sex. Really, given their portrayals, either way the mind boggles.