Author: katenepveu

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Gaiman, Neil: (112) Sandman: Endless Nights

The Sandman: Endless Nights, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by diverse others, is a collection of tales set in the Sandman universe, one story for each Endless. (Illustrated in the standard comic sense, that is, rather than a prose story with illustrations as The Dream Hunters was.) It’s somewhat of a mixed bag, but no more so than any of the prior Sandman collections. (I read this back in September and am only getting around to writing it up now.)

The first story, “Death and Venice,” is one of the better in the collection. Illustrated by P. Craig Russell, it’s not as jaw-droppingly beautiful as “Ramadan,” but it’s nevertheless highly pleasant to look at, with a central story that’s interesting even though we know what the ending must, inevitably, be. I do find the framing story a touch jarring, but that may be personal taste.

“What I’ve Tasted of Desire,” illustrated by Milo Manara, is okay. The most notable thing about it (besides the prevalence of nudity) is that it’s narrated in first-person retrospective over panels that depict the action in progress. Otherwise it didn’t particularly interest me.

Dream’s story is titled “The Heart of a Star,” and is illustrated by Miguelanxo Prado. In the introduction, Gaiman says, “While it is true that I am someone who prefers mysteries to explanations, I found it pleasurable here to explain a number of things.” I wish he’d stuck to the mysteries; the explanations are more anti-climactic than illuminating, and some of them strike me as implausible (Delight seems awfully Delirium-like, for instance, and my, was that a fast change of heart or what?).

“Fifteen Portraits of Despair” was designed by Dave McKean, with art by Barron Storey. I actually liked this one; several of the portraits stayed with me, as though the hook on Despair’s ring had caught my heart, which was the point. Mileage does seem to vary widely on it.

Maybe I’m weird, but I really liked the Delirium story “Going Inside,” illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. I found it charming and clever and sad, all at once. Saying more about it would spoil it.

The Destruction story, “On the Peninsula,” is illustrated by Glenn Fabry and gets an “ehhh.” It doesn’t add much to my understanding of any of the characters, or tell a compelling story—though I suppose to the extent that it’s about a woman who goes seeking Destruction and returns unscathed, it’s unexpected.

The last piece in the collection is about Destiny and is titled “Endless Nights.” Frank Quitely did the art, which is very pretty. You notice I haven’t called it a story, because it isn’t. It’s just telling us about Destiny, and not anything we didn’t know already, either. I have no idea what this is doing here.

Because this is positioned outside the main story arc, I instinctively view it in isolation, to its detriment. However, I don’t think the proportion of good stories is any worse than in other Sandman collections. I can’t recommend that casual readers buy it in hardcover, but I don’t regret buying and reading it.

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Robb, J.D.: (17.5) Remember When (with Nora Roberts)

Remember When was written by Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb.

Who are the same person.

More specifically, J.D. Robb is a pseudonym of Roberts, a very popular romance writer. The pseudonym was never that secret—I forget how exactly I came across the first when it was originally published, but it was in connection to Roberts—and recently the covers have stated that they’re by Roberts writing as Robb. Presumably this hardcover is just another marketing step.

Anyway, the concept is that Roberts wrote the first section. This is set in the present day and concerns the aftermath of a diamond heist; there’s been a falling-out among thieves, an insurance investigator is on the case, and luuuuv is in the air. The problem with the first half, besides that the two main characters fall in love really quickly, is that the reader knows that things aren’t going to be wrapped up fully: there has to be something left that leads Eve Dallas, J.D. Robb’s protagonist, to investigate a linked crime fifty-odd years later. And indeed, the loose thread is not entirely plausible.

It also suffers in comparison to the second half, at least to me, because the J.D. Robb books have well-established characters that I care much more about than the ones in the first half. Mind, the second half isn’t perfect; there’s an annoying little continuity error that makes the police characters look much stupider than they actually are. It’s a problem with the series overall, unfortunately, though it’s not entirely surprising considering how prolific Roberts/Robb is (two books a year as Robb, and at least two as Roberts, generally). Hey, guilty pleasure, you know the drill.

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Wrede, Patricia C.: Book of Enchantments

Patricia C. Wrede’s Book of Enchantments is a collection of short stories; I picked it up a while ago as before-bed re-reading. Neither of Wrede’s “adult” series is represented in this collection (the Lyra series and the alternate-Regency books), but there are several stories set in her popular Enchanted Forest YA universe (Dealing with Dragons, etc.). These are among the stronger (and sillier) stories in the collection, particularly “Utensile Strength”, which features The Frying Pan of Doom. Another enjoyably humorous story is “Rikiki and the Wizard,” a folktale written for the second Liavek shared-world anthology. Less successful, in my opinion, was “The Sword-Seller,” which was written for a Witch World anthology; to me, it lacks some subtle spark. Overall, the stories range from classic fairy-tale format to fantasy in modern settings. The best story by far is “Stronger than Time,” but it’s generally a strong collection and well worth picking up if you like any of Wrede’s work.

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Montgomery, L.M.: Pat of Silver Bush; Mistress Pat

After re-reading The Curse of Chalion, I only really felt like reading the new Bujold, but not having a copy, well, I settled for something undemanding like L.M. Montgomery’s Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat. I was reminded of these by a flurry of discussion of Montgomery’s Emily books on various LiveJournals. These are about a girl who’s in love with a house. Mostly they’re just people living their lives and telling stories, in the way that Montgomery does well, but there are two things that drove me nuts. First, a major character speaks in a brogue that’s phonetically rendered, and I hate phonetic dialogue. Second, the ending is absolutely horrible. Montgomery clearly wrote herself into a corner, but that’s no excuse for smashing her way out in the way that most insults the characters and the reader. I was warned that Montgomery’s inability to plot was on fine display in these, but I still found the ending highly dreadful.

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Bujold, Lois McMaster: (201) The Curse of Chalion (no-content re-read)

I re-read Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion in preparation for the forthcoming book set in that world, Paladin of Souls. I have absolutely nothing to add to my review of it, except that I really like this book and can’t want the next one to come out. (My willpower was extremely weak and I read the online sample chapters. Bad idea.)

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Doyle, Debra, and James D. Macdonald: Circle of Magic series

When I got back from vacation, I didn’t feel like reading anything lengthy, so I picked up Debra Doyle and James Macdonald’s Circle of Magic series, six books that were recently re-published, some under different names:

  1. School of Wizardry
  2. Secret of the Tower (formerly Tournament and Tower)
  3. The Wizard’s Statute (formerly City by the Sea)
  4. Danger in the Palace (formerly The Prince’s Players)
  5. The Wizard’s Castle (formerly The Prisoners of Bell Castle)
  6. The High King’s Daughter

Reprinted in 2000-01 with new covers, the publisher was clearly hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the Harry Potter books: the protagonist is about fifteen for the bulk of the series, and the old covers (I have the third in an old edition) show him as a teen. The new ones, on the other hand, have a pre-adolescent boy on most of the covers. I like the old titles better, by and large, as less generic, but if it helped them sell, I shall not fuss.

[ Speaking of clearly hoping to capitalize on Harry Potter: I spotted a twenty-anniversary edition of Diane Duane’s So You Want To Be A Wizard that, well, take a look at this pastel cover for yourself. Fortunately the paperbacks’ covers have not been changed. ]

I don’t know the technical term for this format, but the physical books are slightly taller than a standard mass-market paperback and all about 140 pages. They’re clearly written for a fairly young audience, and after the first book, I was afraid that they were written at too young a level, as I found it rather predictable. I have faith in Doyle and Macdonald, however (and these each take me about twenty minutes to read), so I persevered, and I was rewarded: these do get more complex and interesting as they go. The series leans very heavily on conservation of characters—I think as many may re-appear, as only appear once—and this allows the authors to play with expectations and to show multiple sides of characters. It also helps tie the individual book-episodes together into more of a continuing story.

These were good solid storytelling, just as I expect from Doyle and Macdonald. If you know young Harry Potter fans, you could do worse than to give them these books.

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Robb, J.D.: (17) Imitation in Death

When we got off the plane at O’Hare, nearly the first thing I saw was J.D. Robb’s Imitation in Death, the latest Eve/Roarke novel. This was a pleasant surprise, as I’d seen it listed as a September release, so I snapped it up and read it on an antisocial afternoon. This is a serial killer novel, where the murderer models each of his killings on a different famous serial killer; it’s much in the classic police procedural mode, as there’s a finite universe of suspects, the reader doesn’t know the killer, and the clues to figure it out are gradually revealed as the protagonist investigates. Of the various ongoing character-based plot threads, the main one here is Peabody’s detective exam. Just the thing for a lazy, quiet vacation afternoon.

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Conan Doyle, Arthur: (08-09) His Last Bow; The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

When I go on vacations that involve airplanes, I take two kinds of books with me. (Paperbacks; I think hardcovers are an inefficient use of space when flying; so, The Merlin Conspiracy must wait yet again.) I take a set of short stories or some other form of reading that is well-suited being read in small chunks before bed. And I take a big thick book, in case I stay awake on a plane and want to immerse myself in something. This vacation, a Sherlock Holmes omnibus was before-bed reading, and I read His Last Bow and The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.

I have now completed the Holmes canon. Finishing those provided more of a sense of accomplishment than actual enjoyment: not that they were terrible, but the plots were definitely getting tired by the end. Also, the two Holmes-narrated stories are just as insufferable as you’d except. But hey, now I can read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

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Spencer, Wen: (01-03) Alien Taste; Tainted Trail; Bitter Waters

Last Friday, I unexpectedly had the afternoon off because of the blackout (we had power, but state workers were sent home to conserve power to help bring NYC back up). The obvious thing to do was to stretch out in the backyard with a book, but I was curiously reluctant to read the book I was nearly done with (The Merlin Conspiracy), probably because I was nearly done with it and wanted something to immerse myself in all afternoon. For no apparent reason, I picked up Wen Spencer’s near-future SF Alien Taste; after I finished it, I went out and bought the two sequels, Tainted Trail and Bitter Waters.

I bought Alien Taste because of, oddly, Steven Brust’s Paths of the Dead; I posted my book log review to Usenet, where someone picked up on the “Alternatively, he may just have a mouse in his pocket.” quote and mentioned the series favorably. Spencer was a guest at Boskone; I didn’t see any of the panels she was on, but her name in the program reminded me to pick up Alien Taste in the dealer’s room.

Ukiah Oregon was found as a feral child living with a wolf pack, near the town he was named after. As Alien Taste opens, he’s working as a tracker in partnership with a private detective; the current quarry is a missing woman whose roommates have been slaughtered by someone with a katana. Given the title of the book, it’s no surprise to the reader that his tracking abilities (which include tracking by DNA) are, yes, inhumanly good. Ukiah doesn’t know this yet, though, and most of Alien Taste is taken up with Ukiah discovering his origins and how they are tied into the central worldbuilding idea of the series. Over the series, the consequences and the backstory of this idea keep expanding in satisfactorily complicated ways; it’s nowhere near Lord of the Rings level of complexity, but approaches, oh, say, Daniel Keys Moran’s published Continuing Time books (Emerald Eyes, The Long Run, The Last Dancer).

[ Aside: these are set in 2004; the first was published in July 2001. I was initially worried by the back cover copy of the third, which mentions Homeland Security: my reaction was, “Hey, we’ve already posited gay marriage and female-on-female in vitro fertilization as happening sometime around 1999; just accept that we’re in an alternative universe and don’t try to shoehorn in current events.” Fortunately, this turns out not to be a real problem, though I’m still not sure why it was necessary to bring Homeland Security into it. ]

Obviously, I really enjoyed Alien Taste, since I immediately went to Borders and bought the rest of the series. They’re certainly not perfect books: the prose, while reasonably transparent to me, is nothing remarkable, and many of the interpersonal elements lack subtlety (for instance, if you can’t spot the love interests the instant they come on stage, you’ve been, well, raised by wolves). But I liked the cast of characters immediately, a reaction that I find hard to explain in any useful way, and care about how the emotional stuff plays out, unsubtle though it is. The mystery and tracking-methodology elements are also appealing, and feed into the fun, fast, and exciting plots. And I like the way the central idea is being worked out; it’s a rich universe.

The first two are self-contained, though I wouldn’t read them out of order. The third ends on more of a cliffhanger; the fourth will be out in May 2004. I don’t know if more are planned, but I’ll be reading the fourth, as well as Spencer’s forthcoming non-series books.

(Oh, and the relevance of the mouse in the pocket? That would be a spoiler, but the author’s website currently has a teaser quote featuring a mouse . . . [If you want to avoid hints, though, I’d avoid the sample chapters from the sequels.] Edit: said teaser quote is no longer there. Sorry.)

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Westlake, Donald E.: (01) The Hot Rock

I bought several caper movies on DVD recently, including the film adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s The Hot Rock. (Discussion of the film itself is on my LiveJournal.) The movie, of course, prompted a re-read. This is the first of the Dortmunder comic crime novels, in which Dortmunder and the gang have just one goal: to steal an emerald. Unfortunately, with the kind of luck Dortmunder has, it requires them to pull off five or so different jobs, which steadily escalate in absurdity until you get moments like:

In his office on the opposite side of the building, Chief Administrator Doctor Panchard L. Whiskum sat at his desk, rereading the piece he’d just written for the American Journal of Applied Pan-Psychotherapy, entitled “Instances of Induced Hallucination among Staff Members of Mental Hospitals,” when a white-jacketed male nurse ran in shouting, “Doctor! There’s a locomotive in the garden!”

Doctor Whiskum looked at the male nurse. He looked at his manuscript. He looked at the male nurse. He looked at his manuscript. He looked at the male nurse. He said, “Sit down, Foster. Let’s talk about it.”

plus everyone’s favorite catch-phrase, “Afghanistan banana stand.”

The big pleasures of these books are the characters, the sheer inventiveness, and the smooth plots. The small pleasures are the prose and the recurring gags, many of which I was pleased to spot all the way back at this first book, such as the C&I—Capitalists and Immigrants—Bank, and why Fred Lartz stopped driving (took a wrong turn into Kennedy Airport), and so forth.

If you like caper movies, deadpan humor that likes and respects its characters, or superbly crafted prose, you have absolutely no reason to avoid the Dortmunder books. About the only place you shouldn’t start is Drowned Hopes, which is atypically dark; otherwise, enjoy.

[And with that, I am caught up on the book log! Scroll down and down—I was only seven books behind . . . ]

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