Author: katenepveu

Posted on

Pratchett, Terry: (19) Feet of Clay

Continuing the re-read of Terry Pratchett’s Guards books, we have Feet of Clay. This is the third, after Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms. I generally think of this as one of my favorites. However, it rather suffers from being read in reasonably close proximity to the other two, because you really notice that this one hammers on the king theme, again. I had quite a good idea about Pratchett’s attitude towards monarchy after the first one, and an even better one after the second; the third is starting to feel like overkill. Other than that, this is another enjoyable police procedural. Someone’s poisoning the Patrician, and Vimes is on a rampage to figure it out: Vimes might hate the Patrician, after all, but the Patrician is Vimes’ to hate.

Things of note: Carrot continues his evolution towards superhumanity; we’re still getting his points of view, but not that many. I suspect we may lose his points of view completely in the next book, Jingo. I would really like to hear Pratchett’s explanation of Vetinari’s actions and motivations regarding the Watch; I can sort of make his attitude in these earlier books fit in with Night Watch, but it doesn’t quite work. And, on a lighter note, Nobby’s reaction at the end of the dinner party was absolutely perfect.

4 Comments

Posted on

Roberts, Nora: Chesapeake Blue

How far behind am I on the booklog? So far behind that I was reading Nora Roberts’ Chesapeake Blue to decompress from packing the apartment to move into the new house: end of January, in other words.

[ If you’re curious as to what’s been taking up all my time, see my LiveJournal and the Miscellany page. ]

This is Roberts’ latest mainstream hardcover. I wasn’t planning on reading it; I didn’t know what it was about, but lately her mainstream hardcovers have been rather heavy on the random serial killers for my taste. Then, while looking for something else, I discovered that Chesapeake Blue was a sequel to the trilogy that ended with Inner Harbor, and focuses on Seth, who was a pre-teen at the time of those books. When I found this out, I said, “Well, heck, now I have to read this, which means waiting for the library to have it.”

A few weeks later, I was browsing the vendors at a book sale at work. One charity was selling funny small-sized hardcovers (book club editions?) for paperback prices, including Chesapeake Blue. Clearly, this was A Sign, so I purchased it and read it shortly thereafter.

It’s not true that if you’ve read one Nora Roberts book, you’ve read them all. However, once you’ve read lots of Nora Roberts books, as I have, you pretty much know what you’re getting. Her strengths, as always, are her people and their families and other relationships. Her weaknesses tend to be in the details. For instance, there’s this conversation in Chapter One that positively screams as-you-know-Bob infodumping. An excerpt:

“ . . . The boat business is thriving. . . . Aubrey’s working there.”

“No kidding? . . . How’s she doing?”

“Terrific. She’s beautiful, smart, stubborn and, according to Cam, a genius with wood. I think Grace was a little disappointed when Aubrey didn’t want to pursue dancing, but it’s hard to argue when you see your child so happy. And Grace and Ethan’s Emily followed in her mother’s toe shoes.”

“She still heading to New York end of August?”

“A chance to dance with the American Ballet Company doesn’t come along every day. She’s grabbing it, and she swears she’ll be principal before twenty.”

I read that and said, “Good grief, even I can do better than that.” For my own amusement, a first pass at more subtle incluing follows:

“Did you hear that Aubrey has started working at the business?”

“No kidding? How’s she doing?”

“Cam says she’s a genius with wood.”

“How’s Grace taking it? Are they still butting heads over Aubrey pursuing dancing?”

“I think she was a little disappointed at first, but it’s hard to argue when you see your child so happy. And Emily’s big news took the pressure off Aubrey.”

“She leaves for New York pretty soon, right? Is she nervous?”

“August, and Emily, nervous? Are you kidding—this is the woman who insists she’s going to make principal by twenty. And you know, even though it’s the American Ballet Company, I wouldn’t want to bet against her.”

Enough self-indulgence. Once the plot gets started, the craft level smoothes out considerably, and the comfort read unfolds: all the family and friends from the prior trilogy are thriving, Seth deals with issues from his past and falls in love, and everyone ends up happy except for the villain—exactly what I needed during packing and moving.

There’s one other thing that struck my eye: the book is dedicated “To every reader who ever asked : When are you going to tell Seth’s story?” Now, call me crazy, but I rather think “rescued from evil biological mother by kindly people and given a home, family, and opportunity to develop your artistic talent, all before you hit puberty” is enough story for most people’s lives. The dedication’s phrasing, though, suggests that a person’s story is automatically their failling in love, which I found disconcerting. I don’t know what my story is, but I don’t think it’s only that—or that it has to be only that. (Yes, this is partly a function of the genre, and it’s possible that no deep thought was put into that phrasing, but as I said, I found it striking.)

(Hmm, I guess I wasn’t done with the self-indulgence after all.)

No Comments

Posted on

Brust, Steven: (203) The Paths of the Dead

Yay, Brust.

So, The Paths of the Dead does, indeed, rock just as much as I’d hoped during the long wait for it. This is the next book in the series of Dumas pastiches set on Dragaera; the first two were The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After. Paths is the either the third book in the series, or the first part of the three-volume third book, The Viscount of Adrilankha. Normally, I strongly recommend publication order. However, I do suspect that if all you’ve read so far is the Vlad Taltos books, Paths would not be a horrible place to start the Khaavren series, because it includes many more familiar characters and referenced events than the prior Khaavren books. (I think The Phoenix Guards was the first of Brust’s Dragaera books I read; obviously I enjoyed it, but I recall finding the worldbuilding a bit difficult to decipher. As best I can judge, Paths does a smoother job of incluing the reader.)

Paths is set approximately 250 years after the Empire was destroyed. It’s clear from the first (even if you haven’t read the other books) that the Empire gets restored; this is the story of how various people set out to do so. It’s a hugely fun ride, one that’s extremely smooth and compulsively readable: so much so that it’s quite ironic that it took me so long to start reading, and then to write about, this book—because it took me practically no time at all to read it. This is all the more impressive when one considers that this is the first third of a longer work, meaning that several plot threads are left dangling. It ends on somewhat less than a cliffhanger, however, and so I’m not biting my nails for the next one for that reason. (The Lord of Castle Black was recently completed and is scheduled for release in August. While the release of each volume separately has caused some comment, it’s fine with me: Paths is 400 pages long, and I’d like to be able to lift my books, please.)

There’s a multitude of items, both small and large, to delight the reader in this book. For some reason, I am unaccountably fond of Pel and Sethra’s conversation, and Pel’s subsequent account of it, in Chapter 28. I also like the trip through the Paths of the Dead; at one level, I’m sure there’s some significance to the landscape, because this is Brust, who structured a whole book around a fable and the creation of one painting (The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars), yet on the other, I have to agree with the character who mutters, “Useless, although, no doubt, significant in a mystical way that is beyond my mortal comprehension. Bah.” (And I still don’t understand how the paths for each House get communicated. Have I missed something?)

There’s also a Prelude, by Paarfi’s publisher; “Some Notes Toward Two Analyses of Auctorial Method and Voice,” as an about-the-author; and a Cast of Characters, which, notably, includes some presumably-significant people who haven’t yet appeared. Even this extra stuff is fun. The Prelude, by Emma Bull, continues to build Paarfi (the narrator) as a character in his own right, and includes the lovely sentences “But I’m sure none of his readers begrudge the extra decade it took him to complete this book, beyond our announced date of publication. Certainly we here in the editorial offices understood completely, and are sure our creditors will, as well.” (Cf. “long wait for” Paths, above.) The “Two Analyses,” by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, are “How to Write Like Paarfi of Roundwood” and “How to Write Like Steven Brust” (which, oddly, appears to be in a larger typeface than the Paarfi bit). The first note under the Paarfi section is perhaps my favorite:

1. Always refer to yourself as “we.” It is unclear why Paarfi prefers to use the first person plural. He doesn’t seem to be speaking jointly for himself and his patron of the moment; neither is he speaking jointly on behalf of himself and Steven Brust. His true camaraderie is reserved for himself and his manuscript, but that doesn’t usually prompt a writer to speak in the plural. It may be that he’s using the editorial “we.” Alternatively, he may just have a mouse in his pocket.

Emma Bull and Teresa Nielsen Hayden are pretty darn cool, too.

My only complaint is that I’m not crazy about the cover, but that’s a minor thing: don’t let it stop you from going out and reading this right away (well, stopping first to read some of the other books in this world, if you really must). Have fun.

[ This was also posted to rec.arts.sf.written, so if you have Usenet access, feel free to take comments there. (Google link, may take a few hours to show up.) ]

No Comments

Posted on

Pratchett, Terry: (15) Men At Arms

Several nights ago, I picked up Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett, because I didn’t want to start reading The Paths of the Dead before bed (for fear that I would be up all night reading the whole thing. This turned out to be a good decision.). I’ve been done with the book for a while, but the last few nights, my time has been taken up with computer issues instead. (My new port replicator hates the USB card I wanted to put in it. Grr.)

Men at Arms is the second book in the Guards sub-series of the Discworld books, after Guards! Guards!. Most of the book is styled as a police procedural, as a series of unusual killings puzzles the Watch and sparks ethnic (dwarf-troll) tensions in the city. This part of the book is really enjoyable; I love the interactions between the new members of the Watch, particularly Detritus and Cuddy, and it’s always fun watching Vimes and Carrot policing. However, I think the book bungles the semi-MacGuffin by being about as subtle as a sledgehammer—not that the Discworld books are generally known for being subtle, but this is bad in a Real World political kind of way, which makes it even more strident. There are lovely moments in this book, and I really like it if I skip over those few pages here and there.

As an aside, I’ve been trying to see why I thought that the Patrician was considerably older than portrayed in Night Watch. Here’s one reason: he’s described as limping and hobbling during his end-of-book conversation with Carrot (which, by the way, is a great conversation). I know, you were all losing sleep over that one . . .

11 Comments

Posted on

Walton, Jo: (103) The Prize in the Game

John M. Ford once wrote that “Every book is three books, after all; the one the writer intended, the one the reader expected, and the one that casts its shadow when the first two meet by moonlight.” (“Rules of Engagement,” in From the End of the Twentieth Century.)

Using that metaphor, the first time I read Jo Walton’s The Prize in the Game, the cast shadow was even stranger than Deformed Rabbit (everyone’s favorite).

The reason, I realized, was that I had one of the stranger possible sets of expectations going into the book—including the fact that the book is dedicated to me. So I re-read it with a clearer head, and I’m happy to say that it’s very good. However, in hopes of avoiding messing up other people’s expectations, I’m not going to talk about my weird expectations here, because it’s too hard to use spoiler protection in this format. Instead, you can read my spoiler comments in a post to rec.arts.sf.written (Google link; may take a few hours to show up). What follows is a semi-objective review that ought to suit people who haven’t yet read the book.

Prize is set in the same world as Walton’s first two novels, The King’s Peace and The King’s Name. It tells the backstory of the Isarnagan (Irish-equivalent) characters appearing in those books, as well as that of some who hadn’t appeared on-stage before. It ought to be possible to read Prize first, but my general rule is to read things in publication order. In this case, I think Prize would end rather abruptly to someone who didn’t know the eventual fates of the characters (there will be a sequel to Prize, called Breaking the Ward). It would certainly be a very different experience, anyway—a good analogy is reading A Deepness in the Sky before A Fire Upon the Deep. If anyone tries it, please report back to us.

Prize is told from four alternating points of view. Conal is one of the King of Oriel’s nephews. Elenn and Emer are the daughters of Connat’s rulers; Elenn is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and Emer aspires to be a charioteer. Ferdia is the heir to Lagin, third of the five kingdoms of Tir Isarnagiri; he is also close friends with Darag, Conal’s cousin and rival.

As the book opens, Elenn, Emer, and Ferdia are all fostering at Oriel for a year. The plot is grounded in Irish myth, and stems from the contention over the heirship to Oriel, the ambitions of the King of Connat, and a deity’s curse—you know, standard stuff. I find myself unable to come up with a more useful summary that doesn’t spoil the book, for which I apologize. In a way, this is a compliment to the book, which is very effectively and efficiently constructed: the story flows very smoothly, with every event leading toward the climax, either directly or through foreshadowing (which is used frequently and, I thought, to quite good effect).

The characterization and world-building are also portrayed thoroughly and economically, which I think is a pretty good trick. I doubt there’s a wasted word in the novel, though I wouldn’t call it an obscure or difficult book; it simply rewards careful reading. (There are one or two things that I’m not entirely clear on, which will appear in the spoiler section at the end of this post. However, they aren’t central to the book.) Obviously, a lot of thought has gone into building the world, but the book never stops and says, for instance, “Here now is an explication of different kinds of trees and the knowledge associated with them.” Instead, the third-person viewpoints mention the information that would naturally cross the minds of those characters—thus combining two of my favorite things, depth of world-building and internally consistent narrative voice.

Thanks to the quality of the narration and the characterization, I certainly did not lack for emotional involvement with the characters. This was almost a problem; as Dennis Leary said in No Cure for Cancer, “From the beginning of time all the way up to U2—there has never been a happy Irish song,” and I rather suspect that applies to Irish myth, too. You’ve been warned. I found also it interesting to meet the younger versions of Conal, Emer, and Elenn, since I could see pretty easily how they became the people we first met in The King’s Peace, and to see Darag and Ferdia, who are mentioned in Peace and Name but do not appear.

In summary: this was an excellent book, and I’m glad that I eventually liked it. Go read it and let me know what you thought.

No Comments

Posted on

Conan Doyle, Arthur: (06) The Return of Sherlock Holmes

The other short stories I read were those in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which were collectively somewhat disappointing. Also, the Strand put frontspiece illustrations with these, frequently spoiling the entire story.

The first is “The Adventure of the Empty House,” in which Holmes is revealed to be Not Dead after all. This one has a mystery that is unfortunately no mystery at all from a modern perspective; it actually took me a minute to realize why the killing was perplexing to the characters. The other stories of note are “The Adventure of the Priory School,” in which Holmes does something extremely out of character regarding money; “The Adventure of Black Peter,” in which Holmes, harpoon in hand, tries to transfix a dead pig in a single blow; “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” in which Holmes and Watson go a-burgling; and “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,” which is the first time I remember Holmes telling Watson that the game is afoot. Many of the other stories are unremarkable, either predictable or somewhat repetitive.

Two other things I noticed. First, Lestrade hardly appears, and the police officer role is largely filled by young Hopkins; cynically, I think that’s because Lestrade’s been around long enough that Holmes can’t show him up as easily. Second, Watson (or Doyle, really) takes an inconsistent approach to confidential or embarrassing client information: sometimes making a big deal about changing names, sometimes ignoring the problem completely, sometimes writing stories that, if they were really true, couldn’t be written no matter how many details were obscured. This happens in the occasional Wolfe story, as well, and it always ruins whatever suspension of disbelief I’ve managed to build up. These stories worked well enough as bedtime distractions, but they are definitely not the best of the lot.

No Comments

Posted on

Macdonald, James D., and Debra Doyle: (03) “Sleeping Kings”

In the past few weeks, I also read a bunch of short stories, standard fare for weeks with insufficient time. One of those was the most recent Peter Crossman story, “Sleeping Kings” by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald, which is in Crusade of Fire, edited by Katherine Kurtz. (There’s another Kurtz Templar anthology out there, but I’ve yet to lay eyes on it.) I didn’t like this as much as the prior Crossman stories, primarily because the villain was rather unimpressive. However, Macdonald is working on another Crossman novel, which is excellent news.

No Comments

Posted on

Howe, Deborah and James: Bunnicula

Christmas day actually turned out to be a little quieter than I thought, so I needed another book to read at bedtime. I used to love Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe, and hadn’t read it for years, so when I saw it in Chad’s parents’ basement, I grabbed it. I was pleased to discover that this tale of a vampire bunny held up really well. The concept is just brilliant, and while this dog’s narration isn’t as low-key as that of A Night in the Lonesome October, it’s still pretty funny. Recommended for fairly youngish readers and up. (There are a couple of sequels, which I don’t recall at all, but Chad’s father tells me they didn’t suck.)

7 Comments

Posted on

Pratchett, Terry: (08) Guards! Guards!

I brought Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards! with me over Christmas because I knew family holidays tend to be somewhat hectic, and re-reading in those circumstances works better than reading. Besides, I’d been meaning to re-read the Watch books after reading Night Watch.

Guards! Guards! is the first book about the Watch of Ankh-Morpork, which was once a police force but, at the start of the book, is down to a few ineffective misfits. Then a new recruit arrives, and someone puts the city under threat by summoning a dragon, and the Watch begins to change . . .

I can now report that while we don’t meet Vetinari’s aunt in the first Watch book, she does get mentioned; Vetinari lacks a daughter whose hand he could offer in marriage as a reward for dragon-slaying, and wonders if an aunt is an acceptable substitute . . . No indication of Vetinari’s age that I saw, which was the other thing I was wondering about.

It’s interesting to see how far Vimes has come, as a character, and also how far he fell from his past-rookie-self of Night Watch. The Patrician’s deliberate weakening of the Watch, prior to Guards! Guards!, also appear in a different light in that context; it will be interesting to re-read the expansion of the Watch and the dynamics of the Patrician’s interactions with Vimes and Carrot. Also, this is just a fun book; not the best Discworld book, but solid and entertaining.

1 Comment