Author: katenepveu

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Roberts, Nora: Inner Harbor; [meta] Criteria for a good romance

Yesterday, the weather sucked, I had a headache, and class material was either making me cranky (Catharine MacKinnon, who I’m convinced is an alien) or soppy (not one but two stories of devoted long-term marriages in which one spouse was dying of ALS; one of them was a documentary on physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands, so we got to watch him die, too—whee!). So I stopped by the library and perused the shelves for a good romance as a quick pick-me-up. Nora Roberts’ Inner Harbor isn’t quite what I was looking for, but it’s close enough for these purposes.

Criteria for a good romance:

  1. By the end of the book, the protagonists must each have a spine.
  2. The obstacle keeping the protagonists apart must not be obviously stupid. The following are generally acceptable:
    • Personal beliefs or personality traits that follow from past experience for good reason. (For example, a crushing inferiority complex is no way to start a marriage, to borrow a phrase from Sayers. However, thinking you can never marry because your parent was Eeeevil and genetics is scary—obviously stupid. No, I’m not making this up.)
    • Characters needing to mature or learn more about each other. (Opposites learning to compromise, Pride and Prejudice.)
    • Codes of morals, ethics, or honor. (Best friend’s spouse/former spouse, too young, too old, on the other side of a war, etc.)
    • External obstacles. (“Sam will kill me if I try anything.”)
    • Family obligations or disapproval. (Remember, Romeo and Juliet are dead.)
  3. There should be none of this “man spends most of book treating woman horribly, realizes he was wrong, and she forgives him immediately because she loves him” stuff.
  4. There should be a distinct lack of poorly-thought-out fantasy or sf elements, time travel, psychic connections, reincarnations, mystic New-Agey crap, and the like.
  5. Closely related: Don’t write historical novels if you don’t know how to do historical research or inclue. [Not a typo. To inclue is to get clues across to readers without lumpy exposition. Jo Walton coined it.]
  6. Unless one of the protagonists works in the criminal justice system, murder and mayhem—particularly if the protagonists decide they must stick their noses in to investigate, not that they have any clue what they are doing—are strongly discouraged. Women pulling slasher-flick stunts are Right Out.
  7. The following boring plots should be avoided:
    • Falling in love with someone you are using to get revenge on someone else.
    • Getting pregnant and not telling the father.
    • Being royalty in disguise.
    • And really most deceptions, unless they are necessary for a morally permissible and serious purpose and don’t last for too long.
  8. Decent prose (shouldn’t have to say it, but . . . ).

(Some of these rules also apply to non-genre romance stories; I just went for a genre book yesterday because it was simpler. There are possibly more that aren’t coming to mind now. See also The Romance Heroine Rules, from Jennifer Crusie’s fan mailing list; #23 is very true, but the best by far is #19.)

Inner Harbor does have a ghost, but I can ignore that fairly easily. There’s also some deception, but it actually makes sense in context. It’s the last of a trilogy about three brothers who find themselves caring for a boy their adoptive father took in—but Seth has their father’s eyes, and there are allegations that their father’s death might have been suicide . . . Of course, the mystery gets solved, each of the brothers finds a love, and it all ends happily. I got just the last one because I have read them before, I didn’t want to invest that much time in my pick-me-up, and I like the way Seth becomes part of the family, which is concluded here. It worked pretty well—and the sun’s out now, which helps at least as much.

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Stevermer, Caroline: Serpent’s Egg, The

The Serpent’s Egg is Caroline Stevermer’s first fantasy novel, an odd little book that doesn’t quite satisfy, though it’s annoyingly difficult to pin down why. Parts of The Element of Fire reminded me of this, but upon re-reading, I realized I was conflating a few different characters. Yes, there’s a strong queen and a throne in peril from a wicked duke, duels and magic, in a vaguely post-medieval court, but the scale and tone are somewhat different.

The Element of Fire also feels much more vivid to me; there are some promising portions of The Serpent’s Egg, but I never really felt that I had a firm grasp on the story—or it on me, whichever you prefer. Perhaps it is too short, in something of the way that The Dragon Waiting just skirts being. At any rate, it’s quite hard to find, so most of my readers won’t have to worry about it.

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McKinley, Robin: Blue Sword, The

I’d wanted to re-read Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword back when I was looking for anti-sexist fiction, but none of the libraries nearby had a copy (shock! horror!). (I reviewed it a couple of years ago.) This time I was struck by how easily the plot elements could have fallen into cliché; they’re saved as much by the understatedly wry narration, as by the carefully-built world and characters. I really like this, and hope that its repackaging as a YA novel doesn’t cause readers to overlook it.

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Watt-Evans, Lawrence: Touched by the Gods

Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Touched by the Gods is a competent and entertaining standalone fantasy. At birth, Malledd is named the gods’ chosen champion. He grows up in strange times: the gods stop speaking through oracles, non-divine magic appears, and it begins to appear that the Empire itself is threatened. Malledd hates being singled out, though, and is skeptical that he really was marked by the gods. Hardly anyone in the outside world knows that he was named at birth; will he step forward in the Empire’s need?

Well, of course he will—this isn’t a Stephen Donaldson book, after all—but why and how he joins the struggle is portrayed sensibly. That’s my predominant impression of this book: not flashy in plot, character, or style, but a thoughtful working-out of the actual experience of an adult facing the claim that he is a divine champion. It’s a good story in an interesting world, moves briskly, and while I doubt I’ll re-read it, I’m perfectly happy to have read it.

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Pierce, Tamora: (207) Cold Fire

Tamora Pierce’s Cold Fire is the third book in the Circle Opens series (Street Magic is the second). Daja, a smith-mage, is staying in a northern household for the winter and discovers that the family’s twins have magic. She also learns that an arsonist is active in the firetrap city.

I didn’t like this as well as I expected to, precisely because of my expectations. The first thing that wasn’t as I expected: the jacket copy gave me the impression that the arsonist’s identity was going to be a mystery; it’s not. The second: prior books gave me the impression that the students would be at the plot’s center; they’re not. Of these, the first is not a problem, just a surprise, but I’m not sure about the second. As far as I can tell, the twins could be dropped completely without changing the arson plot, which I think causes the book to lose some coherence.

(This book was also less gory than prior books in the series; the deaths from fire are not graphically described, and while there’s one murder that’s implied to be quite gruesome, we’re never told exactly what occurred. No, this didn’t disappoint me, but I did find it interesting.)

One thing I did like about this is the treatment of adults (this is true for Pierce’s other recent books, as well). Many YA books portray adults as either absent, alien, or the enemy; these treat adults as, well, people, and save their scorn for adults who think younger people aren’t—people, that is. (And for the murderers and arsonists, of course.)

Overall, a solid entry, but not the best of the series.

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Wells, Martha: Death of a Necromancer (re-read)

Paged very quickly through Martha Wells’ Death of a Necromancer, looking for connections to The Element of Fire. There were a few mentions of events in Fire, and one of the characters in Fire is the ancestor of one of the characters here, but that’s about it. I have to say, I thought I liked Death of a Necromancer fairly well when I read it, but it really suffers in comparison to Fire now; I’m not sure why or how subjective that reaction is—very, probably.

[And with that, I’m caught back up! Now let’s see if my wrists make me pay for the number of backdated entries I’ve put up recently . . . ]

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Card, Orson Scott: Ender’s Shadow

Despite hearing some positive things about it, I had been resisting reading Ender’s Shadow, by Orson Scott Card, which is basically Ender’s Game told from Bean’s point of view. However, since I was determined to make a dent in my to-read stack this vacation week, I took it along with me to jury duty today, on the theory that I’d be forced to read it there once I got tired of my Wills, Trusts, and Estates textbook (which is actually more interesting than I’d thought it would be, but not something I could read for hours). It worked: I read it while waiting to see if my panel would be called. (It wasn’t. Seven civil trials and four criminal trials on for today, and they empaneled one jury: the civil all settled, two of the criminal pled out, and one more was put over. Oh well; I would have liked the experience, but I have a lot of things to do this week.)

I couldn’t really get involved in this book, for two reasons. One, Card’s prose style has stopped working for me (if it ever did; more likely, I just didn’t notice it when I originally read Ender’s Game and sequels). Two, parallel novels are by their nature slightly dubious; I can’t help but wonder if the author really knew that this was all going on at the time of the original book, and if so would it really have not shown up in the prior book, etc., which is distracting. (I held off reading this because I was afraid it would force me to re-read Ender’s Game, which I didn’t want to do because I don’t think I’d like it nearly as much now; I’ve managed to avoid a re-read, but I was right, it did make me want to.)

Though I might like to see what happens to Bean, I’m not going to read the sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon, for two additional reasons. One, it also focuses on Petra, who I’ve never thought Card handled well; Peter, who I’ve never found very interesting; and a new villain, who I don’t find interesting at all. Two, in the afterword, Card says that the story that he originally planned to tell in Shadow of the Hegemon had to be split up over two books, adding a book to what was supposed to be a trilogy. Those who remember the debacle that was Xenocide and Children of the Mind know that this is not a good sign. (Some people insist Xenocide and Children of the Mind do not exist, in the same way that the only sequel to Hyperion is The Fall of Hyperion. Fine by me.) Oh, and a half reason: Card’s tossed a lurking tragedy into Bean’s life, which tries to be profound but to me just feels emotionally manipulative (Card? Manipulative? Never.).

It killed a couple of hours at jury duty for me, so for that I’m grateful, but probably I should have gone with my instincts and not read it.

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Morgan, Douglas: Tiger Cruise

Teresa Nielsen Hayden had mentioned Tiger Cruise, by Douglas Morgan, a while ago, but it was then only out in hardcover. At the Tor party at Boskone [*], I saw that it had been released in paper, and so later picked it up (oh, and the cover typo—pointed out by a Tor employee, never say people in publishing have no sense of humor—has been fixed, at least in my copy).

[Edited 10/2003 to add: it can now be revealed that Douglas Morgan is a pseudonym of James D. Macdonald, of Mageworlds and The Apocalypse Door fame. So, even more reason to go read it . . .]

In Tiger Cruise, pirates attempt to capture the U.S.S. Cushing during a typhoon, while it has a bunch of civilian relatives on board (the Tigers); meanwhile, Australia sends a team to keep terrorists from getting their hands on Cushing‘s nuclear weapons, by any means necessary. This is a perfect commuting or beach book: brisk, suspenseful, not a whole lot of characterization (though I was pleased to see it avoid at least one cliché that Tom Clancy would have dove headfirst for), but amusing and with enough authentic feel in the details of Navy life that you still respect yourself in the morning. Good clean fun and recommended.

[*] Tangent: Where people kept asking me if I was connected to Tor somehow. (“No, I just read a lot of their books.”) I was slightly baffled, though, at people wondering if I was an editor, since my instinctive reaction to that was, “Are you kidding? I’m far too young.” Alas, I was jolted a bit later with the realization of why people might have thought that plausible: Jenna Felice, who passed away a year ago, was a full editor at 21 and just a bit older than I am now when she died. Eep. I had been sorry to hear about her death, though I did not know her; this was just a small, personal reminder of life’s frequent innate suckitude.

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Douglas, Carole Nelson: Catnap; Pussyfoot

I picked up Carole Nelson Douglas’s Catnap and Pussyfoot from the dollar rack at a used bookstore a while ago. It’s hard to regret two bucks, but I would have felt better about them if I’d got them from the quarter rack (at a different store).

These are the first two books in another of the innumerable mysteries-with-cats series. Unfortunately, in these, Midnight Louie (the cat) narrates short portions of the story in this wannabe-tough guy voice that ends up being just insufferably twee. Temple Carr, the PR person from whose point-of-view most of the books are told, isn’t much better—not only does she have a tendency to think in strained “colorful” descriptive language, she’s the perpetually nosy type of mystery protagonist that I always want to tell to mind her own business.

I kept skimming these because they were very short and the looks at different industry events—a big bookseller’s convention and a stripper’s competition—were interesting. The one about strippers, which deals also with domestic violence, is more serious and gave me hope for a bit—there’s a notable description of what a thorough beating does to one—but in the end, I couldn’t get past the style. I might flip through some of these in the bookstore to see what happens with the mystery men in Temple’s life, but I won’t be reading the rest.

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Pierce, Tamora: (206) Street Magic

Street Magic is the second book in Tamora Pierce’s Circle Opens series. I broke down and ordered this in hardcover, along with the forthcoming third; since this happened to ship first, and since the series consists of the individual stories of emotionally close but currently physically separated friends, I decided to read it by itself.

In this series, the protagonist mages are traveling with their teachers and find themselves with their first students. Briar Moss, a (guess) plant mage, discovers Evvy, a young stone mage, in the city of Chammur. Since Chammur grew out of the surrounding cliffs, stone magic is quite valuable; and since Evvy is a street rat with no one to rely on—until now—she is a prime target for exploitation. While figuring out how to get Evvy the teaching she needs, Briar also has to come to grips with his gang past.

I had the chance to talk with Ms. Pierce at Boskone last month, and she confirmed what I’d suspected, that the move towards a more concrete approach to fantasy was deliberate. It’s most obvious in these books, as their world was constructed later and lacks knights, dragons, or other sword-and-sorcery type trappings—and also lacks, though I don’t know if there’s a connection, the honkin’ big fantasy structure: though the first four books had a very loose arc, these four are all stand-alone, and Ms. Pierce said that only standalone books are being planned in this world (including Tris at Lightsbridge, which made me blurt out “Oh, no” at the gathering; if you’ve read the earlier books, you’ll understand why). I like her other series just fine, mind you, but I find these an enjoyable change of pace, as well as soothing in the way craft-related fiction often is.

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