Two Motives

Review: Cast in Secret, Michelle Sagara

2007-09-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

Title: Cast in Secret
Author: Michelle Sagara
Begun: August 23, 2007
Completed: August 25, 2007

You have to be careful when reading Michelle Sagara - whatever the name she's using. So much of her exposition slips in where you least expect it, important details of motive and history are constantly eluded to and only very rarely fully elaborated on. Her books require close reading and a lot of thought, and Cast in Secret is a perfect example.

The third book in the fantasy/romance Elantra books, Cast in Secret chronicles once more the adventures of reformed street kid (well...sort of) Kaylin Neya. If Samuel Vimes had stayed at the bottom of the Watch ranks and had a lot more serious trauma and been a girl, he might be something like Kaylin. She is endearingly lower class, and she sticks to those principles despite her frequent forays in the Elantran aristocracy. It's hard not to love Kaylin.

Cast in Secret forces Kaylin to confront her prejudices against a variety of issues, most obviously the Tha'alani and her own unpredictable magic. Sagara once again explores Kaylin's unrequited-and-highly-tense chemistry with the mad, bad and dangerous to know Lord Nightshade (you want to laugh at the name... and then you meet him) and the stoic Severn. It's easy to cast Severn in the "strong, silent good guy" role, but he's much more morally complex than that. Sagara also has the good sense to bring back Tiamaris, my favorite character in the first book and more than a simple bit player here.

Like the preceeding novels - Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight - Cast in Secret blends genres and techniques in a highly intricate pattern. Though it comes from the Luna line and is billed as romance and fantasy, it's also a good part gritty crime procedural. But though Cast in Secret doesn't quite spark as much as Cast in Shadow, it certainly piques the interest for the fourth book. When, hopefully, we may get some of the much-delayed gratification.

Cast in Secret at Amazon.com

Review: Rises the Night, Colleen Gleason

2007-08-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Title: Rises the Night
Author: Colleen Gleason
Begun: July 31, 2007
Completed: August 3, 2007

Rises the Night is the second book in the highly enjoyable Gardella Vampire Chronicles. Unusually for a second book in a trilogy (especially a fantasy trilogy), Rises the Night is better than the first novel, The Rest Falls Away. Gleason wisely takes Victoria out of her London society comfort zone and ships her off to Italy to deal with a new vampiric threat. The book is sprinkled with historical characters (and personally, I'm hoping for a run-in with Beau Brummell in the next one). I imagine Byron is quite miffed about his portrayal, but Byron is pretty much guaranteed hilarity. (My notes contain the phrase: "HAHA, BYRON" several times.)

At the core of Rises the Night is still Victoria, now widowed, her great-aunt and the two men who comprise the love triangle that qualifies this book as romance. The good news is that Sebastian Vioget (of course he's French) is much more appealing a love interest in this book - but Max Pesaro falls from focus. I like this approach, because it muddies the romantic waters considerably. During the first book I would have back Max as the winner in the race for Victoria's hand, their oft-professed reluctance for each other aside. But Sebastian really emerges in Rises the Night, becoming more interesting, charasmatic, attractive and, yes, sexier. He's a bit of a rake, and that's not unwelcome.

One of the things I truly appreciated was Victoria's new status. So often romance is about a young woman's sexual awakening. She may not actually be a virgin, but she is close enough. The novel is supposed to follow the first time she has ever falled in love. Victoria is a widow, but rather than the chaste and innocent widow that is as much a stereotype as the sexually unhinged hero, she is one fully aware of her sexual power. I enjoyed that angle very much. Victoria is far from innocent. Gleason acknolwedges that and incorporates it very well into the story.

Rises the Night is a well-plotted, suspensful mix of historical fiction, fantasy and romance. Victoria is as engaging a heroine as she was in the first book, and her continuing adventures will certainly be interesting. I do hope, for her sake, she gets some girl friends her own age sometime soon though.

Rises the Night at Amazon.com

Review: The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh

2007-07-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Title: The Loved One
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Begun: June 30, 2007
Completed: June 30, 2007

Of all the books I've read in the past year, I think I've enjoyed The Loved One the most. Waugh is best known today for the depressing and homoerotic Brideshead Revisited, but The Loved One is an entirely different animal.

Were Waugh alive today, he would probably have made indie films. In its brevity and ruthless satire, The Loved One seems much less a book than a movie - and a good film adaptation would be both terrific fun and fit in well at Cannes or Sundance. It's a strange comparison to make, maybe, but the most accurate one I can think of.

We like to call well-done a satire "biting satire", but The Loved One is possessed of fangs. Waugh rips holes in people and communities we would never have thought to ridicule. I admire his acuity, not least because it made me laugh. A lot.

Review: Archangel, Sharon Shinn

2007-07-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Title: Archangel
Author: Sharon Shinn
Date Begun: July 1, 2007
Date Completed: July 1, 2007

Archangel owes Anne McCaffrey a very, very large debt.

It has been some time since I reread one of McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books, but even so the similarities between Shinn's world and characters and McCaffrey's early books were both striking and slightly disturbing. The angels are almost exactly identical to the dragonriders - both are elite groups who dwell in high places and govern and protect their world. Also, they fly. Rachel, the heroine, could understandably be mistaken for Lessa and Gabriel, the hero, has several traits in common with F'lar. Their relationship, too, is uncomfortably similar to the romance that takes up much of Dragonflight.

But beyond characters, there is a sense that Shinn's Samaria is also populated by refugees from Earth, the the "magic" and religion are actually science provided by the original settlers, now long forgotten. And like Pern, music is of paramount importance.

This is not to say that Archangel is badly written. It is well-done enough for me to hope that the sequels deviate enough from McCaffrey's template to be worth reading. Grading it presented me with a problem - perhaps the similarities were accidental, certainly Shinn is a popular author and her style is engaging. But nevertheless, the similarities are there and they are blatant enough to bring down the grade quite a bit. So Archangel gets a C from me, with fingers crossed.

But if talking dolphins and Artificial Intelligence show up, I call foul.

Review: The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky (Unexpurgated Edition)

2007-06-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Title: The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky
Author: Vaslav Nijisnky; Edited by Joan Acocella and Translated by Kyril FitzLyon
Date Begun: June 23, 2007
Date Completed: June 28, 2007

There is a blurb on the back of this edition of Nijisnky's diary which nails the experience of reading it, in a way promotional blurbs hardly ever do: "Like watching the permanent eclipse of the sun."

That sums up the experience. While watching Nijinsky approach insanity must have been like watching a racehorse break its legs, experiencing the same time period through his own words is infinitely worse. It is not that the prose is difficult to comprehend - the short, abrupt sentences are fairly easy in and of themselves - but it is a very difficult book to actually read. I find that I want to cry but am entirely unable.

Perhaps the most difficult part is that Nijinsky seems completely aware of his disintegrating mental status. He makes references to other artists and intellectuals that went mad. He references Hamlet (this might have been written by Hamlet, almost). But there are moments when Nijinsky seems equally oblivious to his madness.

I certainly didn't expect such a preoccupation with politics. But I suppose anything written during the post WWI peace conferences must be political.

It's a very difficult book, but I'm glad I read it.

Review: Twilight, Stephanie Meyer

2007-06-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Date Begun: June 20, 2007
Date Completed: June 20, 2007

Stephanie Meyer seems like a pretty nice person (with tragic music taste), so it made me sad when I didn't like Twilight even a little bit. I would have been sadder if I'd paid money for it though.

You're probably thinking "You're reading Twilight now? Way to lose track of the YA literature bandwagon there." And you have a point. The Stephanie Meyer phenomenon is well-documented already. But the third novel is coming out this summer, and it didn't seem too inappropriate to review the first one.

Stuck somewhere between a romance novel and a television show, Twilight follows (Isa)Bella Swan through her move to a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Bella narrates, a tactic I found easier to handle if I thought of Angela Chase's voice doing the narration instead. Normally, this would be a compliment. Really, there's probably nothing wrong with Bella - I sympathize with anyone who is abnormally pale and has to move half-way through high school (been there). But it would be nice if she'd exhibited a personality that was a little less clingy.

Even clingy would have been all right, maybe, if she'd clung to someone other than Edward Cullen. Because frankly, Edward Cullen is kind of a dick. He's high-handed and autocratic, he constantly talks down to Bella and wraps himself up in his own immortal angst. Traits that maybe Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer could have pulled off in a hero don't work here. Even if he was born in 1901, the novel was written in the twenty-first century. I found myself cheering for Jacob Black - a side character in Twilight who seems to come to more prominence in the sequels. Jacob's a sweetheart and probably has his own sources of angst, a more unusual combination than anything Edward Cullen offers even if he is really Henry Cavill. (Henry Cavill was good at being a sweetheart with unsuspected level angst in I Capture the Castle, for what it's worth.)

Twilight isn't egregiously bad. The writing is fine, and as mentioned Bella has her own redeeming qualities. But if I want to hear about angsty love with gorgeous and autocratic vampires? Well, I've already got Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, thanks.

Review: The Rest Falls Away, Colleen Gleason

2007-06-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

Title: The Rest Falls Away
Author: Colleen Gleason
Date Begun: June 9, 2007
Date Completed: June 10, 2007

I read almost all of The Rest Falls Away during a criminally slow night at work. The situation was not ideal - I would much rather have read it sometime in January with hot chocolate in constant supply, because that's the sort of book it is. The winter version of a beach read. But, and this is important, it's a high-quality beach read.

Originally, I picked Gleason up on a recommendation from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. They enjoyed the novel - it got a B+ - and the review led me to believe that I would too. There are a lot of elements that push the exact right buttons for me. Vampires in an historical setting, a "good guy" character who would probably be played by James Marsden in the movie version, a spunky heroine (but not one of those irritating spunky heroines, you know?), illegal activity and an alluring underworld. These are all elements that I enjoy in my fantasy life. And Gleason delivers, even if she never really surpasses any of my expectations.

The biggest strength, beyond the heroine, is probably how well-plotted Gleason made everything. Though she stuck in several immediate plot arcs and a couple more over-arching ones, she keeps them all well-organized. I don't think I ever got confused if I wasn't supposed to be, and I had to answer phones and run credit cards in between chapters. The plot and the characters mesh well together, and I enjoyed Gleason's use of mythology and original ideas even if it sometimes tended towards info-dumping. (And as a sidenote, I didn't need Judas Iscariot's identity explained to me. I don't think there are many people who do.) The romantic side-plots are interesting. The Rest Falls Away is getting a lot of obvious comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the romantic tension at least reminds me more of Michelle Sagara's Cast books (Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, and so on). That a dynamic I enjoy, and I recommend the Sagara books if you enjoyed TRFA, though they're a bit more hardcore fantasy.

For me, the reason Gleason is only getting a B, is that the quality of her prose never really distinguishes itself. What would have been interesting to read would be something along the lines of Georgette Heyer with added sex and vampires. Heyer's style can be recreated, and something along its lines would have served this storyline well. At no point does the simple beauty of Gleason's prose strike you. It is well-written, but there is nothing very poetic in it. There probably should be, when you consider the subject matter.

But I enjoyed it, and I'll certainly look out for the sequels.

The Rest Falls Away at Amazon.com

Review: Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters

2007-06-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Title: Tipping the Velvet
Author: Sarah Waters
Date Begun: June 2, 2007
Date Completed: June 3, 2007

I quite enjoyed Tipping the Velvet. I've meant to read it for several years, but it took watching the miniseries to spur me on and actually buy it. (So much historical fiction with lesbians, so little time. Or something.) Nancy, the protagonist, is engaging and likeable. But she was far from perfect, thankfully. She is a strong narrator, both resilient and humorous and often unexpectedly sweet.

Indeed, characterization is probably the biggest draw. I enjoyed reading about all the characters. None of Nancy's lovers are perfect, but they're all understandable. Even Diana, who is kind of frightening (Anna Chancellor did a great job with the role in the adaptation) has a sort of draw which reaches out through the pages of the book. It's not wonder Nancy is entranced by her. Florence, who becomes her dream girl, is far from perfect, but certainly enjoyable despite that. I enjoyed the way Waters brings in socialism towards the end of the novel, but I have a big kink for socialists so, um, right.

But the inclusion of socialism brings me to an important point about Tipping the Velvet. If you were to read a summary of the novel, it would all seem more than improbable. Somehow, the twists of the plot all work. Some of them definitely shouldn't work, but Waters has an amazing ability to pull it all off. Once disbelief is suspended, it stays that way. So well done. It's a very densely plotted novel, and the tension dissipates just when it ought to and not a moment before.

Still, Tipping the Velvet was not quite the erotic read I'd expected. Perhaps fanfiction has ruined me. There was really very little titillation, which I suspect had something to do with the writing style. I suppose I'd thought to read something more langorous and sultry, but because of the first person narration and Nancy's characterization, the finished product is fairly conversational. It's an entertaining and sometimes scandalous letter from a high school friend, rather than the Marquis de Sade's memoirs.

Tipping the Velvet at Amazon.com

Review: Athénaïs, Lisa Hilton

2007-05-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Title: Athénaïs: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen of France
Author: Lisa Hilton
Date Begun: May 25, 2007
Date Completed: May 29, 2007

Look, I don't have any problem with revisionist historians. Unpopular historical characters are some of my favorite people. So it's easy to understand the desire to rehabilitate such characters, and Hilton wants to do that here. The problem with the book is that Hilton goes much too far in her quest. Instead of recognizing the flaws in her subject, Hilton ignores all of them in order to make Montespan into the goddess her name implies.

Really, this is the bitchiest, cattiest biography I've ever read. It's like Regina George wrote it. Except then it would have been funny. And on one level it is plenty of fun, but really it's simply exasperating. Life isn't high school. The role of mistress is not synonymous with prom queen. There is more to it than looks or popularity - just as there is more to the role of queen.

I don't understand why Hilton is only interested in such a shallow analysis. Obviously beauty was important and Athénaïs was quite amazingly lovely - but it was not the end all and be all of women's political involvement, even in the seventeenth century. Nor was beauty the entirety of a courtier's life. But Hilton equates stupidity and unattractiveness. Maria Theresa was unattractive, so she wasn't worthy to be the queen of France. OBVIOUSLY. I wonder what Hilton would have done if she'd tried to write about Catherine de Medici (and for a book about that unattractive and politicall able Queen of France, I recommend Leonie Frieda's biography).

Athénaïs left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Between Hilton's overly credulous discussion of the Affair of the Poisons - seventeenth century superstition made Satanism/witchcraft a bit more complex than I think Hilton treats the matter - and the hero worship she heaps on Montespan, I just want my five bucks back. And you know, I didn't have high expectations to begin with.

(Points to Hilton, though, for citing Anthony Blunt and Nancy Mitford.)

Review: The Divided Crown, Isabel Glass

2007-05-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Title: The Divided Crown
Author: Isabel Glass
Date Begun: May 19, 2007
Date Completed: May 20, 2007

I picked up The Divided Crown based on two things: The K. Y. Craft cover art and the Patricia McKillip blurb on the front. I love Patricia McKillip. She is one of the best fantasy writers ever, and some day everyone else will know it. Of course, I don't expect every author I pick up to have the same mastery of language and characterization that McKillip has. However, I thought The Divided Crown would be a safe bet, if Patricia McKillip liked it.

Not so much. I'm glad I bought this on the bargain shelf, because I would have been really pissed off if I'd bought it a full hardcover price.

The Divided Crown has some good points. For example, of the main characters two of them are middle-aged and married with children. That's something you hardly ever see among fantasy novels, or novels period. And I genuinely liked Angarred. But generally, I was left with the feeling that none of Glass' characters were really very smart, and that's never a good way to feel. Certainly, politically involved people should be quicker on the uptake, even if one of them is a recovering drug addict. (I really should have liked this book more than I did. It had a recovering drug addict too. And cross dressing fortune tellers.)

Beyond the characters is Glass' writing. Her style reminds me of Lloyd Alexander, but not in a good way. Alexander's writing was superior - not least because he included jokes. But there is an oversimplified style to Glass' writing here which doesn't do well in a novel this length. Like some of Alexander's writing, I was left with the feeling that I was reading this a bit too soon after taking some Benadryl. But that feeling works with Westmark or The Black Cauldron. I don't know if it will ever work for The Divided Crown.

Review: The Element of Fire, Martha Wells

2007-02-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

Title: The Element of Fire (2006 edition)
Author: Martha Wells
Date Begun: February 9, 2007
Date Completed: February 10, 2007

I love reading Martha Wells. There's a feeling I get, when I read her books, that there is someone else out there who looked at the fantasy book shelves and thought "Enough with the goddamn druids already" and decided to do something about it. (No, really.) Reading her books always makes me want to go and find more of hers, and luckily I've got a few. Of course, now I'm thinking about getting into Stargate so I can read her tie-in novel and that's dangerous territory, there.

The fact that two of her books open with the hero breaking into someone else's house may also have endeared her to me. In fact, I had a recent conversation about The Element of Fire with my sister which went something like this:
HER: There's a new Martha Wells book?
ME: Not exactly.
HER: Is it good?
ME: I don't know yet. But the opening scene has breaking and entering so...
HER: You were powerless to resist.
What can I say, I'm easy.

Like all the Ile-Rien books, the setting is a major benefit. Vienne, however, is not quite the minor character it is in Death of the Necromancer. The characters are not quite the characters Wells is capable of writing. Despite the revisions, this is very obviously a first novel. It is neither as tight nor as well-drawn as her later work. But it's a decent book, and I enjoyed it.

Actually, I really enjoyed the female lead the most, and I never like the girls. Seriously. But she's quite interesting and, I think, well done.

Really, I'm torn. I don't know if I'd suggest you start with this book because it's only okay, it's not great. I definitely enjoyed Death of the Necromancer more. For one, because it's funnier. The Element of Fire is quite dark and quite political. It's also probably worth a second read. Maybe my feelings will be clearer then.

The Element of Fire on Amazon. Martha Wells' website.

Driveby Reviews

2007-01-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

I don't have time to write up a long, incoherent review for these. So you're getting short ones.

Title: Strange Attractions
Author: Emma Holly
Date Begun: December 28, 2006
Date Completed: December 29

Hot, hot, hot. Okay, so it's not exactly mentally challenging and I'm definitely not going to recommend it to my mother (because...ew), but this was a hot, fun read. It's also my first Holly - I know she generally comes pretty highly recommended, but personally I find contemporary romance dull. If I'm going to read about two heterosexuals getting it on, I want them to have pretty pretty clothes and historical context and I want to be able to fantasize about their messy, early deaths if I dislike them. But this book, has the traditional M/F pairing, as well as M/M and M/M/F and...oh, yes, I liked it. (Which really shouldn't be any surprise.) Grade: B

Title: The Name and Nature of Poetry (and other selected prose)
Author: A. E. Housman
In progress

I love Housman. I love him mostly for his poetry and the way the table of contents reads in my Collected Works of A. E. Housman. It goes like this: A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, More Poems because, of course, he always thought he would stop writing poetry. And he didn't and thank god. Because his poetry is AWESOME. But so is his prose. This book, a Christmas present, has only very little on poetry. I'm great with that, poetry is always interesting and not difficult to relate to. But even his prefaces to translations of books I have never read (I've heard of Juvenal, but I have no clue who this Manilius guy was), which frequently contain lengthy quotes in languages I don't speak or even read, is so much fun. He's snobby and nasty in a way someone like Nancy Mitford (whom I also love!) could never be. Because Housman is being nasty about people who are long dead and generally regarded as terribly clever and it's always hilarious. At least, it is if you are a geek like me. (Although, clearly, I am not geeky enough. It's like the indie music geek who is confronted with a true classical music geek and...well, we know who wins that one.) Grade A

Title: Zelda
Author: Nancy Milford
Date Begun: December 20, 2006
Date Completed: January 1, 2007

Apparently, a lot of Amazon reviewers felt that Milford lacked compassion for her subject. I don't know what they're on, but I would really like some of it. Zelda is a good biography. Not only does the central focus (Zelda) remains sympathetic and interesting throughout - so do the other people in her life. It would be incredibly easy to make Fitzgerald into a villain (as happened to T. S. Eliot in this one biography of Vivian Eliot I read, but Eliot had real problems) and blame him for everything. It's clear, however, that Zelda and Scott are both responsible. Neither of them are blamed. I did find Milford's heavy use of primary sources a little jarring, but enjoyable all the same. She seems to have conducted many interviews with people who knew the Fitzgeralds personally (I suppose in 1970 many of them were still alive) and she draws from many letters and diaries. I admit, I'll probably enjoy any biography of someone who a) hated Hemingway and b) accused her husband of being gay for him. Points off, though, for ommitting the meeting with Edith Wharton. ("Yes, and then what?" You'd think the person who could get along with Henry James would get along with anyone!) Grade: A-

Review: The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

2006-12-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

Title: The Eyre Affair
Author: Jasper Fforde
Date Begun: December 21, 2006
Date Completed: December 22, 2006

I've been reading an awful lot of books about other books recently. Don Quixote, The Age of Innocence (you think I'm on crack, but a lot of it is about books), The Friendly Young Ladies...I'm stopping, before you feel the need to point out that The Friendly Young Ladies is about lesbians, not books. Well, it is. But not just lesbians.

The Eyre Affair, however, is primarily about books. In fact, though the blurbs on the cover are eager to compare Thursday Next to Harry Potter, it's really more like James Bond. You know, provided James Bond ever read a book. Fforde has created a really fascinating world to back up his literary jokes, the divergent chronologies reminded me a little of Diane Wynn Jones' Chrestomanci books. (The "this book is like ___" formula is a cliché, but I feel that in this case it is appropriate. Fforde relies on books, and so will I.) That's a good thing - I like the Chrestomanci books. However, I do feel like it weakens the world a little. We learn that Richard III won the Battle of Bosworth Field, for example, so presumably the Tudors didn't take over but a Renaissance England under a Plantagenet king would have been very different...of course, perhaps that's why the identity of Shakespeare's plays is so hotly contested in the books. I don't know, but it did raise some questions for me that I would have preferred not been raised. Fforde already opened up an enormous can of worms by making time travel a common part of his world, I wish he'd stopped there.

See, the problem with time travel is that it sort of fixes all the problems if you use it. It's a deus ex machina, yeah. But when you don't use it and don't explain the not using it, then it gets very frustrating for the reader. I know there were passages where I felt like they could have just had the whole thing solved if Thursday dragged someone from the ChronoGuard into the mix. We're told time travel is dangerous but it still happens an awful lot, so why not use it? As it is the time travel was an amusing side plot to the story and I enjoyed it, but while we saw plenty of examples of it being dangerous that was never enough of a deterrent for its use. Not in the story, not out of it. Frustrating.

But, really, The Eyre Affair is very entertaining. I'm not sure Thursday is, exactly, a real character. She's sort of a vehicle for the plot, I feel. (Sort of like Candide.) But she's fun to read about and she gets to fix Jane Eyre so...I like her, I think. Certainly I can side with her. That's more than I can do with Candide.

The Eyre Affair on Amazon. Jasper Fforde's website.

Review: The Dark Queen: A Novel, Susan Carroll

2006-12-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Title: The Dark Queen: A Novel
Author: Susan Carroll
Date Begun: December 9, 2006
Date Completed: December 14, 2006

Yes, I am reviewing this after Mélusine. Yes, I finished The Dark Queen first.

Oh, man, you should have seen how irritated the cover of this book made my sister. She was like, "it's so historically inaccurate!" Well, it is, but it's still more accurate than the sequel. (Seriously? Not even whores were wearing that in 16th century France.) The cover is, of course, the least important aspect of the novel, but I thought that was an interesting note. Onward!

The Dark Queen is one of those romance novels masquerading as historial fiction. They're trying to fool you into thinking it's a typical inoffensive bit of historical fiction by sticking "A Novel" onto the title and using a painting for the cover. You know, like they do with Phillipa Gregory's books. (Except without the incest and gay siblings. Sadly, this book would have benefited from possible incest and gay siblings. Indeed, possible incest with gay siblings would have been ideal.) Oh, well, at least Carroll hasn't written in first person. Though, I do think that the characters suffer from the fact that she hasn't chosen to use a limited third person voice. Had Carroll written exclusively from Ariane's viewpoint, the constant misunderstandings over romance would have been much more understandable. But she switches viepoints between Ariane, Renard, Catherine and both of Ariane's siters (although they have only very brief passages). I understand how that might serve the plot but it definitely does not serve the characters. Especially not Renard.

I understand that a good deal of the tension of a romance novel often comes from the fact that the hero and heroine are actually in love with each other but don't realize this. Unfortunately, you have to be really good to make this work without having your characters come off as boring and/or stupid. A really good author can make you root for the two characters to get together even if you think they're both being really stupid - I mean, that's the whole basis of Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre, isn't it? Carroll, unfortunately, is not a "really good author". She's a decent writer, or at least she has very good ideas...but their execution suffers.

Seriously, the dialogue needs work. As does Carroll's general writing style. I could forgive her one or the other but not both. It's not that there are any truly jarring historical inaccuracies, because once you accept that there are (neo-)pagans in France in the 16th century and that Catherine de Medici is the villain it all sort of goes along pretty well. (I would like to know why there aren't any/many historical novels with sympathetic portrayals of Catherine. The only one I can think of is In the Courts of Power and she's only in that one for about 10 pages. Plus, it's in Danish and the translation is sometimes hard to find.) I feel like Carroll doesn't put in enough detail for the historical inaccuracies to crop up enough to bother people. Which is fine with me, because plot and characterization are infinitely more important.

Speaking of.

Ariane is fairly unusual for a romance heroine because she's pretty calm. I also feel that she's pretty realistic - her dialogue may have made me wince once or twice, but I never felt that she was acting like a moveable doll rather than a real person. She's authentic and I like her, even when she isn't very bright. I can forgive that up to a point. Carroll passes that point, but I mostly like Ariane anyway.

The only character whose characterization really bothers me is Renard. He starts out sort of a cool bad boy, you know? And then as the novel progresses he becomes more like, to quote Joss Whedon, a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth. Not sexy, Susan Carroll, not sexy at all. Who wants a big, strapping guy with a mysterious past who turns out to be sort of a wimp about girls? Not me. And I had such high hopes! The prologue makes him sound dangerous, plus his name is Justice Deauville, the Comte de Renard. He has a magic ring and a big sword! He tries to rope Ariane into marrying him! I was like, yes, bring on the cold calculating hero with his big sword and sexual tension! There are rumors flying around France about his mysterious past! Hooray! Oh...wait.

Catherine de Medici's bits are probably the most interesting, but maybe I'm just not in tune enough with nature. (Um, not that I'm bitter about the abuse of pagan mythologies.) But Catherine has to deal with her own desire for power, her insane son and the religious tensions in France and it's fascinating to watch her do so. She's a very appealing villain, I think Carroll does a great job there.

The frustrating thing about The Dark Queen is how much potential there is. One of the important aspects is a version of the legend of Melusine. Weirdly, Carroll doesn't mention (and, for some reason, neither does Wikipedia) the story that Melusine is an ancestor of the Plantagenets. That's certainly the story I hear most about her and it was puzzling not to have it mentioned at all. Carroll did greatly rework the legend for the purposes of the novel but I feel that the book would have benefited had she stuck more closely to the original telling. She does address the Wars of Religion that were beginning to ravage France - and thank god, because the St. Bartholomew's Massacre is sort of the climax of the book. But I wish she'd cut the witch hunters, because they were boring, and focused more on Catherine's court.

The Dark Queen is probably a good book for reading over winter break during a car ride to visit your relatives or in a plane or something. But unless I hear rave reviews about the sequels, I won't be checking either of them out.

The Dark Queen on Amazon.

Review: Mélusine, Sarah Monette

2006-12-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

Title: Mélusine
Author: Sarah Monette
Date Begun: December 15, 2006
Date Completed: December 17, 2006

To be quite honest, I picked the book up because one of the characters is a cat burglar. I have a shameful, shameful weakness for cat burglars - it's all Cary Grant's fault. And also fantasy novels about thieves. Even if the characters are only moonlighting as thieves. (See: The Death of the Necromancer.) Gets me every time. (Damn you, Cary Grant!)

I enjoyed Mélusine quite a lot. Monette has an interesting and enjoyable style. She writes well enough for me to overcome my dislike of first person, and that's not something any author can do, you know? When I realized the book would be told in alternating first person POV I was even more leery but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. The parts of the book where the narrative is strongest are from Mildmay's perspective, though to be fair Felix is insane more than half the time so his passages are going a little...odd. Although, even when Felix is lucid Mildmay's passages are much more engaging. But I guess Mildmay isn't a flash son of a bitch on a good day and Felix...is.

The summary on the back cover makes it fairly obvious [SPOILER!] that they're long-lost brothers. (I will avoid spoilers from now on, or do my best, but come on, guys, like you couldn't tell from the synopsis?) Sadly, the minor characters all disappear when Felix and Mildmay team up, and while I love Mildmay a lot it's sort of like watching Firefly with only Simon and River. You know, they're great but - I love Wash and Zoe too, at least.

Another thing that Mélusine suffers from is the new vocabulary. I am all for authors inventing new vocabularies for their characters. I mean, that's what Tolkien's work is based on. But I feel like Monette should have reconsidered who she gave what vocabulary to. The lower classes (Mildmay) use a different way of reckoning time, or at least of naming it, than the upper classs (Felix) who use the typical "week", "month" etc. This wouldn't be a problem, except the lower classes use words like "septad" which makes more sense to me in the mouth of a nobleman or something. Mildmay is the character we get most of our time updates from, and I have no concept of time with a standard vocabulary so I wasn't clear on how long some things had been going on. The other thing that bothers me is that by creating a new vocabulary for time I assumed time would be an important theme throughout the book and it...wasn't. Which is a pity, because time is always an interesting concept to explore.

The other vocabulary problem is from the mixture of real English words (like with reckoning time), real French words and just fake words. (I have some similar problems with Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books and their mixture of French and English and fake words.) I don't have a problem understanding the French, because I speak it (badly) and anyway most of the words Monette uses are cognates or common knowledge. But she goes out of her way to change other words so I don't understand why she kept these. I would have preferred she stick to English, at least for Mildmay who, after all, swears in English. And he swears a lot.

The other problem, for me, was that two characters seem to undergo personality changes. They're both secondary characters at best, but they are important secondary characters. The first character changes almost completely soon after we're introduced to him, he turns into a snippy, whiny little bitch when before he'd seemed quite sensible and had been (more or less) a sort of refuge. There's another character who changes similarly, but the explanations are brief and unsatisfactory. If Monette had meant them to be unsympathetic from the beginning, I would have appreciated more notice. I only mention it because it was distracting for me to read scenes with both characters. Change isn't something I mind, but I like changes to be explained.

It's still a good story, and Monette has created a wonderfully rich universe. Although the book would benefit from at least one map. Especially since maps are mentioned several times in the course of the story and there are some very important geographical discussions...

I'm nitpicking now. Which is too bad, because I feel like Mélusine deserves a lot of praise. The writing is rich, the plot is interesting - though largely unresolved, but this is only the first book - and the characters are great. Besides Mildmay, I really loved both Gideon and Stephen.

In fact, let me talk about how much I love Gideon: I love Gideon. Seriously. I am confident that this means his death is rapidly approaching, but I don't care. He is great. And so is Stephen, because he is probably the sanest person in the book. Stephen! Call me!

I enjoyed Mélusine and will be checking out the sequel, though not until it is in paperback and/or the third book is easily accessible. I bought books as they came out with Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy and that made me a nervous wreck. Monette probably has the power to do the same thing and I'll enjoy seeing what she does with her writing in the future.

Provided she sticks to one language.

Mélusine on Amazon. :: Sarah Monette's site.