book list, July 2009
Aug. 3rd, 2009 01:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingIt's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in July 2009. (Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.)
New: 4
---The Empty Chair, Diane Duane (sci-fi: a Star Trek novel, final book in the Rihannsu tetralogy. Um. Basically, they fight the war that started in Swordhunt and bring it to a conclusion. I am about 90% satisfied with that conclusion. There are some loose ends -- I very much liked the little one-chapter explorations of conditions on various colony worlds in Swordhunt and wish Duane had done some follow-up on them, and I also wish more had come of tr'Anierh's waffling than just a convenient plot excuse to keep the Three within reach of the invasion force -- but overall I like what happened, both the actual events and the general emotional/philosophical arc behind them.
I very much doubt that this world can be reconciled into TNG canon relating to the Romulans. Duane gives a few continuity nods, but even allowing for backsliding and counter-revolution, I think any galaxy with this war in its history would not produce the conditions seen in TNG. I don't actually mind that. I am perfectly fine with considering this series an AU of the canon divergence type -- in other words, I believe most of the world-building, but assume that for one reason or another events played out differently in the canon universe and possibly some of the scientific advances did not get discovered or implemented in the same way in canon.
Hmm. There is a lovely moment near the end where everyone gangs up on Kirk to make him stop obsessing over battle plans, and Spock paraphrases an old Vulcan proverb thusly: "I was reminded of the ancient Vulcan proverb about the masterpiece. It says that a minimum of two people are required to create one: one to hold the brush, and the other to hit the first on the head with a hammer when it's finished, because the holder of the brush so rarely can tell that it is long since time to stop." There are also some remarkably infelicitous sentences -- not grammatically wrong, just clunky and awkwardly phrased. I get the feeling this book was a bit of a rush job in some ways.
But overall I really liked it, and I recommend this series pretty much without reservation. *grin*)
---Branded by Fire, Nalini Singh (romance: 6th book in the Psy-Changeling series. As the conflict among the Psy, the Changelings, and the Human Alliance grows more tangled, Mercy Smith and Riley Kincaid -- sentinel of the leopards and lieutenant of the wolves, respectively -- fight their growing attraction to each other. And in the PsyNet, Silence continues to break down, with potentially deadly consequences.
I really do like this series, probably more than it deserves. If I think too hard about the world-building, it gives me headaches because Singh's alternate Earth is far too similar to ours given the differences psychics and shapeshifters should have caused over the millennia. But all her characters are likeable and most are also strong, and I am hooked on the background plot arc that binds the series together. While the dominance stuff can get a little old, Singh keeps it under better control here than in her angel series; it generally stays sexy rather than crossing the line to off-putting. And Singh's writing is clean and clear and never gets in the way of her story.)
---Uhura's Song, Janet Kagan (sci-fi: a Star Trek novel. Let me say upfront that I do not buy Kagan's characterization of Spock -- among other things, he understands the concept of intuition, and he does so have a sense of humor; he just pretends not to -- and that I find Kagan's habit of phonetically writing out Scotty's, Chekov's, and McCoy's accents incredibly annoying. Also, Dr. Evan Wilson is just too multi-talented for me to really believe in her... but she's enough fun that I am willing to let that slide while reading.
Aside from those issues, this is a lovely book. The conceit is that the felinoid people of Eeiauo are suffering from a disease they call the Long Death, and the Enterprise is there to assist medically. When Chapel falls ill, they discover that the disease is also contagious among humans and several other species; a galactic pandemic is brewing. The only clue to a cure is hidden in ancient, secret songs that Uhura learned many years ago from an Eeiauoan friend. She and Spock piece together the origins of the Eeiauoans -- who, it turns out, are not native to their planet -- and seek out their former home and those of their people who stayed behind, hoping to find a cure.
There's a lot of interesting culture-building in here, a detailed portrait of a First Contact carried out under pressure, a coming-of-age story, a lot of nice character stuff for Uhura and Chekov, and some fun moments for Scotty. The interaction between Evan and Spock, while predicated on bad characterization, is a lot of fun. Evan and Kirk are also amusing; actually, Kagan's version of Kirk is pretty much on the money and also the sort of person I would want to have as a captain.)
---Lisey's Story, Stephen King (fiction/horror: this is King doing his 'portrait of American life, with a touch of the fantastical' rather than straight-up horror. Of course, being King, the fantastical elements are creepy and a bunch of the more realistic stuff is disturbing, but mostly this is a portrait of a marriage, an exploration of the grieving process, and the story of a very troubled man's childhood. Those parts are excellent. The fantastical parts are less so; they are kind of trite, and I think I would have enjoyed the book more without most of them. I also think that King fluffed the reveal of the monster -- I was imagining all kinds of horrors for the "long boy," but what King decided on, while kind of gross, strikes me as more silly than scary.
The book is long -- it's King, what else would you expect? -- but it is engrossing and, quibbles aside, I enjoyed it very much. [Except the sexual assault thing. That really should have had more repercussions than it did. I think King meant for Lisey's trauma to be subsumed by the greater trauma of exposure to the long boy, but I think that would have been a skeevy cheat even if the long boy had been properly terrifying, and since it was a failed monster, the bait-and-switch was even more skeevy.])
Old: 0
July Total: 4 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a ridiculous amount of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 50 books (29 new, 21 old)
---------------
I meant to read more, but I have been perniciously distracted by fanfic in general, by RemixRedux 7 in particular, and by attempting to watch streaming episodes of Heroes season 3 on Hulu over a very persnickety wireless connection -- in other words, it took me an average of three hours to watch each 45-minute episode. *sigh*
Also, I did start a couple other Star Trek novels, but either they didn't grab me or, as with Best Destiny, I was so put off by the writing that I set them down and have not yet got around to trying again. (There are only so many times I can read the phrase 'buff curls' with a straight face, for example. Diane Carey, I am looking right at you.)
New: 4
---The Empty Chair, Diane Duane (sci-fi: a Star Trek novel, final book in the Rihannsu tetralogy. Um. Basically, they fight the war that started in Swordhunt and bring it to a conclusion. I am about 90% satisfied with that conclusion. There are some loose ends -- I very much liked the little one-chapter explorations of conditions on various colony worlds in Swordhunt and wish Duane had done some follow-up on them, and I also wish more had come of tr'Anierh's waffling than just a convenient plot excuse to keep the Three within reach of the invasion force -- but overall I like what happened, both the actual events and the general emotional/philosophical arc behind them.
I very much doubt that this world can be reconciled into TNG canon relating to the Romulans. Duane gives a few continuity nods, but even allowing for backsliding and counter-revolution, I think any galaxy with this war in its history would not produce the conditions seen in TNG. I don't actually mind that. I am perfectly fine with considering this series an AU of the canon divergence type -- in other words, I believe most of the world-building, but assume that for one reason or another events played out differently in the canon universe and possibly some of the scientific advances did not get discovered or implemented in the same way in canon.
Hmm. There is a lovely moment near the end where everyone gangs up on Kirk to make him stop obsessing over battle plans, and Spock paraphrases an old Vulcan proverb thusly: "I was reminded of the ancient Vulcan proverb about the masterpiece. It says that a minimum of two people are required to create one: one to hold the brush, and the other to hit the first on the head with a hammer when it's finished, because the holder of the brush so rarely can tell that it is long since time to stop." There are also some remarkably infelicitous sentences -- not grammatically wrong, just clunky and awkwardly phrased. I get the feeling this book was a bit of a rush job in some ways.
But overall I really liked it, and I recommend this series pretty much without reservation. *grin*)
---Branded by Fire, Nalini Singh (romance: 6th book in the Psy-Changeling series. As the conflict among the Psy, the Changelings, and the Human Alliance grows more tangled, Mercy Smith and Riley Kincaid -- sentinel of the leopards and lieutenant of the wolves, respectively -- fight their growing attraction to each other. And in the PsyNet, Silence continues to break down, with potentially deadly consequences.
I really do like this series, probably more than it deserves. If I think too hard about the world-building, it gives me headaches because Singh's alternate Earth is far too similar to ours given the differences psychics and shapeshifters should have caused over the millennia. But all her characters are likeable and most are also strong, and I am hooked on the background plot arc that binds the series together. While the dominance stuff can get a little old, Singh keeps it under better control here than in her angel series; it generally stays sexy rather than crossing the line to off-putting. And Singh's writing is clean and clear and never gets in the way of her story.)
---Uhura's Song, Janet Kagan (sci-fi: a Star Trek novel. Let me say upfront that I do not buy Kagan's characterization of Spock -- among other things, he understands the concept of intuition, and he does so have a sense of humor; he just pretends not to -- and that I find Kagan's habit of phonetically writing out Scotty's, Chekov's, and McCoy's accents incredibly annoying. Also, Dr. Evan Wilson is just too multi-talented for me to really believe in her... but she's enough fun that I am willing to let that slide while reading.
Aside from those issues, this is a lovely book. The conceit is that the felinoid people of Eeiauo are suffering from a disease they call the Long Death, and the Enterprise is there to assist medically. When Chapel falls ill, they discover that the disease is also contagious among humans and several other species; a galactic pandemic is brewing. The only clue to a cure is hidden in ancient, secret songs that Uhura learned many years ago from an Eeiauoan friend. She and Spock piece together the origins of the Eeiauoans -- who, it turns out, are not native to their planet -- and seek out their former home and those of their people who stayed behind, hoping to find a cure.
There's a lot of interesting culture-building in here, a detailed portrait of a First Contact carried out under pressure, a coming-of-age story, a lot of nice character stuff for Uhura and Chekov, and some fun moments for Scotty. The interaction between Evan and Spock, while predicated on bad characterization, is a lot of fun. Evan and Kirk are also amusing; actually, Kagan's version of Kirk is pretty much on the money and also the sort of person I would want to have as a captain.)
---Lisey's Story, Stephen King (fiction/horror: this is King doing his 'portrait of American life, with a touch of the fantastical' rather than straight-up horror. Of course, being King, the fantastical elements are creepy and a bunch of the more realistic stuff is disturbing, but mostly this is a portrait of a marriage, an exploration of the grieving process, and the story of a very troubled man's childhood. Those parts are excellent. The fantastical parts are less so; they are kind of trite, and I think I would have enjoyed the book more without most of them. I also think that King fluffed the reveal of the monster -- I was imagining all kinds of horrors for the "long boy," but what King decided on, while kind of gross, strikes me as more silly than scary.
The book is long -- it's King, what else would you expect? -- but it is engrossing and, quibbles aside, I enjoyed it very much. [Except the sexual assault thing. That really should have had more repercussions than it did. I think King meant for Lisey's trauma to be subsumed by the greater trauma of exposure to the long boy, but I think that would have been a skeevy cheat even if the long boy had been properly terrifying, and since it was a failed monster, the bait-and-switch was even more skeevy.])
Old: 0
July Total: 4 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a ridiculous amount of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 50 books (29 new, 21 old)
---------------
I meant to read more, but I have been perniciously distracted by fanfic in general, by RemixRedux 7 in particular, and by attempting to watch streaming episodes of Heroes season 3 on Hulu over a very persnickety wireless connection -- in other words, it took me an average of three hours to watch each 45-minute episode. *sigh*
Also, I did start a couple other Star Trek novels, but either they didn't grab me or, as with Best Destiny, I was so put off by the writing that I set them down and have not yet got around to trying again. (There are only so many times I can read the phrase 'buff curls' with a straight face, for example. Diane Carey, I am looking right at you.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-03 05:52 am (UTC)I'm glad to see you agree with my own views on Duane's Romulans, but your note about difficult phrasing makes me wonder...
Have you read Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden books? Or Peter Morwood's 'Book of Years' series?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-03 06:54 am (UTC)Like this, from when they've just landed on ch'Rihan: Taking it all in required a few moments -- not surprising, for what Jim was looking at was partly obscured by the fume and smoke of the Firefalls themselves, not two miles away, and the carnage that had already begun to impose itself on an already wild and inhospitable landscape. (pp. 379-380) The first 'already' is unnecessary and, in combination with the second, sounds very clunky.
It was mostly stupid little things like that -- they scream to me that Duane didn't have quite enough time to edit for flow and phrasing, or her editor and/or copy editor was overworked, or maybe both.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-03 04:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-03 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-04 03:14 am (UTC)