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wilderthanSeaward (Susan Cooper)
This is a lovely, lovely book. The tone and quality of the writing reminds me very much of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, although it seems in some ways more mature than that sequence. It's the first book in a while that I just couldn't put down once I got started -- I stayed up late to finish reading it. Fortunately, it's quite a quick read, so that didn't matter too much. It's also the first book in a long, long while to make me think that I couldn't actually go to Cardiff without taking it with me, just so that I could sometimes pick it up and reread a favourite part to make me smile.
I love the relationship between West and Cally. Somehow, in such a short book, Susan Cooper builds up a love story that I really feel and want to follow. The build-up of awareness between them is well done, even in so short a space. And the ending is beautiful -- the knowledge that they will find each other. It's enough, in a way, too: I would read more, and I do want more, but I feel it ends on just the right note, and neither too early nor too late.
The world of the story is magical, drawing on Celtic myth and making up a mythology of its own, as well. I love the descriptions of the world -- the chess game, the tower, Snake, Peth...
I'll definitely be revisiting this book. Probably many times.
Snowball in Hell (Josh Lanyon)
I love the way that Josh Lanyon makes me feel about his characters. I always seem to start feeling ambivalent, maybe not even caring that much, and then no matter how short the story is, I quickly come to care about them and feel very strongly about them. I grew to love Matt and Nathan very quickly, and to hurt for them, and also -- obviously, I suppose -- to believe in their feelings and their predicament.
Snowball in Hell also has a reasonably solid plot: I wasn't too far behind the game, but it wasn't horribly predictable, either. I didn't care about the plot nearly as much as I cared about the characters -- there wasn't enough danger to either of them of being suspects, I think, so they weren't as deeply connected to the case as I'd like. I mean, Nathan was a suspect, but it didn't seem for a minute like Matt would push that angle.
Shades of Milk and Honey (Mary Robinette Kowal)
I'm vacillating between two and three stars on this one -- it's not halfway between, I'm just trying to decide whether I'll give it credit for keeping me reading, or dock it for how very high its debt to Jane Austen's work is. It's basically a cut and paste job on Austen's characters and situations, and while the writing is competent enough, it doesn't have the same subtlety and humour that Jane Austen brought to her work. It suffers very much in comparison, because of its debt.
The fantasy woven into it lies awkwardly on top of Jane Austen's work, I found, and wasn't fully explored. For example, if the working of glamour is so essential to a lady, but so few men do it, why is there no sign of any assumptions of effeminacy that would likely go with that? There's a few hints that being a "glamuralist" -- a person who goes around making complicated artwork out of glamour for people who don't have the skill themselves -- is considered lower class work, perhaps, or is stigmatised in some way, but at the same time both male and female characters admire Mr. Vincent's work, and hardly seem to treat him with inferiority.
Something about the language Kowal used doesn't ring true for me, either. When you read Jane Austen, it's plain that she's writing in her own style, in a natural sort of manner. The style of this, though, is so plainly a copy of someone else's style, and the gaps show through in the choice of language here and there.
I think I'll settle for two stars, "it was ok", since I'm not turned off Kowal's work, and enjoyed it well enough to fill a few hours.
This is a lovely, lovely book. The tone and quality of the writing reminds me very much of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, although it seems in some ways more mature than that sequence. It's the first book in a while that I just couldn't put down once I got started -- I stayed up late to finish reading it. Fortunately, it's quite a quick read, so that didn't matter too much. It's also the first book in a long, long while to make me think that I couldn't actually go to Cardiff without taking it with me, just so that I could sometimes pick it up and reread a favourite part to make me smile.
I love the relationship between West and Cally. Somehow, in such a short book, Susan Cooper builds up a love story that I really feel and want to follow. The build-up of awareness between them is well done, even in so short a space. And the ending is beautiful -- the knowledge that they will find each other. It's enough, in a way, too: I would read more, and I do want more, but I feel it ends on just the right note, and neither too early nor too late.
The world of the story is magical, drawing on Celtic myth and making up a mythology of its own, as well. I love the descriptions of the world -- the chess game, the tower, Snake, Peth...
I'll definitely be revisiting this book. Probably many times.
Snowball in Hell (Josh Lanyon)
I love the way that Josh Lanyon makes me feel about his characters. I always seem to start feeling ambivalent, maybe not even caring that much, and then no matter how short the story is, I quickly come to care about them and feel very strongly about them. I grew to love Matt and Nathan very quickly, and to hurt for them, and also -- obviously, I suppose -- to believe in their feelings and their predicament.
Snowball in Hell also has a reasonably solid plot: I wasn't too far behind the game, but it wasn't horribly predictable, either. I didn't care about the plot nearly as much as I cared about the characters -- there wasn't enough danger to either of them of being suspects, I think, so they weren't as deeply connected to the case as I'd like. I mean, Nathan was a suspect, but it didn't seem for a minute like Matt would push that angle.
Shades of Milk and Honey (Mary Robinette Kowal)
I'm vacillating between two and three stars on this one -- it's not halfway between, I'm just trying to decide whether I'll give it credit for keeping me reading, or dock it for how very high its debt to Jane Austen's work is. It's basically a cut and paste job on Austen's characters and situations, and while the writing is competent enough, it doesn't have the same subtlety and humour that Jane Austen brought to her work. It suffers very much in comparison, because of its debt.
The fantasy woven into it lies awkwardly on top of Jane Austen's work, I found, and wasn't fully explored. For example, if the working of glamour is so essential to a lady, but so few men do it, why is there no sign of any assumptions of effeminacy that would likely go with that? There's a few hints that being a "glamuralist" -- a person who goes around making complicated artwork out of glamour for people who don't have the skill themselves -- is considered lower class work, perhaps, or is stigmatised in some way, but at the same time both male and female characters admire Mr. Vincent's work, and hardly seem to treat him with inferiority.
Something about the language Kowal used doesn't ring true for me, either. When you read Jane Austen, it's plain that she's writing in her own style, in a natural sort of manner. The style of this, though, is so plainly a copy of someone else's style, and the gaps show through in the choice of language here and there.
I think I'll settle for two stars, "it was ok", since I'm not turned off Kowal's work, and enjoyed it well enough to fill a few hours.
