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Assorted books
Oct. 5th, 2015 09:10 pmI am going to type for twenty minutes and try to clear some of my backlog.
Gwenhwyfar: the White Spirit, Mercedes Lackey. Arthuriana, gives Arthur three queens all called Gwenhwyfar (one dies with her children, one runs away/abducted, the third is the protagonist), and goes for a bit of druids vs Christians (although given Lackey, both sides contain reasonable people who totally agree on things) and a bit of Celtic battle stuff. There's some interesting bits in here with Gwen's younger, evil, sister (Little Gwen) and the battle training is good, but the set up Lackey's chosen means that a lot of the Arthur story is taking place elsewhere while this is sidelined, and then everything happens with a sudden rush and it's all sailing off to Avalon.
The blurb says this is Lackey's tribute to her friend Marion Zimmer Bradley; Lackey's notes at the end, however, say nothing of the sort. Readable, anyway.
Harrison Squared, Daryl Gregory. Harrrison Harrison (the fourth, I think) lost his leg and his father to a mysterious sea creature in childhood. As a teenager, he travels with his marine biologist mother to Dunnsmouth, Massachusetts, a quaint seaside town where the school vocab quiz words are "squamous" and "rugose", the school swimming lessons are in an apparently bottomless dark pool in an underground cave, and the locals participate in weird cults. It's fun, it has a dry sense of humour, and some very neat characters, and there are lots of quotes from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to break things up. I have bookmarked the definition of a cultural anthropologist as "someone who bores you to death at a dinner party", the glum fellow student Bart who prefers not to answer questions, and the bit where Harrison's eccentric aunt refuses to eat at food courts because all the food has been found guilty. The librarian is particularly good as a character.
Against it - hmm. It breaks first person point of view for a couple of chapters, and I always find that a jolting thing as a reader. It has a cliffhanger ending and no clues (there or author's website) about whether a sequel is planned. Most unfortunately for it, I read it after reading Ruthanna Emrys' The Litany of Earth, which is also Lovecraftian but which has a depth and pathos that means this feels a little thin by comparison. I enjoyed it, though.
Five Came Back: a story of Hollywood and the Second World War, Mark Harris. I read this because of skygiant's review, it's good, and I have nothing of note to add to it regarding the book itself; however, the back cover bio informed me that the author is Tony Kushner's husband, and so I have a whole host of Angels in America warm fuzzies to add to the book itself. (one day. One day I will see Perestroika. At least the last time it played anywhere near me I managed to actually get tickets.)
(twenty-five minutes!)
Gwenhwyfar: the White Spirit, Mercedes Lackey. Arthuriana, gives Arthur three queens all called Gwenhwyfar (one dies with her children, one runs away/abducted, the third is the protagonist), and goes for a bit of druids vs Christians (although given Lackey, both sides contain reasonable people who totally agree on things) and a bit of Celtic battle stuff. There's some interesting bits in here with Gwen's younger, evil, sister (Little Gwen) and the battle training is good, but the set up Lackey's chosen means that a lot of the Arthur story is taking place elsewhere while this is sidelined, and then everything happens with a sudden rush and it's all sailing off to Avalon.
The blurb says this is Lackey's tribute to her friend Marion Zimmer Bradley; Lackey's notes at the end, however, say nothing of the sort. Readable, anyway.
Harrison Squared, Daryl Gregory. Harrrison Harrison (the fourth, I think) lost his leg and his father to a mysterious sea creature in childhood. As a teenager, he travels with his marine biologist mother to Dunnsmouth, Massachusetts, a quaint seaside town where the school vocab quiz words are "squamous" and "rugose", the school swimming lessons are in an apparently bottomless dark pool in an underground cave, and the locals participate in weird cults. It's fun, it has a dry sense of humour, and some very neat characters, and there are lots of quotes from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to break things up. I have bookmarked the definition of a cultural anthropologist as "someone who bores you to death at a dinner party", the glum fellow student Bart who prefers not to answer questions, and the bit where Harrison's eccentric aunt refuses to eat at food courts because all the food has been found guilty. The librarian is particularly good as a character.
Against it - hmm. It breaks first person point of view for a couple of chapters, and I always find that a jolting thing as a reader. It has a cliffhanger ending and no clues (there or author's website) about whether a sequel is planned. Most unfortunately for it, I read it after reading Ruthanna Emrys' The Litany of Earth, which is also Lovecraftian but which has a depth and pathos that means this feels a little thin by comparison. I enjoyed it, though.
Five Came Back: a story of Hollywood and the Second World War, Mark Harris. I read this because of skygiant's review, it's good, and I have nothing of note to add to it regarding the book itself; however, the back cover bio informed me that the author is Tony Kushner's husband, and so I have a whole host of Angels in America warm fuzzies to add to the book itself. (one day. One day I will see Perestroika. At least the last time it played anywhere near me I managed to actually get tickets.)
(twenty-five minutes!)
