Failing to achieve target audience status
Jun. 6th, 2011 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraTwo of the books my paranormal romance-mad friend lent me. I have more, but my basic summary for all of them is that they often have interesting world concepts and female leads, but tend to fall apart on plotting, follow-through, and having a male romantic lead that I do not want to stab with a fork.
Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke. In a nanotech steampunk AU Victorian (somehow, despite lack of royalty) England, Wilhemina Wentworth (Mina) holds a precarious existence as a detective inspector, resented due to her mixed blood and struggling to support her family. And then a frozen corpse is dropped from an airship onto the doorstep of the titular Iron Duke (Rhys Trahaern), and she is assigned to investigate a case that will threaten the very foundations of her society, etc etc, while in the meantime the Iron Duke has developed one of those "I stalk because I love" oppressive interests in her that is somehow perfectly healthy in this type of romance novel.
There is a lot of good stuff or at least potential in this book, but for every nifty bit of world-building (nanotech in the sugar) there is at least one other chunk that just plain doesn't make sense (I was quite happy with all the airships until it became apparent that these were less zeppelins and more Napoleonic War type ships of the line dangling from giant balloons), and for every interesting character there is another that is either underdeveloped or, in the case of the Duke, completely incomprehensible. I was left feeling somewhat frustrated; I'll probably read the next one (it's a series, although in the romance style of "picks up on side characters" rather than having the main characters continue), but I could see myself equally abandoning it halfway through.
The background is also just slightly problematic. The Horde, who have ruled England with a nanotech-powered fist for two hundred years or so, before being somehow defeated just by one tower being blown up. They are evil and incomprehensible, and, obviously, from Asia, being the descendants of Genghis Khan. Mina is part-Horde, conceived during a Frenzy (when the Horde drive their controlled slaves into madness, orgies etc), and others recognise this in her appearance and judge her for it; but, despite the long occupation and the apparent sexual licentiousness, I don't think there's another part-Horde character in the book. Mina hates her parentage, and resents it (unsurprisingly), but the whole faceless controlling Asian mass as villains left me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Apparently a Horde character will show up as a protagonist or at least sympathetic in a later book, but they're not in this one.
I did really like the set-up. I hated the Duke, who is barely two-dimensional and stalks through the text going "Aha, my pretty, secretly you desire me to overpower you with my supreme iron manliness" and twirling his moustaches, plus having superpowers that make very little sense, and I liked Mina but preferred her to avoid the Duke and would have much rather she ended up with her constable, Newberry, who is much more low-key and actually functional as a human being, plus without the whole "I will have sex with you despite you asking me to stop and without ever discussing birth control" bit. There was also an action scene with a kraken that I couldn't block at all, and I was left feeling a bit left down by the whole thing.
The Native Star, MK Hobson. Emily Edwards is a backwater witch in an 1876 AU America with magic, whose livelihood is being wiped out by a more appealing mail-order patent magic business. In order to support her blind adoptive father, she casts a love spell on a local lumberman, only to have it go horribly wrong - but, before she can sort this out, the magically enslaved zombies who work the local mines rebel, and Emily ends up on the run with a supercilious big city warlock (Dreadnought Stanton) and a chunk of magical and exceedingly desirable rock embedded in her palm. Mutant racoons, diabolical villains, biomechanical helicopters, plots to end or save the world, and (of course) true romance ensue.
I liked a lot of this - Emily and Dreadnought are both well-done characters, and of all the romances that my paranormal romance-mad friend has been lending me this has by far the most likeable male lead. The magic system (three major schools of magic, animancy, credomancy and sangrimancy) is interesting, and there's a lot of inventiveness in terms of the world-building (I particularly like the Witches' Friendly Society, an early feminist organisation who send a delegate along to help Emily when she's surrounded by male warlocks who are dismissive of her powers).
But there are enough weaknesses there to give me problems with it; some of them, like a prologue that adds nothing to the book (mysterious characters do mean things in evil fashion ten years before the main events; the epilogue is also irritating but at least contains some plot points), and a tendency to forget about characters once the action moves on from them (Emily realises she can never go home again in the sense that it won't be the same, which is fine, but she appears to have completely forgotten her devoted father), may well be down to its being a first novel, but others may not be. Startlingly weak action scenes, for example (hard to block, lack of tension, predictability), and a tendency to rely on cliche for plot - I don't mind using cliche in this sort of romp, but it depends how you do it, and I was disappointed that the Native American Miwok tribe who show up early, and are seen as people by Dreadnought but scalping cliches by Emily, in an interesting source of tension, are then reduced to a massively convenient Noble Savage Martyr trope, in which the Holy Woman of the tribe puts her spirit into a acorn to help Emily, leaving her own people (there is a scene where Emily confronts this, but it feels perfunctory - I would have liked it to come back, or else what I would have preferred is for Emily to be given this choice, and implicated it, rather than the whole Natives sacrifice themselves off-stage for the good of all). All the villains also appear to speak English with European accents except for the obviously bad American ones, who are all about patriotism and racial purity, and not all that competent, and I'm still not entirely sure who kills Tarnham's ferret, which seems a rather petty, cruel thing for Dreadnought to do (one of the villains says he did do it, tho' - the text just charges on), and none of the good characters seem to be concerned that the entire US government is apparently behind the whole thing.
There are enough good bits that I would recommend it, and I'll certainly read the second one (although preliminary reviews are not encouraging). What stands out in hindsight, actually, is the scene at New Bethel where Caul has primed the locals to confront Dreadnought, and he cannot enter the church (as they command him to do) because their own belief will harm him. It's a shame that the resolution to this involves Emily grabbing an unguarded rifle in a not terribly believable fashion, because the set up, with Dreadnought's own power being used against him, is fascinating, and I would like to have seen more of it. I feel the ending section with Mirabilis' Precedent should have felt more like this moment.
Meljean Brook, The Iron Duke. In a nanotech steampunk AU Victorian (somehow, despite lack of royalty) England, Wilhemina Wentworth (Mina) holds a precarious existence as a detective inspector, resented due to her mixed blood and struggling to support her family. And then a frozen corpse is dropped from an airship onto the doorstep of the titular Iron Duke (Rhys Trahaern), and she is assigned to investigate a case that will threaten the very foundations of her society, etc etc, while in the meantime the Iron Duke has developed one of those "I stalk because I love" oppressive interests in her that is somehow perfectly healthy in this type of romance novel.
There is a lot of good stuff or at least potential in this book, but for every nifty bit of world-building (nanotech in the sugar) there is at least one other chunk that just plain doesn't make sense (I was quite happy with all the airships until it became apparent that these were less zeppelins and more Napoleonic War type ships of the line dangling from giant balloons), and for every interesting character there is another that is either underdeveloped or, in the case of the Duke, completely incomprehensible. I was left feeling somewhat frustrated; I'll probably read the next one (it's a series, although in the romance style of "picks up on side characters" rather than having the main characters continue), but I could see myself equally abandoning it halfway through.
The background is also just slightly problematic. The Horde, who have ruled England with a nanotech-powered fist for two hundred years or so, before being somehow defeated just by one tower being blown up. They are evil and incomprehensible, and, obviously, from Asia, being the descendants of Genghis Khan. Mina is part-Horde, conceived during a Frenzy (when the Horde drive their controlled slaves into madness, orgies etc), and others recognise this in her appearance and judge her for it; but, despite the long occupation and the apparent sexual licentiousness, I don't think there's another part-Horde character in the book. Mina hates her parentage, and resents it (unsurprisingly), but the whole faceless controlling Asian mass as villains left me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Apparently a Horde character will show up as a protagonist or at least sympathetic in a later book, but they're not in this one.
I did really like the set-up. I hated the Duke, who is barely two-dimensional and stalks through the text going "Aha, my pretty, secretly you desire me to overpower you with my supreme iron manliness" and twirling his moustaches, plus having superpowers that make very little sense, and I liked Mina but preferred her to avoid the Duke and would have much rather she ended up with her constable, Newberry, who is much more low-key and actually functional as a human being, plus without the whole "I will have sex with you despite you asking me to stop and without ever discussing birth control" bit. There was also an action scene with a kraken that I couldn't block at all, and I was left feeling a bit left down by the whole thing.
The Native Star, MK Hobson. Emily Edwards is a backwater witch in an 1876 AU America with magic, whose livelihood is being wiped out by a more appealing mail-order patent magic business. In order to support her blind adoptive father, she casts a love spell on a local lumberman, only to have it go horribly wrong - but, before she can sort this out, the magically enslaved zombies who work the local mines rebel, and Emily ends up on the run with a supercilious big city warlock (Dreadnought Stanton) and a chunk of magical and exceedingly desirable rock embedded in her palm. Mutant racoons, diabolical villains, biomechanical helicopters, plots to end or save the world, and (of course) true romance ensue.
I liked a lot of this - Emily and Dreadnought are both well-done characters, and of all the romances that my paranormal romance-mad friend has been lending me this has by far the most likeable male lead. The magic system (three major schools of magic, animancy, credomancy and sangrimancy) is interesting, and there's a lot of inventiveness in terms of the world-building (I particularly like the Witches' Friendly Society, an early feminist organisation who send a delegate along to help Emily when she's surrounded by male warlocks who are dismissive of her powers).
But there are enough weaknesses there to give me problems with it; some of them, like a prologue that adds nothing to the book (mysterious characters do mean things in evil fashion ten years before the main events; the epilogue is also irritating but at least contains some plot points), and a tendency to forget about characters once the action moves on from them (Emily realises she can never go home again in the sense that it won't be the same, which is fine, but she appears to have completely forgotten her devoted father), may well be down to its being a first novel, but others may not be. Startlingly weak action scenes, for example (hard to block, lack of tension, predictability), and a tendency to rely on cliche for plot - I don't mind using cliche in this sort of romp, but it depends how you do it, and I was disappointed that the Native American Miwok tribe who show up early, and are seen as people by Dreadnought but scalping cliches by Emily, in an interesting source of tension, are then reduced to a massively convenient Noble Savage Martyr trope, in which the Holy Woman of the tribe puts her spirit into a acorn to help Emily, leaving her own people (there is a scene where Emily confronts this, but it feels perfunctory - I would have liked it to come back, or else what I would have preferred is for Emily to be given this choice, and implicated it, rather than the whole Natives sacrifice themselves off-stage for the good of all). All the villains also appear to speak English with European accents except for the obviously bad American ones, who are all about patriotism and racial purity, and not all that competent, and I'm still not entirely sure who kills Tarnham's ferret, which seems a rather petty, cruel thing for Dreadnought to do (one of the villains says he did do it, tho' - the text just charges on), and none of the good characters seem to be concerned that the entire US government is apparently behind the whole thing.
There are enough good bits that I would recommend it, and I'll certainly read the second one (although preliminary reviews are not encouraging). What stands out in hindsight, actually, is the scene at New Bethel where Caul has primed the locals to confront Dreadnought, and he cannot enter the church (as they command him to do) because their own belief will harm him. It's a shame that the resolution to this involves Emily grabbing an unguarded rifle in a not terribly believable fashion, because the set up, with Dreadnought's own power being used against him, is fascinating, and I would like to have seen more of it. I feel the ending section with Mirabilis' Precedent should have felt more like this moment.
