Relocation
Jun. 5th, 2012 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraSo. I have moved cities (again), and am now in one that is slightly warmer and definitely more tectonically stable. All my books are currently still in boxes, and may be there for a bit while I work out what to do about shelving (behind heat pump and external painting in the list of important big house things, unfortunately). The dog is adapting to his new environment and has completely recovered from the surgery he ended up having the week before we both moved (removal of his anal glands, very glamorous). Hmm. Somehow, this does not automatically lead into a discussion of book reviews.
I am miles behind on these anyway. Here, have an assortment of brief and possibly not all that tactful reviews that will hopefully represent some of my recent reading:
Suzanne Brockmann, Dark of Night. Book 14 in the Troubleshooters series, and no, I haven’t read any of the others. Het thriller romance where the protagonists have lots of money, talent, and competent sexual encounters, and get paired off neatly book by book, which means that the cast was fairly huge and difficult to differentiate, and I’m not sure I ever sorted out two of the secondary couples (there is at least one gay couple, which is nice). A bit too much faking your own death, being taken hostage and hiding out in safe houses for convenient sex scenes for me, and oddly difficult to visualise the main characters (the chief female lead is short and curvy, but the curves are so emphasised that I found it very difficult to work out what she looked like). I wouldn’t not read any of the others, but I’d probably skip round in the hope of finding a couple who at least managed to keep my attention for more than a few chapters.
Erin Dionne, The total tragedy of a girl named Hamlet. “Normal” girl with Shakespeare-obsessed parents has to deal with her genius seven year old sister starting school with her, in addition to failing algebra and trying to find out who is leaving origami pigs in her locker (and why). I like the relationship with the sister, especially when she gets seized upon by some of Hamlet’s bullies as a way for them to do better in school. The parents did not work for me (no speech contractions? Shakespeare has “T’is” all over the place) and the sudden revelation of Hamlet’s dramatic reading talent felt a bit forced – can she act, or just read? Also, surprising lack of body count given source text.
Marie Sexton, Blind Space. Captain Tristan Kelley is head of Prince Rickard's guard, but is unable to convince the prince not to take a risky route to a pleasure resort, resulting in their ship being taken hostage by pirates. Kelley is blinded (temporarily) in the attack, and his attempts to fight back have drawn the attention of Valero, one of those disturbingly ethical pirate captains who sets out to seduce Kelley. In addition, Kelley begins to wonder if the Prince, and the regime he represents, are really worthy of his service...
There is absolutely no need for this book to be set in space, rather than, say, yet another cod-medieval Europe (historical or fantastical, I'm not fussy), and it's kind of annoying that it is. Space pirates, flash guns and raids on helium mines all have the potential for a much more exciting space opera, but while I enjoyed the romance to a certain degree - I did think Kelley needed to be a hell of a lot less passive for a guard captain, as he only really gets one tiny bit of a fight scene - it really is a waste of a setting. There's no real sense of the corrupt Empire that's supposed to be behind everything, there's no nifty use of the minimal technology mentioned (and I do mean minimal. Kelley has no form of electronic communication with his guards), and even the food - hard cheese, dried meat, ice wine - felt medieval. No aliens, no robots, no cyborgs. Possibly this is also because I just finished playing Mass Effect 3, but I do expect more from something set IN SPACE.
My general disgruntlement over this has probably masked the rest of the book. The temporary blindness is an annoying gimmick (Kelley appears to only have trouble pissing when he's in Valero's quarters, for example), but does have one nice moment when Kelley is trying to pick out Valero from the terrifying gang of pirates once his sight's returned. I like that Kelley has a kink (dressing in lingerie) that Valero enjoys indulging him in. I did want to actually have scenes with the space pirates doing piratey things, and I wanted to have some idea of how the spaceship actually worked (does it land? dock? travel entirely through its hyperspace variant) and possibly I should just read something other than romances for this, but Marie Sexton did a perfectly good job of conveying contemporary settings in Strawberries for Dessert (which I loved), so I will stick to feeling that this could have been done better.
Lisa Henry, The Island. Shaw, a mysterious Australian, arrives on an island in Fiji to sell a stolen Cézanne painting to an evil drug lord (well, as opposed to all the misunderstood ones out there). Shaw isn't an art thief, or dealer; instead, he offers to get Vornis, the drug lord, and any of his equally dubious colleagues, whatever else they're looking for. And, while he's waiting for the colleagues to arrive, Vornis offers him a toy to play with - a DEA agent, captured eight weeks earlier, broken, drugged and very pretty. A man who Shaw can't help, at least not without endangering his true objective.
It's a tight, focussed book, and the relationship between the leads works well. Most of it is Shaw's pov, but not all, and equally most of the violence is kept off-stage. I could have done with a bit more fleshing out of the other characters on the island - Hanson, head of security, gets a bigger part in the intro than he does later on, and Irina also misses out. I could also have done without both leads having cheerfully filthy and supportive female best friends whose names start with C, but there are worse things.
The last two reviews have also appeared on GoodReads, if they look familiar, as I finally gave into badgering (you know who you are) and signed up there. I’m not entirely convinced that the site works for me (I hate rating books, so I don't, and I’m also really lazy about logging them, so it’s also way behind), but if you want to know who I am there, just ask.
I am miles behind on these anyway. Here, have an assortment of brief and possibly not all that tactful reviews that will hopefully represent some of my recent reading:
Suzanne Brockmann, Dark of Night. Book 14 in the Troubleshooters series, and no, I haven’t read any of the others. Het thriller romance where the protagonists have lots of money, talent, and competent sexual encounters, and get paired off neatly book by book, which means that the cast was fairly huge and difficult to differentiate, and I’m not sure I ever sorted out two of the secondary couples (there is at least one gay couple, which is nice). A bit too much faking your own death, being taken hostage and hiding out in safe houses for convenient sex scenes for me, and oddly difficult to visualise the main characters (the chief female lead is short and curvy, but the curves are so emphasised that I found it very difficult to work out what she looked like). I wouldn’t not read any of the others, but I’d probably skip round in the hope of finding a couple who at least managed to keep my attention for more than a few chapters.
Erin Dionne, The total tragedy of a girl named Hamlet. “Normal” girl with Shakespeare-obsessed parents has to deal with her genius seven year old sister starting school with her, in addition to failing algebra and trying to find out who is leaving origami pigs in her locker (and why). I like the relationship with the sister, especially when she gets seized upon by some of Hamlet’s bullies as a way for them to do better in school. The parents did not work for me (no speech contractions? Shakespeare has “T’is” all over the place) and the sudden revelation of Hamlet’s dramatic reading talent felt a bit forced – can she act, or just read? Also, surprising lack of body count given source text.
Marie Sexton, Blind Space. Captain Tristan Kelley is head of Prince Rickard's guard, but is unable to convince the prince not to take a risky route to a pleasure resort, resulting in their ship being taken hostage by pirates. Kelley is blinded (temporarily) in the attack, and his attempts to fight back have drawn the attention of Valero, one of those disturbingly ethical pirate captains who sets out to seduce Kelley. In addition, Kelley begins to wonder if the Prince, and the regime he represents, are really worthy of his service...
There is absolutely no need for this book to be set in space, rather than, say, yet another cod-medieval Europe (historical or fantastical, I'm not fussy), and it's kind of annoying that it is. Space pirates, flash guns and raids on helium mines all have the potential for a much more exciting space opera, but while I enjoyed the romance to a certain degree - I did think Kelley needed to be a hell of a lot less passive for a guard captain, as he only really gets one tiny bit of a fight scene - it really is a waste of a setting. There's no real sense of the corrupt Empire that's supposed to be behind everything, there's no nifty use of the minimal technology mentioned (and I do mean minimal. Kelley has no form of electronic communication with his guards), and even the food - hard cheese, dried meat, ice wine - felt medieval. No aliens, no robots, no cyborgs. Possibly this is also because I just finished playing Mass Effect 3, but I do expect more from something set IN SPACE.
My general disgruntlement over this has probably masked the rest of the book. The temporary blindness is an annoying gimmick (Kelley appears to only have trouble pissing when he's in Valero's quarters, for example), but does have one nice moment when Kelley is trying to pick out Valero from the terrifying gang of pirates once his sight's returned. I like that Kelley has a kink (dressing in lingerie) that Valero enjoys indulging him in. I did want to actually have scenes with the space pirates doing piratey things, and I wanted to have some idea of how the spaceship actually worked (does it land? dock? travel entirely through its hyperspace variant) and possibly I should just read something other than romances for this, but Marie Sexton did a perfectly good job of conveying contemporary settings in Strawberries for Dessert (which I loved), so I will stick to feeling that this could have been done better.
Lisa Henry, The Island. Shaw, a mysterious Australian, arrives on an island in Fiji to sell a stolen Cézanne painting to an evil drug lord (well, as opposed to all the misunderstood ones out there). Shaw isn't an art thief, or dealer; instead, he offers to get Vornis, the drug lord, and any of his equally dubious colleagues, whatever else they're looking for. And, while he's waiting for the colleagues to arrive, Vornis offers him a toy to play with - a DEA agent, captured eight weeks earlier, broken, drugged and very pretty. A man who Shaw can't help, at least not without endangering his true objective.
It's a tight, focussed book, and the relationship between the leads works well. Most of it is Shaw's pov, but not all, and equally most of the violence is kept off-stage. I could have done with a bit more fleshing out of the other characters on the island - Hanson, head of security, gets a bigger part in the intro than he does later on, and Irina also misses out. I could also have done without both leads having cheerfully filthy and supportive female best friends whose names start with C, but there are worse things.
The last two reviews have also appeared on GoodReads, if they look familiar, as I finally gave into badgering (you know who you are) and signed up there. I’m not entirely convinced that the site works for me (I hate rating books, so I don't, and I’m also really lazy about logging them, so it’s also way behind), but if you want to know who I am there, just ask.
