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sub_dividedNot the backblog meme, sadly, though I swear I will get to that before I die even if it kills me. These are all books I read since.
Robert Angell, Let Me Finish:
I got so caught up reading New York Times Book Reviews about literary dynasties that I forgot that I don't like reading memoirs by less-famous relatives about their more-famous relations. The first part of the first chapter, about a car trip the author took with his mother and E. B. White (who would later become his stepfather), made me sit up and take notice, but after that it's mostly downhill.
This book just doesn't seem personal enough to be a memoir. Instead of focusing on one or two events that concerned him, and that he clearly remembers, Angell makes lists of all the movies he saw, cars he owned, baseball games he attended, etc. Maybe if I grew up in the thirties this invocation of names would be enough to carry the book, but as it is, I wished Angell would stop overdoing style and focus a little more on substance. Impeccable sentences, but what he has to say is just not that interesting. (There's something sad about the title, though, isn't there?)
Celestine Vaite, Taire in Bloom:
Sequel to Breadfruit and Frangipani. This series, about Tahiti's best listener -- who now has her own popular talk radio show, where she is a professional listener -- is still great. ^__^ The cast of characters is still great, the writing is still great, and there's still a lot of warmth -- though actually, the series has been getting more (explicitly) political.
Frangipani was made up of mostly one-off stories about Materena's immediate and extended family, which were funny or heartwarming or interesting, with the central plot being Materena's relationship with her daughter Leilani. Breadfruit was more of the same, only this time the central plot was getting long-time live-in-father-of-Materena's-children Pito to commit to a bona-fide marriage, and now underneath the stories of pluck and energy there was more that directly related to the social order/power imbalance on the islands, as well as a few encounters between Materena and the French authorities.
Taire in Bloom is told mainly from Pito's POV, which Celestine Vaite does really well and which I really enjoyed. The book's overall theme is reforming Pito -- not a terrible husband, but not a great one either -- and this is accomplished by the author bashing him over the head with an adorable granddaughter. Bamn! He never even saw it coming. ^^; Possibly the book strays too far into retroactively-compensating-for-the-mistakes-of-the-past territory, but I'm so attached to the characters by this point, I didn't really mind. (There's also, apparently, a real social basis to Pito's transformation.) Pito's family is really not like Materena's family; the politics are pretty obvious this time around.
Celestine Vaite says in a note at the back that this was her easiest book -- nine months instead of two-to-three years -- and I can see why, much more of the action was limited to Materena, Pito, and the central storyline, essentially playing off situations and characters set up in the previous books. But you know what, she's earned it. ^^ There was enough in Frangipani and Breadfruit to support this kind of story. (But read those books first!)
Fortunately for those of us in the US, we didn't have to wait six years for these. They've been coming out at a rate of one per year. Viva la New Market! One final note, I can't imagining reading these without knowing at least basic French, it's so central to the way the characters talk to each other. One final final note, this book was in Border's "this would make an awesome gift for Father's Day!" pile. Ahaha. It would make for a pointed Father's Day gift, at least.
Diana Duanne, Wizards at War:
I don't know what it is, but I just can't read this series anymore. Maybe I outgrew it? So much of it is about growing up, maybe I don't want to read about the maturation experiences of 14-year-olds when I was fourteen eight years ago? This was going to be the awesome, focus-on-Dark-Matter book that brought back my love for the series, too.
Maybe it's the way the wizardry has evolved? It began fairly basically, with the idea that there is a universal "wizard" language which all living and even non-living things understand. In order to effect something, you must be able to talk to it, and to describe exactly what you want it do. Nita's specialty was plants and Kit's was machines. Later books brought in animals, computers, fairytales, and aliens -- all showing how many different ways there are of doing magic -- and at some point, I guess I just stopped buying that there was an underlying sameness that could incorporate all these differences.
It's that central, deep-down-we're-not-so-different message that allows this book to have the premise: "because of the rapidly increasing rate of the expansion of the Universe, people are moving toward caring only about the physical, not just here but everywhere in space." I don't even believe this is happening everywhere on Earth, yet alone that it's happening throughout all space. (And in other dimensions, too!)
Maybe the mythology got too unwieldy. Maybe the characters got too overpowered. Maybe the author got lazy! I don't know, I really don't.
Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer, The Mislaid Magician:
Sequel to Sorcery and Cecilia and The Grand Tour, both Victorian-fantasy-themed improvised novels (this novel is one too). The biggest change between this book and the previous two was that this time, Kate and Cecy's husbands also contribute to the story. Kate's husband's POV was a more valuable addition to the novel, I thought -- Cecilia's (Wrede's) sounded too much like her. In fact I liked Stevemer's sections more in general, I thought they had more character. Then again Wrede does most of the heavy lifting, plot-wise, and it's probably much easier to write entertainingly in-character when you are less concerned with advancing the action.
What was the plot, again? Oh, right: on assignment for the Duke of Wellington, Cecilia and Robert stumble across plan to use England's "ley-lines" to influence the succession. Fairly standard stuff. There were also some parts about the railroad that I really enjoyed, though sadly, that side of the plot kind of fades after a while. A subplot centering around Kate's idiot cousin also doesn't come to very much, but is resolved entertainingly. Overall, a lot of fun. I liked it more than Grand Tour (this kind of story just seems to work better when the cousins are apart) but not as much as Sorcery and Cecilia.
Still to come: Foreigner by C.J.Cherryh (seriously xenophobic -- I liked Cherryh better when she was describing sentient alien lizards), The Secret Books of Paradys Vols I and II by Tanith Lee (Vol I has highlights but is overall too dream-sequency, Vol II is amazing), The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh (...I can't sum this up in parenthesis, you'll have to wait for the post.)
Another thing this post isn't: the major news I promised in the last post. That's also still coming. (I need, like, a checklist something.)
Robert Angell, Let Me Finish:
I got so caught up reading New York Times Book Reviews about literary dynasties that I forgot that I don't like reading memoirs by less-famous relatives about their more-famous relations. The first part of the first chapter, about a car trip the author took with his mother and E. B. White (who would later become his stepfather), made me sit up and take notice, but after that it's mostly downhill.
This book just doesn't seem personal enough to be a memoir. Instead of focusing on one or two events that concerned him, and that he clearly remembers, Angell makes lists of all the movies he saw, cars he owned, baseball games he attended, etc. Maybe if I grew up in the thirties this invocation of names would be enough to carry the book, but as it is, I wished Angell would stop overdoing style and focus a little more on substance. Impeccable sentences, but what he has to say is just not that interesting. (There's something sad about the title, though, isn't there?)
Celestine Vaite, Taire in Bloom:
Sequel to Breadfruit and Frangipani. This series, about Tahiti's best listener -- who now has her own popular talk radio show, where she is a professional listener -- is still great. ^__^ The cast of characters is still great, the writing is still great, and there's still a lot of warmth -- though actually, the series has been getting more (explicitly) political.
Frangipani was made up of mostly one-off stories about Materena's immediate and extended family, which were funny or heartwarming or interesting, with the central plot being Materena's relationship with her daughter Leilani. Breadfruit was more of the same, only this time the central plot was getting long-time live-in-father-of-Materena's-children Pito to commit to a bona-fide marriage, and now underneath the stories of pluck and energy there was more that directly related to the social order/power imbalance on the islands, as well as a few encounters between Materena and the French authorities.
Taire in Bloom is told mainly from Pito's POV, which Celestine Vaite does really well and which I really enjoyed. The book's overall theme is reforming Pito -- not a terrible husband, but not a great one either -- and this is accomplished by the author bashing him over the head with an adorable granddaughter. Bamn! He never even saw it coming. ^^; Possibly the book strays too far into retroactively-compensating-for-the-mistakes-of-the-past territory, but I'm so attached to the characters by this point, I didn't really mind. (There's also, apparently, a real social basis to Pito's transformation.) Pito's family is really not like Materena's family; the politics are pretty obvious this time around.
Celestine Vaite says in a note at the back that this was her easiest book -- nine months instead of two-to-three years -- and I can see why, much more of the action was limited to Materena, Pito, and the central storyline, essentially playing off situations and characters set up in the previous books. But you know what, she's earned it. ^^ There was enough in Frangipani and Breadfruit to support this kind of story. (But read those books first!)
Fortunately for those of us in the US, we didn't have to wait six years for these. They've been coming out at a rate of one per year. Viva la New Market! One final note, I can't imagining reading these without knowing at least basic French, it's so central to the way the characters talk to each other. One final final note, this book was in Border's "this would make an awesome gift for Father's Day!" pile. Ahaha. It would make for a pointed Father's Day gift, at least.
Diana Duanne, Wizards at War:
I don't know what it is, but I just can't read this series anymore. Maybe I outgrew it? So much of it is about growing up, maybe I don't want to read about the maturation experiences of 14-year-olds when I was fourteen eight years ago? This was going to be the awesome, focus-on-Dark-Matter book that brought back my love for the series, too.
Maybe it's the way the wizardry has evolved? It began fairly basically, with the idea that there is a universal "wizard" language which all living and even non-living things understand. In order to effect something, you must be able to talk to it, and to describe exactly what you want it do. Nita's specialty was plants and Kit's was machines. Later books brought in animals, computers, fairytales, and aliens -- all showing how many different ways there are of doing magic -- and at some point, I guess I just stopped buying that there was an underlying sameness that could incorporate all these differences.
It's that central, deep-down-we're-not-so-different message that allows this book to have the premise: "because of the rapidly increasing rate of the expansion of the Universe, people are moving toward caring only about the physical, not just here but everywhere in space." I don't even believe this is happening everywhere on Earth, yet alone that it's happening throughout all space. (And in other dimensions, too!)
Maybe the mythology got too unwieldy. Maybe the characters got too overpowered. Maybe the author got lazy! I don't know, I really don't.
Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer, The Mislaid Magician:
Sequel to Sorcery and Cecilia and The Grand Tour, both Victorian-fantasy-themed improvised novels (this novel is one too). The biggest change between this book and the previous two was that this time, Kate and Cecy's husbands also contribute to the story. Kate's husband's POV was a more valuable addition to the novel, I thought -- Cecilia's (Wrede's) sounded too much like her. In fact I liked Stevemer's sections more in general, I thought they had more character. Then again Wrede does most of the heavy lifting, plot-wise, and it's probably much easier to write entertainingly in-character when you are less concerned with advancing the action.
What was the plot, again? Oh, right: on assignment for the Duke of Wellington, Cecilia and Robert stumble across plan to use England's "ley-lines" to influence the succession. Fairly standard stuff. There were also some parts about the railroad that I really enjoyed, though sadly, that side of the plot kind of fades after a while. A subplot centering around Kate's idiot cousin also doesn't come to very much, but is resolved entertainingly. Overall, a lot of fun. I liked it more than Grand Tour (this kind of story just seems to work better when the cousins are apart) but not as much as Sorcery and Cecilia.
Still to come: Foreigner by C.J.Cherryh (seriously xenophobic -- I liked Cherryh better when she was describing sentient alien lizards), The Secret Books of Paradys Vols I and II by Tanith Lee (Vol I has highlights but is overall too dream-sequency, Vol II is amazing), The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh (...I can't sum this up in parenthesis, you'll have to wait for the post.)
Another thing this post isn't: the major news I promised in the last post. That's also still coming. (I need, like, a checklist something.)