Books of late
Feb. 15th, 2005 04:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desayunoencamaI am a hundred pages into THE SUMMER TREE, book one of Guy Gavriel Kay's THE FIONAVAR TAPESTRY. I had been putting off reading this because I have books 1 and 2, but not yet book 3.
However, earlier this weekend I read Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE which was so beautiful and lovely that I needed to read some more Kay.
Alas, the Fionavar books a) are not as well-written, hell, everyone has to start somewhere and he does go on to produce some wonderful books later on, but alas I've started down this road and can only hope these get better but so far b) everything seems to be warmed over mix-and-match from THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND and c) these belong to that genre of fantasy that I most despise, namely: ordinary contemporary mortals get transported into magical alternate world to save the multiverse.
Sigh.
Also read recently:
Robert C. O'brien's THE SILVER CROWN. I loved MRS. FRISBY when I was younger. I am so glad that I did not read this when I was younger. I did not like it now as an adult. I found the book quite unsettling.
:-(
Jonathan Kellerman's THERAPY. He's generally very dark, but he's very good. And every time I read one of his books, I am so glad that I do not live in the U.S. This one was a bit easier to digest since it didn't involve kids.
Has anyoneyet read the book he co-wrote with his wife?
Last night I read Faye Kellerman's THE RITUAL BATH. I had never read her before, so I thought I'd give her a try since she's married to someone whose books I so admire.
Alas, I found this a disappointment. For one thing, it resembled a sloppy category romance more than a mystery, especially the way they throw themselves into one another's arms quite inappropriately from the outset, the dialogue was pretty clunky, not to mention the emotional responses to anything that happens, and in general the action and resolution was completely cliched.
I also think the book doesn't invite the non-Jewish reader into the orthodox world that is the setting for the book. Maybe she gets better at this later on, since the series has been a commercial success.
In general, I found it held up very weakly, as a mystery novel on its own, and especially when comapred to her husband's work (even his first novel).
Sigh.
I also made it half-way through Lee Killough's AVENTINE. I had been putting off reading this, even though I'd enjoyed all of Killough's previous titles. Idiscovered her when I picked up one of the Mama Maxwell titles, surprised by their portrayal of a black man on the cover.
The books are nothing brilliant, but are often good comfort reads.
AVENTINE, unfortunately, is a composite of a bunch of stories set in the same world. And they're proving to be pretty pedestrian and predictable. Sigh.
I borrowed TIGANA from Sara, and hope to be able to lose myself again in the wonderful worlds that Kay can create, when at the top of his form, although I shall puritan-like slog on with THE SUMMER TREE in the hopes that thigns pick up.
Although so far, it only reminds me that George R. R. Martin's A FEAST OF CROWS, 4th volume in his series with its similar premise so far, and which is able to evoke that same sort of world as Kay's A SONG FOR ABRONNE did, is still not even a completed manuscript...
(His editor once showed me the remaining strips of his cover flat. He had only delivered one fifth of the book, so she cut a cover flat into five strips and mailed him one fifth of his cover, and as he delivered each succeeding chunk, she'd send him another strip... Alas, that was a few years ago, and he still hasn't finished delivering manuscript chunks, although I'm sure he's seen the entire cover by now since the book has been announced a handful of times...)
However, earlier this weekend I read Kay's A SONG FOR ARBONNE which was so beautiful and lovely that I needed to read some more Kay.
Alas, the Fionavar books a) are not as well-written, hell, everyone has to start somewhere and he does go on to produce some wonderful books later on, but alas I've started down this road and can only hope these get better but so far b) everything seems to be warmed over mix-and-match from THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND and c) these belong to that genre of fantasy that I most despise, namely: ordinary contemporary mortals get transported into magical alternate world to save the multiverse.
Sigh.
Also read recently:
Robert C. O'brien's THE SILVER CROWN. I loved MRS. FRISBY when I was younger. I am so glad that I did not read this when I was younger. I did not like it now as an adult. I found the book quite unsettling.
:-(
Jonathan Kellerman's THERAPY. He's generally very dark, but he's very good. And every time I read one of his books, I am so glad that I do not live in the U.S. This one was a bit easier to digest since it didn't involve kids.
Has anyoneyet read the book he co-wrote with his wife?
Last night I read Faye Kellerman's THE RITUAL BATH. I had never read her before, so I thought I'd give her a try since she's married to someone whose books I so admire.
Alas, I found this a disappointment. For one thing, it resembled a sloppy category romance more than a mystery, especially the way they throw themselves into one another's arms quite inappropriately from the outset, the dialogue was pretty clunky, not to mention the emotional responses to anything that happens, and in general the action and resolution was completely cliched.
I also think the book doesn't invite the non-Jewish reader into the orthodox world that is the setting for the book. Maybe she gets better at this later on, since the series has been a commercial success.
In general, I found it held up very weakly, as a mystery novel on its own, and especially when comapred to her husband's work (even his first novel).
Sigh.
I also made it half-way through Lee Killough's AVENTINE. I had been putting off reading this, even though I'd enjoyed all of Killough's previous titles. Idiscovered her when I picked up one of the Mama Maxwell titles, surprised by their portrayal of a black man on the cover.
The books are nothing brilliant, but are often good comfort reads.
AVENTINE, unfortunately, is a composite of a bunch of stories set in the same world. And they're proving to be pretty pedestrian and predictable. Sigh.
I borrowed TIGANA from Sara, and hope to be able to lose myself again in the wonderful worlds that Kay can create, when at the top of his form, although I shall puritan-like slog on with THE SUMMER TREE in the hopes that thigns pick up.
Although so far, it only reminds me that George R. R. Martin's A FEAST OF CROWS, 4th volume in his series with its similar premise so far, and which is able to evoke that same sort of world as Kay's A SONG FOR ABRONNE did, is still not even a completed manuscript...
(His editor once showed me the remaining strips of his cover flat. He had only delivered one fifth of the book, so she cut a cover flat into five strips and mailed him one fifth of his cover, and as he delivered each succeeding chunk, she'd send him another strip... Alas, that was a few years ago, and he still hasn't finished delivering manuscript chunks, although I'm sure he's seen the entire cover by now since the book has been announced a handful of times...)
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Date: 2005-02-17 12:57 am (UTC)Dana Stabenow started as an SF writer, with three books with Ace, before switching to mysteries. Only read her Kate Shugaks, though, the other series is lousy because the character has no connection to the place, there is no tension. And read them in order, because she pulls no punches, and things happen at various points in the series that you can't read any of the later books without these moments affecting everything that's gone before...
I do think you might like the S. J. Rozan's, as well. Again, the characters grow so much over the course of the books, so it's worth reading the series in order. The Bill Smith books are much darker and grittier, meatier mysteries, in many ways. Especially in the beginning, when Lydia Chin is only getting chinese cultural mysteries, because she's a 20 something American Born Chinese girl, and no one takes her seriously...
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Date: 2005-02-17 02:44 am (UTC)