Technical difficulties

[desayunoencama]

I've been having weird technical problems with my phone line, which often doesn't let me mark numbers (either with the phone or the modem) so have not been online much the past few days. (Right now, I'm upstairs at my neighbor's, but he's got family staying with him for the holidays so trying to be quick.)

I have been reading a bit too much: finished off Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series (7 books after BREAKUP, which I was reading last time I posted) and also Joan Hess' BUSY BODIES (part of her Claire Molloy humorous mysteries).

The Shugaks are very good, although she has this oen problem with shifting point of view within a scene that really bugs me. But I think part of it is that she's transitioning between category mysteries and big breakout novels about Alaska and she's still in that adolescnet phase where one's limbs are suddenly much bigger than they used to be and you don't know how to move them and all. But suddenly there are all these other characters, the books are not as closely focused on Kate and her PoV, the same thing happenes to Sharyn McCrumb with her Appalachian Ballads series, although McCrumb made the switch better.

But aside from that one PoV problem (more prevalent in the later books, ironically, than the earlier ones) I enjoyed the series, and she doesn't pull her punches, doing some very unthinkable things in HUNTER'S MOON.

Happy Holidays to those who're celebrating.

Comments

[moose]

I had a strong suspicion what was gonna happen in Hunter's Moon because I'd read the Svensdotter books. Well not exactly just that; the PR for Hunter's Moon talked about a major change in Kate's life happening in the book, and I thought of the Star books, and then I thought of some of the stuff that had happened in other Shugak books [like Dead in the Water] and my brain clicked and said, "She wouldn't." and of course, she did.

I'm one of those freaks that reads books over and over and over and over [and over] again. Usually I reread a new book [as long as I liked it] within 2 weeks of the original read. I get Stabenow's books in hardback, when they first come out. I was so upset by Hunter's Moon, even suspecting where things were going, that I didn't reread it until it came out in paperback.

Yes, I am insane.

Have you read any of Marcia Muller's stuff? How about Sparkle Hayter?

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

I didn't read about that "major change in Kate's life" promo stuff. Often I don't even read the back covers or flaps of books in a series I know I'm going to read anyway...

I don't remember anything happening in DEAD IN THE WATER. For me it was BLOOD WILL TELL. That and HUNTER'S MOON are the two major upheavals in the series, I think.

I've read a bunch of the Marcia Mullers, although since I read Sue Grafton A-Q first, they seemed a bit of a pale imitation, even though I know Muller actually predates the Grafton series. The Sharon McCones are perfectly enjoyable. I read one of her other series books, though, the something of the SLAIN SOLDIERS and it was dreadful. And not just because she mangled so much Spanish in it!

(Of course, in Stabenow's MIDNIGHT COME AGAIN they kept using "spacebO" instead of "spacebA" as the Russian for "thank you". Someone needs to have a long talk with the copyeditor over at St. Martin's; I kept getting bugged in Jane Haddams' CONSPIRACY THEORY when they kept talking about the horse trails as "bridal paths" instead of "bridle paths". Sigh.)

I've read almost all of Sparkle Hayter's Robin Hudson novels. They're gonzo and fun--and sometiems much more substantial than they look on the surface, especially THE LAST MANLY MAN. They always make me think of Leslie What (a writer out in Oregon, for those of you who don't know her yet; look for her first novel OLYMPIC GAMES in May) although maybe more for who she is than what she writes, although sometimes both.

I haven't tried any of Hayter's werewolf novels, though.

I find there are very few writers who I'm able to follow as wholeheartedly from one series character to another, at least in mystery. It makes me very nervous that S.J. Rozan has just sold a new series to (I think it was Bantam) and so will be distracted from writing her excellent Lydia Chin/Bill Smith novels.