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Mar. 21st, 2005 05:55 pmDeborah Coates' story at Strange Horizons is really good. Happy and shiny and making hormonal me all teary-eyed.
Mar. 21st, 2005
What I'm Reading
Mar. 21st, 2005 09:18 pmFevre Dream by George R.R. Martin.
Vampires and steamboats--what more does any story need? I love gaslights, when they're done well. Barbara Hambly's Ben January books are my favorites, and this reminds me a bit of them. I've loved Martin for years, and it's interesting to read something smaller and sleeker than A Song of Ice and Fire.
FD and Brust's Agyar are doing a lot to restore my faith in good vampire novels. (This comes at a good time, since KoM has a vampire in it.) After years of wading through suck and running screaming from every book I cracked open in a bookstore, this is refreshing.
I enjoy how FD is told from the povs of the vampires' servants/mortal compatriots. I suspect a writer could go wrong with this, but Martin handles it well.
The one thing that squicks me so far (I'm only about half way through) is the villain vampire. He's oh so terribly decadent and depraved and unconcerned by petty things like where the money comes from, and of course he would never have anything to fear from those silly human cattle. I have nothing against depraved decadence, but I get suspicious when the master of a vampire coven is so thoughtless about his secrecy, and therein his safety. Stupid vampires end up staked for the sun, and I rarely care enough to watch them burn.
But the book is good, and I have some secret passion for steamboats that has yet to be fully explored. I read on!
Vampires and steamboats--what more does any story need? I love gaslights, when they're done well. Barbara Hambly's Ben January books are my favorites, and this reminds me a bit of them. I've loved Martin for years, and it's interesting to read something smaller and sleeker than A Song of Ice and Fire.
FD and Brust's Agyar are doing a lot to restore my faith in good vampire novels. (This comes at a good time, since KoM has a vampire in it.) After years of wading through suck and running screaming from every book I cracked open in a bookstore, this is refreshing.
I enjoy how FD is told from the povs of the vampires' servants/mortal compatriots. I suspect a writer could go wrong with this, but Martin handles it well.
The one thing that squicks me so far (I'm only about half way through) is the villain vampire. He's oh so terribly decadent and depraved and unconcerned by petty things like where the money comes from, and of course he would never have anything to fear from those silly human cattle. I have nothing against depraved decadence, but I get suspicious when the master of a vampire coven is so thoughtless about his secrecy, and therein his safety. Stupid vampires end up staked for the sun, and I rarely care enough to watch them burn.
But the book is good, and I have some secret passion for steamboats that has yet to be fully explored. I read on!
