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Dec. 17th, 2007
Bookkeeping
Dec. 17th, 2007 05:33 pm35. Ilario: The Lion's Eye - Mary Gentle
Win the first: A hermaphrodite MC. Seriously, made of win. And a major supporting character is a eunuch, and another side character is transgendered, all smartly and sympathetically written. Was this up for a Tiptree? It should have been. (I am very cross I did not get my hot eunuch sex, though.)
Win the second: The MC is an artist, and oh my god, Gentle gets it. The details, the descriptions, the colors as Ilario sees them are so perfect. I was totally enamored of the art styles and movements as described, and as a former art major, very amused.
Less winning: Ilario is often rather dumb, and acts younger than hir age. Not TSTL, but I did want to smack hir a couple times.
The cutesy and endearing familial scenes, while cute and endearing, got repetitive after a while. Dude, we get it, they're cute and endearing. We like them. Move on.
What the heck is up with the tense shifts? Yes, 1st person is somewhat forgiving of that, but not forgiving enough. Pick a tense and stick with it, or shift only with narrative purpose.
And speaking of prose-tics, stop it with the LARGE HANDS! Rekhmire' has large hands! I get it! Stop telling us about his large hands! Stop it! By the end, I was ready to reach through the page and shake the author, the editor, and the copy-editor. A lot.
36. Amberlight - Sylvia Kelso
Another from the Juno line, and like Jade Tiger, I found this good as a book and even better as a romance. The heroine is a competent, mature woman (I want to say 39 was the age given, but I'm not looking it up this second), has no crazy hang-ups about sex, and ISN'T WHITE. Hallelujah! And the hero is actually hot, instead of sounding like an oiled slab of man-titty. The gender-role reversal isn't anything new, but it's handled well. I would have liked a little more time spent on the class issues, but at least they're acknowledged, which puts the book ahead.
And Kelso can write, like damn. Her prose is poetic and spare (occasionally to the point of choppiness, but I'm partial to this style), with beautiful description and a refreshing lack of scaffolding and weasel-words.
But in spite of my affection, parts of the end left me unhappy. I think this might be squiddy on my part, though, and no fault of the book's. If anyone else has read it, I'd like to hear your opinions.
Win the first: A hermaphrodite MC. Seriously, made of win. And a major supporting character is a eunuch, and another side character is transgendered, all smartly and sympathetically written. Was this up for a Tiptree? It should have been. (I am very cross I did not get my hot eunuch sex, though.)
Win the second: The MC is an artist, and oh my god, Gentle gets it. The details, the descriptions, the colors as Ilario sees them are so perfect. I was totally enamored of the art styles and movements as described, and as a former art major, very amused.
Less winning: Ilario is often rather dumb, and acts younger than hir age. Not TSTL, but I did want to smack hir a couple times.
The cutesy and endearing familial scenes, while cute and endearing, got repetitive after a while. Dude, we get it, they're cute and endearing. We like them. Move on.
What the heck is up with the tense shifts? Yes, 1st person is somewhat forgiving of that, but not forgiving enough. Pick a tense and stick with it, or shift only with narrative purpose.
And speaking of prose-tics, stop it with the LARGE HANDS! Rekhmire' has large hands! I get it! Stop telling us about his large hands! Stop it! By the end, I was ready to reach through the page and shake the author, the editor, and the copy-editor. A lot.
36. Amberlight - Sylvia Kelso
Another from the Juno line, and like Jade Tiger, I found this good as a book and even better as a romance. The heroine is a competent, mature woman (I want to say 39 was the age given, but I'm not looking it up this second), has no crazy hang-ups about sex, and ISN'T WHITE. Hallelujah! And the hero is actually hot, instead of sounding like an oiled slab of man-titty. The gender-role reversal isn't anything new, but it's handled well. I would have liked a little more time spent on the class issues, but at least they're acknowledged, which puts the book ahead.
And Kelso can write, like damn. Her prose is poetic and spare (occasionally to the point of choppiness, but I'm partial to this style), with beautiful description and a refreshing lack of scaffolding and weasel-words.
But in spite of my affection, parts of the end left me unhappy. I think this might be squiddy on my part, though, and no fault of the book's. If anyone else has read it, I'd like to hear your opinions.
| |
95,550 / 100,000 (95.5%) |
Today I started the tsunami. Silly tsunami. I also discovered a timeline problem, in that there's nearly an hour between the tsunami and the Miracle that would have saved the ship. So I'm not sure how I'm going to keep the pretty boat from being smashed, not to mention give those characters anything to do for an hour. Besides, yanno, drown.
The fifth and most annoying pov also hasn't told me what's happening to her through all of this. But every time I think seriously about cutting her, my brain locks up and starts to smoke.
And ( more art for matociquala's Sekrit Project )
