Bookkeeping, on the road again edition
Sep. 7th, 2008 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stillsostrange20. Hell and Earth - Elizabeth Bear
21. The Iron Hunt - Marjorie Liu
I picked this up even after a fellow LJer whose opinions I trust didn't like it--one of her complaints was the choppy prose, but when I read the prologue in the bookstore, that didn't bother me at all. So I thought I'd give it a try.
I liked it lots. I like it the most of any of the damn ubiquitous-1st person not-enough-contractions-using ass-kicking leather chick UF I've read, I think.
The prose in particular I found a feature instead of a bug. It turns Maxine, who's already distant as a narrator, into something alien and inhuman. Which she should be--she's more construct than person. She's the Hunter. It works for me.
I agree with another point my fellow LJer made: Maxine and Grant have about as much chemistry as a sock drawer full of mateless socks. They could totally have been roommates with benefits. But since Grant suffers from none of the usual UF love interest failings (namely being a werewolf and an asshole AT THE SAME TIME), I wasn't too bothered. And I found it interesting that Maxine had more chemistry with Oturu and Tracker, and of course the boys. (Aside from the fact that he has toenail issues and was dressed by someone from Vampire Hunter D, Oturu was totally hot.)
The book does suffer from a kind of Kitchen Sink Syndrome, where characters are concerned. Everyone who shows up is somehow weird and important, and it was starting to wear on me by the end. I would have liked just one person present at the big end fight to have been human, or normal*. (Yes, hello, my name Pot and that kettle over there is totally black.) And Jack got off way too easy for being so cryptic and unforthcoming. This book really drove home for me just how obnoxious a plot device constantly withholding information is. I resolve not to do it!
Not a perfect book--I would have liked the worldbuilding fleshed out more, and the general setting. But I loved the boys, and a lot of the prose, and found Maxine's cold distance refreshing after all the rampaging werewolf-molesters out there.
I picked up a Dirk & Steele book too. (It was one of about 15 books the grocery store in BFE, CO had on the shelf--I was vaguely shocked.) We'll see how I like that.
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*It's perfectly fine to have books where no character is "normal", or bog-standard human, don't get me wrong. Who the hell needs more humans, anyway. But when every new character turns into Surprise! Supernatural creature with plot importance! it can be a bit much.
21. The Iron Hunt - Marjorie Liu
I picked this up even after a fellow LJer whose opinions I trust didn't like it--one of her complaints was the choppy prose, but when I read the prologue in the bookstore, that didn't bother me at all. So I thought I'd give it a try.
I liked it lots. I like it the most of any of the damn ubiquitous-1st person not-enough-contractions-using ass-kicking leather chick UF I've read, I think.
The prose in particular I found a feature instead of a bug. It turns Maxine, who's already distant as a narrator, into something alien and inhuman. Which she should be--she's more construct than person. She's the Hunter. It works for me.
I agree with another point my fellow LJer made: Maxine and Grant have about as much chemistry as a sock drawer full of mateless socks. They could totally have been roommates with benefits. But since Grant suffers from none of the usual UF love interest failings (namely being a werewolf and an asshole AT THE SAME TIME), I wasn't too bothered. And I found it interesting that Maxine had more chemistry with Oturu and Tracker, and of course the boys. (Aside from the fact that he has toenail issues and was dressed by someone from Vampire Hunter D, Oturu was totally hot.)
The book does suffer from a kind of Kitchen Sink Syndrome, where characters are concerned. Everyone who shows up is somehow weird and important, and it was starting to wear on me by the end. I would have liked just one person present at the big end fight to have been human, or normal*. (Yes, hello, my name Pot and that kettle over there is totally black.) And Jack got off way too easy for being so cryptic and unforthcoming. This book really drove home for me just how obnoxious a plot device constantly withholding information is. I resolve not to do it!
Not a perfect book--I would have liked the worldbuilding fleshed out more, and the general setting. But I loved the boys, and a lot of the prose, and found Maxine's cold distance refreshing after all the rampaging werewolf-molesters out there.
I picked up a Dirk & Steele book too. (It was one of about 15 books the grocery store in BFE, CO had on the shelf--I was vaguely shocked.) We'll see how I like that.
----------
*It's perfectly fine to have books where no character is "normal", or bog-standard human, don't get me wrong. Who the hell needs more humans, anyway. But when every new character turns into Surprise! Supernatural creature with plot importance! it can be a bit much.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 03:37 pm (UTC)Do you know which Dirk & Steele book it is? Those can be kind of uneven in quality but I do like the fact that Liu features PoCs in them. Or rather, PoCs not commonly featured in the romance genre. (Not Italians, Brazilians, Sicilians, etc etc.)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 03:46 pm (UTC)Yes, I like that about her work too.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 02:22 am (UTC)Which of the others would you recommend?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 08:50 am (UTC)The ones featuring PoC are Red Heart of Jade, Soul Song and The Last Twilight. RHoJ becomes a hot, incoherent mess at the end though. I'm still not sure what exactly happened.
My favorite one is Eye of Heaven. Most people's though seems to be Shadow Touch.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 04:59 pm (UTC)What drew me to the book was the novella that was the start of the series, because of the voice, so from the sounds of the reviews I've been reading, I think I'm going to enjoy it. Probably more than I do her Dirk&Pitt books anyway.