Reading Wednesday
May. 6th, 2015 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
Summoned to Tourney by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon. A Bard, an elf, and a witch fight evil government scientists in order to prevent a massive earthquake from destroying San Fransisco, which - besides being bad in and of itself - would allow demons to take over the world. I liked this book less than the first one in the series, I think because it was much more focused on the plot and less on the character interactions. That said, I'd still recommend it for anyone looking for books about clair universes, because it's a sweet if slight example of one.
Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch. I'd read this before, but it was nice to read again. I liked it more this time too, though the discussion at the end about whether police can kill people was a lot more heart-rending than I'd remembered it being. At least Peter wins that argument.
The Quick by Lauren Owen. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS READ THIS BOOK. The first 120 pages or so are a quiet, atmospheric account of the childhood and life of James Norbury, a young man in 1890s London with just enough money that he doesn't need to work and can instead pursue his dream of being a poet, but not enough money to afford rooms of his own. He gradually falls in love with his roommate, Christopher, and is just beginning to deal with all the problems that entails. And then the vampires show up.
This book is basically Dracula, if Lucy were a gay dude and his rescuer was his plain, country-girl sister. It even has some of the epistolary quality of Dracula, through excerpts from a character's journal. But there's also Dickens in there (plucky street urchins! vivid descriptions of the dirt of London!), Henry James in the creepy, abandoned family Hall, and a million other Gothic authors. I suppose this book's appeal depends on your tolerance for horror, vampires, and Victorian stylization, but I loved it so much! These are not the sexy, seductive vampires of Anne Rice and Twilight; these are creeping horrors, empty and parasitic, dead behind the eyes and cold beneath the skin. The horror in the book is mostly off-screen rather than gory direct violence, which is my preferred style. I'm also endlessly fascinated by any horror that uses the political trends of the Victorian era - social darwinism, eugenics, imperialism, female hysterics, etc - to imbue its literal monsters with human monstrousness.
I want more books by the author immediately, but unfortunately this is her first.
What are you currently reading?
The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, and Biology, and How They Change Our Lives by Stephen Buchmann. A NetGalley book about - well, that subtitle really covers it all, doesn't it?
Summoned to Tourney by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon. A Bard, an elf, and a witch fight evil government scientists in order to prevent a massive earthquake from destroying San Fransisco, which - besides being bad in and of itself - would allow demons to take over the world. I liked this book less than the first one in the series, I think because it was much more focused on the plot and less on the character interactions. That said, I'd still recommend it for anyone looking for books about clair universes, because it's a sweet if slight example of one.
Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch. I'd read this before, but it was nice to read again. I liked it more this time too, though the discussion at the end about whether police can kill people was a lot more heart-rending than I'd remembered it being. At least Peter wins that argument.
The Quick by Lauren Owen. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS READ THIS BOOK. The first 120 pages or so are a quiet, atmospheric account of the childhood and life of James Norbury, a young man in 1890s London with just enough money that he doesn't need to work and can instead pursue his dream of being a poet, but not enough money to afford rooms of his own. He gradually falls in love with his roommate, Christopher, and is just beginning to deal with all the problems that entails. And then the vampires show up.
This book is basically Dracula, if Lucy were a gay dude and his rescuer was his plain, country-girl sister. It even has some of the epistolary quality of Dracula, through excerpts from a character's journal. But there's also Dickens in there (plucky street urchins! vivid descriptions of the dirt of London!), Henry James in the creepy, abandoned family Hall, and a million other Gothic authors. I suppose this book's appeal depends on your tolerance for horror, vampires, and Victorian stylization, but I loved it so much! These are not the sexy, seductive vampires of Anne Rice and Twilight; these are creeping horrors, empty and parasitic, dead behind the eyes and cold beneath the skin. The horror in the book is mostly off-screen rather than gory direct violence, which is my preferred style. I'm also endlessly fascinated by any horror that uses the political trends of the Victorian era - social darwinism, eugenics, imperialism, female hysterics, etc - to imbue its literal monsters with human monstrousness.
I want more books by the author immediately, but unfortunately this is her first.
What are you currently reading?
The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, and Biology, and How They Change Our Lives by Stephen Buchmann. A NetGalley book about - well, that subtitle really covers it all, doesn't it?
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Date: 2015-05-06 09:51 pm (UTC)YESSssss ok, I don't mind a little sexy in my vampires, as long as they're ALSO empty and parasitic. But this book sounds right up my (dodgy Victorian) alley.
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