Mur Lafferty

I had almost reached the halfway mark before I stopped in disgust. Although tempted to toss my reading material to the floor, my ingrained love for books is too strong, so I settled for setting it down firmly on the side table and taking a deep breath. What set me off was a scene where Zoe, the lead character, picks a confrontation with one of her closest friends, following the (female) UF trope of: 1) getting in a fight with supernatural beings because they "eat people" when the character show more already knows that supernatural beings eat people, 2) getting ridiculously drunk as a way of coping with said stupidity, and 3) doing something so ridiculously stupid but needful for the plot that being drunk is the only way to explain it.

So many in the UF genre (and don't get me started on paranormal) go straight to the trope-ridden character and use those weakness to propel the plot forward through the mid-twenties life-stage challenges. Maybe the key here is writing skill; a good writer will use language that interests, build a world that engages and a character that evokes a reaction beyond the urge to slap someone upside the head. It's my own fault, really: I've been reading [b:Kraken|6931246|Kraken|China Miéville|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320551670l/6931246._SY75_.jpg|8814204] and then this book arrived at the library. I thought it might be a quick diversionary read while I waited for a long enough time chunk to devote to Mieville. Instead, it highlighted the difference between a writer who is linguistically gifted and one who sorely needs more practice in language, plotting and characterization.

The premise of the Shambling Guide series is absolutely fabulous, and without doubt, it is the hook that keeps me reading. Like Seanan McGuire's October Daye and InCryptid series, Lafferty does a great job bringing interest and character to a variety of ancillary supernatural characters including a Welsh death goddess, a Valkyrie and an Irish ghost. The idea of Zoe being a human editor of a team of supernatural writers is genius. Lafferty leads chapters with entries from the Guide, which gives it a fun flavor and ties the premise in. One of the structural problems here, however, is that writing the guide takes backseat to various nefarious activities, as well as the drama and angst of Zoe's boyfriend Arthur. The rest of her coterie team continues to tell her how worthless she is as an editor, until she unleashes her 'authority' in a fit of micromanaging, dictates they do something entirely unrelated to their job to prove she is boss, and subsequently wonders why things aren't going well. I don't know why they don't eat her, if only to be rid of her annoying personality, except of the vague threat of the vampire publisher to eat anyone who harms her.

Come to think of it, what I really don't like is Zoe. She's rude to people who are being perfectly polite, she makes a million assumptions (I might be exaggerating), generally lacks compassion but is perfectly capable of feeling sorry for herself, has virtually no investigative skills or interest in exploring the city, and is frequently horrified by the coterie around her--in short, everything an editor/team leader shouldn't be if one is reaching out to the public to write a book. Imagine Sookie confronting werewolves in a bar, but with a leadership position. Oh wait--you probably read that one.

To make matters worse, Zoe's 'secret' skill--which everyone seems to know by the end of the book--becomes compounded with more skills. Oh, and we discover she is an orphan (ok, that might have been in the last book, but she was more obsessed with getting over her old romance and didn't talk about it very often) and had a distant relationship with her adoptive parents. That's right--the tropes of Speshul Snoflake and Orphan Discovering Her Past makes a fast and furious appearance, bustling in with new skills to save the day and a stack of excuses for irrational behavior. (Of course, no one tells her how to use these skills, so she whines a bit, stomps off and then complains she doesn't know what to do).

Sigh. So what I'm saying is, Zoe's kind of a jerk, and I really don't like spending much time with her--much like immature October Daye (review)--but since she seems to change according to authorial needs, I'm not sure if it is a characterization issue or a character one. On the positive side, the world-building is very clever and the New Orleans setting is well done. For those that enjoy a little romance, there's a distracted relationship with a tropey Grumpy Man from The Opposing Side that is unsatisfying and unbelievable on many levels.

Overall, a disappointing follow-up to the Shambling Guide to New York City, not even satisfying in the Cracker-Jacks category.

Two and a half shambling stars, with a bonus half a star for not having a woman with tattoos/bare midriff/shrouded in shadow on the front cover. show less

I loved the idea behind this book, and I love the setting so, so much. Sentient ships! Aliens who don't GAF about humans! A murder mystery sleuth who understands (deeply) how weird it is to encounter murder as often as she does. All the weird little connections that bind everyone together!

All of these things are great, and there were definitely some plot twists I didn't see coming. I think it gets a bit chaotic and messy in a couple of places -- trying to understand the evolutions of the show more Gneiss and the battle is difficult to track and confusing. I also find both Mallory and Xan less than sympathetic characters -- Mallory's a bit whiny, Xan has too many secrets. I'm excited to see that this is the first book in a series and very intrigued to see where it goes next. Also, I LOVE Mrs. Brown.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss show less

Rating: Impressive!

Ostensibly, this is a locked-room murder mystery. In reality it is a pretty deep dive into philosophy - of life, of what life is, of what is really important, and of what you choose to do with that life.

It's the story of a generation ship, where the only crew awake are six clones. The story begins as the clones are awoken amidst carnage. Their previous clones have all been murdered. Blood and other fluids are floating all over the room. All over the ship. And the clones show more have no memories of what happened, who killed them, why it happened, and not much of an idea what to do about it all. Their AI computer has been hacked and is inaccessible.

Although there is a lot of action, there is also a lot of pretty deep thought on the implications of cloning, of AIs, of betrayal, revenge and finding a way to live with past actions you cannot undo, no matter how much you might wish to do so. show less

A book club pick :)

What a mess!

I haven’t read that many boring mysteries, but this one takes top spot.

I liked Six Wakes, so I jumped at the chance to read a “murder on a space station” book by the same author. It started off promisingly enough:

Murders just seem to happen around Mallory Viridian. She also happens to solve them.
The book was doing excellent things with ”murders always happen when the famous detective appears” trope, turning it on its head.
”Romance was out of the show more question; if someone dated Mallory, then someone close to them would die. Without fail.” Mallory hides from people and is very lonely. She has sought refuge on a sentient space station full of aliens, hoping this will stop her “curse”. These first few chapters were fun.

Suddenly, a shuttle full of humans is on its way. Mallory runs around in panic. There is a murder, of course. In fact, there are several. Then I watched the book crash and burn.

There was a never-ending parade of new POV characters and their back stories, as we were jumping back and forth in time. Sometimes we jumped several times per chapter. The stories piled up. Murder mystery, what murder mystery? Is Mallory doing any detective stuff? Nope.

Does one of my most hated stupid plot devices make an appearance? Indeed. People have secrets, and they tell each other that they are keeping secrets. ”I can’t tell you right now. I can’t explain, I am sorry.” ”I’ll tell you everything, but now is not the time.” This happens more than once. This is the sound of me rocking back and forth.

The characters’ motivations and behaviour often made zero sense. Well, of course they didn’t, they were there for plot reasons. Wait a minute… Plot, hello, where did you go? Where are you? Did you drown in the swamp this book turned into?

There are also things like ”Mallory remembered that the Gneiss* usually preferred to talk to one another via vibrations…” and “oh, by the way, I am a Gneiss princess!” and “oh, by the way, we aliens x have this thing we can do”. World building, what world building? What is show, don’t tell? This is the sound of me trying not to hit my head against the wall.

*Gneiss are sentients made of rock. They would have been better off in a different book.

Dear book gods, why was this novel so long? 457 pages! It desperately needed tightening up. It needed to be at least a hundred pages shorter.

I confess that I was hate reading for most of the book. The last chapters got more interesting and had some cool moments, but it was too little, too late.

I will need to be very, very careful in choosing my next read. Just sayin’. show less