Pwaites' Reading in 2014 (Continued)

The last thread was getting a bit long, so I thought I'd better start a new one for the rest of the year. For those not familiar with my reading journal, I read primarily fantasy and science fiction, emphasis on fantasy.

Right now I'm still working on Perdido Street Station. Although I'm really enjoying it, I'm having some trouble with the pace. My guess would be that the urgency and action gets thrown off by the page or more long descriptions of settings. They're very nice and beautifully written descriptions that really add to the feel of the world, but four hundred pages in, they can be trying. Also, my favorite character, Lin, was kidnapped by this drug lord and is presumed dead. I flipped to the back, and she's still alive, but I'm ticked off that she's gone for over a third of the book. Also, the Damsel in Distress trope is getting old. With Lin out of the picture, Derkhan's the most important female character. Only, it's been a really long time since she had a POV section either.

This last few months I seemed to have been acquiring books faster than I've been reading them. This has resulted in a rather large pile of books that are waiting to be read:
The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
The Onion Girl by Charles De Lint
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb
The Watchers by Jon Steele
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Omens by Kelly Armstrong
Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
By the Sword and Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey
Once a Hero by Elizabeth Moon
Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Along with several others who are on a backburner for some reason or the other.

The Once and Future King is among my all-time favorites. I recommend it to other readers more that any other book.

>1 pwaites: Good list, pwaites! I see several books I have read and liked (the Lackeys and Marillier) and several that I haven't read yet, but want to (the de Lint (a lot of people say The onion girl is their favorite book by him), the GGK).

3> I had no idea that The Onion Girl was regarded so well. I just wanted to try something by Charles De Lint, and it was the only one at the used book store. Guess it was my lucky day.

I've finished reading Perdido Street Station. Geeze, my reactions to this book are mixed. On one hand, it's one of the best described and realized settings that I've read in a long time. It really felt like something different and new, and I loved all the different non human species.

On the other hand, there's the bad pacing and the horribly depressing ending. Not to mention the fury inducing treatment of the female lead. I'm counting Lin as the female lead here. In my previous post, I'd mentioned that she'd been kidnapped and was out of the picture (or damsel in distress) for a large segment of the book. For no apparent reason. It could have turned out all right - maybe, in the end there would have been a necessary reason to have her placed inside the drug lord's hold or whatever. Or maybe she'd take some independent action and break out. Didn't happen. Oh, and I thought that she was alive in the end? Yeah, she was, except that she'd been severely brain damaged and couldn't string together a sentence anymore or function on her own. This happens out of the blue.

I really loved Lin in the beginning of the book, which makes this so much more terrible. Why was she included in the story at all? She played no part in the plot. Even her kidnapping was insignificant. The only answer left remaining, is that she was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and brain damaged to provide misery to the male protagonist. Or maybe to make it "gritter" or something.

Oh, yes. One of the things I was happy with in the beginning of the book was that while it had sort of a "grimdark" feel, there wasn't any rape. At least, not until the last sixth of the book came around. One of the major characters, Yagharek the half bird man, is revealed to be a rapist. I'll acknowledge that I could have figured it out before the reveal - you know that he got his wings cut off for some crime, but all crimes in his races justice system are referred to as "choice-theft" and it was dismissed early on as being something untranslatable to human society. Which paved the way for the blindsiding big reveal of the last thirty pages.

The other female lead, Derkhan, was never as well developed as the other major characters. She does come through the end alive and mostly in piece (minus one ear), so I guess that's something.

On a positive note, I did love the Weaver, who's a completely incomprehensible and powerful creature and who sees the world as a web that most be made aesthetically pleasing. There's some characters that, while they might not be understandable or sympathetic, you just know that something's going to happen when they turn up.

I'm going to pick up The Severed Streets next. London Falling was one of the best books I've read this year, so hopefully it's sequel won't disappoint.

Review of A Wizard of Earthsea posted here.

>2 suitable1: Totally agree. The Once and Future King is one of those books everyone with an interest in fantasy should have read. It's funny, beautiful, compassionate, and heartbreakingly sad, yet hopeful.

5> I've heard about it multiple places. It's also part of my effort to read some of the fantasy classics, which is why I read A Wizard of Earthsea lately.

Somehow, I already managed to get halfway through The Severed Streets. I picked it up... and then didn't put it down until around midnight. Obviously, this book does not have pacing problems.

I was not expecting this, but I loved it so much - a certain famous author appears as a character! I was laughing so hard that I started crying at the first section of this. I'm not going to say who it is because I don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone else reading this.

I really do like The Severed Streets so far, but I think it's just a tad under the level of the first one. The Jack the Ripper story line has been done so many times before.

On the character front, Ross just made a big decision. She says she doesn't feel any regret about it, but it still worries me. I wish it hadn't happened. She trades away all her future happiness for fifteen minutes looking at an address book to find the item that will save her father from Hell.

Oh, and there was just the first section from Lofthouse's perspective. She's up to something, but we don't know what yet. She was meeting with two women from MI5. They didn't know what she was up to either, but they knew something was going on. It's a pretty fair guess that whatever Lofthouse's is up to, it relates back to the ruined building found at the end of the first book. There's still things that she's not telling Quill and the team, and she says that she can't. Maybe the group is still operating somehow? Or maybe she's being blackmailed or controlled by whoever destroyed the group?

6: Is Ross an awesome character? Somebody I might like?

London Falling is on my massive TBR shelf. Even though I generally don't care for urban fantasy, I will read books set in contemporary London, because, well, London is cool.

I think Ross is awesome. She's flawed, but intelligent, competent and strong. Her "big decision" as mentioned by >6 pwaites: above bothered me, too, but it was in character. I look forward to the next book because I really liked this one, but also because of part of how it ended for her that I won't even put in spoilers. Be interested to see your reaction.

7> Yes, Ross is a good character. She's one of those that you can't talk too much about without bringing up a bunch of spoilers, however. She's very driven and hard working. Tries to do the right thing. There's also Lofthouse, who isn't as major (she's the team's superior officer), but who's role is growing. She's likable as well.

8> At a certain point, I was pretty sure that the Bridge of Thorns wouldn't be used on Ross's dad. I'm glad it happened, but it does suck for Ross. I keep hoping that sometime in one of the future books she'll somehow get happiness back. Or at least save her father.

I've finished The Severed Streets, and I'm not sure what I'll start next. I've also got to get caught up on the reviews.

I'm about halfway through reading Spindle's End by Robin McKinley. This one actually counts as a reread - I read it many years ago, so far back that I can barely remember it. At the time, I didn't like it. This go around, I have a much better impression.

My Nook Simple Touch has been on the blink for the last six months or so. The touch screen only worked sporadically and made it impossible to open up the device, let alone read a book on it. Today I finally got a replacement. After doing some research online, I got a Kindle Paperwhite and downloaded Calibre, free soft ware that lets you manage your ebooks. I was able to use Calibre to convert the books I had on my Nook into something that the Kindle'd except.

I just finished reading Legion on the Paperwhite. I liked it, but it not as much as anything else I've read by Sanderson. I think the short, novella format didn't work so well for me in this one - a full length novel would have given more room to get to know the characters. I know that he's writing a sequel novella. If this ends up being a novella series of a sort, I might end up liking it better.

I did like the premise of the hallucinations. The opening lines were wonderful:

"My name is Stephen Leeds, and I am perfectly sane. My hallucinations, however, are all quite mad."

I've also posted reviews of Perdido Street Station (here) and The Severed Streets (here). Catching up on reviews is a never ending process.

>10 pwaites: And what do you think of the Paperwhite?

11> I like it. I was afraid that the "no buttons" would really hamper me, and it is a bit more awkward to switch it from hand to hand and to flip pages, but it's not too bad. I can still read with one hand while rubbing a dog with the other. The screen definition is really nice and has good contrast, and the the glow feature's wonderful. I can adjust it from not glowing at all, to being brightly lit. The ebook shopping is sub par to the Nook's though, but that's okay as I've decided to buy them all from the computer anyway so I can be sure to have a backup copy off the cloud.

I'm currently reading Thorn on the Kindle and listening to Eleanor and Park on audible.

I haven't gotten far enough into Thorn to venture an opinion, and I haven't picked it up since I figured out it'd be an arranged marriage plot. I will continue it, I'm just sick of that trope. Eleanor and Park I'm reading for the book club. I like it okay, but I'm more interested in the parts describing Eleanor's family than her and Park's relationship. I was also unaware that there could be that much description of hand holding. If I was reading it in print, I'd probably be skimming some of it.

I've also finished Spindle's End and Carmilla. It's actually my second time reading Spindle's End - I read it once a long time ago and didn't really care for it (I think I liked action more than anything at that age). I liked it much better this time around, although the relationship with Narl felt strained - it was yet another age gap. He's the village smith who knew her when she was four. How's that not creepy? At least she was in her early twenties when she decided she loved him and ended up getting together with him. If she were younger, it would have been even creepier.

I liked Carmilla a lot. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a short, classic vampire story written in 1871 that's been influential to the genre. There's also debate concerning if it is specifically lesbian, has lesbian undertones, or is not at all lesbian.

Now having read it, I think those reviewers saying that there wasn't any sort of romantic relationship between the girls must have read a completely different book. How'd they miss the kissing? And Carmilla staring at Laura with "the ardor of a lover"? Carmilla's certainly lesbian, or maybe bi. The narrator (Laura) might not be - proper Victorian girl that she is, she's confused and somewhat frightened by Carmilla's "crazy talk." Then again, she's also constantly describing how beautiful Carmilla is and putting her arm around her waist. In a romantic sense or not, Laura was infatuated with Carmilla.

However, Carmilla is possibly problematic - is her attraction to Laura supposed to be related to the evil nature of vampires? I'll probably need to do some research into anything that the author said, but in the mean time does anyone else have thoughts?

I've finished Thorn. I'd forgotten when I started reading it that it was a Goose Girl retelling - I didn't figure that out until the scene where her mother gives her the handkerchief. One of the things that slowed my reading at the beginning was how victimized Alyrra was. She's beaten and threatened by her brother while her mother knowingly does nothing to stop it. She's isolated and friendless, and I was worried that she'd be a weak character who'd spend the entire story obsessing over the eventual love interest.

I was wrong. Alyrra's a very strong character. She's a survivor and very brave. Although the book is dark in places and her life not happy, she keeps her head up and perseveres with her kindness, honesty and courage.

I can't help but compare this to Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl, which is another, more famous retelling of the fairy tale. I love both of them, but Thorn's certainly the darker of the two. I also found it interesting how the relationship to the traitorous maid played out in both. In Goose Girl, she's on off the page threat, while in Thorn, Alyrra continues to have contact with her. Also, Alyrra wasn't too upset when she switched places with the maid - now, she suddenly had control of her own future and freedom.

Right now I'm about a third through Cobweb Bride. What a wonderful book! I was somewhat leery of the plot description at first - Death ceases all death until his cobweb bride is delivered to him, but it's working really well. At this point, characters have just figured out that no more death means no more food.

I liked Eleanor and Park better than I would most other YA romances, but I greatly preferred Fangirl of the two. While I too found all the swoony hand-holding to get a bit much, I did like the slow build of the physical side of the relationship, which fit with their emotional caution.

Thorn sounds excellent, I shall have to look out for it. I think I may have read a short story by the author; her name sounds familiar.

And I have Cobweb bride on my kindle; I might make it my next e-read as both you and kceccato (I think) have praised it.

15: Yes, I gave Cobweb Bride thumbs up. Very vivid and evocative, with memorable characters and an admirable heroine.

15> I am liking Eleanor and Park better than I thought I would. Fangirl was also one of the nominated books for the summer reading, but we ended up choosing Eleanor and Park and The Raven Boys (probably because I raved convincingly).

Thorn was very good. I think I ran into it on a the A More Diverse Universe challenge posts, or maybe on one of the other blogs about diversity in speculative fiction.

15, 16> I've finished it now, and I'm in total agreement with kceccato on "Very vivid and evocative, with memorable characters and an admirable heroine." Although, I think it actually had more than one admirable heroine. There's Percy, but there's also Claere, who I liked. She really came into her own after her death, and she was determined to do what she felt was right. That being said, I can see why people found Claere's romance plot troubling.

I'm about 280 pages into Ship of Magic, the first book in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. Thoughts so far:

- I hate Kyle. I know that I'm supposed to hate him, but I really hate him.
- Althea's been in a terrible situation all this book, and I'm betting that she'll be in a terrible situation for most of the trilogy. She's made some bad decisions, which she realizes, but it's not her fault. I think she'll have the strength to try and fix things somehow. Right now, I'm betting that she'll try and disguise herself as a boy to get a job on a ship.
- I keep picturing Kennit, this evil pirate captain, as Captain Hook. That image started with the description of his curled mustache and long black ringlets.
- I like Wintrow a lot, and I'm wondering about the significance of the stained glass window he was creating the first time we met him. I feel like it's going to be symbolic somehow - a tree with a dragon in the branches and a serpent in the roots? It's either symbolism or foreshadowing. Right now, I have no idea what of. We've seen some serpents (who are heading up north for what ever reason), but as of yet there's been no dragons.

18: Kyle Haven is one of the most thoroughly despicable characters I've met with in my reading over the past decade. He is repulsive in and of himself, and he also brings out the worst in almost everyone around him. Nothing and no one can thrive in his vicinity.

Robin Hobb is not nice to her protagonists. Be ready to endure Hell with them. You will get angry when you see them unjustly treated; I know I did. (There were certain characters I could never manage to forgive, even though Hobb tried to redeem them.) But the Liveship Traders series is excellent.

19> I've just finished - I can't believe Kyle didn't die. The rest of the crew got tossed overboard (well, except Wintrow), and Kyle lives? Urgh.

Also, Kennit just lost his leg, which only adds to the whole "Captain Hook" vibe going on. I wonder if this is deliberate.

I was expecting everyone to be depressed and stressed out all the time - the first two Farseer books have prepared me for that. However, I think I like Ship of Magic better than either of those two. For one thing, I find the protagonists more likable. Fitz is okay, I guess. I don't hate him or anything, but I don't love him the way I do Wintrow, Althea, or Ronica. Speaking of characters, Malta's a little twit. She's so self centered and greedy. She doesn't think (or care) about what her actions will do to her family, even once it is explained to her that they don't have the money for all the things she wants.

I haven't been posting review links, so here's the backlog:
Legion
Spindle's End
Carmilla
Thorn
Cobweb Bride

Daughter of the Forest was both wonderful and heartbreaking.

I wasn't expecting to like her brothers so much or even to have each of the six be distinct. But each was - I loved Fimbar particularly which only made the ending more tragic. The spell on him was never completely broken, and he'll never be the way he was before. The ending as a whole was bittersweet. Sorcha succeeds at breaking the spell, but the seven of them all end up separated and damaged by it. The evil sorceress who cast it disappeared into the forest.

And Sorcha is just so strong, throughout the whole book. She deals with terrible, horrific situations without ever speaking a word or crying out.

I gave Daughter of the Forest five stars. I think I've been skimping with them lately, and if any book deserves it, it's this one.

>21 pwaites: Yes, that book is lovely. The only thing that really stung me a little bit is the way the brothers treat Sorcha at the end. They're being rather restrictive in their protectiveness, which is perhaps understandable, but hey! She just went through several hells without their help and was quite able to take care of herself for the most time. It may not have been their fault, but the brothers weren't much help during that. And as soon as they get back, they start organizing her life.

22> That annoyed me also. The immediately start acting like "thanks for all the help, but now listen to us because you're just the little sister."

Review of Ship of Magic posted here.

Yesterday I nabbed a copy of the newly released Full Fathom Five, which is in the same series as Three Parts Dead. I'm a hundred thirty pages in and really enjoying it. Most of the characters are completely different, but Cat does make an appearance.

There's two main protagonists, both of whom are female. Kai's a priestess in her firm, which creates idols to store clients belief. When Kai takes a dangerous risk to save a dying idol, she's removed from her position and sent to work in sales. But something doesn't add up - when she was rescuing the idol, she could swear she heard it speak, which is impossible.

Also interesting about Kai is that she's a trans woman - she was born into a body that didn't fit. When she was initiated into the priesthood, she was able to change her body to match her soul. This is the first book I've read with a trans protagonist.

Izza is a refugee living as a street child, but she's getting older. Soon, she'll be old enough that if she's caught stealing, she'll be forced into a Penitent - a stone body that acts as an enforcer for the police. Izza is desperate to leave before this happens, but she's reluctant to leave behind the younger children, whom view her as a high priestess of sorts to their Blue Lady.

Kai and Izza:



The cover art's by Chris McGrath, who also did the art for the paperback Mistborn trilogy. I don't like his style - the photographs might be nice, but I don't care for the gritty texture overlaying everything.

24: That looks extremely cool! It will go in my To-Read pile straight away. I enjoyed Three Parts Dead and this one may be even better.

>24 pwaites:: I absolutely love the covers, but to each her own, I guess. Have you also read Two serpents rise, part 2? Or did we already discuss this some time ago? I can't remember... I read only Three parts dead so far, and was less attracted to part 2, because it had a male protagonist... This is not usually a problem for me, but in this case, I just liked the fact that the protagonists were women...

25: So far, it is extremely cool.

26: I haven't read Two Serpents Rise yet. The way the series is set up, there's no need to read them in order. Max Gladstone says he's been inspired by Discworld to write them this way (he also lists Robin McKinley as an influence).

There is a character in Full Fathom Five who I think might also be in Two Serpents Rise, which I'm now planning on reading soon.

Full Fathom Five was awesome. Did I mention that the setting's based on Hawaii? How many fantasy books have you read based on Hawaii? This is my first.

At one point near the end, there was a scene with four awesome, capable female characters discussing how to save the day. FOUR. Most books barely give one, but Full Fathom Five has four. It was wonderful.

I think I'm giving this one five stars, but for very different reasons than I gave Daughter of the Forest five stars. Daughter of the Forest was the sort of deep, sad story that made me tear up. Full Fathom Five was the sort that left me grinning widely.

Speaking of Daughter of the Forest, its review is posted here.

28: Stories that make us tear up; stories that leave us grinning wildly. It's wonderful when we find both.

Daughter of the Forest was actually my second Marillier book (my first was Wolfskin, which I also loved). It still stands out for me as being one of the five most purely, honestly romantic fantasy books I have ever read. "Once you touch us, our lives are no longer our own" -- pure poetry, and it helps that the character to whom this line is spoken has actually earned it.

You have both reminded me how very much I loved Daughter of the Forest, in spite of which I've never reread it. I think I should fix that.

>28 pwaites: also, you have made me utterly excited about reading Three Parts Dead, which I picked up after seeing it on @sandstone78 's list!

>27 pwaites: Wow, thanks for that info. If I don't need to read the 2nd book, I might pick up the 3rd soon. And I should reread the 1st... It sounds really good!

I just got Three parts dead for my kindle. I think it'll be up next, after I finish Cobweb bride.

Review of Full Fathom Five posted here.

30, 33> I hope you both like it!

I'm currently at the very beginning of The Lions of Al-Rassan and finding it hard to get into. There's so many names and characters, and it's difficult to keep track of them and their relations to each other. The cheat sheet at the beginning of the book has helped immensely, but I'm still struggling. I'm fully expecting that this will fade away as the book progresses.

I was also worried about how it'd fare on the female character front, but I'm liking Jehane, a female doctor.

34: Jehane makes that book for me. She's smart and competent, and while she's often indignant, she also has a sharp sense of humor.

35> I've run into two other POV female characters, but Jehane is still by far my favorite.

Miranda's abusive - seriously, she stabs her husband in each leg with an arrow! What's wrong with her? And the narrative doesn't treat it like it's abuse either. Urgh.

I'm now just over three hundred pages into The Lions of Al-Rassan. Even at this point, new POV sections and characters are being added in. That'd be my major complaint - there's just too many characters, and it's stretching itself too far by including all these different viewpoints.

For whatever reason, it's not connecting very well with me. I like Jehane best of all the characters, but there's no character whom I just love.

I've also finished listening to the audio book of Eleanor and Park. It took me longer than normal because I kept putting it down. If I weren't reading it for book club, I probably wouldn't have finished. It just really wasn't my sort of book. Don't get me wrong - it was cute in places, and some parts of Eleanor's sections were interesting. I think more could have been done with Park. Isn't the premise of the book that they're both misfits? But Park isn't bullied or ostracized at all, and the fact that he's half Korean is never really developed. It seems more like his life was designed to be a contrast to Eleanor's, but besides that, nothing was really done with him.

>37 pwaites: Vasbyt (Good Afrikaans word -- hang in there, more or less). It all comes together in the end, and then you (or at least I) conclude that there's about no other way he could have told a story of that breadth and complexity. The Lions of al-Rassan is the book that got me hooked on Guy Gavriel Kay, and I rate it very highly indeed. I found it a moving story of characters who, being deeply flawed and in more than a few cases simply revolting, were therefore true to life.

>38 hfglen: Vasbyt? That is reminiscent of the verb vastbijten in dutch, which means literally to bite something and not let go. Figuratively, it is used to indicate perseverance in a task. Do you suppose that's what it comes from? Sounds logical.

I'm sure. Afrikaans has strong Dutch roots.

>39 zjakkelien: and >40 MerryMary: Absolutely. The derivation I was taught was from 'bite the bullet' while enduring primitive surgery without an anaesthetic. So Jakkelien, I'm sure you're right. And Mary Lou, Afrikaans and Dutch are still close enough to be almost mutually intelligible most of the time if spoken slowly.

38> Good advice. I've just finished The Lions of Al-Rassan, and I liked it a lot more by the end. Although, I find it less the story of characters who were deeply flawed, and more the story of the inevitable conflict between Rodrigo Belmonte and Ammar ibn Khairan, who were both portrayed as essentially good men. Some books bring all the strands of characters together in a moving ending, but The Lions of Al-Rassan brought everything together and showed it break. The ending wasn't completely tragic, but I can't call it happy either.

42: For me, such conflicts are always more interesting when both people are intrinsically decent, each with his/her own ideals that may be at odds. I'm glad you liked the book better by the end; it's still my favorite Kay.

43> I generally find the same thing. It's the opposite of making everyone horrible and unlikable, and it works so much better because you sympathize with both sides and wish that they weren't in conflict at all. Unfortunately, the tendency seems to be to make the hero more of an antihero rather than make the villain's side more sympathetic, or better yet, to not really have a villain at all.

That was one of the things I liked about Reckless and it's sequel particularly. While there was a clear protagonist and antagonist, everyone was likable and sympathetic, but in conflict due to other reasons.

I need to revisit The Lions of Al-Rassan. I really liked it the first and second time around.

My review of The Lions of Al-Rassan.

I'm currently reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking and A Clash of Kings. Quiet's really interesting; A Clash of Kings is what I expected from the first book. Oh, and a new hate worthy POV was introduced. I detest Theon.

I'm over half way through A Clash of Kings and getting increasingly ticked off by all the casually thrown in rape, because apparently "rape = grittiness" and "rape = realism." Not that the aftereffects or the trauma are ever mentioned. Nope, from what I can tell it's either thrown in to show how much the world sucks or to show how "realistic" he's being.

Compare to The Lions of Al-Rassan which was actually more historical in nature, and yet had less rape. Or to The Doomsday Book which was set in twelve century England and managed to portray it fairly well (in my opinion), and again had less rape...

I've been told that what he's trying to do is deconstruct the typical medieval fantasy world by making it as brutal as possible. But it feels like rape is being used more than anything else for this.

Has it increased from book one, or am I just getting more annoyed by it? Because it feels like it's increased.

And then there's the scene with Melisandre, who apparently works magic with her vagina. I'm not even kidding here. In a graphically described scene, she gives birth to a shadow monster. So... the only female magic user (who's obviously evil) uses her reproductive organs to work her spells... yeah, that's not creepy at all.

Every female character who has children gets obsessive and makes bad choices "because HER CHILDREN" at at least one point. Although, competent protagonists who are mothers is generally rare in fantasy. The only counter example that jumps out to me is Brier from Boneshaker.

I'm hating Westros more and more. In general, life sucks there. But life really sucks if you're either a peasant or a woman.

Oh, and all the viewpoint characters are nobility (and white and straight). So the effects of living in a horrible world are fully explored by the upper classes.

The Sandy Doyle article is fairly famous (or infamous) but is actually not that productive. I think this article raises some more valid points (including Melisandre).

47: I agree; Melisandre was one of the most troubling, problematic characters for me as well. Every time one of "her" chapters came up, I groaned to myself. In every other sequence, an evil female character will be contrasted with or offset by a more sympathetic one. But in Davos's chapters, every woman we meet is Bad News. (At least the TV series gives poor, sad little Shireen Baratheon a bigger role to play, so that she can be the sympathetic female figure those chapters need. But in the books, I found myself getting angry that no one, and I do mean no one, cared even a little bit about this child.)

One of the things I'm enjoying about Sanderson's Stormlight Archive? Almost no rape.

Edited to add - Review of Eleanor and Park

48> I think what's also problematic about Melisandre is that it seems like part of what makes her evil ties to her being a woman (or it could just be Davos's viewpoint). Where I am right now, he's started to speculate that she's sleeping with Stannis. She's also always described as being beautiful, which combined with the always red clothing and some other details make her the picture of the sterotypical evil seductress. Not to mention the fact that she GAVE BIRTH to a shadow monster. I still can't get over the fact that her evil spells rely on her being female.

I enjoy that about Stormlight Archives too, although it's a little sad when "it's got no rape!" is selling point of a book. It just says that much about what else is out there.

Of course, Sanderson's series has plenty of selling points. What's sad is that the absence of rape should be so darned extraordinary -- with the rape factor so prevalent in so many other popular epic fantasy series.

50> I actually haven't come across too much of that. This thought led to me trying to list all the epic fantasy I've read, which actually isn't that much. What I notice is that many of the books are YA or written by female authors, or both.

Epic Fantasy I've Read:
- A Game of Thrones (2 books in and still reading)
- The Wheel of Time (chucked after two books)
- The Way of Kings, Mistborn, and everything else by Sanderson
- Assassin's Apprentice and Ship of Magic (still working on both of these series)
- The Name of the Wind and sequel (I'm scared to reread these)
- A Wizard of Earthsea
- Luck in the Shadows
- The Lies of Locke Lamora and sequels
- The Ladies of Mandrigyn
- Eragon and sequels
- Mystic and Rider

Five female authored, one YA. Out of eleven.

Books That Are Possibly Epic Fantasy:
- Sabriel and sequels
- Finikin of the Rock
- The Hero and the Crown and other McKinley books
- Cobweb Bride
- The Lions of Al-Rassan
- The Last Unicorn
- The Heroes of the Valley
- Graceling
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Alanna and many other Tamora Pierce books... which actually are more likely to include threats of rape than anything by Brandon Sanderson.
- Daughter of the Forest
- Jhereg

Six female authored, six YA, four both . Out of twelve.

Out of the first list, I read Eragon in fourth grade and Name of the Wind and Wheel of Time in Middle School. All the rest I've read in the past two years, and Lies of Locke Lamora was the first of those. I didn't have any reason to look for it at the time, but compared to GoT, the lack of sexual violence is apparent especially since there's pretty violent content in general. In Scott Lynch's book, a woman may drown in horse urine, but I get the feeling that if George R.R. Martin was writing it, she'd be raped and drowned in horse urine.

I actually remember hearing complaints that the world of The Lies of Locke Lamora WASN'T sexist. I don't remember where it was, but there was someone saying that it wasn't realistic for background guards and such to sometimes be women. Then there's that letter he received criticizing the female pirates in book two and his fantastic response to it his fantastic response to it.

I finished A Clash of Kings back when I wrote the above post. I've been dawdling on writing a review - it's always harder with really popular books. I feel like everyone already knows what it is and that there's tons of people who've said it better.

I've also finished Magic Breaks, the new release in Ilona Andrew's Kate Daniels series. It's the seventh and ends the story arc. This being so, I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen with the next three books that they have under contract.

I really loved the ending, but I bet some people are going to be disappointed. The past books have been promising an epic showdown with Roland, the big bad and Kate's father. They've also repeatedly shown that Kate is not ready to face him. At the end of Magic Breaks, she chooses not to try and kill him, and he chooses not to try and kill her. She's finally completely rejected what Voron raised her to be.

It'll also be interesting to see where things go with Roland. He now seems to feel that he has the right to be involved in her life.

I also liked that Gastek was in this one more than usual, because I've always find him an interesting character. Plus, he finally finds out that Kate's Roland's daughter. I've been waiting for that reaction for seven books.

I do wonder how they could have not figured out that Jennifer was the mole on the council. Hey... who hates me and is on the Pack Council? How about Jennifer?

>51 pwaites: I'm afraid sexual violence does eventually creep into the third Locke Lamora book, but it certainly isn't on the Martin scale (a very minor) - it forms part of the back story, explaining why Sabetha religiously dyed her hair as a child, thanks to a particularly awful bit of Camorri culture that isn't generally spoken of and even Locke was unaware of, and an attempted rape nearly derails one of their formative cons in the flashbacks; unlike Martin, there is mention of the trauma and the Bastards' wrestle with their universal outrage vs their need to manage the situation to survive (spoiler tags just to be safe).

Ultimately, Lynch's world is unflinchingly dark - his society is utterly brutal - but it's not sexist or misogynist. And his response to criticism of that is one of my favourite things on the Internet :)

...and ultimately Martin's "gritty realism" is authorial choice too. I suppose it was quite ground-breaking back in the early 90s, when epic fantasy was much much softer (not a lot of sexual violence in the likes of Robert Jordan and David Eddings, although sexism aplenty!) and I don't think he's a misogynist - I genuinely think he's trying to channel mediaeval European realism - but... well, it's 20 years down the road, and the world has moved on. I'm happy to get more fantasy in my fantasy and live in hope for a better world.

The review of A Clash of Kings and the review of Magic Breaks are now posted on The Illustrated Page.

Right now I'm reading Assassin's Quest, the last book in Robin Hobb Farseer trilogy. It's very readable as always, but I would really enjoy it more if I liked Fitz better. Especially since we're seeing so little of the other characters in this one (at least in the first hundred and fifty pages).

53> Oh, shoot. I totally remember the first one of those now that you bring it up. (and edited to address the second) I do remember it being a foreign country, not Camorr? But Camorr seems to have no scruples about selling off there people as slaves, so that doesn't really solve anything. I was completely blanking on the attempted rape, before I suddenly remembered - it was when she killed the guy, and everyone had to figure out what to do with the body, because shedding the blood of a nobleman was a no questions asked death sentence.

I've found other series a lot more ground breaking and original. Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence is probably the latest that I've run into. Thinking about it, I like it when fantasy books focus on smaller scale stories involving normal sort of people. Discworld's Watch arc fits this description to the T.

>54 pwaites: I really struggled with the Assassin trilogy because I just didn't get on with Fitz as a travelling companion. It had been recommended by so many people I felt almost obliged to like it, but I eventually just had to admit I really didn't (although I might have done with a different protagonist). And sadly it put me off trying any of Robin Hobb's other books, which I am coming to understand have much better protagonists and are probably worth a look after all...

On Republic of Thieves - yes, the second instance takes place outside Camorr (at least, outside the city of Camorr, although I think in another city that is still subject to the Duke) and once again highlights the social inequalities that Lynch's thieves prey on (or in this case, have to survive).

55> I liked Mad Ship by her a lot. But I hear some of the later trilogies build on Farseer, hence I'm reading the last book. I'm sort of wondering what the point is though. I don't like Fitz, and the secondary characters I do like haven't shown up.

I think it's because Fitz is just so obsessive and keeps making really stupid decisions. Like right now. He's decided, "Hey, I'm free to do whatever I want. I guess I'll go kill Verity in revenge for everything." But he never thinks this out. He never thinks about who will become king after Verity, if losing the only ruler (albeit a bad one) will plunge the country into deeper problems or even a civil war. He never even thinks about how to kill Verity. I don't think he's using his brain at all, which is generally my problem with Fitz.

Then there's the Molly thing. He's overly obsessive about her, and if he wanted what was best for her, he really shouldn't have gotten together with her in the second book. Oh, and then she left because "she had someone more important in her life now." She's obviously pregnant. The second book even brings up that the only birth control is dangerous and doesn't always work (the idea that she could get pregnant never even crossed his mind until someone yelled at him about it). Anyway, he's spent the last two hundred pages feeling agahsty whenever he thinks of her, either because "she's with some other man now!" or "she'll be disgusted by me now!" Just how thick is he? It seems like all of the secondary characters know she's pregnant - they give him strange looks when he says she left him for another man.

>56 pwaites: Yep, it did feel like angst and navel-gazing with angst on the side, followed by poor decision making so there could be a bit more angst. And then maybe some navel-gazing. I gritted my teeth a lot, and didn't really feel like I got a lot of benefit for it!

56: The thing with the Liveship Traders books is that if you don't like one of the point-of-view characters, you have several others to choose from, and there's bound to be at least one with whom you can engage. Sadly, reading a first-person narrative can be an exercise in frustration if you don't like the "I."

The Farseer books have been on my To-Read list, but the more I hear/read about them, the less inclined I feel to pick them up.

>56 pwaites: From the sound of it, I liked Fitz better than you do, but even I found the first 2/3 of Assassin's quest to drag horribly. I put his bad decision-making down to his youth, but I do think some of it was the author trying to set up the plot and generate angst, as @imyril says.

57, 59> I've found the beginnings of the first two books draggy, but then a little over half way through, things will really pick up. I'm hoping that will happen with Assassin's Quest. But I would agree that many of Fitz's decisions (especially where Molly's concerned) seem calculated to create even more angst.

58> I don't see you liking the Farseer books. There's a couple likable female characters - Ketricken and Lady Patience, but they don't get a lot of screen time.

>56 pwaites: Ooh, I gave up halfway through Royal Assassin because I couldn't take any more of "everything Fitz does goes wrong, and in the absolute worst way possible"- it just wasn't realistic and it became too depressing to read. Looking at a plot summary to jog my memory, I think I stopped off around the point Molly was going to leave him... FOREVER!! that you mention.

I do plan to read the four Windsingers books she wrote as Lindholm, however, which I've slowly managed to acquire- I liked her short story about the main characters Ki and Vandien, "Bones for Dulath," which I read in Magical Beginnings ages ago.

61> I'm starting to feel the same way. I've realized that I've been avoiding reading because I didn't want to go back to Assassin's Quest. Now, I've picked up The Golem and the Jinni instead.

I'm enjoying The Golem and the Jinni, which is progressing pretty fast. I'm about a third into it. I do wish that it wouldn't meander off into side characters so much, but they may become more significant later on. I'm also finding that I like the Golem much better than the Jinni.

62: The Golem and the Jinni is an exquisitely written book. When I read it, I was partial to Chava as well.

63> It was actually a book bullet I got from your thread. :)

My Review of The Golem and the Jinni. I really did like it, and I'm glad that I set down Fitz to read it. I've sworn that the next new book I pick up will be Pride and Prejudice. Summer's ending and it's really about time to get all the required reading done. I'll break it up with Quiet and Assassin's Quest if I get too bored.

Meanwhile, I came across some interesting articles on grimdark fantasy. Grimmy Grimmy Dark Dark is an analysis and criticism of the genre. Some good quotes:

Daniel Abraham: "The idea that the race, gender, or sexual roles of a given work of secondary world, quasi-medieval fantasy were dictated by history doesn’t work on any level. First, history has an almost unimaginably rich set of examples to pull from. Second, there are a wide variety of secondary world faux-medieval fantasies that don’t reach for historical accuracy and which would be served poorly by the attempt. And third, even in the works where the standard is applied, it’s only applied to specific, cherry-picked facets of the fantasy culture and the real world."

The analysis distinguishes two types of grimdark fantasy. Those that are using the darkness for a purpose, and those who are using it merely for entertainment.

"For these first category practitioners, the grim and the dark exist as a means to an end. We are repulsed and terrified by the horrible things within these books, not titillated by them. If we come to understand the origins of a given characters inner grim darkness, then it's presented as tragic. We do not revel in these failings. And even if they are not "historically accurate," per se, we may recognize in them parallels to historical or present day horrors. Ideally, presenting this material in such a way helps us confront these things, or at the least, confront the fact that they do exist and shouldn't be ignored."

In comparison to the other sort...

"In the second category, though, the grim and the dark are the ends in and of themselves. Violence, though it may have some tenuous connection to broader themes or issues, exists primarily to push the envelope and to shock, titillate and excite (usually male) audience. "

And finally, the issue that annoys me most:

"Can we just stop with all the explicit, gratuitous and artistically/intellectually pointless rape scenes in fantasy fiction? Rape happens, and it shouldn't be off-limits for authors, but it shouldn't be treated as a go-to way to wow the readership with your "edginess." As reported in the NYTimes not long ago, as many as 1 in 5 American women report experiencing sexual assault--and those numbers may be even higher in other parts of the world. Explicit, gratuitous and artistically/intellectually pointless rape scenes don't make your book "edgy," they make it triggery."

Then there's Joe Abercrombie's response.

"Gritty fantasy is a reaction to and a counterbalancing of a style of fantasy in which life is clean, meaningful, and straightforward, and the coming of the promised king really does solve all social problems, and there are often magical solutions to the horrors – like death, illness, and crippling wounds – that plague us in the real world. "

I think that's true enough, but disagree with the segment where he's saying that shock value is a benefit of grit. I think if you just write for shock value, you're going to get a bad book.

And then there'sresponse to Abercrombie's response:

"What struck me forcefully about Abercrombie’s essay, however, was his failure to acknowledge, let alone address, a key aspect of the debate, viz: the ways in which grittiness is racially, sexually and culturally political, and whether or not those elements can ever be usefully disentangled from anything else the concept has to offer."

"If your goal in writing gritty SFF is to create what you perceive to be an honest, albeit fantastic version of reality – and more, one where acknowledging the darker aspects of human nature takes precedence – then the likelihood is that you’ll end up writing victimized and/or damaged women, sexist and homophobic social structures, racist characters and, as a likely corollary, racist stereotypes as automatic defaults; which means, in turn, that you run an extremely high risk of excluding even the possibility of undamaged, powerful women, LGBTQ and/or POC characters from the outset, because you’ve already decided that such people are fundamentally unrealistic."

"Grittiness is only a selective view of reality, not the whole picture. Yes, there’s pain and despair and suffering, but not exclusively, and when you make grit a synonym for realism – when you make an active, narrative decision to privilege specific, familiar types of grimness as universals – then you’re not just denying the fullness of reality; you’re promoting a version of it that’s inherently hostile to the personhood and interests of the majority of people on the planet. (And in that sense, it doesn’t seem irrelevant that the bulk of gritty, grimdark writers, especially those who self-identify as such, are straight, white men.)"

I have to stop myself there. That response has just too many good quotes for me to post them all, and this post is already getting too long.

>65 pwaites: I'll read the articles for myself, but in the mean time, thanks for those quotes.

Intriguing, I'll have to have a read - thank you!

65: Excellent post.

I had Abercrombie's Red Country marked as To-Read. I even went out and bought a copy of the darned thing; it's been sitting on my shelf in a prominent place since the beginning of the year. Now I'm beginning to think I shouldn't bother. (Edited to dilute some of the harshness of the language) I'm not sure I would enjoy the company of his characters, particularly his women.

Editing again: I looked again at Fantasy Fans, my "Male authors/awesome female characters" thread and learned that Sakerfalcon, whom I have learned to trust, has good things to say about Red Country -- so maybe I'd better at least try to read it for myself, and make up my own mind, before consigning it to the sell-back pile.

I don't expect characters to be 100% noble. I like them to have interesting flaws, and I like it when we don't always know what to expect from them. But if I am to enjoy their company at all, and root for them when conflict arises, I need a couple of things:
1) I need for them to be capable of love (not necessarily romance, but some sort of love); and
2) I need them NOT to bully the innocent! Going after an enemy on a single-minded epic quest for revenge is all right, but not if they're careless, in a showy way, about who might get caught in the crossfire. Willingness to dismiss harm done to innocents as "collateral damage" is a big ol' dealbreaker for me. I am also not likely to respond to efforts to turn those who have consciously and deliberately abused innocents -- e.g. rapists, child murderers -- into "heroes" (I'm looking at YOU, Stephen R. Donaldson), or to present rape and/or other gender-directed abuse as an appropriate punishment for villainesses (I'm looking at YOU, Robert Jordan).

(I need to write a more extensive post in my own blog about "qualities I like to see in fictional characters," both serious and frivolous.)

Heroes -- the kind of heroes that don't need quotation marks -- do exist. They may be flawed; sometimes they have to make conscious efforts to whip their better natures into shape; but they exist. Maybe Atticus Finch isn't the most realistic of characters, but hey, Oskar Schindler actually DID exist in real life, and despite flaws galore, he was responsible for saving multitudinous lives. I guess if Abercrombie had been writing his story, he would have decided at the crucial moment that saving all those lives wasn't worth the bother, and kept on with his self-serving lifestyle.

The kinds of stories I favor are those that show that complex characters are fully capable of good as well as evil.

I'm really glad you enjoyed The Golem and the Jinni, pwaites.

>65 pwaites:

Thanks, that was interesting and comforting (especially nice to see such opinions coming from men). I only get a secondhand exposure to this genre, reading others' critiques, and even so I'm regularly appalled at how often rape is mentioned, and how often it is clearly used in the most cynical fashion, for the shallowest reasons.

66, 67> I ran across the last one and started tracing it back. I found all the articles I ran into fascinating and thought you guys might appreciate some links. There's a couple other articles on the subject that those three link two, but I haven't explored fully yet.

68> I don't know if I want to read Abercrombie or not - I've been hearing a lot of mixed things about his books. I've got Best Served Cold sitting on my TBR list, because hey, epic fantasy with a female protagonist. I'd been assuming it was his only female led novel until I looked up Red Country right now. Despite the guy on the cover, it seems like there's a female lead. Hmm, if Sakerfalcon says it's good, I'll try that one instead of Best Served Cold.

I agree with you on those characteristics, although I'd probably phrase them as having empathy for others, showing kindness, and having some idea of right versus wrong. But as Granny Weatherwax says, "sometimes it's not a matter choosing between the good choice and the bad choice. Sometimes you have to chose between two bad choices." In which case, I would expect the hero/ine to struggle with the choice and try to find the better option.

69> I think there's plenty of books that don't use rape like that, but unfortunately there's plenty that do (and you're likely to hear complaints about those).

I've realized that I've never asked for recommendations before on here, but there's some sorts of books I'm looking for, and if anyone knows any I would really appreciate the recommendations!

1. Fantasy heist stories. This is pretty specific, I know, but I really like heist stories like Ocean's Eleven. The only books of this type I've read are Lies of Locke Lamora and Mistborn. I've heard a lot about California Bones, which I'd love to read, but I'm waiting to come out in paperback.

2. Non-fiction history about LGBTQ themes and people in history. Again, this is specific, but I've noticed it's not something textbooks talk about, and I'd like to learn more. I'm also not interested in the past fifty years or so - I like reading about a world that's very different from my own. In addition, what history I do hear about this subject is almost exclusive to the past fifty years. I'd really like to know more than that. The farther back, the better.

3. Good YA fantasy and science fiction. If I look at my TBR pile right now, the only YA book is Sherri L. Smith's Orleans. What with college application essays having already started and school starting soon, I'm going to need more light and fast reads. I'd like a book where the main plot isn't the romance and there's at least one good female character, even if she isn't the protagonist.

4. Fantasy or science fiction books with a female protagonist who doesn't have a love interest or romantic sub plot. This is something I found really different about The Rook and Three Parts Dead, and I'd like to find more of these sorts of books if I can.

5. Original world building. What are the book's you've read with new, fresh, or original world-building? This is something that I think Brandon Sanderson does really well.

6. Fantasy or science fiction books with non-white protagonists. I've been trying to diversify my reading list lately. I've already found out about some of these - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is currently in my TBR stack, and Octavia Butler and Nnedi Okorafor are both authors whom I'm excited about. I'm looking at Akata Witch and Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor, but any recommendations on where to start with Octavia Butler would be welcome.

Thanks in advance to anyone who shoots some book bullets my way!

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 is extremely readable despite the academic-sounding title.

>70 pwaites: I can't help you with most of those, but for nr. 4, the romance in the SF novel A soldier's duty and sequels is VERY low. I absolutely loved A fistful of sky and it has no romance. Then there is The emperor's soul by Brandon Sanderson, a book that is regrettably short. The steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. I don't understand why that one is not more known. The hidden city by Michelle West, and sequels. Love those books.

Oh, and a YA that I enjoyed was www:wake, although I haven't read the sequels yet.

>70 pwaites: In addition to seconding Gay New York, I would also suggest Queer London and, if you want non-Western history as well, Male Colors (Japan) and Passions of the Cut Sleeve (China).

Not a fan of YA, but one that caught me totally was Megan Whelan Turner's Queen's Thief series. Lovely female characters, as a bonus, and a fast read with plenty of meat in the ideas.

Fantasy heists: I loved Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells, not the witty cynicism of Locke Lamora, but a well told story with lots of atmosphereic detail. This author is terribly under rated, though her Cloud Roads works got lots of mention here recently.

For SF with a female lead/no romantic subplot - do check out Sarah Zettel's SF - they are excellently written and most of them fit your criterion here, there are quite a few titles to choose from.

For a nonwhite protagonist, I will message you privately (the book happens to be one of my own).

Regarding your #2:

2. Non-fiction history about LGBTQ themes and people in history.

I too am curious about any good new general histories. One thing I've noticed before is that there is much more material about queer men than women, whether as individual titles, or within "general" histories.

Lillian Faderman's Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present is therefore probably still the go-to book on the topic (speaking of women). I have also learned a lot from her US-focussed Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America.

There are many more books dealing with specific 20th century gay subcultures and cliques, such as Natalie Barney's Parisian salon, the sexual "underworld" of the Weimar era Germany etc. and even more on ancient homosexuality (almost exclusively male).

I'd skip the reprints of 19th century Oxbridge studies and the like, and go to John Boswell's excellent Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, for its wide frame of reference and fresh, new, revolutionary outlook.

70: Some people would classify Walton's Among Others as YA because its protagonist is a high school girl. I found it a beautiful book. And I agree with zjakkelien (72) about W.W.W.: Wake. I enjoyed the sequel, W.W.W.: Watch, even more. (Haven't read the third book yet.)

Alma Alexander's The Secrets of Jin-Shei has quite a few nonwhite protagonists. It's been some years since I read it, but I remember finding it intriguing, even though some of the characters that interested me most, didn't get the page time I felt they deserved. I haven't read it yet, but I understand that Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite also features a nonwhite protagonist.

In terms of world-building, I have a lot of affection for Kate Elliot's Spiritwalker Trilogy. The cultures and customs are effectively detailed. The Cloud Roads and its sequels are masterpieces of world-building; The Fall of Ile-Rien (though I've only read the first book) does a good job with this as well.

Thank you Marissa_Doyle, zjakkelien, lohengrin, JannyWurts, LolaWalser and kceccato!

A Fistful of Sky, The Hidden City, The Thief, W.W.W.: Wake, The Secrets of Jin-Shei and A Solider's Duty all hit me. Most of the others I'd either already read or had on my TBR list or pile. Martha Wells is someone I've heard a lot about, and I recently ordered The Cloud Roads from Amazon, so I should be reading her soon.

I'm still going through all the different non-fiction suggestions, but thank you for those too.

I'm enjoying Pride and Prejudice more than I thought I would. I expected to have to slog through it like I did with The Scarlet Letter last year, but instead I keep reading just one more chapter.

I sometimes find it hard to understand the situations of classical English literature, probably because I'm a twenty-first century American. I can't help but ask "What do these people do all day?"

Quiet is progressing well, and I'll probably finish it in the next couple of times I pick it up. On the other hand, I'm officially giving up on Assassin's Quest. I just can't stomach spending any more time with Fitz's whining.

Copies of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, The Deed of Paksenarrion, and Silver Phoenix all arrived today. There's a few others from various used book sellers which should arrive in the next two weeks or so.

I'm glad that P&P is a success so far! I often think it's a bad idea to use it as a high school English book because most American high school students are completely lacking in knowledge of the context of the story and therefore not only don't really understand what's going on, but also don't get the humor. Annotated versions can be helpful.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's on my top ten all-time favorite list, but other people whose opinion on books I usually agree with have loathed it. Don't try to read it quickly but just fall into it and trust the author, and don't skip the footnotes as they're (like Jane Austen) full of sly humor as well as clues about the story.

78: The difference between Pride and Prejudice and The Scarlet Letter is, in general, the difference between 19th century British fiction and 19th century American fiction. The British fiction tends to be driven by plot and character, and a vivid personality like Elizabeth Bennet is allowed to shine through. The American fiction tends to be driven by symbolism and the Big Idea; characters are more important as representations than as individuals. This is why, where 19th century fiction is concerned, I tend to Buy British. (The only American literature I really like from this pre-Civil War period is the short fiction. Hawthorne's novels tend to bore me, but his short stories are pretty good.)

I agree with you on the "what do these people do all day?" I enjoy many of Austen's characters, but their lifestyle would drive me slowly mad.

79> I do have some trouble with the humor. There's many lines that I'm pretty sure are sarcastic, but I'll usually have to read them twice.

What I've heard about Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is that the first half is very slow and the second half provides the payoff.

80> That's a good point. The characters in Pride and Prejudice are much more real people and less symbols.

>81 pwaites: For me, Strange & Norrell was ok in the beginning and the end, but it would have been fine to cut out a few hundred pages in the middle. In style, it reminded me a bit of Jane Austen and the like, and it had the same type of humor. I hated the bits with the fairies though...

>81 pwaites: Yes, a lot of the humor is very, very specific to the time and place, just like a contemporary novel would be today, and so sadly ends up zinging over people's heads. There's a bit I love, when Lizzie is having dinner at Lady Catherine's house, and the old biddy is complaining about her leaving too soon and says that if Lizzie stays another few weeks, she can offer her a ride in her carriage "on the barouche box"--meaning up next to the coachman in the wind and sun, rather than in the comfortable post chaise the way she'd already planned--as if it were the biggest favor in the world. So many little amusing bits like this--showing what a twit Lady C. is-- get lost.

>82 zjakkelien: What I said. ;) I just loved the whole world she created and was very happy to read those hundreds of pages and be immersed in it, but it's not to everyone's taste.

Reviews for Assassin's Quest and Pride and Prejudice.

I've also read Orleans, which went quickly but wasn't what I was looking for. Honestly, I wanted a light, escapist read. I'd figured YA dystopian was the way to go, but Orleans turned out to be darker and grimmer than I wanted. The main character had rape in her background, and she dies in the end.

I'm thirty pages into Mad Ship and liking it much better than Assassin's Quest.

83> The "barouche box" line completely passed me by!

Review posted of Orleans.

I finished Mad Ship. It's very much the middle book of the trilogy. Events from the first are continued, and the ending isn't really an ending. It's a lot of set up for the final book. I liked it, but it's annoying to find that I stumbled onto another book with rape. It was no where near the levels of Song of Ice and Fire, and the female characters were treated sympathetically, but I'm just tired of it.

Right now I'm reading Midnight Riot. I picked it up because I heard that it was similar to London Falling - an urban fantasy with a police procedural bent. They may be close together in story line (regular police officer discovers magic and works to solve magical related crimes), but they have a very different feel. London Falling had some horror undercurrents, while Midnight Riot is more lighthearted.

But I hate, just hate, how the major female characters are so consistently described as sexy! Is it the fault of the first person narration? Because I'm sick of hearing him talk about having a dream where both of them are in bed with him or about how he wants to sleep with one or both of them. Their attractiveness and his lust for them is brought up in every single interaction. Do they have any major characteristics besides their sex appeal? Do they have any motivation besides helping out the male protagonist? This one is completely failing on the female character front.

Edited - On a happier note, check out these amazing new Japanese covers for Scott Westerfeld's Levithan trilogy. They're by artist Pablo Uchida.




I've never liked the American versions of the covers.



But check out one of the British covers, by the illustrator for the series, Keith Thompson.

>85 pwaites: I had a similar reaction to you when I read Rivers of London (UK title). I wanted to like it for its London-centric-ness and mixed race protagonist but I really, really didn't need to know every time he had an erection, or what he was thinking about women. He didn't quite cross the line into being a creep, but came pretty close at times. Maybe it really is an accurate portrayal of how men think but I'd like to believe not. I'm glad London falling exists to satisfy my appetite for London-based urban fantasy and hope the sequels are as strong as the first book.

86> I liked the sequel The Severed Streets but didn't think it was as strong as London Falling, probably because one of the strong points of the first book was seeing the police officers thrown into the situation and knowing nothing. By the sequel, they know a bit more and have adapted some.

Edited - I think Kate Griffin has some of the same set up, but I haven't gotten around to reading her Matthew Swift series yet.

85, 86: A Spoiler warned me far away from the Rivers of London series. Aaronovich is not one of those male writers especially skilled with writing believable and sympathetic (or believably sympathetic) women.

London Falling, however, is still in my TBR.

85: Those Japanese covers of the Leviathan series are gorgeous! Now THAT's the image of Deryn Sharp I would like to have in my head.

88> Uh, oh. That sounds like Midnight Riot'll get worse.

>88 kceccato:, >89 pwaites: - I loved Midnight Riot (and all the sequels) and thought Aaronovitch's female characters were great. They came across as people to me, and had as much agency and power as the male characters.

Speaking of London Falling, I came across a quote from the author, Paul Cornell.

“In my work, I believe in deliberate diversity. It doesn’t ‘just happen naturally.’ Everything a writer does is a decision. You can’t leave a manuscript open overnight and have gay men grow in the pages like mustard and cress. If you don’t include diverse characters on purpose, you’re just unconsciously following the prevailing culture, and perpetuating inequality.”

I got the quote from "Escapism vs. Activism, OR:'It's Just TV!'" The blog has a lot of good articles on representation in genre work and some good links scattered through them.

90> Leslie might be competent, but I can't really tell from where I am right now. Everything she's doing is in relation to the narrator, and everything that she knows about the magical side of London comes from him. Hopefully she'll become more involved in the magic side and start doing things on her own. But the fact that she hasn't yet and the constant references to her appearance or how the narrator is sexually attracted to her diminishes her character for me.

Beverly hasn't done much of anything yet besides tag along with Peter Grant.

Edited to correct a name.

90: The Spoiler I read, that warned me away from the series, was actually for the fourth book, Broken Homes. I don't know of anything specifically displeasing from the earlier books.

I loved The Rook because Myfanwy was unquestionably a heroine to root for. What I've read about London Falling -- which was recommended to me based on my interest in The Rook -- suggests that Lisa Ross is the same. The reason I haven't jumped into it quite yet is that I don't, as a general rule, favor modern settings, even cool ones like London; I'll be getting to it soon.

93> It took me a while to warm up to Ross because she her thoughts and POV were held at a distance by the narrative in the beginning until it was time for the key elements of her back story to be revealed. I liked her a lot more after that.

I've finished Midnight Riot (or Rivers of London). It was entertaining enough, but I won't be picking up the sequel.

The mystery aspect didn't pick up until half way through. I also kept assuming that the different plot threads - the mysterious murders and the feud between Father Thames and Mother Thames would come together somehow, which they didn't. I think the book would have been a lot better if it integrated the two plots or just focused on the mystery instead.

I liked the idea that the mystery was based around, but I don't think it was developed enough. I'm also not sure why near the end of the book, when the villain's running loose and the climax is at hand, Peter without explanation chooses to go sleep at his parents house. It felt sort of shoved in as character development, but it didn't fit with the pacing or make any sense.

I think the issues with female characters are mainly due to the narrator's commentary (see Sakerfalcon in post 86). The characters themselves are probably competent. Beverly did some more at the end, but Leslie turned out to have been possessed for most of the book. I'm not sure how this effects things. Molly gained more importance, and I like how a sense of her comes across even though she's mute. That said, the beginning of the last chapter was really squicky. A man's in the hospital with his penis bitten off by a vagina with teeth. It's made clear that he was raping her at the time. Why on earth was this included? It's not related to the plot or anything! It's just thrown in at the very end of the book.

In better news, Stalking Darkness, Fires of the Faithful, and Banner of the Damned have all arrived.

Edited to add the link to my review of Mad Ship.

>94 pwaites: I heard a lot of good things about those books, but was put off by a review I read that talked about the male protagonist's "healthy heterosexuality." (I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it sure sounded creepy.) Reading spoilers about a female character being more competent than him but then turning out to have been possessed the whole time so not really made me go meh too, and I have to say I'm not encouraged to change my mind by your comments.

>85 pwaites: Those covers are very nice!

>70 pwaites: Not sure how I missed this before, but I will get some suggestions to you! I see on your blog you're participating in A More Diverse Universe, so you've probably found the old link posts there about work by authors of color (which often also has characters of color)- I particularly enjoyed Okorafor's Zahrah the Windseeker, it had a very Studio-Ghibli-esque feel to it that I've not often found in prose.

I also really liked The Missing Queen, which is a noir-ish retelling of The Ramayana- basic familiarity with the story beforehand would probably help, I knew a bit about it from a world religions class and was able to follow along fine.

I started Butler with Wild Seed, the chronological first in her Patternist series which is really like nothing I've ever read before- she uses science fictional tropes to explore ethics and humanity in a way that I don't think could be done without science fiction. I have issues with her work sometimes, and discomfort, but I end up feeling that that's rather the point of her work.

Many more- Jacqueline Koyanagi's Ascension, Aliette de Bodard's On a Red Station, Drifting, and Benjanun Sriduangkaew who mostly writes short fiction- try her compilation of long-ish stories The Archer Who Shot Down Suns and her related upcoming novella Scale-Bright which I'm very much looking forward to (these two will probably be my picks for A More Diverse Universe this year!).

In the LGBTQ area, I have Between Women by Sharon Marcus in my TBR, about friendship, romantic, and sexual relationships between women in Victorian England. I would also recommend Whipping Girl by Julia Serano- this is a bit more recent, but it is specifically about trans women who are often left out of more general histories.

I'm sure I can turn up some more, I'll have to think about it. I'm curious to see what you think of Stalking Darkness, Fires of the Faithful, and Banner of the Damned though- I've read and liked the second and the first and third are in my TBR!

I'm about half way into Fires of the Faithful. It's really hooked me. I love Eliana, and I love the world, I love how music is involved in the plot. I figured out fairly early on that music can be used for magic. Eliana hasn't seen it yet, but that jolt of warmth when Belle was playing her trumpet? Or the warmth when the girls where all playing together? I wonder if Mari was trying to recreate the circle format but with music and the Old Ways. And is the music magic tied only to Old Ways songs? Or do those just produce the strongest magic? Belle wasn't playing Old Ways music on the trumpet, but she'd gone over to the Old Ways faith also, which might make the effects stronger.

Looking at the Goodreads categories and LibraryThing tags, I don't see it listed as YA, even though it has that feel to me. Unless the second half gets a lot darker, it seems perfect to be aimed at the YA market. Sixteen-year old, naive protagonist, moves quickly and isn't too long, first person narration (seems to be in for YA now).

95> I heard a lot of good things about those books, but was put off by a review I read that talked about the male protagonist's "healthy heterosexuality." (I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it sure sounded creepy.)

It was. I kept hoping that it'd go away at some point - that there'd stop being descriptions of staring at Beverly's bottom or having sexual dreams about her and Leslie. Nope. Just when there'd be a lull in that sort of narration, it'd come back again.

On the recommendation front, I hadn't run across Zahrah the Windseeker, but I'd already had Okorafor's Akata Witch and Lagoon on the TBR list. I want to read something by Butler but haven't been sure where to start. She has so many books. Thanks for the starting point. Several others of your recommendations ended up on the TBR list too.

I really like the look of On a Red Station, Drifting, but urgh, that cover! I hope she made it herself or got a friend to do it for her because it is not worth paying money for. Whoever made it didn't even bother to cut out the figures by hand, so you can see the white background around the hair. And objects in the front are blurry and objects in the back clear?

I've finished Fires of the Faithful. I'll need to think about it a bit more before I write a review. Or maybe I should wait until I read the sequel? I read that it was one book split into two, and that makes sense from reading the first half.

Currently I'm two chapters into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Too early to say much, but the writing is really good.

Back on the other thread, I had a list of favorite female characters. A while ago, I started on one for favorite urban fantasy series.

1. The Rook

A woman wakes up standing in a circle of bodies wearing latex gloves with no idea of who she is or how she got there. She searches the pockets of her jacket and finds a letter addressed "To You." The letter warns her that she's in danger and that an unknown person is trying to kill her. She's given two options: run and start a new life, or resume the life of her former self and find out who's trying to kill her. What results is a fun, slyly humorous read with a cast of some amazing female characters. Myfanwy is a wonderful heroine, and she is one of the only female characters I've come across who doesn't have a love interest. While that may change in the sequels, The Rook is about Myfanwy finding out who she is (and who she was). I really liked how the magic in this one worked - it reminded me of super powers more than anything else, and the ideas were constantly imaginative and original.

2. Sunshine

Sunshine is my favorite vampire book ever. There's so many wonderful things about it - the world building, the humor, the secondary characters, but Sunshine herself is what makes the book for me. It's written as a sort of stream of consciousness, and her rambling thoughts are delightful to read. Sunshine puts me more inside the narrator's head than any other book I've read. This is why I love it so much - it has vampires, but the book itself is about Sunshine coming to terms with who she is.

3. London Falling

London Falling is a wonderful combination of police procedural, fantasy, and horror. Four London police stumble into a bizarre mystery, and when they investigate, they gain the sight and see a whole new side of London. There's so many good things here - the cast is really diverse, the female characters are well written, the pace is fast, and I loved seeing the group attempting to adapt their procedure to a situation they knew nothing about and a murderer with supernatural powers. It's a suspenseful and dark story with many edge of your seat moments.

4. The Kate Daniels series

This is the first series I think of when I hear the words "urban fantasy." Kate Daniels is a down on her luck mercenary in a version of Atlanta where technology and magic are constantly switching places. One minute magic will work and technology will fail, the next it'll be the other way around. The world building and use of mythology is what really makes this series stand out. Kate herself is definitely a bad ass, and while I sometimes find alpha male love interest Curran annoying, he never outshines Kate or interferes with her character development as happens in so many other female led urban fantasy series. The first book is the weakest in the series by far, and it steadily improves from there.

5. Written in Red

Meg is a cassandra sangue, a blood prophet who can see the future when her skin is cut. When she escapes the people who control her, the only safe place for her is the Lakeside Courtyard, the dwelling place of the resident Other, a name for assorted non-humans such as vampires and shape shifters. Meg's a different sort of heroine than the typical urban fantasy book. She's not a fighter; she's sweet and naive woman who's trying to learn about the world around her. I have a review of the sequel Murder of Crows.

6. White Cat

Of all the YA books I've read, I'd consider the Curse Workers series the best candidate for this list. It takes place in an alternate world where people called curse workers can set specific types of spells on people through skin contact. Such people are highly stigmatized, and no one leaves home without covering their hands in gloves. The narrator is born into a family of criminal curse workers, and he's finding it difficult to leave his past behind him.

7. Bloodshot

The Cheshire Red books are not great literature by any means, but they are a ton of fun. They follow an OCD vampire cat burglar who gets an unusual client that lands her in a heap of trouble.

What I realized in making this list is that I've always had a hard time defining what exactly urban fantasy is. I have certain expectations of modern technology, and I usually expect it to be set in this world or one very similar to it. Then there's the qualification of "urban." Besides these points, my notion of what is urban fantasy is rather fuzzy, and I'm relying on what "feels like urban fantasy." Like, for whatever reason, Harry Potter doesn't feel like urban fantasy. It's not a very good description, but that's as exact as I can get.

Nice list, pwaites! I believe you already book-bulleted me with Sunshine a while ago... But I see you also mention White cat, a book that has been on my TBR for a while. I got it through Santathing last year, and haven't gotten around to it yet...

98> White Cat's the sort of heist type fantasy story I really like.

I've been behind on updating review links.
Midnight Riot - here
Quiet - here
Fires of the Faithful - here

I'm somewhere around 450 pages into Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I can see where the people who complain that the beginning is slow is coming from, but I'm really enjoying it for all the humor.

Maybe it's the unnamed first person narrator, but I feel like the story would be a really good one for reading aloud. Though, then you might not be getting the footnotes* which I love. Sometimes they're just an explanation of whatever text the magician is referring to, but often they're a story within a story. Like the fairy tale about the Master of Nottingham's daughter and her quest to retrieve the magic ring. Or then there's the footnote regarding a reference to Francis Pevensey, a respectable magician in history known for writing a an important book. However, controversy arose when evidence suggesting Francis Pevensey was a woman came to light. Mr. Norrell's convinced Pevensey's a man (which says something about Norrell), while Strange doesn't need much convincing to believe that Pevensey's a woman.

I'm also interested in the story that's going on with Stephan Black, Lady Pole, and the unnamed fairy with the green coat. I hope they'll somehow be able to break the hold he has over them, and I think it will change before the end of the book. While the main story's focusing on the two magicians, ever now and then there'll be a chapter on Stephan Black.

*I tried listening to The Amulet of Samarkand on audio once, but the narrator was leaving out all the footnotes, which are one of the best parts.

I'm still enjoying Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I can't help wishing it'd move a little faster. I'm on page 800 and something and the pace still hasn't picked up.

I've also started on two non-fiction reads. One for school, How to Read Literature Like a Professor. It's not has bad as I feared it would be, but I think he's elevating symbolism and allusions to other texts higher than they should be and not giving enough consideration to plot and characters. He also has a habit of using extended metaphors to explain things. There's some useful points in it, but I wouldn't keep with it if I wasn't required to.

The other I'm much more excited about, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. It's by James Gurney - the author and artist for all the Dinotopia books which I loved as a kid. Just flipping through, I found a clear explanation of why it's better to paint from life than from a photo. For years, I've listened to art teacher's claim that they could tell the difference when looking at the painting, but they've never offered explanations and I've only half believed them.

Even if it wasn't so clear and helpful, it'd be worth buying for the artwork alone. In the beginning he uses older paintings to show traditional methods of dealing with light and color, but later on he uses his own artwork for specifics like shadow types. I'm still reading it, but I'm very happy to have come across a copy.

Glad you're enjoying the humor in JS&MR. That Color and Light book sounds wonderful.

>100 pwaites: Regarding Fires of the Faithful, I think the monotheistic Redentore religion is less ambiguously good by the end of the second book. I got the feeling while reading that Kritzer was just trying to flip the trope of good pagan/witches and evil oppressive Christianity-analogue more than anything- see The Pillars of the World, The Witches of Eileanan, The Deer's Cry, and a number of other "witches oppressed by the New Monotheistic Way" stories that came out about a year or two before Fires of the Faithful.

I got the impression while reading that the Redentore God had always been female, since they were "uncovering ancient traditions," but would have to re-read to be sure. I'll be interested to see what you think of Turning the Storm. This might be a good duology for group discussion, with all of the interesting things Kritzer is doing with religion.

(Also, footnote about footnotes. I see what you did there.)

>100 pwaites:

I loved JS & MrN although it's been so long I don't remember much of the plot (btw, I noticed somewhere that a TV series is currently in production...)

If you like Clarke's style but could do with something shorter, the stories in The ladies of Grace Adieu have similar themes and atmosphere. Felt almost like a "companion" volume.

Review update:
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - here.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor - here.

104> There was an advert for The Ladies of Grace Adieu in the back of Strange and Norrell, so it's already made it onto my TBR list.

I've tried looking up more information about the TV show but can't find a reliable release date. Either way, the BBC will probably release it in the UK first, and I'll have to wait for it to come out here.

Currently, I'm about seventy-five pages into Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner. The writing's good, but it hasn't yet hooked me. I'd guess because I don't like Thomas much, but I think he'll change by the end (going by the back of the book, it looks like he has to learn some lessons).

I've recently been distracted by Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel show Legend of Korra. I made the mistake of trying the movie last night - it's just all round horrible. They completely whitewashed the cast (except for the antagonists...) and generally managed to destroy everything that made the show good.

Between episodes of Legend of Korra, I culled the shelves and got together some bags to bring to the used bookstore. Of course, I can't walk into said bookstore without bringing a new stack of books right out, so I'll shortly be making a post in the August Acquisition thread.

I've finally finished Thomas the Rhymer. It just didn't have any drive to the plot? From the blurb, I'd assumed that it'd mainly be about Thomas after fairy land dealing with only being able to speak the truth.

Nope. Turns out that the majority of the book is before and during fairy land. There was a bit of something going on in there with a knight who'd been turned into a dove, but overall I didn't think there was enough going on.

The "back in the mortal earth" was the last two sections, of which the third is the one dealing with the adjustment of only being able to speak the truth. Not much is done with that, and we don't see that many difficulties being presented there. And speaking only the truth also includes prophecy.

I don't think the entire last section should have been there. The end of section three seems to be the basic happily ever after, story's done... and then there's another section? Which is mainly describing their marriage. It does do something with a detail from earlier in the book, but it still wasn't reason enough to have an entire new section. I'd understand if they had an epilogue with the Fairy Queen showing up when he was dying, but I don't get why there was an entire section for this.

Besides the lack of plot, it was well written, but it just wasn't very satisfying. I've started on the first chapter of The Cloud Roads, which I'll hopefully like better.

I've had Thomas the Rhymer on my shelves for years, unread. I bought it because I love Kushner's other books, but this one has never really appealed. I think the only reason I haven't weeded it is because it's signed by her (not that I met her; it is a second-hand copy). I guess I will keep it a bit longer, but your comments have moved it farther down Mount Tbr.

I do hope you enjoy The cloud roads; I think most of us who read it for the group read earlier this year thought it was very good.

Excellent assessment of Thomas the Rhymer--I felt very much the same way about it. Not as good as much of her other work.

I couldn't get into Thomas the Rhymer either. But I loved Swordspoint.

107, 108, 109> I like her other books better too. I've read Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword, but still have the third in that series left. I find it a bit surprising that she hasn't written any other books.

Review updates:
Thomas the Rhymer - here.
The Cloud Roads - here.

I liked The Cloud Roads. It was so imaginative! The world building was really something.

After I finished, I read through the GD group read thread for it. Lots of good points there, but I want to see how the sequel develops things.

I'm currently a hundred pages into A Scholar of Magics. I didn't bother to read the back before starting, so I was somewhat surprised to find a completely unknown POV character. I like him, but I'm glad Jane showed up soon and has her own POV sections. Jane was impressive throughout A College of Magics, and it's nice to see her at central stage.

Jane is awesome isn't she? It was great to see her take centre stage in A scholar of magics (because to me she is the real protagonist of the book).

112> I can see that. Throughout A College of Magics she's amazingly competent, and she's often more useful to have around than Ferris, who doesn't really come into her own until the end.

I've picked up Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History again. I tried to read it back in December but gave up somewhere into the first chapter. Reading it for a second time, I can see why I gave up. The author jumps from topic to topic and often conveys information in the form of long lists of food types. But about halfway through chapter one, it gets more interesting in the section entitled "Grains, Cities, States, and Armies" because she stops listing food and starts talking about how it related to the organization of societies.

One thing that really comes across is how much work cooking took, especially preparing the grains. A woman (it was usually women) would have to kneel over a grindstone for five hours to produce enough flour for a family of five or six.

I really liked this paragraph, which shows just how little most of us know about creating flour:

"If they are to be turned into bread, grains have to be ground. When I was a little girl, my father decided to make some flour from the wheat we had grown on the farm. He tried pounding it with a pestle and mortar but all he got was broken grains, not flour. He put it through the hand mincer screwed to the edge of the table with the same result. Finally, he attacked it with a hammer on the flagstone floor. After he gave up, defeated, my mother cleared up the mess. It was sobering to realize that if the commercial millers had vanished, we could have starved even with barns full of sacks of wheat."

Finished with A College of Magics. The characters were enjoyable, but I thought the plot was lacking. I figured out the main villain from the first time he was introduced. It was blindingly obvious, yet the characters didn't even have an inkling until he was unveiled in the end.

I'm now ten or twenty pages into Inda. On the good side, I liked how she's changed the gender dynamics around. While it still has the "knights and castle" medieval feel, women are often trained in war so that they can guard the insides of forts and castles while the men ride out to fight. Thus, there's descriptions of female archers up on the walls and female guards and such. Also, there's a number of female characters, even though none were mentioned on the back of the book.

On the bad side, I'm having some trouble with the writing and keeping all these characters in my head. I presume that I'll figure out the characters eventually, but each one having two names/titles does not help at all. I think some sort of guide sheet at the front would be helpful. And the POV keeps skipping around constantly, from paragraph to paragraph, which I don't enjoy. Some of the sentences also feel clunky.

>111 pwaites: So glad you liked The Cloud Roads!

Since you've been in the group read thread, I do want to say that most of the things I were iffy about (the cut and dry villainy of the Fell, among other things) were addressed to a greater degree in The Siren Depths, which was overall my favorite book of the three as well. In many ways it felt like a sequel to the first book more than The Serpent Sea did, and that one felt like more of an interesting standalone adventure in the same world- I wouldn't suggest skipping that one, though, because it does progress the overall arc of the Indigo Cloud search for a new home, and it has an interesting city.

Wells overall seems to do really well at building cities and settlements that feel lived-in with their own unique cultures and ways of daily living, it's something I've really liked in the Raksura books and City of Bones that I've read by her.

115> I'm glad those things are cleared up!

After reading The Cloud Roads, I want to get a hold of some more of her books.

>114 pwaites: I agree that the names/titles in Inda take a while to get one's head around. My copy had a guide in the back of the book, but it wasn't a huge help as it wasn't even close to being complete.

Inda took awhile for me to get into - the names were a little difficult (I believe Smith had a series of YA novels set in the same world, so that would have made the curve easier, if one had read the prequels; I had not). But the story does grab hold - big time! It had me by a third of the way through. Definitely worth the swim to get there, IMO.

118> Ahh. In that case I may try and pick it up again. For now I've set it down in favor of The Onion Girl.

>114 pwaites:, 118 I had read some of Smith's YA books (the Crown duel duology) before starting Inda and I have to say it wasn't any help at all as the two series are set so far apart in history that there are very few similarities. I do love the Crown books though.

114, 118: I tried to read Inda last year, and I had the very same problems with it that you had, pwaites. I found the world itself intriguing, but the point of view bounced around from character to character so much that I found I couldn't connect emotionally with any of them. I understood their situations, but they didn't matter to me as much as I needed them to. Eventually I abandoned it. However, my mind isn't completely closed to the idea of picking it up again in the future. Some books may not be what we need at a particular time in our lives, but if/when we revisit them later on, they may hit us where we live.

I do want to read more of Sherwood Smith. Crown Duel, Lhind the Thief, and Banner of the Damned are on my to-read list.

120, 121> I've still got Banner of the Damned in TBR, and I want to try her YA because I've heard the writing's more approachable in those.

It's been a while since I've last updated. I'm about half way through The Onion Girl because I've been picking it up mainly in spare moments at school. It hasn't grabbed me strongly enough to get me to spend much free time on it. Not that I have much free time at the moment - the first college application deadline is about a month away, and dealing with those is eating up a lot of time.

I do like The Onion Girl though. The writing's excellent, and I like Jilly. I think the situation with her sister could be moving along quicker - after the first of her sections, it's pretty easy to figure out who she is and that she's the one who hit Jilly with her car and wrecked her apartment. Although, the car bite hasn't been explicitly stated yet.

I don't have any major flaws with this one. I do wish that I'd read some reviews before picking it up, since it turns out to be largely about child abuse and I'd preferred to have known that going in.

I'm gathering from all the references in The Onion girl that some of the characters show up in other books? It seems like Charles de Lint has an interconnected world going on.

>122 pwaites: Yes, many of Charles de Lint's books and stories are set in the fictional city of Newford and many character recur through the books. Jilly is one of his favourites and pops up a lot; also Geordie, Christie, Saskia, the Crow Girls and a bunch of others that I can't remember right now because I haven't read the books in a while. A lot of the short stories give backstory to the characters and the city and are worth reading if you like the world. Victims of child abuse and other marginalised people feature prominently in much of his work, and raising awareness of abuse is something he seems passionate about. I think he mentions in the intro to Onion girl the short story in which Jilly's childhood is told, and he refers the reader to it as he prefered "not to put Jilly through it all again". I read all of de Lint's work (except the horror novels he wrote under a pseudonym) back in the 90s and early 00s, but haven't read much of his more recent work.

Review of A Scholar of Magics - here.
Review of Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter - here.

123> I liked the world, but I never really connected with any of the characters. I have no idea why - they're perfectly good characters, just for whatever reason I didn't get emotionally involved with them.

I've just finished The Onion Girl, and "I never really connected" sort of sums it up for me. Maybe not enough urgency to the pacing to suck me in? Maybe it's just not the right book for me? For whatever reason, this one was a miss.

The only thing that I'm still wondering about is who hit Jilly with the car? I guess it's sheer, random bad luck, but I felt like it was going to be a part of the plot.

I think I'll be heading straight into the books for A More Diverse Universe next.

I've just started on The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I really like it so far! But I'm in agreement with the criticisms of the romance.

Wow, I really liked The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. For those who haven't read it, it's about a young woman named Yeine Darr, who's the granddaughter of the man who rules the world by controlling four of it's gods (the god of night lost a battle with the god of day and was forced into human form to serve the high priest). When her mother dies, Yeine is unexpectedly brought into the fold of the world's most powerful family and named one of three heirs. While Yeine may not care for the throne, she's now at risk in the deadly power struggle. She also finds out that the enslaved gods have their own plans for her...

For the most part, it was very well written. I love Yeine's voice - it took me forever to figure out that it was written in a flashback format. Over the course of the book as more things became revealed, I kept flipping back to the opening lines.

“I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore.
I must try to remember.”

Once I found out she had two souls, many parts of the first chapter made more sense, including why her mother didn't want her to be born. At the very end when her heart was replaced, I flipped back to those lines again. I like how it works on it's own as an opening but also means so much more in the context of the book.

I said before that it was mostly well written. That's true, but whenever it got into a romance scene it had a tendency to head for purple prose. After a while I started skimming those sections or skipping them outright. I don't think I missed much. The "misunderstood, totally powerful, bad-boy love interest" has been done so many times before.

I also went in expecting a super long epic and was pleasantly surprised to find this one a quick read.

Review of The Onion Girl - here.
Review of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - here.

I'm a hundred pages into The Throne of the Crescent Moon. So far, it's entertaining enough but doesn't go beyond that. The writing feels stilted sometimes, and I think to often it tells instead of shows, especially in regards to characters.

>127 pwaites: that pretty much sums up my impressions of The Throne of the Crescent Moon. I ended up gritting my teeth a lot at the younger characters too...

128> Yes, the younger characters don't come off as realistic. Instead, they feel one dimensional and too emotional (or maybe just poorly described emotions), Zamia in particular. There's many lines like this:

"She wished, with tears forming in her eyes, that she could see her father, or her cousin, or any of her band, one more time."

I've given up on Throne of the Crescent Moon. It's been days since I've touched it, and I just can't make myself want to pick it up again, especially when I have so much else going on.

Last night I started Silver Phoenix, which I'm also having trouble with. The writing feels very simplistic, and so far the events don't really seem connected to each other or add drive to the plot. The scenes (mainly of various demon attacks) feel stringed together and don't really add up to a whole. Not to mention that Ai Ling, the protagonist, doesn't really do much so far. Mainly things have happened to her, and what she ends up causing is mainly a result of her magic amulet.

I'm also tired of the amount of sexism in this very patriarchal fantasy world. The heroine runs off to find her father in order to avoid marriage to a lecherous older man and then encounters sexual harassment and attempted rape, which is not what I wanted from a YA fantasy adventure type book. At least the love interest is okay.

September has not been a good month for reading. I think I'll go with a reread next, probably of Pratchett. I need a book that works out.

>130 pwaites: I don't think you miss much abandoning Throne. It struck me as an interesting world with some good ideas that got ruined by unnecessary tropes and poor writing (once Zamia and the puppy assassin falls in love, it's even worse. Oh, my)

I hope you find something more satisfying for your next read!

131> Wait, didn't they fall in love almost immediately upon meeting? They at least became attracted to each other, and various other characters commented on it. Again, I feel like this wasn't being well written.

I'm hoping that Silver Phoenix will turn around - the basic plot has finally been revealed, even if it still feels episodic.

I've also remembering that Blue Lilly, Lilly Blue by Maggie Stiefvater comes out in about a month (yay!), and I should probably reread the first two books so I've got all the twisty plot details fresh in my head.

>132 pwaites: I honestly don't recall, I may have blocked out the details because OH WOE (badly written) ANGST ;)

So, ahem, almost certainly.

I'm currently reading The Raven Boys in what I have realized is the third time in a year and a half. I want to write a review this time around, so I am trying to put into words why I love this book so much.

Thinking about it, what's unusual about my complete love for the series is that female characters are not a big factor. Don't get me wrong - there's a number of female characters (Blue and the ladies of 300 Fox Way), and I do like them. It's just that, out of the main cast (Raven Boys +Blue), the only one who interests me less than Blue is Noah, who's dead and hardly ever talks or has a significant presence. Analyzing it, I think it's because, well, Blue has the best life and least worries out of all of them. Seriously, she's got a happy home life with her mother Maura and the other psychics of 300 Fox Way. She's not going to die in a year's time. She's not struggling with her sexuality and accepting herself. She doesn't have an obsessive need to prove herself to the world or a driving ambition that she needs to accomplish. It's just that none of her problems can compare to the issues going on in the other characters' lives.

It's about here that I think I need to link to Maggie Stiefvater's excellent article again, "So I See I'm a Girl." http://maggiestiefvater.com/blog/so-i-see-im-a-girl/ I linked to it several months back, but as a recap, she's talking about how when she was teenager she sometimes wished she was a guy because that's what all the heroes she loved where. She talks about how she was unable to find the sort of female character she was looking for:

"I wanted to be the wise-cracking adventurer with hidden depths, fearless and aggressive and bad-ass and car-racing and explosion-making and just . . . sexy.
I spent a lot of time looking for equivalent woman. But in movies, they usually wore spandex. And in fiction, they were called “sassy” instead of “funny.” And in real life . . . well, they didn’t exist in real life. At least not in my rural middle-class part of the world. How could you reconcile a funny, fearless adventurer with a Nurturing Mother Type?"

Blue's certainly not the Nurturing Mother Type, but she's not the aggressive car racer described above (side note - I think her character Ronan Lynch fits the above description very well). It could also be the hidden depths factor. As of now, I haven't seen much hidden depths to Blue.

More on this later - I have some other thoughts, but this post is getting too long.

134: pwaites, what you describe above is the very reason why I've been slow to read The Raven Boys even though people keep recommending it to me. From everything I've read about it, Blue just seems too... well... ordinary for my tastes. I haven't been inclined toward the Wolves of Mercy Falls series for the same reason. Lament, Ballad, and The Scorpio Races, however, do interest me. A musician, a muse, a jockey -- now these girls are ABOUT something.

That blog is very interesting, full of points well taken.

135> While I might love Raven Boys, I wouldn't recommend it to you. I don't think it's your sort of story. Scorpio Races, maybe, but it's very much our world, just with the addition of the waterhorses, while it seems like you generally prefer other world fantasy stories.

I'm a bit behind on linking reviews:
The Throne of the Crescent Moon - here.
Silver Phoenix - here.
The Raven Boys - here.

I've finished my reread of The Raven Boys and have moved onto The Dream Thieves. One of my favorite things from last time was the character development of Ronan Lynch, so I'm keeping an eye out for it this time.

I'm also reading Hamlet, but I've generally found that I prefer to see plays enacted rather than to read their scripts.

>137 pwaites: I love reading Hamlet, if only for all the lines which are so common in our vernacular today. It is good to see several versions of the play though. Each director seems to bring an interpretation which then helps you reexamine what you've read and understood for yourself. Netflix is your friend here, if you have access to it.

>137 pwaites: Thanks for linking to your reviews; I always enjoy reading them even though I rarely comment.

139> I'm glad to know you like the reviews! Speaking of reviews...

Review of The Dream Thieves - here.

Right now I've finally gotten around to reading Stalking Darkness, the sequel to Luck in the Shadows. I think part of why I've held off so long is the creepy age difference between the characters who will eventually get together. I'm hoping that there'll be at least two more years so that the youngest hits eighteen at the very least.

138> Thanks for the suggestion! I've got Netflix, so I'll try that out.

I've finished Stalking Darkness. I found it moved slowly for the first two hundred pages or so. There were a number of world building scenes that didn't really add to the overall plot, and I can't even remember most of what was happening during those pages. But somewhere after page two hundred it picked up and was a lot easier to get involved with.

The biggest question I have is, "What happens now?" Stalking Darkness wrapped up what I'd assumed to be the series long plot set out in Luck in the Shadows. So, the rest of the series is Seregil and Alec having one off adventures?

Looking at the blurb for the third book, it seems to be political intrigue about the war with Pleminar, which sounds decidedly less interesting than evil necromancers. Oh, well. I'm still going to read it, but it may wait on the wayside for a while.

The age difference in the romance didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, given that it was a very similar situation to Tamora Pierce's Immortals Quartet (starts with Wild Magic) which I found infuriating. Possibly it was because Alec turned out to be half of the magical, long lived elf-like race too. So, while there's still the tremendous age difference (58 and 16), they'll both live to be 400, so that's at least a bit more equal. Or at least that's what I could tell myself. Also, in Pierce's series it just came out of nowhere, whereas it was heavily foreshadowed in the Nightrunner series.

Age difference is definitely one of my least favorite romance tropes.

I'm currently busy with college tours, but I read Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani on the plane trip over. I liked the first half a lot more than the second. The beginning's set Karolene, a city falling under the control of a tyrannical mage, Blackflame. Hitomi, the narrator, is a member of an underground group fighting his influences. This section I found very original and interesting. I loved the setting of Karolene - there's so many little details that add so well to the world building. Given that this will be a series of novellas, it's still early on in Hitomi's story, but I like what's seen of her.

The second half had some scenes that reminded me strongly of Robin McKinley's Sunshine. It's probably just a case of using the same tropes, but there were some similarities. Both Hitomi and Sunshine ended up as a prisoner of a vampire or vampires. Both were given to another vampire (or vampire like creature in Hitomi's case) as food. Both used their magic powers to rescue themselves and the imprisoned vampires, who both turned out to be The One Good Vampire. Both sort of befriended said vampires. Overall, I prefer Sunshine's magical break out.

Right now I'm about half way into Consequences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which apparently does not show up in the touchstone list. It's the third in her Retrieval Artist series, which starts with The Disappeared. I'm enjoying it so far, though I wish that the different alien cultures would have more of a role.

Review of Stalking Darkness - here.

For whatever reason, Wordpress has insisted on showing the review being published on the 4th, when I know I published it on the 6th. Oh, well.

I've finished Consequences, which I enjoyed although I felt like the ending needed to be longer. It didn't really explore all of the loose ends, and I'm not sure how some things ended. I also think it felt rushed near the end in general. My other complaint would be that there were so many characters who had only a few POV chapters that it was hard to keep track of them. I don't think they all needed their own chapters, like the mayor for instance. I liked him well enough but was he really doing anything important?

I'm about a third into Marking Time, a YA novel about a time-traveling tagger girl who knows parkour. She's definitely my favorite thing about the book. She feels different than the normal run of YA heroines.

143: Glad you're liking Saira, pwaites. She was my favorite thing about Marking Time as well.

Review of Sunbolt - here.
Review of Consequences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- here.

Having finished Marking Time, Saira is still probably my favorite thing about it. I liked the book less in the second half, but I don't know how much of that is the book or how much could be caused by reading it on a plane.

The love interest turned out to be a vampire, of course, because YA and urban fantasy love interests are always vampires or werewolves. In the case of Marking Time, it's possibly because of the time travel element - having him turned into a vampire let him be around for both time frames of the book.

Pet peeve - How could Saira not figure out that Will Shaw was her father? Or at least suspect? She knows that her mom's from the same time period and visits Will Shaw. She knows that's she's half shifter; Will Shaw's a shifter. She found love letters to her mother that spoke about speaking at the council to declare their love; Will Shaw is connected with the only council meeting we've heard of so far. The clues just keep piling up.

At some point I began to feel that it was a bit too long. It's Goodreads page shows the paperback page count as 445, but my e-book version was reading around 700 pages. For a book of this length, I tend to expect depth and complexity, whereas Marking Time was a much lighter read.

Ultimately, it's left me conflicted about whether or not to read the sequel. It'd probably be best for a day when I was home sick with a cold, but again, it feels to long for that sort of read.

I also picked up World War Z, which is the most recent read for my book club. I got completely sucked in. I loved how Max Brooks looked at the entire world and how all the different cultures might react to a zombie apocalypse. I also liked that it's framed as interviews after humans have basically won against the zombies - I tend not to like zombie books because they have this attitude of hopelessness, but the set up of the book avoided that problem.

>145 pwaites: I was bowled over by World War Z - I read it last year, having not bothered until then because I don't really read horror and while 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead feature highly on my favourites lists I think the zombie apocalypse has been done to death.

...and then it was my favourite read of last year. As you say, choosing to show the apocalypse through oral history was inspired: the survivor stories convey drama and horror and fear but at least as a reader you're not worrying about who will survive, and I enjoyed how dark he was willing to be with the politics and solutions along the way.

(it did mean I then watched the film on a plane, which was probably the best place for it - it's a bit of a mess, and of course they'd had to cut bits to show it on a plane, which made it much more digestible. And on a teeny tiny screen you can't really see gore! Still, I didn't think it was as bad as I'd been told, albeit not really related to the book beyond trading on its name)

146> I have wondered about the movie since reading it. I can't see any good way to adapt it to a single narrative, and you'd lose so much of the international focus that made the book great.

I have discovered I am not the least bit interested in Zombies. I thought World War Z was a big snooze. I don't watch the Walking Dead either.

Hope you enjoy it though.

I just don't get the whole craze I guess.

>147 pwaites: yep, it basically has nothing to do with the book. It's an invented character who zooms around the world during the apocalypse trying to figure out a way to save everyone. Pretty much all the nuances that made the book interesting are missing. It's... just another zombie disaster movie (or arguably 2 different ones, as the final act in Wales feels like it belongs in a completely different - punchier, lower budget - film).

I enjoyed World War Z, even though I have absolutely no interest in zombies. I do like apocalypse stories, but I generally prefer them without the zombies. The oral history format was great, but I couldn't stomach some of the military and political parts.

148, 149, 150> I'm not a zombie fan myself. The only other "zombie" book I can think of that I liked is Boneshaker, which didn't have that many zombies in it.

Review of Marking Time - here.

I've now moved on to A Storm of Swords, third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. One thing that's leaped out at me again is just how many POV characters there are. In 120 pages, not even all of them have shown up yet.

Another 'we survived' the zombie war is feed which I found a lot more fun than WWZ. I found it much faster more fascinating and distinctly more fun. There are a couple of plotholes around how the basic infrastructure of the world remains running, but generally it's great.

I read Boneshaker too, but it was to steampunk for me to really connect with it. I didn't think zombies and steampunk made a good mix.

Review of World War Z - here.

At this point I've finished A Storm of Swords. It's hard to think of much to say about it. What most stood out to me was a number of major character deaths. After no one died in the second book, I had begun to think that the reputation for killing of characters was overrated. It's not.

Right now, I'm reading the short stories of The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Currently, I'm on the fifth, "Mr. Simonelli or The Fairy Widower."

So far, "On Lickerish Hill" has been my favorite. It's basically the Rumpelstiltskin story, but I really came to enjoy the young woman who narrated it. At first, I was annoyed by the writing style - it's written with the spelling (or possibly lack thereof) of 17th or 16th century writings, but I found that it helped immensely to read it out loud.

"The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse" has reminded me that I really need to reread Stardust some day. I remember reading it and disliking it in middle schoo, but I think I'd be more likely to enjoy it now.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell showed me how wonderfully Susanna Clarke could do writing style, but The Ladies of Grace Adieu is really showing her impressive ability to craft unique voices for her narrators.

I like your World War Z review, and agree with everything you said.

I never was able to get into World War Z, although my sons recommended it because they said it was really more about the spread of a global pandemic than about Zombies. On the other hand, I really can't suspend disbelief when it comes to zombies so it may be (as you suggest in your review) that it's more about me than about the author's achievement.

I was persuaded to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell only after I read her short stories.

154> Thanks! :)

155> Zombies are the sort of thing that require so much suspension of disbelief - they make absolutely no sense. If they're not alive in the first place, why does taking out their brain stop them? If they're explained at all, it's with scientific sounding mumbo jumbo that falls apart the minute you thing about it.

I've gotten behind in reviews. Hopefully I'll publish one for A Storm of Swords shortly, but I've still got to write ones for The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Blue Lily, Lily Blue.

I worked ahead to have the evening free the night of Blue Lily's release. Then, I sat down and didn't get up until I finished it.

I really loved it. I spent a few minutes this morning reading over some of my favorite parts again and trying to figure out how Stiefvater conveyed some of the feelings I had about the scenes. I don't know how I'll write a review for this one. I may have to sit on it awhile.

Review of A Storm of Swords - here.
Review of The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories - here.

Currently, I'm reading A Feast for Crows. There's been a number of changes with this one, particularly with POV characters. The only returning POV characters are Sansa (now sometimes referred to as Alayne), Arya (now sometimes referred to as Cat), Jamie, and Samwell. And Sansa, Arya and Samwell don't show up that often.

Two characters from the prior books do get their own POV sections now - Brienne and Cersi. I was hoping that Brienne would get her own POV section at some point, as I liked her from the past two books, so I'm not displeased to see her show up in this one. But Cersi I hate more than ever. She's utterly vile and makes a terrible ruler. She's employing a serial killer? And giving him women as victims? And then there's her whole response to priestesses being raped, which I'm not even going to post on here.

Also... there's been another non-lesbians having lesbian sex scene. Yes, this is the second time in the series with completely different characters both times. This article says it better.

Two lesbian interactions. Dany and her handmaid...for Dany it was portrayed as happening because she needed a man but didn't have one. Lesbianism as temporary, not serious, to be replaced by heterosexual interactions. Cersei and Taena was all about Cersei wishing she were a man. Lesbianism again as poor substitute for someone who just really wants a penis, whether to possess it or to be penetrated by it. Not cool, my man.

The same article made a really good point about Cersi - namely that she's the only feminist character and also the most unlikable POV character.

I also came across this article on the "sexism is historically accurate!" excuse. Here's a quote:

The creators of fiction don’t have to repeat the sexist past.

I've having some thoughts on Blue Lily, Lily Blue, but I think those are best said in another post. In short, there's more exploration into Blue's character, a lot of growth with Adam, and I think it's possible that Ronan and Adam could actually get together.

157: Thanks for the links. Both offer very interesting perspectives on "historical accuracy" and gender roles in fantasy.

On the irredeemably evil Cersei as the only feminist character in A Song of Ice and Fire, the only one who articulates a feminist position: this, along with the role of Melisandre, is perhaps the most troubling aspect of the series. So, only evil women actively question patriarchy? Even when good women defy gender roles, they're not really interested in seeing those roles overturned altogether?

A similar situation appears in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, into which I was sucked because some friends of mine recommended it. A (relatively) good woman, Isana, is talked into representing an organization called the Dianic League, which advocates greater power for women in both politics and property. Isana, being the first female Householder, is the representative they need, but Isana would rather have nothing to do with the whole business. Making the matter worse is the fact that the driving force behind the Dianic League is the poisonously evil Invidia. That's right: only the villainess is actively working for the betterment of women in a patriarchal society. What are we meant to take away from this? That good women should content themselves with their status as remarkable women in a man's world, like Isana and Amara and Placida? That the patriarchal status quo is somehow admirable and all challenges to it are dangerous? Gah! I have read up to the fourth novel in the series, and while I know I will finish it eventually -- I am curious to find out what happens to these characters -- I'm not sure when I'll pick up the next book, especially since I've already been Spoiled with regard to its Babies Ever After conclusion. The books aren't quite grimdark (rape isn't everywhere, as it is in Martin), but I know, I just know, that even though certain female characters might kick serious butt in the next two books, the overall status of women will remain unchanged by the conclusion, since those who advocate change are Evil And Must Be Destroyed.

As to the idea that fantasies with "historically accurate" settings must be dominated by male characters because only men were doing interesting stuff "back then" -- I fume at it. As long as writers have this idea, it will be hard for me to find epic fantasies that I want to read. When male writers give us these Casts Full of Dudes, while it bothers me, I can't say it surprises me much. It bothers me more when WOMEN do it. The body of work of Courtney Schafer, Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison, and Naomi Novik includes not one single central heroine (though to be fair to Novik, she is releasing a novel next year, Uprooted, which will center on a sympathetic female character). Carol Berg gives us an important, sympathetic female character once in a while (e.g. Son of Avonar, Daughter of Ancients, The Soul Mirror), but men dominate the majority of her works. In K.J. Parker's works, only evil women matter. I think Katherine Kurtz has the same problem; evil women feature, but if there's a heroine worth rooting for somewhere in her Dernyi series, I haven't heard of her. What gives? Do these authors shun female characters because they don't want to write about romance, and they feel that giving prominent roles to women means that romance HAS to take center stage? Would they rather target a male readership because they feel that female readers will demand romance?
(By the way, if I'm mistaken about any of the writers I speak of, please feel free to correct me.)

158> I've also had Codex Alera recommended to me, but I wasn't aware of the feminist society being totally evil. There's lots of unpleasant implications there.

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a group working to change societal gender norms in a fantasy book (with the possible exception of The Ladies of Mandrigyn). There seems to be plenty of women in fantasy who defy patriarchal gender roles (probably because woman vs. sexism is such a common plot line), but their's is always an individual struggle. Occasionally there will be some sort of societal change as a result of them (women allowed to be knights after Alanna, leading to the Protector of the Small quartet) but that's always an aftereffect and not what the heroine's struggling for. Fantasy heroines tend not to think "women should allowed to be x" but "I should be allowed to be x," which probably relates to the Smurfette principal.

>159 pwaites: The only book that comes to mind as an exception is The city of silk and steel. There is a whole group of women that are working to build a society in which women have power.

159: Every member of the Dianic League might not be evil, but their leader certainly is, which suffices to call into question the worthiness of their goals. It sits ill with me.

You're absolutely right that struggles against gender roles in almost all fantasy novels seem to be an individual's struggles; often, the remarkable women who succeed "in a man's world" are written as holding more "normal" women in contempt. The City of Silk and Steel does offer a strong counterexample. I think Dobson's Scriber might count as a counterexample as well, since the exceptional woman in this book leads an entire troupe of women warriors who are a pleasingly diverse lot. At the end of this book, we're left with some sense that things HAVE changed for the better.

These days I'm especially drawn to books which show female characters helping and supporting each other. I get frustrated when a female lead, as courageous and competent as she may be in herself, never interacts with other women, or interacts with them only antagonistically. (Anita Blake Syndrome.) Even if a heroine doesn't actively support wider social change, she can still come across as feminist to me if she maintains strong friendships with other women.

Review of Blue Lily, Lily Blue - here.

I forgot to talk about Adam's character development in Blue Lily, Lily Blue. I thought he was sort of a jerk throughout The Dream Thieves (for understandable reasons, but still), but I liked him a lot more in Blue Lily. He's less inclined to be bitter and go off on his own. He's actively trying not to fight with Blue and Gansey. When Gansey shows up to help him at the trial against his father he doesn't reject him or get angry but recognizes that what Gansey's doing is part of what friendship is about. While I've heard complaints that this took place between books, I got the feeling from the end of Dream Thieves that there would be some positive change in this direction.

I talked some in the review about the exploration of Blue's character and a scene that stood out to me. More specifically than in the review, Blue dreams of going into ecology. There's a college she's found and she goes to the school counselor's office to see if it could happen. The counselor smiles at her, shows her the acceptance and financial data for the school, and tells her that this is what is considered a "reach" school. She then writes down the three types of schools Blue should be applying to and underlines "safety" three times in red pen. And Blue, struggling against tears, once more sees her dreams fade away into impossibility.

While that scene gave me a huge insight into her, there were other things as well that effected her more than any other character. Her mother was missing. One of her family members dies. Blue goes through a lot in Blue Lily.

I just finished Shadows by Robin McKinley. It was all right, but if you've read any other Robin McKinley books it will be very familiar. A couple pages in, the heroine starts talking about her dog. "Ahh, of course she has an animal companion," I think, "It's a Robin McKinley book." By the end, when she goes to have her mystical climatic encounter that draws upon her magical heritage, she's accompanied by six dogs and a cat. Oh, and some sheep and rabbits show up around then. Sort of like how both the heroines of The Hero and the Crown and Spindle's End had huge herds of random animals with them at their mystical climatic encounters drawing on their magical heritage.

I don't think I'd be as annoyed if it was just the one dog. One dog, that's reasonable. Six? Really? She's already done that with Deerskin, and the dogs were actually relevant in that book. For Shadows, they were just sort of along. Supposedly animals somehow prevent the amydar (some sort of vague radar that the army is using for vague purposes, possibly to search for magic usage?) from finding them or causing headaches. Or maybe both. This was never explained. It was just sort of presented as a reason for dragging a whole pack of dogs along with her.

Shadows had the most "HEY, CUTE BOYS" of any Robin McKinley book I've read. Usually, romantic elements don't seem to be a large component of her book. This one actually contained a love triangle. Luckily, it didn't get too odorous and was even sorted out sooner than I expected. She chose the werewolf, which I saw coming from a mile off.

There were some interesting elements to Shadows that made it different and unique, but these elements were all left vague and unexplored. The heroine, Maggie, lives in Newworld (probably the US), which has banned magic and prefers technology. Maggie's stepfather comes from Oldworld (probably Europe), which is all about magic. There's also Farworld (totally Asia) and Southworld (no idea). Early on, it looks like it'll be exploring the magic/technology dynamic and the balance between them. However, that never really materializes.

I don't know what I think about the book using Japanese words. I know that a reason was given for it, but I'll still have to think on it.

One part that did make me laugh - the magical algebra textbook.

The standard Robin McKinley heroine seems to be a white girl who loves animals and is likely to be a princess. Maggie's not a princess, but besides that, she fits the standard to a T. I never got much of a feel for her besides that. I have a friend who likes her because, as she says, "She's not the typical special snowflake. She's normal." She's still basically the chosen one, but she flunked out of calculus, so I guess that could make her normal. Normal isn't something I generally look for in a protagonist though.

162:
"Normal isn't something I generally look for in a protagonist though."

PREACH IT!

Review of A Feast for Crows - here.
Review of Shadows - here.

I've just finished Ship of Destiny. Overall, I've really liked the trilogy. Random thoughts:

- Did this volume get more rapey? Of course, come to think of it, the last one did have Serilla undergo a positively brutal experience and Althea fighting off an attempted rape. In Ship of Destiny, it just adds to it with Malta experiencing a rape attempt and Althea actually being raped.
- I'm annoyed about how the book ended for the Satrap. He handed Serilla over to be raped and he gets character growth and a happy ending? And what he did to Serilla isn't even mentioned? What the heck?
- I'm glad Kennit died. I'll leave it at that.
- Kyle Haven's death was very convenient. None of the other characters want him back or to have to deal with him, so he gets taken out by random arrows practically as soon as he shows up? What even was the point of having him included? Couldn't he have been killed off in the second book?
- I didn't like Wintrow as much in this one. His character seems to have changed a lot in this book. Maybe it's that he doesn't have as much page time, but he's much less reflective. I'm also not certain about his ending. I never saw him as being commander of a fleet or ruling a kingdom.
- Malta may have taken the spot of my favorite character for this one. Her character growth from before continued, and she made the best she could out of her situation.
- All the different plot threads came together well. Keffria and Ronica did get abandoned in the latter half of the book, but I can see why when everyone else was getting together for climatic sea battles.
- The ending was a lot... happier than I expected. After traveling through three books of doom and gloom, I didn't really expect such a happily ever after.

Right now I'm a chapter into Atonement, which is for my English class.

Review of Ship of Destiny - here.

I'm slugging through Atonement. I've read nine chapters, and so little has happened. There's a lot of description and character introspection, but I have no reason to care about any of these people.

165: That was the impression I got from the film, and it's never given me even a slight desire to read the book.

>165 pwaites: I can't really point to what I like about most Ian McEwan novels (well, except beautiful use of language). They're frequently slow and introspective, and often centre on people who really are unlikeable... but I do enjoy them. Or feel satisfied at the close, which perhaps isn't quite the same thing.

167> I'm actually liking it more at this point. After the initial eight or nine chapters, some things did happen. I like a couple of the characters better, even if it feels like I don't know them so well. The format feels disjointed, and part two did not follow the structural elements of part one at all.

I took a break from Atonement this weekend to read God's War, which I overall enjoyed. It wasn't a simple book to read - the world is radically different from our own (3000+ in the future on a planet that's not completely habitable). And something about the writing doesn't really facilitate an easy reading. I was constantly reading back over paragraphs and lines to make sure that I understood them. There was another section where I skimmed over a few times to try and figure out if a character was present. Best I can figure, he was left back at the hotel, and that just wasn't mentioned.

Where I think the book shines is in its characters, Nyx particularly. Nyx is a rather wonderful anti-heroine who's at the center of the entire book. The best quotes from the book are some of those describing her.

“Nyx had wanted to be the hero of her own life. Things hadn't turned out that way. Sometimes she thought maybe she could just be the hero of someone else's life, but there was no one who cared enough about her to keep her that close. Hell, there was nobody she'd let that close. No one wanted a hero who couldn't even save herself.”

And this quote:

It wasn't what was done to you. Life was what you did with what was done to you.

"You didn't make me," Nyx gasped. "I made myself."

Even besides Nyx, the other characters all came across as developed and interesting. All characters had there own, acknowledged flaws. Rhys, who I found likable despite his occasional tendency to come across as holier-than-thou, ended up asking what I think was one of the central questions of the book:

She drank too much, shot up and swallowed drugs, had sex indiscriminately with both genders, did not bend her knee to God, but which of them had been more pious? Which had been stronger before God? The woman who had given her brothers and body to God and then rejected Him, or the man who pretended godliness but could not perform the ultimate act of submission?

The setting itself I also find deeply interesting - a hostile planet, bugs controlled by people referred to as magicians, two societies fighting an all intensive war that spans centuries. The exploration of gender was also one of the best elements of the book, and given that I've been trying to diversify my reading lately, I was happily surprised to a bisexual protagonist.

The plot itself felt rather thin, so that and some of the writing qualities would probably push it down from a four stars to a three and a half stars. I'm still looking forward to reading the sequel.

Review of God's War - here.

I've finished Atonement but haven't yet gotten around to writing a review. I may wait until after the class discussions of it finish. The major point of contention right now is what people think of Briony - some people hate her others are sympathetic towards her. I don't find her at all likable, but I'm not seething with hatred towards her either.

Currently I'm reading Sense and Sensibility (another school assignment) and The Archer Who Shot Down Suns: Scale-Bright Stories.

I'm only about 11% into Sense and Sensibility according to my Kindle, and I haven't gotten involved in the story yet.

I've read the first Scale-Bright story, the one about the Sun's mother, and didn't really understand it. The blurb on the story says, "The story of Xihe, the mother of suns, when she was young and the world was new: how she met her husband, lost herself, and found it again. " I've noticed that I'm generally not interested in stories where the plot is the protagonist "finding herself," so maybe that was my problem with it.

I'm liking the second story, "Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon" more, but I haven't finished it yet. It's about an archer goddess named Houyi who marries a mortal serving girl. Their lives are going well until Houyi is the one tasked with shooting down the suns...

Review of Atonement - here.

I ended up really liking Sense and Sensibility. I think the humor and the characters are what makes it enjoyable. The major characters, particularly the two sisters, are well developed and read as real people. When Marianne got sick, I became very worried that she'd die, which showed me just how involved I was.

I've also finished The Archer Who Shot Down Suns. The second and third story are much stronger than the third, but I don't feel a need to read more about the world. I'd probably be getting more out of it if I'd known something about Chinese mythology going in. Definitely recommended for anyone looking for lesbian characters.

Over Thanksgiving I read The Spellman Files, which is sort of a detective story, more of a family drama. It's about Izzy Spellman, a woman who works for her parents PI firm. It's a family that's dysfunctional in many ways (Izzy's younger sister is into "recreational surveillance") but that still loves each other. It's a character focused book without a strong plot that still managed to get me to stay up past midnight. I also found it laugh out loud funny in some parts.

Right now I'm a hundred pages into Kelly Armstrong's Omens. This might turn out to be my favorite book I've read of hers.

I'm currently behind on reviews so I can focus on writing college essays instead - I've got a deadline on Monday. Happily, I did get my first acceptance letter a few days ago, from University of Texas at Austin, so I know I'll have somewhere to go.

>170 pwaites: congrats on the first acceptance letter! Where would be your first choice?

Congratulations! One hears good things about Austin.

171> Thanks! I'm trying not to set my heart on any place before I know if I've gotten in or not, but I really loved Smith when I toured.

172> Thank you! Pretty much everyone seems to have wonderful things to say about Austin, so it's that's good to know.

Review of Sense and Sensibility - here.
Review of The Archer Who Shot Down Suns: Scale-Bright Stories - here.

I've finished Omens, which is definitely my favorite book by Kelley Armstrong so far. Admittedly, I've only read her YA books and Bitten, but Omens is a cut above those. Her YA books were all what I think of as "fluffy" - good for a beach read or when you're home sick (which was when I read them). Bitten... I remember having a lot of issues with the alpha male werewolf love interest. Romance plays a much smaller role in Omens - it's being set up but hasn't really arrived yet. It reminds me a lot of Written in Red in that way.

The paranormal or fantasy elements weren't actually a large part of the plot. They definitely existed and are clearly shown in the short, third person POV sections scattered through the book. However, the main character is not aware of any besides her own abilities, which she dismisses as superstition for most of the book.

I picked up Turning the Storm, the sequel to Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful, and am 172 pages in. I'd been informed that the books are less of a series and more one story split in half. This seems to be true. In this half of Eliana's Song, Eliana has gone undercover as a spy... and runs into her love interest, Mira. But this is not exactly a happy reunion because Mira's working for the Circle, the evil magician ring that's ruining everything.

For a while in the last book, I thought the main plot would be "Eliana goes to rescue Mira," when it actually turned out to be something different. Now, the situation with Mira isn't as I (or Eliana) had understood it.

Hopefully things will pick up because the "Elina's a spy" segment hasn't been that eventful so far. There's been a couple banquets and some various other scenes, but nothing too unexpected or exciting.

>173 pwaites: Very wise - one good option in the bag, and I'll keep everything crossed for you that a few more come in - choice is always a wonderful thing!

Review of The Spellman Files - here.
Review of Omens - here.

I've finished Turning the Storm. The ending was interesting. The rebels succeed, but how different will the new regime and religion be from the old? The theology may have changed, but the new religion is becoming just as oppressive as the old.

I'm glad Eliana ended up with Mira, but I felt that we never got to know her. Mira has surprisingly few scenes and could have played more of a role.

I think the major risk that this two book series runs is covering too many topics in too little page space. While I never found it overwhelming, I think some of these ideas could have been explored more if the books or series were longer.

I've also read A Madness of Angels, which I adored. It's always hard for me to phrase why I like books, but in this case I'd say the narrator played a large role. Matthew Swift is a sorcerer who died two years ago - but he's suddenly and unexpectedly resurrected. He's also no longer alone in his body - he's sharing it with the electric blue angels. The narration is thus also shared between Matthew's "I" and the angels' "we." How much of what is said is Matthew, and how much is the angels? Is there a line between the two, or, as claimed, they're both the same?

There's also a sense of exuberance to Matthew Swift. So many other urban fantasy protagonists tend to fall into the "jaded bad asses" mold, and he was a welcome departure.

The writing was also wonderful. The scenes of London's magic came alive in my mind. While there are many "magical London" stories - Neverwhere, London Falling, and Midnight Riot being some I've read - A Madness of Angels may be the best I've read.

On the downsides, there was a bit of drag near the end, although the book as a whole was fast paced. The "Matthew runs away from danger" scenes became rather numerous by the end and felt a bit repetitive. Also... I think Dana Mikeda may have been fridged. She was built up to be important, although in the end she only had a flashback and roughly two contemporaneous scenes. She helped Matthew escape and then died as he cradled her dead corpse in his arms. Yep, saying it like that, she was definitely fridged.

Looks like I'll be adding A Madness of Angels to my wishlist. Most of the urban fantasy books that I've read so far have been by male authors so this will make a nice change to that demographic.

>175 pwaites: And onto the wishlist it goes. I haven't caught up on London Falling yet, but I do have a soft spot for London urban fantasy and your description of Matthew is intriguing.

Don't tell anyone, but I have ALWAYS preferred Sense and Sensibility to Pride and Prejudice. Congrats on the acceptance to UT-Austin. (We'll keep our fingers crossed for the others!)

>175 pwaites: A madness of angels has been on my tbr pile for ages. Looks like I'll have to move it nearer the top.

>170 pwaites: Belated congratulations on your acceptance, and good luck with the others you're waiting on!

I really enjoyed Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon when I read it last year. Unfortunately, while looking to see if Sriduangkaew had any new work I could put in my wishlist for SantaThing, I came across this article, "A Report on Damage Done by One Individual Under Several Names," and discovered she is a serial harasser and worse. I'm still navigating where my personal line is for separating authors' behavior from their work, but I figured I should share in case it's something that would bother you or disincline you from reading more of her work.

>175 pwaites: I enjoyed Kritzer's Eliana duology, but I do also wish it had been a little longer too. Agreed on Mira wanting more screentime, I think. I thought it was an interesting choice to have Eliana remain agnostic/atheistic in a religion-heavy plot- it definitely kept it from feeling like proselytizing in any way. I was surprised that the main plot ended so early in Turning the Storm, and so much of it was taken up by the denouement with the rebels working out what to do next- what did you think of Nice Guy what's-his-name's sacrificing himself in place of Eliana? I thought that made a bit too tidy of an ending for her.

180> Yikes. Well, at least I'd already decided not to peruse any of her other books. I liked the short stories okay, but not enough to read the novella they connected to.

Regarding the Eliana duology: I think having Eliana relatively agnostic/atheistic or maybe just uncaring in general does let it focus on exploring religion without proselytizing, which I agree was interesting. I was likewise surprised by the plot wrapping up so fast, but it did leave room for an exploration of how the new religion is starting to look like the old religion. I was pretty annoyed by Giovanni's death, but it's a major spoiler so I can't talk about it in the review (Turning the Storm will be the next review I write). It didn't fit with any sort of character arc for him - the death didn't seem to have anything to do with him actually. It just was a plot tool to save Eliana and keep the ending from being completely cynical (through an out of the blue heroic sacrifice). I also found the "he was in love with Eliana the entire time!" reasoning for it rather annoying.

>181 pwaites: Hum, now I want to reread these. I want to say that I read Giovanni as in love with her earlier than that, so I thought of it more as "welp, let's kill off the other fork of the non-love-triangle now," but I'd have to read again to be sure.

I liked all of the class and other divides that Kritzer put in the revolutionary movement. It's something I haven't seen a lot of fantasy do- either the band of rebels is tiny, or they all seem to get along well (perhaps minus an inevitable betrayer). The Magicians and Mrs. Quent seemed like it might do this as well, but I couldn't get over my dislike of the characters enough to stick around for two more volumes and find out.

182> I remember some of that from the first book, I think. I'm mainly annoyed at unrequited love being the reasoning behind his sudden heroic sacrifice.

I think there was a lot more thought to her revolution than in most fantasy or science fiction books. They also tend to make the rebels clearly "good" and the old system clearly "bad" while in the Eliana duology a lot of rather nasty people from the old system started joining the rebels as soon as it was clear which way the tide was turning.

I'm reading two books at the moment: Rosemary and Rue on paper and Visions on audio.

Rosemary and Rue isn't bad, but it hasn't been holding my attention lately. Maybe it's my inability to read two books at once without focusing on one. Anyway, I like how it's an urban fantasy that uses creatures other than the cliched vampires and werewolves. Rosemary and Rue focuses on the fae and creatures from Celtic mythology instead. I'm hoping the protagonist is able to reunite with her daughter at some point.

Visions continues almost directly from where Omens ended. Right now the relationship/romance drama seems to have exploded, and there's possibly three alpha male love interests (even if its obvious which one Olivia's going to end up with). Still, three guys is too many, and it's warping the plot away from Cainsville and investigating the case of Olivia's parents.

Unfortunately, the main narrator of Visions has a rather nasal voice. It's annoying but bearable so far.

Review of Turning the Storm - here.
Review of Magic or Madness - here. (I forgot to mention I read this one. It's a short YA urban fantasy that's okay overall)

First off, I ran into "A Lack of Female Characters Is Always a Choice", an article in response to a fairly popular fantasy author who was in turn responding to criticisms about the lack of female characters in his book (he did not do a good job at this). Here's an excerpt:

But make no mistake. If a novel is about a character interacting with a group or with society in some way, rather than a story of isolation, then there is no need to “shoe horn” women in. They should already be there, and their absence is either suggests a failure of imagination, or a failure to care. Both are pretty significant failings for any novelist to have.

I've finished Visions at this point. I liked finding out more about Cainsville, but I think it's overall weaker than the first book. I can also see from a long way off where it's going with the love triangle. The main character is probably descended from both the fae (day) and the riders in the Hunt (night), which hate each other. Her two love interests are descended from each one. The main character is being made to chose which side of her ancestry she'll end up on, and the guy she ends up with will be a large part of that. But she's totally going to end up with Gabriel because the narrative seems to focus on him more, because they haven't gotten together yet but it's repeatedly hinted at, and because there's more potential for romantic drama with him. I'm pretty sure I've seen this general set up before, and it's just not that interesting.

I've read barely any farther in Rosemary and Rue. It's not terrible, but it's not intriguing either.

I tried to start On Basilisk Station for my next audio book, but I'm finding it to hard to keep track of the characters and deal with the science fiction techno babble. Luckily, I got it bundled with the ebook, so I may try it in that format.

There's no TV show I'm watching at the moment (besides Legend of Korra, which ends Friday) so I'm in need of an audio book to listen to while I draw. My Audible membership also expires in a few weeks, so I'm trying to use my credits before then. I just downloaded The Martian, which has been getting good reviews. Hopefully I don't have the same techno babble issue.

185: Excellent blog from Feminist Fiction!
Writers who make the choice not to include female characters in important roles lose me as a reader. I don't care how many good reviews a book gets; if it doesn't promise to give me at least one heroine I can like and admire, I won't read it, even if it's written by a woman. Sorry, Mr. Lawrence. You have a big enough readership without me, anyway.

I need to settle down and watch "Legend of Korra."

Still catching up on review backlogs:
Review of A Madness of Angels - here.

I'm currently reading Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon in print and The Martian on audio.

I'm not sure how far I'll make it with Sheepfarmer's Daughter, which is too bad as I have the omnibus edition with the entire series. The writing is very brief and sometimes choppy. It feels almost like a summery of events instead of a narration of what happened. I'm fifty pages in and haven't connected much with Paksenarrion - the narrative as a whole seems disconnected from the emotions and inner thoughts of its characters.

Also, the major event of the first fifty pages was an attempted rape, which doesn't inspire me to keep reading.

The Martian is off to a better start. I like the ingenuity of the protagonist and the moments of humor in the midst of the survival situation. For a story centered around one man struggling to survive on mars, it's also very diverse. While Mark Watney is undoubtedly the center of the story, the rest of his crew to the NASA team on Earth is made up of both genders and a mix of backgrounds. For instance, the captain who led his mission (before he got stranded) was a woman. I feel like most other science fiction I've read with a similar "man's struggle against the odds" plots haven't been nearly so diverse in secondary characters.

186>Out of curiosity, have you come across any articles on the ending? It seems to have garnered some media attention for ending with Korra and Asami, another girl, leaving together for a vacation to the spirit world while standing a few inches apart, holding hands staring deeply into each other's eyes. It was a clearly obvious romantic ending given the framing, build up of the relationship between the two for the past two seasons, and the parallels to earlier endings and scenes. I'd seen a romantic connection between them but hadn't expected the show to actually go there.

Season one suffers from a love triangle, and season two has general writing issues, but seasons three and four are excellent. I especially love the Beifong family women, particularly the sisters Lin and Su Yin.

>187 pwaites: I had the same problems with Paksenarrion. I tried to hang in there because it was about a female warrior, but in the end I gave up...

>187 pwaites: I seem to remember I hung in grimly with gritted teeth and it took FOREVER to really hook me (I vaguely remember this as having a very high Slogging Through The Mud quotient), but that the second and third books were good enough that I then went back and read the prequels (which I hated. Gird was so DULL).

...worryingly though, looking at a synopsis online, it's entirely possible the whole first book was pretty dull. I'm not big on military detail - and all the bits I recall as interesting don't seem to show up until book 2.

187, 188, 189: Fourthing your impressions of Sheepfarmer's Daughter. I wanted so much to love that book and its lead character, but the arid writing style wouldn't let me. Moon refuses to give Paks the inner life that would make her shine as a character.

The entire series is on my Kindle, but I wonder if I'll ever get around to the next two volumes.

188, 189, 190> None of this encourages me to keep reading.

I'd sort of wondered about the Slogging Through The Mud quotient, but last night I reached the chapter where they did nothing but slog through mud.

>191 pwaites: Hahaha, yeah, in this case the Slogging Through The Mud is literal...

Review of Visions - here.

I think I'll drop Paksenarrion. The only reason that I'd keep reading is so that I'd feel justified writing a review of it. I could write a "Why I Did Not Finish" post for my blog, but I feel like I should have read at least a hundred pages first. I've currently read about 85. Maybe I'll try for those last fifteen...

I'm about half way through The Martian. It's more hard science than I'm used to, and I feel myself drifting off during the science bits.

After aborting the audio version of On Basilisk Station, I started on the ebook version, which I'm about 60% of the way through. There's still too many characters and it's still hard to keep track of them. The techno babble has luckily slowed since the beginning. It jumps around between characters viewpoints and settings without any transition. While POV jumps may just be a case of third person omniscient, which I'm starting to suspect I dislike, jumping between different parts of the universe should be divided into different sections (could this be ebook formating?).

I also find the plot draggy and the pace too slow. The best part of the book is undoubtedly Honor Harrington herself, who's a very admirable character.

I got books for Christmas! Some are sequels, but there's also some new authors and series:

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Dawn by Octavia Butler
Huntress by Malina Lo
In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
When They Severed Earth From Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth Barber
Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
Poison Study by Maria Snyder
City of Stairs Robert Jackson Bennett
Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds
Killer of Enemies by Joseph Bruchac

I got City of Stairs as an ER and was really impressed with it. Quite an imaginative world.

That's quite a haul of Christmas books!! And all of them sound intriguing!

>193 pwaites: Quite a good selection! I'm currently reading A Natural history of dragons and I really like it.

Great Christmas selection! Consider Phlebas remains one of my favourite Culture novels, and I adored Angelmaker (Edie Banister!). Quite a few of the others are on Mt TBR or my wisist so I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you get that far (and on Zoo Coty, which is darkly vibrant and good in many ways, but ultimately didn't quite work for me - i much preferred The Shining Girls).

197> I might have picked up Consider Phlebas and Angelmaker from your reading journal - I know I heard of them on LT somewhere.

>198 pwaites: *curtsey* I hope you enjoy them :)

Review of Rosemary and Rue - here.
Review of On Basilisk Station - here.

I haven't picked up the Martian again since the last post. I'm currently reading a print version of Huntress by Malinda Lo and am about halfway through. Huntress is about a kingdom where the crops are failing and evil magical stuff is happening. Two girls, Taisin and Kaede, are sent on a quest to meet with the Fairy Queen.

It's not quite insta-love, but it sort of veers that way on Taisin's part. Paradoxical insta-love maybe? The prologue is Taisin having a vision in which she sees Kaede and knows she loves her. So due to a vision from the future, she sort of has a "love at first sight" thing for Kaede. But at least Kaede doesn't fall head over heels in love first thing - it's more gradual on her part.

Out of the party of six travelers, I figured the two male guards would die for sure (and was right). Taisin and Kaede will definitely live. I bet Con will too. Shae... I think her chances of survival went up once she was set up as Con's love interest, but I'm still not sure. If Malinda Lo wants to inject some tragedy into the ending, than Shae will probably die.

Review of Huntress - here.

I didn't like the ending of Huntress. It felt unclear how the romance plot was ending. I think Taisin may have chosen to become a sage, but I'm not sure? It felt up in the air.

Right now I'm reading The Midnight Mayor, the sequel to A Madness of Angels. The tone matches the first book pretty well, and there's a lot of "Matthew Swift running from various things that want to kill him," just like the last book. I think Oda may be my favorite secondary character, even if she's rather crazy and has all sorts of problems. There seems to be a running joke about her denouncing various things:

“When last I checked, you were a sorcerer, not a Jedi."
"You've seen Star Wars?"
"Seen it and denounced it."
"You've denounced Star Wars?"
She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Hollywood should not glorify witches."
"I think you've missed the point..."
"I also denounce Harry Potter."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Because..."
"...because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches."
"Oda, what do you do for fun?"
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humor, "I denounce things.”

(page 233)

I'm also reading a nonfiction book, When They Severed Earth From Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth. The thesis of the book is that myths were originally used to encode and transmit real information. For example, the Klamath tribe's origin story for Oregon's Crater Lake matches how geologists say it happened - even though the lake was created nearly eight thousand years ago.

When people needed to remember important information (for instance, that a volcano is dangerous and you shouldn't go near it) they would put it in the form of a story, since stories are a lot easier to remember.

The chapter I'm on right now is about how myths include both descriptions of phenomena and explanations. Modern readers of myths tend to dismiss them as nonsense because they're looking at the explanations and not the phenomena the myth is describing. However, the human mind has to come up with some sort of explanation, even if another part of our brain knows that our explanation isn't logical. In the past, when people didn't have enough data or technology for scientific explanations for events like volcano eruptions, they would come up with explanations like "It was too chiefs battling," which modern readers dismiss without realizing what the story was describing.

It's a very fascinating book.

Golly! Two bullets, my wallet will be bleeding. Love the dialogue you quoted there, and I have long felt that myths had more to them than simply morals, especially many of the Native American stories. Sounds very interesting.

>201 pwaites: A Madness of Angels was already on my list, but I think When They Severed Earth From Sky may have to join it... in return, I can only chime in to let you know that I'm chortling my way through Discount Armageddon in spite of not being a big urban fantasy fan. There's lots of UF trademarks, but the humour is engaging, the cult of talking mice is irresistible and Seanan McGuire gets extra points for calling her telepath Miss Zellaby (which will only resonate if you've ever read The Midwich Cuckoos). I'm about halfway through and finding it hard to put down now.

Review of The Midnight Mayor - here.

202, 203> I hope you like them!

203> I may try out a sample some time in the future, but right now my TBR pile is treacherously high.

I don't think I'll be finishing any books today, so I went ahead and compiled my end of the year reading statistics.

Genera and Format Statistics
Total: 118
Average books read per month: 9.83
Rereads: 7.63% (9/118)
Audio: 5.93% (7/118)
Nonfiction: 4.24% (5/118)
Fantasy: 72.03% (85/118)
Science Fiction: 13.56% (16/118)
Mystery: 4.24% (5/118)
Short Story Collection: 5.08% (6/118)
Young Adult: 24.58% (29/118)

Author Statistics
Authors: 78
Female Authors: 52.56% (41/78)
Male Authors: 44.87% (35/78)
Note – remainder is taken up by books with more than one author.
Books by Female Authors: 60.17% (71/118)
Books by Male Authors: 38.14% (45/118)
Non-white Authors: 6.41% (5/78)
Books by Non-white Authors: 5.08% (6/118)

Protagonist Statistics
Books with a Male Protagonist: 27.12% (32/118)
Books with a Female Protagonist: 46.61% (55/118)
Books with No or More Than One Protagonist: 26.27% (55/118)
Books with a Non-white Protagonist: 21.19% (25/118)
Books with an LGBTQ Protagonist: 13.56% (16/118)

My eight most read authors (number of books read in parenthesis):
1. Brandon Sanderson (10)
2. Robin Hobb (5)
5. Sharon Shinn (4)
5. George R.R. Martin (4)
5. Robin McKinley (4)
8. Maggie Stiefvater (3)
8. Ellen Kushner (3)
8. Terry Pratchett (3)

My favorite book from each month (doesn’t include rereads):
January – The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
February – The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
March – The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
April – Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
May – Written in Red by Anne Bishop
June – Fool’s War by Sarah Zettel
July – Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone
August – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
September – The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
October – Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
November – God’s War by Kameron Hurley
December – A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin

Books I gave 5 stars (doesn’t include rereads):
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone
Fool’s War by Sarah Zettel
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

Some of the diversity statistics are rather horrible (non-white authors for instance), but there’re actually better than in previous years. Still, in 2015 I want to improve these numbers. I plan on at least doubling the amount of books by non-white authors, and I’ve already got some titles picked out. It may also be good to read less than 70% fantasy or to up the non-fiction reading, but I’m not making any specific goals in that area.

Okay, now I have to ask. How did you track all of those statistics about your reading? It's one thing to track mere numbers of titles read, but you've got statistics on the numbers of female and male protagonists, the best books you read in any month, and so on. Are you keeping record in a spreadsheet of some sort perhaps?

205> I keep a Word Document where I have the books grouped together by month, and I tally up the genre and other numbers there. I also chose my favorite of what I've read. At the end of the year, I just added all the different months together.

>204 pwaites: That's a nice and comprehensive wrap-up to your reading year.