2013 books: 29-31

[the_siobhan]

    

War For The Oaks by Emma Bull. Item One: I've heard a lot about this book for some reason. Possibly because it is credited as being one of the first books ever written in the "urban fantasy" genre. Item Two: I can't really define what quality differs a book I really like from a book I really don't. Genre doesn't seem to matter. Plot doesn't seem to be it. I have read books without a single likable character and loved them because the writing sucked me in. I thought Stieg Larsson was a terrible writer, but I still devoured his books because something about the story really grabbed me. And then there are ones that should have everything they need to make them an enjoyable read and they just... fall flat.

War For The Oaks falls into the latter category. The concept is a war between factions of the Fey. Being immortal, war is kind of a pointless endeavor because those who are killed in battle just get up the next day and start over. So one side decides to pick up some hapless human and force them to join the battlefield as their presence will add a mortal component that ensures the killed will stay that way. Kind of a Sidhe version of a biological weapon.

I will pause here only to note that the individuals who came up with this plan think of themselves as the good guys.

The story starts when they pick their human, who happens to be a musician. This allows for a lot of scenes of music geeking and band name dropping. The Fey also assign her a bodyguard because of course the other side will try to kill her to prevent her from being used in battle. She resents being dragged into the situation against her will and hijinks ensue, etc.

In theory, the book should have been a winner. Sarcastic dialog, music geekery, and plenty of bad actors. But instead just couldn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them, and I'm trying to tease out why. It might have been because every turn of the plot was broadcast in glowing neon letters right from page one so there was absolutely no tension anywhere in the story. But I'm perfectly capable of reading a book I like over and over again and being completely sucked in each time, so I don't know if that's it.

Drink Down The Moon by Charles de Lint I really have to start being more careful about checking whether a not a book is part of a series before I commit. I was several chapters in before I figured out this was a sequel. I honestly did not intend to do this but this is another "urban fantasy" novel. Or as it's called in various places on the cover "modern fantasy" or "contemporary fantasy". I guess so people won't get confused and think it's about black people. Anyway. Whereas the "urban" in The War For the Oaks was Minneapolis, in Drink Down the Moon it's Ottawa. Something is killing the Fianna Sidhe and disrupting the ley lines that feed their magic. A bunch of Fey and humans get together to figure out what.

I found the story itself much more engaging in this case because I didn't know what was about to happen. But that wasn't enough to rescue the book for me. One of the things I noticed was that I often had trouble telling the characters apart - although they all had different story lines, their personalities frequently seemed to run together.

I want to note here that I found it amusing that in stories that include magic and immortals, the biggest challenge to my suspension of disbelief was the number of people who made their full-time living playing in bands. I was spending a lot of time around musicians right around the time these were written and the joke that went around was, "What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?" "Homeless." (Yes, this was a sexist joke. Not because women didn't perform in bands, but because everybody knew that women musicians also had jobs. Also heteronormative because it was the 80s and gay people hadn't been invented yet.)

The Grand Tour by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. I'm guessing this is another YA novel, although it doesn't actually come right out and say so. The setting is two English cousins in the early 1800s who are also best friends. They have just married in a joint ceremony and are now spending their honeymoons touring continental Europe along with their new husbands - also best friends - and a platoon of household servants. In this version of history magical ability is a natural talent that some people have and can go to school to study. From reading the book the art of spellcraft also appears to require some aptitude for math. The four discover some kind of international plot and spend their honeymoon galloping around by horse and cart trying to save the world for whiteness and aristocracy. Probably a fun book if you are an anglophile. Personally I found that the unaddressed class issues made me itch.