2015 books: 39-42

[the_siobhan]

    

Dragonfly by Frederic S Durbin. I must have gotten this from Fiona. I'm never entirely sure What defines a YA novel except that the main characters are under 18? I would say this book counts, not only because the protagonist is only 10, but because the monsters are the creatures under the bed and in the closet at night. (Although when I think about it, that's also a plot device in Supernatural and at least two episodes of Dr Who that I can pull off the top of my head.) As YA novels go, this one is pretty gory and creepy, so it's not for the faint of heart. I really liked the atmosphere he created here and it's beautifully written. I admit that I found the overt Christianity jarring - turns out the author was a missionary - but it isn't a major plot point and I probably wouldn't have noticed it so much if I had read it as a kid.

    

Dream's Edgeedited by Terry Carr. This was put out by Sierra Club Books, which I had completely forgotten used to be a thing. Most of the the stories are about the future state of the planet due to environmental devastation or overpopulation, along with a few fascist governments sprinkled here and there for good measure. None of the stories are bad, but none of them are great either. They are all by different writers but many of them really seem to have the same "voice". Not a terrible read, but not something that is ever going to stand out in my memory either. 20 stories. Four were written by women, one was co-written by a women. That's a depressingly better ratio than most of the collections I've read so far this year.

    

The Prince of Stars by Ian Dennis I grabbed this off the shelf without realizing it's the second in a series. This author is a local so I can add to my Canadians list. It turns out that this is a sequel to the story Baghdad, which is apparently about a revolutionary group overthrowing the government and killing the Caliph. This book focuses on the surviving members of the Caliph's court, including his son, who is the Prince of Stars of the title, and it's stands alone just fine. They are running away from members of the revolutionary cult who are trying to kill the Prince while also unsuccessfully looking for allies to restore the former government. Turns out the Caliph wasn't so well-liked, much to their chagrin.

The characters are all the stereotypes - the Vizier is wise and wry, the handmaiden practical and resourceful, the Captain of the Guards brave and skilled, the eunuchs are silly and complain a lot. In spite of this it manages to be a cute little story. Dennis throws in lots of little stories that are obviously supposed to be a callback to 1001 Arabian Nights.

It's not a particularly memorable or ground-breaking book but it's a fast and fun read.


    

Sea Dragon Heir by Storm Constantine This one is Axel's. He caught me digging through the pile for more reading material and suggested I check this out so he could see if I like it as much as he does. It's pretty classic Sword & Sorcery stuff. A world where the nobility initially rose to power through their affinity with local elementals, harnessing those spirits to do things like improve weather and crops etc. Now they are hereditary dynastys, and one family in particular have conquered all the other noble houses. The main character is the descendant of a family that could control "the Sea Dragon" of the title, one of the houses that have been conquered and sworn to fealty to the Fire Dragon God of the family that has conquered them. So the good things about this book; it's well-written, atmospheric and dragged me in right from the start.

The bad thing; I hated all the characters. I think the intent was to have them all be ambivalent, but man did that ever not work. In fact the woman who is the viewpoint character for the first two-thirds of the book was somebody I loathed so much that it was actually distracting.

So to sum up, I definitely want to check out more of her writing, but only as long as it's about completely different people.

Comments

[greylock]

So to sum up, I definitely want to check out more of her writing, but only as long as it's about completely different people.

I recommend Silverheart, Sign For The Sacred or Hermetech.

I used to love Storm's writing, before.... she turned out to be crazy.

People will recommend the Wreatheueueu books, and you can, but they are so shit that Valor wrote a song about the wonderfulness of them. Her mid period was her best. And her mid-period ended in the mid-1990s. Not that I have read this series.

Terri Carr's name I know from (I think) the Universe series (also, may be Terry) and they were a pretty good series editor. (Can't get up to check:Catted).

[the_siobhan]

How is she crazy?

I gotta say, the incest stuff squicked right across the ceiling.