2020 books: 14-17

[the_siobhan]

Didn't even make it to 20 books this year. Not super surprising I guess.



    

Mr Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange This one showed up in the Library so I grabbed it because it was ridiculous. Jane Austin fanfic! With Vampires! It turned out to be quite well written. Grange likes Austin and likes the characters and it comes through in the writing. Most of the story is taken up by their honeymoon and the vampire reveal comes quite late. If I have one complaint it's that the writer really didn't sell me on the the whole vampirism is a curse angle. Her vampires only have one of the sensitivities that are normally supposed to be ways to defeat them - garlic, crosses, daylight, etc. They also don't have to drink human blood if they don't want to. But they still get the superpowers and immortality. So Darcy's angst about potentially infecting his wife in a moment of passion seems kinda displaced to me.

When I went looking for a link to the book I found out there is a youtube trailer for it and it is delightfully cheesy. "Is there a story Jane Austin was afraid to tell!" Fantastic!

Watch on YouTube

    

A Fine Mess by Kim Duke The Old Man asked me to get him this book because he saw an interview with the author and was interested in what she had to say. He ended up giving it to me once he was done with it. I think he was a little disappointed in it. There's not much meat here - just some inspirational quotes in flowing script and big colourful pictures of butterflys 'n shit. It took me about 10 minutes to get through the whole thing.

    

Wayward Kindred by TO Comix Press These anthologies are consistently great. As you can probably guess from the title, it's about family and about monsters and about having monsters in the family. (Or being the monster in the family.) There is always a variety of art styles in these anthologies, I can always find several stories to love.

    

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman I think this is one of Axel's. Anyway I found it on the bookshelf so I started reading it. I'm about 80% of the way through it now. I went through a period where I read a whole stack of Gaiman's books and I think I burnt myself out a little because it's been a few years. Re-visiting his writing I think it's because I always find his characters a little detached. It works really well for his short stories, but I think I can find it more difficult in his full-length novels where I'm supposed to care about the people in them. Having said all that, there is a ton of variety here and I've been really enjoying it. My favourite story so far is Click Clack The Rattlebag, which is just amazingly creepy.

Comments

[greylock]

I am guessing you have had the distinct, uh, pleasure of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? I finally saw the film version a few years ago, and from what I remember it was huge chunks of Austin (or Austin-sounding words)... plus zombies.

They also don't have to drink human blood if they don't want to.

Blood drinking (human or animal) is literally the definition of a vampire. I'm getting a weird Twilight vibe from this bit.

[the_siobhan]

I have not actually. I think I got a bit burnt out on zombies.

[houseof9cats]

I find Gaiman to be generally aristocratic in that British aristocratic echo chamber way. These London prep school art guys even flip their hair with the same characteristic motion. (#myartgallerycareer) I agree it makes his characters hollow.