Book recommendations

[amethyst73]

One of the ways I entertained myself during the Cold That Would Not Die was by reading.  I've had the great good luck to read three quite good fantasy novels.

Magic Street, by Orson Scott Card.
    Mack Street is the adopted boy from nowhere in a middle-class black Los Angeles suburb.  He's different, though: in his dreams he sees the deepest desires of his friends and neighbors, then watches horrified as those desires come true in the worst possible ways in his waking life.  The book follows his growing up, coming of age, discovering his true nature, and saving the world along the way.
     One of the most interesting subplots in the book follows one of Mack's friends in his search for religious power.  About halfway through the book, he sees Mack apparently perform a miraculous healing, so he knows such things are possible.  Card does a really nice job of portraying the character's elation, confusion, and thought processes as he receives uncanny knowledge of the churchmembers to whom he preaches and realizes that this power might be from God.. or from someone else.  Refreshingly, I saw no sign of Card's usual Mormon sermonizing.  Its originality is a nice change from some of his other relatively recent books: it's neither the grim polemic of Empire (which I have to admit I returned to the library after reading the first two chapters because I couldn't stand it), nor is it yet another view on Ender's Game. 

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
    If you've read Gaiman's excellent American Gods, (full text free online till end of March!) you know all about Anansi, the African trickster and spider god.  Like Odin, it turns out that Anansi had progeny.  Fat Charlie Nancy grew up being constantly embarrased by his eccentric father.  At his father's funeral, he learns two facts: his father was a god, and he has a brother.  The brothers meet, and general mayhem ensues. 
      The tone of this book is considerably lighter than its forerunner.  There's no saving the world here.  Instead, the book explores the relationship between the two brothers (one of whom appears to have gotten all the god-stuff, and the other of which apparently got nothing), what happens when they meet, and the raw power of storytelling.  As in Magic Street, the characters here are Afro-Am (or maybe just Afro), and there's a solid dose of fairy-tale here too.  But the occasional tales scattered throughout the novel are both older and fresher than the mythos behind Magic Street - older in their origin, and fresher because most readers won't have seen them before.  This book also takes itself much less seriously than both Magic Street and American Gods: instead of the slightly stentorian tone of "The world will be destroyed if this one person fails in his task" that the other books take, it's more like listening to a favorite uncle spin an embellished yarn on his coming of age.  It's a rollicking jaunt which reads well aloud.  Thanks very much for the loan, nezumiko!

Hallowed Hunt, by Lois McMaster Bujold
    Bujold is probably best known for her Barryar sci-fi/adventure series.  I never really got into them; a friend gave us a copy of The Vor Game some years ago, and apart from it being instantly clear that there was a heck of a lot of back story that I was missing, I was unimpressed with the storyline of Important Kid Slips Through Adventures by the Skin of his Teeth and Gets Massively Rewarded.  A friend later lent me the first couple of books of the series.  Having grown up watching the first Star Trek series, I felt on reading the early Barryar novels that I had largely been there and done that.  Intrepid space captain saves (perfectly capable) damsel in distress: yawn.
    Hallowed Hunt is completely outside the Barryar universe, instead taking place in a moderately typical medieval-fantasy setting.  (I now realize that it's book 3 in Bujold's Chalion series - clearly, I need to go find books 1 and 2.)  There's religion aplenty, the gods are real, and a very few people carry animal spirits as well as their own souls - though generally not by choice.  The storyline follows Ingrey kin Wolfcliff (guess what his animal spirit is?) and his encounter with two others who bear spirits other than their own.  There's a great deal of intrigue here: Bujold does a great job in giving the reader a little bit of information at a time.  Even after the halfway point in the book, when most of the salient details have been revealed, the story remains both gripping and pleasantly well-written. 

Comments

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

Odd, I absolutely could not get into "Magic Street." I gave it several tries and never got past page 30 or so--I found the dialects and certain overly-colorful details too off-putting.

I enjoyed the Hallowed Hunt, and I recommend the whole series, but you should be aware that they are not really a trilogy in the traditional sense. Each has its own protagonist and they are not temporally contiguous. The second, Paladin of Souls, was my favorite and the first, Curse of Chalion, definitely my least favorite. I greatly enjoyed the Barrayar books, and would have taken great exception to your comments on them a year or two ago, but I think Bujold is gradually wearing off on me. I just tried the first book in her new fantasy series, the Sharing Knife, which I was really looking forward to, and I couldn't get through it. The female protagonist is such an idiot that I nearly threw the book out the window. :(

I have never read anything by Neil Gaiman, which I am ashamed to admit. He's been hovering at the top of my to-read list for a while, so hopefully the free American Gods offer will finally draw me in.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Just to be contrary, I enjoyed The Hallowed Hunt, but preferred The Curse of Chalion to The Paladin of Souls pretty much start to finish. I need more data points (stolen_tea?) but I suspect there may be a stronger-than-usual (for Bujold) gender split involved there, in which case it's probably best if amethyst73 ignores my opinion. :-)

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

Hubby hated Curse of Chalion to the point of refusing to read the others. :) I think I liked the Paladin of Souls mostly for its theological ideas, which I found fascinating.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Interesting and novel data point, that. Thanks! :-)
(Was it for the obvious character-relationships reason, or something else? I could readily see either, honestly, but I liked it anyway.)

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

As of right now, he is claiming to find Bujold's writing style fundamentally incompatible with fantasy, but not to remember anything more specific. (That was years ago. He was working at a bookstore at the time and we got to read an advance copy.) So, it's not really good data about the series, because obviously I can't compare how he reacted to the other two.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting statement to make. I happen to disagree, but would be really interested in hearing evidence to support his thesis - difficult at best, obviously, since this was a long time ago. Or possibly hearing about an author whose writing he feels *is* fundamentally compatible with fantasy - that would work too.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can get him over here to speak for himself. :)

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

Re: Bujold - One of the things I like the best about her Vorkosigan series is that the characters change over time, and thus to some degree the stories do, too. My favorite of them all is one set a few books after the Vor Game, wherein Miles screws up big, loses a lot of things that were important to him, and learns to deal with the consequences.

And yes, the very first one in that universe, "Shards of Honor", was originally designed as Star Trek fanfic, featuring a Federation officer and a Klingon officer. :)

I do think you picked two of the more conventional books in that series, but ce la vie. :)

[nezumiko.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you about the Vorkosigan series. The character changes and the degree of detail in that universe is what really makes those books work for me. And yes the book where Miles gets his comeuppance is definitely the best. It's a turning point for a character who has coasted on the coat tails of a famous father and lived in a kind of charmed adolescence well past the age when most young men should be starting to grow up. In a way it's a bit of a classic tragedy where we see the protagonist come to ill essentially at his own hands.

The other thing, to repeat myself, that I adore about the Vorkosigan books, is the world they are in. I love the different types and strata of society (Ethan of Athos is one of my favorites) and the ancillary characters, who all themselves grow and change to some extent. When Miles is growing tedious on me, I need only look so far as Gregor or Bel Thorne or Koudelka to remember that there are other utterly different, and really quite complex and likable characters there.

I also love the way the focus can shift so radically from the close up views of the prejudices and rustic folkways of the peasantry on Barrayar, to the vast political machinations at an interplanetary level over control of worm holes and space bases.

Bujold has her weaknesses, yes, but her strengths at world building make up for them, and are what inspire me most about her writing.

Clearly I need to give her fantasy series a try.

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's her world building that's most impressive. And I think you will like the Chalion world.

On another note, I was going to suggest amethyst try Ethan of Athos as a side entry into the Vorkosigan books. It's become one of my favorites too.

[nezumiko.livejournal.com]

Clearly I wish I knew you better. I know amethyst from the Palo Alto incarnation of Stroy Raednig. Are you one of her East Coast buddies?

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

Yep, although amethyst and I only actually overlapped by one year in school. She and her husband were friends with my husband before that, though.

Edit: To be clear, none of us were married back then. She and her husband-to-be were friends with my husband-to-be before I met him, or them.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

I will try it! As noted above, I've only read two or three books in the series (which appear to have been unfortunate choices/bits of luck), and am willing to give other chunks of the series a chance.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

Well, I really do like The Vor Game; as hyperactive military sci-fi goes, I think it's darn good, although I understand that it's not your thing.

But there's also the one with the evil twin clone, the one where Miles spends most of it dead or amnesiac, the palace intrigue mystery, the romance, the comedy of manners, and some very good short stories in the genre of knights-in-shining-spaceships.

I'd recommend finding some of the omnibus editions; they usually have two or three stories in them, which should give you a flavor.

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

That may well be. It's nice to know that I was getting the "Hey, this sounds like Star Trek" vibe for a very good reason!

It does sound from the comments others have made like there's better and more interesting books in the series to be found, and that I should give at least parts of the series a second chance.

[nezumiko.livejournal.com]

OOOH, thanks for these awesome book reviews. These are interesting to read, insightful and informative. Who knew that that dreaded beast from third grade, the Book Report, would grow up to be such a likable little critter?

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I had fun writing them. I think it makes a great deal of difference in the level of enjoyment on both the writer and reader's part if something is written because one *wants* to write it. :)

Magic Street

[(Anonymous)]

My wife and I try to read EVERYTHING Card writes. If you liked Magic Street, you should too. The Ender's Game sequence was awesome (and I got onto Ender's Game when it was still only a short story! That's a looong time ago!) BTW, his Biblical fiction (e.g. Sara) is good too!

- Kaffen