Book recommendations
Mar. 2nd, 2008 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amethyst73One 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.
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.
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Date: 2008-03-02 09:35 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2008-03-03 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 04:06 am (UTC)(Was it for the obvious character-relationships reason, or something else? I could readily see either, honestly, but I liked it anyway.)
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Date: 2008-03-03 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 09:22 pm (UTC)