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Life continues to be hectic, only now there's 37 percent less year left than the last time I managed to post. How is it nearly December already?
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
I have read this book more than any other. Everything about it just works for me: the length, the pace, the setting, the atmosphere, the prose, the dialogue, the clever plot, the sly humor, the genre references, the protagonist who's very realistically constrained by time period and situation, but is still a complete badass. I've read almost a dozen other books by this author, but none of them even come close.
The White Raven – Diana L. Paxson
Meanwhile, The White Raven is probably tied with The Lord of the Rings for the book I've read the second most number of times in my life. After Rosalind Miles' Isolde (on which, more below) left me hungry for a good retelling of Tristan and Iseult, I picked Raven up for the first time in about 15 years, hoping it would still hold up.
It did. I love Paxson’s carefully researched period setting, and her deft interweaving of fantasy-spiritual elements into it. I love her depiction of a world in flux, in which Christianity is replacing Celtic religions, Franks and Saxons are replacing Britons on both sides of the Channel, and Rome's influence is fading. I love the epic scope of story as it moves from Ireland to Cornwall to Wales to Brittany and back. I love that it never eclipses the focus on the characters who populate it: what drives them or scares them or elates them. I love Paxson's numinous language. Hers is some of the best prose description of nature and natural settings I’ve encountered anywhere. I love Paxson's characters, who are fleshed out, complex, and flawed in a way that’s fallen out of fashion in more recent fantasy writing. (They will make you care about them and they will make you hurt.) I love how intricately she plotted their character arcs and how she interwove so many versions of the tale into a seamless whole. And I love her choice of Branwen as narrator, because it opens up so many elements of the story that are just afterthoughts in other tellings.
The book's obligatory-in-'80s-fantasy "it's rape but it still feels so good" chapter has, uh, not aged well, but Paxson even finds a way for this to make sense in the larger narrative. And what a punch it packs. So do the historical notes at the end, which I will continue to ignore. As far as I am concerned, The White Raven’s Marc’h and Branwen are Juniper’s Mark and Erlain, and I will accept no substitutions.
So yeah. I still really, really love this book.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
Star Mother – Charlie Holmberg
Star Mother begins with a (ahem) stellar premise: carefree protagonist is suddenly chosen by the world’s supreme deity, the Sun, to bear his child. The child will become a star whose magic helps maintain the universe. The protagonist will die giving birth to her. The first chapter is also wonderful: we get a real sense of the protagonist, her world, and her place in it.
Unfortunately, the rest doesn’t hold up, largely, I think, because Holmberg’s trying to do too many things at once. There’s the pathos of the main character’s selection to bear the Sun's child. There’s the worldbuilding of the protagonist's terrestrial’s world. There’s the worldbuilding of the Sun’s realm. There’s an epic battle between the gods. There’s time travel. There’s a world-traversing chase a la Crown Duel. There are religious politics, and inter-human drama. There are multiple (surprisingly subversive) love stories. Holmberg puts all of this into a few hundred pages (some of which have been more carefully proofread than others). There are so many interesting threads here, but none of them are well enough developed to make a satisfying whole.
I don’t regret reading this; indeed, I really enjoyed the terrestrial worldbuilding. But barring its becoming an amazon freebie some day, I doubt I’ll read the sequel.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
This book is not good. It is objectively not good. I should have really hated it. But...I didn’t?
Miles writes beautifully when describing the natural world. Her depictions of meadows, forests, ocean scenery, gardens, and the like, were lovely.
I also loved the setting, a generic high fantasy Britain a la Malory or Pyle filled with soaring castles, fluttering pennants, knights in gilded armor, fair ladies clad in silks and ropes of jewels, the works.
Miles’s characters—at least the good ones—follow a generic “Goddess” religion from which all historically accurate Celtic elements have been stripped. This is not great, but I still find it preferable to medieval Arthurian tales’ preoccupation with slaying the infidels and converting the pagan hordes. That said, there's no consistency, or even unifying thread, to this theology, and that did irritate me because it torpedoes the entire book. (Isolde True Loves Tristan but must stay in her loveless political marriage to his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to conceive, via "earth magic," the heir that will preserve matriarchal, Goddess worshiping rule over Ireland. But Isolde uses "Goddess magic" to make herself barren because she won't sleep with Mark but can't not sleep with Tristan because: True Love, and she won't abort Tristan's babies, because: True Love. But if she's barren then she can't have the magical goddess baby anyway, so why not just True Love off into the sunset with Tristan?)
But I digress. The book's weakest points, by far, are the characters and the dialogue. The dialogue. It's befuddling how an author who writes such lovely prose description can write such tin-eared dialogue. And the characters. They are cartoonish and overwrought. They have the emotional consistency of toddlers: wait, you two were just playing happily together a minute ago, so why is one of you now on the ground throwing a purple-faced screaming rage tantrum for absolutely no discernible reason while the other wants to take a nap?
It's the sort of thing that usually leaves me frothing at the mouth, but for some reason it didn't bother me anywhere close to the level this silliness actually warrants. The characters in traditional Arthurian tales are two-dimensional and inconsistent, and maybe Rosalind's scene-setting evoked that ambiance closely enough that I was willing to accept her characters' two-dimensionality and inconsistency as of a piece with it. Otherwise, I just don't know.
In fact, it's so bad I found myself wondering whether Miles was having a joke at readers' expense:
Who will aid me? thought Isolde.
Whoooo knows? echoed the owls in the bell tower as Isolde roamed on.
Miles also has a really, really weird thing with eyes:
Merlin’s eyes glowed like moons.
Tristan’s eyes glowed like moons, and he felt an animal power surging through his veins.
His yellow eyes were like flaming winter suns.
Isolde’s eyes were huge, blind pools.
His fingers groaned with rings like serpents’ eyes…
Mark’s eyes bulged like a schoolboy’s, and he jeered.
She leaned over the gallery rail, her eyes raining daggers on the scene below.
The maid scrambled for the door, her round pale eyes like cartwheels in the dark.
Turquin’s face was twisted with rage, and his unmatched eyes were spinning like wheels of fire.
Isolde saw her patient shudder, his eyes out on stalks.
You get the picture.
So yeah. Objectively not good, but I still read the whole thing in two days and didn't dislike it, even though I probably should have. Make of all this what you will.
What I Am Currently Reading
In A Dark Wood – Michael Cadnum
One of my traditional November/December reads.
League of Dragons – Naomi Novik
This series is another seasonal read.
Rebel Buddha – Dzogchen Ponlop
Incisively written, with not a wasted word.
A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett
The Nac Mac Feegle books are another traditional winter read for me.
What I’m Reading Next
Nothing this week, as I continue to chip away at the TBR backlog.
What I Still Have Left To Reviewt
The Crone ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ Senlin Ascends ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
I have read this book more than any other. Everything about it just works for me: the length, the pace, the setting, the atmosphere, the prose, the dialogue, the clever plot, the sly humor, the genre references, the protagonist who's very realistically constrained by time period and situation, but is still a complete badass. I've read almost a dozen other books by this author, but none of them even come close.
The White Raven – Diana L. Paxson
Meanwhile, The White Raven is probably tied with The Lord of the Rings for the book I've read the second most number of times in my life. After Rosalind Miles' Isolde (on which, more below) left me hungry for a good retelling of Tristan and Iseult, I picked Raven up for the first time in about 15 years, hoping it would still hold up.
It did. I love Paxson’s carefully researched period setting, and her deft interweaving of fantasy-spiritual elements into it. I love her depiction of a world in flux, in which Christianity is replacing Celtic religions, Franks and Saxons are replacing Britons on both sides of the Channel, and Rome's influence is fading. I love the epic scope of story as it moves from Ireland to Cornwall to Wales to Brittany and back. I love that it never eclipses the focus on the characters who populate it: what drives them or scares them or elates them. I love Paxson's numinous language. Hers is some of the best prose description of nature and natural settings I’ve encountered anywhere. I love Paxson's characters, who are fleshed out, complex, and flawed in a way that’s fallen out of fashion in more recent fantasy writing. (They will make you care about them and they will make you hurt.) I love how intricately she plotted their character arcs and how she interwove so many versions of the tale into a seamless whole. And I love her choice of Branwen as narrator, because it opens up so many elements of the story that are just afterthoughts in other tellings.
The book's obligatory-in-'80s-fantasy "it's rape but it still feels so good" chapter has, uh, not aged well, but Paxson even finds a way for this to make sense in the larger narrative. And what a punch it packs. So do the historical notes at the end, which I will continue to ignore. As far as I am concerned, The White Raven’s Marc’h and Branwen are Juniper’s Mark and Erlain, and I will accept no substitutions.
So yeah. I still really, really love this book.
What I Finished Reading At Some Point In The Past Four Months
Star Mother – Charlie Holmberg
Star Mother begins with a (ahem) stellar premise: carefree protagonist is suddenly chosen by the world’s supreme deity, the Sun, to bear his child. The child will become a star whose magic helps maintain the universe. The protagonist will die giving birth to her. The first chapter is also wonderful: we get a real sense of the protagonist, her world, and her place in it.
Unfortunately, the rest doesn’t hold up, largely, I think, because Holmberg’s trying to do too many things at once. There’s the pathos of the main character’s selection to bear the Sun's child. There’s the worldbuilding of the protagonist's terrestrial’s world. There’s the worldbuilding of the Sun’s realm. There’s an epic battle between the gods. There’s time travel. There’s a world-traversing chase a la Crown Duel. There are religious politics, and inter-human drama. There are multiple (surprisingly subversive) love stories. Holmberg puts all of this into a few hundred pages (some of which have been more carefully proofread than others). There are so many interesting threads here, but none of them are well enough developed to make a satisfying whole.
I don’t regret reading this; indeed, I really enjoyed the terrestrial worldbuilding. But barring its becoming an amazon freebie some day, I doubt I’ll read the sequel.
Isolde – Rosalind Miles
This book is not good. It is objectively not good. I should have really hated it. But...I didn’t?
Miles writes beautifully when describing the natural world. Her depictions of meadows, forests, ocean scenery, gardens, and the like, were lovely.
I also loved the setting, a generic high fantasy Britain a la Malory or Pyle filled with soaring castles, fluttering pennants, knights in gilded armor, fair ladies clad in silks and ropes of jewels, the works.
Miles’s characters—at least the good ones—follow a generic “Goddess” religion from which all historically accurate Celtic elements have been stripped. This is not great, but I still find it preferable to medieval Arthurian tales’ preoccupation with slaying the infidels and converting the pagan hordes. That said, there's no consistency, or even unifying thread, to this theology, and that did irritate me because it torpedoes the entire book. (Isolde True Loves Tristan but must stay in her loveless political marriage to his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to conceive, via "earth magic," the heir that will preserve matriarchal, Goddess worshiping rule over Ireland. But Isolde uses "Goddess magic" to make herself barren because she won't sleep with Mark but can't not sleep with Tristan because: True Love, and she won't abort Tristan's babies, because: True Love. But if she's barren then she can't have the magical goddess baby anyway, so why not just True Love off into the sunset with Tristan?)
But I digress. The book's weakest points, by far, are the characters and the dialogue. The dialogue. It's befuddling how an author who writes such lovely prose description can write such tin-eared dialogue. And the characters. They are cartoonish and overwrought. They have the emotional consistency of toddlers: wait, you two were just playing happily together a minute ago, so why is one of you now on the ground throwing a purple-faced screaming rage tantrum for absolutely no discernible reason while the other wants to take a nap?
It's the sort of thing that usually leaves me frothing at the mouth, but for some reason it didn't bother me anywhere close to the level this silliness actually warrants. The characters in traditional Arthurian tales are two-dimensional and inconsistent, and maybe Rosalind's scene-setting evoked that ambiance closely enough that I was willing to accept her characters' two-dimensionality and inconsistency as of a piece with it. Otherwise, I just don't know.
In fact, it's so bad I found myself wondering whether Miles was having a joke at readers' expense:
Who will aid me? thought Isolde.
Whoooo knows? echoed the owls in the bell tower as Isolde roamed on.
Miles also has a really, really weird thing with eyes:
Merlin’s eyes glowed like moons.
Tristan’s eyes glowed like moons, and he felt an animal power surging through his veins.
His yellow eyes were like flaming winter suns.
Isolde’s eyes were huge, blind pools.
His fingers groaned with rings like serpents’ eyes…
Mark’s eyes bulged like a schoolboy’s, and he jeered.
She leaned over the gallery rail, her eyes raining daggers on the scene below.
The maid scrambled for the door, her round pale eyes like cartwheels in the dark.
Turquin’s face was twisted with rage, and his unmatched eyes were spinning like wheels of fire.
Isolde saw her patient shudder, his eyes out on stalks.
You get the picture.
So yeah. Objectively not good, but I still read the whole thing in two days and didn't dislike it, even though I probably should have. Make of all this what you will.
What I Am Currently Reading
In A Dark Wood – Michael Cadnum
One of my traditional November/December reads.
League of Dragons – Naomi Novik
This series is another seasonal read.
Rebel Buddha – Dzogchen Ponlop
Incisively written, with not a wasted word.
A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett
The Nac Mac Feegle books are another traditional winter read for me.
What I’m Reading Next
Nothing this week, as I continue to chip away at the TBR backlog.
What I Still Have Left To Reviewt
The Crone ・ The Kingdoms ・ The Last Graduate ・ Senlin Ascends ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (1) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (2) ・ 最遊記ＲＥＬＯＡＤ ＢＬＡＳＴ (3)
これで以上です。
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