Books made of win
Aug. 4th, 2013 03:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethEarlier this week I read Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue Light Special. I <3 them so much I put them aside to write about because all that was coming to mind was high pitched noises and some bouncing. I was reading them and sort of curling up around the book with happy, rocking and hugging and grinning and liking them very much indeed. The thing is if I hadn't read ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seanan_mcguire elsewhere, like in excellent stories on her LJ or site, I wouldn't have known to order these. They weren't on the shelves in Waterstones :-( And her other series I can't get them to order in at all. They have her other pen name, Mira Grant, but I cannot make them acquire the books after Rosemary and Rue. Also, if they had been on the shelf, I might have looked at the very pink very short skirt high heels girl on the front cover and given up. And that would have been a mistake, because the cover picture is for once totally accurate and yet pink high heels dancer Verity Price is totally awesome. The important clue is the gun, and the katana, and the throwing knives on her arms. She's a ballroom dancing cocktail waitress, and she turns these things into ways to save the world. Even the high heels turn out to be part of her training to save the world. It's surprising what you can do when you can run en pointe. Being the most girly girl in the room is in this case integral to being the most kick arse. <3 <3 <3
She learned dance because the skills are transferable to martial arts and monster hunting. She works in the bar to meet all the most interesting monsters. And at one point, she fights a battle by making sure it has the right soundtrack.
... yes, it totally makes sense when you get there. And it is both awesome and fun.
I like how she has the Buffy dilemma but it isn't some ill defined choice between fighting and a nebulous 'normal' life. She has specific goals for her normal. She's going to be a ballroom dancing champion. Her family thinks she's going to be a cryptozoologist like the rest of them but she sets out to show them she can make it in her chosen career. It only takes the two books to resolve that though, and to sort out the angsty trenchcoat dude in her love life. But by then her family are so interesting I'm looking forward to the next book being about someone else. Even though I'd also totally ready Verity some more. I just trust they'll all be good to spend time with.
Every character is made of <3 and squee noises. Like, she makes a friend who dresses all gothic lolita, with lace and frills and impractical button boots, and then says stuff like "If you interfere in any manner with our continued survival, I will play skipping games with your intestines while wearing your lungs as a hat."
<3 *hugs book*
... okay, so, if she doesn't sound like made of awesome, you know if you want to read this book.
It's not that every girl is frilly perfection. Some people are more with the computer geek cardigan look. Or they look kind of dead and disturbing and wear fuzzy pyjamas. There's lots of ways to be a girl. And there are no wrong ways to be a girl. And they all have their own ways to be awesome.
Plus! Cryptids. Who are not human, though they may or may not look human. And here I bump a little into how I don't like difference being attributed to species, because then what does the cheerful Vulcan feel like? Except the cryptids Verity hangs out with are the cheerful Vulcan, in many cases; their species has particular patterns of thought and usual ways of acting, but the individuals are distinct within their species. So then it just boils down to 'people that think differently, but just as well'.
*hugs book lots*
Basically if you need more :-D and eeeeee and saving the world through the power of awesome women and making friends then you might like to take a look at the InCryptid novels. They are just so much fun, and the central characters have friends, romantic relationships, work relationships, dance partners, and family, of different genders, orientations, and ways of thinking, and interact with them all in distinct ways. They don't just talk to other women about something other than a man, they get stuff done together.
:-D
The other book I read this week was 13 by Kelley Armstrong, the final-for-now book of Women of the Otherworld. It follows closely on from Waking the Witch and Spellbound, to a degree where I can see why they're three books but the earlier two didn't exactly feel complete in themselves and the last one made me want to go re-read at least those two for more of a run up on feeling involved with these characters. It wraps a lot of story threads, like a lot of story threads. If you've read and adored the series, this pulls everyone together in interesting ways. If you haven't read the series do not for goodness sake try and start here, it would make no sense at all, unlike most of the series. Most of them seem more like stand alone books about various people, this one you really need to know which way is up and who is who. And there's a through line within the story, an emotional thing and a personal growth thing and the point of view character getting things resolved, but I felt like the whole thing was so busy I was getting bounced around a lot instead of following it through with her. So, I'm not going to judge 13 as a book by itself, I'm going to set it aside and then re-read the whole series some time and see how it feels as the wrap to that. As is it was only okay, at best. But a lot happened that would maybe make more sense with more of the threads fresh in mind.
Today I finished re-reading The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff. It's in a double book with Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light. She says in the front they were the third and fourth books she wrote and the ones where she started feeling like she'd got the hang of it. I felt there were a few jarring moments of lumpy plot or overwrought emotion in these two, but they're still good reads. Not easy reading. The Fire's Stone has a whole plot thread about one guy trying to stop being an alcoholic for long enough to save his city, and there are many days I could do without reading about alcoholics. But both of them also have a guy accepting he's fallen in love with a guy as part of their saving the world process. Like, they start out being all in denial they could have that kind of feeling, but they have to get over it to get through the plot.
I liked it in Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light when the guy was in love with an angel, and there's this moment where the Darkness asks him about it and he's on the edge of denying it, but then he realises that's denying the Light, denying love would send him closer to Darkness. Saying he loves the guy is saying he loves the Light, goodness, team angels etc Books with guys falling in love with guys while saving the world? <3
In The Fire's Stone it's more like they have to each get past their personal issues to be able to concentrate on the world saving, and I felt it was a bit unsubtle, but then the love triangle gets resolved with a happily ever after threesome. One that may well involve the girl of them being happily asexual and just kind of moving the guys in to be best friends forever. Variety in princess stories! Yaays!
The Gate book also ends with a woman who just doesn't do sex, as well as including a woman who has plenty of sex happily, and the men in love, and it's just kind of a relief to have some variety going on. It's like fanfic relationships, in a good way. There's not just the one template for how things work out.
I wouldn't recommend either of these books as a place to start with this author, and I re-read them less often than any of her series, but I'm feeling vaguely cheerful now I've read them. Which is of the good.
I need to find more authors to read. The ones I know are awesome, but I read like a book a day and that means getting through even prolific authors really fast.
Thankfully, fanfic.
seanan_mcguire elsewhere, like in excellent stories on her LJ or site, I wouldn't have known to order these. They weren't on the shelves in Waterstones :-( And her other series I can't get them to order in at all. They have her other pen name, Mira Grant, but I cannot make them acquire the books after Rosemary and Rue. Also, if they had been on the shelf, I might have looked at the very pink very short skirt high heels girl on the front cover and given up. And that would have been a mistake, because the cover picture is for once totally accurate and yet pink high heels dancer Verity Price is totally awesome. The important clue is the gun, and the katana, and the throwing knives on her arms. She's a ballroom dancing cocktail waitress, and she turns these things into ways to save the world. Even the high heels turn out to be part of her training to save the world. It's surprising what you can do when you can run en pointe. Being the most girly girl in the room is in this case integral to being the most kick arse. <3 <3 <3She learned dance because the skills are transferable to martial arts and monster hunting. She works in the bar to meet all the most interesting monsters. And at one point, she fights a battle by making sure it has the right soundtrack.
... yes, it totally makes sense when you get there. And it is both awesome and fun.
I like how she has the Buffy dilemma but it isn't some ill defined choice between fighting and a nebulous 'normal' life. She has specific goals for her normal. She's going to be a ballroom dancing champion. Her family thinks she's going to be a cryptozoologist like the rest of them but she sets out to show them she can make it in her chosen career. It only takes the two books to resolve that though, and to sort out the angsty trenchcoat dude in her love life. But by then her family are so interesting I'm looking forward to the next book being about someone else. Even though I'd also totally ready Verity some more. I just trust they'll all be good to spend time with.
Every character is made of <3 and squee noises. Like, she makes a friend who dresses all gothic lolita, with lace and frills and impractical button boots, and then says stuff like "If you interfere in any manner with our continued survival, I will play skipping games with your intestines while wearing your lungs as a hat."
<3 *hugs book*
... okay, so, if she doesn't sound like made of awesome, you know if you want to read this book.
It's not that every girl is frilly perfection. Some people are more with the computer geek cardigan look. Or they look kind of dead and disturbing and wear fuzzy pyjamas. There's lots of ways to be a girl. And there are no wrong ways to be a girl. And they all have their own ways to be awesome.
Plus! Cryptids. Who are not human, though they may or may not look human. And here I bump a little into how I don't like difference being attributed to species, because then what does the cheerful Vulcan feel like? Except the cryptids Verity hangs out with are the cheerful Vulcan, in many cases; their species has particular patterns of thought and usual ways of acting, but the individuals are distinct within their species. So then it just boils down to 'people that think differently, but just as well'.
*hugs book lots*
Basically if you need more :-D and eeeeee and saving the world through the power of awesome women and making friends then you might like to take a look at the InCryptid novels. They are just so much fun, and the central characters have friends, romantic relationships, work relationships, dance partners, and family, of different genders, orientations, and ways of thinking, and interact with them all in distinct ways. They don't just talk to other women about something other than a man, they get stuff done together.
:-D
The other book I read this week was 13 by Kelley Armstrong, the final-for-now book of Women of the Otherworld. It follows closely on from Waking the Witch and Spellbound, to a degree where I can see why they're three books but the earlier two didn't exactly feel complete in themselves and the last one made me want to go re-read at least those two for more of a run up on feeling involved with these characters. It wraps a lot of story threads, like a lot of story threads. If you've read and adored the series, this pulls everyone together in interesting ways. If you haven't read the series do not for goodness sake try and start here, it would make no sense at all, unlike most of the series. Most of them seem more like stand alone books about various people, this one you really need to know which way is up and who is who. And there's a through line within the story, an emotional thing and a personal growth thing and the point of view character getting things resolved, but I felt like the whole thing was so busy I was getting bounced around a lot instead of following it through with her. So, I'm not going to judge 13 as a book by itself, I'm going to set it aside and then re-read the whole series some time and see how it feels as the wrap to that. As is it was only okay, at best. But a lot happened that would maybe make more sense with more of the threads fresh in mind.
Today I finished re-reading The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff. It's in a double book with Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light. She says in the front they were the third and fourth books she wrote and the ones where she started feeling like she'd got the hang of it. I felt there were a few jarring moments of lumpy plot or overwrought emotion in these two, but they're still good reads. Not easy reading. The Fire's Stone has a whole plot thread about one guy trying to stop being an alcoholic for long enough to save his city, and there are many days I could do without reading about alcoholics. But both of them also have a guy accepting he's fallen in love with a guy as part of their saving the world process. Like, they start out being all in denial they could have that kind of feeling, but they have to get over it to get through the plot.
I liked it in Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light when the guy was in love with an angel, and there's this moment where the Darkness asks him about it and he's on the edge of denying it, but then he realises that's denying the Light, denying love would send him closer to Darkness. Saying he loves the guy is saying he loves the Light, goodness, team angels etc Books with guys falling in love with guys while saving the world? <3
In The Fire's Stone it's more like they have to each get past their personal issues to be able to concentrate on the world saving, and I felt it was a bit unsubtle, but then the love triangle gets resolved with a happily ever after threesome. One that may well involve the girl of them being happily asexual and just kind of moving the guys in to be best friends forever. Variety in princess stories! Yaays!
The Gate book also ends with a woman who just doesn't do sex, as well as including a woman who has plenty of sex happily, and the men in love, and it's just kind of a relief to have some variety going on. It's like fanfic relationships, in a good way. There's not just the one template for how things work out.
I wouldn't recommend either of these books as a place to start with this author, and I re-read them less often than any of her series, but I'm feeling vaguely cheerful now I've read them. Which is of the good.
I need to find more authors to read. The ones I know are awesome, but I read like a book a day and that means getting through even prolific authors really fast.
Thankfully, fanfic.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-04 02:30 pm (UTC)The books written under Mira Grant are hard science fiction; the Newsflesh trilogy is very good but very emotionally intense. Not the thing to read if you're in a down mood already.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-05 05:38 pm (UTC)Mira Grant books I have read enough reviews of to know they are not my cup of tea. not cheerful. it's just puzzling that they're the only sort I can find on the shelves.