Dust Cover Dust-Up 2014: Round Two, Part Six

Only two battles in this last part of Round Two, but one of them involves three books, because I find it impossible to read enough books to exactly make this match even tournament numbers.

So, to end off Round Two, we have:

The Habitation of the Blessed  vs. Diplomatic Immunity

Winner: Habitation of the Blessed

Catherynne Valente vs. Lois McMaster Bujold. Two of the writers I have most enjoyed reading the last little while. Both of whom have won previous battle in this round. So how do they fare up against each other? While I liked Diplomatic Immunity quite a lot, it wasn't my favourite of the Miles books I read this year. And The Habitation of the Blessed was a strange book, but it was just my kind of strange. Plus, I found a quote in it that perfectly sums up the fraught relationship between my character and another PC in our pulp Seven Stars of Atlantis game. So, Valente wins this one.


Malice of Fortune vs. The Broken Kingdoms vs. Dawn 

Winner: The Broken Kingdoms

Michael Ennis is out of the running right away, as I liked Malice of Fortune, but didn't love it. Then we come down to two books I really did like quite a lot, both genre books, both written by Black women. And it's hard to choose! Butler knocks me on my ass quite a bit, although I didn't find Dawn as affecting as The Parable of the Sower. And I loved the work N.K. Jemisin is creating, and the characters she's populating it with. I think Broken Kingdoms gets it here, but it's a close one.

Saga Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan

Another book loaned to me by the lovely Melissa, this one was handed to me telling me that not only should I read it because this is a great series, but also because there was a naked unicorn woman with purple hair in it. This sounds a little weird, but that has particular resonance for a game we played a while ago about teenage monsters, in which one player had a unicorn character. Who may have had purple hair?

At any rate, it was a synchronicity. But I already knew I wanted to read this volume. I wasn't a huge fan of Y: The Last Man, but Saga has been excellent. It's a hard review to write, though, since I've already written reviews for the first two graphic novel collections. What can I possibly say that is new, particularly when the graphic novels are so slim?

I guess I can say this: it continues to be excellent. The themes of pacifism and ending war continue to be well-drawn, and to this mix in this volume are added a couple of gay journalists tracking the story of the lovers from different sides of the war, and although they work for a tabloid, find their lives, love, and livelihood threatened by those who want no whisper of cooperation between the two sides to get out.

We also get reminded how much the two sides hate each other when the main male character's ex-girlfriend shows up, and promptly starts not only expressing her hurt, but saying some pretty nasty racial slurs about his new wife. It took me by surprise a bit, but it's good to get the reminder just how transgressive this relationship is.

What else? I don't know. The value of normalcy? That's here. What do you do when you've rebelled your rebellion and need to find something else to do with your life? That's here too, and of course complicated by their continued need to be on the run. I do like that the grandmother and the author are trying to manipulate them into a career without ever being seen to do so.

The guys with TVs for heads are back, of course, and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on there. They're the royal family, but do they have any real power? I guess we'll see.

And of course, there is the world's sweetest moment between Lying Cat and Slave Girl. It's lovely.
In summary, this continues to be an excellent series, and I look forward to the next.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

This is the sort of book that immediately makes me want to start writing about it in terms of other books. There are the obvious ones, the riffs on Harry Potter, and to an even greater extent, Narnia. But then there's all the bits about privileged kids who don't feel like the world is conforming to their expectations the way it should, and it reminds me of Catcher in the Rye, or The Secret History, although with even more self-awareness that just because they feel that way, it doesn't mean that that's reasonable.

What that does mean, though, that this is the sort of book that immediately sends my mind trailing off into other books. In this case, it's a very good thing. It makes me think, and compare it to other books on roughly similar topics, because this is not exactly untrodden territory. It has never been mapped, perhaps, quite like this.

This book was thrust onto my active reading list when my friend Melissa loaned it to me (perhaps the only guaranteed way to make that happen is to get me a physical copy). I was a little hesitant - I do read books friends recommend, but I'm always a little worried that I won't like something that someone holds very dear, and I knew she absolutely loved this one.

I needn't have worried. I was only a few pages in when I started to relax and realize I was reading something really excellent. The writing reassured me, and the story swept me along. So, let's take each of those, and things I've heard people say about this book, and why I think they're wrong.

The writing is really good, guys. Grossman has a knack for, not overly descriptive writing, but getting to the core of an idea in a few well-placed words. There is a trick of phrasing that makes the little beast in my head go "Yes. That's right. That's exactly it." He has it. I'm not sure it can be taught. When you find writers like that, you can relax and let go and just be swept along. I'm delighted to have found another one.

As for plot...well, it's about a young man named Quentin (17 when the book starts, I think) who is disappointed in the world, and looking forward to college, but feeling dissatisfied with that too. Until he gets admitted to a school for magic, which is why people make the Harry Potter reference. The school is nothing like Hogwarts though, and magic in Grossman's world is long, grinding, difficult, and only attracts the type of smart, obsessive, unhappy adolescent who can't understand why the world isn't the way they think it should be, and tries to bend reality to their will.

Except even with magic, it's not enough. There's nothing that would ever be enough, if it's a matter of wanting the world to reward you with happiness. Happiness doesn't work that way. It's too nebulous a term to satisfy. Quentin is the sort of person who, even when he gets what he wants, immediately starts looking for reasons why it's not what he was promised.

Quentin is obsessed with an obviously-Narnia based series of children's book about the land of Fillory, and near the end of the book, gets the opportunity to travel there, expecting that to solve all his problems. Guess what?

I'm not going to say anymore. The plot matches the writing, is all. It's all great.

So, let's get to what I've heard. The characters are unlikeable. Well, they're kind of prats - or, at least, Quentin is a prat, and so are some of the other characters from the school of magic. But it's not like you're supposed to think that they're right, or deep, or living life to the fullest. This book has a lot about the emptiness of not having a purpose, or consciously avoiding a purpose, because you want the perfect purpose to just appear, like a fairytale, complete with maidens and coronations. There are plenty of characters who are likeable. Alice, for instance.

Here's the point, though. I don't want to be like Quentin. I don't even like Quentin. But I recognize the distant strands of thought that sometimes drift through my head, wanting to be rewarded for being awesome, and for the world to recognize my amazingness and all that adolescent stuff that, thankfully, most of us grow out of. Quentin's around that age. He has all the power that magic can bring him. I'm going to be interested to see where he goes.

You're not supposed to want to be Quentin. But I would be very much surprised if you didn't recognize him. And through him, Grossman has some things to say about growing up and becoming an adult. I think that part of the story has just begun.

Dust Cover Dust-Up 2014: Round Two, Part Five

Daughter of Smoke and Bone  vs. Grass

Winner: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

These were both good books, and reads I quite enjoyed. However, the world that Laini Taylor creates, and the characters and mythology she populates it with, help Daughter of Smoke and Bone win out. This is Young Adult material that's worthy of the readers, and poses tough questions for the protagonists instead of false conflict. I am looking forward to the second. Grass was good, but Tepper has never been one of my favourite authors. It just doesn't get past the second round.

Memory vs. Supernatural Noir

Winner: Memory

Supernatural Noir only made it past the first round because it was up against a disappointing book. There are some great stories in here, but also a lot that are only so-so - the nature of anthologies. It's up against one of my favourite Vorkosigan books, where Miles runs straight into his worst enemy - his belief that if he talks fast enough, he can escape consequences. Consequences find him.

The Orenda vs. Komarr

Winner: Komarr

Lois McMaster Bujold's getting a lot of love in this round. I can't help it though - I found The Orenda a worthy and well-researched book, but with characters who were a little thin. In Komarr, I got to see Ekaterina as she was first introduced, and there is a female character to be entranced by. Stubborn, strong, and emotionally abused, watching her negotiate first contact with Miles was something to see.

Reamde vs. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Winner: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Neither of these books were the sort that you want to take home and keep forever. Both, however, were well worth spending a night or two with, then setting free. So how to pick? In the end, it's my major pet peeve with Reamde, the over-reliance on details at the cost of pacing, that makes me give this battle to Chris Hadfield. Plus, it's Chris Hadfield.

Broken Homes vs. The Inconvenient Indian

Winner: Broken Homes

Oh, dear. We're pitting my inner Peter Grant fangirl against my admiration for The Inconvenient Indian. It's the difference right there that's making me give this round to Ben Aaronovitch. The Inconvenient Indian is great, and should be required reading for everyone. But I love Peter Grant, and this is my tournament for books I enjoyed most in 2014. I feel tremendously guilty about it, but the ending of Broken Homes made me gasp, and that makes me pick Peter Grant.

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

I realized something as I was reading this book. Many fantasy books, when they involve any kind of court culture, have as their viewpoint character someone who doesn't know how it works, and blunders around until he or she figures it out. It's relatively rare to have the main character be someone who does know exactly how things work. Cazaril, the main character, is such a man. He isn't a quintessential courtier by any means, but he knows how things work.

Because he's eventually the secretary and tutor to the half-sister of the King, we get to see him instructing his charge in the niceties of that life, and the perils, and that works to fill us, the audience, in just as well. It's interesting to read from the point of view of someone who is intelligent and knows what's what. I appreciate it. And it's something Bujold does exceptionally well.

Of course, he's more complex than that. An honest military commander, he was sold out and sold into slavery in one fell swoop by his enemies, offended by both his refusal to be bribed and his knowledge of certain unsavoury events. Released at long last, he is nearly dead by the time he makes it back to the court he has known, where he hopes for a small bed and a quiet life.

The Countess has different plans, putting him in charge of her granddaughter as her granddaughter and grandson go to court to take their places as the heirs presumptive to their half-brother's throne. Which puts him right back in the path of those who tried to dispose of him in the first place.

It sounds complex, but Bujold has a knack for parcelling out just the right information at just the right time, so it beautifully hits that middle ground between infodump and opacity. And having Iselle as his pupil is just right - she's smart, she gets it, and then she even starts to think a few steps ahead of Cazaril himself.

Oh right. And then he becomes a saint for one of the Five Gods. Being a saint is not as plum a job as you might think, and comes complete with complications that might very well kill him. In several ways, very quickly. Of course, there is also the eponymous curse, which he must forestall from falling on his charge. I quite enjoy Iselle's practical acceptance that she must marry for an alliance - and that if she must, it might as well be a beneficial one, with a husband who might turn out to be satisfactory on the personal front as well. That's a bonus, not a requirement. She is not going to swoon and insist on true love.

There's a lot here about duty, about running a kingdom, about being uncomfortably touched by the gods. I just love Bujold's books is what it is. She has a knack for laying groundwork that in the end, nicely dovetails into other aspects of the book, and that is always immensely satisfying. In the hands of a lesser author, it might feel false. With her books, I always feel like I'm in the hands of a master storyteller, and here, in a fantasy world far removed from what I'm used to when it comes to her Miles Vorkosigan SF, it works just as well.

This is the last book in my Lois McMaster Bujold care package that arrived from a dear friend. I have thoroughly enjoyed every single book in it, and I'm sorry to be done.

Booklinks:

I read this book as part of an attempt to read all the Hugo Nominees

Dust Cover Dust-Up 2014: Round Two, Part Four

Fall of Giants vs. Camera Obscura
Winner: Camera Obscura


This was an easy one. Camera Obscura wasn't my favourite book of the year, but it was fun, and solid, and I liked it a lot more than Fall of Giants, which wasn't terrible, but annoyed me in some very important ways.So we'll go with this very literary Victorian world, complete with lizard rulers of England, over a First World War where the most unbelievable thing is that all those particular things could have happened to just five young men.

Cyteen vs. The Imposter Bride

Winner: The Imposter Bride

Two books. One felt a bit distant from its characters, but I often feel that way about Cherryh's writing. The other was quiet, but not distant. The emotion was just contained, by people who thought about their world and things that had happened and didn't leap to easy or histrionic conclusions. In this case, the book that isn't science fiction wins. That's not a frequent occurrence in my life, but I was very struck by The Imposter Bride and it continues to resonate.

The Robber Bride vs. Myths of Origin

Winner: The Robber Bride

I enjoyed Myths of Origin, but as much for the seeds I saw there of Catherynne Valente's later writing as for the works themselves. They were enchanting, but perhaps not always compelling. Whereas The Robber Bride wasn't always enchanting - the male characters were particularly weak - but it was always compelling. The prose, the female characters, the richness of this book - it swept me away and reminded me why I like Margaret Atwood.

Mirror Dance vs. Maus 

Winner: Mirror Dance

This is a battle where its between picking the worthy book versus the enjoyable one. It's a close battle - Maus is a classic for a reason, and it's a very impressive work. Impressive, but not the kind that makes you fond. Bujold makes me fond, and I really enjoyed Mark trying to figure out how he fits in a family he never expected to be welcomed in to. I'm picking the fun this time.

The Cuckoo's Calling vs. Black Swan Green

Winner: Black Swan Green

I really enjoyed The Cuckoo's Calling. It's a solid mystery, and was entertaining. However, in this battle, it can't stand up to Black Swan Green. I'd be hard put to put it into words, but David Mitchell captures something ephemeral about growing up and elegantly puts it into this book. The year, the incidents on the wheel of the year, big and small, the refusal of simple answers in favour of messy growing up. I liked it a lot.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

People recommend books to me a lot. It's hard to know when or how to fit them all in! And then there's the worry I won't like a book that is very dear to a dear friend's heart. For a long time, I just avoided reading books that had been recommended to me, unless someone pushed a physical copy into my hot little hands. (This is still the fastest way to get a book to the top of my list.) So I started a new list from which to pick, of books friends recommended. If you want to get in on this, you can recommend a book on this post.

This book was recommended to me by Téa.

I had read The Great Gatsby before, but it was long before I started writing reviews. In fact, the first time I ever read it was for my grade 10 English class. I can't say I remembered much about it, but that's true for a lot of books I read in high school English, with a few notable exceptions.  I read it again a couple of years ago, and here I am now, ready to try to review a classic. It's a little daunting.

This was also the first book I read on our iPad, because I couldn't find my paper copy of it when I went looking, and it was free. As far as I could tell, it was the full text. It's not the first thing I've read on a reader, it just meant I had to wrest the iPad out of my husband's hands every time I wanted to sit down with it.

And now I've put the review off long enough. So, what did I think of The Great Gatsby? It's a great book, obviously. The writing is beautiful and poignant. The characters are, by far and large, irritating rich people, and their follies are worked out through pain for other people.

I'm sure you all know the story. Nick, the narrator, moves in next door to Party Central, Jay Gatsby's house, a man with all the wealth in the world and a million stories about how he got it. His raucous parties mean little to Gatsby himself, though. He's only concerned about attracting the attention of Daisy, who lives across a narrow strip of water, his sweetheart before he went off to war.

Daisy is married to a rich asshole, Tom, who in the tradition of rich assholes everywhere, thinks that he has little power, and is worried about all those uppity non-white people getting a piece of his pie. There was a lot about this book that made me sigh and think how little has changed. The dude with all the physical power, all the money, all the ability to cheat on his wife and beat his mistress and do whatever he wants, he thinks he's powerless. He thinks those damned poor people and those damned immigrants are out to rob him of his rightful...well, whatever his "rightful" is is never defined. But it feels threatened, dammit! And that justifies...well, whatever he wants!

People keep saying that income inequality is approaching or has surpassed the era in which Fitzgerald was writing, and this isn't the main point of his book, but it's a little eerie to see the same kind of denial of privilege coming out of the mouth of the character with the most power.

I know very little about formal criticism of this book, but you hear about it as a critique of the Jazz Age, but what I was struck with this time was how virtually every character we know is actually from the Midwest, transplanted to the outskirts of New York City. Do we see native New Yorkers? Maybe Tom's mistress' sister, and a few people at that party, but they don't make much of an impression.

It's hard to come up with a coherent review of The Great Gatsby. I'm sure a million have been written. But every time I read it, I come up with something different to think about. That right there is the mark of a classic.

Also read as part of the BBC Big Read