more books
May. 9th, 2014 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraI lack the will to do anything else (or, well, rather, there are specific things I'm procrastinating about), so I've been reading a lot.
The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the sequel/conclusion to The Assassin's Curse. Fun duology, still recommended to YA fantasy readers, although I loved it less than the first half. There were things I liked a lot: the progression of the romance, the de-emphasis on virginity (I mean, I wouldn't ban books where it is a big deal, too, but I liked that for once it wasn't), the manticore, the fact that the lesbians got a HEA (I would be super pleased to write Marjani/Saida for someone for Yuletide), the closure with Ananna's parents, the replacement with the annoying part of the soulbond trope, in the curse, with the nifty part, in the blood-bond, the LDR-as-HEA that acknowledges that both characters have independent lives and needs and goals and might even *want* some space from each other as their relationship goes on. On the other hand, while Ananna made a couple of key plot contributions (befriending the manticore and saving Naji at the very end with her magic), she felt a little passive in this compared with the camel-stealing lady of the first half; the whole curse plot seemed to kind of unfold itself and she was just along for the ride. And, okay, a *literal* shark jump, WTF to that solution to the third impossible task. I mean, it was hilarious when everyone is freaking out over the talking shark, and the glass elevator and gillyweed were awesome, but WOW did that feel like it came out of nowhere. A *leedle* more foreshadowing please if the solution to your major plot problem is "magical creatures show up out of nowhere promising to build statues in your characters' honor".
Lockstep, by Karl Schroeder, isn't marketed as YA, but reads a lot like it. 17-year-old Toby McGonigal is an early colonist in the far outer Solar System, until he accidentally gets lost and over-hibernates by fourteen thousand years and wakes up in a world where large numbers of people go into hibernation together, as a way of maintaining synchronicity over interstellar distances despite sub-light travel speeds. I have re-read Vinge's Marooned in Realtime and McCaffery's Death of Sleep many many times each and I find this sort of premise super compelling; I thought Schroeder did a great job with it, working the epic plot and local political plot and secondary characters' plots and Toby's personal family plot in such a way that they all move each other forward. And there's some gorgeous, gorgeous planet-travel-porn, with four vivid worlds I'd never seen anything like before. There are a few unfortunate gaps - the lockstep insists on cultural conformity, but never specifies what that encompasses, so we don't really know how evil/suppressive an empire it is. And Toby is very harsh about his mom's decision to hibernate indefinitely in case he was ever found, calling it flatly "sick" and "wrong", which felt in-character for his seventeen-year-old POV, but, ugh. I'm of course not saying I really get what it would be like to lose a child, but I think I have a little more understanding and compassion for it, such that I thought it was a complicated but really powerful choice - which is then totally undercut by the text when it turns out of course she didn't choose this sick and wrong thing herself, it was forced upon her. And I felt cheated of the reunion scene, which is skipped over, and she gets like one trivial line at the end. But, YA, can't have moms cluttering up the place, I guess. Anyways, other than that, I thought this was excellent, and it will probably go on my Hugo list.
The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the sequel/conclusion to The Assassin's Curse. Fun duology, still recommended to YA fantasy readers, although I loved it less than the first half. There were things I liked a lot: the progression of the romance, the de-emphasis on virginity (I mean, I wouldn't ban books where it is a big deal, too, but I liked that for once it wasn't), the manticore, the fact that the lesbians got a HEA (I would be super pleased to write Marjani/Saida for someone for Yuletide), the closure with Ananna's parents, the replacement with the annoying part of the soulbond trope, in the curse, with the nifty part, in the blood-bond, the LDR-as-HEA that acknowledges that both characters have independent lives and needs and goals and might even *want* some space from each other as their relationship goes on. On the other hand, while Ananna made a couple of key plot contributions (befriending the manticore and saving Naji at the very end with her magic), she felt a little passive in this compared with the camel-stealing lady of the first half; the whole curse plot seemed to kind of unfold itself and she was just along for the ride. And, okay, a *literal* shark jump, WTF to that solution to the third impossible task. I mean, it was hilarious when everyone is freaking out over the talking shark, and the glass elevator and gillyweed were awesome, but WOW did that feel like it came out of nowhere. A *leedle* more foreshadowing please if the solution to your major plot problem is "magical creatures show up out of nowhere promising to build statues in your characters' honor".
Lockstep, by Karl Schroeder, isn't marketed as YA, but reads a lot like it. 17-year-old Toby McGonigal is an early colonist in the far outer Solar System, until he accidentally gets lost and over-hibernates by fourteen thousand years and wakes up in a world where large numbers of people go into hibernation together, as a way of maintaining synchronicity over interstellar distances despite sub-light travel speeds. I have re-read Vinge's Marooned in Realtime and McCaffery's Death of Sleep many many times each and I find this sort of premise super compelling; I thought Schroeder did a great job with it, working the epic plot and local political plot and secondary characters' plots and Toby's personal family plot in such a way that they all move each other forward. And there's some gorgeous, gorgeous planet-travel-porn, with four vivid worlds I'd never seen anything like before. There are a few unfortunate gaps - the lockstep insists on cultural conformity, but never specifies what that encompasses, so we don't really know how evil/suppressive an empire it is. And Toby is very harsh about his mom's decision to hibernate indefinitely in case he was ever found, calling it flatly "sick" and "wrong", which felt in-character for his seventeen-year-old POV, but, ugh. I'm of course not saying I really get what it would be like to lose a child, but I think I have a little more understanding and compassion for it, such that I thought it was a complicated but really powerful choice - which is then totally undercut by the text when it turns out of course she didn't choose this sick and wrong thing herself, it was forced upon her. And I felt cheated of the reunion scene, which is skipped over, and she gets like one trivial line at the end. But, YA, can't have moms cluttering up the place, I guess. Anyways, other than that, I thought this was excellent, and it will probably go on my Hugo list.
