In which I confess to failure

I've been meaning to put something up sooner, and I even found cover images for two REALLY good Charles de Lint novels (I liked Yarrow more than Angel of Darkness, but that's because I have more of a predilection for fantasy than crime noir) but I haven't for several reasons. Reasons two through seven have to do with how lazy I've been feeling, but the biggest is because I feel like something of a literary failure. And the reason for that is because I didn't like Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

I didn't like Never Let Me Go by Kazu0 Ishiguro, either, and I think they're related phenomena. They both feature strings of winding narratives, sometimes only vaguely (if at all) connected to each other, and ethereal/metaphysical-thinking characters that I couldn't feel any real attachment to. I'm no stranger to introspection, and I even appreciate it in stories, but I felt like narrative was being sacrificed for the sake of reflection and that doesn't give me much to hold on to. In the spirit of honesty I confess I didn't actually finish Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but at about 3/4 of the way through it I realized I didn't care what the ending was. It is a chunker of a book, and I'd spent a couple weeks trying to slog through it, and I just couldn't do it any more. I guess I will never know what the secret of the narrator's wife is, or why the hell I had to read that horrible story about killing all the zoo animals. Oh well.

So then I read a string of Terry Pratchett novels, including one I hadn't read before (Thud!) and they were all excellent. I'm partial to Pratchett's novels about the City Watch, because Sam Vimes and Lord Vetinari have some of the best repartee I've ever encountered. Pratchett's books hover on the formulaic, but it's a formula that works - Vimes is a character that demands your respect if not your love, and from me he's got both. Following him through crime and his Batman-esque struggle to stay on the right side of the law is always a brilliant morality play (and you know the bad guy will get it in the end, sometimes by having fireworks crammed in unfortunate places).

I just finished a total absorption with one of John Connolly's mystery novels featuring Charlie Parker, who I'd only known previously from his short story collection Nocturnes. Dark Hallow was a book I waffled on the whole time I was reading it, and then at the very end it delivered me such a sharp dart of clarity that everything I'd had trouble with slotted neatly into place. My original concern had been that Connolly was spreading his resources too thin - there were too many stories, too many characters, and not quite enough holding it all together. The reward at the end is finding out they're all one story, and that every character has a purpose, and that every seemingly-chatty side story fits neatly into the narrative and becomes one cohesive whole. It is a fine bit of storytelling, which is good because I REALLY loved The Book of Lost Things (which you can read about below) and also Nocturnes.

For the moment I'm taking a break, although I'll undoubtedly return to Connolly and Charlie Parker. For now, I'm going to appease the creature-feature lover in me and see about reading The Lost World. I can't really imagine NOT liking it, since Jurassic Park is so awesome, but I guess you never know. Especially with Michael Crichton.

Elves and Whores

I have a bone to pick with Laurell K. Hamilton. Yesterday, I sat down and read Swallowing Darkness, the (seemingly) final book in her Merry Gentry series. The thing about Hamilton is that, under all the gothic adjectives and fantasy landscapes, she is not actually a very good writer. She describes her characters very vividly, which is great, but she tells the reader the exact same things about each character every time we see them. Which is not so great. She's also fallen deeper and deeper into the "Mary Sue" trap with every book; Merry started out with some interesting character traits and flaws, but with every book the plot made her more and more magical and beautiful and irresistible and immortal and perfect, and now she's boring.

I think the worst thing about Swallowing Darkness, though, was that there were absolutely no surprises to be found within the pages. Hamilton took no risks when wrapping this story up; things that had been blatantly stated in earlier books came to pass exactly as prophesied. People died!... But then they came back. Vengeance was wreaked!... Like you knew it would be. The bad guys were defeated soundly, but in a way that Merry got exactly what she wanted without sacrificing anything (one bad guy plot did NOT get wrapped up, much to my consternation, which is why this only SEEMINGLY the final book). It was nice to see it end so well for characters I like, but it was also mind-numbingly boring.

Hamilton is an okay writer for teens being exposed to urban fantasy. Yes, teens, because even the sex in these books is tamed by an almost medieval vocabulary; there is a metaphorical fog that descends so that it's not nearly as graphic as it might first seem. But for older and more experienced (or at least more discerning) readers, well, we need to find something more substantial and interesting.

So, what do I suggest? The Kushiel's Dart series, by Jacqueline Carey.

Kushiel's Dart is an alternate history meshed with fantasy about what is essentially our France. The history gets mixed up way back at Christ's crucifixtion, when his blood mixed with the tears of Mary Magdalene and the earth get mixed up and result in the earth-born deity Elua, who is a little bit angel, a little bit god, and a whole lot of lust. Seven of God's angels leave to follow him, and these eight father a nation of peoples who are all a little bit god-touched. The motto of Terre d'Ange is "Love as thou wilt," and yes, it means exactly what you think it means.

Phedre is the heroine of these novels, and man is she an interesting woman. She's raised to be a servant of the love goddess, essentially a hugely expensive courtesan, but she's also raised to be a spy. Therein lies the intriguing parts of these novels: they're about love, but they're also about plots within plots, wheels within wheels, and what happens when those plots are unraveled.

Hamilton's political intriue is childplay when compared to Carey's subtle and intricate workings that take place across pages and continents. If you're hankering for some royal scheming wrapped up in a nice packaging of eroticism, read something with substance; don't settle for hollow fairy tales.