furyofvissarion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
furyofvissarion) wrote2013-07-15 02:43 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2013-07-15 02:43 pm
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I'm reading! Things that are new to me! Long may this last but it probably won't.
Permeable Borders - Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I was overall rather disappointed in this short story collection, which saddened me as some of Hoffman's fantasy novels have been pretty meaningful to me. A lot of the stories were disturbing, but not in a way that made me feel admiration for how twisted they were; I just felt disengaged & uncomfortable. I really had to slog my way through this one. The stories I liked best were the ones featuring characters from Hoffman's novels, & I wonder if they would stand on their own to readers coming in without that sense of fondness.
Undone - Rachel Caine. This is a new series taking place in the same world as her Weather Wardens books, which I mostly loved. I was wary of this one, though, because it focuses more on the Djinn, & I have misgivings about the way Caine handles them & exotifies them. Anyway, so Cassiel, one of the oldest Djinn, gets thrown out & turned into a human as punishment. This book is about her starting to learn how to live among humans as one of them.
There were fun bits (though wow, does the impact of Caine's snark pale in comparison to Carrie Vaughn's), but mostly I kind of rolled my eyes that Cassiel's biggest step towards caring about humans comes as she learns to love children for their innocent hearts, blah blah -- & then of course the major conflict in the book is about people who want to use children for Very Bad Ends.
Unknown - Rachel Caine. The second in the Outcast Season series; I probably wouldn't have read this except I got this & the first book cheap at Half-Price Books while I was home over the holidays, so I might as well. Eh. So not excited about plots whereby evil people plan to corrupt & destroy Innocent Innocent Children, especially as a means to destroy the world. Also, I know the Warden books involve a lot of big splashy action scenes -- kind of par for the course when you have people who can control, eg. weather, earth, fire, or some multiple of those -- but it felt so overused here. Every time Cassiel gets on the road: of course some giant tractor-trailer is going to be hurtling at her as it gets taken over by the baddies! etc. What I do like is seeing how things like the corruption in the Wardens intersects with corruption in government, & people who think they're doing the right things for the right reasons but aren't (what I'm tired of: people whose conflicting interests laying aside their enmities for the children's sake, yawn).
Permeable Borders - Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I was overall rather disappointed in this short story collection, which saddened me as some of Hoffman's fantasy novels have been pretty meaningful to me. A lot of the stories were disturbing, but not in a way that made me feel admiration for how twisted they were; I just felt disengaged & uncomfortable. I really had to slog my way through this one. The stories I liked best were the ones featuring characters from Hoffman's novels, & I wonder if they would stand on their own to readers coming in without that sense of fondness.
Undone - Rachel Caine. This is a new series taking place in the same world as her Weather Wardens books, which I mostly loved. I was wary of this one, though, because it focuses more on the Djinn, & I have misgivings about the way Caine handles them & exotifies them. Anyway, so Cassiel, one of the oldest Djinn, gets thrown out & turned into a human as punishment. This book is about her starting to learn how to live among humans as one of them.
There were fun bits (though wow, does the impact of Caine's snark pale in comparison to Carrie Vaughn's), but mostly I kind of rolled my eyes that Cassiel's biggest step towards caring about humans comes as she learns to love children for their innocent hearts, blah blah -- & then of course the major conflict in the book is about people who want to use children for Very Bad Ends.
Unknown - Rachel Caine. The second in the Outcast Season series; I probably wouldn't have read this except I got this & the first book cheap at Half-Price Books while I was home over the holidays, so I might as well. Eh. So not excited about plots whereby evil people plan to corrupt & destroy Innocent Innocent Children, especially as a means to destroy the world. Also, I know the Warden books involve a lot of big splashy action scenes -- kind of par for the course when you have people who can control, eg. weather, earth, fire, or some multiple of those -- but it felt so overused here. Every time Cassiel gets on the road: of course some giant tractor-trailer is going to be hurtling at her as it gets taken over by the baddies! etc. What I do like is seeing how things like the corruption in the Wardens intersects with corruption in government, & people who think they're doing the right things for the right reasons but aren't (what I'm tired of: people whose conflicting interests laying aside their enmities for the children's sake, yawn).