Faust has written an odd book that reads as both a tribute and a farcical take on the classic mystery pulps of yore. I can’t say it worked for me, but I think there is definitely a niche out there for interested readers. As a devoted fan of romance novels, I was surprised to find myself thinking the sex gratuitous and overly-explict. The first third of the book read like the filler plot in a porno and I was frustrated by the lack of a concrete story. The sex scenes were not there to develop characters or plot and so I found them more distracting then titillating.
Mfred Reviews Double-D Double Cross by Christa Faust « The Lesbrary
More lesbian fiction reviews from yours truly! This time it’s a weird lesbian pulp private dick mystery novel.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t like it. But you might!
Source: lesbrary.wordpress.com
I read a book!
It was Lothaire and I didn’t think it was that good. The end.
HA HA HA!
Guise. As if. I’m gonna talk about this long and hard, because 1. nerding out is fun and 2. talking about my feelings is validating. To the book review!
I’ve had some issues with Kresley Cole and the Immortals After Dark series. I’ve come to realize that her best books are the ones that place the romance within the larger Accension (basically, the Apocalypse to end all apocalypses) framework. The play between romantic tension and the inherent tension of a world at the brink are so complimentary, that I can actually believe in fated lovers.
Unfortunately, Lothaire is not situated within the greater Accension storyline. It’s a peculiarly small and closed off story for Cole, who has previously had characters jump all over the globe on a million crazy adventures. This time around, it’s really just about this dude and his lady, with most of the action taking place inside Lothaire’s apartment.
Also, as it turns out, Lothaire, the villain to end all villains, is pretty fucking dumb.
The plot, via Amazon:
Driven by his insatiable need for revenge, Lothaire, the Lore’s most ruthless vampire, plots to seize the Horde’s crown. But bloodlust and torture have left him on the brink of madness— until he finds Elizabeth Peirce, the key to his victory. He captures the unique young mortal, intending to offer up her very soul in exchange for power, yet Elizabeth soothes his tormented mind and awakens within him emotions Lothaire believed he could no longer experience.
One of the most interesting aspects of romance novels is that both the reader and the author are perfectly aware that there will be a Happily Ever After for these characters. You know and I know (because we read the blurb) that the Hero who so hates the Heroine in the beginning is gonna love the shit out of her by the end ( or vice versa).
But the thing is, around page 150, I was like, seriously, Lothaire? Because I figured out that your One True Luurve is Elizabeth, not the demon goddess bitch possessing her, and I’m not the “Lore’s most ruthless vampire.” And then I realized the book is 400 some pages long and Cole’s first hardcover publication,. and I was like, OH RIGHT.
$$$ > plot.
So anyway, the world’s most cunning and crazy villain is in fact such a snob, so set in his millenia-old-ass ways, that he in no way able to conceive of a world in which his Bride is measly human being. From Appalachia, no less. Which.. I mean? Really? That’s it? Not only am I scratching my head over this weak excuse for romantic tension, I’m also kind of doubting that Lothaire is half the cunning villain he is supposed to be. Cunning villains can be as snobby and as elitist as they want— as long as they are also adaptable and logical. Rejecting Elizabeth, well past the point of reason, is none of those things.
(Also, Kresley Cole totally traded her “ye ken, lassie” highlanders for backwoods hillbilly-speak cliches that were so embarrassing, I carried a watermelon.)
Elizabeth’s story, however, is much more interesting— for a little while— until she inexplicably just Forgives Everything In the Name of Love. I mean, here is a death row inmate, possessed by the incarnation of serial-killing evil, forced to bargain with half-mad vampire for her very damn soul. While falling in love with him, and also while he constantly belittles all of humanity, in general, and most especially her, in particular.
And then she just forgives him! While sitting around by herself, thinking about it. “Well, you know, I love him. So I’ll just forgive the horrible way he treated me and the time he tried to divest me of my soul and how he made me a vampire without my consent.. while sitting here.. by myself… abandoned by him.”
The end.
So-So Steampunk
Lavie Tidhar gives good setting. His descriptions of a Steampunk Victorian Age, ruled by Lizards, populated with historical and literary minor characters— Sherlock Holmes and his gang, a Lizard Queen Victoria, a nicely creepy Dr. Frankenstein — it’s all done very well. Totally enjoyable.
But does he write good story? Kinda. In The Bookman, the poet Orphan finds himself at the center of a vast conspiracy and is dragged all around the globe, beat up, and almost killed, numerous times. In Camera Obscura, the main difference seems to be that it is a woman, Milady, who is beat up, conspired against, etc.
Well ok, there is a second difference. Milady is also supposed to be a police woman, carrying a big gun and intimidating all of the criminals in Paris— unlike our somewhat nebbish everyman, Orphan.
Orphan is, as the name suggests, an orphan. He works in a bookshop, writes poems, and occasionally dresses up and terrorizes Oscar Wilde with some of his other friends. His one true love is murdered in a terrorist attack, and he is instantly drawn into a large, vast conspiracy, unraveling the truth behind the ruling Lizard race and how they came to claim Earth and all of history as their own. This involves a lot of double crossing, a lot of fighting, a lot of getting beat up or knocked out or blown up— poor Orphan!
But Milady, she is a badass with a big gun from the page one. She’s not drawn into conspiracy, she’s a conspirator! Employed by the Quiet Council, the shady cabal of automatons ruling France, Milady just swaggers all over town, covering up crimes, collecting clues, fingering her gun in menacing ways… Once the story gets going, however, Milady starts to get beat up, a lot.
And every time she is conspired against, beat on, horrifyingly tortured, etc., not only was I reminded a little too closely of Orphan’s woes, but I also started to doubt her verisimilitude as originally described. Her truthfulness as a person began to ring false the worse the story treated her.
I’m all for the noir style beat down of the protagonist. Bring em low, I say! Bring em down to my filthy, violent level!
…But by every villain that shows up? With every new twist of the plot? All the while also telling me just how tough and smart she is, always hinting at some dark past filled with clever and crafty misdeeds? In a fantasy England populated by walking and talking man-sized lizards, whales that roam the Thames, and a real, live Captain Nemo? It’s one unbelievable thing too many.
I give the Bookman three stars for being inventive and fun. Camera Obscura, however, gets two. Don’t piss on my leg (or beat up your so-called tough female heroine until she is unrecognizable) and tell me it’s raining. And seriously? Don’t make me read the same book twice.
First, the sentence is not a fluke– the entire novel occurs in first person, future tense. Which is just… amazing. In a lesser writer’s hands, it could have come across as gimmicky, or even intrusive. It was a little mesmerizing, instead, to experience the events of a book at the same time as the protagonist. And secondly, the subject matter! A dead sister! A conspiracy! Holtz not only writes well, she also imagines a great plot.
Mfred reviews Skin Beneath by Nairne Holtz « The Lesbrary
Yee Haw, cowgirls and cowboys! I’ve got a new review up on the Lesbrary. It’s uh, not a western.. Sooo, never mind about the cowboy thing.
Source: lesbrary.wordpress.com
Zoo City
…is a decent novel, with a lot of great, shiny moments, and also a lot of weaknesses. It’s neo-noir fantasy— a detective story set in an alternate now. Populated with interesting, fascinating characters, the mystery is badly plotted and the fantasy worldbuilding left with gaping, unexplained holes.
In this new now, people who have committed crimes become “animaled,” or receive a kind of physical spirit animal/companion, that both embodies their guilt and also enables special, extra-sensory gifts. However, all animaled people also have a horrible fate awaiting them— a black emptiness that devours them whole upon their death.
Zinzi and her sloth’s special gift is finding lost things. In true noir fashion, one action leads to another reaction, everyone has got something to hide, and Zinzi ends up trying to find a missing pop star while also paying off her former drug-dealers.
Lauren Beukes gives Zinzi a great voice, but unfortunately, smothers it in too many descriptive clauses, similes and metaphors. The story of Zinzi pushing and getting pulled into a deeper and more complex mystery than she wants to be involved in is quite captivating, but Beukes doesn’t quite sustain the tension throughout.
Beukes really shines in her location. Johannesburg, I place I have never been and will likely never go, felt real— rooted and intense. I loved the way Beukes captured the language of the people and the feel of the city. I also loved the way Beukes incorporated non-narrative devices to build her world: snippets of news articles, documentary reviews, etc., that provided immediate shortcuts into this alterna-world. For someone used to short bursts of information via internet sources, it was immediate and accessible.
4 of 5 stars. Weaknesses aside, I would recommend this to most mystery fans looking to branch out, most “new weird” fans looking for new authors, and most uh, everybody else.
Stone Butch Blues.
One of the most usable features shared by Netflix and Goodreads is that they attach feelings to their star rating systems. Sometimes, having to choose either “I hated it” or “it was okay” on Netflix is much easier than trying to conceptualize the difference between 1 or 2 stars.
And for Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues? On Goodreads, I easily selected “it was amazing,” or five stars.
Yet, Blues is not the world’s best written book… I often rag on books a lot for being poorly written (or poorly edited). I read so much, so quickly and so frequently, and with such high hopes, that the quality of writing is no longer something I can overlook. What Blues has— that many, many other books do not— is that magical combination of gripping characterization and a moving story that keeps you hooked til the end.
It is, quite simply, the story of a person who, because of the rigidness of our society at large, does not fit. And in telling that story, Feinberg gives voice to the Queer (capital Q!) life in America. It is a beautiful book, resonant and powerful.
It is also an eye-opening book, and difficult, because Feinberg does not shy away from the violence, prejudice, and pain that Jess Goldberg encounters.
When I read the first few pages, in which a later-in-life Jess writes to her former lover about their time together and the subsequent years apart, I did not think, “interrupting narrative time-traveler uuughh!” I was immediately drawn in, and pushed to my limits, with the intimacy and absolute honesty of Jess’ voice. She speaks of police brutality, poverty, rape, ex-lovers, old friends, old jobs, in the same normal, average, and also intensely captivating voice.
I would be dishonest if I didn’t point out that at other times, Feinberg steps in heavy on Jess’ voice— the years when Jess is Scorned by Feminists or Jess Learns About Racism (late 60s/early 70s) are more difficult chapters to slog through. And unfortunately, these are also the years when Jess is with her One True Love, making that entire relationship and it’s effect on Jess less believable for me.
The breathtaking beginning (really, I sucked in a breath and held it) and the strength of Jess Goldberg’s voice elevate this book. I learned about myself while reading it, and there are not many books in the world that can move someone like that. Five out of five stars.
The Horrah of horror
I had a professor in library school with a very strong NY accent. He would often comment on the horrors of archival disarray, except it was “horrahs!!”
That story really has nothing to do with anything. Except that I like saying “horrah.”
Dave Zeltserman’s The Caretaker of Lorne Field is not really a horror story. I mean, I’m reading and reading and thinking to myself, when does the scary stuff happen? It’s not even particularly thrilling or suspenseful. It is, however, interesting and darkly humorous.
Jack Durkin is the nth generation of Durkins to weed Lorne Field of Aukowies. According to Durkin, the contract signed with the Durkin family 300 years ago, and the Book of Aukowies that only the Durkins have read, Aukowies are the monsters that will end the world— should a Durkin ever stop weeding that field of them.
And so we spend the book in Jack Durkin’s small, and yet incredibly important worldview— as he struggles to convince his wife, his children, the sheriff, and even the town, that he really is saving the world. Every day. From monstrous creatures. As readers, even we can’t be sure these Aukowies aren’t just the product of some gardner’s psychosis.
And so the book is quite compelling; I certainly turned the pages trying to figure it all out. But it is never, really, scary. You know how some horror movies ruin it by showing the monster too soon? This time around, the monster simply wasn’t there.
3 of 5 stars. An interesting psychological story about fighting monsters is not actually a horror story.
On the other hand, Stephen M. Irwin’s The Dead Path is truly frightening. With some of the most distinctly scary imagery I have read in awhile. Imagine: Ghosts. Missing children. Serial killers. Witches. Evil forests filled with spiders and other unimaginable horrors.
Nicholas Close looses his wife in a horrible accident, only to find himself suddenly able to see the dead. He returns to his childhood home, hoping to escape the hordes of dead in London. Only, he quickly finds himself replaying the terrors of his own childhood: a local child has gone missing, just like his friend so many years ago. The kid turns up brutally murdered, also like his friend. Except this time, as he walks by the woods, he can watch the deaths as they happen, over and over, in a never-ending loop.
I mean, is that not the scariest thing you’ve ever heard? And so the book goes- terrible, horrible, frightening things happen. But not always in the most compelling ways.
The pacing wasn’t quite there. Things slows down when you want them to speed up. Some plot points are easy to see coming. The imagery is intense and vivid, but the story doesn’t always follow.
3 of 5 stars. It’s simply not enough to paint a scary picture. The story must be interesting, too.
Book review: The Sharing Knife Series
Lois McMaster Bujold! The Sharing Knife! Exclamations abound!
Although I am normally a speed-reading demon freakazoid from the 8th dimension, Bujold’s Sharing Knife books are slow, meticulous, and detailed. They require patience and care— because you are reading about a civilization on the cusp of great change from the point of view of maybe the only two people in the world who want it to change.
Why must this world change? Because Dag and Fawn love each other and they are not supposed to; it’s not acceptable or even tolerated. And yet, their love is also central to their world’s survival.
However, this is not an overnight/explosive kind of social revolution. While there are scenes of great action and great danger, Bujold invests a lot into characterization and description. Ok, so maybe she sometimes writes at the expense of plot— I would definitely agree that some chapters or sections get bogged down.
However (times two!), if you were to ask me to rate each book from strongest to weakest, I would balk. No matter how slow, I really enjoyed reading every word, which I don’t say very often. It was like getting to know a civilization from the inside out. Bujold doesn’t back down from writing romance or fantasy. She crafts both — the intimate connection between two people, and also the vast worldbuilding that places these people in a meaningul context.
The Sharing Knife is a 4 book series:
- Beguilement - Dag and Fawn meet and completely subvert every “known” rule of their world. Before they fall in love.
- Legacy - Intense worldbuilding, big ending.
- Passage - Dag and Fawn start a social revolution.
- Horizon - A stunning conclusion. A new love.
5 of 5 stars.
President Obama approves this level of nerdy queerness.
