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Hey,
I didn't get as much reading done on my vacation as I expected to, but I did chew through a fair number. So let's get to it.
First up: Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy by Dinty W. Moore. Yes, apparently that's actually his name and he's won prizes for his memoirs and essays.
Anyway in this collection of essays, other writers (of fiction and non) write in with various "Dear Abby" questions about their problems with writing. Dinty then answer them with a short note and then follows that with a short essay loosely connected to the question, the answer, or something else altogether.
This is perfect bathroom reading. Short, punchy pieces that entertains you while you're uh...waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's a wide range of topics covered and the tone is pretty lighthearted. Definitely worth looking into.
Next we have The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette Bodard. Ms. Bodard has previously written the meticulously researched Obsidian and Blood trilogy of Aztec-fantasy books which I quite liked. Here, she takes on a new setting in her hometown of Paris.
In Wings, when angels are cast out of Heaven they quite literally fall to Earth. If they survive the landing, they retain a portion of their magical powers and a very long (though not infinite) lifespan. The Fallen tend to congregate in small groups called Houses for their mutual protection and benefit. Although other magical beings and religious structures exist, the Fallen basically outclass most of them and soon the great empires of Europe, assisted by the Houses colonize pretty much everything.
Then WWI happens. Only this time the Houses go at one another tooth and nail and turn Europe into a festering war zone. Paris is devasated, the Seine is so choked full of magical residue from the war that it turns black and ashy and is best viewed from a very safe distance.
Selene runs House Silverspire. It used to be headed up by Lucifer himself, but he went missing a couple decades ago and leadership falls to her. She senses a new angel has fallen to Earth and she rushes to the crash site to save her from roving gangs who would chop up the body for magical essence and to gain a new member for the House. When she arrives it's almost a bit too late, but when she tries to blast away the gangers, one of them turns her magic. The man's name is Philipe and he was a native of Vietnam and then he was recruited for the Great War and is now trapped in Paris.
On a whim, Selene decides to take them both in. Isabelle because she's a new Fallen and Philipe because she doesn't know exactly what he is. As Philipe and Isabelle explore Silverspire, they uncover a dark piece of magic that slowly starts killing member of the House and pushing for its downfall.
All in all, this was a pretty good book. I'm sure there's a ton of French socio-political subtext that I'm missing out on here, but you get a sense of the broad outlines of those themes. Even without all that, the book is quite good. The Fallen are all presented as quite dangerous, but fragile at the same time -- they can work wonders but there's a cost and no one wants to overplay their hand. No one is anxious to see the horrors of the Great War again either so there's a lot of subtle jockeying for position. One interesting way that shows up is that House Lazarus is run by a human woman. The implications are that it's quite possible for a human to hold their own against the Fallen, but you have to be incredibly ruthless and determined to do so.
The book ends at a good point and while I suspect there will be sequels, if this was the only volume, it'd be fine. Overall, this is an interesting new take on the "demons stalk the earth" idea and it's good to see a book coming from a different perspective. Well worth checking out.
Finally, I just finished up The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. This is a sort of sci-fi picaresque novel. It follows the Wayfarer a tunnel-ship that creates small hyperspace wormholes between worlds. The ship has just signed on a new clerk from Mars and then lands a major contract to construct a new tunnel connecting the Galactic Commons to a small planet claimed by the Tormei -- a violently xenophobic race that has opened negotiations to join the GC. The Wayfayer takes an extended journey to reach the planet where they will punch a tunnel back to GC space and collect a fat payday.
So the book is really about the crew members and how they grow and change on the long voyage out to the work-site and back. It's a little on-the-nose. You can pretty much spot everyone's major character arc as you get introduced to them. Still people do change and grow during the course of the trip and as they lazily travel from one system to the next interesting stuff happens.
It's definitely a quiet book. There aren't any epic space battles or desperate races-against-time, it's just a group of people forced to deal with each other and get a job done. I kind of liked it for that. There should be space for quieter books from time to time. Not everyone's cup of tea, but a fun read if that's the kind of thing you like.
later
Tom
I didn't get as much reading done on my vacation as I expected to, but I did chew through a fair number. So let's get to it.
First up: Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy by Dinty W. Moore. Yes, apparently that's actually his name and he's won prizes for his memoirs and essays.
Anyway in this collection of essays, other writers (of fiction and non) write in with various "Dear Abby" questions about their problems with writing. Dinty then answer them with a short note and then follows that with a short essay loosely connected to the question, the answer, or something else altogether.
This is perfect bathroom reading. Short, punchy pieces that entertains you while you're uh...waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's a wide range of topics covered and the tone is pretty lighthearted. Definitely worth looking into.
Next we have The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette Bodard. Ms. Bodard has previously written the meticulously researched Obsidian and Blood trilogy of Aztec-fantasy books which I quite liked. Here, she takes on a new setting in her hometown of Paris.
In Wings, when angels are cast out of Heaven they quite literally fall to Earth. If they survive the landing, they retain a portion of their magical powers and a very long (though not infinite) lifespan. The Fallen tend to congregate in small groups called Houses for their mutual protection and benefit. Although other magical beings and religious structures exist, the Fallen basically outclass most of them and soon the great empires of Europe, assisted by the Houses colonize pretty much everything.
Then WWI happens. Only this time the Houses go at one another tooth and nail and turn Europe into a festering war zone. Paris is devasated, the Seine is so choked full of magical residue from the war that it turns black and ashy and is best viewed from a very safe distance.
Selene runs House Silverspire. It used to be headed up by Lucifer himself, but he went missing a couple decades ago and leadership falls to her. She senses a new angel has fallen to Earth and she rushes to the crash site to save her from roving gangs who would chop up the body for magical essence and to gain a new member for the House. When she arrives it's almost a bit too late, but when she tries to blast away the gangers, one of them turns her magic. The man's name is Philipe and he was a native of Vietnam and then he was recruited for the Great War and is now trapped in Paris.
On a whim, Selene decides to take them both in. Isabelle because she's a new Fallen and Philipe because she doesn't know exactly what he is. As Philipe and Isabelle explore Silverspire, they uncover a dark piece of magic that slowly starts killing member of the House and pushing for its downfall.
All in all, this was a pretty good book. I'm sure there's a ton of French socio-political subtext that I'm missing out on here, but you get a sense of the broad outlines of those themes. Even without all that, the book is quite good. The Fallen are all presented as quite dangerous, but fragile at the same time -- they can work wonders but there's a cost and no one wants to overplay their hand. No one is anxious to see the horrors of the Great War again either so there's a lot of subtle jockeying for position. One interesting way that shows up is that House Lazarus is run by a human woman. The implications are that it's quite possible for a human to hold their own against the Fallen, but you have to be incredibly ruthless and determined to do so.
The book ends at a good point and while I suspect there will be sequels, if this was the only volume, it'd be fine. Overall, this is an interesting new take on the "demons stalk the earth" idea and it's good to see a book coming from a different perspective. Well worth checking out.
Finally, I just finished up The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. This is a sort of sci-fi picaresque novel. It follows the Wayfarer a tunnel-ship that creates small hyperspace wormholes between worlds. The ship has just signed on a new clerk from Mars and then lands a major contract to construct a new tunnel connecting the Galactic Commons to a small planet claimed by the Tormei -- a violently xenophobic race that has opened negotiations to join the GC. The Wayfayer takes an extended journey to reach the planet where they will punch a tunnel back to GC space and collect a fat payday.
So the book is really about the crew members and how they grow and change on the long voyage out to the work-site and back. It's a little on-the-nose. You can pretty much spot everyone's major character arc as you get introduced to them. Still people do change and grow during the course of the trip and as they lazily travel from one system to the next interesting stuff happens.
It's definitely a quiet book. There aren't any epic space battles or desperate races-against-time, it's just a group of people forced to deal with each other and get a job done. I kind of liked it for that. There should be space for quieter books from time to time. Not everyone's cup of tea, but a fun read if that's the kind of thing you like.
later
Tom
