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recent notable books: surprise triads!
Sep. 12th, 2010 02:40 pm(I had this post written, but it's gone missing, so here we go again.)
Surprise triad #1: Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series. Robson is wonderful in general, and here she gets paid for playing in the id vortex: dragons, faeries, intelligent metal body mods, motorbikes, big guns, mythic archetypes, you name it and it's probably in here. Given that this concoction basically amounts to a paranormal romance on steroids, it should surprise no one that there is a love triangle involved. However, it's highly unusual and pleasing for the heroine to marry both a mixed-race elf rocker and a dragon-kitty demon assassin at the same time. For political reasons, sure, but that wouldn't stop me from shagging them and it doesn't stop her. Yay.
It also pushes a button for me that's hard to explain; I think the best I can do is to call it "everybody loves everybody." Sure, you've grown apart since knowing each other when younger, and maybe your former friend is now an undead necromancer inhabiting your girlfriend's body, and this is complicated. You may have to kill the other person because you're now on opposite sides, or for reasons beyond your control. But it doesn't mean you don't love them. (This of course boosts the potential angst, but it's the love I'm into, not the consequences.)
The series is incomplete at four books, but I don't think it ends at a cliffhanger.
Surprise triad #2: Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Burning City. Book 2 of the Spirit Binders trilogy, also incomplete, also not a cliffhanger. Polynesian-influenced fantasy with some magic-geeking and strong, primary female characters. The part I liked best was of course the magic-geekiest part, a story-in-story that details the beginnings of the extant magical system, and therein lies the poly content as well. One bit was sordid and made me sad, but the bonds among the three people and how they evolved over time were sweet and compelling.
Surprise triad #3: Nina Kiriki Hoffman's A Fistful of Sky. Okay, I have read this like ten times by now, but I was pleasantly surprised my first time through by the simultaneous development of two relationships that are important in very different ways. And I love, love, love the ending. The whole thing, really, but for nonstandard-family glee the ending is unsurpassed.
Surprise triad #1: Justina Robson's Quantum Gravity series. Robson is wonderful in general, and here she gets paid for playing in the id vortex: dragons, faeries, intelligent metal body mods, motorbikes, big guns, mythic archetypes, you name it and it's probably in here. Given that this concoction basically amounts to a paranormal romance on steroids, it should surprise no one that there is a love triangle involved. However, it's highly unusual and pleasing for the heroine to marry both a mixed-race elf rocker and a dragon-kitty demon assassin at the same time. For political reasons, sure, but that wouldn't stop me from shagging them and it doesn't stop her. Yay.
It also pushes a button for me that's hard to explain; I think the best I can do is to call it "everybody loves everybody." Sure, you've grown apart since knowing each other when younger, and maybe your former friend is now an undead necromancer inhabiting your girlfriend's body, and this is complicated. You may have to kill the other person because you're now on opposite sides, or for reasons beyond your control. But it doesn't mean you don't love them. (This of course boosts the potential angst, but it's the love I'm into, not the consequences.)
The series is incomplete at four books, but I don't think it ends at a cliffhanger.
Surprise triad #2: Alaya Dawn Johnson's The Burning City. Book 2 of the Spirit Binders trilogy, also incomplete, also not a cliffhanger. Polynesian-influenced fantasy with some magic-geeking and strong, primary female characters. The part I liked best was of course the magic-geekiest part, a story-in-story that details the beginnings of the extant magical system, and therein lies the poly content as well. One bit was sordid and made me sad, but the bonds among the three people and how they evolved over time were sweet and compelling.
Surprise triad #3: Nina Kiriki Hoffman's A Fistful of Sky. Okay, I have read this like ten times by now, but I was pleasantly surprised my first time through by the simultaneous development of two relationships that are important in very different ways. And I love, love, love the ending. The whole thing, really, but for nonstandard-family glee the ending is unsurpassed.
