A Life Spent Reading

I got a copy of this book since it’s the Jan selection for DearAuthor book club.

Blurb:

For two thousand years, Lilith wrought vengeance upon the evil and the damned, gathering souls for her father’s armies Below and proving her fealty to her Underworld liege. Bound by a bargain with the devil and forbidden to feel pleasure, she draws upon her dark powers and serpentine grace to lead men into temptation. That is, until she faces her greatest temptation — Heaven’s own Sir Hugh Castleford…

Once a knight and now a Guardian, Hugh spent centuries battling demons — and the cursed, blood-drinking nosferatu. His purpose has always been to thwart the demon Lilith, even as he battles his treacherous hunger for her. But when a deadly alliance unleashes a threat to both humans and Guardians in modern-day San Francisco, angel and demon must fight together against unholy evil — and against a desire that has been too long denied…

Who will be the first to succumb?

What worked for me:

World building. It’s superbly done. Also Lilith is a fun character and totally unapologetic about many naughty things she’s done.

Hugh balanced Lilith very well although I thought his contemporary self (Fallen version) not as interesting as the Guardian version. But then maybe it’s just me.

Demons who live in our world as senators, law enforcement agents, etc. That was very cool. And I liked the whole thing about Carthage. Yes…salt is neato! Love them Romans.

Spoiler alert: Finally Hugh & Lilith getting together at the end! Yay! I really wanted them to be happy together so I was thrilled, especially since it looks like paranormal romance label doesn’t guarantee HEA these days.

What didn’t work so well for me:

Pacing & setting / descriptions — a bit uneven, especially because there was very little description. I know, it’s funny because I don’t normally care for detailed descriptions, but since it’s a new strange world Brook is building, I would’ve loved to be able to see it. And it’s same for the contemporary SF setting she used for the second part of the novel. I really didn’t get any sense of the place. It could’ve taken place in NYC and I don’t think it would’ve made any difference.

Lucifer — He didn’t come across as a worthy arch-villain. The torture stuff he did was…I don’t know…just kinda blah. The frozen soul thing didn’t strike me as being horrific, and unfortunately, Lucifer felt like a caricature to me. And because I didn’t find him fascinating or particularly evil / sinister (the way I did with Hannibal Lecter or Zatar or James Moriarty), I never felt that Lilith and Hugh were in any danger. I actually found his archenemy demon more interesting, and I’m not sure if that’s what Brook intended.

Finally — I don’t think that the cover conveys the tone of the book. If it weren’t for DearAuthor, I don’t think I would’ve picked this one up based on the cover.

Overall: Good. Very solid for a debut novel. I think it’s definitely worth reading for any paranormal romance fans.

This is the first book in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles. I bought it since the cover looks cool and the story sounded intriguing and I felt like reading a paranormal romance novel.

Blurb:

In every generation, a Gardella is called to accept the family legacy of vampire slaying, and this time, Victoria Gardella Grantworth is chosen, on the eve of her debut, to carry the stake. But as she moves between the crush of ballrooms and dangerous, moonlit streets, Victoria’s heart is torn between London’s most eligible bachelor, the Marquess of Rockley, and her enigmatic ally, Sebastian Vioget. And when she comes face to face with the most powerful vampire in history, Victoria must ultimately make the choice between duty and love.

What worked for me:

Pacing was good. It only took me about two days to finish this book. The secondary characters were interesting, although I didn’t care for the scenes with just Victoria’s mother and her friends.

The new twist (Buffy meets Pride & Prejudice) worked for me, and it presented some extra challenges for Victoria since a woman back then had to follow certain rules, etc. And the conflict hinted (see the blurb above) about Victoria’s duty as a slayer and longing for Rockley was interesting. I wished that the book was more focused about that than other miscellaneous stuff.

What didn’t work so well for me:

I found it rather unbelievable that Victoria’s maid knew so much about vampire slayers, etc. Also it was just weird that Victoria was impatient to be a vampire slayer without thinking about what it could mean to her normal life (like finding a husband, getting pregnant, etc.). She seemed very impetuous and thoughtless. It appears to me that she won some major battles because she was lucky not because she was resourceful and clever. For example, in one scene she was distracted by a handsome guy (Sebastian), then got attacked by a bunch of vamps and fainted (or something like that), but Max managed to rescue her because the vamps hadn’t taken her to the queen vamp. That whole thing just rang false. Why attack Victoria if not to kill or take her to the queen vamp?

And Lilith! It seems like a very popular name for a lot of bad girls in paranormal romance novels. But it’s getting old real fast. Demon Angel — Lilith. The Circle Trilogy — Lilith. And it goes on and on. I mean…I know something like Jennifer might not be suitable, but can we please get some other name? Now all the Liliths I’ve read about are just blending in my brain. And I’m comparing them…like so-and-so’s Lilith’s not as mean as the Lilith from so-and-so’s book.

And research — something just jerked me out of the story was the musicale. On p. 77, Gleason writes:

The seventh piece out of ten. More than half done. But…she looked closer at the list. There were four movements to each of the last three selections, instead of three.

Then it is revealed that the last piece on the program in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in Dm. That would be his Piano Concerto #20, which has three movements — Allegro, Romanze, and Allegro assai rondo. (And there’s no way that you can count cadenza as its own movement although Beethoven wrote one for the piece and was later added to the first movement.) This made me wonder if it was the author who was ignorant or if it was Victoria.

(BTW — strictly speaking Bach didn’t write piano concertos, at least if we’re talking about J.S. Bach, the most famous one out of the family. He wrote concertos for the harpsichord, which are played on the piano these days and inaccurately called piano concertos.)

Finally — the ending. (this is spoiler) Phillip’s death totally ruined the book for me because I was expecting HEA. Or at least a promise or a continuation of V&P’s quest for their own HEA. In Lilith Saintcrow’s Dante Valentine series, I was okay with the death twist because it wasn’t marketed as romance, but this book was labeled as paranormal romance. And I was totally upset about that. And again, I felt that it was Victoria’s fault that Phillip died, which made me like her less.

Overall: It was somewhat uneven and the ending didn’t work for me at all. But I think that some may really enjoy it.

Several of the reviewers on Amazon have said that this book doesn’t represent Turow’s best work. While it is shorter than most of his other novels, I found the quality of Limitations to be up to his usual high standard. Of course, there are some compromises to be made when you have fewer than 200 pages to work with; the story isn’t going to be as complex or detailed as it would in a tome like The Laws of Our Fathers. But this novel/novella doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it’s interesting and more than a little fun to see Turow work his magic in a more, ah, limited setting. The title of the book has the usual two- and three-fold bearing on the story, but one wonders if the author wasn’t having a bit of a private joke as well when he chose it.

Again in contrast to many other reviewers, I didn’t find that the legal minutia detracted from the book. I read – even in fiction – in order to learn as well as be entertained, and I always learn quite a bit as Turow seamlessly blends courtroom maneuvering with the larger actions of his novels. Limitations is no exception. This book may have started out as a series in the New York Times Magazine, but it’s a very good read and a worthy addition to the ever-growing tapestry of Americana being woven in Kindle County.

After struggling for months to finish The Fall of Hyperion (see the previous entry), I wanted something that I knew was going to be fun and go quickly. Douglas Preston is a past master of this sort of book, whether he’s writing by himself or with colleague Lincoln Child, and sure enough, Tyrannosaur Canyon didn’t disappoint me.

As with all of Preston’s books, Science with a capital “S” exerts a heavy presence on the narrative. And not just archeology or paleontology, which one might expect; virtually every page is laden with jargon from fields as diverse as astronomy and cryptology, and understanding how the science works is, in places, vital to the plot. It’s to Preston’s credit that he manages to weave all of this into the story without sacrificing speed and continuity. For once the back-page blurbs are right; he really does do this sort of story better than Micheal Crichton. Far better.

What I particularly like about Preston’s work is a sort of ragged quality of the plot. People die (or survive) unexpectedly, not every plot thread is completely wound up, minor characters exert a more-than-minor effect on things here and there. In other words, his stories work a lot like life – there are loose ends. It makes things pleasingly unpredictable, and while some of the plotline is obvious from a hundred pages out, this unpredictability in other areas provides a nice balance.

I’ve liked certain of his books better than others, but I’ve never been disappointed in a Douglas Preston novel, and Tyrannosaur Canyon is no exception. If you don’t mind a heavy dollop of science with your mystery/thriller and you’re looking for a good read to take on a flight or to the beach, it’s going to be hard to beat.

I really don’t know what to say about this book. Dan Simmons is such a gifted writer, with such a sweeping imagination, that it seems almost a crime to complain about the novel. At the same time, I have never read anything so well done and interesting that so completely failed to hold my attention. It sounds almost like a paradox – if the novel is interesting, why wouldn’t it keep the reader interested? – but that’s exactly how I felt about it. Practically every page I read I’d be swept up in the story and shaking my head in frank admiration of how amazingly well-drawn Simmons’ universe is, but every time I’d put the book down – and I did this frequently – I never felt even a slight pressure to pick it back up again. I had to remind myself to do it. I liked the characters, I sympathized with their various plights and challenges, but I had virtually no real interest in seeing what happened to them or how the story turned out.

Why? Damned if I know. But it’s taken me months – literally – to finish this book.

One other small complaint about the book is how cute Simmons got with some of the writing, character names and so on. (These characters appeared in Hyperion as well, of course, but somehow it didn’t bother me as much there.) Are we really to believe that a Keats persona, one that supposedly has all of the original poet’s memories, will fail to comment upon a character named Leigh Hunt or Brawne Lamia? Simmons probably felt that most of his readers wouldn’t know of Hunt, but if you write something that can rightly be considered literature, you have to assume a higher level of background knowledge of the people who will read your work.

Still, this is a minor quibble. Aside from the problem given in the first paragraph, The Fall of Hyperion is every bit a worthy successor to Hyperion. The writing is uniformly excellent, the plotting and world-building on a par with such acknowledged classics as Dune and the Foundation series, the concepts and characters original and interesting.

My advice for people considering reading this book is two-fold. First, be sure to read Hyperion before you tackle this sequel. Second, reserve a lot of uninterrupted time to devote to the novel, because you’ll need it. This book would make the perfect companion for someone stranded on that mythical desert island for a week or two.