Some books of january and february

[oneiriad]

Cashore, Kristin: Graceling
Quite fun youth fantasy a bit a la Tamora Pierce.

Dahl, Ian & Konzack, Lars: Netgeneration og nørdkultur  (eng. Net generation and nerd culture)
Basically a book about how the geek shall inherit the Earth - or at least the positions of powers in the Danish public sector. Which I am quite alright with :-)

Erikson, Steven:  Dust of dreams
I don't suppose the Malazan books are to everyone's taste, but I quite like them. Considering how many thousand pages of the series I've slogged through so far, that's just as well. It's military fantasy, epic and blessedly free of simplistic black-and-white morality. A word of warning, though - there's a reason why the series is called The Malazan Book of the Fallen - don't get attached. To anyone.

Exquemelin:  The illustrated pirate diaries
One word: gorgeous.

Flewelling, Lynn:  Stalking darkness & Traitor's moon
I'm slightly annoyed at this fantasy series. It's perfectly fine cloak-and-dagger stuff, not particularly original, but why does it so elegantly skip the beginning of Alex and Seregil's more romantic relationship. But maybe that's just the slash fangirl in me ;-)

Fortsættelse følger (eng. To be continued).
Basically a collection of professional fanfic - a number of establish authors have written short sequels to a number of Danish literary classics. (I actually kept postponing reading this anthology until I had read all the canon works - which include both good and crappy stuff). As for the stories, then most of them are awfully depressing - apparently, it doesn't matter how optimistic a work might have ended, the sequels are mostly depressing. Also, modern breakthrough stories seem to be particularly ripe for femslash. As a curiosity, one author - Klaus Rifbjerg - appears on both sides of the fence, so to speak. But really, the general quality of the stories isn't really worth the bother.

Harris, Charlaine: Dead and gone
Harrison, Kim: The good, the bad and the undead
Why yes, I like urban fantasy / paranormal romance.

Kepler, Lars: Hypnotisören  (eng. The hypnotizer)
I took me a while to realize why I didn't like this one half as much as the Millenium novels that everybody has been comparing it to. It's quite simple, really. There is not a single kick-ass female characters in it. Psycotic bitches, mysterious conspiracy psyc-students, irritatingly jealous wife and overprotective mother who manages to get in the way of serious police work - but not a single female character I actually like. Sort of overrated book, really. Ah well...

King, Laurie R.:  A grave talent, To play the fool,  With child,  Night work
The series have a bit of a slow start - and the whole "lets keep the main character's sexuality a tantalizing secret" is sort of stupid when the blurb on the back has already revealed it. That said, it gets better, in a very femikrimi sort of way.

Lagercrantz, David: Syndafall i Wilmslow  (eng. Fall from grace in Wilmslow)
A detective investigates the death of Alan Turing. The mystery part is pretty weak, sadly, probably partly because there isn't an actual murderer to catch when the dead body is a suicide. Besides, it's somewhat annoying that no single person gets to unravel the mystery. It's alright, but hardly great.

McCaffrey:  Dragon harper,  Dragonheart
I'm guilty of having been reading Pern novels since I was a kid. This new crop of books by Todd McCaffrey can't really be said to be even as good as the original novels - they have a nasty tendency to recycle plot ideas and spend an inordinate amount of time showing the same events from different angels. That said, I like the parts where they show the lost colony aspect of Pern - other books have covered the society that has long since adapted to Pern and the freshly stranded people, but these are showing a world that's loosing itself and knows that it's loosing itself and can't prevent it. A better author could have made it quite tragic, actually. Ah well...

McIntosh, Fiona: The emissary
You know, if you're going to set your fantasy in a harem, you really should consider a heroine who isn't willing to die a horrible death rather than accept becoming queen. Seriously, it's been done - be original, please.

Madsen, Svend Åge:  Mange sære ting for
It's strange about SÅM - when he isn't science fiction, he's avant garde, and still he's an extremely popular mainstream author - and yes, the same books. Weird. This one reads like he's made his own spin on the whole da Vinci code style of novel, with an astronomer murdered under mysterious circumstances and a secret collection of videotapes recording the conception and life of one Jesus of Nazareth, curtesy of a so-called mirror planet. It's alternative history science fiction murder mystery supposedly being written by an atheist author after God has revealed himself to him and it's all very Svend Åge Madsen'sk. Plus, it's the only place I've ever found free-willed carrots. :-) SÅM is a great author, but unfortunately not really well known outside of Denmark - which is a shame. I think one of his early novels - Virtue and vice in the middle time - has been published in english (it's fun - basically, one long (very long) pierce of Future imperfect), though.

Vadmand, Per:  Mit liv som fugl  (eng. My life as a bird)
This was a huge disappointment. Adult Danish fantasy is such a rare thing and I had such expectations. It's crap. On the back, it's compared to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, but that's probably just because the main character is in the Arthur Dent / Rincewind mold - he's completely devoid of character and spends the entire novel getting dragged around by dragons and mages and superheroes. He's a complete un-character, apparently has no emotional reactions or anything - even finding out that the beautiful sorceress he's been fucking since he encountered her is actually a squirrel doesn't even warrant a tiny freak-out. Stupid. Is this really the best Danish fantasy for adults has to offer?!

Comments

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I was annoyed that Lynn Flewelling pretty much skipped most of the romantic relationship in that series too. It sort of went from pre-slash to established relationship with no in-between.

I kind of liked Graceling though.