Reading in January

[Note: I decreased the cover size because the post felt far long, and I don't want this blog to become an endless succession of cover art. If this new format's grotesque, please say so, and I'll change it back.]

Player of Games is Banks at the height of his powers. This novel's deeply intelligent and carefully constructed, but it's also a thrilling book that's consistently amusing throughout. Highly recommended for science fiction fans. Review coming.

The Westeros book of the month.  Beat the Reaper is one of the greatest page turners that I can ever remember reading. The prose drags you on with all the force of a hurricane and the attitude of…well, a Mafioso-cum-doctor, I guess. The book is jam packed with digressions that are generally quite amusing, though occasionally a bit too out there (the holocaust thread feels unnecessary and too disconnected from the rest), but there's not a single moment in the book where the spell is truly broken, and that's a definite accomplishment for an author that goes so gleefully over the top as Bazell does so often here.

The Postman Always Rings Twice is one of the three novels that I've been repeatedly told (since starting this whole Crime thing) started noir. The novel is brutal and bare bones, with the only sympathetic character cast as the antagonist and the amount of descriptive prose throughout the whole thing not being quite enough to properly fill a tea cup.

Goodis's classic crime novel is digressive, character focused, and bleak as can be. Review coming.

This issue of F&SF has actually been in my possession for a while. I got it when I was first considering reading some genre magazines, back when this was the current F&SF issue, and then promptly forgot about that goal – and this issue – until just now. The contents – and especially the longish Paradiso Lost by Cowdrey – were good enough to make me take out a subscription, which led to…

…my first sent-in-the-post issue of F&SF. As can be expected when going into a publication with various authors, there are a few stories more and a few less to my taste, but the magazine is quite powerful throughout and even the weaker tales boast impressive prose and ideas. My favorite story was probably Mathew Corradi's The Ghilish Blade, an engrossing and beautiful fantasy tale. Cowdrey's contribution to this issue, The Bogle, was also high quality and surprising in its genre (compared to his SF Paradiso Falls from the above issue), though the content itself wasn't particularly twisty.

This was the second of the three noir-cornerstone novels mentioned above (the third being The Big Sleep, which I read back in December). The Maltese Falcon is the kind of classic that's still a page turner decades after its initial publication, and the stark and declarative prose has lost none of its impact. This is a novel of complex twists and turns, with numerous characters each with separate agendas, but the plot never feels unfocused or artificial. When it comes to morality and characterization, Hammet is perhaps the least outspoken of the noir authors that I've read so far. We never come to understand Spade, and even at the end there's the question of just what his motives throughout were. It's a testament to Hammet's skills that, upon finishing the book, I was really saddened to learn that Spade, unlike Chandler's Marlowe, does not get his own series.

My thoughts after reading the first few pages of The Scarlet Letter were that Hawthorne could write very good prose. After another few pages, I amended that to good but wordy prose. By the end of the book, my opinion had distilled down to wordy. Hawthorne's writing seems enjoyable in small doses, but this novel is a piece of obviously plotted flash fiction stretched out to an agonizing (though objectively moderate) length. I think it says something that Hawthorne's introduction is forty-five pages of nothing, literally a third of the novel's text.

Under Heaven is a tightly focused and beautifully written epic fantasy. The main characters are immensely sympathetic, the oriental-esque setting is vivid and rich, and the book is impossible to put down. If I'd read this when it was released, I can guarantee that it would have made my list of best 2010 releases.

 Crampton is the screenplay that Ligotti penned with Brandon Trenz to try and get onto the X Files, which was later redone into a longer, un-X files-related version. (I read the original.) Though the themes are familiar to longtime Ligotti fans, this is, by necessity, a different style, with the author's traditionally dense and layered prose replaced with stage directions and dialogue. Different, however, does not always mean bad, and the rhythm that Ligotti manages to establish as the tale builds to its conclusion is extremely powerful – even if the ending itself did not really live up to what preceded it.

My Work is Not Yet Done consists of two short stories and a novella, the latter being the longest continuous piece of fiction that the author has yet created. Though the supernatural is a decided part of the work, My Work is Not Yet Done is far more human-focused than much of the author's output. Review coming.

The Crucible was a powerful play that, in my eyes, deserves its legendary status. The various characters grow sympathetic as the scenes pass, and the town's descent into insanity is both believable and frightening.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman was a sort of odd read for me. The fact that I named After Dark as one of my favorite reads of last year is probably enough to show that I'm a huge fan of Murakami's prose, and this collection of twenty-four stories is as deliciously smooth and thought provoking as always. That being said, many of the collection's pieces, especially towards the beginning, were more beautiful than sympathetic, and, though some of the later tales did succeed to draw me in emotionally, many of the early stories feel more like fascinating displays than immersing experiences. If you're a fan of Murakami's writing, you're unlikely to be disappointed here, but I'd recommend experiencing his novels first.

The concluding volume of K.J. Parker's Engineer Trilogy was a powerful read that made the most of the promises established in earlier volumes. Review coming.

Shock Totem was actually the magazine that kicked off my magazine-reading quest,and the first issue didn't disappoint. Review here.

The second issue of Shock Totem didn't feel as even as the first, but its heights were even higher, cementing the magazine as essential reading in my opinion. Review coming.

The Y series seems to be getting better and better with each volume. I found the ultimate fate of the astronauts a bit of a cop out here, but that's a relatively minor thing when compared with how gripping I found the rest. The characters are continuing to develop, and I'm looking forward to the fourth volume.

(I'll point out here that my review of the first Y was taken down from the list. Looking back over it, I didn't feel like it was up to snuff, and I'd prefer to review the series as a whole once I've finished it. Sorry if you were waiting for the review.)

Snake Agent was a gripping and inventive read, a mixture of bizarre imagination and carefully orchestrated suspense. The occasional twist was too easy to see coming – something not helped by the spoiler-filled back cover blurb – but the novel was enjoyable enough to render any such issues trivial. Recommended.

Urban Fantasy

[This is a Breaking New Ground post]

As far as I can tell, Urban Fantasy has three definitions. The first is any work in which magic comes into the real world. It’s already well documented that I’m a fan, so I won’t be doing that kind of Urban Fantasy. The second definition is anything where the city is a main character. Again, it’s quite obvious that I’m onboard, so we won’t be heading there. The final definition is, to quote Ms. Saintcrow:

Chicks kicking ass. Well, leather-clad chicks kicking ass. Leather-clad chicks kicking ass in an urban environment where some form of "magic" is part of the world. There. That’s about it.

That is the definition that, for the next few weeks, I will be using here on the Rack. It is a definition that, needless to say, doesn’t fill me with confidence and a let’s go! attitude. But it’s the definition that we’re stuck with, and, after all, if it did fill me with those things, I wouldn’t be reading it right now.

From what I can tell (as an outsider, mind you), Urban Fantasy is generally a first person affair, usually (in the subset of it that I’ll be looking at) narrated from a female perspective, has some manner unclothed and tattooed female body part on the cover, features moral ambiguity to a greater or lesser extent, usually has some sort of romance, and often seems to be the standard magic-in-hiding scenario that almost always seems to use the same vampires/werewolves/wizards or what have you.

None of those aspects are particularly odious in and of themselves, but together they make a product that I’m somewhat wary of. And that last sentence was me lying through my teeth, because several of those do cause serious problems for me. The biggest of them (besides the cover art) is the romance element. Now, I’m not adverse to romance in my fiction. I love well drawn characters more than I love anything else, and I understand that people (and characters) fall in love, have relationships, etc. That’s fine, as long as it’s only a part of their personality and story. When the main thrust of the tale is True Love, or any variant of said Love, I start looking for the exits. I remain doubtful that there’re characters great enough to keep me engaged with stakes no higher than their imminent copulation. So the fact that this genre has ties, no matter how tenuous, to paranormal romance is freaking me out a bit.

Ignoring the romance, I’ve got a bit of a problem with the paranormal part, too. Though there are exceptions, werewolves, vampires, etc, are all creatures that, at this point, cause me to do more groaning than screaming when they appear. I’m sure that not all Urban Fantasy relies purely on those particular supernaturals, but it seems that a rather large percentage of it does, and I’m sick of it even before opening to the first page, which is, needless to say, not a good sign.

But I think it’s time to change tracks here, as I could go on forever on why I haven’t read the books, but it’s a bit pointless to do so when I’m about to actually go read them. This won’t be the absolute first time I’ve been in these waters. Going by (some variant of) Saintcrow’s definition, I’ve read: Jim Butcher. Yeah, that’s really it. I enjoyed the sarcastic narration, the character of Harry, and the feel of the whole affair, but the blatant idiocy of half the cast made me drop the series after the second book, and I remain doubtful that I’m going to pick it up again.

So, what am I planning to read?


Griffin’s concept of “Urban Magic” seems like exactly my thing. Even better, the book is almost entirely devoid of the things that I can’t help but look for. The cover, for instance, has a cheesy-but-sort-of-cool guy on it, which makes me feel sort of safe, at least in the sense that it will be, at worst, bad in a cheesy way that I already understand. Griffin is well liked on Westeros, which has rarely steered me wrong before, not to mention the myriad good reviews she’s received.

UPDATE: And the challenge has been met.


A tattooed back? An Amazon blurb that includes: Until one moment – and one man – changes everything? Uh oh. The reasons that The Iron Hunt survived, despite triggering every safeguard and warning, are twofold. The first is that, a few weeks ago, Marjorie M. Liu and Kelly Armstrong had a conversation on Scalzi’s Whatever. Over the course of the conversation, Armstrong said: One thing I admired about [your writing] is the depth and richness of your writing. Your prose is very lush, but you still keep up the pace and the action, which is a rare combination. Good prose is definitely one of the main things I look for in a novel, so this was very comforting. The second reason came from the first half of the amazon marketing blurb that I quoted just above, which reads: Demon hunter Maxine Kiss wears her armor as tattoos, which unwind from her body to take on forms of their own at night. So those aren’t just overrated decorations? Alright, this all seems to have been given some thought, so I suppose it deserves a chance. Besides which, Thea (of The Book Smugglers) gave it a very promising review that reaffirms the excellent prose.

UPDATE: Challenge met.


The Mercy Thompson series features a shapeshifter as a protagonist, with the twist that the prime mythology that it draws from is Native American, rather than Twilight. I’ve also been told that Mercy is a realistic and well drawn character, and that romance (though present) is not the dominant aspect. On the subject of the series, Thea said: Seriously, this is one of the finest ongoing urban fantasy series’ around – Mercy is the ideal, genuine heroine, and Patricia Briggs’ gift for storytelling is damn near unparalleled, which sounds like damn fine praise to me.


Huston’s work is highly regarded on Westeros, coming up again and again in this thread. I’ve heard that his novels are gritty and fast paced, as well as possessing a fairly original take on the standard pantheon of supernaturals. On the review front, lovevampires.com (gulp) said: This book is the perfect antidote to the romanticised vampire.


Though not quite a fit for my definitions (being , from what I can tell, a near-future setting merged with magic, rather than a present day one) I’m counting Snake Agent here. The oriental basis for the magic sounded interesting, as did the overall concept of the book, and the positive reviews got me interested.

So, what does the whole list mean? Well, I’m determined to get through a minimum of five books from each new genre, and, while I reserve the right to replace one of them, those look like the likeliest candidates. I can’t promise a review of every book read for this, but I will, at the least, do a more informal post on them. So, without wasting any more time, I’m off to go kick read some demon ass fiction in my new leather pants.