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Some reading since July
Sep. 25th, 2011 02:22 pmNoted in advance: a) importing my Visual Bookshelf into Goodreads has screwed up the chronology liek whoah, since all the VB items are assigned the date of importation rather than when I actually read them; b) I've already reported at length on a number of things read, for good or bad c) there was a fair amount of rereading during the period in question
Litfic: Margaret Drabble, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: Complete Short Stories (2011): okay, but I think her length is really the novel. Pamela Frankau, Some New Planet (1937) - I was sure I had seen this listed somewhere as sf, but although it does have what might possibly be considered a paranormal event, it's largely mimetic fiction, and led me to reflect once more that it pretty much wasn't until after the War that Frankau really hit her stride and began writing things that are of more than historical interest. Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild), Summer Pudding (1943, recently reissued by Greyladies): not really quite as good as some of the earlier ones Greyladies have done. Not sure if this is because they chose the strongest ones first, or whether after a bit one notices the recurrent of certain themes and tropes. Also, this one did not have the powerful evocation of working environment and milieu that some of the others have. Angela Thirkell, Miss Bunting (1945): oh, Angela, so many good things you do, and so many really, really annoying ones. This book is probably just about on the cusp of where she tips over to 'groaning beneath Clem Atlee's iron heel', though the sense that the Second World War is all about the inconvenience of the better class of person in Barsetshire is kind of WTF.
Mystery & thrillers: Jane Haddam, Flowering Judas (2011): enjoyable, but I am getting a little bit irked at the loose ends of plot strands in her last few books. Robert Barnard, A Stranger in the Family (2010): a non-series book of Barnard in more serious mode, okay but suffers from a rather unsympathetic protag trying to find out the secrets of his past. J D Robb, Treachery in Death (2010): enjoyable read. Megan Abbott, The End of Everything (2011): very well written, but I'm not sure how much I care for the 'event that ends childhood/early adolescence innocence' narrative, as compared to her more noir work.
Sff: Naomi Novik, Tongues of Serpents (2010), Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Blessing (2011): I am just possibly getting somewhat jaded by the 'what can we do with our protags: send them on an extensive journey to somewhere they haven't yet been' trope: this seemed fairly fresh in the Angelique books, and even in Dunnett (though I was getting a bit to the point of making bets to myself as to where she could feasibly for C15th send Niccolo by the last volumes) but it's beginning to make me long for a 'bottle episode' in these long series, where everybody is cooped up in the same place for the duration of the plot, I will even let you have locked-room mystery in the mix, pretty plz? Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, The Tempering of Men (2011) - while A Companion to Wolves did stand alone, it did have great worldbuilding and unexplored stuff, and this took the whole thing in unexpected directions and developed the world and the implications, yes, great stuff.
