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Recent reading
Nov. 25th, 2019 08:39 pmFreedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull (1997)
For my fannish book club; my choice. Opinions were a bit mixed--one of us thought it was too slow and did not get through it, but the ones who did enjoyed it. I liked it a lot, but then, I am generally fond of epistolary fiction. I thought it did a good job with the character voices and the unreliable narration. There's 19th century political intrigue (Friedrich Engels is a fairly important character), family dynamics, romance, spy stuff and a solid Bechdel pass. Also there's a het romance that everybody liked! We were all disappointed that it seemed to promise magic, but none ever appeared. Not that the book necessarily needed any magic to be good, but the back cover strongly implies that it would be there, so we were expecting it.
The Gate of Ivory by Doris Egan (1989)
What an unexpected delight! This was on my list of books to check out, and I think it probably got there by way of Jo Walton. It's science fantasy that has somewhat the flavor of a portal fantasy, though it isn't really: a woman from a scientific planet gets stuck on a planet with magic and has to make her way (this makes it sound kind of like Darkover, but the flavor isn't the same). She's hired by a wizard from an important family and gets embroiled in family conflict. Okay, I'm not really doing it justice with this description. The main character is sympathetic and the narrative voice and worldbuilding is just really charming. There's definitely a plot, but it's also a bit meandering--for example, I like the bit where they're stuck in a fishing village for months and she gets apprenticed to a massage therapist.
For my fannish book club; my choice. Opinions were a bit mixed--one of us thought it was too slow and did not get through it, but the ones who did enjoyed it. I liked it a lot, but then, I am generally fond of epistolary fiction. I thought it did a good job with the character voices and the unreliable narration. There's 19th century political intrigue (Friedrich Engels is a fairly important character), family dynamics, romance, spy stuff and a solid Bechdel pass. Also there's a het romance that everybody liked! We were all disappointed that it seemed to promise magic, but none ever appeared. Not that the book necessarily needed any magic to be good, but the back cover strongly implies that it would be there, so we were expecting it.
The Gate of Ivory by Doris Egan (1989)
What an unexpected delight! This was on my list of books to check out, and I think it probably got there by way of Jo Walton. It's science fantasy that has somewhat the flavor of a portal fantasy, though it isn't really: a woman from a scientific planet gets stuck on a planet with magic and has to make her way (this makes it sound kind of like Darkover, but the flavor isn't the same). She's hired by a wizard from an important family and gets embroiled in family conflict. Okay, I'm not really doing it justice with this description. The main character is sympathetic and the narrative voice and worldbuilding is just really charming. There's definitely a plot, but it's also a bit meandering--for example, I like the bit where they're stuck in a fishing village for months and she gets apprenticed to a massage therapist.
