Recent reading
Jul. 31st, 2018 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaPaladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (2003)
I don't know why I waited so long to read this after The Curse of Chalion, because it is very enjoyable fantasy! I liked that the protagonist is a middle-aged woman who'd been considered mad, and where I found the romance a bit annoying in the previous book, it was better in this one. And I enjoyed the worldbuilding and plot, too.
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson (1990)
...shall wake the harp of gold. Er, no, wrong book. Anyway, this is alternate history which for me suffered a bit from not actually knowing the real events of the American Civil War (since I am not American). Other than that I enjoyed it! Recced byfrayadjacent and Jo Walton, I think? The premise is that the war was kicked off by abolitionists and run-away slaves and led to a separate Nova Africa country in the south. And lots of other differences in history, I particularly liked the international aid reminiscent of the international brigades in the Spanish Civil War. It's a remarkably dense book--in 150 pages you get alternating narratives with a viewpoint from 1959, a diary from someone who was there in 1859, and also some epistolary parts from other people in the past. And yet I don't feel that it was crammed in or that you don't get enough detail. It's actually quite well written. It's also a very utopian book which blithely has a socialist USSA in 1959.
I don't know why I waited so long to read this after The Curse of Chalion, because it is very enjoyable fantasy! I liked that the protagonist is a middle-aged woman who'd been considered mad, and where I found the romance a bit annoying in the previous book, it was better in this one. And I enjoyed the worldbuilding and plot, too.
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson (1990)
...shall wake the harp of gold. Er, no, wrong book. Anyway, this is alternate history which for me suffered a bit from not actually knowing the real events of the American Civil War (since I am not American). Other than that I enjoyed it! Recced by
frayadjacent and Jo Walton, I think? The premise is that the war was kicked off by abolitionists and run-away slaves and led to a separate Nova Africa country in the south. And lots of other differences in history, I particularly liked the international aid reminiscent of the international brigades in the Spanish Civil War. It's a remarkably dense book--in 150 pages you get alternating narratives with a viewpoint from 1959, a diary from someone who was there in 1859, and also some epistolary parts from other people in the past. And yet I don't feel that it was crammed in or that you don't get enough detail. It's actually quite well written. It's also a very utopian book which blithely has a socialist USSA in 1959.
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Date: 2018-08-06 09:00 pm (UTC)