Robin McKinley’s Sunshine

I lucked out on this book in a few ways.  It was another great recommendation from a friend and Amazon had it on sale ridiculously cheap.  I just couldn’t pass it up even though McKinley was a new author for me and my pile of books to read is getting pretty deep.

The novel has the now familiar construct of a young woman mostly on her own who somehow ends up with a horribly dangerous vampire that doesn’t eat her immediately.  Through the harrowing experiences they have she learns about herself and grows up.  But as with so many retold and remolded tales the story telling is what kept me turning the pages and regretfully putting it down when it got too late each night.

About half way through the book I started to notice the narrator has a tendency to spring major story changing facts on the reader without much lead in time or notice that you’re about to hear something important.  At times, they were presented in such a way I was turning back to reread them because I didn’t believe I’d read the past few pages correction.  After finishing the book and thinking about it for a week, I can’t decide if this helped me connect with what the main character was going through while she deals with sudden life changing events or if I was just annoyed by the mental whiplash I felt each time a new bomb was dropped.

Either way, I have a few more of McKinley’s books on my ‘want to read’ list now and if Sunshine has a sequel at any point I’ll be picking it up.

White Witch, Black Curse

The rule seems to be that sequels never live up to the original story.  I’ve been fortunate to find the exceptions to that rule lately and this Kim Harrison novel is one of them.

The novel is set in a semi post apocalyptic time with most of humanity killed off but the bureaucracies remain.  Exempt, now they have supernatural equivalents that are just as if not more powerful than their human counterparts.

One of the things I truly enjoy while reading these novels is how the supernatural element is folded so neatly into what appears to be ordinary life for the characters.  The author is able to move through the story by relying on the personalities of the characters, not by making up some new kind of magic to save the day.  I’m left feeling that the characters are complete with their supernatural alterations, not just humans with powers smacked on top of them.

There is a part that leaves me a little disappointed at the end though.  The characters seem to fall in love a lot and for reasons that don’t appear obvious.  I’m not quite grasping what the connection or attraction is between so many of the players that causes them to have such strong feelings so quickly, which makes their decisions somewhat confusing when it involves them.

But overall, the williness to explore the characters as complete beings with their gifts and failings and veering off the so well tread stereotypes for this genre makes this a series I’ll keep buying and enjoy reading every page.

Writting about blogging

The Daily Show had a guest on who had written a book about blogging.  The whole concept seemed so redundant, of course I had to blog about it!

Apparently the book was about how to blog, but I really have to wonder who has time to read about blogging and wouldn’t do that reading on the internet?  I guess I’ll have to wait to see if the book sells or not.   She did after all get on a tv show that I think lots of people watch, I know I do.

One thing they brought up was blogging about your secret passion.  I’m not sure that I have a secret passion, but I do have passions that vary at any given time.  Lately it has migrated back to Neal Stephenson.

I’ve been reading the Baroque Cycle and I just finished up volume 2.  So far my only complaint is that the books are kinda heavy to be lugging around, which is how I do most of my reading… waiting in lobbies or at gates in airports.

These books make me feel smarter while I’m reading them.  I’m not embarassed that I have to look up words he uses in the dictionary.  Learning new words and being confused for a couple chapters makes it all that more enjoyable when I have those “A HA!” moments and I figure out what the characters were doing.

I thought that Snow Crash was one of my favorite books of all time, but this series is my current favorite.  I’m actually looking forward to finishing them so I can reread the books and see how much I missed on the first run through.

The only part of the whole equation that I do feel a little embarassed about is that he turns out books faster than I can read them.  So my new pre-new years resolutions is to finish his books before he publishes another!

Starmind

I just finished the trilogy “Stardance” by Spider and Jeanne Robinson that someone at work lent me.

When I finish a book or series of books I usually have one of two reactions “that was fun” or “huh, I’m not sure I get it yet” and I’m definitely in the second category with this one.

Its been a while since I’ve read anything so non-christian centric or completely centered in the fantasy realm that I feel like the neurons my brain are using now are so rusty they almost hurt.   Sci-Fi was a favorite of mine when I was younger, but now reading about things that change the nature of what it means to be human and doesn’t involve a vampire or werewolf seems foreign.

Overall I think I liked it, and I’ve come to realize I probably need to broaden out my reading material a little.. but first I just have this one more vampire novel I really want to read