Assorted book reviews

[holyschist]

I've been trying to review every book I read since January 2009 (am still behind on the end of 2009 and this February), so here are reviews of some of the fantasy books I've read so far this year. Links go to ful reviews.

Urban Fantasy

Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (contains spoilers)

Faerie-based San Francisco urban fantasy. Great sense of place, moderately interesting take on faeries, but I was a bit annoyed by the kitsune-in-name-only shoved into the European framework. Overall, I liked it and look forward to the sequels, which I hope will somewhat better reflect the multicultural nature of San Francisco.
Recommended? Yes.

Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs (contains spoilers for book 3)

Urban fantasy about Mercy Thompson, a coyote shifter and VW mechanic. This is the fourth book in the series and it goes a long way towards fixing some of the things that bugged many readers about the ending of book 3. It's a good story, and the characters continued to be well-developed and interesting.
Recommended? Yes, but read 1-3 first.

Discworld

Jingo, by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett takes on pointless wars. Not really one of my favorite Discworld books, although it has some amusing bits.
Recommended? Only for completist Discworld fans; not a good book to start Disc with.

Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett

Macbeth/Hamlet mashup, mostly. A solid Discword novel, especially if you like theatre (especially Shakespeare), and I always love the witches, but Granny Weatherwax doesn't seem quite fully Granny yet.
Recommended? Yes.

A Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett

The second Tiffany Aching book. I think these may be my favorite Discword novels, and I love this one even more than Wee Free Men. Tiffany is a young witch-in-training with some small, blue pictsie friends who love booze and stealing sheep. In A Hat Full of Sky, she is pursued by a strange, terrifying entity.
Recommended? Yes!

Fairytales

Ash, by Malinda Lo

Most reviews describe it as a "lesbian Cinderella story," but it's not really either. It doesn't follow closely to the original Cinderella story at all (for which I am glad), and the romance plot really only comes into play in the second half of the book. Lo's writing is really beautiful, and her characters are interesting, but the world so far seems to be generic Eurofantasy (apparently her next book will flesh out the world more and it's not as European as it seems here, but in Ash there just wasn't much about it that stood out from the hundreds of other generic Eurofantasy novels out there). Overall, I enjoyed it, but didn't love it as much as I wanted to.
Recommended? Yes!

Kissing the Witch, by Emma Donoghue

A collection of nested fairytales about women, many with queer themes. Lyrical and highly recommended.
Recommended? Yes.

Comments

[ex_pippin880]

I'm interested in what you (will?) think of Wintersmith, because I liked the first two Tiffany books and then in that one went "whaaaaaaaaat :| :| :|".

Oh, have you read The Good Fairies of New York? It's a fairy NY-based UF with African and Asian and European and British fairies. It is quite a silly story, but a fun ride. (I wrote a bit about it here.)

[holyschist]

Oh, no. :( I hope I like it. I seem to have mislaid my copy, so I'm reading something else right now, but I will review it when I do read it.

I haven't. It sounds potentially interesting, though!

[ex_pippin880]

Well you know how there's a bit of "Tiffany is totally going to be the next Granny"? In Wintersmith that sort of gets to "Tiffany is totally the next Granny right now, aged 14 or whatever" and I was just sitting there going "...but... but Agnes never got a chance... :(".

[holyschist]

Hmmm. Well, I adore Agnes, too, but I don't think she's ever had it in her to be Granny--she has a very different style. Plus I think she's more likely to take the Nanny role, although without quite the same, er, attitude. I dunno.

(Personally, I really hope Tiffany #4 is about old!Tiffany, but in YA novels, I don't know how likely that is.)

[ex_pippin880]

...I just went "man I wish I could see a battle between the Nac Mac Feegle and the vampires, that would be..... oh".

[holyschist]

I'm not sure quite what you mean?

Didn't that happen offscreen in Carpe Jugulum?

[ex_pippin880]

Well I started thinking about Tiffany vs Agnes and their most badass moments, which got me to thinking about the Feegles and the vampires, and then forgot one of CJ's subplots for a moment.

[holyschist]

The other thing is, hmm, Tiffany is very much the Witch of the Chalk. Agnes may well end up with Lancre, although it's debatable whether two witches could fill the Granny role in the wider witch society (two queens in one hive and all that).