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Boy, did I feel stupid yesterday
May. 25th, 2009 07:47 pmOn the book front:
Happy news: the next Temeraire book is tentatively titled Tongues of Serpents, and is due out next year.
I read S.L. Day's Eve of Darkness over the weekend. I've read a couple of historicals written by Day published under a slightly different name (Sylvia Day). The urban fantasy worked better for me, although I wasn't thrilled with the way the book opened in the present, creating a Problem, then jumped backward and worked back to the present and then ENDED without ever freaking addressing the problem. I get that it is supposed to be a hook to get readers to pick up the next book, but if an author creates a Big Problem that early, I expect it to be addressed within the book, not to have to read the whole freaking book only to learn, hey, wait, oops, not enough page space in this book, go get the next book.
The conversion of the heroine from Regular Girl to Kick Ass Heroine made me stop and think, though. SBSarah and Candy wrote briefly about the forced vampiric change on a heroine as the equivalent of forced seduction or rape in paranormal romance in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, and in this series, the conversion of the heroine into an urban fantasy warrior struck me as the equivalent. There was no consent; she wasn't born a warrior, and did not choose to become one. Two guys literally and figuratively screwed her, and she's caught between their sibling rivalry and a bunch of political bull, working with a variety of people with their own agendas, dealing with a situation that no one seems willing to actually discuss with her. [At least, not on the page for the reader to see.] On one hand, this is urban fantasy, not romance, and UF tends to be darker, so okay, fine. On the other hand, it makes the other characters seem like utter jerks, and makes me as a reader less inclined to trust their narration or to root for them as characters.
Yesterday's Moment of Stupidity: Arriving at B&S's yesterday for a bbq, I locked my keys in my car...along with the potato salad. I even thought as I was getting out, put the keys in your pocket, you're not taking your bag inside. But did I? No. I felt like an idiot admitting this when I went inside, but the minute the words were out of my mouth, B was getting a hanger in order to try to get the door open -- that potato salad was important, you know. Fortunately, one of the neighbors is a LEO and had the equipment to pop the lock.
Also, dear whoever broke my driver's side mirror off: you couldn't be arsed to leave a note? Jerk. Now I get to have it repaired/replaced, which will probably require that the entire door panel come off and the wiring be redone in part.
Happy news: the next Temeraire book is tentatively titled Tongues of Serpents, and is due out next year.
I read S.L. Day's Eve of Darkness over the weekend. I've read a couple of historicals written by Day published under a slightly different name (Sylvia Day). The urban fantasy worked better for me, although I wasn't thrilled with the way the book opened in the present, creating a Problem, then jumped backward and worked back to the present and then ENDED without ever freaking addressing the problem. I get that it is supposed to be a hook to get readers to pick up the next book, but if an author creates a Big Problem that early, I expect it to be addressed within the book, not to have to read the whole freaking book only to learn, hey, wait, oops, not enough page space in this book, go get the next book.
The conversion of the heroine from Regular Girl to Kick Ass Heroine made me stop and think, though. SBSarah and Candy wrote briefly about the forced vampiric change on a heroine as the equivalent of forced seduction or rape in paranormal romance in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, and in this series, the conversion of the heroine into an urban fantasy warrior struck me as the equivalent. There was no consent; she wasn't born a warrior, and did not choose to become one. Two guys literally and figuratively screwed her, and she's caught between their sibling rivalry and a bunch of political bull, working with a variety of people with their own agendas, dealing with a situation that no one seems willing to actually discuss with her. [At least, not on the page for the reader to see.] On one hand, this is urban fantasy, not romance, and UF tends to be darker, so okay, fine. On the other hand, it makes the other characters seem like utter jerks, and makes me as a reader less inclined to trust their narration or to root for them as characters.
Yesterday's Moment of Stupidity: Arriving at B&S's yesterday for a bbq, I locked my keys in my car...along with the potato salad. I even thought as I was getting out, put the keys in your pocket, you're not taking your bag inside. But did I? No. I felt like an idiot admitting this when I went inside, but the minute the words were out of my mouth, B was getting a hanger in order to try to get the door open -- that potato salad was important, you know. Fortunately, one of the neighbors is a LEO and had the equipment to pop the lock.
Also, dear whoever broke my driver's side mirror off: you couldn't be arsed to leave a note? Jerk. Now I get to have it repaired/replaced, which will probably require that the entire door panel come off and the wiring be redone in part.
