Check In And Reading Update

Hey all, so I've been neglecting this here blog recently and it's for a reason. That reason is the usual reason: I am bizzy. Just thought it needed to be said.

What I am working on: I'm doing some book publicity for a couple of indy publishers, and I'm teaching two classes. And I just got started working on da nobble again, sort of. And I just got over being sick for seven weeks. Argh.

Anyway.

Continuing my YA binge, I just read:

Tamora Pierce's Melting Stones

Robin McKinley's Dragonhaven

Melting Stones was weird. The book is a standalone from the "Circle of Magic" world and character set, featuring Evvy, Briar's student, and Rosethorn. And it's in first person from Evvy's pov. In the story Evvy and Rosethorn keep referring to a war that the three of them experienced between Street Magic and Will of the Empress (actually, Will of the Empress happens at the same time that Melting Stones does,) and the references are made in the text very much the way a sequel refers to the events in a previous book. But I don't see the book listed anywhere in Pierce's bibliography. Did she write it and decide not to publish it? Was it written in a non-book form? Or was the book maybe outlined but never written? Or maybe Pierce has started getting all sophisticated and is telling stories indirectly now, in this manner?

Otherwise, the book continues Pierce's trajectory into making the mages' magic absolutely unstoppable and disobedient to any laws. Which isn't very interesting. Young mage goes with her teacher to a volcanic island that's about to go volcanic again and diverts the volcano spirits. Yeah.

Dragonhaven is the first McKinley book I've read and it was wonderful. Kid growing up in a national park which is one of the last preserves of dragons in the world discovers a dying dragon who was killed by -- and has killed in turn -- a poacher. The dragon just gave birth and the kid has to raise the baby dragon himself, thereby discovering how to communicate with dragons. The book was awesome and unexpected, with few scenes of typical dragon adventure and derring do. It's more a first-contact type of story, with a bit of hardcore William's Doll thrown in. (Although the boy, who's the first person narrator, calls his parental feelings "maternal" rather than "paternal," which made me tear my hair out.)

One downside, but a pretty big one: the first person narrator is a teenaged boy, although an older teenager, and McKinley has him tell the story in a pretty authentic voice, not knowing where to start a story, and breaking in with interminable parenthetical statements, and doubling back, and taking twice as long to get to the point as he needs to, and not being linear. This is great ... until it isn't. Thing is, a little of this goes a long way, and instead we get a LOT of it, which doesn't go nearly as far. Occasionally, McKinley knows to pack it in and just move forward with the narrative, but then she seems to forget, and starts getting wordy and parenthetical again at high-tension moments and ... by halfway through the book I had figured out which parts to skip and was just plain skipping them. And the experience wasn't any different in the second half than in the first except that it was less frustrating. That can't be good.

Otherwise, a great read, though.

Comments

[Kate Nepveu]

The Yanjing book is currently listed as 2012 on her website.

[claire]

Ha! Thanks for that. I wouldn't have seen it if you hadn't made me go look for it. Weird, though, that she's already written two novels that come AFTER this episode and whose plots hinge at least somewhat on the aftereffects of this episode, but she hasn't written the episode itself yet. I wonder if the circumstances of the Yanjing episode are too harsh -- or at least, harsher than usually happens in Pierce's worlds. Evvy gets tortured, we know that. I'm trying to remember if any of her protags have ever been tortured before.