| Today began strangely, with a light snow falling and me waking up feeling a bit under the weather. I can’t account for the former, but the latter was likely influenced by my getting caught in a bit of cold rain last night.
I opted to take a sick day from the DayJob, and spent part of the morning sorting through the pile of unopened mail that had been accumulating. The highlight of this excavation was a copy of Steven Brust’s latest Vlad Taltos novel, Tiassa. I’d read a short, spoiler-free review of it over on Tor.com yesterday, and I’ve been delving into the book itself this morning. It’s delightful. Brust is deceptive. He’s so good with the wisecracking dialogue of his narrator that it’s easy to overlook just what a careful storyteller he is. If you’ve never read the Taltos books (or the other books in his Dragaera universe), then you’ve got quite a treat ahead of you. Not only are they well worth your time, but there are quite a few of them! The current novel is the thirteenth in this series (of a planned nineteen!), and in addition there are five other books that comprise the Khaavren Romances (as well as another book, Brokedown Palace, which is a standalone novel that I’ve never read). Go forth, thou, on this dreary Friday, and read some Brust! |
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Posts Tagged ‘Reading’
Delighting in Brust
Philadelphia Fantastic for February 2011
In a little bit I’ll be braving wind and traffic to drive to downtown Philadelphia for Philadelphia Fantastic, a monthly reading series that meets at 7:30 pm at the Moonstone Arts Center (108 S. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA)
Tonight that means Jonathan Maberry, who will be reading from his latest novel, Rot & Ruin.
Maybe I’ll see you there?
Jeweled Bear
I’ve just finished reading Bone and Jewel Creatures, by Elizabeth Bear, another handsome hardbound novella put out by Subterranean Press. The book’s been sitting on my shelf since it came out early in the year, shelved alongside other volumes by Bear that I’d purchased but never got around to reading.
Ebear packs a lavish amount of detail into this short work, lush and often meandering (but never tedious) lists of things things encountered in the street (animals, conveyances, odors, people), bricabrac in a wizard’s workspace, particulars of clothing and culture. Her use of pronoun play is both deliberately heavyhanded and exceeding deft, hinting and implying without every explicitly telling you what the significance is but making damn sure you don’t miss that there is one.
I was particularly impressed by how easily I slipped into the POV of her main character, a ninety-year old, female wizard, and how Bear quite naturally allowed me to see things through her eyes by the simple expediency of what was and wasn’t a part of her daily routine, where she placed her trust and why, and how she knew things that were understood but felt the need (I’m still talking about the character here, not the author) to explain them just the same.
Any author could learn a lot about writing vivid, breathing characters from reading how Elizabeth Bear does it in this novella. I certainly did.
Stross is Toast!
I’m currently reading Charles Stross’s collection, Toast. As far as I can tell, the book originally came out in a paperback  edition back in 2002 from Cosmos books. At that time it had the subtitle “And Other Rusted Futures.” Cosmos put out an expanded version of the book (and dropped the subtitle) in 2005. I don’t tend to buy paperbacks, so I’ve been waiting for years for Wyrm Publishing to come out with the deluxe, hardcover edition (which they did!), and now I have it in my grubby hands.
And it’s an interesting read (I’m about 80% through it). The ideas fly faster and with less polish than Stross’s more recent works. He’s having a lot of fun though, and that pleasure comes through. It’s older stuff, but you can see how the wit of  Saturn’s Children or the brilliance of Accelerando is brewing on a back burner. I like being able to do that, and if you’re a fan of Charles Stross then I suspect you will too.
