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Dec. 17th, 2007 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackLakewalkers -- The Sharing Knife
I've loved all Bujold's books, though the Chalion series took more readings to fall in love with than Vorkosigan. This is a romance, though set in one of Bujold's amazing universes. She (amongst many other things) has been very good at having characters fall in love in a realistic way, so I wanted to see what happened here.
I certainly couldn't put it down. However, I was left with the feeling that not very much had happened. The metaphysics action is all over in the first few chapters, and the book mostly deals with the main characters getting to know each other.
Which is very well done, with all of Bujold's usual strengths. However, they avoid the usual cliches of massive overreaction to the difficulty of getting together, which means, while you're happy for them personally, you don't have the tension when something big's been conquered.
Often, Bujold books go the other way; a world-threatening problem is averted, when the much more local problems provided plenty enough tension. However, this seemed to go too far the other way.
Jennifer Morgue
I didn't really get into any of Stross's other books, but really loved the Atrocity Archives, so I was looking forward to this.
It fulfils the "much more of the same" I'd hoped for. Like Sharing Knife I couldn't put it down, and it had lots of fascinating ideas, and was funny, and excelled at all the things you expect a James Bond/Lovecraft/Yes Minister homage to do.
Though I'm disappointed it didn't change my literature world as much as the first one did :)
I feel like the running joke of Bob not knowing what's going on is getting stale. It's *good*, but it would be just as good if, for once, he managed to get a proper briefing before he started a mission. In Holland, he really did, and that was one of the best bits.
Him being dumped into situations half-briefed, and wrestling with matrix management, are very good, and one of the strengths of the genre, but it's a delicate balancing act to keep it plausible, and possibly not necessary.
Charlie: Well, I don't expect you'll be reading this, but you might. So I apologise for the unhelpfulness of the above critique :) I think I'm probably missing a point, in loving Atrocity Archives so much, and you should probably ignore my opinions. But fwiw, I wish you could just write about Bob Howard all day, and I'll continue to send you money :)
I've loved all Bujold's books, though the Chalion series took more readings to fall in love with than Vorkosigan. This is a romance, though set in one of Bujold's amazing universes. She (amongst many other things) has been very good at having characters fall in love in a realistic way, so I wanted to see what happened here.
I certainly couldn't put it down. However, I was left with the feeling that not very much had happened. The metaphysics action is all over in the first few chapters, and the book mostly deals with the main characters getting to know each other.
Which is very well done, with all of Bujold's usual strengths. However, they avoid the usual cliches of massive overreaction to the difficulty of getting together, which means, while you're happy for them personally, you don't have the tension when something big's been conquered.
Often, Bujold books go the other way; a world-threatening problem is averted, when the much more local problems provided plenty enough tension. However, this seemed to go too far the other way.
Jennifer Morgue
I didn't really get into any of Stross's other books, but really loved the Atrocity Archives, so I was looking forward to this.
It fulfils the "much more of the same" I'd hoped for. Like Sharing Knife I couldn't put it down, and it had lots of fascinating ideas, and was funny, and excelled at all the things you expect a James Bond/Lovecraft/Yes Minister homage to do.
Though I'm disappointed it didn't change my literature world as much as the first one did :)
I feel like the running joke of Bob not knowing what's going on is getting stale. It's *good*, but it would be just as good if, for once, he managed to get a proper briefing before he started a mission. In Holland, he really did, and that was one of the best bits.
Him being dumped into situations half-briefed, and wrestling with matrix management, are very good, and one of the strengths of the genre, but it's a delicate balancing act to keep it plausible, and possibly not necessary.
Charlie: Well, I don't expect you'll be reading this, but you might. So I apologise for the unhelpfulness of the above critique :) I think I'm probably missing a point, in loving Atrocity Archives so much, and you should probably ignore my opinions. But fwiw, I wish you could just write about Bob Howard all day, and I'll continue to send you money :)