A Local Habitation, Seanan McGuire
Jun. 26th, 2012 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThis is an urban fantasy book about faerie, the second in the October Daye series. I really like the worldbuilding, the magic, the characters and the politics: it makes faerie seem worth caring about, but also capricious and dangerous.
On the other hand, a number of specific things about the plot did unfortunately bug me:
* If you're visiting a vulnerable enclave adjacent to a large hostile state, and you discover that they're in the middle of a crisis and have been trying but failing to contact home, and then you discover that the reason they can't contact home is that the phones have been sabotaged, that, right then, is when you hit the panic button. Don't wait threee days.
* When three people have been murdered in a building in three weeks, stop wandering around it trying to do normal work. Evacuate or hole up everyone in a central cafeteria, and if they leave, they go in pairs. If everyone wanders off on their own and someone is killed again, and you tell everyone to stay put, and then everyone wanders off on their own AGAIN and someone is killed AGAIN, they're too stupid to live.
* You know the one question you could have asked which would have solved everything immediately? "What do you do at this company that's unusual?"
* Another would be, "spirit who can see everything in the building, watch everyone and tell us when someone is killed".
* When you meet a man who is immediately really attractive, but your male friend hated him so much he wanted to wander around a dangerous building on his own instead of going with you, and then later meet a woman who is really attractive, but you hate, and you only see the man during the day, and only see the woman during the night, and when they don't really spend any time together, and yet always travel across the country to the same places to work at the same companies, and when whenever one of them isn't there, everyone gives phony excuses for where they are and assume they'll be ok even if they're in the murder-building on their own, then THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON. I guessed that as soon as I heard about the dayshift/nightshift. OK, everyone can't work everything out, but(1) I'm not a detective, but you are (2) I'd never heard of the species of faeire they are, but you have (3) I don't know that it's unusual for you to fall for someone really quickly, but you do. This was interesting, but not really a shocking revelation on page 250.
On the other hand, a number of specific things about the plot did unfortunately bug me:
* If you're visiting a vulnerable enclave adjacent to a large hostile state, and you discover that they're in the middle of a crisis and have been trying but failing to contact home, and then you discover that the reason they can't contact home is that the phones have been sabotaged, that, right then, is when you hit the panic button. Don't wait threee days.
* When three people have been murdered in a building in three weeks, stop wandering around it trying to do normal work. Evacuate or hole up everyone in a central cafeteria, and if they leave, they go in pairs. If everyone wanders off on their own and someone is killed again, and you tell everyone to stay put, and then everyone wanders off on their own AGAIN and someone is killed AGAIN, they're too stupid to live.
* You know the one question you could have asked which would have solved everything immediately? "What do you do at this company that's unusual?"
* Another would be, "spirit who can see everything in the building, watch everyone and tell us when someone is killed".
* When you meet a man who is immediately really attractive, but your male friend hated him so much he wanted to wander around a dangerous building on his own instead of going with you, and then later meet a woman who is really attractive, but you hate, and you only see the man during the day, and only see the woman during the night, and when they don't really spend any time together, and yet always travel across the country to the same places to work at the same companies, and when whenever one of them isn't there, everyone gives phony excuses for where they are and assume they'll be ok even if they're in the murder-building on their own, then THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON. I guessed that as soon as I heard about the dayshift/nightshift. OK, everyone can't work everything out, but(1) I'm not a detective, but you are (2) I'd never heard of the species of faeire they are, but you have (3) I don't know that it's unusual for you to fall for someone really quickly, but you do. This was interesting, but not really a shocking revelation on page 250.