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Books for June, 2002
Jun. 30th, 2002 10:22 pmAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman. Structurally, this really reminded me of Tim Powers' Last Call. Both start out with a man who has had the stuffing knocked out of him by his wife's death. In fact, his wife's death was arranged by magical forces who want him to be bereaved because it makes him ripe for their plans. And the dead wife follows the man and meets up with him several times. And the man breaks free in the end from the path that the magical ones wanted him to follow. Neil did an excellent job with this, I think.
Apropos of nothing, Neil mentions that about 90,000 people a month are reading his on-line journal. Gah.
Fallen Host byLyda Morehouse. Lyda's on a roll. Pleased with this and I'm sure I'll pick up her third. Go, Lyda.
The Dangerous Marquis by Barbara Reeves. I can only say in my own defense for picking this up that I was on vacation, I was out of books, I was desperate, and it was on the library of Vail's No-Need-to-Check-Out shelf because all the books on it were assumed to be so awful that nobody needed to keep track of them. It was awful. It was a good reminder of why when reading romances, I generally stick to Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen.
Since I was still out of books after finishing that one, I turned to Fiona's. Here were four I picked up:
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry. Re-read. Hadn't picked this up in years. I remember seeing the movie when I was a kid. I think my favorite of hers is still King of the Wind.
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Re-read. This was delightful.
Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell by Kristiana Gregory. This is part of the Dear America series, which I think is a pretty superior series for teaching young readers history. Enjoyed it.
The First Woman Doctor by Rachel Baker. Re-read. I remember liking reading biographies when I was a kid.
Spindle's End byRobin McKinley. I love Robin's books in general, but this isn't one of my favorites of hers. The problem for me was pacing. It was going along quite swimmingly, I think, until Peony touched the spindle on p. 270. I had pretty much guessed the ending variation McKinley would use by that point, but we had to wade through another 73 pages to get to it, which boil down to: "and then weird magical stuff happens." I got bored waiting for the denouement. I preferred Beauty and Rose Daughter, which I've read many times, to this. I remember that I read her Outlaws of Sherwood only once.
The Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley. I'd never heard of this author before, and picked this book up on the basis of the blurbs and cover copy. Here's her interview on Amazon. I'm always interested in the treatment of music in fantasy. I suspected, and reading proved that I was right, that this book is structured similarly to my second, The Wild Swans, with chapters alternating between 1761 and 2018. The two protagonists are meant to be variations of one another, and in fact they see each other as ghosts. She handled it pretty well, I think, although I found Eilish (in 1761) much more interesting and sympathetic than Erin (in 2018). I'd probably try another book by this author.
Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart, the first in her Jane Lawless mystery series. It's fun to find another series set in Minneapolis.
Note: There are several other books this month (about four), but I'm not going to share the titles. Elinor Dashwood has been reading them as she has been trying to untangle a personal problem which she feels it best to keep private. I will say, by the way, that this problem seems to have unexpectedly resolved itself, and so I expect all books next month will be public.
Peg
Apropos of nothing, Neil mentions that about 90,000 people a month are reading his on-line journal. Gah.
Fallen Host byLyda Morehouse. Lyda's on a roll. Pleased with this and I'm sure I'll pick up her third. Go, Lyda.
The Dangerous Marquis by Barbara Reeves. I can only say in my own defense for picking this up that I was on vacation, I was out of books, I was desperate, and it was on the library of Vail's No-Need-to-Check-Out shelf because all the books on it were assumed to be so awful that nobody needed to keep track of them. It was awful. It was a good reminder of why when reading romances, I generally stick to Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen.
Since I was still out of books after finishing that one, I turned to Fiona's. Here were four I picked up:
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry. Re-read. Hadn't picked this up in years. I remember seeing the movie when I was a kid. I think my favorite of hers is still King of the Wind.
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Re-read. This was delightful.
Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell by Kristiana Gregory. This is part of the Dear America series, which I think is a pretty superior series for teaching young readers history. Enjoyed it.
The First Woman Doctor by Rachel Baker. Re-read. I remember liking reading biographies when I was a kid.
Spindle's End byRobin McKinley. I love Robin's books in general, but this isn't one of my favorites of hers. The problem for me was pacing. It was going along quite swimmingly, I think, until Peony touched the spindle on p. 270. I had pretty much guessed the ending variation McKinley would use by that point, but we had to wade through another 73 pages to get to it, which boil down to: "and then weird magical stuff happens." I got bored waiting for the denouement. I preferred Beauty and Rose Daughter, which I've read many times, to this. I remember that I read her Outlaws of Sherwood only once.
The Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley. I'd never heard of this author before, and picked this book up on the basis of the blurbs and cover copy. Here's her interview on Amazon. I'm always interested in the treatment of music in fantasy. I suspected, and reading proved that I was right, that this book is structured similarly to my second, The Wild Swans, with chapters alternating between 1761 and 2018. The two protagonists are meant to be variations of one another, and in fact they see each other as ghosts. She handled it pretty well, I think, although I found Eilish (in 1761) much more interesting and sympathetic than Erin (in 2018). I'd probably try another book by this author.
Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart, the first in her Jane Lawless mystery series. It's fun to find another series set in Minneapolis.
Note: There are several other books this month (about four), but I'm not going to share the titles. Elinor Dashwood has been reading them as she has been trying to untangle a personal problem which she feels it best to keep private. I will say, by the way, that this problem seems to have unexpectedly resolved itself, and so I expect all books next month will be public.
Peg
