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There were people here all week. So I didn't write about anything I read, but I didn't read anything all that significant either.
Apparently the statue we have of Bruce Campbell as Ash from Army of Darkness (it's this tall toy figurine that talks with a motion sensor andhas a detachable hand/chainsaw combo) is the coolest thing ever to many people of the male persuasion, not just to my husband J. He's holding up a disco ball because his blood soaked commentary when I passed him on the way to the bathroom at night disturbed me, and the disco ball makes him more amiable.
Just amusing to me because while I didn't mind buying it, I'd rather have had, say, a cool fairy poster or a stuffed Wonder Woman doll or something. girls and boys must be different after all.
So, what have I read since Wednesday-ish.
London, Julia. Beauty Queen.
The middle book in a trilogy about the Lear sisters, three adult women with very childish lives who find love with rather domineering men while their father deals with cancer. I didn't really enjoy it, I think because this was one of those romance novels where the brooding man-type is always putting down the woman for her accomplishments and insulting her abilities only to finally learn that because he loves her, he shouldn't do that.
Personally, I suspect that there are plenty of nice men on the planet who won't put you don whether they love you or not, and I prefer that my romance heroines date one of them.
Adams, C.T. and Cathy Clamp. Moon's Web.
Another of the now-vast category of supernatural romance starring shapechangers and/or vampires. Shape changers here, fairly well realized. Put out under Tor's new romance imprint, so it's perhaps not a surprise that the fantasy components are solid and well put together. Nothing really deep, but at least as entertaining as watching an average hour of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is I suspect the need that most books in this genre fill. The romance in this one was pretty minimal, and the action and political aspects more significant, when compared to the previous book in the series. This particular volume could have been published as straight fantasy without any difficulty, judging on quality and content.
The Shamer's Daughter (sorry, don't remember author and it's at work in my desk cause I finished it on a lunch break).
A slim young adult fantasy novel about a mother and daughter who can "shame" people by looking into people's eyes and making them admit their own faults. They are endangered when they get drawn into the edges of a murder case involving the local royalty.
This was the start of a series, and translated from Danish I think. The writing was smooth and immediate, so good job on the translation. The details of village life and castle life, while minimalist, seemed fairly accurate and gave the story good texture for such a short book.
Ultimate X-Men #11. Mutants getting hunted off the coast of Genosha. Ok, a bit slim, and the pop-culture references they throw in every few pages to remind the reader that this is the Ultimate line and it's all happening now, not in the 1970s, seemed a bit much to me at some point. I hate it when characters in a story talk about their adventure in terms of other stories and films, though I don't know why since in real life, we human-types do this all the time. Apparently despite thinking otherwise when I read about it in my french lit. book, some part of me does buy into the rule of vraisemblance - that art should not jar our faculties of belief in the way real life does, but should appear real in the way our rational orderly minds imagine realness.
Apparently the statue we have of Bruce Campbell as Ash from Army of Darkness (it's this tall toy figurine that talks with a motion sensor andhas a detachable hand/chainsaw combo) is the coolest thing ever to many people of the male persuasion, not just to my husband J. He's holding up a disco ball because his blood soaked commentary when I passed him on the way to the bathroom at night disturbed me, and the disco ball makes him more amiable.
Just amusing to me because while I didn't mind buying it, I'd rather have had, say, a cool fairy poster or a stuffed Wonder Woman doll or something. girls and boys must be different after all.
So, what have I read since Wednesday-ish.
London, Julia. Beauty Queen.
The middle book in a trilogy about the Lear sisters, three adult women with very childish lives who find love with rather domineering men while their father deals with cancer. I didn't really enjoy it, I think because this was one of those romance novels where the brooding man-type is always putting down the woman for her accomplishments and insulting her abilities only to finally learn that because he loves her, he shouldn't do that.
Personally, I suspect that there are plenty of nice men on the planet who won't put you don whether they love you or not, and I prefer that my romance heroines date one of them.
Adams, C.T. and Cathy Clamp. Moon's Web.
Another of the now-vast category of supernatural romance starring shapechangers and/or vampires. Shape changers here, fairly well realized. Put out under Tor's new romance imprint, so it's perhaps not a surprise that the fantasy components are solid and well put together. Nothing really deep, but at least as entertaining as watching an average hour of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is I suspect the need that most books in this genre fill. The romance in this one was pretty minimal, and the action and political aspects more significant, when compared to the previous book in the series. This particular volume could have been published as straight fantasy without any difficulty, judging on quality and content.
The Shamer's Daughter (sorry, don't remember author and it's at work in my desk cause I finished it on a lunch break).
A slim young adult fantasy novel about a mother and daughter who can "shame" people by looking into people's eyes and making them admit their own faults. They are endangered when they get drawn into the edges of a murder case involving the local royalty.
This was the start of a series, and translated from Danish I think. The writing was smooth and immediate, so good job on the translation. The details of village life and castle life, while minimalist, seemed fairly accurate and gave the story good texture for such a short book.
Ultimate X-Men #11. Mutants getting hunted off the coast of Genosha. Ok, a bit slim, and the pop-culture references they throw in every few pages to remind the reader that this is the Ultimate line and it's all happening now, not in the 1970s, seemed a bit much to me at some point. I hate it when characters in a story talk about their adventure in terms of other stories and films, though I don't know why since in real life, we human-types do this all the time. Apparently despite thinking otherwise when I read about it in my french lit. book, some part of me does buy into the rule of vraisemblance - that art should not jar our faculties of belief in the way real life does, but should appear real in the way our rational orderly minds imagine realness.
