50 in 2016: #15-18
Aug. 16th, 2016 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: The Marriage Season
Author: Linda Lael Miller
Length: 284 pages
Linda Lael Miller romances are usually a good read, though I prefer her historical works. Still, I picked this one up on a lark, and despite it being the third in a trilogy, didn't have any problems getting through it. I did run into a minor quibble early on, with a married female character being described as "Mrs. Husband's Name." I get that the author wanted to shorthand the husband's name in, but that is SUCH an incredibly dated way of referring to a married woman that I ranted about it to at least two people. And I quibbled about the male lead's sons not having any relationship with the mother's family, or their half sibling on that side.
Other than that, though, it's a romance novel. What you go in expecting is pretty much what you're going to get.
Verdict: an easy read. Recommended, I guess?
Title: Anansi Boys
Author: Neil Gaiman
Length: 334 pages
The sequel, of sorts, to American Gods. I actually struggled with this one a bit more, mainly because the main character was so hard to like initially. Not that he's an unlikeable character... just that he's a milktoast. Once Charlie started finding his spine, the book got much more interesting. My only quibble with this was that, at the end, I knew where Spider was, but I couldn't tell geographically where Charlie had ended up.
Verdict: Recommended.
Title: Fragile Things
Author: Neil Gaiman
Length: 355 pages
This one was sitting next to Anansi Boys on the library shelf. When I saw that it included the follow-on short story about Shadow from American Gods, I checked it out as well. And, despite it containing some material that I've read before and found disturbing (The Problem of Susan), I read everything in it. Some of it is difficult to follow (the set of short stories that go with a Tori Amos album, for instance), while some of the works entangle around one another in fascinating ways (poems placed between stories that read one way attached to the story before it, another way attached to the one after it, and a third way as a standalone). Plus then I hit the Shadow story at the end and halfway through realized that, yes, that's Smith and Mr. Alice from a story earlier in the book, and oh shit Shadow really is in over his head....
In short, I enjoyed this book. I don't think it will end up on my bookshelf the way American Gods has, but I'm glad I read it.
And rereading The Problem of Susan as part of a short story sandwich rather than a standalone has made it less disturbing to me.
Verdict: Recommended.
Title: The Time of the Vampires
EditorsAuthor: P.N. Elrod and Martin H. Greenberg
Length: 319 pages
So the conceit to this collection of vampire short stories is that they go through history, from ancient times to the modern day, arranged in chronological order. Which is kind of fun, particularly when the styles of vampire don't mesh - or when they do. As a bonus, I'd only read one of the stories before (P.N. Elrod's) and enjoyed rediscovering it!
Verdict: if you like vampire stories as much as I do, definitely recommended!
Author: Linda Lael Miller
Length: 284 pages
Linda Lael Miller romances are usually a good read, though I prefer her historical works. Still, I picked this one up on a lark, and despite it being the third in a trilogy, didn't have any problems getting through it. I did run into a minor quibble early on, with a married female character being described as "Mrs. Husband's Name." I get that the author wanted to shorthand the husband's name in, but that is SUCH an incredibly dated way of referring to a married woman that I ranted about it to at least two people. And I quibbled about the male lead's sons not having any relationship with the mother's family, or their half sibling on that side.
Other than that, though, it's a romance novel. What you go in expecting is pretty much what you're going to get.
Verdict: an easy read. Recommended, I guess?
Title: Anansi Boys
Author: Neil Gaiman
Length: 334 pages
The sequel, of sorts, to American Gods. I actually struggled with this one a bit more, mainly because the main character was so hard to like initially. Not that he's an unlikeable character... just that he's a milktoast. Once Charlie started finding his spine, the book got much more interesting. My only quibble with this was that, at the end, I knew where Spider was, but I couldn't tell geographically where Charlie had ended up.
Verdict: Recommended.
Title: Fragile Things
Author: Neil Gaiman
Length: 355 pages
This one was sitting next to Anansi Boys on the library shelf. When I saw that it included the follow-on short story about Shadow from American Gods, I checked it out as well. And, despite it containing some material that I've read before and found disturbing (The Problem of Susan), I read everything in it. Some of it is difficult to follow (the set of short stories that go with a Tori Amos album, for instance), while some of the works entangle around one another in fascinating ways (poems placed between stories that read one way attached to the story before it, another way attached to the one after it, and a third way as a standalone). Plus then I hit the Shadow story at the end and halfway through realized that, yes, that's Smith and Mr. Alice from a story earlier in the book, and oh shit Shadow really is in over his head....
In short, I enjoyed this book. I don't think it will end up on my bookshelf the way American Gods has, but I'm glad I read it.
And rereading The Problem of Susan as part of a short story sandwich rather than a standalone has made it less disturbing to me.
Verdict: Recommended.
Title: The Time of the Vampires
Editors
Length: 319 pages
So the conceit to this collection of vampire short stories is that they go through history, from ancient times to the modern day, arranged in chronological order. Which is kind of fun, particularly when the styles of vampire don't mesh - or when they do. As a bonus, I'd only read one of the stories before (P.N. Elrod's) and enjoyed rediscovering it!
Verdict: if you like vampire stories as much as I do, definitely recommended!
