Summer vacation usually means a chance to catch up on some reading, and this year was no different, though it took some effort rounding up enough books to keep us happy for two weeks. Clearly, we’ve been slacking when it comes to finding new things to try out. In the end, however, we ended up finding some new favourites, both among recent and older books.
First up, Linda’s reads.
The first book I tackled was Maledicte, the début novel from Lane Robins. It is a fascinating story of a mad, unhealthy love and a god-fuelled lust for vengeance and though I enjoyed it thoroughly it was probably one of the most unpleasant books I have read in terms of its atmosphere and its characters. The setting felt very bleak and hopeless, full of decay and corruption, and most of the main characters did many very unpleasant things to each other. Still, or perhaps because of this, it was truly a book that was very hard to put down, as it produced a morbid fascination with the story somewhat akin to train wreck. Because it becomes apparent pretty soon that nothing good can come of Maledicte’s chosen course in life.
Next up was Karavans, by Jennifer Roberson. I’ve previously read and very much enjoyed her Cheysuli novels, and I was not disappointed by this first book in a new series. The story takes place in a province recently conquered by a warlike neighbouring culture, which has resulted in a mass-exodus of its inhabitants who are hoping to find safety somewhere else. To get there, they end up travelling in large karavans. But while numbers provide some safety against raiders and bandits, it cannot protect against Alisanos, the Deepwood. Its a forest reputedly full of demonic creatures, and any human drawn in there is either lost for good or returned changed into something very different. And it is not always so easy to avoid Alisanos, because the forest is a sentient being that sometimes moves.
Alisanos and various other details (such as the strong belief in various forms of soothsaying and the strongly superstitious nature of people) make for an interesting setting that I would like to see more of. My only quibble with the story would be that the many point of views did not quite leave enough room for stronger attachments to form to the various characters.
Less interesting, and read mostly for completeness sake, was Ancestors of Avalon, Diana L. Paxon’s continuation of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon series. Or rather, this is a prequel, tying the Avalon books to an older book of Bradley’s, about the fall of Atlantis. I quite enjoyed that one, and as far as providing a bridge between that novel and the Avalon books, Ancestors of Avalon does a pretty good job. However, it lacks the dark occult streak which made The Fall of Atlantis particularly interesting.
Another new pick was the highly recommended The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente. The story has a kind of 1001 Nights setup, with a strange orphan girl telling a boy wondrous stories with each weaving into the other and taking you deeper and deeper. Occasionally, the structure gets a little frustrating as you find yourself encountering a new narrator and are taken out of one story and into another. However, for the most part it works beautifully. The writing is lovely, fitting the style of the novel perfectly, and Valente has a strong grasp of how to write new fairy tales that seem as authentic as any of the old ones. Overall, its a gorgeous story with lovely illustrations by Kaluta.
Towards the end of our vacation, I finally got around to reading the first five of Zelzany’s Amber novels. I was not that taken with the first book, at least not initially, as I thought the style was too much like a noire detective novel than a fantasy novel (for pleasure, I read pretty much exclusively fantasy), but the setting intrigued me and soon enough I was hooked by the plot too. Its very different from most fantasy out there (Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels come closest, I guess), and I tend to prefer more characterization, but the setting is interesting, the plot intriguing and the narration pretty darn funny at times.