Three books

[grassangel]

These review thingies are so overdue for these books. I finished them a month ago… orz

Chalice – Robin McKinley

I’ve heard really GREAT things about Robin McKinley as an author, especially from one of my former teachers.
So erm, I was vaguely disappointed that this book wasn’t as brilliant as I had expected from the author.

It’s nice in its own way, quietly ticking all the agricultural fantasy tropes and Robin McKinley does have a rather nice tone. Nice and smooth but a bit too smooth, as I barely noticed the Master/Chalice thing going on until rather late.

Basically the set up is that demesnes (a kind of parish/village/farming community) have a Circle, made of twelve members, the two most important (and powerful) being the Chalice and Master. Unfortunately, this demesnes’ previous Master and Chalice have been… rather neglectful, so it’s the new Chalice and Master’s job to stabilise the earth energies or something.
But! The new Master was sent off by the previous one to the priests of fire and the Overlord (some kind of king? I didn’t really get what he actually was aside from an overlord) sends someone to challenge him and become the new Master but the former fire priest Master wins and he and the Chalice plan to get married.

Basically it was all very nice world building and pointing out how NOT power hungry the two were. Which is interesting enough for you to continue reading after you start, but doesn’t have enough substance in hindsight.
It was a rather slim book though, so maybe that was its aim. idk.

 

Wicked Lovely – Melisa Marr

Fairies in a modern day setting. That pretty much sums this story up.
The blurb pretty much sums it up too, explaining that Aislinn can see fairies and that if she EVER attracted their attention, it would be disastrous.
Except of course she does and it’s the Summer King’s attention to boot.

The good thing about this book is that Aislinn doesn’t fall head over heels for him, Keenan. Instead she approaches the entire “You are my destined queen and shall save the world from eternal winter” issue in a rather business-like manner. Reason rather than love is how Keenan’s bitch of a mother is defeated and Ash gets to keep her Seth and Keenan gets to have his cake and eat it too, because being free of romantic involvement means he can be with Donia.
Score!

Except all the exciting stuff happens in the last third or so of the book. Serious pacing issues there. Or maybe I’m just too used to high-tension shounen series and DEMAND action NOW. It does follow the introduction-conflict-resolution formula except… I thought the introduction-conflict were tied too closely to each other. We could’ve had Aislinn and Keenan’s situations explained first and THEN have them interact with each other instead of having a weird combo of the two and making it so SLOW.
So yeah, slow, but has a lovely set of characters.

Uh… I did want to ship a big ol’ foursome at the end of this, but NO, I can’t even be convinced to ship an OT3.
Which is kind of good, because it actually works as two pairs rather than any other combination.

Also, having Aislinn be, in any way, involved with Keenan would kind of be… wrong. Same with Seth and Donia. Even if those two are cute because they’re so devoted to their respective partners.

But, anyway, this book is about fairies. And humans. And humans who become fairies. And the constant battle of Winter and Summer and the realisation that they are always in balance.

I’ve got the sequel/second in the series sitting in my bookpile, so we’ll see how that one goes.

 

The Birthday of the World and Other Stories – Ursula K. Le Guin

Ah, Le Guin. It seems I can only manage her short stories and never her novels. Or at least that’s what I assume, seeing as I’ve successfully finished two short story collections and found the one novel of hers that I tried to read rather boring and didn’t even finish it, settling instead for skimming.

That being said I liked all of the stories in this book, but I loved Paradises Lost, that last, rather long one, the best. The first four stories were fun, but the last one was the most touching for me. (Especially with my recent viewing of Wall-E…)
Inter-generational space travel with a dash of best friends ending up together AND a touch of science with the sling shooting off a gravitational body.

The first four I liked simply because they did the ‘mess with societal norms’ thing that sci-fi does so well. There’s hermaphrodites, a skewed male/female balance with far fewer men than women and then marriages where you are married to three other people but only have relationships with two of them.
So yes, those were fun.

The other stories, not so fun or touching. ‘Old Music and the Slave Women’ was rather dry and boring. Yes, I get that he’s stuck in the middle of a civil war but still BORING.
The other one, I forget its title, but that was boring too, although that’s mostly because I don’t agree that isolation is the closest one can get to being free. Relationships are good, not a fearsome magic.

So, yes. Not quite as good as Alabaster but I did enjoy reading it over all.