reviews - electronic novels pt2

[kaigou]

And so I continue trying to catch up on the lists of what I've read in the past six months or so... FYI: All books in this group would get an R/MA rating. All titles available via fictionwise, torquere, loose id... and there might be some others, but those are the ones I've visited most often. (Some authors have one or two books with one, and more books with another, so you may have to do some digging. Fictionwise lists most of them, at least, so that's a good place to start.)

Forgotten Song - Ally Blue
Becoming - L.E. Bryce
Dead to the World - L.E. Bryce
Soul Deep - M.L. Rhodes
Falling - M.L. Rhodes

• Ally Blue
  
  Forgotten Song
  
  I was up for some angst, and this looked like a good bet... well, it was a good something, like a good way to blow $5 and be left with that strange sinking sensation that you can't even return the book to the bookstore on the grounds that it's missing the last three chapters. Or something. Also, this specific review has spoilers, because I doubt any of you'll want to read by the time I'm done describing it.
  
  Okay, it's first-person POV, life as seen through eyes of Generally Good Guy, who I'll call G3 for short because I bloody well can't remember his name. (Who, I must add, is in a band... of course, what is it with female authors loving to make musicians gay, or make gay men into musicians, or is this just an extension of the "straight men can't dance" theory?) He's out and about one evening and comes across a short guy (observation #2: why is it the only times I find male characters 5'4 or shorter, the author is female? because while it's not impossible for guys to be that short -- I've known a few -- it's still quite uncommon, but not if you read female authors, sheesh) beating the crap out of a fellow bar-goer. G3 steps in to assist the doorman, and despite Shorty's recalcitrance and general surliness (and an unexpected bout of hysteria extreme defensiveness when G3 touches him), G3 feels all humanly and altruistic, and coaxes the guy into coming home with him. While, naturally, noting that Shorty is also remarkably attractive, if fucked in the head.
  
  The one thing the author does remotely okay is that she doesn't have Shorty dump his entire life story immediately, though she still writes him quite easily talking about it, soon enough (if in medium-chunks, at least it's not an entire chapter of his sob story background). But instead of thinking, wow, G3's a great guy!, I'm thinking: G3 needs to have his head examined as badly as Shorty, for not throwing the guy out after his sixth or seventh word. I mean... oh, crap, I'd open the file and quote but I'm just not up for the suffering. In sum, Shorty alludes as to how he's "got to talk, because that was his shrink's advice" and something about not being touched, blah blah blah, hints of major trauma. Look, if you meet some guy while he's managing to kick the shit out of some other guy three times his size, and the short guy's not wearing shoes, has no money or ID, makes oblique references to staying at the local shelter and clearly hasn't eaten in three days, and then mentions his shrink -- would you really be feeling like it's okay to let the guy sleep in your apartment? Especially if you don't have a loaded shotgun next to your bed?
  
  Thing is, I don't mind some personal trauma for a character -- heavens know we've all been there -- but at some point, I just start wondering if the author didn't trust that a simple trauma would be enough to sway my sympathy. And, too, I suspect the author's tendency to swing from tell-nothing to tell-too-much is a struggle of hers, between knowing innately that you shouldn't give it all away (not the least of which is because traumatized people are far less likely to open up, really), and a sort of vague excitement on her part over just what Shorty's mystery is -- she's positively gnawing at the bit to spill the beans, even when she doesn't go that far. That's just my gut sense, from the way the author tackles those scenes.
  
  As the *cough* mysteries of Shorty unfold... and unfold... and unfold... OMG stop it, please. Let's see. His lover died, and Shorty fled to Podunk North Carolina (and every reference to Asheville sounds like the author's busy on a second career as a personal promoter for the gay scene o' Appalachia being just as hip! and happening! as SF, oh, please), but then I suppose even Asheville's a step up if you're coming from Podunk Alabama... where Shorty's dad is a cop, who molested Shorty's sister and beat Shorty, then eventually killed Shorty's lover, and oh there's Shorty's sister, who was not only possibly/probably schizophrenic but also killed herself right in front of Shorty, and then there was a gangrape or something, and then it turns out the guy who'd hit on Shorty at story-start is currently wanted as a serial murderer, but somehow (gasp!) he's escaped while being transported so naturally all characters assume the guy must be coming after Shorty, who can identify him... (as though, uhm, being arrested wasn't identification enough) ...and since the guy told Shorty about his "cabin in the mountains", of course Shorty ends up kidnapped, and so does G3, but the serial murderer is in cahoots with the cop-dad, who's also hired an assassin to kill Shorty...
  
  I think at some point I stopped reading it as a story, and started reading just to see how much more the author could pile on. I mean, it's like a poster-child story for Extreme Angst. Like some kind of bad ebook wannabe olympic sport. I'd give the story a 8.9 just on the character's background alone, even if the author's writing is otherwise pacing rather indifferently (and inconsistently) when it comes to angst -- complete with the requisite breakup in which G3 feels soooo guilty about having helped Shorty and then letting him go.
  
  *bangs head on desk*
  
  
• L.E. Bryce
  
  Becoming
  
  Dead to the World
  
  If you want smut, Bryce is not the author for you. In fact, Bryce's style is more, hrm, almost mythic, a little distanced; the author's voice reminds me in some ways of LeGuin's almost dry, borderline academic tone in books like The Tombs of Atuan -- never fully in the present/presence, but the world is detailed and intriguing nonetheless. The first is a short story, set in Bryce's fantastical world where young boys fall ill and wake to find their hair gone white, marked as beloveds of the sea-goddess. They're then taken off to a monastery-like environment with other beloveds, where they live out their days as a fantasy-styled version of the vestal virgins (okay, barring contact with regular people but otherwise sort of the same notion). In Becoming, a boy arrives at the monastery with all the signs of being marked, but without memory, name, or comprehension of what he's doing there. One of the older beloveds, who at first seems to have slight bullying qualities (or at least is just self-confident enough to come across as intimidating), takes an interest in the newcomer, and tries to draw him out. It's really just a sweet story that in some ways reminded me of The Last Unicorn, in the sense of the mythic notes/style of telling.
  
  The second story I read is far more of a novel -- and quite a lengthy one for ebook world, too, at almost 300 pages or so -- and involves a young beloved travelling between monasteries, whose group is attacked by slavers. He's taken to be a concubine/personal-geisha, and despite extreme reluctance, eventually must bend to his new environment, though in other ways he can't or won't, while trying to hold to his sea-goddess' rules. Again, the author has a distanced tone, though it does work for this story as well, since the protagonist is distanced first by shock, then by culture, and then as a coping mechanism. It's a long, long time before he reaches a point where raw emotion comes out, and it does end up rather effective, seeing how politely self-contained he's been up to then (with the exception of a few breaks here and there).
  
  What surprised me was that in the end... well, that'd be spoilers, and let's just say, it's a bittersweet end, but well-deserved and hard-earned. Some angst -- okay, major angst -- but the slavehood isn't romanticized, and that tinge of reality (of being 'owned') cuts down on any potential falseness to the angst.
  
  
• M. L. Rhodes
  
  Soul Deep
  Falling
  
  The first one is another short story (maybe about 10K words or so), with a description of "Griffin Jacobs psychic abilities have become a threat to his politically powerful family. When their hired assassins finally track him down, his life is saved by a mysterious man named Jarrah. Griffin senses a dangerous undercurrent in his rescuer, as if he's not quite human. Yet Griffin's inexplicably drawn to him." Don't know why I picked it up, maybe I was bored, but... it's another vampire tale. (Oh, sigh.) It's not a bad one as these things go, though I could do without the angst of "woe, I'm not human anymore," but the author gets points for keeping Jarrah at least somewhat low-key on that respect -- he comes across as more of just a general misanthrope than a truly angsty Rice-style vamp.
  
  Thing is, despite the story being solid for the most part, it was still... bleak, somehow. I mean, I get it's post-apocalyptic world, plus some SFF elements, but... the bleakness seemed to pervade everything, but without a grittyness to balance. When I say "bleak," I also mean to connote a sense of distancing, a sort of grayness that keeps the entire world at arm's length; a certain amount of grit, then, is the world's intrusion into that distance, a reminder that splinters hurt, that bathroom mildew is slippery, that old houses get a reek and rot that settles into everything, that rainy days have a certain scent. I didn't get much grit from the story, but plenty of bleakness, and I guess that left me feeling a bit like the story happened, but I wasn't necessarily as 'into it' as I expect from a good story.
  
  Falling, on the other hand, is a full novel, and I think the author's still struggling with writing a fully-fleshed plotline. For starters, the plot's an old one -- would this be Plot #5, in which Bad Guy Targets Love Interest Who Must Be Protected? (And don't forget that the love interest, at some point, must discover the protection, get angry, refuse to listen, and then there's angst, and love interest is in danger and kidnapped and blah blah -- well, okay, the author stops short of kidnapping. At least.) The premise is that a British 'operative' for (yet another) magical bureacracy is trying to track down a longtime nemesis who's also Most Powerful Scary Dark Magician Guy (standard cardboard bad guy number fifty seven, version five). Meanwhile, Scary Guy (SG for short) may, or may not, be trying to find the last living member of a family who'd been protectors of some amulet, which no one can read anyway until the Brit lands the bombshell he's been dreaming in the language, so he knows it. (Uh.)
  
  That was when I thought to myself, dear author: you are trying very hard, and I'm willing to give you a few more pages, so please stop this.
  
  The interaction between the Brit operative & the American cop are solid, well-done, and human, and when there's a break between them, it's understandable and logical. The cop's defensiveness isn't overplayed, and the first time he shows any magical skills (thus raising the Brit's curiousity/brows), he staunchly refuses to discuss it. In fact, the author got points for not doing the ploy of "no, I won't tell, oh, okay, here's the entire story with footnotes since you insisted at least once." No, the cop simply says, "drop it," and the question is left hanging.
  
  But man, when the Brit gets into conversation with his two best buds/supporting staff, it's like the author understood she should avoid a straight-up info dump, but ended up falling into the "we're now going to tell each other what we already know..." despite her best efforts to phrase things to avoid that impression. She tries, at least:
  
  

  "The Vargazian ritual," Bella whispered.
  
  "The Vargaz—" Jamie's green eyes widened and his
  already pale, freckled skin grew even paler. "Isn't that a
  myth? I thought the ancient texts were lost when the library
  at Alexandria was burned in 600 CE?"
  
  "Approximately 642 CE," Bella said. "Although that date
  isn't certain. And, yes, it's believed they were lost. But there
  have always been rumors another set of texts were hidden
  elsewhere in Egypt."

  Thank you, Ms. Textbook. I can think of a dozen more graceful ways to handle this, not the least of which might include a characterization moment in which the POV protag reacts to Bella, once again, having to be the know-it-all. But an infodump on its own, just dialogue (or even in straight-up narration) is nothing more than a massively, sadly, missed chance at characterization. Yes, you can do an infodump well, by letting it piggyback on character-illustration points, but I don't think this author is there yet.
  
  There's enough good in the story, despite that, that I was willing to grit my teeth and ride through how conveniently the brit & his friends figure out things -- every piece of info they need, they just happen to recall during a conversation, and that just happens to be exactly what's going on -- and normally this would be enough to make me give up. Or perhaps after some of the other doozies in the pile, this wasn't a gem but still had enough potential-gem qualities that I could shove on through.
  
  Just consider yourself forewarned if major, and somewhat awkward (despite really, really trying to be graceful) infodumps make your teeth hurt. Skim those and get back to the (relatively few) sex scenes, which the author handles not just really well, but manages to keep the guys being, well, guys. (Sadly, that skill seems even rarer than good info-giving, le sigh.)

Comments

[cosplayeriori.livejournal.com]

I know I am quiet in the corner here..since well yeah I am. I have to say. HOW THE HELL DO YOU SURVIVE SOME OF THIS STUFF?! I mean. I being the lay man that I am could let some writeing things go by the wayside cause well, i just don't know any better. But you've got the the golden knowledge. So I have no idea how you do it sometimes. O_o I don't know if I should reward you or give you a bottle of something brown that has a very high alcohol content (that could be the prize also). But your reviews are intersting to read, and are keeping me away from the e-books thing. Even more so in the BL community. My hats off to you and much love! :3