reviews -- eletronic novel/las, pt 3

[kaigou]

Last set, and then I start on comments about the print novels in my done-stack. (I'm trying very hard to ignore the height of the to-be-read stack, as well.)

Grave Heart - Emily Veinglory
Journey's End - Emily Veinglory
Golden Lotus - L.E. Bryce
The Floating World - Wheeler Scott
Angels Come to Visit - Dianne Fox
Any Ordinary Day - Laura Bacchi
Shadow Hunt - L.M. Prieto & Jayson Taylor
Magic and the Pagan - Shayne Carmichael & Mychael Black
The Wizard and the Thief - Sean Michael
Where Flows the Waters - Sean Michael
Ghosts - Olivia Lorenz

• Emily Veinglory
  
  Journey's End
  
  Unlike her other novellas, which often throw in a solid dose of sexing, this one is much lower-key. (In fact, its level of violence, though still not great, might outrank its attention on the sexual matters.) Mendry is an assassin, trying to get through his days without too many people realizing what he does for a living, and generally playing the "lazy bum tenant" role despite actually owning the property and renting to his downstairs shopkeeper-friend.
  
  Two events break the status quo: the first is when Mendry's intended mark not only wakes to find Mendry about to kill him, but requests he be killed -- and Mendry realizes the guy is an elf, to boot (in a world where elves can't, or don't, consort in the human world any longer than necessary b/c of magical deprivation), so a suicidal elf is a double quandry. The second event is when the shopkeeper starts putting two and two together and manages to guess the assassin's job. Despite his best attempts, Mendry's world starts to unravel, between fascination with the lone, lost, suicidal elf, and the loss/risk in the friendships he's created with the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper's pregnant sister -- and then his own past showing up to settle final scores (of course).
  
  There are a few parts a tiny bit over-the-top in terms of the usual mini-epic fantasy's oh-so-convenient-timing in things, but otherwise, it's a simple and effective tale that focuses more on the friendships/relationships (and tensions) between people, than on a whole bunch of falling into bed to have mindblowing wet wacky weasel times. It certainly lacks the "you were meant for me" focus of her series, with much more on the "who are you, and are you really want I want/need" questions we all ask at the start (or end) of a relationship.
  
  Grave Heart
  
  This, I believe, is part of a series about someone called the Collector. In general, the Collector isn't really the main character so much as the impetus for other characters, in a variety of stories by a variety of authors, to go retrieve, steal, obtain, buy, cajole various items for the Collector. Veinglory's contribution focuses on a young man told he must steal an item for the Collector, only to eventually discover it's an item that can only be given. Along the way, though, he locks horns with the item's current owner, who fits the thief's most hated stereotype and then again... maybe he doesn't. And, too, the thief keeps messing things up in the worst ways, despite his best attempts otherwise, to his own frustration (and not in a comedic sense).
  
  A passable read, entertaining; it helps to overlook the hints of "you were meant for me" currents, too. In all, slightly unsatisfying because the dynamics (and tensions during the sex scenes) hinted at a far deeper conflict than the story's length could, or would, address. I suspect the author was aiming for a short-story/novella, but has a yen for much longer stories, and thus couldn't help throwing in all the elements/dynamics of a longer story -- but didn't have the time to really address or resolve them (not, at least, to my satisfaction).
  
  
• Wheeler Scott
  
  The Floating World
  
  Imagine a Japanese fairy tale, told with the sort of "long ago and far away" tone (similar to Bryce), but one in which the gender roles are reversed, and a man's the geisha/concubine while the women hold the power. Otherwise, it's a simple story but the mythic/fairy-tale voice keeps it from being too pat or predictable, and the main protagonist's sincerity helps defray any significant complaints I might have against Plot #7, in which sex slave falls in love with and/or lives to please master. It's sort of like that, but not entirely, and the hidden tensions among other characters (and the protagonist's own naivete, as well as willingness to believe/see the best in people) sort of cools the usual angst/melodrama of Plot #7.
  
  
• Dianne Fox
  
  Angels Come to Visit
  
  Another in the Collector series. Reviews spoke of great amounts of angst, and it had the usual "oh, I liked him but he doesn't like ___ type (like me)" or even "I like him but he doesn't like me personally" or whatever. It just didn't seem, all in all, to be a hugely reasonable obstacle, though, that created the "he doesn't like me" half of the equation. Like one of those stories where you need to believe everyone is a non-communicative twit for the angst to exist. So... I guess a C on this one: passable, minorly enjoyable, but hardly on the top of my list for re-reading.
  
  
• Laura Bacchi
  
  Any Ordinary Day
  
  Well. Hunh. Helps if you like bestiality (is it bestiality if it's a supernatural creature?) and possibly tentacles, or tails. With lots of scales. Think really big lizards, think stereotypes, and I think you'll see where it's going. The premise is one of the simplest -- what would this be, Plot #2, "what could a brilliant/amazing/powerful __ see in a regular __ like me?" The world setup had a bit more creativity than usual, with the nonhuman POV being fun and pragmatic; the human protag, however, starts out as just a regular schmoe like any of us -- but see enough of his daily life and I started thinking less "he's just a regular guy" and more "he's a frickin' doormat; he doesn't need a boyfriend, he needs a new job and to get a frickin' spine." But with Regular Guy thrown into middle of Nonhuman Guy business, major sex ensues, followed by "oh, he left, and said nothing" angst, and... uh... blah blah blah.
  
  Okay if you've got a few dollars to blow, but again, this one's not on my top choice list, either. Too, the sex scenes (like the fight scenes, unsurprisingly) were not just over-the-top, but had an off-tone to them, like the author had a pretty good idea what appendage was where, but just not enough skills to describe it succinctly, yet. Maybe in another few stories the author'll have the balance.
  
  
• L.M. Prieto & Jayson Taylor
  
  Shadow Hunt
  
  I did end up enjoying this one enough to go looking for more works by the authors, but Taylor hasn't published anything else that I can find, and Prieto's other plot teasers don't tease me much at all. In sum, it's a world where magicians must 'sacrifice' something to gain magical power; most often this is a skill, talent, or something pleasurable. In the protag's case, it's his sexual life: he's chosen chastity as a means of gaining magic. Someone has it in for him, enough to send a demon to kill him, but the demon's a reluctant assassin and works hard to find loopholes -- for the most part, this consists of taking "destroy him" to mean "remove his magic" (iow, have sex with the magician).
  
  Long enough to hold my interest, with a bit of politics thrown in and some decent dynamics/tensions between characters, and not too over-the-top with the melodrama. Most major issues are foreshadowed/explained gracefully, and I do like the not-really-like, so much as distrusting/begrudging respect between the magician and the demon. The sex isn't a huge part, but it's handled well, and certainly isn't gratuitous, plus the authors take advantage of the chastity bit to create a nice air of UST.
  
  
• Shayne Carmichael & Mychael Black
  
  Magic and the Pagan
  
  I'm not sure how this story ended. I suppose it ended well; I slogged along for a bit, then started skimming, then started jumping ahead four or five pages at a time... and then realized my fansub d/l had completed so I could go watch a new episode -- and with that, I shut down the story and thought nothing of it again, until now.
  
  Most romance-based fiction, is, in the end, just wish-fulfillment. All the various plots I've numbered (should I catalog them somewhere?) are nothing more than variations on wish fulfillment fantasies, if I were to be truly cynical. Despite that, I totally get the fascination/fulfillment in a plot line where the protag is just a Regular, Unexciting Guy who turns out to have that single quality that makes Mister Amazing Powerful Fancy Dude take a second look. If we're talking fantasy or YA, it's probably that Regular Guy finds out he (or she) is the last step in a complicated prophecy, or is the only bearer of a certain magic (or the only one who can touch/use/carry a certain object) -- and that's just an extension of the childhood cry, "I'm really a princess, and you're not my real parents!" In romance, we're no longer jonesing for The Perfect Parents, but instead, the Perfect Lover: one who will bestow on us the grandeur and power we've been denied by reality.
  
  I'm willing to accept, then, that some stories will play up this wish fulfillment more than others (cf "Any Ordinary Day"), but this one... well, let's just say that even if you want to have the wish fulfillment ending, you still need to provide me with a reason the Amazing Guy likes your little Joe, and make Joe, on some level, more (or hinting at more) than just another otaku-dweeb. I mean, come on: we've got gothling-stereotype-boy, socially inept but with one (lesbian) friend, who purchases a magical book and is trapped by the book's protective spell and whipped back to an alternate world where the book's true owner resides.
  
  What might've been a lovely (and funny) contrast between wannabe gothling and Big Powerful Magician became, instead, a whole lot of rehashed scenes from just about any second-rate yaoi-manga I could name: complete with seme professing his unexpected and complete love for the boi, and the boi refusing it, and seme chasing, and... uh, some other stuff. Ffffttt. At least Veinglory made me believe the character who turned down/away love with the Perfect Lover -- here, it just seems like potential conflict gets dangled then tossed for the sake of artificially heightened UST/angst. Plus, the whole "in love at first sight" when the lover is powerful, secure, successful and the lovee is, well, not -- I must ask: what the hell does s/he see in the other? I'm not seeing anything -- and if I don't, as the reader, then the story is sunk.
  
  
• L.E. Bryce
  
  Golden Lotus
  
  This would be the kindler, gentler (and shorter) version of Dead to the World. Leave out the aspect of priesthood/devotion to a sea goddess, the extreme abuse/angst, and take it down to not just the basics but also with more positive characters -- and you've got this story. Another one that insists on ending right when I'd expect some kind of ramp-up to a major conflict for final resolution, but... it is a novella. It's not promising to be another doorstop, so... it's fair enough (with a bit more human/expressive qualities than World) and a decent read.
  
  
• Sean Michael
  
  The Wizard and the Thief
  
  This one's part of another theme-based series, somehow tied into the tarot cards. I just thought the description sounded like a decent way to pass a few hours, so I added it to the pile. It's nothing new, and for the most part is a retread on -- what number would this be? -- plot that's basically "thief tries to steal X but steal's owner's heart instead" or version 2.0, which is "thief tries to steal X but is discovered and owner declares thief is beholden and/or must repay and/or traps thief in some way". The two characters are lively enough, and the UST drawn out enough (and the author writes a decent sex-focused passage with good characterization skills in the midst) that I found the story entertaining, even if it was pretty much ending right as I was hoping it'd be revealed as a preface to a longer, more involved, story.
  
  Where Flows the Waters
  
  After finding the short-story rather entertaining, I was willing to follow reviews and pick up this one, as well. Hrm. Maybe it's time I stop reading other folks' three-word reviews.
  
  The good: when was the last time you read a romance, any romance, where one of the characters is strongly OCD about dirt and cleanliness? Also of the good: the author messes with a Native/Indigenous baseline for his fantasy world, which is a nice change from the endless parade of North European rehashes. Finally of the good: the love interest does not play the "I'm not attracted to X, but you're an exception" -- so much as "I prefer girls, and I'd rather be with girls, but if I'm stuck with you, maybe I can find some good in this..." and the shift is gradual, awkward, and believable. Michael plays the "you're meant to be with me" card, though world-builds to fit it: in this world, a shaman feels actual physical pain upon using magic, and only certain partners can relieve/assauge the physical pain while the shaman recovers. (I like it when magic has a visible, tangible, price.) Except when the neurotic, damaged, insecure, OCD shaman discovers his partner/protector, that person's majorly crushing on a widow in his clan, and harbors dreams of impressing her enough to gain her hand as a wife.
  
  Which is all great set up, and the "our clan needs a shaman with water skills, and the shaman says you're his, so you go be his" tension is well-done and handled believably... the rest of it? Well, uhm, someone really needs to introduce the author to the concept of a plotline. And by that, I mean that "a plotline" does not consist of "A happens, B happens, C happens" but instead "A causes B, and that conflict then causes C, and the fallout leads to D..." Over and over again in the story, the author appears to be muscling up to a huge conflict only to... keep going, right on past it. It's almost bizarre, how much he evades anything remotely resembling conflict (despite providing plenty between the two characters, in their general differences of POV about life, cleanliness, priorities, etc).
  
  It's less a story than a series of slice-of-life moments. For instance, at the start of a new chapter, the protector is busy defending his role from a series of challengers. Much like some indigenous traditions, if a challenger can best the current role-keeper, the challenger may take over. Obviously for reasons of love, the shaman isn't interested in his protector being bested, and the protector also wants to avoid being bested for reasons of saving face -- so the fact that he's taking on challenge after challenge, getting successively more tired in answering all of them with no real recovery time between bouts, and that more challengers may arrive soon ... well, I read and I sense major conflict, separation, change in tradition forced by unhappy shaman, general angst, realization by protector that he wants to be with shaman not just to save face in re his own strength...
  
  And instead, the story departs from that... and never addresses it again. That's it. That's the extent of the conflict, and next chapter we've got protector coming back from long hunting trip. Say what? -- and upon returning, finds the shaman almost half-dead from pain of trying to bring up water for the clan in a time of drought. Do we get conflict with clan, threats of departure, clan holding shaman hostage, maybe damage to relationship by (yet another dropped conflict tease) former widow/love-interest playing on shaman's insecurities about his out-of-sight protector? Nope. Of course not -- we just get protector returning, reassuring shaman, and things carry on.
  
  HELLO. Someone really, really needs to explain to the author that "long story with two characters" does not consist of "series of chapters in which you write only the first conflict-introducing chapter of a story before going onto the next first chapter of a sequel". It was like the literary version of one of those mix-up songs which plays only three minutes from every song in an musical. I kept reading -- mostly on the strength of the world-building and the strangely sympathetic if highly neurotic shaman-character -- and hoping the author would get back around to the conflicts raised... and then suddenly, the story was over.
  
  Truly frustrating, enough that I've no interest in another long tease from reading the so-called counterpart story (set in the same world). Thanks, but I'll pass.
  
  
• Olivia Lorenz
  
  Ghosts
  
  I'm not sure, really, if this story belongs on the average "gay romance" list. Okay, yes, it's about two men, but it doesn't follow any of the other guidelines I'm sure those publishers send out to potential authors. Must have X, Y, and Z, in this combination, to this percentage... this author ignored all that -- and the result is a haunting, beautiful, evocative, and disturbing portrait of a time.
  
  The story is set in post-revolution China, when the Nationalists took over; Mu Yun is a former soldier who now works as an enforcer for the Triad. He's assigned to clean out an opium den, but the sole survivor (of the barrage of gunshots) is a famous dan (singer/actor who specializes in female roles) in the Peking Opera. When Mu Yun lets the man live, he's told to confirm that Ruo Fei will keep his mouth shut about Mu Yun's identity. Ruo Fei is an isolated, insulated, slightly melodramatic, addicted personality, but he invites Mu Yun -- a skeptical, bitter, deeply-wounded isolated man -- to the opera.
  
  This passage pretty much sums up the haunting quality of this story, and why -- despite it being so unexpected compared to what I'd thought it'd be like (given where I found it, and the rest of the stories from teh publisher) -- I considered this story the best of the entire lot. After the performance, Mu Yun waits for Ruo Fei, who eventually joins him on the empty stage, where Mu Yun brings out his gun, to silence Ruo Fei permanently. But Ruo Fei guides the conversation to Mu Yun's reaction to the opera he'd just sat through.
  
  

  “All the way through it, I kept thinking of what happened to me in the war,” Mu Yun said flatly. He walked a few steps to the red curtain and then turned, crossing the stage back and forth. “If your opera was meant to transport me to admiration of your singing, then it failed miserably.”
  
  “On the contrary: it succeeded beyond my wildest dreams,” Ruo Fei said, lifting his chin and turning his head to follow Mu Yun’s restless pacing. “The opera speaks to people individually. Your experience is different to your neighbour’s. There are those who come here and see only Leng Ruo Fei. There are some – many – who see Fei Zhen Er and Li Gu. And then there are those who see through to the opera itself, to the truth of what we try to convey.”
  
  His expression was sweet, alight with passion, and his voice slid from softly feminine to husky masculine tones as he spoke. “When you see not actors but yourself on the stage, then you truly understand opera. When the emotion is greater than the words, then you truly understand opera. When your soul is ripped out and your heart feels like it’s breaking, when you can’t stop the past from overwhelming you… when this all fits so perfectly into what you see on stage, then you truly understand opera.”
  
  Mu Yun stopped pacing, his back to the invisible audience, staring at the folds of the red curtain in front of him. He knew Ruo Fei was right, but it was not what he wanted to acknowledge. Acting, theater, opera – these were meant to be about pretense, not real life. And if opera was an inversion of real life, then the way he’d been living his life was nothing but an illusion.
  
  He wanted to hurt Ruo Fei for revealing this terrifying truth. Mu Yun looked down at the gun and saw that his hands were shaking. Stage fright, he thought, and wanted to laugh out loud.

  The beauty in this story isn't in the aftermath, but in the poignant, broken, experience of stealing minutes of joy to survive years of misery. It's bleak, gritty, hopeful, cynical, lost, holding out hopes of finding except that the characters are human and have chosen their lot, and are far too old to believe in second chances, or simply not strong enough to walk away from who they've become -- and yet, maybe for a little while, they can.
  
  Really, an amazing story that sort of sneaks up on you.

Comments

questions, questions

[missingwatch.livejournal.com]

so, you're a joss whedon, sandman and calvin and hobbes fan, a HUGE anime buff, apparently a fellow fangirl (mhmm boys next door), and you could be any random friend of a friend online, except you're apparently an austinite. unless alamo drafthouse has spread further than i think.
..and on second glance you appear to be a fan writer whose work i not only enjoy, but whose name i actually recognize. specifically, you've written one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
so, i'm jsut curious, why did you decide to friend me? are you a friend of a rl friend? are you someone i've know forever who happens to have a secret life they haven't told me about, depriving us of fangirling time? or is the alamo drafthouse bit merely a coincidence?

Re: questions, questions

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

If you had friended solitude1056, then you've been moved over to this journal, which is a consolidation of that journal + another one. Make more sense now?

[white_aster]

Yeah, I have the same problem with some of the TP novels as you had with Where Flows the Water: they read like collections of short stories, rather than novels. They focus on the two characters and perhaps some relationship tension, but the larger, bigger tensions that are brought up are hardly ever resolved in a meaningful fashion. They're glossed over, so that you never really get a sense that the characters are INTERACTING with their world. It just...kind of feels like the authors considered those parts boring and didn't want to write them. Or that they assumed that the audience wouldn't care about anything that didn't focus on sex as the main climax. It's a shame, because often the worlds and characters are interesting, but...it's ok to let your characters do something other than have sex! Really! ;P

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

(TP novels?)

I'm not sure if the author (in case of Where Flows the Water) felt the conflicts wouldn't be interesting so much as... hrm, it gave me more the sense that simply mentioning the conflict was, in the author's opinion, good enough. That actually following it to a logical conclusion would've been too hard, and maybe even thrown the story off its intended happy-ending.

Some authors, it seems, really want the happy ending, and don't seem to realize that the harder it is to get there, and the more difficulty required to earn it, the more a reader enjoys it in the end. Everything must have its price, but some prices we find ourselves willing to pay, to achieve the reward.

[white_aster]

(torquere press, sorry. o.o;)

Yeah, I think that the authors just sometimes have different priorities with the novel/storyset: they want to focus on what they want to focus on, and anything outside of that is superfluous...even if it's an integral part of the characters' lives, from the audience's point of view. It leaves some of the stories feeling unfinished. I mean...I dislike writing action scenes with the firey passion of a thousand suns, but if I'm writing a novel, then I'll power through it, because I know that it's required to round out the characters' story.

And I agree, yeah: sometimes, you've got to EARN your happy ending. :) I've read books or watched anime where...well, you always got the feeling that everything was going to be ok, no matter how bad things got. And I found those kind of soothing, sometimes, especially in anime where I run the risk of getting attached to a minor character that will DIE HORRIBLY at some point. But. That takes a special kind of tone to pull off in prose. And is very different from just NOT addressing the issue at all.