Tor, they're like drug dealers in a way...
Jun. 4th, 2008 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graculusTor Books, the publishing house, have been giving away a series of free e-books to people who subscribe to their new and doubtless extremely shiny new website thing. Which would be fine if the the majority of the books weren't the first of series, working on the same premise as drug dealers - in case you're wondering what I mean, it's the premise that the first hit is free and then once you're hooked... I probably wouldn't mind quite so much if all of the crack was good crack!
Although I'm also coming home from my travels laden with proper, paper-type books, I'd also taken a bunch of these e-books with me as well, and so far have read 6 of them (as well as re-reading Kirby Crow's excellent Scarlet and the White Wolf and Mariner's Luck, published by Torquere and a damn sight better than some of the Tor books - I must get the third of that series..). The verdict so far is mixed:
Touch of Evil by CT Adams and Cathy Clamp - yeuch, what a mess. I'm sure there are people out there who love this book, but my tolerance for supernatural romancey stuff only goes so far (and apparently not this far). The basic premise is that vampires are real but they're all actually infected by something called the Thrall, a parasitic creature that is part of a hive and which has a queen who controls what the others are all up to, all of them hosted by humans, some willingly and some otherwise. Oh, and werewolves are real too, though there's much less cod science behind them and they seem to exist mostly so that our red-headed (and probably feisty!) protagonist can demonstrate how open-minded she is by getting involved with one, who can use his supernatural strength to rescue her, not that she needs rescuing, yadda yadda... It's a popular genre, I get that, but it's been done so much better by other people that I ended up wondering how it takes two people to write one of these and yet still have it turn out so mediocre?
Lord of the Isles by David Drake - I didn't even manage to get halfway through this major yawnfest. It's your standard 'oh, the humble characters are really nobility' tale where the preternaturally strong farmboys are doubtless going to end up saving the day 500+ pages later, to the amazement of all but the writer who is already planning the rest of the trilogy (if we're lucky and he's going to restrain himself to beating this plotline for just three books). E.T.A. The previous sentence was written before I googled the series and discovered that it's book one of nine. Seriously, I couldn't care less about any of the characters even almost 200 pages in, which is a bad sign all round, so this one hit the metaphorical bedroom wall with a substantial imaginary thump.
I was starting to seriously wonder if I was wasting my time before I hit Reiffen's Choice by SC Butler, which is an absolute gem and one of the books making me consider the drug dealer analogy. It's got dwarves and wizards and shapechangers, but this is no lame Tolkien re-tread - instead it's a cleverly thought out book where the dwarves have made a conscious decision to get involved with the world of men from their very different home underground. Meanwhile the eponymous Reiffen, rightful heir to two thrones, is presented with a dilemma around his future which does not seem to have any good options from which to choose. I'm currently waiting for the sequel to come out in paperback but would very much hope that this time the cover doesn't just feature a random image involving a dwarf, a child/boy and a bear that doesn't actually take place in the book. *sigh*
I'd also highly recommend Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, though it's a little more hard sci fi than I usually read and so I'm not really sure I completely understood what was going on all the time. It starts off quite simply, being the story of a brother and sister and their younger friend, who is the son of a woman who works for their parents. The three of them sneak out of one of the fancy parties often thrown at the Big House and are watching the stars when they just disappear... the next morning, the sun rises as always, except somehow the sun is different. As time passes, the inhabitants of Earth discover that there is something between them and the sun, a barrier outside of which time is passing much faster than it is on the planet's surface, and this realisation leads to all sorts of plans.
Then I read Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest which is more of a horror story about a girl who can see ghosts and a boy who believes she is the reincarnation of one of his ancestors, a man who killed his wife and her sisters. Apparently the other books by Priest are also about this woman, Eden Moore, as her experiences in this book increase her powers immensely. It's not the kind of book I would probably have picked up otherwise, but it's well-written enough that I will probably check out more of her work...
Then I just stormed through Farthing by Jo Walton, pushing it up the list mostly because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xochiquetzl liked it. It's excellent and again, I shall be picking up the rest of the series. It's an odd mixture, what feels like a traditional English country house murder mystery mixed in with an alternate history where England came to terms with the Third Reich and the war was prevented. Into this environment are two main characters, Lucy (who has done the unthinkable in the eyes of her aristocratic family and married a Jew, albeit a wealthy and educated one who was once in a relationship with Lucy's adored older brother) and Inspector Carmichael (not quite a gentleman, due to his upbringing, and also a homosexual). The only thing that didn't quite ring true for the time period was the relationship between Carmichael and his sergeant, which seemed a little too casual, but otherwise it's exceptionally well done.
Next up, I'm going to try and finish On the Other Hand, Death, by Richard Stevenson, so I can review that (and expand on the above, if I feel so inclined) on my blog over the weekend before I have to face going back to work... ;)
Although I'm also coming home from my travels laden with proper, paper-type books, I'd also taken a bunch of these e-books with me as well, and so far have read 6 of them (as well as re-reading Kirby Crow's excellent Scarlet and the White Wolf and Mariner's Luck, published by Torquere and a damn sight better than some of the Tor books - I must get the third of that series..). The verdict so far is mixed:
Touch of Evil by CT Adams and Cathy Clamp - yeuch, what a mess. I'm sure there are people out there who love this book, but my tolerance for supernatural romancey stuff only goes so far (and apparently not this far). The basic premise is that vampires are real but they're all actually infected by something called the Thrall, a parasitic creature that is part of a hive and which has a queen who controls what the others are all up to, all of them hosted by humans, some willingly and some otherwise. Oh, and werewolves are real too, though there's much less cod science behind them and they seem to exist mostly so that our red-headed (and probably feisty!) protagonist can demonstrate how open-minded she is by getting involved with one, who can use his supernatural strength to rescue her, not that she needs rescuing, yadda yadda... It's a popular genre, I get that, but it's been done so much better by other people that I ended up wondering how it takes two people to write one of these and yet still have it turn out so mediocre?
Lord of the Isles by David Drake - I didn't even manage to get halfway through this major yawnfest. It's your standard 'oh, the humble characters are really nobility' tale where the preternaturally strong farmboys are doubtless going to end up saving the day 500+ pages later, to the amazement of all but the writer who is already planning the rest of the trilogy (if we're lucky and he's going to restrain himself to beating this plotline for just three books). E.T.A. The previous sentence was written before I googled the series and discovered that it's book one of nine. Seriously, I couldn't care less about any of the characters even almost 200 pages in, which is a bad sign all round, so this one hit the metaphorical bedroom wall with a substantial imaginary thump.
I was starting to seriously wonder if I was wasting my time before I hit Reiffen's Choice by SC Butler, which is an absolute gem and one of the books making me consider the drug dealer analogy. It's got dwarves and wizards and shapechangers, but this is no lame Tolkien re-tread - instead it's a cleverly thought out book where the dwarves have made a conscious decision to get involved with the world of men from their very different home underground. Meanwhile the eponymous Reiffen, rightful heir to two thrones, is presented with a dilemma around his future which does not seem to have any good options from which to choose. I'm currently waiting for the sequel to come out in paperback but would very much hope that this time the cover doesn't just feature a random image involving a dwarf, a child/boy and a bear that doesn't actually take place in the book. *sigh*
I'd also highly recommend Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, though it's a little more hard sci fi than I usually read and so I'm not really sure I completely understood what was going on all the time. It starts off quite simply, being the story of a brother and sister and their younger friend, who is the son of a woman who works for their parents. The three of them sneak out of one of the fancy parties often thrown at the Big House and are watching the stars when they just disappear... the next morning, the sun rises as always, except somehow the sun is different. As time passes, the inhabitants of Earth discover that there is something between them and the sun, a barrier outside of which time is passing much faster than it is on the planet's surface, and this realisation leads to all sorts of plans.
Then I read Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest which is more of a horror story about a girl who can see ghosts and a boy who believes she is the reincarnation of one of his ancestors, a man who killed his wife and her sisters. Apparently the other books by Priest are also about this woman, Eden Moore, as her experiences in this book increase her powers immensely. It's not the kind of book I would probably have picked up otherwise, but it's well-written enough that I will probably check out more of her work...
Then I just stormed through Farthing by Jo Walton, pushing it up the list mostly because
xochiquetzl liked it. It's excellent and again, I shall be picking up the rest of the series. It's an odd mixture, what feels like a traditional English country house murder mystery mixed in with an alternate history where England came to terms with the Third Reich and the war was prevented. Into this environment are two main characters, Lucy (who has done the unthinkable in the eyes of her aristocratic family and married a Jew, albeit a wealthy and educated one who was once in a relationship with Lucy's adored older brother) and Inspector Carmichael (not quite a gentleman, due to his upbringing, and also a homosexual). The only thing that didn't quite ring true for the time period was the relationship between Carmichael and his sergeant, which seemed a little too casual, but otherwise it's exceptionally well done.Next up, I'm going to try and finish On the Other Hand, Death, by Richard Stevenson, so I can review that (and expand on the above, if I feel so inclined) on my blog over the weekend before I have to face going back to work... ;)
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 03:29 pm (UTC)Otherwise, I'm wayyyy behind on what all the cool kids are reading these days, in either SF or Fantasy. (China Mie-who? Okay, I'm not that bad. But close.)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 01:57 am (UTC)THIS line of your review had me rolling on the floor! Isn't it true, though? Then how did he get a NINE book series contract?
no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 02:12 am (UTC)Though I shouldn't curse trilogies etc. too much, considering it's what saves me from utter penury where many books are concerned!