Mweh. Happy-fiction-giddy-buzz.
Feb. 9th, 2004 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonluna(clutching book)
Goood book. Really good book. Need sequel! Now!
Just finished Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed her last one, Spindle's End, but this... (happy swoon)
Take, oh, the Borderlands stuff as written by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, mix with Emma Bull's Bone Dance. Combine in equal portions with really good Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Add a very liberal splash of the Anita Blake at their best. (Like, y'know, the early to mid-series stuff.)
Yes, that's right, this is a vampire story. And really, really good. I'm in that euphoric really-good-fiction sort of high right now.
So. Sunshine, our protagonist, works in her stepfather's bakery, starting at four a.m. every morning to make big-as-your-head cinnamon rolls. And it's truly a labour of love. She tends to butt heads a lot with her mom, and this one night in particular, she needs to get away from the coffeeshop and her family, just to clear her head.
So she heads out to the lake where her grandmother's cabin used to be. It's a kinda stupid thing to do, since Bad Things have happened there, but not so recently that it's a truly reckless move. This is where you start to figure out that her world is ALMOST ours, but not quite. I won't spoil anyone for the slow reveal of details, but when the vampires show up and grab her, she's terrified, but doesn't need any convincing that they're real.
Except. They don't kill her right away. They force her into a fancy dress and chain her up in the ballroom of a decaying mansion. And the vampire she finds herself sharing the room with doesn't eat her right away either...
Anyhow. This hit all sorts of kinks for me, in a non-sexual favourite-story-elements way. I like fantasy with a contemporary-realistic-urban setting, it was strongly character driven with all sorts of interesting, believable people, there were all the bits and pieces of day-to-day life to be taken into consideration with everything else that was happening, there were all sorts of things that I-the-reader didn't know from the beginning that came out gradually. Familiar characters weren't quite what they seemed. Oh yeah, and there's a pretty cool librarian as a minor character. *g*
The world itself she's built is fascinating, and rich with all sorts of detail. Her vampires are very inhuman, but it doesn't feel like she's trying to reinvent the wheel just to be original. There's a fair amount of necessary exposition, but it's first-person, and all pretty seamless and doesn't do the info-dump thing. Once the plot really gets going, it all hangs together really well.
And I want more, dammit.
New additions to the to-read pile:
- New Gordon Korman, Jake Reinvented. YA, humour, been compared a lot to the Great Gatsby, plot-wise.
- Big Fish, book the movie is based on. Saw the movie, and I'm curious now how it fits with the source.
- New Nina Kiriki Hoffman (speaking of which), A Stir of Bones. Think it's a ghost story. Yum.
- Shadows Over Baker Street, an anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories. Notably, contains the story "A Study in Emerald," by Neil Gaiman, which is the story he read at Torcon.
But you should all go read Sunshine first.
Addendum: If you're going anywhere the reviews or looking the book up on Amazon, avoid the Publisher's Weekly review altogether. Not only do I disagree with many things in said review, it contains major spoilers. Grumble.
Goood book. Really good book. Need sequel! Now!
Just finished Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed her last one, Spindle's End, but this... (happy swoon)
Take, oh, the Borderlands stuff as written by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, mix with Emma Bull's Bone Dance. Combine in equal portions with really good Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Add a very liberal splash of the Anita Blake at their best. (Like, y'know, the early to mid-series stuff.)
Yes, that's right, this is a vampire story. And really, really good. I'm in that euphoric really-good-fiction sort of high right now.
So. Sunshine, our protagonist, works in her stepfather's bakery, starting at four a.m. every morning to make big-as-your-head cinnamon rolls. And it's truly a labour of love. She tends to butt heads a lot with her mom, and this one night in particular, she needs to get away from the coffeeshop and her family, just to clear her head.
So she heads out to the lake where her grandmother's cabin used to be. It's a kinda stupid thing to do, since Bad Things have happened there, but not so recently that it's a truly reckless move. This is where you start to figure out that her world is ALMOST ours, but not quite. I won't spoil anyone for the slow reveal of details, but when the vampires show up and grab her, she's terrified, but doesn't need any convincing that they're real.
Except. They don't kill her right away. They force her into a fancy dress and chain her up in the ballroom of a decaying mansion. And the vampire she finds herself sharing the room with doesn't eat her right away either...
Anyhow. This hit all sorts of kinks for me, in a non-sexual favourite-story-elements way. I like fantasy with a contemporary-realistic-urban setting, it was strongly character driven with all sorts of interesting, believable people, there were all the bits and pieces of day-to-day life to be taken into consideration with everything else that was happening, there were all sorts of things that I-the-reader didn't know from the beginning that came out gradually. Familiar characters weren't quite what they seemed. Oh yeah, and there's a pretty cool librarian as a minor character. *g*
The world itself she's built is fascinating, and rich with all sorts of detail. Her vampires are very inhuman, but it doesn't feel like she's trying to reinvent the wheel just to be original. There's a fair amount of necessary exposition, but it's first-person, and all pretty seamless and doesn't do the info-dump thing. Once the plot really gets going, it all hangs together really well.
And I want more, dammit.
New additions to the to-read pile:
- New Gordon Korman, Jake Reinvented. YA, humour, been compared a lot to the Great Gatsby, plot-wise.
- Big Fish, book the movie is based on. Saw the movie, and I'm curious now how it fits with the source.
- New Nina Kiriki Hoffman (speaking of which), A Stir of Bones. Think it's a ghost story. Yum.
- Shadows Over Baker Street, an anthology of Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft stories. Notably, contains the story "A Study in Emerald," by Neil Gaiman, which is the story he read at Torcon.
But you should all go read Sunshine first.
Addendum: If you're going anywhere the reviews or looking the book up on Amazon, avoid the Publisher's Weekly review altogether. Not only do I disagree with many things in said review, it contains major spoilers. Grumble.
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Date: 2004-02-10 05:54 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-10 07:02 am (UTC)