Melusine [and] The Virtu by Sarah Monette
Well, I discovered Sarah Monette by linking to something in her LiveJournal a few posts back, and it turns out she is a fantasy writer so I checked out her first novel, Melusine (I'm too lazy to find the e with the accent mark).
And...it's good! It's not really medieval-style fantasy, it's more...17th or 18th century-ish? A bit? I'm not that up on my historical eras due to not reading a lot of historical novels and almost NO historical nonfiction, so I apologize.
Again, it's one of those things that switches between two narrators, something that always kind of irritates me because you never really get to settle into the story and you're always having to remind yourself who everyone is again. And this became even more a of a problem by the second one (The Virtu, no accent marks) because there are so many details to remember! There are all these different schools of magic, and lots of historical characters and sects and gods and goddesses and cities and we're traveling across a continent and back, and argh.
In the end of The Virtu, for example, the Big Bad Guy is all, "I'm actually [Other Person]!" And everyone is all "OMG GASP!!" but I, um, forgot who [Other Person] was, and I think maybe it was in the first book where they explained why [Other Person] was important, or maybe I just was reading too fast and missed it, but either way it kind of dulled the excitement.
Still, I like the characters a lot and I DO actually care what happens to them, if I can still remember what already happened by the time the next book comes out. Her writing is interesting and the world-building is great, and obviously I liked it enough to read both books, but I have to say reading it feels the tiniest bit like...work.
And...it's good! It's not really medieval-style fantasy, it's more...17th or 18th century-ish? A bit? I'm not that up on my historical eras due to not reading a lot of historical novels and almost NO historical nonfiction, so I apologize.
Again, it's one of those things that switches between two narrators, something that always kind of irritates me because you never really get to settle into the story and you're always having to remind yourself who everyone is again. And this became even more a of a problem by the second one (The Virtu, no accent marks) because there are so many details to remember! There are all these different schools of magic, and lots of historical characters and sects and gods and goddesses and cities and we're traveling across a continent and back, and argh.
In the end of The Virtu, for example, the Big Bad Guy is all, "I'm actually [Other Person]!" And everyone is all "OMG GASP!!" but I, um, forgot who [Other Person] was, and I think maybe it was in the first book where they explained why [Other Person] was important, or maybe I just was reading too fast and missed it, but either way it kind of dulled the excitement.
Still, I like the characters a lot and I DO actually care what happens to them, if I can still remember what already happened by the time the next book comes out. Her writing is interesting and the world-building is great, and obviously I liked it enough to read both books, but I have to say reading it feels the tiniest bit like...work.
posted by Marian The at 9:22 PM
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