Ocean liner on a seaweed breeze
We have now reached the point in our life with cats where ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch will leave the room before blowing his nose in order not to startle Hestia out of the paper bag nest she has made beside his computer. I feel fairly confident there is at least one folktale on this pattern.
Last night I finished reading Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice (2017), my Christmas present from my cousins. It stars Dr. Greta Helsing, whose family dropped the van on their way out of the Netherlands ahead of World War II, and it is very much like Kim Newman's Anno Dracula (1992) and sequels if Newman were really interested in characters, prose, and plot beyond the immediate exigencies of fitting as many fictional vampires on the same page as possible. I suspect it is slightly more sweary and violent than the strict definition of a cozy mystery, but it is definitely the kind of mystery that is less a puzzle for the reader than a well-constructed excuse to hang out with a bunch of peculiar and appealing characters for the length of a novel; I recognized it belatedly fromyhlee's post about latte art and kindness and it lives up to both. My sole reservation in recommending it is the default Christian theology common to so much urban fantasy, though Shaw's take is at least more in the style of Good Omens than The Dresden Files and I happen to like the main demon in the cast. (He has a racking cough and works as an accountant and keeps being described as looking like Edward R. Murrow, right down to the mid-'50's suits. I recognized the monster he is named after only because Tolkien appropriated it for Middle-Earth.) I like the entire cast, actually, which is ideal but never guaranteed in this kind of ensemble narrative. Greta is never washed out by the less human characters around her and considering that two of those are Sir Francis Varney and Lord Ruthven—the latter of whom takes his retail therapy very seriously—I am impressed. On a thoroughly idiosyncratic note, coming off a run of romance novels, I really enjoyed that no one in Strange Practice actually has a romance with anyone else. There are strong indications in the epilogue, but mostly just a lot of people caring for one another regardless of chemistry, species, or deadness. I plan to read the sequel. The art on the paperback endpapers is very sweet.
Tonight I am going to finish Barbara Hambly's Murder in July (2017), which came from my parents. I would like to be writing, but at least reading is good for me. Also, you know, fun.
spatch will leave the room before blowing his nose in order not to startle Hestia out of the paper bag nest she has made beside his computer. I feel fairly confident there is at least one folktale on this pattern.Last night I finished reading Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice (2017), my Christmas present from my cousins. It stars Dr. Greta Helsing, whose family dropped the van on their way out of the Netherlands ahead of World War II, and it is very much like Kim Newman's Anno Dracula (1992) and sequels if Newman were really interested in characters, prose, and plot beyond the immediate exigencies of fitting as many fictional vampires on the same page as possible. I suspect it is slightly more sweary and violent than the strict definition of a cozy mystery, but it is definitely the kind of mystery that is less a puzzle for the reader than a well-constructed excuse to hang out with a bunch of peculiar and appealing characters for the length of a novel; I recognized it belatedly from
yhlee's post about latte art and kindness and it lives up to both. My sole reservation in recommending it is the default Christian theology common to so much urban fantasy, though Shaw's take is at least more in the style of Good Omens than The Dresden Files and I happen to like the main demon in the cast. (He has a racking cough and works as an accountant and keeps being described as looking like Edward R. Murrow, right down to the mid-'50's suits. I recognized the monster he is named after only because Tolkien appropriated it for Middle-Earth.) I like the entire cast, actually, which is ideal but never guaranteed in this kind of ensemble narrative. Greta is never washed out by the less human characters around her and considering that two of those are Sir Francis Varney and Lord Ruthven—the latter of whom takes his retail therapy very seriously—I am impressed. On a thoroughly idiosyncratic note, coming off a run of romance novels, I really enjoyed that no one in Strange Practice actually has a romance with anyone else. There are strong indications in the epilogue, but mostly just a lot of people caring for one another regardless of chemistry, species, or deadness. I plan to read the sequel. The art on the paperback endpapers is very sweet.Tonight I am going to finish Barbara Hambly's Murder in July (2017), which came from my parents. I would like to be writing, but at least reading is good for me. Also, you know, fun.
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Yes! I also thought of Aaronovitch while reading, although I forgot him in this post. I wonder if the crossover already exists.
I read it adjacent to Seanan McGuire's Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and it was well worth the juxtaposition.
How so? I don't know the McGuire.
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The McGuire is a pretty recent release, a sequel to her meta-portal fantasy Every Heart a Doorway (2016), and narrows in on the backstory of two main characters from that book. I read them in order and I think that did help, though they would standalone pretty well too. Sticks and Bones deals with people whose best home is in a Gothic landscape, whether as mad scientist or as vampire. It does some interesting things with the meaning of actions as evil, and the whole meta-portal fantasy aspects are better developed than in the previous book. (There's also some competently handled breaking of imposed gender roles, the best I've seen on this from McGuire so far, which is a nice step up from her).
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I would approve!
How are the graphic novels? I've read only the books.
(There's also some competently handled breaking of imposed gender roles, the best I've seen on this from McGuire so far, which is a nice step up from her).
I am glad to hear it. I have tended to bounce really hard off her writing despite her consistently choosing themes or subjects that would interest me, but I'm happy even from a distance when writers get better.
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I resent the perpetual absence of cheap and safe teleportation from my life.