Catching up -
Aug. 11th, 2008 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburg15. The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke.
The story of the first live capture of a panda cub in the '30s - by a woman - when nobody else had reliably even seen the animal. A really good vacation read - a giddy romp through a period of time without the media presence we taken for granted, the social structures built since then during WWII - let alone the attitude towards conservation, zoos and animals as prizes instead of living creatures. Lovely book, nicely researched and put together.
16. Knights of the Ruby Order, Torn and Crag, Kate Hill.
Oh. My.
You know, books like this one prove my point - porn for ladies needs no pictures. If I threw this against the wall, it would plooosh...and likely stick. Check your good sense at the door. Check every last brain cell. I couldn't really suspend my sense of disbelief enough to 'get into' the pr0ny goodness, which was the whole .. um .. thrust of the book(s). I though Laurel Hamilton was...blatant. This author has no shame and then some.
17. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Lauren R. King.
There was a couple of squeals at the tech desk at AX this year - someone had brought one of these 'Mary Russell' books, and we all found it hard to believe.
The hardest thing I found to believe was there was not just one book...but a whole series of them. The more I investigated, the more my stun grew. Not only was there a series, but there is every evidence they were successful, popular and WHAT?
Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Well, self-insertion at the very least. How does one pull this off? Win an Edgar for your first book, which isn't part of this series...and write well enough, and you can do just about anything you like. Proof positive.
Readable. If you suspend your sense of disbelief enough.
18. A Letter of Mary, Laurie R. King.
I'm not reading these anywhere near in order. I got these a buck a book from the used book dealer, and just read a ton of words about a really well-defined character in Mary Russell.
If she wasn't at all involved with Sherlock Holmes. And to be honest, her take on Holmes is really far off the beam - nice, cuddly, filial in his friends and his brother, and now his wife - not in the least familiar to me. Nice, sure. The book is entertaining...as long as I forget everything I ever knew about Doyle's work...and this author makes no bones about her contempt for the guy.
19. Locked Rooms, Laurie R. King.
Screaming contempt for children, Doyle, and Los Angeles. And the entire book is really about Mary Russell, with cameos by Dashiel Hammett and Sherlock Holmes. Deux es machina in the last fifty pages, the whole nine yards. Glad it was only a buck. But it was this edition - which had spent its life in a library in King County, that was both bemusing and amazing. It's battered. Its spine is broken, and there are food stains (chocolate, I think) on the pages. Not only was it read...it was loved to itty bits.
Sad.
Some go to the shelves...others to friends for more laughs and derision. Misery loves company.
The story of the first live capture of a panda cub in the '30s - by a woman - when nobody else had reliably even seen the animal. A really good vacation read - a giddy romp through a period of time without the media presence we taken for granted, the social structures built since then during WWII - let alone the attitude towards conservation, zoos and animals as prizes instead of living creatures. Lovely book, nicely researched and put together.
16. Knights of the Ruby Order, Torn and Crag, Kate Hill.
Oh. My.
You know, books like this one prove my point - porn for ladies needs no pictures. If I threw this against the wall, it would plooosh...and likely stick. Check your good sense at the door. Check every last brain cell. I couldn't really suspend my sense of disbelief enough to 'get into' the pr0ny goodness, which was the whole .. um .. thrust of the book(s). I though Laurel Hamilton was...blatant. This author has no shame and then some.
17. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Lauren R. King.
There was a couple of squeals at the tech desk at AX this year - someone had brought one of these 'Mary Russell' books, and we all found it hard to believe.
The hardest thing I found to believe was there was not just one book...but a whole series of them. The more I investigated, the more my stun grew. Not only was there a series, but there is every evidence they were successful, popular and WHAT?
Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Well, self-insertion at the very least. How does one pull this off? Win an Edgar for your first book, which isn't part of this series...and write well enough, and you can do just about anything you like. Proof positive.
Readable. If you suspend your sense of disbelief enough.
18. A Letter of Mary, Laurie R. King.
I'm not reading these anywhere near in order. I got these a buck a book from the used book dealer, and just read a ton of words about a really well-defined character in Mary Russell.
If she wasn't at all involved with Sherlock Holmes. And to be honest, her take on Holmes is really far off the beam - nice, cuddly, filial in his friends and his brother, and now his wife - not in the least familiar to me. Nice, sure. The book is entertaining...as long as I forget everything I ever knew about Doyle's work...and this author makes no bones about her contempt for the guy.
19. Locked Rooms, Laurie R. King.
Screaming contempt for children, Doyle, and Los Angeles. And the entire book is really about Mary Russell, with cameos by Dashiel Hammett and Sherlock Holmes. Deux es machina in the last fifty pages, the whole nine yards. Glad it was only a buck. But it was this edition - which had spent its life in a library in King County, that was both bemusing and amazing. It's battered. Its spine is broken, and there are food stains (chocolate, I think) on the pages. Not only was it read...it was loved to itty bits.
Sad.
Some go to the shelves...others to friends for more laughs and derision. Misery loves company.
