Dissatisfaction
Jan. 21st, 2012 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_songsmithThere's nothing quite as itchy as the dissatisfaction from a bad plot element in an otherwise good book. And I've hit two of them in the same week, whilst I was waiting for all of your recs to roll in.
Pirate King is Laurie King's latest Mary Russell novel. It's being billed as a "return" to the light-hearted stories after a couple of rather grim ones, but to me it feels like a major break with the feel of the series. The early books aren't especially 'light', dealing as they do with things like violent misogynists, murderous spies, and the execution of soldiers in wartime. The last pair were 'darker' only in how low Holmes and Russell were brought before their eventual triumph. In any event, Pirate King has gone rather too far in the opposite direction: the humor is pounded in with a large mallet (upon which is ceases to be humorous) and obscures what might otherwise be a good story. The figure of the translator (based on a real person) is also heavy-handed; he matches well with the conceit of the book, an interplay of reality and multiple layers of fiction, but since the book is far too fond of its conceit, he becomes one more thing that just makes you want to say, "Ok, we GET it already!"
The actual mystery at the heart of the book is well-done and unraveled nicely, unlike the last pair of books, and the addition of certain assistance from Mycroft's people plays really well. It's just a damn shame it's so muddled around by King trying to be funny.
Empire of Ivory was better than I expected given that I was left somewhat flat by Black Powder War (too much book, too little story). I was right along with it until we got to Laurence's treason. And there I have stopped, wanting to see what happens and too frustrated to read on all at the same time.
I just don't buy it. I understand we're supposed to take this as a horrible and unethical attack against thinking beings that the Admiralty sees as animals. Except, am I supposed to think the Admiralty would hesitate to send over a plague that affected humans, if they thought they could? Am I supposed to think that Laurence would mourn the dragons more than the human casualties of the war? And this for a disease we have been shown takes months or even YEARS before it kills! Why go off on this treasonous half-cocked 'rescue' mission? Wait a year, until the French aerial forces are grounded with disease, crush Napoleon's armies in a coordinated assault, then cure the captured dragons. Or send that letter Temeraire wrote to his mother with the mushroom sample, only have it deliberately 'go astray' so that someone among the French learns of the cure -- and can send their own expedition to fetch their own cure. This is just nonsense thrown in to put Our Heroes in Desperate Peril. Argh.
Edit: I also growl at authors who can't keep their characters consistent book to book -- there's a whole passage in Locked Rooms that focuses on how Mary's only seasick because she doesn't want to go to San Fran, and then suddenly in Pirate King she "always gets seasick." Argh!
Pirate King is Laurie King's latest Mary Russell novel. It's being billed as a "return" to the light-hearted stories after a couple of rather grim ones, but to me it feels like a major break with the feel of the series. The early books aren't especially 'light', dealing as they do with things like violent misogynists, murderous spies, and the execution of soldiers in wartime. The last pair were 'darker' only in how low Holmes and Russell were brought before their eventual triumph. In any event, Pirate King has gone rather too far in the opposite direction: the humor is pounded in with a large mallet (upon which is ceases to be humorous) and obscures what might otherwise be a good story. The figure of the translator (based on a real person) is also heavy-handed; he matches well with the conceit of the book, an interplay of reality and multiple layers of fiction, but since the book is far too fond of its conceit, he becomes one more thing that just makes you want to say, "Ok, we GET it already!"
The actual mystery at the heart of the book is well-done and unraveled nicely, unlike the last pair of books, and the addition of certain assistance from Mycroft's people plays really well. It's just a damn shame it's so muddled around by King trying to be funny.
Empire of Ivory was better than I expected given that I was left somewhat flat by Black Powder War (too much book, too little story). I was right along with it until we got to Laurence's treason. And there I have stopped, wanting to see what happens and too frustrated to read on all at the same time.
I just don't buy it. I understand we're supposed to take this as a horrible and unethical attack against thinking beings that the Admiralty sees as animals. Except, am I supposed to think the Admiralty would hesitate to send over a plague that affected humans, if they thought they could? Am I supposed to think that Laurence would mourn the dragons more than the human casualties of the war? And this for a disease we have been shown takes months or even YEARS before it kills! Why go off on this treasonous half-cocked 'rescue' mission? Wait a year, until the French aerial forces are grounded with disease, crush Napoleon's armies in a coordinated assault, then cure the captured dragons. Or send that letter Temeraire wrote to his mother with the mushroom sample, only have it deliberately 'go astray' so that someone among the French learns of the cure -- and can send their own expedition to fetch their own cure. This is just nonsense thrown in to put Our Heroes in Desperate Peril. Argh.
Edit: I also growl at authors who can't keep their characters consistent book to book -- there's a whole passage in Locked Rooms that focuses on how Mary's only seasick because she doesn't want to go to San Fran, and then suddenly in Pirate King she "always gets seasick." Argh!
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Date: 2012-01-22 02:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
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