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Books update: Urban Fantasy, Steampunk
1. I am always wary of urban fantasy. Most of it has a set-up that usually includes paragraphs explaining how Awesome and Different and Hot and Rebellious and Hot and Leather-clad and Hot and Desirable the female lead is. And while a lot of people seem to like that, I pretty much stop reading within the first few pages. I don't care how hawt and desirable and pursued your heroine is. I don't care how many vampires/werewolves/zombies lust after her. There's always great detail given to clothing, as well. Leather pants or denim jeans, high-heels or combat boots. Everything is used to describe how New and Different and SO AWESOME the lead is.
While this is probably wish fulfillment for a lot of people, it isn't for me. I want your heroine to DO THINGS, not talk about her tits and ass. It's like, everyone noticed how LKH's Anita Blake stormed the market, so they're all trying to emulate her.
Which is why my list of entertaining Urban Fantasy tends to be incredibly small.
Cherie Priest had been recommended to me for her Steampunk novels, but while in the library, I saw she had some urban fantasy, as well. Raylene Pendle is a vampire thief, who is a loner, etc., and get drawn into a case involving the government experimenting on vampires (which is, to be fair, a kink of mine, I expect), and I figured why not, so added them to my stack.
I started Bloodshot with wariness. It was in first person, and there were little hints that it might be all about who was lusting after her. But in about three pages, the wariness was dispelled and I got sucked into a nicely-drawn world where Raylene is not so great at being a loner, and has ridiculously insane plans, but is basically pretty intelligent and fun. She also looks like Essie Davis (in her Phryne Fisher guise), but rarely spends time talking about how hot she is (in fact, looks and clothes are usually rarely mentioned, unless she's going on about her boots. I'm ok with boots, really, as they're practical). And no one spends half the novel lusting after her.
There is, in fact, magnificently X-Files style plot ridiculousness, some fabulous ex-Navy SEAL-in-drag, some kids, some murder, some snow, and a lot of running around. I ripped through Bloodshot and the sequel, Hellbent as fast as possible, and would honestly enjoy more (there's still sub-plots and threads of things that need resolving, and I love love LOVE that there actually seems to be a plan!)
So my list of Urban Fantasy that I would read again (and rec) has just gained two books.
2. I'm not sure if Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate stuff was recc'd or if it was something I'd seen and thought I'd pick up. Not that it matters. Soulless is an Urban Fantasy novel set in Victorian times with pretensions of being steampunk. It functions all right, though the constant references to the heroine's 'tan' skin and 'large' figure get annoying after the first twenty mentions in as many pages.
The novel does better when setting up some of the background and the world, but I didn't hate the lead. I was just tired of seeing Yet Another Special Snowflake whom no one understands. Every other woman in the novel is consequently unkind to her, flighty, fluffy and generally unintelligent. To be fair, that's bog-standard in most romance novels, so I can't really blame the author for utilizing already existing characteristics.
It was just disappointing.
The book also had the annoying habit of rapid POV switches in a single scene, and they were inconsistent and jarring. I suspect they might have fared better with me had I not been reading Marion Chesney's work recently (Regency novels with constant pov switches that flow and shift quite well).
I'll probably give the second book in the series a go, but I'm not really holding my breath or champing at the bit.
3. Back to Cherie Priest, whom as I said, was originally grabbed for her steampunk novels. Boneshaker is basically ABC's Missing, but with less kidnapping and spies, and more zombies, steampunk, fog and death. It was entertaining more for the world and Briar Wilkes, and her supporting cast than I'd expected it to be. Though after a while, I did start skipping the chapters with her son narrating.
I did like how immersed in the world I felt, though I do think the ending was rushed, and there were things that seemed to happen with no prior context (a chapter spent in the heads of Lucy, Jeremiah, etc., would not have gone amiss).
An entertaining book, though, and I've already started Clementine, the next novel set in the world.
4. Updated list:
Rainbird's Revenge by Marion Chesney
Bloodshot by Cherie Priest
Hellbent by Cherie Priest
Soulless by Gail Carriger
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
While this is probably wish fulfillment for a lot of people, it isn't for me. I want your heroine to DO THINGS, not talk about her tits and ass. It's like, everyone noticed how LKH's Anita Blake stormed the market, so they're all trying to emulate her.
Which is why my list of entertaining Urban Fantasy tends to be incredibly small.
Cherie Priest had been recommended to me for her Steampunk novels, but while in the library, I saw she had some urban fantasy, as well. Raylene Pendle is a vampire thief, who is a loner, etc., and get drawn into a case involving the government experimenting on vampires (which is, to be fair, a kink of mine, I expect), and I figured why not, so added them to my stack.
I started Bloodshot with wariness. It was in first person, and there were little hints that it might be all about who was lusting after her. But in about three pages, the wariness was dispelled and I got sucked into a nicely-drawn world where Raylene is not so great at being a loner, and has ridiculously insane plans, but is basically pretty intelligent and fun. She also looks like Essie Davis (in her Phryne Fisher guise), but rarely spends time talking about how hot she is (in fact, looks and clothes are usually rarely mentioned, unless she's going on about her boots. I'm ok with boots, really, as they're practical). And no one spends half the novel lusting after her.
There is, in fact, magnificently X-Files style plot ridiculousness, some fabulous ex-Navy SEAL-in-drag, some kids, some murder, some snow, and a lot of running around. I ripped through Bloodshot and the sequel, Hellbent as fast as possible, and would honestly enjoy more (there's still sub-plots and threads of things that need resolving, and I love love LOVE that there actually seems to be a plan!)
So my list of Urban Fantasy that I would read again (and rec) has just gained two books.
2. I'm not sure if Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate stuff was recc'd or if it was something I'd seen and thought I'd pick up. Not that it matters. Soulless is an Urban Fantasy novel set in Victorian times with pretensions of being steampunk. It functions all right, though the constant references to the heroine's 'tan' skin and 'large' figure get annoying after the first twenty mentions in as many pages.
The novel does better when setting up some of the background and the world, but I didn't hate the lead. I was just tired of seeing Yet Another Special Snowflake whom no one understands. Every other woman in the novel is consequently unkind to her, flighty, fluffy and generally unintelligent. To be fair, that's bog-standard in most romance novels, so I can't really blame the author for utilizing already existing characteristics.
It was just disappointing.
The book also had the annoying habit of rapid POV switches in a single scene, and they were inconsistent and jarring. I suspect they might have fared better with me had I not been reading Marion Chesney's work recently (Regency novels with constant pov switches that flow and shift quite well).
I'll probably give the second book in the series a go, but I'm not really holding my breath or champing at the bit.
3. Back to Cherie Priest, whom as I said, was originally grabbed for her steampunk novels. Boneshaker is basically ABC's Missing, but with less kidnapping and spies, and more zombies, steampunk, fog and death. It was entertaining more for the world and Briar Wilkes, and her supporting cast than I'd expected it to be. Though after a while, I did start skipping the chapters with her son narrating.
I did like how immersed in the world I felt, though I do think the ending was rushed, and there were things that seemed to happen with no prior context (a chapter spent in the heads of Lucy, Jeremiah, etc., would not have gone amiss).
An entertaining book, though, and I've already started Clementine, the next novel set in the world.
4. Updated list:
Rainbird's Revenge by Marion Chesney
Bloodshot by Cherie Priest
Hellbent by Cherie Priest
Soulless by Gail Carriger
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
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I don't know. I think I'm just frustrated that it wasn't written the way I would have written it, which is more than a bit arrogant.
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(Sorry if I'm incoherent, I still have the flu and I've been working a lot of hours this month.)
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And if you do find Cherie Priest on the library sale table, I will envy you.
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I haven't read beyond Blameless, but I do rather love the Parasol Protectorate books. The fact that they do something different with the supernatural probably helps. At this point new things gain bonus points for me. Perhaps I read too much crap urban fantasy.
Urban fantasy you might possible like (or at least worth grabbing from the library):
The Chess Putnam series by Stacia Kane. It's set in a bit of a post-Apocolyptic world where ghosts are real and they want to kill everyone, but it's a fun world. Chess works for the Church, which is the organization that stops the ghosts from killing everyone. The thing I really like about Chess is that she's a complete mess. She's a drug addict and often makes terrible life choices, but she somehow manages to be good at her job.
Sandman Slim books by Richard Kadrey. The protagonist is male, but there are several rather lovely female support characters. The set-up sounds like a bad cliche, guy escapes hell to avenge the death of his girlfriend, but it goes in a number of new and interesting places from there. As with Chess part of the appeal is just how much of a mess Stark is in his everyday life. He has a bucket load of PTSD and about the only thing he's any good at is killing things, but he's a really interesting character to read about. These books also manage to build up a rather unique celestial mythology and the 2nd one does some really fun things with zombies.
The Moganville Vampire books by Rachel Caine. They are vampire books, clearly, but they aren't the traditional fair. At least so far as I've seen. There are bunches of female characters and the main protagonist is Claire. Basically Claire is a bit scary-smart, gets accepted to MIT at the age of 16, but her parents don't want her moving across the country that young and convince her to do her generals at a local Texas university. The problem being that Morganville was built as a refuge for the dying vampire race, they run the place and basically treat the humans in town like intelligent cattle. Claire discovers this through a series of events and learns to deal with living in Morganville. I'll be the first to admit they aren't the best books ever written and they could use a better continuity editor, but they are fun. Like cotton candy for the brain.
Heroine Addiction by Jennifer Matarese. It's not really urban fantasy, but I think you'd like it anyways. It's the story of Vera Noble, former super hero current coffee shop owner, and how she gets pulled back into the super hero world when her dad's former mortal enemy current boyfriend shows up and tells her that her dad's gone missing. Vera is terribly fun to read about and she's the first to admit that there are no practical clothes in her entire wardrobe.
I'm also going to recommend Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire. It's a serialized, available on the web, ghost story. Rose Marshall is the girl you pick up on the side of the road to take home and discover she's been dead all along and this is her story.
The Velveteen Vs series is also good and also available online for free.
And I've probably rambled on enough.
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I did like the world-building in it, I was just frustrated over the constant, constant references to figure/skin and how ugly she was (I don't give a crap what she looks like, dammit, tell me what she does)
Hrm. Looks like the library has Stacia Kane. I'll give her a try next.
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(Oh right must pay fine from when book got squashed before then, sigh.)
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(whoops)