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Yesterday I read Touchstone by Melanie Rawn. I chose it at the library this way: I was having a hard time distinguishing the (very small) sea of titles and authors in their shiny library bindings. I saw The Golden Key and remembered that I liked it but lost interest because it went on and on forever and ever (note to myself: take note of this with regards to not-Poland). I saw that there were other books by her. Touchstone wasn't a mountain-sized book and it didn't have dragons in it (I like dragons, but I have developed an allergy to dragon stories. I could probably explain that, but I also probably shouldn't). I liked it a lot. Even though I kept noticing things I thought were kind of sloppy in the world building and chafing at small details, I enjoyed it and I kept reading right till it was done. If I had been less lazy I could have exchanged it for the second book before the library closed at five. Supposedly the third book is out and the other books are written, so it's not a completely hopeless thing to be in love with.
There's ambiguous relationships which are apparently not resolved until late in the series, which is interesting. Also I like the way that brnaching possibilities are handled in the protagonist's kind-of clairvoyance.
It's set in generic late-medieval world with a jumble of sentient races each of which has their minor superpowers. Almost nobody in their country is pure anything. They spend a lot and a lot of time speculating on the mix of races that go into various people's ancestry so as to account for their looks and talents. This made me itch. The author's views, expressed quite forcefully through the characters, are all about the tolerance and the interdepence and the mutual appreciation, but it's still weird to have all this be so determined, and also to have the Dungeons and Dragons spectrum of races so neatly presented. The story has its strengths anyway.
The patriarchy is really quite miserable here: women aren't even allowed to go to the theater(but they do anyway, bless Melanie Rawn's heart). The theater tradition is four guys put on a magic show. One of them writes the "playlets" and fills up a selection of glass tubes with magic. Another manipulates these tubes to create illusions. A third one is the actor who plays all the parts, but there's usually only one or two characters. The fourth one modulates and directs the flow of the magic. So that's interesting. There's a lot of interesting business about glass craft, including a kind of anachronistic bit about lead in the glass which I was only too happy to give her slack on. There's just generally more awareness than average in fantasy books about how things are made and how work is done, and that's also nice. So I generally enjoyed the book and want more.
I also took out another Czech history book, The Coasts of Bohemia by Derek Sayer, but I don't think it's probably as interesting as the Demetz one. So I guess I'll be reading that one for a while. I was actually looking for a Polish history book but I found this first and my new rule is two books at a time because I am fighting the tendency to lose things.
On another front, on Tuesday I dribbled some money on the ground in front of the car, and Truffle targeted it with her nose before she got in. This is that thing dogs do to show you things they find meaningful. No, she wasn't telling me that money is good, she was saying she found something that smelled like me on the ground and maybe I shoujld look at it too?
There's ambiguous relationships which are apparently not resolved until late in the series, which is interesting. Also I like the way that brnaching possibilities are handled in the protagonist's kind-of clairvoyance.
It's set in generic late-medieval world with a jumble of sentient races each of which has their minor superpowers. Almost nobody in their country is pure anything. They spend a lot and a lot of time speculating on the mix of races that go into various people's ancestry so as to account for their looks and talents. This made me itch. The author's views, expressed quite forcefully through the characters, are all about the tolerance and the interdepence and the mutual appreciation, but it's still weird to have all this be so determined, and also to have the Dungeons and Dragons spectrum of races so neatly presented. The story has its strengths anyway.
The patriarchy is really quite miserable here: women aren't even allowed to go to the theater(but they do anyway, bless Melanie Rawn's heart). The theater tradition is four guys put on a magic show. One of them writes the "playlets" and fills up a selection of glass tubes with magic. Another manipulates these tubes to create illusions. A third one is the actor who plays all the parts, but there's usually only one or two characters. The fourth one modulates and directs the flow of the magic. So that's interesting. There's a lot of interesting business about glass craft, including a kind of anachronistic bit about lead in the glass which I was only too happy to give her slack on. There's just generally more awareness than average in fantasy books about how things are made and how work is done, and that's also nice. So I generally enjoyed the book and want more.
I also took out another Czech history book, The Coasts of Bohemia by Derek Sayer, but I don't think it's probably as interesting as the Demetz one. So I guess I'll be reading that one for a while. I was actually looking for a Polish history book but I found this first and my new rule is two books at a time because I am fighting the tendency to lose things.
On another front, on Tuesday I dribbled some money on the ground in front of the car, and Truffle targeted it with her nose before she got in. This is that thing dogs do to show you things they find meaningful. No, she wasn't telling me that money is good, she was saying she found something that smelled like me on the ground and maybe I shoujld look at it too?