Book Reviews: a prologue and typical over-analysis of my process

[hrj]

It used to be that I was quite content with the notion that my tastes in fiction were idiosyncratic enough to make other people’s recommendations of questionable value. Oh, every once in a while someone would suggest a book that hit my sweet spot. (I still recount the time I walked into the Other Change of Hobbit and said to Tom Whitmore, “So I’m trying to remember the name of this new series people have been telling me I might like…” and he immediately and correctly offered, “Naomi Novik, the Temeraire books.”) And sometimes my knee-jerk avoidance of authors that absolutely everyone was raving about meant that it took me a while to discover that, in this case, my taste really did fall in with the mainstream. (I avoided Bujold for years and years because her fandom had almost a cult-like air to it. And I still have some uneasiness about the nature of her books’ appeal, but that’s a different topic.) And since the volume of my fiction reading has decreased in the last couple decades, there are enough books in my to-be-read stack that are a known quantity that I wasn’t really looking for new recommendations.

But an interesting thing has happened in the last year or so. For one thing, as a published author, I now feel something of a responsibility to keep up with the field more, particularly in those corners of the genre I intersect. And for another, becoming active on Twitter specifically for the purpose of engaging more with the larger writing and publishing community has exposed me to a lot more chatter about new books—and much of it from people whose taste and preferences align strongly with my own. This means that more and more I’m approaching books with expectations built on the enthusiastic recommendations of a community that I want very much to belong to.

This is not entirely a good thing.

I have found myself with a nagging sense of guilt at finding certain books merely very enjoyable, when the lead-up hype raised the expectation that they would be OMG mind-blowingly awesome. Do I need to re-calibrate for hyperbole? Am I still simply out-of-sync with popular taste? (And then there are the dark voices that whisper that I’m just jealous because people aren’t raving about my book in the same way and I need to get over myself and maybe my book really isn’t even in the same universe as these books and that’s why nobody’s talking about it because I have no critical taste and that’s why I can’t recognize the complete genius of what I’m reading and ….) And then there are the suggestions I keep hearing that authors should never ever review other people’s books because fans are vicious and vindictive and if you imply their favorite books are anything less than perfect they’ll sic the internet trolls on your amazon review page. Well, screw that. I’m not going to stop reviewing books (and other stuff) and I’m never going to be anything less than completely honest about my response to a book. So it’s time to get caught up on a few fiction reviews for novels I’ve read in the last year. Let the chips fall where they may, and if my taste doesn’t always align with the rest of the world…well, I’m used to that.

(The actual reviews will be in separate posts because I'd rather separate this introduction from any specific book.)

Comments

[irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com (from livejournal.com)]

I find that I can't read Bujold; every book I try has something that exasperates or squicks me so much that I throw it against the wall, usually metaphorically. I keep stubbornly trying because people I like and respect rave about the books, so why do I keep bouncing off them? (With the Vorkosigan books it's mostly Miles being a jerk; with the rest it's the horror elements, I think.)

My real guilty pleasures are Katherine Kurtz' Deryni books and Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters. Now rereading the latter. Other Kurtz and Lackey isn't by far as appealing for some reason.

[kandy-elizabet.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Bujold, though certainly not cult-level (well, ok, yeah, our cats are named Miles and Ivan, but my husband and I were in the middle of "reading" (Audible) some of the Miles books when we got them). I also had the amazing experience of having the opportunity to read one of the books in galley stage (I think it was in galley). A close friend of hers was a very close friend of my then-new-boyfriend (now husband of 24 years) and she wanted someone to read it that hadn't read earlier books for "series dependence check." I generally listen to her books, and yeah, there are times I want to reach through the speaker and strangle Miles or at least give him a good shaking.

Calibrating Expectations

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

I would venture to guess that you are correct about needing to recalibrate for hyperbole.

My own case may be somewhat similar. I have read thousands of SF books. Along with Sturgeon's "90% of everything is trash" there has been a reasonable amount of good SF, a fair amount of very good SF, and even some excellent SF - but I wouldn't classify a single book as "OMG Mind-Blowingly Awesome". Not even books I have re-read a dozen times or more. Not even the one book that resonated with me more than any other book ever had.

So either there are people who feel much more passionately about the books than I do, or else they feel over a somewhat similar range of passion but use much stronger language to express their passion than I do. (Or some of both, of course). In any case, I have learned that the excessive language they use will almost certainly NOT match my own feelings. Their recommendation can be well worth trying, it could even result in my having a new Favorite Author - but what I consider to be "OMG Mind-Blowingly Awesome" is EXTREMELY unlikely to be my reaction. If they merely say "I found this very enjoyable, I think you would too" then their recommendation could very well be spot-on for me. Oh, it still might not be - but there's a REASONABLE chance that it could be.

This also applies to Movies and TV shows and favorite repeating panels at cons and so on.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I also don't read authors because their fandom is off-putting. It's worse with local authors, which means I *don't* read Bujold, and I don't read Stephen Brust, and... yeah.

I am really picky about my fiction lately anyway, to the point where the author pretty much has to be female for me to even consider it. And it has to be well-written, because I don't have time for poorly-written fiction, even if it's fluffy paranormal romance. Also since I have gone electronic it would be a lot harder on my Nexus were it to get flung against the wall in frustration... :-)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Bujold is one of the few authors where I find myself re-reading the book immediately after finishing (though not so much with the most recent few Vokosigan books). And then I step back and remind myself that she seduces me into being sympathizing with monsters. It takes real craft to turn Simon into a sympathetic character! And then I get impatient with how oblivious Miles is to being surrounded by preternaturally honorable people.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I approve of your ground rules. :) I have to have a very good reason for reading male authors these days. And one of these days my intractable snobbery about good writing is going to get me in big trouble.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

My liking for Bujold varies; I enjoy most, some of them got under my skin, some of them leave me fairly cold. I loathed the setup in the last Vorkosiverse book - Ivan was acting like a creep, overstepping boundaries left right and center (which he hadn't in earlier books I've subsequently re-read), and there was a clear dissonance between 'this character is doing highly inappropriate things' and 'the author expects me to cheer on the character because he's a good guy, and heh, isn't it amusing how he tramples all over that woman's boundaries? Of *course* she forgives him immediately'.

At this point I blame, not the character, but the author.

(I also felt very turned off by the Romance in the Sharing knife between the protagonist and a girl half his age: not that such relationships can never work, but when you've had a teacher/pupil relationship, pulling that off without making it sound skeevy is difficult; and I need more than mutual 'I've always admired you [but I'm not good enough]' because a teacher who evaluates a pupil as a potential partner is engaging in highly inappropriate behaviour.