Book report

[mrissa]

So I read Medicine Road by Charles de Lint. It's the sequel to Seven Wild Sisters, and it is not set in Newford. Much though I love Newford, it's starting to look like a relief to me when de Lint doesn't set things there. The setting got a little name-droppy in this one, but it wasn't a parade of familiar character cameos, which is a big problem for me with Newford. I start to feel like he's got a checklist: have we seen or mentioned the absence of Jilly? Geordie? Sophie?......

The good news: it did not feel like a Standard de Lint Novel to me. The main characters, twins, were musicians, but that was a fairly minor point in the book; Their Art was never the issue. Their art wasn't even the issue. Their clothing was not described in loving detail. No one was pixie-ish.

The bad news: it still didn't knock my socks off. Dreams Underfoot blew me entirely away. Several of his other books from the same era really, really grabbed me; I loved them. But lately I've been disappointed because I feel it's become much of a muchness, and the deviations from that Standard de Lint Novel were only published recently, not written recently. This is not the same stuff, but if Medicine Road was the first book I read by an author, I'd shrug and probably wouldn't seek out more, and I will likely reread half a dozen others of his before I come back to it.

Still, maybe he's getting out of that rut, at least a little bit. I have hopes for The Blue Girl, maybe maybe, and I have Mulengro on my pile, and that's an older one, so maybe maybe on that one, too. (Basically, he did outstandingly when I first encountered him and has continued just well enough that I keep reading. It looks like a fairly workable career path, but I hope none of you take it deliberately!)

Next up: Anthony Price, Here Be Monsters. I am fighting the urge to reread The Dubious Hills because I have such monstrous piles of first-reads, but oh, it's all...like that...and stuff. Some people's friends. Harumph.

Comments

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

You forgot the other major characteristic of de Lint books: some sort of abuse in the characters' pasts. Dreams Underfoot is one of my all time favorite books. And the ones set in and around Tamson House.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

True, Medicine Road also lacked The Abused Character. Rah.

And I love Tamson House. Loff it, to buymeaclue-ize it.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Hurray for no Abused Character!

I want to live in Tamson House.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

If he would re-vist Tamson House(and do it well, mind you) I would probably forgive the less than good books he's written lately. (I'm a forgiving sort)

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Mulengro is a little more of a horror book than some of his later works. Which makes sense as it was written around the same times as he was writing horror under the name Samuel Keys. I have have hopes for The Blue Girl; I've heard it is his best work in sometime. We shall see.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

The Blue Girl is really fabulous. Charles is very uneven though; The Onion Girl was atrocious.

[jamesgilmer.livejournal.com]

The Onion Girl was atrocious.>>

Arrrrghh! You tell me this just as it comes up next in my "To Read" pile.

I'll give it a go though, I have no problems walking away from bad books (something I'd never do when I was younger, I've subjected myself to some horrible books in the name of "finishing it").

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I thought it was pretty bad, too. Sorry!

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I've been forced to finish some pretty horrid books in the name of reviewing them, but I'm getting to the point where I won't do it when reading for recreation. :)

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't believe the shit I've had to read since I started writing book reviews. Two words: Publish America.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

*gags*

We pretty much refuse to review anything from them. I think we found one book of theirs that was utterly fabulous and can't imagine why a real publisher didn't pick it up. But that is a huge fluke.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

The publication I review for will review pretty much anything--especially if there's advertising revenue involved. It's really depressing.

But sometimes I get really good books, too.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I kinda liked The Onion Girl--but then again, I have this totally irrational love of Jilly and probably ignored all the problem areas. I've been known to do that.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I love Jilly, which is why I didn't like the book. I felt she was acting completely out of character.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Which is why I said I was totally irrational. That and I was so happy that there was finally a Jilly book that I sort of gulped it down--which isn't always conducive to me being good at evaluating the goodness of a book. I think I read it in 3 or 4 hours. If I ever some free time, I should reread it with a more critical eye. I do remember, vaguely, being irritated with some of Jilly's actions.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite of his is still Memory and Dream. But The Blue Girl is really good, if you haven't read that one yet you really must.

I read Onion Girl in one sitting. It was on the second read that I realized all the things I didn't like. :D

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I'm really fond of Memory & Dream, too. I haven't read The Blue Girl. I'll add it to the list. I finally got a copy of Tapping The Dream Tree about a month ago and haven't had a chance to look at it. Soon.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Mulengro actually made me stop reading de Lint at the time, because it was horror packaged as fantasy at a time (my teens) when I just didn't read horror at all, not that I read much of it now. He already had the Sam Keys pseudonym, and now I can see the wisdom of it; I'm not sure why Mulengro came out as de Lint rather than Keys.

I still have my old de Lints, out of nostalgia as much as a desire to reread, but I haven't read anything new of his since ... Someplace To Be Flying, it might be.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The introduction to my copy of Mulengro says, "in subsequent work where I explored the dark, I used the pseudonym Samuel M. Key," so it sounds to me as though he didn't have that pseudonym yet and got it because of Mulengro.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

My last de Lint was Spirits in the Wires, which I had to work to finish. My early experiences with him were also good - I still have my old copy of Moonheart, which is battered and soft. I was so impressed with the way he kept you in suspense jumping from storyline to storyline, creating an almost cinematic book (I re-read it once as serial short stories - following the various threads as single stories - just for the heck of it). Likewise, I remember really being struck by the interleaving of fantasy and urban life in Jack and the Giant-Killer. I wandered away from his books for a time, though my husband has read more of his recent work (he agrees about The Onion Girl and didn't recommend it).

I haven't reread any of my old de Lint in a long time - I am not sure if my memories would hold up against the reality.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I love so many of his earlier books - the two Tamson House books, Dreams Underfoot, The Little Country, Memory and Dream - and then it was like I hit my limit for his stuff. The only newish one I've read and enjoyed was Someplace to Be Flying. It was a sad day when I realized I had absolutely no interest in anything he was currently doing, unless it was going to be a major departure for him.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

In my lonely corner, I enjoyed Onion Girl, and greatly respected it. I read some deLint many years ago (Moonheart, the Jack books, etc...) and liked them okay. Then I read Yarrow and wanted to dropkick it and ignored him for years. It wasn't until Andrew Vachss (http://www.vachss.com/) recommended Onion Girl that I picked it up, and when I realized how much deLint was writing about abuse I started reading him again.

Why, yes, my squid is very large.

That said, the Newford everyone's-an-artist books do grate on my nerves.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

[suggestive eyebrow wiggle] That's a mighty large squid you got there....[leer]

[ellarien]

I seem to have a higher tolerance for de Lint than a lot of people do; I started buying him in hardcover (because I could) about the time others online were perceiving a drop in quality. (It did help that he set some parts of some more recent books in Tucson, though his (and Terri Windling's) Tucson is a very different place from the prosaic sprawling city where I live.) I did find Spirits in the Wires disappointing; apparently I've expunged the worst parts so thoroughly from my memory that I can't now articulate why.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you don't live in his Tucson; it sounds nice. I do live in Emma Bull's Minneapolis, which brings me great joy approximately daily.

[jenstclair.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I'm a big DeLint fan, although I haven't reread The Onion Girl yet. I really liked The Blue Girl, though. It will definitely be a reread.

But nowadays I read very little fantasy. I'm just too picky, I guess. DeLint's one of the few fantasy authors still on my list.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Did you read a particular sub-genre of fantasy mostly, or was it across the field? I got burned out on fantasy for awhile towards the beginning of college, but I found my way back in through the sneaky kinds of things, the more subtle fantasies. Is there something you like about de Lint that's lacking in the other authors you've read?