Books read, late January

[mrissa]

Robert Nisbet Bain, Charles XII and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire 1682-1719. This is a reprint of a book written in 1895. There is some bewilderment in areas where a modern historian would not have any; applying the concept of probable homosexuality to Charles XII would probably have cleared up a great many of Mr. Bain's confusions. It is also and always strange to read a book about wars that was written before WWI. Before WWII, not so strange to me. But before WWI, the way they talk about wars is just a gut-punch; you know how it's going to go, you know that the gas is coming, and the trenches, and you can't back up and warn them and say, "Are you so sure? Are you really so sure?"

Istvan Deak, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians 1848-1849. Good stuff, but I want more books about the '48ers. Mooooore. I want someone like Mark Kurlansky to write a big book about 1848 the way he did about 1968. If you know where I can get stuff like that, let me know.

Diane Duane, Door Into Fire. Oh the first-novelliness. Oh my land the first-novelitude. The romantic melodramas. The anguished shouting of the partner's name with extra vowels spelled out rather than presumed for the reader. I'm going to read the second one in this series, but -- she got better after this. Realio trulio. If you haven't read any Diane Duane, this is not, in my opinion, where to start.

Jo Graham, Black Ships. This is a forthcoming retelling of the Aeneid, free in my WFC bag. I didn't particularly need or want a retelling of the Aeneid, but this one held me anyway. I don't know that I'd recommend it to people who have no love of the ancient Mediterranean for its own sake, but if you do, give it a whirl.

Eino Jutikkala with Kauko Pirinen, A History of Finland. When you are a Finnophile who doesn't speak Finnish, you end up reading a lot of things in hopes of finding one or two little tidbits in them that weren't in the others. The most rewarding in terms of cool tidbits for me in that regard was Tony Griffiths's Scandinavia: At War With Trolls, but this had some things I hadn't known before, mostly stuff about shifts in the way taxation was calculated under medieval Swedish kings. Which may not sound interesting to you but was both relaxing and fascinating to me.

Chris Mann and Christer Jørgensen, Hitler's Arctic War. This is mostly a book of photos from the northern campaigns. The title is not misleading: Mann and Jørgensen are interested in the fighting primarily in the context of major powers, and the people whose countries were directly involved are pretty neglected by the text. Happily the same is not true of the photos, which were the reason to have this book in the first place. You could tell, too, where they had pictures they wanted to use and didn't have room for elsewhere, because the text will be rattling along blithely about something else, and boom, portrait of Vidkun Quisling. Which reminds me of two of the textbooks I did, but those had no pretense of collaboration between the author and the person who chose the illustrations.

Richard Powers, The Echo Maker. I usually like Powers's non-sfnal geekages. This one completely missed for me, I think partly because I already knew enough about weird cognitive neurology stuff and about Nebraska not to find those things interesting as he handled them. They were not new to me, and he didn't do anything particularly good with them, from my perspective. Mostly I was worried about the dog, and I found the ending way too simple. Part of the problem here, I think, is that if this book had left the realm of "mainstream" fiction there would have been a million more interesting possibilities for the climactic revelation. Even within it there were half a dozen. As things stood: meh.

Cherie Priest (cmpriest), Wings to the Kingdom. Second in a series; I read the third one first and the first one second. I think this one suffered less than the first one for being read out of order. Anyway I enjoyed it; I have no particular interest in Tennessee history, and so it's more of an accomplishment when someone makes me care how it's handled, and Cherie did.

I think the nonfiction skew will be far less strong in February. I'm reading a thumping big book about Central Asian history as regards the European colonial powers right now, but I have a stack of SF novels that will soon occupy my attention.

Comments

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

The Great Game? It moved surprisingly quickly for me, but then I was between Bukhara and Khiva when I read it. I really felt a need to know what would happen next with the local traditions of hospitality.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nope, I read that one a few years ago. This is Tournament of Shadows, which also moves quickly, even when you're reading it between Eagan and Apple Valley instead.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I'm unreasonably fond of The Door Into Fire, but I read it at The Right Age.

Think I need to read that Deak. Hm. Or, well, anyway, books on '48.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(only slightly wry look) "But..."?

I'm unreasonably fond of it as well. But for different reasons.

It was my first. It got published. Beyond belief, it went up for awards. Twice. And it was a present for a friend... that last possibly more important than anything else.

More than this, Deponent Saith Not. :)

Diane Duane

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

_Door Into Fire_ was her actual first novel? That explains a lot. I read her _So You Want to Be a Wizard_ first as a Scholastic book from my school's book ordering program when in elementary. The book was good enough that I still remember it, but not the science-fantastic style she would use in the Young Wizardry series that still seems so powerful upon rereads. I do like that she had a same-sex relationship in _Door Into Fire_, between the fire elemental and one of the main characters, at least if I'm remembering it right.

I think first novels are almost a genre of their own, what with all the extra care and crafting that must go into them, with the skill there though still developing. Even Duane's Star Trek novels are worth checking out, by the way. But have you read the Young Wizardry series?


Mack

Re: Diane Duane

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've read the Duane Star Trek novels, and of course I've read the Young Wizards series.

I think at the time Door Into Fire came out, it must have been an extremely big deal to have same-sex relationships and bisexuals all over the place. I think that there's been progress in that direction, though maybe not quite such exuberant progress as Door Into Fire.

Re: Diane Duane

[dduane.livejournal.com]

"Even"?

(wry look)

It's not like I work any less hard on those than on my others. I *love* Trek. I would think foul scorn not to do less than my best work, whatever that was that month, on a Trek book.

I have this weirdness. I don't mind taking the King's Shilling. The King has fed my cats often. :) But when I take it, I take it wholeheartedly, and I don't sneer at it afterwards.

Re: Diane Duane

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I've had people show up here claiming that I shouldn't write about the books I've read because I've only published (short stories and) nonfiction for kids, and clearly anyone who would write books with titles like Coming to America: The Chinese-Americans is a wretched and inferior being. So. Yah. That "even" does not represent the local management, let's say.

Re: Diane Duane

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm flattered you read my comment at all, since I value your work so highly! I guess I was subconsciously thinking that work-for-hire on an established universe was worth less than an original setting. _The Wounded Sky_ and _Spock's World_ are particular favorite Treks of mine. But you're right, it's not particularly fair to value one series less than another, based on whether the author owned the setting. Though if you had to choose between writing Trek or Young Wizardry (for example), I'd have to say please write more about Kit and Nita.

But the hereditary psionics of the clans in _Spock's World_, or the glass spider alien in _Wounded Sky_, or the descriptions where Kirk's crew crosses the boundary between regular reality and the reality of their consciousness... Those are priceless, too.

Best,
Mack

Re: Diane Duane

[dduane.livejournal.com]

:) Well, I had fun with those. Glad you did too.

Meanwhile, believe me, Kit and Nita are very much on my mind. Especially as those of us who're WGA members get ready to vote on the strike situation. The So You Want to Be a Wizard screenplay has been in abeyance for three months: I can't wait to get back to it. (And a number of other things.)

But the work-for-hire stuff -- some things you just do for fun. I do numerous things, as we say around here, "to feed the cats". But the Trek has always been for sheer fun.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

(grin) Yes, first novels are kind of a rite of passage. Forty-five-going-on-fifty books down the line, are there things I would have done differently?

Hmm.

I'm not her. Not any more, anyway. :)

"Oh the first-noveliness"? Well, we all have to start somewhere. ;)

Nonetheless, it was nominated twice (two years running) for best novel by a new SF writer (the Campbell, as it was then.) So it's a fair question: what did it have going for it that other novels of the time didn't?

Others may have better answers. Heinlein liked it (I have a fan letter from him). So did Sturgeon. (Ditto.)

Did I get better after this? Heinlein thought so. (Phone call only, no letter to display. "I'm a Navy man. We hate sharks. You made me like that shark. That was a dirty trick.") Sturgeon didn't live long enough, alas: I would have loved to hear what he thought, as he was the master of surpassing / outliving one's critics.

As for later: We all work to get better. Sometimes it happens. :) Sometimes we just live and keep writing, and a century or so later somebody takes another look. ;)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That is an awesome Heinlein quote. If it had been me, I'd have written it down myself and slept with it under my pillow. (It's not too late. I'm sure you still have a pillow.)

I didn't have a chance to read Door Into Fire when it was new; I was born in '78. I think that by the '70s there were enough things going on in different parts of speculative fiction that it's not entirely possible for people who weren't alive and reading to have a full grasp on what was going on, what was startling, what stood out. I had the same problem with Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake, except that I didn't go on to like the rest of her work as much as I like the rest of yours. (Aaaand this is where Vonda McIntyre shows up on my lj to say, "You didn't? :(" Sigh.) I think it's a lot easier to get a firm grounding in where things were happening in what order in the SF of the '30s or even the '50s than in that of the '70s.

I have the benefit of reading your comments as they're coming in as I compose mine, and I certainly couldn't and wouldn't argue that you shouldn't have a special place for Door Into Fire in your heart. But I still think that starting with an author's first novel is often (though not always) a suboptimal choice; I recently loaned a friend the first three Wizard books, and if I'd read Door Into Fire before I had, I'd have still chosen the first three Wizard books as his starter instead. Does that mean you should be ashamed of Door Into Fire? Of course not. But if Heinlein and I both think you grew as a writer after writing it, I suspect we won't be the only ones.

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Re the Heinlein: Yeah, there are days I definitely think about that, and other things that appear in that letter. Having that is kind of like having a Note from God. I loved knowing him: Robert was a trip. (And did the best Bill the Cat imitation you ever heard.)

Anyway, as regards Fire: yes, well, if I hadn't learned something about writing between then and now, I'd be worried. And with cause, I think. Every writer has early works that they wince to read. There are certainly some things I did in Fire that I'd never do now. And doubtless in ten years or twenty or so, I'll look back on some of my present work and say "Oy".

The dangerous thing, though, is when you start getting the urge to fix ten-year-old works. That is when you step away from the vehicle in a hurry. (Or get someone to help you do it. It really helps being married to a writer, sometimes.) :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is what baffles me about authors who reissue things that are previously published in substantially revised form: it is published. It is out there, it is done, you have stepped away and some very nice people with money have stepped in to say, yes, well done, gold watch for you, off you go. At my stage of a writing career, it is extremely obvious that revising published short stories would be a waste of my time and a poor career move. But apparently someone at the level Charles Sheffield reached before he died can mistake it for a good idea, and oh, how much I'd rather have had even another flash piece from him than an extensive rewriting of one of his already-published books.