Ah, Sebastien, I am disappoint.

[saffronhare]

Well, I went and requested the next three books in the "Forensic Sorceresses" in Airships series written by Elizabeth Bear (officially known as the New Amsterdam series), and I've gotta say I was disappointed.

The White City
Seven for a Secret
Ad Eternum

For starters, there were no airships anywhere. Phooey. Also, my favorite character -- the forensic sorceress -- is barely mentioned. In fact, so much time has passed that she is very old and infirm for the second book and dead for the third one. Everything focuses instead on the vampire dude, Sebastien, who is genuinely likeable and who behaves in a gentlemanly manner toward humans in particular and humanity in general. And he's thankfully not a weeping and angsting vampire, a la Anne Rice, but he's not the character I bought into originally.

The big thing that bothered me about these books is the incompleteness of the stories. I don't expect everything to be wrapped up in a bow at the end, but I do expect a certain depth and arc to the storytelling. None of these ever really got going. There were so many interesting characters and conflicts introduced but never explored. It seemed that Bear had put together *part* of a book as a pitch to the publisher, and they'd just gone ahead and printed that instead of going through the actual work of developing the story, etc. I'm not a critical reader, you guys, so if this issue bothered me then it was really glaring.

They were very short, too...much more of an extended short story or installment in a short story series than an actual novel. I mean, I finished Seven for a Secret around 9 pm one evening and then finished Ad Nauseum Eternum by 11:30 p.m. I am something of a literary size queen, it seems.

I do still really like Bear's writing, though, and I'll be looking for whatever else I can get through the local library system. It's nice that the kids are old enough, and the household routines are in enough of a steady state these days, that I can read a bit more than I have for YEARS.

ETA: I also finished Grail, which was wonderful. Loved the way worlds collided, etc. The ending was, while heavy-handed in that "DM wants to wrap shit up definitively" manner, a decent way to wrap things up.

Comments

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Hmph. Well, that's disappointing. Apparently, she's spending too much time on Tumblr instead of devoting her energies to quality writing.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I didn't really dig the first one in that series, so I didn't continue with it. The stuff of hers that I like, I really really like, but also, she has some that doesn't really do it for me. The first two Faerie books (the modern ones) were like that, and I liked the second two (the Shakespeare/Marlowe ones). So, meh. I'm really liking the new series, though, the Endless Sky, or whatever those are.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

It's possible she put more energy into more recent publications, which are stand-alone novels. And it's hard to discount the vagaries of the publishing world. I'll report back. :)

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I'll have to keep Endless Sky in mind. :)

Also: Can we maybe arrange for me to borrow the final WoT book sometime, pretty please?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Of course! Drop me an email and let me know when you are available for book-giving, and we will work something out.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I had the EXACT same reaction to the finish of Grail. Rushed but fun, and very much a DM ending.

I liked the first New Amsterdam okay, but never found/picked up any of the others. Without Abigail, I see no real reason to try, now.

[rebeccafiddler.livejournal.com]

In the games I've played, a "DM wants to wrap shit up definitively" ending generally meant that everyone died in the end. If that was the case, I sincerely hope that it was a one-and-out book or the real end of a series.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It was the end of a trilogy and also (within that world) the End of an Era.