Progress notes

Progress notes for August 3, 2006:

Raising the Storm

New Words: Roughly 1100.
Reason for stopping: End of CD. Also, good dramatic point where I know what's going to happen next well enough to resume tomorrow without too much headache.
Tea: Solomon's Seal.
Mean Things: Possession leading to disembowelment, and someone else's broken arm.
The Glamour!: The backache!
Inevitable asides: I've only seen peregrines downtown once so far this summer - but when I did, I got to see two of them. Very pretty.

______________________________

Mélusine is really rather good. It plays subversive with some merry old tropes, from the dreaded Mary Sue to the tricks of fate, to the magical place the charcters struggle to reach, because if they make it, all will be well... Much has been made in reviews about just how strongly different the two voices of the two narrators are, and are they right (There was one section which for some reason I kept thinking should be Mildmay but was in fact Felix, right near the end, but that's because Felix is (SPOILER) at that point.

It's a narrow balance with a series book, between leaving in all the set-up for the sequels, and closing the story well enough that, as Jim Macdonald put it, someone trapped on a desert island with only that book, and no sequels, will not loathe you for the next twenty years for leaving them with half a story. She did it -- if by the skin of her teeth. (Of course, there's a teaser for the next book, but I generally don't read those unless I know I'll have my hands on the next book within a week. In this case, although the next book is out, I probably won't pick it up until Christmas. The fact that I know I should and probably even will wait five more months is why it matters to me that it ended *right*)

Anyhow, not a very bright review, just a snippet. Good night.

Progress notes

Progress notes for August 3, 2006:

Raising the Storm

New Words: Roughly 1100.
Reason for stopping: End of CD. Also, good dramatic point where I know what's going to happen next well enough to resume tomorrow without too much headache.
Tea: Solomon's Seal.
Mean Things: Possession leading to disembowelment, and someone else's broken arm.
The Glamour!: The backache!
Inevitable asides: I've only seen peregrines downtown once so far this summer - but when I did, I got to see two of them. Very pretty.

______________________________

Mélusine is really rather good. It plays subversive with some merry old tropes, from the dreaded Mary Sue to the tricks of fate, to the magical place the charcters struggle to reach, because if they make it, all will be well... Much has been made in reviews about just how strongly different the two voices of the two narrators are, and are they right (There was one section which for some reason I kept thinking should be Mildmay but was in fact Felix, right near the end, but that's because Felix is (SPOILER) at that point.

It's a narrow balance with a series book, between leaving in all the set-up for the sequels, and closing the story well enough that, as Jim Macdonald put it, someone trapped on a desert island with only that book, and no sequels, will not loathe you for the next twenty years for leaving them with half a story. She did it -- if by the skin of her teeth. (Of course, there's a teaser for the next book, but I generally don't read those unless I know I'll have my hands on the next book within a week. In this case, although the next book is out, I probably won't pick it up until Christmas. The fact that I know I should and probably even will wait five more months is why it matters to me that it ended *right*)

Anyhow, not a very bright review, just a snippet. Good night.