Stealing the Elf-King's Roses
Jan. 25th, 2003 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladean(By Diane Duane)
Contains fuzzy spoilers. Contains no drift into other material, no account of the weather or my own writing or whatever -- and that was dismayingly hard to accomplish -- so you can just skip it if you're worried. Contains no cut tags, on request.
I think I did this book a disservice by reading it in so dissociated a fashion. I think I also did it a disservice by reading A WIZARD ALONE first. I suspect AWA has its own problems, but they are not the ones that make me crazy about the author's work, so it left me in a state of high expectation.
There are a lot of very cool things about STEALING THE ELF-KING'S ROSES. Periodically throughout I kept checking the front and back matter of the book to see if it were part of a series of which I had missed the first two or three or four volumes. On reflection I quite like that. There is usually a difference in feel between embedded history in a single volume and references to previous volumes. While I really prefer that an actual series sound as if each book were the only one, the reversal was very interesting and not objectionable.
I liked the characters and the partnership and the way justice is dealt with; I liked the mad mixture of sf and fantasy. I know that that kind of thing drives a lot of people nuts, but I have always had a sneaking fondness for it, and I think Duane does it particularly well.
Daedela had mentioned, when she finished it, that she had been very worried that it would conform to certain conventions of category romances. I had no idea what she meant. Not until page 334 did it dawn on me what was going on that would make anybody have expectations of the plot based on an experience of category romances. At that point I finally got it. Not very much after that point, I felt almost assaulted by vivid recollections of THE BLUE SWORD and THE RIDDLEMASTER OF HED trilogy. That was very strange and I'm still not sure what I think of it.
I am on the fence about the aspect that upset jinian so much. I don't mind so much our universe being the way it is said to be in the book, or even the bait-and-switch, which actually in the purity of its immediate realization made me go "Wow." I do very much resent having almost no clue as to what happened. I'm not sure it is "birth defects," I'm not sure it's that defined. I trawled around looking for clues. Deity has a more feminine aspect in the other universes is all I really came up with. I assumed that the War in Heaven probably had something to do with it, but there is no clue to that other than a certain implied absence around the edges in the universes we do see. I do object to the entire idea of an ethical constant, but I am always having to overcome that kind of objection in order to read Duane and other authors in the first place, so that wasn't some kind of unfamiliar barrier.
I don't know. My emotional reactions to the entire thing were blunted somehow. I don't know if it was by the circumstances under which I read the book, the sudden echoes of other books, or the book itself. I do think the ending was rushed, and I definitely think it would be better to have the brokenness of the one universe explained and put into the plot. I don't like it as a throwaway, that's really my objection to it. This actually makes me wonder if I missed something. I'm going to have to reread it when my mind is more functional.
I retain some very vivid images of sky and landscape. I found the dialogue pretty clunky, though.
Huh.
Pamela
Contains fuzzy spoilers. Contains no drift into other material, no account of the weather or my own writing or whatever -- and that was dismayingly hard to accomplish -- so you can just skip it if you're worried. Contains no cut tags, on request.
I think I did this book a disservice by reading it in so dissociated a fashion. I think I also did it a disservice by reading A WIZARD ALONE first. I suspect AWA has its own problems, but they are not the ones that make me crazy about the author's work, so it left me in a state of high expectation.
There are a lot of very cool things about STEALING THE ELF-KING'S ROSES. Periodically throughout I kept checking the front and back matter of the book to see if it were part of a series of which I had missed the first two or three or four volumes. On reflection I quite like that. There is usually a difference in feel between embedded history in a single volume and references to previous volumes. While I really prefer that an actual series sound as if each book were the only one, the reversal was very interesting and not objectionable.
I liked the characters and the partnership and the way justice is dealt with; I liked the mad mixture of sf and fantasy. I know that that kind of thing drives a lot of people nuts, but I have always had a sneaking fondness for it, and I think Duane does it particularly well.
Daedela had mentioned, when she finished it, that she had been very worried that it would conform to certain conventions of category romances. I had no idea what she meant. Not until page 334 did it dawn on me what was going on that would make anybody have expectations of the plot based on an experience of category romances. At that point I finally got it. Not very much after that point, I felt almost assaulted by vivid recollections of THE BLUE SWORD and THE RIDDLEMASTER OF HED trilogy. That was very strange and I'm still not sure what I think of it.
I am on the fence about the aspect that upset jinian so much. I don't mind so much our universe being the way it is said to be in the book, or even the bait-and-switch, which actually in the purity of its immediate realization made me go "Wow." I do very much resent having almost no clue as to what happened. I'm not sure it is "birth defects," I'm not sure it's that defined. I trawled around looking for clues. Deity has a more feminine aspect in the other universes is all I really came up with. I assumed that the War in Heaven probably had something to do with it, but there is no clue to that other than a certain implied absence around the edges in the universes we do see. I do object to the entire idea of an ethical constant, but I am always having to overcome that kind of objection in order to read Duane and other authors in the first place, so that wasn't some kind of unfamiliar barrier.
I don't know. My emotional reactions to the entire thing were blunted somehow. I don't know if it was by the circumstances under which I read the book, the sudden echoes of other books, or the book itself. I do think the ending was rushed, and I definitely think it would be better to have the brokenness of the one universe explained and put into the plot. I don't like it as a throwaway, that's really my objection to it. This actually makes me wonder if I missed something. I'm going to have to reread it when my mind is more functional.
I retain some very vivid images of sky and landscape. I found the dialogue pretty clunky, though.
Huh.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-25 11:21 am (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 10:46 am (UTC)I really liked the looking-for-the-rest-of-the-series effect, and I think it's why I'm not as unhappy about the ending as I could be -- my backbrain has deferred the loose threads to the rest of the series. I think this is a cheat, though.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-25 11:32 am (UTC)I loved it. My favorite kind of sf is the metaphysical kind (Bayley, Rucker, sometimes Egan), and this was a marvelous example of it. There were a few character names I knew from my limited knowledge of the show, but they didn't seem to get in the way.
(It should be mentioned that in those days there was much less Official Continuity, and the novelists had lots more room to let their minds roam in than the writers today.)
I have since copy-edited a number of ST books, fiction and nonfiction, and thus learned more about the show. I reread The Wounded Sky last year, still liked it as a metaphysical speculation, and decided that it was also a good ST book.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-25 12:03 pm (UTC)THE WOUNDED SKY is a comedy of, I'm not sure what. Physics? I really like that aspect of it.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 10:49 am (UTC)I read so many bad Trek novels looking for another My Enemy, My Ally or Final Reflection -- those were the first two I read.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 03:10 pm (UTC)I've never found a Trek novel to equal the best of Duane and Ford. I've had sensible people recommend some, but they just never had that spark. I don't even really agree with all of their characterizations, their take on the people, but it doesn't matter, I'm happy to come along into the alternate universe where Kirk is like this or Spock like that. (I adore Duane's McCoy and he's my favorite, so maybe that's part of it, but it's not all. She just seems to understand the heart of the Trek matter. And not be too earnest about it.)
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 03:14 pm (UTC)Yes, MY ENEMY, MY ALLY is my favorite of Duane's Trek novels, by a very long shot. And I think it's in the same category as THE FINAL REFLECTION. I hate to sound snobbish, but I think of those two as being real books, that work even without the Trek background being known to the reader. Not everyone agrees with me, however.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-01-26 04:15 pm (UTC)SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Date: 2003-01-25 10:03 pm (UTC)MKK
Re: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Date: 2003-01-26 03:16 pm (UTC)Pamela