February books

[lokifan]

First, I read The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong.

It was pretty good, although the fact that Rae, a character I really liked, and the only black named character was KILLED OFF-PAGE did not please me. I was also quite annoyed to come to the end of a trilogy and find the heavy implication of more books in the same universe. WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEING SELF-CONTAINED, EH? Still, I quite enjoyed it, especially the bits with our four teenagers conspiring to escape and evade the adults.

I read very little in February. That was partly because Tet was in February - Vietnamese New Year - and I always read more when I have work. It was also because I slogged through 150 pages of Amanda Downum’s The Drowning City before I gave up.

I’m actually rather pleased that I gave it up; I’m one of those people who will read any amount of dross rather than not finish a book. This, like my love of rereading, probably has its roots in the fact that I was a passionate, devouring bookworm a long time before I was allowed to go to the library by myself. (The joy of getting out a whole twelve books, all mine for three weeks, from when I was ten or so... God it was heady.) So I reread and I read stuff too young or too old for me and I would never not finish a book - particularly because if you’re going through a book every three days or so it doesn’t matter as much if you’re not enjoying it.

But the internet is much better competition for my attention than telly ever was. So I am going to try to be the sort of person who says NO. The Drowning City is probably quite a good book; it didn’t annoy me or strike me as badly written. It just didn’t engage me, it was full of description which created atmosphere but also bored me, and I didn’t care much about the intrigue even though I liked quite a lot of the characters. I might go back, because it strikes me as a me-problem rather than a book-problem. But I wasn’t especially pleased that a book about a city in an Indian-analogue country, colonised by an Arabic-analogue empire, had as its main character a white girl. Her role as a spy from another nation was interesting and she wasn’t the only viewpoint character, but come on, really? I also found the mention of everything smelling of eucalyptus, with lots of eucalyptus trees about, really threw me. It was very early on, while I was sorting out the world in my head, and just... really? India now does in fact have plenty of eucalyptus, but it really confused me: is this a faintly renaissance-y medieval-y age in which they’ve discovered Australia?

Also “the Necromancer Chronicles” is a silly name.

Anyway, I opened this book (on my Kindle) saw I had more than half to go of this fairly short book, and felt a sinking feeling. At which point I decided to sod this for a lark and read Her Majesty’s Will instead, since it had been recommended by one of my flist. (selenak, I think? Lemme know and I’ll credit!)

This was absolutely the right thing to do, because THIS book was pure joy.

In the first chapter schoolmaster Will rescues a very gorgeous Dark Lady from some ruffians by pretending to be a great swordfighter. He thinks of the lady in those capitals, you go “ooh that was quick, who is she, let’s see the romance then, okay...” and then she removes her wig and reveals herself as Kit Marlowe.

My UTTER GLEE set the course for the rest of the book.

It has the odd typo and copyediting issue - Google confirms self-publishing - but it’s so happy-making I didn’t care. Basically it solves Shakespeare’s Lost Years by having him run from a murder accusation to being a schoolmaster, before being recruited into Christopher Marlowe’s spying mission. (He has been blackmailed into spying earlier than historically accurate/likely, due to, ahem, indiscretions at Cambridge.)

The whole thing is thoroughly ridiculous but huge amounts of fun, the Shakespearean-play-structure keeps the pace moving, and both characters are great. They fire back puns and wordplay without getting bogged down in ~woooords and the wonder of them, which is frankly a miracle for a Shakespeare thing. Kit is a classic lovable rogue, attractive and unreliable and stylish and daring and dishonest. Will is utterly charming and I loved him to bits. Kit is allowed to show Marlowe-appropriate misogyny, which makes Will’s more proto-feminist viewpoint more palatable, and they both fuck up a lot. They’re both incredibly dashing and talented while also being enormously bumbling in the best English tradition.

Btw, I sort of expected/hoped for some homoerotic action considering Shakespeare’s probable bisexuality, Marlowe’s extremely probable homosexuality (allowing for the fact that these conceptions of sexuality are modern) and Kit’s role as corrupter and introducer of the world in the book. I was given Kit’s frank come-ons, some implied frotting, and the book ending on a happy kiss. THEY’RE SO ADORABLE OMG.

I have something of a thing for this narrative, actually; the innocent boy having to escape his life for adventure, the more worldly boy helping him nick some stuff and go on a historical road trip with lots of adventures and swordfights. It reminded me of The Knight and the Squire by Terry Jones, one of my favourite children’s books EVER, in that regard; and it occurred to me that my current original story is a bit of a genderswapped version of that idea.

The writing style is kind of inconsistent and might bother people - I’d definitely advise finding a sample before buying - but it didn’t bother me and there are lots of funny bits. To pick the one most likely to appeal, dear flist -

“Before this, Marlowe, you were guilty of mere sodomy, which sadly afflicts half your fellows at Corpus Christi.”

“And a great many professors,” added Kit with a smile.

Smug little bastard. I WANT EVERYONE TO READ IT AND WRITE ME FIC OF IT. No one else nominated Maledicte for Yuletide last year, give me this!!!