meganbmoore | (no subject)

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On a very unwise whim, I went by the used bookstore (Because we all know how desperately I need new books. That, or I operate under the mistaken belief that if I feed the monster-sized backlog more books, it'll keep it from eating me.) after lunch with my mother today and got I think most of Marjorie M. Liu's Dirk & Steele books and some of the multi-author Crimson City series. Can someone who's read one or both clue me in on where I stand? (And if the ones I'm missing are needed.)

Dirk & Steele:

The Red Heart of Jade
Shadow Touch
The Wild Road
The Iron Hunt
The Last Twilight
Eye of Heaven

Crimson City:

Liz Maverick: Crimson City
Marjorie M. Liu: A Taste of Crimson
Jade Lee: Seduced by Crimson

Other grabs, if anyone is curious:

Shana Abe: The Last Mermaid
Joanna Bourne: My Lord and Spymaster
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion and Young Miles
Susan Grant: Moonstruck and Your Planet or Mine?
Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett: Havemercy (for $1)
Robin McKinley: Rose Daughter
Dian Curtis Regan: Princess Nevermore
Nancy Springer: I Am Morgan LeFay

Not that I'm likely to read any of these by the end of the year, as I have a list of things I want to get read by then.

ETA: Also, I have decided that the computer and laptop should have names. The computer is black and a little older and pretty reliable, but it's also cranky and sometimes has to be coaxed into doing what I want. The laptop is newer and little and pretty and silver. It's pretty fast and generally willing to please , but sometimes throws temper tantrums when it thinks I'm taking advantage of its good will and working it too hard. Or something.

I'm pretty sure the computer is male, and the laptop is female. Name suggestions?

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Iron Hunt isn't from the Dirk and Steele steries... I'm a year or two behind on the DS books, so I'm not sure about a lot of the others.

You're missing the first book, Tiger Eye, but I think starting with Shadow Touch would actually be better. I liked Tiger Eye, but I'm not sure I wouldn't have become such a Liu fan as I was if I'd read it first.

I thought the earlier ones were pretty good (I didn's so much stop reading her books as I stopped reading in general... *sigh*). I think I described them to a friend as "X-Men with romance". The women are delightfully strong, and the men are expectedly hot. Liu is about our age and the same generation of comic geek, and I think that helped me get into her books, too. (Although, obviously it doesn't only appeal to our age/fan bracket, because lots of people love her books :D).

Yeah, I pretty much first heard of her through her being an X-Men fan. I think it was a quote at wolverineandjubilee.com to the effect that she wanted to write a story based on continuity, but was told not to, as continuity only confuses people.

I really wouldn't mind finding a romance novel hero hot again... (It's been a while...)

The Dirk & Steele series, in order, would be Tiger Eye, Shadow Touch, Red Heart of Jade, Eye of Heaven, and Soul Song. Plus there are supposed to be some short stories scattered about but I've never bothered to track any of 'em down. Each book is pretty much self-contained, though, with characters from other books making only small background appearances at most, so you can definitely read them totally out of order without getting lost. She generally seems to split the POV between the couple du jour, and since one half of the pairing is inevitably unaware of the existence of the various paranormal sorts, the agency, and so forth, the new reader gets brought up to speed on her world at much the same time as the characters do.

Yeah, you can usually grab any book in a romance novel series without worrying about spoilers or continuity beyond who ends up with who, but this sounds like one that might have a few surprises tucked up its sleeve.

I am admittedly probably less OCD than you are about reading things in order, but this is one case where I pretty much literally went backwards -- I started out grabbing the most recent one with no knowledge of the series at all, and worked my way through the others in whatever order they popped up on Bookmooch -- I still haven't even managed to get my hands on the first book, as a matter of fact.

They're fairly fun -- not keepers for me, but definitely a lot easier for me to get into than most of the non-paranormal titles I've tried to pick up? Very plot-heavy, and the girls tend to have strong personalities and interesting powers that make them quite able to hold their own alongside the guys. The overall feel to me was more like F&SF/comics/manga, with an above-average level of care given to the romantic relationships, rather than romance with paranormal window dressing glued on to it. And I do like that she tends to write mixed-race characters, interracial relationships, etc. without pouring on all sorts of "I AM TRAPPED BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, OH WOE IS ME, I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO IDENTIFY MYSELF" angst, or treating them as exotics. Any exoticization or identity-angst here tends to be over the various paranormal aspects rather than human issues of race or culture.

Yeah, the non-wangsty mixed-race aspect was one of the things that grabbed me in mentions of it.

The laptop's name is Sylvia and Sylvia is its name? XD

Too obvious! (Unless this is a reference I'm missing.)

Naah, I was just making shit up. ^^

Elraine? Ellie for short? XD I named my old computer Gertrude because she was an old fogey. I like... weird thing!names. :P

I fervently feel that this laptop should be named Rue.

True. But then I would want to name the computer Mytho, and that isn't particularly fitting...

Oh. ^^;; I didn't realize that your computers were romantically involved.

You could always say that it's named Rue for the small white flower that symbolizes maidenhood and regret and name the computer after another plant.

They aren't! But I feel that if they're going to be named after characters, it should be characters linked together in my head in some context. (Like they could be Fakir and Rue, and then i'd end up naming the modem either Ahiru or Mytho and Fakir and Rue would always fight over it!)

Ah, in that case, Amon and Robin would fit nicely.

Later I shall come up with non-Anime based names.

Errr, the only names I could think of were Kurogane and Fai. XDDD

But Fai isn't little!

Littler than Kurogane! XD Also, pretty and silver = wintry!

But, haha, it was the computer description that I found particularly fitting.

Mmmm, Kurogane and Mokona? XD

Yeah, that occured to me after your mention.

I'm compiling a list!

I almost suggested Hideki and Chi, but then you would have all sorts of slightly horrifying connotations when looking at them next to each other. Or on top of each other. ajsldfkja or... whatever.

I haven't even read that series in years. I had to Wikipedia the names. ): Feel free to ignore me.

Chobits makes me uncomfortable enough as it is!

Oh, God. I can not agree more. I firmly believe that being forced to watch it by my overzealous cousins has been one of THE most childhood scarring moment in my life.

The books you have, in order:
[Tiger Eye]
Shadow Touch
Red Heart of Jade
Eye of Heaven (I loved this one by the way)
[Soul Song]
The Last Twilight
The Wild Road

The Iron Hunt, as

shadawyn noted, is not Dirk & Steele & is a completely different series. It's UF.

Is the UF one good?

I didn't particularly like it. It's one of those books people either like or dislike. There's not much in between. I found the prose off-putting, the heroine boring, and the relationship between the heroine and the love interest had about as much chemistry as a pair of socks.

Marjorie's main flaw as a writer, and I feel I can say this because I've read so many of her books, is that she often lets both the prose and plot get away from her. The ending of Red Heart of Jade, for example? Was a incoherent, hot mess. It's a pattern that carries throughout all her books, to greater or lesser degrees. She likes having crazy plots so when she nails it, it's awesome. But when she doesn't, it's ugly. (see: Red Heart of Jade)

Werd.

(I think Shadow Touch was my favorite, followed closely by Eye of Heaven. I also loved The Last Twilight, but Vern did not. Wild Road was a DNF for me, but it might have just been my mood.)

Liu has amazing concepts, great heroines, but she also has emo heroes. The hero/heroine usually fall in love almost right away and then the rest of the story keeps you wondering if they will get together. IE, most of the conflict is external not internal. Which is cool if you are into that (and she does it well) but every once in a while, I want the main characters to not look soulfully at each other throughout the entire novel.

Well, I'll add the caveat that I burned out on novels about emerging viruses in Africa in high school and since The Last Twilight is kind of based on that premise, not much interest there.

Her urban fantasy is VERY different style from her Dirk and Steele. Sort of more disjointed on the writing at the beginning. I like her Dirk and Steele more though I like the premise to the Iron Hunt. There is a a prequel to Iron Hunt in the anthology Wild Thing if you like the book, Iron Hunt. It started off slow after the prologue so I will be curious to see what you think of it when you read it. AGain, it is NOT written in teh same way as her romances so don't judge her work by it.

Personally, my favorites of the dirk and steel are Tiger Eye, Shadow Touch, Soul Song, The Last Twilight and The Wild Road. She also has a short story that ties-in to the dirk and steele series in Dark Dreamers (Christine Feehan is the other author in it)that has a gargoyle and witch story that was VERY cool.

She also did a nice tie-in book to the X-men universe called Dark Mirror where all the X-men are in an asylum and somehow they have been switched into human (non-powered) bodies. The whole concept of Wolvie personaility being switched in a short female was hilarious.

http://www.crimsoncity.com/ I really liked her Crimson City entry. I think it was one of her best written story overall.
IN order:
Crimson City Liz Maverick
The TAste of Crimson by Marjorie Liu
Through A Crimson Veil by Pattie O'shea
A DArker Crimson by Carolyn Jewel
Seduced by Crimson by Jade Lee
Crimson Rogue by Liz Maverick
and The anthology Shards of Crimson
and a possible book 8 is in the works.

Rose Daughter, imo, is one of Robin McKinley's very best.

I also loved The Curse of Chalion. I'd like your take on Young Miles--I'm trying to decide whether to get into her Vorkosigan books or not.

Is Rose Daughter a sequel to Beauty, or a retelling from scratch?

As far as the Vorkosigan books go, I've read and posted on the books about his parents.

Rose Daughter is a retelling from scratch. I think it's the better of the two.

Oops, should have checked your tags!

Boris and Natasha? ;)

Seconded.

I operate under the mistaken belief that if I feed the monster-sized backlog more books, it'll keep it from eating me.

Haha...love that! :D

And for the laptop I would suggest Sumomo (or Plum, though I like Sumomo better)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chobits_characters#Plum ("a miniature 'mobile persocom'—the equivalent of a laptop computer)

Oh oh oh - the Liu Crimson City one was awesome. Don't read it first, because it will spoil you for the others. Srsly.

Noted!

If Boris and Natasha don't suit you, what about Gwendal and Anissina?

*pictures the computer fleeing from the shiny little laptop in terror*

HEE!!!

"The computer is black and a little older and pretty reliable, but it's also cranky and sometimes has to be coaxed into doing what I want. The laptop is newer and little and pretty and silver. It's pretty fast and generally willing to please , but sometimes throws temper tantrums when it thinks I'm taking advantage of its good will and working it too hard. Or something.
I'm pretty sure the computer is male, and the laptop is female. Name suggestions?"

Lenny (Henry) and Billie (Piper).

Oooh, Young Miles! I will be thrilled when you get to that.

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