Of Swords and Parasols

What are you currently reading

Nothing, because I finished the novella I was reading about half an hour ago.

What did you recently finish reading?

I finished Absolute Witch, which I posted on separately.

Chimes and Midnight by Seanan McGuire. The seventh October Daye novel, and certainly a gamechanger. (Enough so that I was actually expecting the A plot to have to carry over into the next book before it was resolved.) This is possibly the only book I have read in which the words "evil pie" were completely accurate and as serious as they were absurd. I'm not sure, but I think (hope) that the next arc of the series will bring the focus to Toby's mother and her mysteries.

( spoilers )

Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand by Carrie Vaughn. This one has Kitty going to Vegas and doing a live show, while meeting the Vegas supernatural crowd on the side. I liked the parts about the show and the parts with Kitty's parents a lot, and was generally enjoying it until near the end, where ?Vaughn actually managed to make me feel physically ill.

( spoiler )

The Earl and the Fairy Vol 1 by Mizue Tani and Ayuki. Adaptation of light novels set in Victorian England, and a girl named Lydia who can talk to fairies, and a possibly-fake nobleman named Edgar who abducts her (by way of rescuing her from other, less nice abductors) and then hires her to help him find a fairy artifact. I enjoyed the anime based on the same light novels, and this is very similar, though it doesn't give so much deja vu to make me want to stop reading, though I do find Edgar's "La, I have abducted you but it was at least partly for your own good. Also, look at my angst that makes me more dark and dangerous." more insufferable than I recall finding it in the anime.

Capturing the Silken Thief by Jeannie Lin. Novella set in Tang Dynasty China, about a scholar studying for his exams, and a song girl who thinks he stole a valuable book from her. Very enjoyable, but too short, IMO.

What do you think you'll read next?

Manga, probably a romance novel. Maybe one of the Twelve Kingdoms books that I haven't read yet that I found English translations of online.

What are you currently reading
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 15-20. SO MUCH LOVE. Aside from the brief Old Dudes Talking About Honor parts, where I get lost mostly because I forget who half of them are, but there aren't a lot of those. There's considerably less focus on the romance than I was expecting, given the movies (not that there isn't still plenty of it) but instead the book (and these chapters especially) focuses more on the way people view female fighters and the prejudices and double standards they face, and often on how these things affect their relationships with each other. (Lian Ni Shang dealt with it by just taking over a mountain and building her own private army of women. That's because Lian Ni Shang is the best.)

( spoiler )

What did you recently finish reading?

Curses! Foiled Again by Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro. Sequel to the Foiled GN I read a few weeks back, about a teenaged fencer who learns she's the champion of faerie. More swashbuckling, Princess Bride referenced and iconic gender swapping on the cover. I don't have much to say about it, but I really enjoyed it. Hopefully, there are volumes in the series coming.

A Kiss For My Prince vol 1-5 by Kim Hee-Eun. Fluffy and adorable medieval-lite shoujo manhwa. The heroine, Sei-Ann, is an orphan who becomes the servant of a duchess. convinced she's meant for greater things, she falls for the crown prince when he visits, and gets the prince's manservant to agree to get her a chance to confess her feelings, which he does by getting her a job at the palace. There, she learns that the boy she thought was the crown prince is actually the cron prince's younger brother, and the manservant is the actual crown prince. It's billed as a reverse-harem series but really isn't. While Sei-Ann has 3 potential love interests, one can't be taken seriously at all, and of the remaining two, one of them is largely operating via the driving force of severe substitution issues. A political subplot causes things to veer off into the realm of angst towards the end, but not too much. I also think the manhwaga originally meant the series to last longer and ended up rushing the last volume, but things were still resolved satisfactorilly.

Kitty Goes to Washington and Kitty Takes A Holiday by Carrie Vaughn. The second and third Kitty Norville books. I dunno. I like Kitty a lot and Vaugh does interesting things with the books, and there's a relaxing element even when it's doing things I don't like, but the actual plots don't work well for me. Also, there's a romantic development in the third book that has me "WTF?"-ing a lot.

( spoiler )

Cutie Boy Vol 1-8 by Hwang Mi Ri. This is about 50 times as cracky as the only other Hwang Mi Ri I've read The Moment When A Fox Becomes A Wolf. This is an accomplishment because that one had the leads swap bodies for the first half of the series. Han Ah is a somewhat-cowardly girl (largely due to a boy who bullied her in first and second grade) who happens to be very good at martial arts, and so gets forced to be her school's "captain" by her classmates, and have fights with the captains of other schools whose students pick on them. She meets Yoo-Min, a boy who appears to be shy and sweet and delicate, but is actually the captain of another school. And the boy who bullied her when she was younger. (He thought he was protecting her from bullies. He is not bright.) it's...strange, about half the series is fueled a huge misunderstanding in which Yoo Min thinks they're dating and Han Ah thinks he's torturing her with the intent to eventually beat her because their respective classmates expect them to have a territorial fight. Then that gets cleared up and...more strange things happen. There are parts I read in wide-eyed amazement/shock and parts I genuinely liked. I feel there's actually a pretty decent, cute (if somewhat stereotypical) shoujo romance buried somewhere in the book, but it gets drowned out by the crack. And the HMR did a better job with somewhat similar leads in The Moment When A Fox Becomes A Wolf.

What do you think you'll read next?

I refuse to speculate beyond "probably more manga," though I'll likely read the first omnibus of Carla Speed McNeil's Finder, which I have through interlibrary loan.

What are you currently reading
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 14. I think it's been about a month since 7 Seeds completely took over my kindle time, so I'm still playing catch up and trying to remember who all these secondary characters running around are.

What did you recently finish reading?

Finished Georgette Heyer's The Black Moth. Slow start but entertaining overall, though it's more a case of you can see the elements that eventually became Heyer's strengths than that it's really good on its own. I doubt I'll be reading These Old Shades, as "redeem the rapist" plots don't appeal to me. (And while it may have been a failed rape attempt in this book, not only was the intent still there, but he was obviously successful more than once in the past.) I'm curious, though, to see if we start getting some adaptations of Heyers books over the next few years, as they start entering the public domain.

Caught up with 7 Seeds, which I posted on separately.

The Last Dragon by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Guay. Graphic novel set in a medieval-lite world in which a dragon is born 200 years after the last of the dragons were supposedly chased away. When a dragon begins attacking a town, several young men are sent out to find a "hero" to fight the dragon, and instead return with a braggart more familar with spinning stories than fighting. Meanwhile, the local healer's youngest daughter comes up with plans of her own to beat the dragon. It's simple and straightforward and relies more on wit and creative thinking than flashy heroics, and is more concerned with how the dragon affects people's daily lives than with the dragon itself. Very nice little book.

Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews. Fourth book in Andrews's "The Edge" series. I liked it more than the last 2 books in the series, but less than I do most of the Kate Daniels books. The first half is pretty much the protagonists setting out to destroy every human trafficker they can find, and it later branches out to wrap up most of the threads from previous books. I think it's supposed to be the last book in the series, but if so, I suspect it'll get revisited once or twice later down the road to focus on the teen characters as adults. My favorite part was when the heroine would invert healing magic to make her enemies sick, as I've always wondered why people with healing magic in fantasy worlds aren't able to do that more. (Sadly, the book didn't go where I wanted with that. Oh well.)

Black Bird Vol 1-3 by Sakurakoji Kanako. I read a little bit of this when it first came out, and couldn't quite remember if I disliked it or wasn't quite grabbed by it when I saw that the library had the first 10 copies, so I checked out the first 3. I feel like i need to read about 30 columes of good manga to make up for this.

The heroine, Misao, has blood that is superduper extra yummy blood that makes demons stronger. Her One True Love is a tengu named Kyo who was her childhood friend, and is now a teacher at her school. His saliva can cure wounds. Naturally, Misao is constantly bleeding. (I will pause a moment to ponder what Clamp and/or Kaori Yuki would do with this idea. Whatever it was, it'd be better than this.) The healing is frequently over Misao's protests, and often staged to look like sexual assault. This is aside from Kyo's regular sexual assaults (often at school) that are ok because they're in love and she's his destined bride. Kyo is also fond of deliberately terrifying Misao to teach her that she has to rely on his body for protection, and Misao thinking that there's no reason to refuse Kyo's sexual advances if he loves her, and that it's touching when he's cruel to her because he's trying to teach her to rely on him out of lurve. There is, I think, an average of about 1.3 rape attempts (not including anything from Kyo) per volume. All by people Kyo has warned Misao to avoid. In fact, I think every person Kyo has told Misao not to talk to (which is everyone but his servants) has tried to rape and/or murder Misao. She has to learn her lesson about never having an independent thought or decision of her own somehow, amirite?

Brain bleach required. Very glad I only grabbed a few volumes, because I probably would have felt to read the rest if I'd grabbed them.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn. This is kind of like reading Astro City in prose form. That's not a criticism. Celia West is the non-superpowered daughter of her city's (the world's?) superheroes. At 17 she became emancipated and ran away to college, and is now a forensic accountant who does her very best to avoid her parents' superhero lifestyle. Unfortunately, her parents' secret identities were exposed when she was a teenager, and she's been kidnapped so many times that it's become boring, and the prosecutor trying her father's archnemesis for tax fraud has decided that it'd be good publicity to have her hepling on the case. There are elements of a parody in there and a pretty strong critique of superhero/vigilante culture and romanticism (one that appears to have made some Amazon and Goodreads reviewers cry in agony at the book daring to resist), and the general feel is of Silver Age surperheroes giving way to more modern superhero through the eyes of someone on the outskirts. While I haven't read superhero comics in probably 5-6 years, I read enough in the 15 years before that to see a lot of the twists coming, but that didn't affect my enjoyment.

The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated by Gerald Morris. Part of Morris's irreverent "The Knights' Tales" series of children's books (not to be confused with his YA series, "The Squire's Tales," which can also be irreverent depending on Morris's opinion of whatever tale he's adapting at the time, but is another beast entirely). If you're familiar with the tale of Balin and Balan, you're probably going "but how do you make that a children's book?" The answer is "by relentlessly mocking obsession with fate and destiny." Light fluff, but entertaining and funny, and a quick read.

Rasetsu Vol 1-9 (complete) by Shiomi Chika. I read and enjoyed the first couple volumes of this when Viz first started publishing it a few years ago, then wasn't able to continue buying it because of finances, but the library now has the volumes I didn't, so I finally read all of it. Rasetsu is about a 18-year-old psychic named Rasetsu who was cursed by a demon when she was 15, with the demon claiming that he'd claim her for his own if she didn't find her "true love" by her 20th birthday. Thankfully, while the "find your true love" element isn't completely shelved, there isn't much of a focus on it more often than not (it's there and not something she can exactly forget, but there are other things going on) and most of the focus is on Rasetsu and her coworkers fighting malevolent ghosts and demons. There's a romantic plotline and something of a triangle, but it's generally well done (I say "generally" because I wasn't fond of the third party or his behavior, but it fits the overall plotline) and I liked the actual romance more than expected. My only real beef with it is that, as usual, Shiomi tends to surround her heroine with several men, and no other major female characters. It's connected to Shiomi's other series that was released by Viz, Yurara, in that Rasetsu's love interest, Yako, was in Yurara, and both heroines are psychics, but you don't need to read Yurara to read this.

What do you think you'll read next?

I have Natsuo Kirino's The Goddess Chronicle and the latest Kate Daniels book, and since I've read a bunch of Carrie Vaughn's standalone books, I went ahead and checked out the first couple books in her urban fantasy series. I also have the ATLA tie-in books that my library has, as I recall some listies liking them. I was going to say "I should back off a bit from manga for a while before I OD," but then I was at the Library's main branch this morning after a doctor's appointment and they had just acquired a lot of manga i haven't read yet, so that might not be happening. I also still have Kelley Armstrong's Omens to read.

This is actually...what, 3 weeks of books?

What are you currently reading
Nothing, ATM. Finished my plane-reading book last night before bed.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan. I'm glad that this time, when Annabeth got a quest, it was actually about her. (IIRC, when she had an official quest in the first series, it still ended up being mostly about Percy. Really, it's a good thing I like Percy.) The humor is still there, not to mention the characterization and entertaining takes on mythology, and I'm glad that the series is considerably more diverse now, but I think Riordan may be starting to have a few too many things going at once now. I mean, I can't even remember if Jason orr Frank had any POV chapters. (Though, in Jason's case, I may just not have noticed them. There's nothing particularly wrong with Jason [aside from being named after a Greek hero i'm not exactly fond of], but there's nothing incredibly right with him, either, he's just kinda inoffensively but uninterestingly there.) And yet, I'm pretty sure we'll also be getting Nico chapters in the next book, and despite the potential overpopulation of narrators, I can't help but think Reyna is due some POV chapters, too.

The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyers. YA about Mia, a girl who, after being possessed by a demon, is carted off to Italy by her father's estranged relatives to learn to be a demon hunter. It takes a little while to get going and has a bit much family drama and "Oh look! Italy!" and not enough supernaturlal worldbuilding and demon hunting, but generally pretty solid and enjoyable, though it's very much a book meant to be the first in a series.

Personal Demon by Kelley Armstrong. I have no particular thoughts about the plot of this one, but i enjoyed it. This is the first (only?) book in the series where part of it was from a male character's POV. Which I raise an eyebrow at in a series titled "Women of the Otherworld," but at least it was Lucas, who at least is one of the few men in the series who I like. This is also the first (only?) book in the series with POC narrators (Lucas is Cuban and Hope, the other narrator, is Indian). I was disappointed to find the Hope/Karl relationship having some of the same issues as Elena/Clayton, though not nearly to the same degree, and in a much more palatable form.

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma: Two years ago, Chloe found a dead body floating in a boat in the reservoir near their hometown, at a sight where another town is said to be under the water, still intact, citizens and all. Chloe was promptly removed from her half-sister, Ruby's, care by her father, their mother having effectively abandoned them a while back. Ruby vows to return things to exactly the way the were before, and to bring Chloe back once she's done so. When she does bring Chloe back, she does so without Chloe's father's permission, and one of the first people Chloe encounters is the dead girl, London, who everyone believes has been in rehab for drug abuse. This is a wonderfully spooky and atmospheric YA gothic novel that is not only completely unconcerned about men and romantic plotlines, and completely absorbed with the relationship between Ruby (who is something like what I picture Allison DiLaurentis from Pretty Little Liars would be like if she were older and had a sister, or the titular Rebecca from Daphne DuMaurier's novel) and Chloe.

The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress: Note: this is the book I read flying home from WisCon while half-dead. This is an Edwardian Steampunk book about 3 assistants who band together to become a super-heroine team. No, really, there's a scene where they all sit down to choose their super hero code names and, had I not been in the middle of a crowded plane and thus expected to act like a mature adult, my inner 13-year-old would have taken over, clutched my fists to my mouth, and let out a high-pitched girlish squeal of delight. So, anyway, Cora, and inventor's assistant, Michiko, a fight-instructor's assistant, and Nellie, a magician's assistant, all stumble across a dead body one night after a ball they all performed at. HIJINKS ENSUE. Hijinks unfortunately often consisting of boys, but also consisting of getting drunk, confronting "mad scientists," creative B&E, fights, inventions, superheroine costumes, investigations, fights, and bonding. There are a lot of groany orientalism cliches with Michiko (though fewer than I'd braced myself for) and the book sometimes thinks it's cleverer than it actually is, but overall, I thought it was a lot of fun.

Discord's Apple by Carrie Vaugh: Note: This is the book that I was reading at WisCon when hibernating/everything but my eyes was dead. This book somehow manages to successfully combine Greek Mythology (and especially the Trojan War), the apocalypse, and Arthuriana into a story about a comic book writer who goes home after learning her father is dying and discovers that he and her ancestors have been the keepers of a storeroom that hold all of history and mythology's magic artifact. (Yes, her basement is Warehouse 13. It was published in 2010, so Vaughn and SyFy probably had the idea around the same time.) World War III is gearing up (wreaking havoc on Our Heroine, Evie's, plotlines) various immortals and mythic figures, lead by Hera, the only surviving member of the Greek Pantheon, is trying to gain access to the storeroom, along with Sinon, (the Greek warrior from The Aeneid, who pretended to be a defector to convince the Trojans to take the wooden horse inside the city walls) who was snatched from Troy by Apollo and made Apollo's immortal sex slave (literally) and hopes the storeroom has a weapon that can kill him. Somewhere along the way, Arthur and Merlin show up and effectively declare themselves Evie's sidekicks as part of team Save The Storeroom. (Well, Arthur does, Merlin is more dragged along, grumping the whole way.) Lots and lots of stuff going on, but Vaughn pulls it all together pretty well, and I enjoyed it a lot. Warnings, though, for off-page m/m slave rape that goes on for decades inbetween flashbacks.

What do you think you'll read next?

Not sure. I have some books that I got at WisCon that I really want to get to, but also have some books from the library that I renewed just before leaving for WisCon.