Staying Dead reviewed on SF Site
Aug. 10th, 2004 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanYeah, okay, I admit it, I'm chuffed
In a world like our own, where magic works and supernatural beings (collectively called Fatae) walk the streets in secret, those who work magic lead a shadowy existence. Those with the Talent for manipulating magic, or current, either belong to the overly-restrictive Council, have gone slightly mad from the use of current, or have gone rogue, operating as independents known as lonejacks. One of the very best lonejacks is Genevieve Valere, better known as Wren. With her human partner Sergei, she operates a profitable and highly successful "retrieval" business, penetrating the best security in the world to steal back items for their rightful owners.
The problem is, when you're the best, you end up with the worst cases. For instance, when a powerful magical artifact goes missing in the dead of the night, Wren is the one hired to find it and bring it back. Unfortunately, this is the sort of case which may end up killing her, as she's plunged into a web of conspiracy, murder, mystery, betrayal, secrecy, and danger. With no less than three different factions involved, each wanting to use her for their own ends, Wren quickly finds her loyalties tested and her attention split. Worse still, it looks at though she has been set up to take a nasty fall, and if she can't put the pieces of this puzzle together, her career, and certainly her independence, will be a thing of the past. All she has is her ever-faithful partner Sergei, who just happens to be hiding some secrets of his own, ones about to come back and bite them both in the rear. Can Wren retrieve the missing item, unravel the mystery, survive the attempts to use and/or kill her, and still resolve her growing feelings for her business partner?
Staying Dead, Laura Anne Gilman's first original novel, is part of the new Harlequin Luna line, which mixes fantasy and romance with new and interesting results. And happily, it focuses much more on the fantasy than the romance, placing Wren and Sergei's blossoming relationship on the back burner where it can simmer over the course of the storyline. No speedy courtships and marriage for these two! Rather, they work as a team, a well-oiled, much-practiced partnership born of nearly a decade together, and they're fully as charming as any married team (Nick and Nora Charles, I'm looking at you...)
Gilman has a real knack for details, planting the fantastic elements in a New York so fully realized, you can practically feel it. At the same time, the magical society she's created is just as strong, and bearing a fairly original feel to it. Sure, who hasn't seen the authoritarian organization trying to control magic users and magical beings before, and secret groups dedicated to improving the world no matter what the cost are as old as society itself. Even so, there's no mistaking Gilman's Council for, say, Jim Butcher's White Council; for one thing, the people Wren deals with are much scarier for their underhanded dealings and quietness. Add in the Fatae (including the charmingly disturbing P.B., who resembles nothing more than a talking polar bear with a thing for cold Chinese), and the insane Talents known as wizzarts (nuttier than fruitcakes, living solely in the moment, and as likely to help you as throw you off a cliff or turn you inside out), and you have a lot to work with for future adventures.
(and in conclusion...)
Staying Dead is a romantic fantasy that diehard fantasy purists don't have to be ashamed to be seen with; Gilman delivers an exciting, fast-paced, unpredictable story that never lets up until the very end. There's just enough twists and turns to keep even a jaded reader guessing, and plenty of setup for further Wren and Sergei stories. I eagerly anticipate seeing where Gilman will go with this. (FYI, she has a Wren and Sergei story appearing in Powers of Detection, Ace, Oct. 2004) I highly recommend this book to fans of urban fantasy, especially Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, or Laurell K. Hamilton. This is an extremely strong start, and I hope Gilman keeps it up.
Copyright © 2004 Michael M Jones
http://www.sfsite.com/08b/sd182.htm
In a world like our own, where magic works and supernatural beings (collectively called Fatae) walk the streets in secret, those who work magic lead a shadowy existence. Those with the Talent for manipulating magic, or current, either belong to the overly-restrictive Council, have gone slightly mad from the use of current, or have gone rogue, operating as independents known as lonejacks. One of the very best lonejacks is Genevieve Valere, better known as Wren. With her human partner Sergei, she operates a profitable and highly successful "retrieval" business, penetrating the best security in the world to steal back items for their rightful owners.
The problem is, when you're the best, you end up with the worst cases. For instance, when a powerful magical artifact goes missing in the dead of the night, Wren is the one hired to find it and bring it back. Unfortunately, this is the sort of case which may end up killing her, as she's plunged into a web of conspiracy, murder, mystery, betrayal, secrecy, and danger. With no less than three different factions involved, each wanting to use her for their own ends, Wren quickly finds her loyalties tested and her attention split. Worse still, it looks at though she has been set up to take a nasty fall, and if she can't put the pieces of this puzzle together, her career, and certainly her independence, will be a thing of the past. All she has is her ever-faithful partner Sergei, who just happens to be hiding some secrets of his own, ones about to come back and bite them both in the rear. Can Wren retrieve the missing item, unravel the mystery, survive the attempts to use and/or kill her, and still resolve her growing feelings for her business partner?
Staying Dead, Laura Anne Gilman's first original novel, is part of the new Harlequin Luna line, which mixes fantasy and romance with new and interesting results. And happily, it focuses much more on the fantasy than the romance, placing Wren and Sergei's blossoming relationship on the back burner where it can simmer over the course of the storyline. No speedy courtships and marriage for these two! Rather, they work as a team, a well-oiled, much-practiced partnership born of nearly a decade together, and they're fully as charming as any married team (Nick and Nora Charles, I'm looking at you...)
Gilman has a real knack for details, planting the fantastic elements in a New York so fully realized, you can practically feel it. At the same time, the magical society she's created is just as strong, and bearing a fairly original feel to it. Sure, who hasn't seen the authoritarian organization trying to control magic users and magical beings before, and secret groups dedicated to improving the world no matter what the cost are as old as society itself. Even so, there's no mistaking Gilman's Council for, say, Jim Butcher's White Council; for one thing, the people Wren deals with are much scarier for their underhanded dealings and quietness. Add in the Fatae (including the charmingly disturbing P.B., who resembles nothing more than a talking polar bear with a thing for cold Chinese), and the insane Talents known as wizzarts (nuttier than fruitcakes, living solely in the moment, and as likely to help you as throw you off a cliff or turn you inside out), and you have a lot to work with for future adventures.
(and in conclusion...)
Staying Dead is a romantic fantasy that diehard fantasy purists don't have to be ashamed to be seen with; Gilman delivers an exciting, fast-paced, unpredictable story that never lets up until the very end. There's just enough twists and turns to keep even a jaded reader guessing, and plenty of setup for further Wren and Sergei stories. I eagerly anticipate seeing where Gilman will go with this. (FYI, she has a Wren and Sergei story appearing in Powers of Detection, Ace, Oct. 2004) I highly recommend this book to fans of urban fantasy, especially Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, or Laurell K. Hamilton. This is an extremely strong start, and I hope Gilman keeps it up.
Copyright © 2004 Michael M Jones
http://www.sfsite.com/08b/sd182.htm
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 08:42 am (UTC)Because a lot of people have been going "oh, a romantic fantasy imprint, ew" and shying away from the books. Including almost all the SF/F reviewers, which is why this was a big deal.
Since Staying Dead is the least 'romantic' of all the books from the imprint so far, I'm hoping that people who had that aversion will now feel reassured that it's 'safe.'
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:00 am (UTC)Me, I like romances. I'm a sucker for the comedies, myself. I'm still disappointed that Harlequin stopped their Duets line to focus on the Flipsides, which are more chick-lit than they are comedy.
Ultimately, I'm hoping that people will recognize the Luna line as a valid one despite its Harlequin origins. The mere fact that they're publishing books where the romance doesn't have to be front and center is a good thing. Trust me, I'm not anti-romance, I'm anti-generic-fantasy-with-a-romance-emphasis.
FWIW, I still point towards Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy, Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde trilogy, almost all of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden books, and even Emma Bull's War For The Oaks as books that could be accused of being romantic sf/fantasy. :>
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:27 am (UTC)*grin*
BTW, can I just say that I love livejournal? I posted a bit of this review in my newsgroup Elsewhere, and 24 hours later nobody had said anything, not even a yay-you. Here, a couple of hours and not only am I getting yays (I live for yays) but we're discussing actual interesting marketing and promotional review matters, too.
All the cool people are here.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:54 am (UTC)It seems like every other day I'm adding someone new because they know someone I know, or they say something interesting about the field. :>
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Date: 2004-08-10 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 12:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:36 am (UTC)The main character has any kind of punctuation in the middle of his/her name for no reason at all.
The main character begins to muse on the past in the first three pages.
The main character breaks into song in the first five chapters.
There is an annotated list of character names. With pronunciation guides.
Mind you, we lost out on a few NYT bestsellers that way. But we all slept much better at night.
(in full disclosure, I must admit that we were also the ones who published the Scorpio series. But They made us do it! We didn't want to!)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:08 am (UTC)*takes notes*
Since this is in the sub-thread about romances, I'm going to comment on that too.
what's with the anti-romance sentiment beneath its surface?
I love romances. Have a ton of 'em. But when I'm in the mood for mystery or SF or F, I'm NOT in the mood for canoodling over plot, and 9 times out of 10, that's what "romance" is shorthand for. Call it the Law & Order/CSI factor - I keep watching them because they're about law, order, and crime scene investigation, and while we know a little bit about the characters, it's not all about How They Feel or Who's Doing Who. (The converse is why I stopped watching ER, among other shows.)
So, were I not going to read Staying Dead because
I like MeerkatI'm reviewing it myself (Reviewing the Evidence, check it out, plug, plug) I would be more interested in it *because* of that comment.I am totally stumped on how to review the current book in my slot - and mostly because although packaged as horror, it's chick lit about relationships. Pleasantly readable chick lit, but still the mental equivalent of expecting to eat french fries and biting down on cotton candy instead.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:13 am (UTC)(although some relationships.. okay, no, not going there, too easy)
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Date: 2004-08-10 05:21 pm (UTC)Damn straight. Why does a character need to be named Kr'larg just because we're dealing with a fantasy world? Show me an elf archer named Jimmy, or a sorceress named Susan, and I'll read that book! This is probably one of the reasons I prefer contemporary/urban fantasy to high--I don't trip over the names all the time.
The main character begins to muse on the past in the first three pages.
This kind of front-loading is a typical first-draft mistake many writers make, myself included. You'd think they'd clean that up on subsequent revisions, though.
The main character breaks into song in the first five chapters.
Depends on the song. If it's Warrant's "Cherry Pie", I'm there. If it's a ballad about the elf queen, I'm gone.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:01 am (UTC)I did highly enjoy Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, which is almost so generic high fantasy that it transcends and becomes a new entity all its own. Meaning, it has very strong influences, but still manages to possess a distinct, if derivative, identity. Note that I like this book and regularly recommend it in the bookstore. :>
Currently starting on an ARC of Tad Williams' Shadowmarch. That boy does epic good. So to speak.
Still, as you said and Laura Anne said, punctuation in weird places does not always a good story make. Though I'm tempted to rename myself M'cha'l M! J'Onzz.
Or not.
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Date: 2004-08-10 05:22 pm (UTC)Then we could all refer to you as the "Elf Reviewer from the Misty Greenlands of Blarthgr'ag".
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Date: 2004-08-10 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-08-10 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:27 am (UTC)(This is inkstone from the LUNAtic board.
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Date: 2004-08-10 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 11:36 am (UTC)Congrats on the fantastic review! I'm about halfway through the book right now, and really enjoying it.
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Date: 2004-08-10 11:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-10 06:16 pm (UTC)