Curse the Dark: First Review!*
May. 11th, 2005 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanOkay, it's only Harriet Klausner, but it's still First Review*...
"In a world where most people don’t believe in magic, there is a group of practitioners, humans who have talent to use the current from electricity to perform magic. Wren is a Retriever, a lonejack (a Talent not affiliated with the Mage Council); a person who finds and returns missing objects to the client. Her partner Sergei convinces her to take a contract from the Silence an organization who keeps the world from imploding.
Their first assignment is to retrieve a manuscript that was stolen from the House of Legend a church in Sienna, Italy. When they arrive there, they learn that the church is not wired for electricity because the monks, unknowingly are guarding the library which contains malevolent manuscripts, texts and books. These guardians know that whoever reads the manuscript disappeared. Information sends them back to New York where the book is now in the hands of a private library that they are unable to gain access to due to spells. If they don’t find a way to return the book to the Silence, the tome will wreck havoc on the city and then the country and if not unchecked, the world.
CURSE THE DARK is a great romantic fantasy that will appeal to readers of Laurell K. Hamilton. The heroine is blacklisted by the Mage Council, is trying to keep the lonejacks from battling the council and is trying to adjust to the consummation of her relationship with Sergei. She also wants the fatae (the non-human magical creatures) protected by Talents who see them as an unfavorable species. Laura Anne Gilman is a master at characterizations, a great world builder and a gifted storyteller."
Doesn't suck. If I took any of this seriously, I might even be chuffed. :-)
*okay, actually, it's first review but not first feedback. I got that via the managing editor at Luna, who glommed onto an early galley and, despite some discomfort with the sex scenes, gave very positive comments. I do wonder how male readers are going to react to Sergei's POV, yes hmmmm yes...
"In a world where most people don’t believe in magic, there is a group of practitioners, humans who have talent to use the current from electricity to perform magic. Wren is a Retriever, a lonejack (a Talent not affiliated with the Mage Council); a person who finds and returns missing objects to the client. Her partner Sergei convinces her to take a contract from the Silence an organization who keeps the world from imploding.
Their first assignment is to retrieve a manuscript that was stolen from the House of Legend a church in Sienna, Italy. When they arrive there, they learn that the church is not wired for electricity because the monks, unknowingly are guarding the library which contains malevolent manuscripts, texts and books. These guardians know that whoever reads the manuscript disappeared. Information sends them back to New York where the book is now in the hands of a private library that they are unable to gain access to due to spells. If they don’t find a way to return the book to the Silence, the tome will wreck havoc on the city and then the country and if not unchecked, the world.
CURSE THE DARK is a great romantic fantasy that will appeal to readers of Laurell K. Hamilton. The heroine is blacklisted by the Mage Council, is trying to keep the lonejacks from battling the council and is trying to adjust to the consummation of her relationship with Sergei. She also wants the fatae (the non-human magical creatures) protected by Talents who see them as an unfavorable species. Laura Anne Gilman is a master at characterizations, a great world builder and a gifted storyteller."
Doesn't suck. If I took any of this seriously, I might even be chuffed. :-)
*okay, actually, it's first review but not first feedback. I got that via the managing editor at Luna, who glommed onto an early galley and, despite some discomfort with the sex scenes, gave very positive comments. I do wonder how male readers are going to react to Sergei's POV, yes hmmmm yes...
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 11:36 am (UTC)You mean, you don't take reviews seriously, right? Or just reviews from Harriet "I love 'em all" Klausner? :grin:
Teri
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 12:41 pm (UTC)Right.
Harriet's not a reviewer, she's a book report writer (to be fair, if she doesn't like a book, she just doesn't say anything about it, not that she likes everything).
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 01:41 pm (UTC)Teri
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 01:49 pm (UTC)What maleficent fae did my parents offend, that I should spend the first half of my life overshadowed by Ozzie Nelson's wife and the happy homemaker in the scouring cleanser commercial: "Harriet! the Ajax! It turned -- BLUE!!!!!" only to find that Ms Klausner is eclipsing all other H's here in the second half?
HLC
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 05:30 pm (UTC)I was lucky, my dad adored Teresa Brewer (50's singer) back in the day just before I was born. Teresa's not so bad a name and it could've been worse -- he could've, like my mother, wanted to name me after his mother: Iva Pearl. My mother's second choice was to name me after her two sisters: Tenny Jean and Inice Belle. She's never said what combination she'd have done: Tenny Belle? Inice Jean? Tenny Inice? :shudders violently:
I kid you not. These are actual McIlroy/Snow/Duke family names. I'm sure that, once you know my family is from Arkansas, you'll understand. So I give daily thanks to all naming gods that my dad had the hots for TB and convinced my mother that my grandmother and her sisters wouldn't mind if I weren't named after them.
:still wiping her brow over that close miss:
Teri
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 03:44 pm (UTC)She did claim to the WSJ that she didn't write reviews for books she didn't like. I'll leave it to others to determine if she was blowing smoke.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 05:49 pm (UTC)I look forward to reading CURSE THE DARK.
And, on an aside - hey EE Knight, I've heard good things about your work. You're in my to-be-read-at-some-point-this-decade stack of books.
Hmmm...
Date: 2005-05-11 06:08 pm (UTC)"Some discomfort"? In an editor who worked on romances? Why was that?
-- Katherine
Bummed by the delay in mass-market reissue of Staying Dead
Re: Hmmm...
Date: 2005-05-11 07:59 pm (UTC)Not an editor, managing editor -- the person who handles all the production work. And, in this case, a male who doesn't read most of the company's output.
(don't assume everyone who works at Harlequin is a romance reader, any more than everyone who worked on books from an SF imprint enjoys SF... in fact, don't assume an editor is working in the genre they prefer, at certain levels... you go where the company needs you.)
And his discomfort came from...well, you'll see. *evil smile*
Re: Hmmm...
Date: 2005-05-12 10:49 am (UTC)Evil woman. So he actually read what he was working on? I hope that means we get more of Sergei's POV.
-- Katherine
no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 08:43 pm (UTC)*Evil chuckle*
A good review is worth something, even from Harriet. And I can't knock not writing about books I dislike--because someone may be trying to feed his/her kids on the earnings. I just like a little more personalization in the reviews, please...