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xyzzysqrlRemember that bit where I bought about six hundred billion books as a result of Christmas? I've started reading them, finally. So far I've gone through David Weber's "On Basilisk Station", "Digital Knight" by Ryk E. Spoor, and Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age".
I've already given some of my thoughts on Diamond Age previously, and the boyfriendic being took the Weber to work with him. As such, I find myself with Digital Knight to report on, and hey, I'm happy with that.
Before I really start to get into the reviewing, let me give some background. This is a book about a modern day private investigator and his psychic best friend/romantic interest, and they get wrapped up in supernatural stuff, and end up Fighting Evil and Staying Alive and Solving Mysteries. In the same package as this, I picked up "Stealing The Elf King's Roses" by Diane Duane, which ALSO looks to be about a modern day private investigator dealing with supernatural stuff. In fact, a lot of the books I've enjoyed lately have been somewhat along this theme, including Mercedes Lackey's "Chrome Circle" (modern day hot-rodding mage deals with supernatural stuff), "The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse" by Keith Hartman (futuristic PI dealing with apperently supernatural stuff)... there's Kolchak: The Night Stalker for 70s era reporters dealing with...
...the point I'm trying to work around to, in my fashion, is that this is my metaphorical house. I know what goes on in these stories usually, I know The Rules in a Randy-from-Scream sort of way, and I honestly picked it up because I was hoping for a breezy, only MODERATELY sucky light read.
Clearly Rik E. Spoor's been reading the same books as I have, because his book kept kicking The Rules in the privates when I wasn't expecting it. I heavily approve.
I can't get into that without giving spoilers, though. I will on some points of course, but hold on, we've still got some ground to cover.
You've pretty much got the story summary from that: Jason Wood's a private investigator (of the dull, sit around and research over the Internet type, not your twin-gunned noir hero with bourbon and architecture fetish type) and he stumbles across Bad Stuff in the supernatural vein. Soon enough it's trying to kill him, but he comes across help from an Unlikely Source and... y'know, it snowballs, there's exciting action sequences, age-old monsters are defeated in new ways... you know the drill here, I hope.
Let's get some of my problems with this text out of the way. To start with, and this'll make a big difference to a couple of people on my friends list, this one's got Good(ish) Vampires and Eeevil Werewolves. (No, it's not quite that morally clear cut in practice, but let's go for generally.) Being eternally on the side of the fuzzy things, that made me sulk for much of the book. (Therefore this book does not support my private agenda and is therefore of no worth, the end. ...no, no, JOKE. Come back.) On the other hand, they can at least be entertainingly sadistic at times, always a plus. Then there's the entire chapter devoted to... eh, no, I'm not telling.
Let's see. Other problem... ah, right. There are a few chapters here where the characters start off talking, and then internal monologue explains who they are and why they're all there, in a very Now You Know The Rest Of The Story type way. This made me flip to the front of the book to see if they'd been published as seperate short stories in Analog or Asimov or some other sci-fi magazine previously. Didn't see any notice of it, so I was left wondering about that. S'weird.
Let's see... uh. The story DOES occasionally seem to cross into Uberprotaganist lines, where Jason seems to have the resources and contacts to buy his way into obtaining pretty much any information on Earth. ... on the other hand, this is his job. I'll allow it. The plot also occasionally thickened to the point where I just couldn't follow it at all, so I let it wash over me and skimmed ahead to less muddy waters. This might have been a 3 AM thing.
*****
Now the good parts, which may dip into *ahem* MILD SPOILER TERRITORY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PLEASE LEAVE THE RIDE IF PREGNANT, UNINTERESTED IN PLOT KNOWLEDGE, OR BORED AND PROCEED DOWNWARD TO THE CLEARLY MARKED EXIT. THANK YOU.
...they gone? Okay. Remember those Rules I mentioned? There's a couple that get a good solid boot to the sensitive spots. Here's a sampler.
Rule 1 - Vampires and Werewolves work pretty much like you'd expect from watching horror movies and reading Anne Rice novels.
Rulebreaker - Most people in this story have seen the movies, read the books, and are creative enough to come up with new solutions to old problems. Scream-like? A little, but who doesn't love seeing technology versus tradition acted out on this kind of scale? (And here I am thinking season two Buffy. "What's -that- do?" ...uh, go ask a fan for the ref.)
Rule 2 - The human world is generally too blind/unwilling to see The Awful Truth. Mysterious Things will go undetected.
Rulebreaker - The human world gets a good hard slap upside the head around halfway through the book, and the ramifications of such are covered, some in detail.
Rule 3 - The Hero and Female Friend will have Romantic Tension. This will go nowhere forever except in smutty fanfiction.
Rulebreaker - ...It goes somewhere, of course.
Look, there's more, but what you need to know is that almost every time this book make me go "Aw crap, what, again?" it made me give a followup "Dude. YES. Thank you." a while later.
******
Nothing else is springing to mind, so I'm going to wrap up IN THIS END OF SPOILER WRAP UP SECTION now: If this is the sort of thing you like, you will like this sort of thing. It's not an instant literary classic of moving merit and eternal relevence, it's a fun and occasionally comic-booky game of Genre Fan Bingo mixed with some pretty good writing. Get past the Evil Werewolves (sigh) and this is a quite readable book, I'd waggle it past any Buffy fan in my path at the very least.
...also, come ON. 'Ryk E. Spoor'. That's a name that'll look nifty on your bookshelf.
In a semi-related note, what is UP with Baen Books lately? I just looked over at the pile of books and realized we probably put half our fundage into their stuff. They're the Ubisoft of book publishers, foisting out quality stuff for surprisingly cheap. I approve.
I've already given some of my thoughts on Diamond Age previously, and the boyfriendic being took the Weber to work with him. As such, I find myself with Digital Knight to report on, and hey, I'm happy with that.
Before I really start to get into the reviewing, let me give some background. This is a book about a modern day private investigator and his psychic best friend/romantic interest, and they get wrapped up in supernatural stuff, and end up Fighting Evil and Staying Alive and Solving Mysteries. In the same package as this, I picked up "Stealing The Elf King's Roses" by Diane Duane, which ALSO looks to be about a modern day private investigator dealing with supernatural stuff. In fact, a lot of the books I've enjoyed lately have been somewhat along this theme, including Mercedes Lackey's "Chrome Circle" (modern day hot-rodding mage deals with supernatural stuff), "The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse" by Keith Hartman (futuristic PI dealing with apperently supernatural stuff)... there's Kolchak: The Night Stalker for 70s era reporters dealing with...
...the point I'm trying to work around to, in my fashion, is that this is my metaphorical house. I know what goes on in these stories usually, I know The Rules in a Randy-from-Scream sort of way, and I honestly picked it up because I was hoping for a breezy, only MODERATELY sucky light read.
Clearly Rik E. Spoor's been reading the same books as I have, because his book kept kicking The Rules in the privates when I wasn't expecting it. I heavily approve.
I can't get into that without giving spoilers, though. I will on some points of course, but hold on, we've still got some ground to cover.
You've pretty much got the story summary from that: Jason Wood's a private investigator (of the dull, sit around and research over the Internet type, not your twin-gunned noir hero with bourbon and architecture fetish type) and he stumbles across Bad Stuff in the supernatural vein. Soon enough it's trying to kill him, but he comes across help from an Unlikely Source and... y'know, it snowballs, there's exciting action sequences, age-old monsters are defeated in new ways... you know the drill here, I hope.
Let's get some of my problems with this text out of the way. To start with, and this'll make a big difference to a couple of people on my friends list, this one's got Good(ish) Vampires and Eeevil Werewolves. (No, it's not quite that morally clear cut in practice, but let's go for generally.) Being eternally on the side of the fuzzy things, that made me sulk for much of the book. (Therefore this book does not support my private agenda and is therefore of no worth, the end. ...no, no, JOKE. Come back.) On the other hand, they can at least be entertainingly sadistic at times, always a plus. Then there's the entire chapter devoted to... eh, no, I'm not telling.
Let's see. Other problem... ah, right. There are a few chapters here where the characters start off talking, and then internal monologue explains who they are and why they're all there, in a very Now You Know The Rest Of The Story type way. This made me flip to the front of the book to see if they'd been published as seperate short stories in Analog or Asimov or some other sci-fi magazine previously. Didn't see any notice of it, so I was left wondering about that. S'weird.
Let's see... uh. The story DOES occasionally seem to cross into Uberprotaganist lines, where Jason seems to have the resources and contacts to buy his way into obtaining pretty much any information on Earth. ... on the other hand, this is his job. I'll allow it. The plot also occasionally thickened to the point where I just couldn't follow it at all, so I let it wash over me and skimmed ahead to less muddy waters. This might have been a 3 AM thing.
*****
Now the good parts, which may dip into *ahem* MILD SPOILER TERRITORY, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PLEASE LEAVE THE RIDE IF PREGNANT, UNINTERESTED IN PLOT KNOWLEDGE, OR BORED AND PROCEED DOWNWARD TO THE CLEARLY MARKED EXIT. THANK YOU.
...they gone? Okay. Remember those Rules I mentioned? There's a couple that get a good solid boot to the sensitive spots. Here's a sampler.
Rule 1 - Vampires and Werewolves work pretty much like you'd expect from watching horror movies and reading Anne Rice novels.
Rulebreaker - Most people in this story have seen the movies, read the books, and are creative enough to come up with new solutions to old problems. Scream-like? A little, but who doesn't love seeing technology versus tradition acted out on this kind of scale? (And here I am thinking season two Buffy. "What's -that- do?" ...uh, go ask a fan for the ref.)
Rule 2 - The human world is generally too blind/unwilling to see The Awful Truth. Mysterious Things will go undetected.
Rulebreaker - The human world gets a good hard slap upside the head around halfway through the book, and the ramifications of such are covered, some in detail.
Rule 3 - The Hero and Female Friend will have Romantic Tension. This will go nowhere forever except in smutty fanfiction.
Rulebreaker - ...It goes somewhere, of course.
Look, there's more, but what you need to know is that almost every time this book make me go "Aw crap, what, again?" it made me give a followup "Dude. YES. Thank you." a while later.
******
Nothing else is springing to mind, so I'm going to wrap up IN THIS END OF SPOILER WRAP UP SECTION now: If this is the sort of thing you like, you will like this sort of thing. It's not an instant literary classic of moving merit and eternal relevence, it's a fun and occasionally comic-booky game of Genre Fan Bingo mixed with some pretty good writing. Get past the Evil Werewolves (sigh) and this is a quite readable book, I'd waggle it past any Buffy fan in my path at the very least.
...also, come ON. 'Ryk E. Spoor'. That's a name that'll look nifty on your bookshelf.
In a semi-related note, what is UP with Baen Books lately? I just looked over at the pile of books and realized we probably put half our fundage into their stuff. They're the Ubisoft of book publishers, foisting out quality stuff for surprisingly cheap. I approve.
Thanks!
Date: 2004-01-19 09:34 pm (UTC)Oh wait... (WHAM WHAM WHAM) sorry, had to stuff my megalomania back into the closet.
My thanks. I hope you enjoy the read. I'm always happy (as you can probably guess) to discuss my work at achingly boring length with any vict...er, reader who will listen. :)
Ryk E. Spoor
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;