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Quartered Sea
I finished The Quartered Sea. It was the weakest of the four in its series, as the main character was an angsty whiner on the scale of Mercedes Lackey hero. Seriously, I spent the early part of the book wanting to drop kick him downstairs, which I think stole some of the horror from the things that happened later. I way preferred the two middle books of this set. Ah well.

Warchild:

I am told this is a first novel, to which I say, "Daaaaaamn!" This thing wrapped clammy fingers around my heart and squeezes oh so tenderly. It is dark and powerful. I won't spoil it. In fact, I strongly suggest not reading the book jacket.

Dead Until Dark
It was fascinating, but I'm a little sorry I read it as it spoils True Blood. I love it, I do, but I think I like the way the TV Show back threads the characters that I assume are in the later books to make them more prominent now. Reading the book, I kept missing Tara and the more well drawn LaFayette. I am liking the use of multiple perspective in the TV show too, it's ensemble nature. This doesn't mean I didn't like the book, but i really do think the TV Show is benefiting from the chance to look ahead to where its going instead of just behind.

The book winds up the main plot, sure, but leaves a ton of loose ends and doesn't feel finished, as if there was a need to end artificially soon do to page count issues or something. I'm going to keep reading them, of course. They really are like crack.

Areas of My Expertise (Audio)
In honor of John Hodgeman's new book release, I decided to reread his Areas of My Expertise. My library had an audio version and I needed something to listen to in my car so I gave it a try. It has Johnathan Coultan singing and dead pan bantering with John Hodgeman on it. It even includes a charmingly spurious origin story for the singer. It's delightful.

When Gravity Fails
I used to love Mr. Effinger's short prose, but was never able to find his novels in local shops or libraries. I discovered to my delight that my local library system has them, so I've been reading When Gravity Fails. I am honestly fascinated. It's a Science fiction noir thing, beautifully done. The character is no Gary Stu he man either, but a rather hedonistic fixer with a serious drug habit. The mystery is complex and it amuses me that the POV character keeps getting sidetracked from actually solving it instead of just working at the mystery like a normal noir hero would. I also love that his girlfriend is a transwoman, which is rather a startle for something from the '80's. In fact, a majority of the women are transwomen and one of his best friends is a transman. Who ever heard of that in RL in the '80's let alone writes one in as supporting cast. Of course, pretty much all the women in the book are prostitutes, trans or no and the POV says something pretty unforgivable to Yasmin during a fight. it's far from politically correct. still, it pleased me to see the very straight male lead in an overtly sexual/romantic relationship with a transwoman and friends with transfolk of both sexes. I also like that I'm more than half way through and I haven't solved the mystery yet. How rare is that?

Perdido Street Station
I finally finished Perdido Street Station. It was interesting enough to keep reading a few chapters at a time, but it was sloooow. I liked the sequel The Scar better as Pirates/librarians/spies just moved much faster than Steam punk scientist/journalists vs... well the very cool thing they are fighting at a snails pace for the second half of PSS. I think that sentence points out exactly what was wrong with the pacing, actually.

*From a BPAL discussion of American Gods, where someone was complaining about Shadow's personality being unbelievable, more specifically the incident with Czerneborg. Contains spoilers: His grief and depression make shadow very passive. In a sense he is walking dead, like the other side of the Laura coin. There is a sleep walking quality about him that is one way deep grief is expressed. In most television and books, grief is portrayed in a dramatic way because TV, movies, etc.. are about drama. Screaming, dramatic weeping, throwing oneself in the coffin makes for good TV, you see? Some people do react like that, but it's not grief I relate to. The sudden death of a partner is like a stunning blow to the head. It's a while before anything feels quite real.

To me, the lack of outward dramatic behavior signals how incredibly deep Shadow's loss is. His calm reaction to all the craziness and his essential numbness is a realistic depiction of profound grief. It's rare in literature and even rarer in other media, so we are not accustomed to seeing it.

Did they make you read "Death of a Pig" in high school? I still get shivers remembering it. It's an essay about how the daughter raised this pig, beautifully detailed. Woven into it among the calm prosaic description of the life and death of this pig is the authors intense numb grief for the death of the daughter that raised the pig. It is so powerful because he never speaks directly about how he feels about her death. It's indirectness makes it so powerful, so painful for the reader, so profound.

The deepest griefs are like that.

So that's how I read the novel. Ananzi Boys is so much more comfortable because it's about fathers and sons and coming to grips with all of one's self, shadow and bright. It's deep and funny and dark and full of meaning. It's also significantly easier on the heart than staring into all that icy pain, the passivity of a loss that cuts the heart out of a man.

I think the sojourn in the town where they bet on the car going through the ice is symbolic of that numbness, that grief. The ordinary town life going on while the icy landscape hides the reality of deal. The ice melts and show starts to recover, to get himself back, to act and feel again.

Just my opinion, of course, but it feels right to me.