Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

These are the books I've read recently.

John M. Ford, The Scholars of Night. I read this one because I like Mike's other work--thrillers aren't my usual cup of tea. I enjoyed it, though I lost track of some of the puzzle pieces, which is not the author's fault. It wasn't supposed to be straightforward (as if Ford ever was), and I wasn't following it at that level, but at character and "will they pull off the [not yet entirely identified] plan?" It's good, but I don't expect to reread it, unlike The Last Hot Time or The Dragon Waiting.

Jo Walton (papersky), Ha'penny. This is a sequel to Farthing, in the same world with some of the same main characters. Viola is believable, if hard to like, as an actress who doesn't quite believe in the reality or importance of anything outside the theatre, and who is delighted at the chance to play Hamlet. I didn't find this as scary as Farthing--not that it's inherently less so, but I didn't sleep well the for a couple of nights while and right after reading Farthing, and I'm more relieved than anything not to have gone through that again. I'm looking forward to Half a Crown.

Bits of Nancy Mitford's A Talent to Annoy. Old book reviews are of limited value, but I enjoyed some of the bits about France, and a short piece on the English class system that I think was the first place she wrote about "U and non-U." It was disconcerting to take out Ha'penny (with characters based somewhat on the Mitford sisters), go to put it on the pile of books I'm reading or about to read, and see this, with "edited by Charlotte Mosley," on it. [I don't usually mention books I didn't finish, but anthologies feel different somehow.]

Nick Sagan, Idlewild, an after-the-disaster novel about a boy being raised in a virtual reality school. The book depicts the Hal's gradual discovery of the shape and extent of that disaster, and his parents' and teacher's plans for him. At the same time, Hal is trying to fix, and hide, his amnesia, and figure out whether his classmate Lazarus was murdered, or graduated; it never occurs to him that a teenage boy might die of natural causes, because he has a deep-seated false memory of having committed the murder himself. It transpires that he and his classmates have spent their entire lives in "immersive visual reality"--the times when they think they've come out for a while are another level of IVR. Halloween (the name he has chosen) and his classmates aren't exactly human, they're a last-gasp hope to save, or restore, the human race, which is why their education is largely pre-med. I read this one on rysmiel's recommendation and enjoyed it, but don't feel an immediate desire to find more. (There are, if I recall rysmiel's post, a couple of sequels.)

Catherynne Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden. Valente takes the Scherazade idea of a frame story in which someone is telling stories and extends it--not only is there the eponymous orphan, thought by many people to be either cursed or a demon, telling tales to a prince, many of the people in her stories stop to tell stories. I didn't count levels of nesting, but I think there were about four. Some of the tales connect to each other, and sometimes Valente pops the stack and returns to a tale she'd set aside a while ago. The backdrop is a fantasy world in which stars are more-or-less divine, some of them have fallen to Earth, and their substance has magical powers. We learn less about the story-teller than about the boy she is telling stories to, at least in this volume. There are what look like inconsistencies between the stories told by different characters, but those are plausible even when not explicitly mentioned and explained, as with the followers of St. Sigrid, who all tell different stories about the saint's life and deeds. There's at least one more volume, which I am looking forward to.

Rex Stout, And Be A Villain. A good Nero Wolfe (once I got an intact copy from the library--the first paperback I borrowed had a page missing). It feels solider than some of the earlier books in the series, but I read these all like popcorn.

Geoff Ryman, Lust, or No Harm. I read part 1 and a little way into part 2 on a bus, before it got too dark to see. Not a cheerful book--I'd told mrissa that it wasn't a cheerful thing to read on the way to see a sweetie, but I can't think of a context in which the first part would be cheerful. Michael is going through the break-up of a relationship that he has, early, described as "sensible" (he and his boyfriend have long since fallen out of love), and is bewildered and somewhat disturbed by the suddenly-acquired power to summon up a doppleganger of anyone he wants to have sex with, including fictional characters. One complication to his trying to figure things out is that when he sends the "angels" away again, nobody but him can remember anything they said or did, so attempting to discuss the situation with anyone but one of these angels leads to them thinking he's crazy. Part 1 is not merely non-erotic (a math textbook is that) but anti-erotic, in part because the viewpoint character has apparently spent his adult life chasing unsuccessfully after sexual satisfaction, and what we see are a series of unsatisfying encounters. I am glad that I kept reading. Parts 2 and 3 are rather different in mood from Part 1--the sex is still described clinically rather than trying to titillate, but the characters are enjoying themselves in those scenes. rysmiel was right that I'd remember the Picasso section, which is excellent. We also learn a lot more about Michael's past; in particular, something that was only sketched earlier is painted more broadly, and makes a lot more emotional sense. It's a good book; I wouldn't advise reading it if you're feeling down, but that's true about most of Ryman's work.

Esther Friesner, ed., The Chick Is in the Mail is I think the fourth "chicks in chain mail" anthology, often deliberately silly pieces, not so much woman warrior in standard Conan context as vaguely SCAdian mother-teenage daughter conflict, and city guards (all female) dealing with pirates who think a Christmas ball will be easy pickings. I grabbed this off adrian_turtle's shelf because I wanted something light while partway through the Ryman. It was exactly the fluff I wanted then; I don't expect to seek out the others.