The Tomb of the Golden Bird by Elizabeth Peters

Latest installment in the Amelia Peabody Egyptian Archeology mystery series. This one centered around the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb, with the Peabody-Emersons taking part as bit players and observers.

Fortunately I still enjoy simply spending time with Peters' characters, because the biggest mystery in this book was "where's the plot?" A holy man might have been murdered (though nobody seemed to care very much) and an encrypted message sat around for a while. But the main characters weren't really involved in any of it.

Magic Study by Maria Snyder

Good book, fairly quick read. Yelena was kidnapped as a child from her home in Sitia and grew up in Ixia. (Note: I wish the author had given the countries names less easy to confuse.) In Snyder's previous book Poison Study, Yelena escaped death to become a poison taster and find a place for herself in Ixia. Here, she returns to Sitia to gain control of her newly discovered magical powers, under sentence of death if she doesn't succeed. (Certainly one way of getting her to focus on her studies.)

One of the things I liked about Poison Study was the political system - the semi-benevolent, if rather twisted, military dictatorship was an interesting change from the conventional fantasy monarchy or vague ruling by some sort of council arrangement. Sitia falls under the "vague council" governing category.

The main story arc involved catching a serial killer, and the main theme was Yelena coming to terms with her roots in Sitia. She spent remarkably little time on magic study, especially given the threat of death, which seemed to have been forgotten about by book's end.

Overall, an engrossing read, but a bit too much plot. I didn't get that feeling from the previous, although it was also action-filled.

I'd have liked to spend more time with Yelena's brother.

Saffron and Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand

Short stories. Elizabeth Hand is one of those authors that I think I should like - reviews and comments on the group rec.arts.sf.written put her in that branch of literary speculative fiction I like - but despite several tries, I've never made it further than a few pages into any of her novels. So I thought I'd give this collection a try.

I had no difficulty reading it, and it did indeed fall into that area of literary SF that I particuarly like. I suppose I shall try a novel again...

The stories varied considerably. I didn't like the final quartet as much; it's a slipstream set of meditations on friendship, leaping about through time, space and nominal genre, but in at least three of them I never had enough of a sense of the people to care much about their friendship.

Of the rest... two stick in my mind. The first, Cleopatra Brimstone, is an odd, indecipherable tale of geeky but attractive Jane, a budding lepidopterist. The plot is fairly straightforward - studies entomology, is raped, becomes a predator, turns into a moth - but Jane herself is opaque. I could say it's depersonalization made literal, but really I don't know quite what to make of it. It sticks, though.

The other is The Least Trumps. The main character is an agoraphobic tatoo artist, and the world changes. The ending is lovely - it's a delicate story, I don't want to disturb it by saying more.

The Sharing Knife - Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold

Another sequel, another car-trip book. This was readable, but... hmm. Too much in-law unpleasantness, and nothing getting resolved.

I feel like I should have liked it more than I did. I often like ambiguity, and stories where the world doesn't get saved, and in-law conflict, even. But I can't remember the names of any of the characters.

I was expecting the "sharing knife" of the series title (the particular one that featured in Beguilement) to be a more important element in this one.

Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey

Middle book in Carey's follow-up trilogy following Imriel, the foster-son on the hero and heroine of her first series. At least, I assume it's a trilogy, at first I thought it might be a duology. (Checks author's web site.) Yep, it's a trilogy.

Suffers from middle-book-of-trilogy-itis. Imriel spends a lot of time going places and doing things. I liked the first half of the book, the story of Imriel's doomed marriage. After that, though... well, he sets out on a quest, and various stuff happens to hinder him. At one point, when Imriel is interrupted yet again, this time by a shipwreck, I could almost hear the author muttering "ok, now shipwreck him, that'll fill up a few more pages..." Not that I have anything against a picaresque adventure where the hero overcomes a series of obstacles, but this just didn't work. It was dull.

Looking at that "didn't work" comment reminds me of a blog post by Sarah Monette, a fantasy writer I like quite a bit as a novelist and also as a blogger. Her fifth reason why a scene might suck is the bit I'm thinking of.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Short stories, fantasy. How to describe? A mix of good and very good, with a few poems thrown in. I prefer Gaiman's stories to his novels.

Mythic, pastiche, ghosts and fables. The introduction includes a story about mapmaking, which comments that the best description of a story is the story, itself.

I always have trouble summing up books, their plots and characters. If I say this, I think, I should say that as well, it's equally important.. and how about this other? This character is this, but not really: she's also this and this and this... and how much harder with a collection of widely varying stories.

I think they're worth reading. If you like that sort of thing, of course. Whatever that sort of thing is.

City of Bone by Martha Wells

Nice fantasy with a somewhat science-fictional feel - it's set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the apocalypse was brought about by an unfortunate combination of magic and hubris. A blurb described the setting as "Arabian Nights" style, but I didn't get that at all, apart from the desert setting. Most of the world's water was destroyed in the magical disaster, and the paired struggles for water and for knowledge of the Ancients drive the society and the plot.

Heloise and Abelard: a new biography by James Burge

Heloise and Abelard, the prototypical star-crossed lovers...

At one point, Burge sums up Abelard's autobiography roughly as follows: promising career ruined by the jealousy of his colleagues, a disastrous love affair that led to his castration, followed by exile to a land of homicidal monks. Very hard not to feel sorry for the fellow.

I'm still startled that they named their son Astralabe. I thought baby names like Apple or Telescope were modern innovations.

Winter Moon by Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, C.E. Murphy

Picked this up at the library mostly for the Tanith Lee story - I haven't read anything new by her since the Venus series. But I found that actually the least appealing - stylistically it reminded me of her earlier writings, like The Birthgrave, which I didn't like as much. The Lackey had sympathetic characters, engaging writing, minimal plot and vaguely drawn setting, which is par for most of her writing. But the third, by C. E. Murphy, whom I haven't read before, was good - urban, slightly off-kilter setting, gritty supernatural stuff, strong characters.

Looking Tanith Lee up on Amazon, I see that someone's bringing out a two-volume compilation of selected stories. Must look for.

Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

More of the Napoleonic War With Dragons saga. Except that this didn't involve much war...

Let's see. Temeraire belongs to an insanely rare and valuable, not to mention sacred, breed, and the Chinese who bred him want him back. So Temeraire, Laurence and crew take a very slow boat to China, where they are subjected to culture shock, formal dinners and diplomacy, not to mention intrigue.

Middle books in fantasy trilogies usually involve a lot of landscape and traveling from place to place, and this is no exception. (Actually, I've since realized that this isn't a trilogy. Oh well.)

The difference in status of dragons between China and Europe (and apparently most other places) is a major theme.

Dark Water by Linda Hall

A mystery, sort of... perhaps more of a literary-ish suspense novel. Took the basic plot convention of the abused woman being stalked and played around with it a little.

I was annoyed by the side tale of the philandering, adultering deacon who was seen as a pillar of his church community - it seemed too blatant.

The ending was remarkably unsatisfying. The second half of the book was much like watching a train wreck, or a spider spinning a web for a hapless fly. I'm used to mysteries with more satisfying closure.

Not a bad book, but not really my thing.

A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer

Great fun. Not as memorable as College of Magics -- this was very much a comedy of manners in a fantasy guise, and had less poignancy. But the characters were just human enough to keep the story real.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

The Napoleonic Wars, with dragons. Almost an alternate history, except that given the great difference this level of aerial transport and combat would have made to the course of history, everything was far too recognizable.

I was reluctant to read this at first, partly because of the Napoleonic war angle (I'm not fond of too much military detail in my historical reading) and partly because of the dragons (I'm not especially fond of traditional fantasy trappings, unless they're unusually well done, or used mythopoeically). That said, I very much enjoyed this; the dragons were neither mythic nor traditional, but fully fleshed out, as were the humans. They did resemble Anne McCaffery's dragons in some ways, but the pseudoscience behind them was better thought out. And the military details of how dragons might be used in combat were also carefully thought out and integral to the plot.

Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell

Romances I like tend to fall in two categories: the gentle, healing, life-affirming sort that Mary-Jo Putney usually writes, and a rather darker and more twisted type exemplified by Anne Stuart's Black Ice. This was definitely the latter, and a good one.

Justin, the Duke of Something-or-other (why are so many romance figures Dukes?) has been left by his mistress Soraya. Soraya vanished because she's earned enough money as a courtesan to support herself and her family, and now wants to retire and live out her life as respectable Verity. Justin isn't very happy about this, and expresses his displeasure by tracking Soraya/Verity down, abducting her, and treating her abominably.

I have some difficulty explaining why I like

Lady Silence by Blair Bancroft

This was a traditional Regency romance, a vaguely Jane Austen-influenced subgenre I've not read much in. I found it readable, but forgettable.

The Regency is a comedy of manners, but the plot of this book really felt like it wanted to be much more melodramatic- a mysterious child who didn't speak for years, a traumatized military officer readjusting to civilian life. But the tone was kept light, and it all felt wrong, awkward.

Angelica by Sharon Shinn

Another very readable Sharon Shinn- I think she's among the best writers of romantic sf that manages to scratch the itches of both genres. Only- this one felt a bit like a rerun, enjoyable but familiar. She's done the "archangel gets saddled with reluctant and unexpected angelica" before, and it was more interesting the first time around. I preferred Angel-Seeker; one woman found she preferred a human after all, and the culture clash in the other main plot played out very believably and painfully. Also - she has a way of typecasting members of her varying races that makes me uncomfortable - all Edori are feckless and pleasant, all Jansaii rather slimy, Mandavii money-grubbing. Angel-Seeker went a bit deeper into the whats and whys of culture, and showed some variation within members of the groups.

The Machine's Child by Kage Baker

Well.....

Good: back to the main plot, with Mendoza, Alec/Edward/Nicholas, Joseph and Buda.

Bad (semi-spoiler): well, not much of Mendoza, mentally or (at first) physically. Not much bite left to her.

Ugly: Alec/Edward/Nicholas. All at once. Sharing one body and quarreling continually. (This isn't a spoiler, it happened a book or two ago.)

At least the little weird people didn't put in an appearance. I'm really wondering how she's going to pull all this together at the end.

I'd like to spend more time with Suleyman and Latif.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

A psychological mystery, and also a story about how a family falls apart.

Two sisters disappear, and, decades later, a woman shows up claiming to be one of them. The story of the disappearance, some of the family's life before, and how the parents endured, and didn't, after, is told in flashbacks.

I guessed the identity early (though not why), and so didn't care much about the maneuverings of the police officers. But the family tragedy was gripping.

Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey

A follow-up to her Kushiel's (blank) series featuring Phedre. This focuses on Phedre's foster son Imriel.

I didn't like Imriel's voice as much as Phedre's (both first person), and the book felt jerky to me. The plot didn't seem to have any shape to it. It's essentially Imriel's coming of age story, but too many of the events didn't mean enough, if that makes sense. The author nearly lost me when he moved to Rome-analog. Still, some very good passages... I'll see if the sequal redeems it.

The Veil of Night

Historical romance. A decent read, but not as good as Music of the Night. I'd have liked to have met the main female character earlier and gotten to know her a little before she made her big choice - accepting the male character's scandalous bargain - so I could have seen that it was as out of character for her as the author said it was.