July 2009 Archives

For the first half of the book or so, I was thinking that I'd describe it as "good enough to be a really bad Dresden Files book." Then it made me angry.

Most books don't ever make me angry. Some, if they're bad enough, make me sad. Death's Daughter wasn't really bad--it was, as above, good enough to be a bad Dresden book. But... okay, let's pretend you're reading a Dresden book right now. And then let's pretend that you loathe Harry Dresden with every fiber of your being. Wouldn't reading that make you angry?

Lest anyone think the constant Dresden comparison is out of place, let's take a look. The Dresden Files are urban fantasy novels narrated in the first person by a slightly-more-than human who tries to solve mysteries while being witty and flippant about what he encounters. Death's Daughter is an urban fantasy novel narrated in the first person by a slightly-more-than human who tries to solve a mystery while being witty and flippant about what she encounters. The differences? The obvious one, Dresden is male and Calliope is female. (You may think this is trivial but it matters! Oh, does it matter.) Dresden is a wizard and Calliope is, um, Death's daughter. Dresden is funny, Calliope is not.

Dresden is smart. Calliope is so, so stupid. But not in a way that makes the book all "this is about a stupid protagonist!" ... the book thinks Calliope is competent. (Calliope herself doesn't think so--an important difference.)

Still. I can usually handle protagonists who aren't all that smart. It helps, of course, when there are other characters around to balance that out; Calliope spends most of the novel working alone. And being in first person means it's not just in what she does, but in what she thinks. And really that's where most of the pain comes from.

There was a specific point that killed the book for me; everything after that point I was reading only to see if it ever redeemed itself, which of course it didn't. Oh well.

I'm going to step away from the ranting for a bit, now. Things that don't involve the main character:

I would have loved to see more of the world the story is set in, with immortals and gods and such. To give it credit, it's not actually lacking--it explains just enough for the story to make sense at any given point. I like details, though, in excess of the strictly necessary, and I didn't get them.

Descriptions... for the most part, fine, but for the entire book I had no mental image of Calliope, which is... a bit of a problem. (Oops, this kind of involves the main character.) I'm not sure if she ever properly described herself--if she did, it didn't catch, and it certainly wasn't reinforced later on. It's a tricky thing to manage, really, describing the protagonist of a first-person novel... I will admit I get rather annoyed at all the "I stood in front of the mirror and examined myself" cheap fixes. But it is possible to do it naturally, without breaking the flow! Here's a quick rule: if the first-person narrator has to describe themself, make it relevant, and when possible, let other characters do the work for them. ...That totally could be reworded to be a pithy and stuff, but it serves.

Plot... weak. I'm not going into detail because I don't want to spoil (because you know you're gonna run out and buy this book after reading this) so I'll leave it at that.

...Yeah. There you have it. I really wanted to like this book, too.

Whatever "meaning" Epic had... Kostick cheerfully ignored it this time. Instead he just went for a "What if?", which normally would be fine (good, even) but it's a little odd for a sequel to completely ignore the previous book's meta-text.

Actually this doesn't work as a sequel for a number of reasons. Most of the characters in Epic are never seen or heard from... except the main characer, who becomes a supporting character at best. The setting is completely different. With a few very small exceptions, it takes place entirely within a game--a new, different game--instead of bouncing back and forth. Even then the game loses some of its mysticism, as this time the method used to play the game is described. Basically everything that made Epic interesting is missing in Saga.

There are also some issues with its internal logic that I won't get into because it's really not worth it. Saga is just plain not as good as Epic was. He's writing a third book, but somehow I doubt I'll read it. 

This is not the first of the Shakugan no Shana novels. It's the second. I tried to find the first, but none of the bookstores I looked in had it, and I was entirely too lazy to order it online. It's okay, though, I know what happens well enough. I knew what happened in this one, too, before I read it.

I'm familiar with the story because I've seen the anime series based on the novels. I really liked said series. When I really like a series based on a series of novels and some of the novels have been translated into English... of course I'm going to seek them out.

If you're wondering, Wikipedia tells me "Shakugan no Shana" translates into "Shana of the Burning Eyes." And to be technical, they're not novels, they're light novels. But the "light novel" doesn't really exist in American publishing excepting the translated Japanese imports, so using the term might be a bit confusing.

This isn't the first time I've talked about a light novel here. This time, however, I have none of those complaints. Despite the situation being superficially identical (i.e., I saw the anime first, then read the novel, and so I knew exactly how the plot went beforehand) I this time really enjoyed it.

Shana has two things going for it that Haruhi didn't. Well, three. First, I was comfortable while I read it; when I read Haruhi I was half-sitting, half-lying on a picnic table, trying to keep papers from flying away in the breeze, giving half my attention to my friends nearby. Second, the animation studio (J.C. Staff in this case) wasn't as exactly faithful in their adaption; there were little things here and there that weren't in the anime (or the other way around!). And third, the writing style is just plain more enjoyable to read.

The narration in Shana has just the slightest touch of constant humor. The POV jumps around a lot, and has no problem showing the thoughts of whoever it's following, but the actual narration remains independent and there are times when it feels like the narrator is getting a little exasperated by the characters.

But as your typical high school kid, Yuji didn't have an appreciation for this kind of artwork. Even if he did sense the mastery and subtlety of the pieces in front of him, he didn't know how to express himself.
Gazing at the graceful curves of a sculpted hand, all he could say was, "That's beautiful."
And at a cube filled with sparkling glass bubbles, "That's beautiful."
He was just culturally unskilled.
[...]
And Kazumi, poor Kazumi. She was so nervous around Yuji, she had trouble talking as well.
All she could say was, "Yes, I think so too." She was just as bad as him.

But wait! Is this book really about a couple of awkward teens at a museum? Well, no; I picked that excerpt because it doesn't really give anything away. The novel does, however, spend a fair bit of time in said museum. It's not exactly long, so almost everything it mentions has to be important--that's one of the qualities of the "light" novel. But this book takes heavily destructive action from one character's POV and art galleries from the other, puts them together, and makes both entertaining. Part of it is narration like the above, but mostly it's a really good sense of when enough is enough. The action isn't so drawn-out it becomes monotonous, and the art gallery only goes on for so long before the awkwardness is interrupted by... well, I won't say. But the emotional pacing is superb.

Other than that, there's not much to say. The book tries to re-explain most of the basic concepts that make up the series's world, but it doesn't do a very good job. At least I think that if somebody started with this book with no prior knowledge of the series at all, they'd quickly become lost. Maybe I'm underestimating them, but personally I think the explanations were more for the sake of reminding people who may have forgotten since the first novel than they were for drawing in new people. I really didn't care; I understand most of the concepts in greater detail than the novel describes, thanks to the anime.

...Here's where I complain about needing pesky things like translations. See, this is the last book in the series to have been translated into English, at least officially. Do you wanna know how many there are in the series in Japan? Twenty one. With a twenty-second coming in September. And sure, I know the plots to most of those thanks to two seasons of the anime, but that just can't compare. I'm a book person, after all. I want to read.