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a couple of book recs
I am not a fan of the romance genre in books, but I love other-genre novels that have f/f romance as a sub-plot or incidental background. Two (very different) fantasy books I read this year and really enjoyed fall into this category: Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore, and Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. I've discussed these books earlier this year on my own journal, but I thought ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fffriday people might be interested in them. (And it is a complete coincidence that I've requested fic for these books for Yuletide! I'm certainly not angling for treats, oh, no! Anyway, there's not much time before the deadline so they'd probably have to be NYR stories anyway.... *g*)
In Jane, Unlimited, Jane is an orphaned umbrella artist at a loss for what to do with her life after the death of her beloved Aunt Magnolia. She is invited to a rich friend's mansion on an island somewhere off the New York coast. She explores a little of the mansion, meets the other houseguests and staff, and hears about various strange happenings...and then she has to make a decision about which thread to follow up. Each chapter/section after the initial one is a different choice, in a different genre: mystery, thriller, horror, SF, fantasy.
This odd and clever book reminded me of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, which in fact the author's endnote says it started out as. But it's intended to be read linearly, as each possible ending not only adds layers to the things the reader has learned from previous endings, but also gets more cracktastically distant from the (nearly) perfectly ordinary world described in the beginning. In fact, the first section was a bit dull, and the first ending felt inane despite the adventure aspect. I'm glad I persisted past that, as it eventually became clear that this is a deliberate starting point from which to expand into ever more inventive territory.
This book includes a lot of homage to Rebecca, which I didn't notice until I read the author's endnote because I read that book ages ago. It also includes what in a fic would be called pre-femslash, in a casual and charming way; Jane and Ivy's relationship is tentative and only just beginning, but it's there in every ending choice. My favorite part was the clever and inventive revelation, late in the book that the mundane world of the book's beginning isn't quite as mundane as it seems, but I don't want to give any spoilers, even for something as minor as this, because it's a delightful aha moment, and hopefully by then you will have noticed and puzzled over certain clues.
Foundryside is set in the fantasy-industrial city of Tevanne, which is powered by magical technology developed by a long-lost culture. Objects are given limited sentience and unusual abilities by "scriving" them with a special language. This technology is jealously guarded by the four merchant houses which rule Tevanne. Sneak-thief Sancia Grado steals a powerful ancient artifact from a waterfront warehouse and finds herself running for her life. Gregor Dandolo has turned his back on his heritage as son of a merchant house to bring proper policing to Tevanne, including catching the thief who burned down half the waterfront while stealing said ancient artifact. But the people behind the merchant houses want to use the artifact to give themselves godlike powers, at the cost of thousands of human lives, and so Sancia and Gregor become unlikely allies as they try to prevent this from happening.
In the hands of any other author, I'd expect (and roll my eyes at) a romance between Sancia and Gregor. (Bennett's work [that I've read] rarely includes much in the way of romance, and most of his characters are written such that they could be either male or female without changing the narrative much.) In this book, some of the plot is driven by the belief of the prevailing culture that women are not suited to scriving work, and the indignity of the women scrivers who are perfectly competent and perhaps better than the men who replace them. Sancia meets a female scriver named Berenice Grimaldi, who lends her skills and talent to the cause; their developing relationship is lovely and left me wanting more.
This is the first book of a trilogy (Founders), and it ends with much left unresolved. But I really love this worldbuilding and these characters; it feels a bit as though the Invisible Library series collided with the Gentleman Bastards series by way of the Craft series, though that's selling it short.
If you read either of these books, I'd love to hear what you think.And please write me Jane/Ivy and Sancia/Berenice fic.
fffriday people might be interested in them. (And it is a complete coincidence that I've requested fic for these books for Yuletide! I'm certainly not angling for treats, oh, no! Anyway, there's not much time before the deadline so they'd probably have to be NYR stories anyway.... *g*) In Jane, Unlimited, Jane is an orphaned umbrella artist at a loss for what to do with her life after the death of her beloved Aunt Magnolia. She is invited to a rich friend's mansion on an island somewhere off the New York coast. She explores a little of the mansion, meets the other houseguests and staff, and hears about various strange happenings...and then she has to make a decision about which thread to follow up. Each chapter/section after the initial one is a different choice, in a different genre: mystery, thriller, horror, SF, fantasy.
This odd and clever book reminded me of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, which in fact the author's endnote says it started out as. But it's intended to be read linearly, as each possible ending not only adds layers to the things the reader has learned from previous endings, but also gets more cracktastically distant from the (nearly) perfectly ordinary world described in the beginning. In fact, the first section was a bit dull, and the first ending felt inane despite the adventure aspect. I'm glad I persisted past that, as it eventually became clear that this is a deliberate starting point from which to expand into ever more inventive territory.
This book includes a lot of homage to Rebecca, which I didn't notice until I read the author's endnote because I read that book ages ago. It also includes what in a fic would be called pre-femslash, in a casual and charming way; Jane and Ivy's relationship is tentative and only just beginning, but it's there in every ending choice. My favorite part was the clever and inventive revelation, late in the book that the mundane world of the book's beginning isn't quite as mundane as it seems, but I don't want to give any spoilers, even for something as minor as this, because it's a delightful aha moment, and hopefully by then you will have noticed and puzzled over certain clues.
Foundryside is set in the fantasy-industrial city of Tevanne, which is powered by magical technology developed by a long-lost culture. Objects are given limited sentience and unusual abilities by "scriving" them with a special language. This technology is jealously guarded by the four merchant houses which rule Tevanne. Sneak-thief Sancia Grado steals a powerful ancient artifact from a waterfront warehouse and finds herself running for her life. Gregor Dandolo has turned his back on his heritage as son of a merchant house to bring proper policing to Tevanne, including catching the thief who burned down half the waterfront while stealing said ancient artifact. But the people behind the merchant houses want to use the artifact to give themselves godlike powers, at the cost of thousands of human lives, and so Sancia and Gregor become unlikely allies as they try to prevent this from happening.
In the hands of any other author, I'd expect (and roll my eyes at) a romance between Sancia and Gregor. (Bennett's work [that I've read] rarely includes much in the way of romance, and most of his characters are written such that they could be either male or female without changing the narrative much.) In this book, some of the plot is driven by the belief of the prevailing culture that women are not suited to scriving work, and the indignity of the women scrivers who are perfectly competent and perhaps better than the men who replace them. Sancia meets a female scriver named Berenice Grimaldi, who lends her skills and talent to the cause; their developing relationship is lovely and left me wanting more.
This is the first book of a trilogy (Founders), and it ends with much left unresolved. But I really love this worldbuilding and these characters; it feels a bit as though the Invisible Library series collided with the Gentleman Bastards series by way of the Craft series, though that's selling it short.
If you read either of these books, I'd love to hear what you think.
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Um... has Cashore's prose style improved any since the Graceling books?
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I appreciate the writeup on Foundryside, which I was wondering whether I'd like. I enjoyed the Divine Cities quite a lot, and I think that they, like the Craft Sequence, have been sold short in a lot of ways: no awards, and not even that many nominations.
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