The Witching Well

I’ve finished reading Liquor and Prime, the first two of the Rickey and G-man novels, by Poppy Z. Brite (who keeps a LiveJournal here).

Can I just say “Wow”?

I love these characters, especially G-man, with whom I identified heavily from very early on. His sensible but laid-back attitude resonates with me, and he’s the perfect complement to Rickey’s ambitious hot-headedness. And celebrity chef Lenny Duveteaux has just enough Emeril in him to make me laugh without turning him into a joke. PZB also has a real gift for making the day-to-day workings of New Orleans’s restaurant industry absolutely fascinating.

So fascinating, in fact, that when I got to what most people would consider the “real” action (which comes in fairly late in both books), I looked back and realized that most of what I’d read so far had been world-building and character exploration. Which most writers would be flayed alive for, but PZB pulls off so beautifully that I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

The only thing that bothered me was how long it takes us in the first book to find out that Rickey and G-man are a couple. Yes, I can see that their relationship really is also the friendship that it’s initially described as, and that from Rickey’s POV that may even be the most important part of it. But it still feels just a bit like PZB is sidling up to the issue, for fear of scaring off people who don’t like to read “gay” books.

But that’s a minor quibble.

I’m giving these books to my Mom next. She’s going to love Lenny.

Mood: pleased

When I fall for a book — I mean when a book really sinks its claws into me — you can tell by the way I read it. I devour the first three-quarters of the story at breakneck pace, using any excuse to stick my nose into it, even if it’s just for ten minutes. Or two. And then I get to a point where I realize that there are only a few chapters left, and I start to dawdle.

It’s kind of painful, really. I desperately want to know what happens next, but I know that every page brings me closer to the end. And I don’t want it to end.

Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint did that to me. I fell head over heels for her world, with its layered, corrupt society, her airy nobles with their convoluted manipulations, her scruffy thieves and whores. And the social system that supports the profession of her main character: the swordsman Richard St Vier. Who is well worthy of falling for, too.

Mood: enthralled

The grrls are here — most of them, anyway; one was too busy with real life (stupid real life) to come and play — and though it was raining yesterday, the sewing has been sewed and silly card games have been played. Today the Hogwarts faculty takes to the streets of Salem.

So if you happen to be in the neighborhood and spot Snape, Sinestra, McGonnigle, Sprout, and Umbridge strolling along the Essex Street Mall or wandering around Pickering Wharf, come and say hello, hmmm? (I’m the Scottish one.)

Mood: bouncy

J.K. Rowling has come out and said, in no uncertain terms, that Albus Dumbledore is gay.

Which is marvelous, IMHO. Why wouldn’t there be gay characters in the HP universe? And why not the headmaster of Hogwarts himself?

What bothers me is that the statement seems to have been made as an implied negative answer to the question of whether or not he ever finds true love. Is that a subconscious bias showing, Jo, dearie?

Mood: contemplative

Yup. I finally finished reading it. Can I just quote the Doctor here (from season three’s episode The Shakespeare Code)? “I cried.”

What’s more, I cried in public: sitting in the commuter rail station last night, waiting for my boarding call.

But the series did have a pretty satisfying ending. Very sad in some ways, very happy in others. Revelations were revealed and questions were answered. I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive JKR for killing [SPOILER] but, really, I knew going in that there had to be at least one heart-rending fatality, so it’s a good kind of non-forgiveness.

Mood: satisfied

I’m a few chapters into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows now, and what everyone who’s already read it has told me is pretty true. Intense. Right from the start. Important stuff going on already. Upsetting stuff.

And I’m not reading quickly enough to please my husband, who has already read it and can’t stand that he can’t talk about it with me. But I’m a slow reader. I tend to read not just to find out what happens but to enjoy the characters and the world as thoroughly as I can. I’m in no rush to finish, because then it’ll be over. Yes, I can always go back and reread any book in the series, but it’s not the same.

You can never read a book for the first time more than once.

Mood: thoughtful
Music: Shiny Toy Guns: Stripped

I just finished reading Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book where I could identify with and sympathise with every POV character. And most of the major secondary characters. And the couple that I couldn’t get into the skins of? I at least understood where they were coming from. They were still real. I just couldn’t stretch myself far enough to crawl inside them.

And the worldbuilding? Layered, rich, visceral. When I was growing up, I read all the mythology books I could lay my hands on, so much of this world is familiar to me. And yet, it’s not. It’s completely not.

Then there’s the Kelpie. Holy shit, the Kelpie. He’s worth a book all by his onesies.

Gods, this woman can write.

I’m glad the second book in the series is coming out next week, because I think I’m addicted.

Mood: impressed

I have been acquisitive these last few days, which is always fun.

On the road during our little mini-vaca last weekend, Andy and I stopped at the Traveler Restaurant in Union, CT. A favorite place en route from here to his folks’ in the lower Hudson Valley, not only because the food is hearty and no-frillsy and reasonably priced, but because you get a free book every time you eat there. And additional books, should you find it impossible to choose just one, are half a buck. I picked up six of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels and two books from an old TimeLife series about seafarers.

And yesterday, we found ourselves walking past a bookstore… Well, no. We don’t walk past bookstores. We go into them. And then I buy Patricia Briggs’ second Mercy Thompson book and the first Vampire Hunter D novel. Because, you know, it’s what I do.

Mood: pleased

Elizabeth Bear is on a writers’ retreat. It seemed to have started off pretty well, but if you follow the entries along…

Well, I think there’s something seriously wrong in North Carolina, and I think it may have taken out a good number of talented writers. At least a couple of whom I like as people as well.

Or Bear could be playing with us. Maybe.

Mood: surprised