I talked about Cathrynne Valente's Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden here and said that I liked it from a formal perspective, but felt that it didn't have any emotional impact. I also said I was interested in reading the follow-up, In the Cities of Coin and Spice. It turns out not to be a follow-up, but rather an integral part of the experience. Stories from the first part are concluded in the second, characters' fates are revealed, and the grand design of the work becomes clear.
With this second book, Valente also brings in the feeling that I thought was missing from the first one. I became more involved with the characters, and I suppose she also builds on the emotional investment from the first book. Overall, the diptych was a very satisfying experience.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Rupert Holmes's Swing. It has lots of good parts, but they're stuck inside a rather mediocre mystery novel. It feels like Holmes wasn't that interested in the mystery either -- a woman is killed in the fourth chapter or so (out of more than 50), and then the mystery is dropped completely until chapter 40 or thereabouts. It turns out that some of the events in between are linked to the mystery, but if you read them independently you wouldn't feel like you were missing something. Having said that, Holmes gives us a great sense of time and place. The novel is set in San Francisco right before Pearl Harbor, and it's very evocative; in particular, Holmes provides a soundtrack (which is worked nicely into the audiobook), and he's a great mimic of big-band swing of the period.
The dialogue is also snappy, and sometimes feels like a movie out of the period.
No comments:
Post a Comment