any novel is a blackbird

[truepenny]

Romantic SF & Fantasy Novels reviews The Virtu.

They've previously reviewed Mélusine (and I'm chuffed to be in the same blog entry with naominovik and Temeraire). And there are two other takes from the same site.

---

I link to all substantive reviews (that I find, of course), positive or negative, because it would be disingenuous to pretend I don't read them. And because I think the spectrum of responses is fascinating--both in a personal writerly sort of way, and in a more anthropological way.

---

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," Wallace Stevens.

Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji, Katsushika Hokusai.

---

I dreamed a lot about Felix and Mildmay last night--a bizarrely sfnal planetary romance kind of dream, but they were ever so recognizably themselves.

I frequently dream about persons who become story characters (the narrator of "Straw" is one), but Felix and Mildmay are the only characters of mine (thus far) who have gone over to being persons in my dreams. I don't dream about them frequently, and the dreams are never germane to the actual books I'm actually writing, but I enjoy it when it happens. It's the only way I can spend time with them without the meta-level of being responsible for engineering their lives.

And it's good to have thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird.

Comments

[perverse-idyll.livejournal.com]

Hello - excuse me for popping onto your journal without introduction, but Mélusine and The Virtu are the first works of fantasy in years that have sucked me in and excited me. I love the way you've set up the contrasting voices, so that self-destructive and self-centered Felix is less immediately sympathetic than Mildmay, the thief and murderer. The fact that Felix is basically receiving his moral education through Mildmay's devotion to him is a wonderful irony. Of course, Mildmay's hard to resist, and while reading I kept mentally pinching myself with the reminder, "But he kills people. For money." It's fascinating, the sign of a true conjuring of other cultures, that you can evoke and I can collaborate in this moral ambivalence. Because from my fastidious modern American perspective I can clearly see that Mélusine's society gives its underclass no choice, and that I probably wouldn't last a day in it without either falling prey to its more ruthless members or else undergoing a rapid revolution in my moral persuasions. In certain contexts, survival becomes the primary virtue.

But that's not what I popped in here to say. I followed your links to the Romance SF & F Novels site, and read the various reviews. It's baffling and amusing to see what other people look for when they read. What to reviewers there are flaws in your books are some of the very same things I loved about them. On a tangential note, the complaint about insufficient plot bugged me and practically made me bare my teeth in a snarl. I'm impatient with novels that put plot ahead of style and character, and I fear that the publishing trends encourage relentless additives - more sex! more surprises! more cliffhangers! - at the expense of qualities that make the reading experience worthwhile. I don't want pure diversion, I want memorable scenes and beautiful writing and characters with the power to make me follow them to the bitter end. Yes, of course I want plot, too, but it has to respect the book's boundaries and not run amok.

Anyway, I had to shake my head in wonder that two, three, five people can read the same book, and one can shrug it off and dismiss it for the very reasons that another will clasp it in her arms and crow, "Finally, a fantasy worth reading!" If a writer were to think overmuch of different readers' conflicting demands, she'd probably tie herself in knots and never write another word for fear that it would disappoint somebody, somewhere.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is a wonderful poem, and a rather elegant rebuttal to some of the shallower criticisms you've received. (I'm not saying you or anybody else is beyond criticism, of course. But some reviews have all the nutritional value of fast food.)

[adnara.livejournal.com]

Thank you for expressing what I felt about these books. I haven't been so completely drawn into a story in a long time, and honestly I was too caught up in the characters to wonder about the plot overly much. It was there, it made sense, it was good, but I wasn't worried about it. I think that's how it should be. I probably couldn't give an objective review on the books to save my life, because I simply fell in love with them too much to care about small flaws.

I'd just like to say Thank You to Sarah Monette for restoring my faith in the genre of fantasy.

[tesseract-5.livejournal.com]

That is one of the least helpful reviews I've ever seen. I know, because I work in a bookstore, an indepentant one, with devoted customers who count on our suggestions for their reading diet. My summaries don't sound anything like that!

I'm just in the middle of my second reading of The Virtu and relishing all the subtle gestures between your characters that I may not have caught on the first reading. I've recommended these books to many of my customers who appreciate sci-fi/fantasy.

I'm delighted to find that writers dream about their own characters. We readers have dreams with other people's characters.

This is my first post to your journal. I've been trying to figure out how to say thank you for writing what you do. As the first commentor here said it, Mélusine and The Virtu have renewed my interest and faith in the fantasy genre after the dominance of such action adventure driven series lately. The pleasure of finding your books, and having a new book out from Ellen Kushner and Melanie Rawn has been such a treat this year for a fan of character driven fantasy.

I'm sure you get this a lot...

[zodiacal-light.livejournal.com]

But I just finished reading Melusine (which, sadly, is the only one of your books my library has right now), and I loved it. I had been going through a bit of a fantasy slump, I suppose, where I couldn't seem to find a fantasy book I liked that I hadn't already read, but then someone on another journal linked to some of your literary criticism, and I liked the stuff you'd written in this journal, and it motivated me to pick up your book. I'm so glad it did.

For me, the most interesting thing about your book was that I actually didn't like either of the main characters at first. I mean, I thought they were realistic and well-written, but I just didn't like them. But they were so compelling that they drew me in, and when I closed the book, I realized that I'd come to love them. The other interesting thing about reading Melusine was that I have some hangups with numbers, so I was constantly having to pause and translate from septads, but instead of getting thrown out of the book by that, it drew me in; I spent much of the book feeling like I was lost in a foreign country. (Er... that's actually a good thing. I like being lost in foreign countries.) I also have more than a mild obsession with mythology and folklore, so finding all the little references you drop in just made my day.

I guess I just wanted to thank you for writing this. Sorry for the long-winded comment.