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.

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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.

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

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

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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

[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.