ellen_datlow: (Default)
ellen_datlow ([personal profile] ellen_datlow) wrote2007-10-21 01:44 am
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Three more very good novels

Some novels I have no problem summing up in a few lines; for others it's an agony and far too much time goes into trying to write something intelligible. Here are a few for which I've had a very difficult time (partly because I enjoyed the books so much, I want to do justice to them). All I can say is read them! They're terrific.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer) is the author’s first foray into the psychological suspense thriller and it’s a doozy. Cass (Scary) Neary is a prickly, pill popping protagonist best known for the photographs of dead people she took during the punk scene. Now she’s on an assignment/pilgrimage to backwoods Maine to interview the reclusive photographer who so strongly influenced her own work. What ensues is engrossing and horrifying.

Spook Country by William Gibson (Putnam) is not horrific, but there’s a dark undercurrent of paranoia threaded throughout this tense and satisfying, overtly political “caper” novel. It’s a perfect successor to Pattern Recognition. A former rocker, now a journalist is on assignment for a magazine that doesn’t yet exist, a pill popping break-in wizard is stuck with a paranoid secret ops loony, and a young Cuban is involved in mysterious information transfers. And they’re all converging on a huge shipping container with a mysterious something inside. This all makes for great entertainment.

Fangland by John Marks (Penguin) is a surprisingly original vampire novel about a young associate producer sent to Transylvania to vet a mysterious crime lord for an interview on The Hour (modeled on 60 Minutes, Marks’ former workplace), a major newsmagazine show in New York. The crime lord, actually a vampiric creature who infects victims with the voices of humans killed in atrocities throughout history uses the woman’s connections to worm his way onto the twentieth floor of The Hour—dubbed “fangland” by its denizens. Every time the reader thinks she knows where the story is going, it takes a neat half turn away from the obvious.

[identity profile] pm-again.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 06:01 am (UTC)(link)
I enjoyed Generation Loss. I came to the book as a work of fiction (non-genre) not realizing the turn it would take. Even though Liz is a Tolkiener, I appreciate that she's not letting that get the best of her in her writing :) (thousands and thousands of pages of epic fantasy)

For the very few of you who may not already know she did a reading of the first chapter which is available here:

http://www.elizabethhand.com/2007/gen_loss.mp3

[identity profile] ellen-datlow.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Hi pm,
Not sure what you mean that she's a "Tolkiener" --do you mean she writes fantasy? She's never written any high fantasy: she's written sf/very hard-edged fantasy and horror but high fantasy? nope --or do you mean something else by that?

[identity profile] pm-again.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
I just meant that she's a Tolkien fan and was teasing her about it.

And thanking her for resisting the Tolkiener urge :)

[identity profile] sacredchao23.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
One of the things that I found really interesting about both Generation Loss and Spook Country (and the same can be said for Pattern Recognition) is that they are non-genre books on the literal level, (or non-fantastic book I suppose would be the best way of putting it), but they both have something that I can only nebulousnessly describe as a genre sensibility. I don't know exactly how to describe what I mean by that, other than the works both feel like work within the area of the fantastic.

And I'll have to check out Fangland, sounds intriguing.

[identity profile] ellen-datlow.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 03:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Fangland is much better than I've made it sound :-) Do check it out.

[identity profile] satyrblade.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Fangland and Pattern Recognition both sound really appealling. Thanks!

BTW, have you read The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, by Catherynne Vallente yet? I highly recommend it.

[identity profile] ellen-datlow.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I heard Catherynne read part of it and it sounded splendid.

[identity profile] satyrblade.livejournal.com 2007-10-21 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
It's exquisite - and the continuation, Cities of Coin and Spice, comes out this week, too.

BTW, both books also have related albums by S.J. Tucker, a musical/ performance artist who's sort of the ani defranco of urban tribal fantasy. I discovered Vallente by way of Tucker's songs "The Girl in the Garden" and "Snake Star Song," and bought the book at one of her gigs.