All the authors that post their musical inspiration and/or new music they’ve recently discovered, thank you. Please don’t stop.
I was catching up with Susan Dennard’s blog, and was absurdly pleased to find a post on her October music finds. And the lovely, infectious song and video posted below. This song? It’s candy. Cotton candy: airy, and sweet, and sticky in the way that it gets stuck in your head. And it’s from a French animated film, Un Monstre á Paris.
Have you noticed? I haven’t been posting. Again. In this case, good intentions really do pave the road: A recent stint of will-you-please-start-using-your-vacation-time! from work, chock full of hours meant to be devoted to writing reviews, didn’t actually happen. (The devoted hours; not the vacation time.) As for those hours, well, see, there were distractions. (I know. I can’t seem to get the needle to stop skipping on that word. It’s a problem.) Also? To sum up my of-late feelings on review writing, a helpful visual aid:
In the human vernacular: I’m burnt-out.
But I’ll come around. Until then, I’ll comprise posts full of little things, simple things, random things. For such little, simple, random things, they’re doing the lion’s share of providing a comfortable cushion for my “crispy” self.
So. Fan fiction. It continues to delight. This time ’round, my find is another entry from the Sherlock fandom: “Performance in a Leading Role” by MadLori.
The summary (as borrowed from her site):
“Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?”
What can I say about this piece? It’s well-written. It’s right good at hitting the mind’s blissful emotions button. It does a remarkable job of capturing the attitudes of BBC Sherlock and John while transferring them to a new environment. It’s slash. It isn’t complete. It will have you checking for updates Every. Single. Day. It’s so good, so heartfelt, you will say “bedtime? what bedtime?”, and read late into the night until you are caught up. Oh, yes.
If you are so inclined, check it out. (You could also go here.)
Publisher’s Summary:
“October ‘Toby’ Daye is settling into her new role as Countess of Goldengreen. She’s actually dating again, and she’s taken on Quentin as her squire. So, of course, it’s time for things to take a turn for the worse.Someone has kidnapped the sons of the regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must find the missing boys and prove the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction. Toby’s search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves, and her deadline is firm: she must find the boys in three days’ time, or all of the Mists will pay the price. But someone is determined to stop her-and whoever it is isn’t playing by Oberon’s Laws…”
My biggest obstacle when approaching this review is how to refrain from sounding like a broken record. Stellar series such as this one, the kind of series that maintains an unrepentant level of quality, that imbues each new release with narcotic delight, forces the reviewer to scour her vocabulary, searching for a word or phrase that hasn’t already seen the light of day in a review that came before the one in progress, hunting for a word that complements the high bar set by the author’s work. It’s not an easy task. It is, in fact, so daunting, it makes me want to throw in the towel and say, simply but emphatically, “Oh, for the love of – Just read these books! Thank me later.” So close. But I can’t because Toby, Tybalt and Seanan McGuire deserve more from me than that.
It frustrates me to do so, but let me recap my still-stands sentiments regarding the series to date: Toby is one of my favorite UF heroines, hands down, having won me over with her vulnerable strength and determination, her ability to get knocked on her ass and struggle up, and her unswerving devotion to those she cares for; Tybalt, King of Cats, is one of my favorite UF heroes, hands down, having claimed me with his sexy-as-sin ways, his dedication to his people and those he cares for, his belief in Toby, and his, well, everything; Seanan McGuire’s absorbing world-building entranced me, not being a reader who generally takes note of such things while reading, and continues to get better, deeper, and more vital with each book; and, finally, there’s the host of secondary characters that burrowed under my skin from book one and won’t let go. Reading that back, it merely scraped the surface of my sentiments, but my point is fairly plain: The October Daye series is necessary to me and my reading life. I love it. I crave it.
One Salt Sea cemented Seanan McGuire’s status as one of the best urban fantasy writers today, and not because it was the best book in the series, per se, but because she took me places I’d not thought to go, and because the story told in the pages of this particular book teased my emotions in unexpected ways. To take up the middle portion of the previous sentence – took me places blahdy blah – I’ll refer back to my claim that this series’ world-building is entrancing and raise it now to downright wondrous. McGuire took me under the sea. When I was younger and my family visited EPCOT, there was a ride – Horizons, unfortunately gone now – that gave you a choice: space, the desert, or under the sea. Pick one and see what it might be like to live there. Nine times out of ten I chose the sea. I wanted to know what it would be like if I were inoculated to the dangers of no air, able to move effortlessly through the water, unaware of its pressure on my body, and this despite my Jaws traumatized state of being. Seeing it through Toby’s eyes, so tactile, so wouldn’t it be something if it was just like this, turned me into a little kid again, giddy at the prospect of exploring something beautiful and new. Granted, Toby had her hands full and wasn’t able to stay long, but her time in the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist made me as happy as the proverbial clam. Come to think of it, any time Toby visits some place new, be it the Shadow Roads or Goldengreen, I feel just so. The world-building is that good, I swear. Now, as for the latter part of the first sentence in this getting-longer-by-the-second paragraph, I can’t say much for fear of spoiling some BIG things, but let’s leave it at this: while my mind is firmly, and I do mean firmly, set, I felt a momentary pang of emotion that, for a quiet moment, leveled me. Just like that. And now, more than ever, the possibility of what might come next leaves me breathless.
For all that happens, and while I can’t explain it, One Salt Sea felt like a more subdued story. Hushed even, at times. Little things affected me more than ever before, particularly involving Quentin, Toby’s friend and newly appointed squire, and Raj, Tybalt’s sweetly fierce nephew. Those two almost – almost – match Tybalt’s hold on me. I also increasingly find myself enjoying the friendship that Toby and May, former fetch turned roommate, have settled into; it’s perhaps odd how blind I am to female friendships in UF books, usually because the friend has annoying tendencies that make me want to slap her silly and so I gloss over it, but that is not the case here. And my hope that characters introduced in this installment return in future books is not unwarranted as McGuire’s track record of not creating an inconsequential secondary character is still going strong. They all mean something to Toby, for good or ill, and have a place in her world and life, which I heartily appreciate.
Now, you didn’t think I’d be able to wrap up this review without mentioning Tybalt, did you? Even if it is just to say that the very thought of him makes me want to purr like the cat I am not but he most assuredly is. As ever, I loved every second Toby and Tybalt shared the same space, every time Toby thought of him, every word Tybalt said, and he had some deliciously heartrending and mending things to say (more of those little things affecting me hugely), and every action he took to protect her. And what makes matters more amazing? Knowing that we haven’t even begun to see or know all that he is. Oh, Ashes of Honor, you cannot find your way into my hands soon enough.
Did One Salt Sea offer everything I’ve come to expect from an October Daye novel? Obviously, I’d say. Did it give the love I carry inside of me for Toby, her friends, and her world a booster shot? Absolutely. Do I think you should find a copy of Rosemary and Rue, the first book, and set down with it, comfy and with hours to spare, to discover her and them and it for yourself? Well, yes. Can’t you tell?
Publisher’s Summary:
“Protecting Atlanta from the off-world criminals of Underground is tough enough, but now Detective Charlie Madigan and her siren partner, Hank, learn that the addicts of the offworld drug ash have begun taking their own lives. Ash makes humans the perfect vessels for possession, and something or someone is leading them to their deaths. Charlie is desperate to save her addicted sister, Bryn, from a similar fate. As New Year’s Eve approaches and time runs out, Charlie makes a deadly bargain with an ancient race of beings and embarks on a dangerous journey into hellish Charbydon with Hank and the Revenant Rex to save Bryn and make it back before it’s too late. Only, for one of them, coming home means facing a fate worse than death. . . .”
This is the third book in the series; there might be general, big picture spoilers for books one and two. Proceed with caution.
As mentioned in my review of The Darkest Edge of Dawn, I put down that book and moved directly to settle in with The Hour of Dust and Ashes. How could I not? What, with all of the potential deliciousness stirring between Charlie and her siren partner Hank, there was just no stopping. And now, don’t you know, I want book four, currently untitled (?), like, yesterday.
This third installment in the series takes a slight step back from the police procedural bent of its predecessors; Charlie still has to figure out who is behind what, but she’s working with a fair amount of previously ascertained knowledge. Pulling back on that particular angle, however, made room for other things, like a darkly delightful urban fantasy take on Dickens’s Christmas ghosts in the form of four sylphs visiting Charlie over a span of days, each offering a dubious gift, and that’s not to mention the most welcome peak into Hank’s past. And the aforementioned stirring of the romantic pot? Was made even better by consisting of mostly quiet, tender moments, which, considering Charlie’s insecurities, will go a lot further towards putting her firmly at Hank’s side. Just where I’d like to see her (and sooner rather than later).
My other source of enjoyment revolved around Charlie, Hank, and Rex’s trip to Charbydon. Gay has long since established Charlie’s Atlanta as a secondary character in the story, and so it was refreshing to venture into new territory, even if said territory is alternately fascinating and, well, not exactly a place I’d actually want to visit. Additionally, the time spent in Charbydon brought a previously seen character back into wonderfully manipulative play, his return and other events weaving story threads that will no doubt be picked up in future books.
The idea of who comprises one’s family, and the importance of family, continued to be a strong theme, and several characters Charlie counts as hers had a hand in the story. My one complaint: Not enough Pendaran. Oh, but I do love that Druid King. I’d follow him into a series of his own, yes, I would.
All in all, another strong entry in the series, and one that left me wanting more of…everything.
