Crown of Binding Thorns

[flemmings]

House of Binding Thorns is pure Tanith Lee territory but it doesn't treat it in a Tanith Lee way at all: could not be more different, in fact. This is probably a good thing, because Lee is hot fudge sauce: a little goes a very long sweet cloying sticky way. But de Bodard is somehow too dry for my tastes as well. I'm not sure what the problem is but I noticed it in the Acatl books also. As if I'm being kept at arm's distance somehow from the events. Or maybe that the events are all tied up in plots and politics, which I find dull by nature: so that even with fallen angels and Vietnamese dragons and alchemical magicians and Paris in tatters, the atmosphere of the Pentagon Papers spreads its grey dust throughout.

ETA: *House* of Binding Thorns. The things my brain gets up to late at night...

Comments

[karalee]

I haven't read her novels but I found her short stories detached from all my emotions in the same way you're describing. I had thought it was just me ...

[flemmings]

And I thought it was just me too. I'd heard that her ideas of narrative are based on non-English ones (whether French or Vietnamese I don't know) and thought that might be the source of the disconnect.

[karalee]

That would make sense! Glad her writing works for others, but I don't think I'm wired for it.

[rushthatspeaks]

It's not just you. I don't know why I'm allergic to de Bodard, as she has all the ingredients for books that I really ought to love, but no, it's just grey and claustrophobic and offputting. And, though I don't know much about Vietnamese narrative, I do read French, and she doesn't feel similar. I think it may be that she uses sensory language in a way that just doesn't register for me as sensory, so I don't get any real sense of anything but the character motivations, and those are all double-cross on double-cross and everyone being various degrees of terrible.

Would be interested if you've ever read any Lisa Goldstein and if so what you thought, as she is the other author I have problems with in the exact same direction, although with Goldstein I also have plot issues to argue over.

[flemmings]

That may be it. Her pictorial descriptions are clear enough that I can see what's happening, but her character reactions are all fear, fear, fear, and frustration. And the characters who aren't afraid are all plotting inscrutably and terribly and it's all- claustrophobic.

I've never heard of Lisa Goldstein. From what you say, I'm not tempted to try. OTOH I've noticed that our reading tastes are almost polar opposites, so maybe she might work for me. (Looks at goodreads) Um no, maybe not.