books this week

(This may be a bit garbled. I've had a very difficult day
at the neurologist's office, and planned to sleep until I
felt better, but there are fireworks interfering with that
plan. I don't like fireworks.)

Fair warning - spoilers all over the place. This tends
to be all the warning I give. Knowing more about a
story does not diminish my pleasure in it.

On the first page of Laurie King's Keeping Watch, I
thought, "Wow, she's writing an Andrew Vachss novel!"
I'm still not certain why I thought that so vividly from
less than 3 paragraphs. The plot had some similarities
to Vachss' standard, but the tone seemed more intimate.
Unfortunately, it felt just intimate enough that the
distance/brutality came across as writing flaws, more
than character flaws. And the story structure, with the
extended flashbacks (without strong personal connections)
was awfully disconnecting. It wasn't quite in the realm
of 8 Deadly Words, but it came closer than any of Laurie
King's other work. Maybe it would have been better as a
couple of novellas. I don't know.

_Tam Lin_ (Pamela Dean's version). I don't re-read it
every September, but every 2 or 3 years. This time, I'm
startled by the lack of drinking. And how realistic it
had seemed, when I read it before, to have such a large
group of college students and none of them getting plastered.
I'm not judging that startlement, at the moment, just
noticing it.

_Sleep and His Brother_. Thank you, Papersky, for
pointing me towards Peter Dickinson. The plot and setting
didn't do much for me (not the right level of alien-ness,
I think) but I loved the careful use of words. I suspect
Dickinson's "background," the British countryside of a
generation ago and the people who lived there, is supposed
to be familiar. And it doesn't feel familiar to me at all.
There's no contrast or perspective. I could see what he's
trying to do, and I think Kate Wilhelm does it very well
with the Constance Leidl and Charlie Meikeljohn stories.
I'm not sure if Wilhelm is better at it, or if it's just a
matter of speaking my language.

I don't know if I've finished all the Leidl/Meikeljohn
stories there are, or just all the ones in the local library
network. I settled for Wilhelm's _Skeletons_, which is
pretty good. A bit too much visual focus for me to relate
to easily, but I can't fault the writing. The characters
are surprisingly sympathetic.

I re-read _The Sand Reckoner_. Go, now, and read it. It's
not even my favorite book by Gillian Bradshaw (that place in
my heart is held by _Beacon at Alexandria_), but it's an
absolutely superb book about geeks and the people who love
them. The emotional accuracy is stunning. I want it to come
out in paperback, and sow it among my friends, and certain
traumatized friends-of-friends.

I finally read _The Outskirter's Secret_. I know that some of
you have been waiting for sequels to _Steerswoman_ for years,
but I only discovered the first book this summer. I'm still
pretty impressed. Not *very* impressed. I think there's too
much abstract focus ... not just on the terraforming, but on
the civics and sociology. Much as I approve of Kirstein's
message, I wish she were a bit less obvious about it.
(I love this line. I'm not *quite* sure if it belongs on
anyone's tombstone. But I love it. "the cry of stars, the
sweet of light, the secret tang of numbers/When last I sang
she smiled, and I will sing again")