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standback's review
Shadow-Below caught me right from the start; Shadow's character, the tension with Mara, and the survival skills angle really sucked me right in. It bothered me, though, that so much was going on that I didn't understand - I'm sure a lot of the elements are made perfectly clear in some of the other stories in this world, but this felt like it didn't serve as a good introduction to the series. Still, it felt like reading an excerpt from a good novel - fundamentally incomplete, but still exciting and enjoyable.
That Hell-Bound Train was a great reprint. Solid deal-with-the-devil plot, great narrating voice, and the pacing was perfect - illustrating just what it wanted to, substantially enough to get the point across, and not so slowly that we get tired of an idea that many of us have probably read before. And then the ending - well, I saw it coming a page or two in advance, but this was such a great, natural ending, it didn't even suffer from being guessed at. It was just so right. Which really makes Tenn's comments about having changed the ending quite amazing - without this ending, I don't think I'd have enjoyed the story nearly so much. (As with last issue, yay for editorial essays! I enjoyed.)
Quickstone seemed like it was meant as a light, straightforward fantasy adventure. I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it much, for a variety of reasons. The protagonist is almost entirely passive through the story, and even though he seems to be portrayed with the flamboyant, dashing bard stereotype in mind, he shows very little character or energy beyond his history regarding the gargoyle hand - and on this, he gives us very little information. Another thing that bothered me was the sense that the author clearly has gargoyles as a major element of his fantasy setting - they're crafted from quickstone, they seem to be all over the place in tribes, they can curse people, etc., etc.... But this is all told, never shown. I didn't get the feeling of an interesting fantasy setting - just the statement that gargoyles are somehow extremely important. Compare, on the other hand, to Chappell's "Shadow of the Valley" the previous month - also a light adventure giving an unusual twist to standard fantasy tropes - and, well, "Quickstone" doesn't compare too favorably, IMHO.
The Curandero and the Swede - Wow. The last two pages here blew me away. The fantastic Americana that made up most of the story was nice, certainly engrossing, but I didn't feel like it was anything spectacular. But then, those last two pages... "Actually, that's a pretty good story..." When Dab says we haven't understood anything, I felt like he was punching me in the gut. I don't remember feeling inside the story that since about forever. Wow, did I say?
The Unstrung Zither, on the other hand, I found terribly unsettling. I liked the style. I loved the characters. I liked the strange use of the elements, and of music, and of gliders and dragons and many other things. And yet--
And yet the story itself, at its core, goes something like this: A musician decides that the war her empire is waging is one she disapproves of. So she kills one of the generals. Am I the only one who finds this sequence deeply disturbing?
She doesn't argue. She doesn't protest. She doesn't try to thwart his plans. She doesn't try to kill anybody who is more directly responsible for the war, nor to approach anybody who has the remotest chance of stopping it. She just, y'know, kills the general. Is this supposed to do anybody any good? Doesn't seem like it. Does he deserve to die? Not more than anybody else involved in the war, as far as I could tell. So why does she do it? Why is "Ding, dong, the general's dead" supposed to be perceived in any way as a happy ending?
I may be way off the mark here. Possibly the approval I sense in the story towards Ling Yun's choice is purely my own imagination. Or, possibly I've missed something that makes clear why the Pheonix General was really horrible enough to deserve death, or why killing him would accomplish anything. But I've read the story and reread it, and this is still the impression I've got: that this is presented as a righteous murder, and yet the story fails to give any decent explanation what is actually righteous about the murder, excepting perhaps "well, he's a general, and she's a musician."
I really would be happy to hear others' thoughts about this issue. If I knew this were bothering others too, that'd certainly be a relief; if not, I'm sure others can explain why it shouldn't be bothering me.
That Hell-Bound Train was a great reprint. Solid deal-with-the-devil plot, great narrating voice, and the pacing was perfect - illustrating just what it wanted to, substantially enough to get the point across, and not so slowly that we get tired of an idea that many of us have probably read before. And then the ending - well, I saw it coming a page or two in advance, but this was such a great, natural ending, it didn't even suffer from being guessed at. It was just so right. Which really makes Tenn's comments about having changed the ending quite amazing - without this ending, I don't think I'd have enjoyed the story nearly so much. (As with last issue, yay for editorial essays! I enjoyed.)
Quickstone seemed like it was meant as a light, straightforward fantasy adventure. I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it much, for a variety of reasons. The protagonist is almost entirely passive through the story, and even though he seems to be portrayed with the flamboyant, dashing bard stereotype in mind, he shows very little character or energy beyond his history regarding the gargoyle hand - and on this, he gives us very little information. Another thing that bothered me was the sense that the author clearly has gargoyles as a major element of his fantasy setting - they're crafted from quickstone, they seem to be all over the place in tribes, they can curse people, etc., etc.... But this is all told, never shown. I didn't get the feeling of an interesting fantasy setting - just the statement that gargoyles are somehow extremely important. Compare, on the other hand, to Chappell's "Shadow of the Valley" the previous month - also a light adventure giving an unusual twist to standard fantasy tropes - and, well, "Quickstone" doesn't compare too favorably, IMHO.
The Curandero and the Swede - Wow. The last two pages here blew me away. The fantastic Americana that made up most of the story was nice, certainly engrossing, but I didn't feel like it was anything spectacular. But then, those last two pages... "Actually, that's a pretty good story..." When Dab says we haven't understood anything, I felt like he was punching me in the gut. I don't remember feeling inside the story that since about forever. Wow, did I say?
The Unstrung Zither, on the other hand, I found terribly unsettling. I liked the style. I loved the characters. I liked the strange use of the elements, and of music, and of gliders and dragons and many other things. And yet--
She doesn't argue. She doesn't protest. She doesn't try to thwart his plans. She doesn't try to kill anybody who is more directly responsible for the war, nor to approach anybody who has the remotest chance of stopping it. She just, y'know, kills the general. Is this supposed to do anybody any good? Doesn't seem like it. Does he deserve to die? Not more than anybody else involved in the war, as far as I could tell. So why does she do it? Why is "Ding, dong, the general's dead" supposed to be perceived in any way as a happy ending?
I may be way off the mark here. Possibly the approval I sense in the story towards Ling Yun's choice is purely my own imagination. Or, possibly I've missed something that makes clear why the Pheonix General was really horrible enough to deserve death, or why killing him would accomplish anything. But I've read the story and reread it, and this is still the impression I've got: that this is presented as a righteous murder, and yet the story fails to give any decent explanation what is actually righteous about the murder, excepting perhaps "well, he's a general, and she's a musician."
I really would be happy to hear others' thoughts about this issue. If I knew this were bothering others too, that'd certainly be a relief; if not, I'm sure others can explain why it shouldn't be bothering me.
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