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A review by friendlymilk
The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth by Sarah Monette
4.0
These are the type of stories which, if I had liked the main character less, I would have found terribly boring. But poor socially awkward Booth is at least as intriguing, in himself, as the mysteries into which he's flung. He is subjected to various supernatural phenomena but requires a stronger, more forceful companion (even if that companion happens to be a dead friend appearing to him in a dream) to get him to do anything.
He's no Harry Dresden.
(Best line? "This is no time to be reasonable." Oh, go read it for yourself--it's much better in context.)
Anyway, this next might be a spoiler or something so I'm hiding it:
"Elegy for a Demon Lover" is heartbreaking. I love how the incubus is written. Generally succubi and incubi are portrayed as sexually attractive to an overwhelming degree. But Booth...that would have felt out of place in Booth. He presents as extremely asexual in the other stories, but that is more due to his crippling fear of people in general. He's incapable of holding a conversation with another human being, flinches from any sort of touch (or is it only when women touch him? Hmmm), and is generally a neurotic mess. He's capable of sexuality, but it's buried under everything else.
So how does the incubus steal his heart?
It listens to him with total concentration. It never judges him. It loves him wholeheartedly. Every time Booth expected to be laughed at, or belittled, or cut off impatiently...it did not happen. And that is what makes me want to give Booth a hug (except I know he wouldn't like it at all)--he is so fragile and hungry for positive human contact that this was all an incubus needed to snare him.
The story was painful for me to read, because I couldn't figure out how he would escape the incubus' grasp. I kept waiting for some rescuer to appear, because it seemed impossible that he would be capable of tearing himself away from the only being to love him since his parents died.
Is anyone else reminded slightly of Watanuki?
He's no Harry Dresden.
(Best line? "This is no time to be reasonable." Oh, go read it for yourself--it's much better in context.)
Anyway, this next might be a spoiler or something so I'm hiding it:
So how does the incubus steal his heart?
It listens to him with total concentration. It never judges him. It loves him wholeheartedly. Every time Booth expected to be laughed at, or belittled, or cut off impatiently...it did not happen. And that is what makes me want to give Booth a hug (except I know he wouldn't like it at all)--he is so fragile and hungry for positive human contact that this was all an incubus needed to snare him.
The story was painful for me to read, because I couldn't figure out how he would escape the incubus' grasp. I kept waiting for some rescuer to appear, because it seemed impossible that he would be capable of tearing himself away from the only being to love him since his parents died.
Is anyone else reminded slightly of Watanuki?