Fantasy and romance, gaming and girls

Since reading C.L. Wilson's Lord of the Fading Lands, I've been thinking about fantasy romance. In my teens I read fantasy with central romances, and lately I've read romances set in fantasy worlds. This year Fading Lands rocketed up the USA Today list; obviously it's a successful combination of genres.

I asked a male friend, an avid fantasy reader, whether he sees more romance--or more interesting female roles--in fantasy these days. His response took me down a path I'd never thought about:

If you want to know how fantasy is changing look at roleplaying games (RPG). Back when I started Dungeons & Dragons it was the stereotypical teenage dorks in a basement. We didn't know jack about relationships....

You could barter but you never really developed relationships. There literally weren't rules for how characters could have sex. You could roll a 6 and do some magic or a 2 and get killed but you couldn't have sex....

These days it's more realistic. A lot of those guys if they're still into it write their own games.... You can get rules for sex now but mostly teenage boys are into that.... I don't play the same way with my wife sitting there. Even if she wasn't there I know about real sex now so I wouldn't waste a good roll ripping off some character's clothes. I guess that makes me officially old.

(I'm not a gamer, so my edits may have introduced some nonsense. He's a detail guy, so I simplified greatly.)

D&D sex guides

A quick google confirms that there is now a rule book for including sexual elements in D&D:

The first chapter... provides an overview of various facets of sex such as humor, sexual orientation, fetishes, prostitution, pornography, commitment and infidelity, chastity, pregnancy....

New uses for existing skills include Appraising a potential partner, Bluffing to connect with someone, Knowledge about various topics, Perform (sexual techniques).... New feats include... Disarming Looks, Limber....

One female dungeon master has written a lengthy guidance on incorporating lust and full-fledged romance into Dungeons and Dragons:

The romance that has dominated so many of our fairy tales can come to life in a roleplaying game and it can expand roleplaying options exponentially. Characters in D&D can fall in love..., get married, have trysts and children. One of the ways that a DM defines their game is by deciding how much love and sex they'll allow....

There are very few references to sex in any of the new mainstream D&D books. There is an out of the way reference in the Forgotten Realms setting book (cassil root and narrowroot are herbs which can be used as birth control for limited periods of time.) There is some mention of prostitution in the Book of Vile Darkness. Every now and then mating habits and gestation are discussed in regard to the many different races and creatures....

She goes on to discuss the implications of race and class for divorce (the long-lived elves might not expect faithfulness over hundreds of years), the use of magic spells to enhance sex, and other topics.

Video: D&D fantasy romance

My googling also turned up several funny videos by Youtuber FearofGirls, depicting two RPG players' attempts to introduce romance into their game.

In Episode 1, we meet Elite Game Master Doug and his best friend Raymond (a.k.a. the barbarian Krunk). These two have long since abandoned the commercially available games to create their own. Doug says his games have "themes and subject matter [sex and gore] which, quite frankly, would simply be too strong for your hobbyist gamer". (Note that "hobbyist" is an epithet.)

Here's a short outtake of Doug and Raymond's attempts to add fantasy girls and fantasy sex to the game:



At the end of Episode 1, Doug and Raymond are intrigued with the idea of playing against real girls. In Episode 2 the girls arrive and the mayhem takes a new turn:



I like the blend of sincerity and mockery, and the way the budding-romance subplot shapes the game as the game shapes the romance. The romance, of course, turns out to be pure fantasy, but the final plot twists make some clever points. Dangerously Adorable Productions seem to know their subject awfully well ;)

All of Episode 1, and many more outtakes, are on the FearofGirls Youtube page.

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C.L. Wilson: Lord of the Fading Lands

• On Amazon
• Author's website
• Excerpt (PDF)

Erin Galloway of Dorchester Publishing was nice enough to send me an advance copy of Lord of the Fading Lands. I’m glad she did--Wilson has a gift for storytelling, and her prose is polished. I was disappointed by the book’s reliance on well-used tropes: the romance is straight out of Christine Feehan’s Carpathian playbook and the fantasy setting is more detailed than innovative. Nonetheless, for a debut novel it’s striking, and I’ll try another book sometime.

Rainier Tairen Soul, King of the Fey, is several thousand years old and a part-time fire-breathing giant winged cat. The last time he ventured out of the Fading Lands, he destroyed half a continent. Now a vision sends him back into the world, seeking a future for his people.

Ellysetta Baristani is the adopted daughter of a woodcarver in stodgy, pious, unmagical Celieria. Ellie appears to be simply a preternaturally nice mortal girl, but Rain recognizes her instantly as his other half. Women don't get to choose their marriages in this world, so it's up to Rain to convince the Celierian king to release Ellie from another man’s claim. Claiming Ellie and politicking distract Rain from investigating a nebulous conspiracy, but it appears that that conflict will happen in a later book.

Alpha and orphan

Ellie and Rain are familiar romance character types—so familiar that based on an excerpt, Laura Vivanco pegged the characters:

the hero was a type I’d read many times before. He’s the most powerful male in the world, he’s capable of violent rages, he has a very tortured past and he falls in love with an innocent, much younger woman. He’s so possessive he frightens her, and he reacts instantly to any threat (perceived or real) against her….

The heroine’s an orphan who’s something of an ugly duckling (perceived as ugly by her adoptive culture, coming into her own power), under threat and in need of rescue…

Wilson sometimes sacrifices character development for reinforcement of these standard traits. Instead of how Rain reacts to the world, we’re told what he wears; instead of who he is now, we get his powers, his tragic history, and generalizations about the Fey.

The built-up world

Wilson’s attention to detail is laudable, but sometimes less might be more. For example, an important courtroom scene includes a lengthy description¹ of Rain’s clothes. It doesn’t say anything new—we know he's handsome, wealthy, and powerful—so rather than the fashion report, I’d like to see the legal and political interludes developed farther. These scenes are crucial to illuminate inter-kingdom politics, and to explain the villains. (The evil Mages merit more discussion--thus far, they're simplistic villains for villainy's sake.)

Sci fi and fantasy author M John Harrison propounds a different approach to worldbuilding:

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding. […] Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there.

and

Substitute imagination for exhaustiveness, and inventiveness for research.

Harrison is often provocative, and here he stakes out an extreme view, but I agree to a large extent. Not every world must be built the same way, but in Fading Lands I wanted a better balance of emotional and political explication versus décor. The detailed description also slows down some key scenes, which may be one reason some readers find Fading Lands slow going.

Truemates, lifemates, fated love

In the Elloran world, fate and race determine much of the characters’ lives. Every Fey character is noble and gifted; every Celierian character is ordinary. This robs the diplomatic conflict of tension: the Celierians are too far outclassed by the Fey. Ellie’s special qualities are evidently due to her non-Celierian blood; even her father’s business success has a non-Celierian cause. The Celierian women come off particularly poorly. Their lives are dictated by fate, race, and whichever man claims them, and they’re not notably charming, admirable, intelligent, or honorable: they’re perfect pawns for the men of the story.

The lack of outstanding female characters, and the emphasis on fate, are also clear in the romance. Wilson says her “truemates” concept is not the same as Feehan’s “lifemates”. I see no essential difference between the two, though some readers disagree with me. Like Feehan’s Carpathians, Fey men are fearsome warriors, but each kill adds darkness to their souls, gradually deadening their emotions. Like the Carpathians, Fey women are gentle; Ellie fits right in, as her sweetness heals all wounds and even inspires a Fey bodyguard to pledge himself to her. (It’s a little much; not even Feehan’s women save the souls of men other than their mates.) Like Feehan's Carpathians, there's some lip service given to the importance of the woman making an emotional choice but the outcome is never in serious doubt.

Fading Lands also reminds me of Ann Maxwell (Elizabeth Lowell)’s Timeshadow Rider (1986), a space-fantasy romance about a made-for-each-other couple from an all-powerful race with an animalistic side. However, Maxwell’s book is explicitly about overcoming cultural conditioning and sets up a more clearly worked-out tension between fate and choice.

Wilson is a good storyteller, and I enjoyed Fading Lands, though I found it heavy on genre clichés. Many romance readers will enjoy the alpha male/sweet female relationship, but on the fantasy side the mythology and characterization seem rather standard and un-innovative. It didn't strike the sweet spot for me, but it was an engaging read.

Grade: B-
(I'd give it a C+ for carrying forward so many bad-old-days-of-fantasy conventions, but it's really no worse than average in that regard. Besides, it's a B+ for storytelling. Storytelling and voice mean a lot to me.)

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¹ From Chapter 6:

Tall, lean, and searingly handsome, Rainier vel’En Daris exuded the dark, dangerous beauty and mystery of the Fey race as he strode down the blue carpet. His black leather tunic and snug leggings seemed to absorb light, while his bristling collection of Fey blades were so highly polished that they reflected light back with almost blinding intensity. Black boots, tooled with scarlet and purple tairen, crossed the length of the throne room in smooth, ground-eating strides. A scarlet sash embroidered with taired worked in gold thread draped from his left shoulder to his right hip, just below one of the two crossed bands of Fey’cha daggers, while a chain made of fist-sized squares of gold, each set with large Tairen’s Eye crystals, hung from one shoulder to the other. A golden crown circled his head, each of its six points topped with a small globe of priceless Tairen’s Eye crystal. Even without the crown, no one who saw him could fail to recognize he was a King. He carried power as effortlessly as his broad shoulders carried the purple-lined black cape that billowed out behind him.

Tags: book, review, fantasy, romance, magic

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More Harry Potter follow-up

Maybe I was simply ahead of the trend with my list of books to read post-Harry Potter. I'm seeing more lists and recommendations on other sites.

I see a lot of people share my love of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series.

• The Dark is Rising
  
• Over Sea, Under Stone
  
• Greenwitch
  
• The Grey King
  
• Silver on the Tree

The other most common recommendation I see is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, described as: "Another smart British orphan, this one named Lyra Belacqua, living outside Oxford University in a world unlike our own. Better-written and sadder than Potter... well-suited for older adolescents and adults."

• Box set of all three
  
• The Golden Compass (the film is due out Dec '07)
  
• The Subtle Knife
  
• The Amber Spyglass

The St. Joseph County Public Library, the Boston Public Library, and the Los Angeles Library have excellent lists.

The American Library Association has a wonderful, long list of high-quality books.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer's list includes:

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.
"Nathaniel, a 12-year-old London boy in wizard training... a sarcastic, 5,000-year-old jinni and a worthy rival in a commoner named Kitty."

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.
"Funnier and lighter than the Potter books, and centers on a 12-year-old criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl, who tangles with some un-Disney-like underground fairies."

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
"Slower but more profound than the Potter series."

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.
"Gripping adult fare."

Tags: fiction, fantasy, harry potter

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Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere

• On Amazon
• Author's site

(Seeing Ratatouille reminded me to post this. Sentient rats, sewers, losing one's home....)

Neverwhere is an imaginative tale of an innocent who stumbles into a magical world. The story is fun and full of interesting allusions, but a little insubstantial. I enjoyed the idea of an invisible world around us, but wished the theme were better developed.

Richard Mayhew is a nondescript Londoner who one day performs an act of kindness: he stops to help an injured girl. The girl is the Lady Door, and by helping her Richard is sucked into the world of London Below. Unable to return home, Richard has little choice but to join Door's motley entourage.

Richard's new companions are legends of London Below, knowledgeable, cynical, and each pursuing a private agenda. Mopey, helpless Richard seems an unlikely addition to the group. Will his stodgy nice-guyness get him killed?

The innocent who stumbles into a magical world is an old theme (Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland). The freshness of Neverwhere is that the magical world is part of the "real" world, usually unseen but ever present. London Below is the sewers, tunnels, crawlspaces, and Tube stations of London. It's a gritty shadow city in which legends are real and villains are vile. But its roots in the familiar are what create that frisson the next time you step over a sewer grate.

Points for style

Neverwhere is full of allusions to urban legend, Arthurian and Greek legend, fairytales, horror classics....

The saxophonist at Bank Station is Lear; the marquis trades him a reel written by Merlin's master Blaise (see Malory's Morte d'Arthur).

The Great Beast of London is confronted in a very Arthurian hunting scene; the pure of heart triumphs where the mighty but corrupt fails. (The fabled New York sewer alligators get a mention too.)

At the British Museum, a guard calls the gala the Masque of the Red Dress. The Masque of the Red Death is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, in which the élite party while the populace die in agony.

I enjoyed the references, but many of them felt like superficial flourishes. They weren’t intrinsic to the story, didn’t create a deeper story under the surface. Not every book has to be a thickly-layered Satanic Verses, but in Neverwhere sometimes the number of allusions seems to get in the way of a deeper story-building.

The Cat Who...

One of the clearest allusions is the marquis de Carabas, named for the character in Puss in Boots (popularized around 1700 by Perrault's Mother Goose). In the fairytale, Puss helps a poor young man pretend to be a marquis to woo a princess. Laura Vivanco points out that the cat is often a self-serving figure and sometimes even a female who walks off with the marquis at the end. I do recall a version in which the cat has an ulterior motive—-or perhaps it’s distrusted for being such a good schemer. And in the older form of the story, the cat is willing to kill for its goals; it's no benign fluffball.

In Neverwhere the marquis is a fixer, a knowledge broker, an arranger. He helps the princess at a price, making abundantly clear that he has his own agenda. He isn’t quite a power behind the throne or éminence grise, but one can imagine him in such a role.

Puss is an interesting fairytale. Benign on the surface, but a number of elements could have a very different twist, depending on the character and gender of the cat. Similarly in Neverwhere, the marquis drives the story to a large degree. He's an extremely shifty character, but he's central to the hopes of everyone in the story.

A Tube runs through it

The other allusions that work especially well are about London geography. As Richard lives in London Above, he realizes that the straightforward London of the Tube maps is a fiction; all kinds of twists and details are omitted by the simple point-A-to-B diagrams. As he gets to know London Below, the Tube itself becomes more real to him, full of history and people and meaning.

Our hero?

Richard comes into his own gradually. He starts off a passive observer, in both London Above and London Below. After he falls down the rabbit hole, he asks few questions. When he does ask, it's generally about immediate logistics, not larger questions. He doesn't even articulate a wish to go home; he retreats into a fog. But near the halfway point,

Somewhere inside Richard a small, reasonable voice pointed out that… most of his experiences of the last few days had been impossible. Richard ignored it. He was learning, awkwardly, to trust his instincts…. He opened his mouth and tasted the wine once more…. It made him think of skies bigger and bluer than any he had ever seen... everything simpler, everything younger than the world he knew.

Shortly afterward, he must choose to stay alive and to believe in the London Below that he's experiencing.

Law of the jungle

London Below is indeed a more raw, perhaps simpler life than Richard knew; very different from the wishy-washy life he’d led Above. People in London Below unabashedly pursue their own ends, and some are by nature dangerous to others (e.g. Richard's encounter with the sexy, deadly Lamia).

Visuals

In 1999, Gaiman gave Lucy Snyder his fantasy cast for Neverwhere:

If I could cast it with all dead actors, I'd have Peter Sellers playing... an awful lot of the parts!... You could get the young Brigitte Bardot playing Door, and Alec Guiness playing anybody Peter Sellers isn't. The young Alec Guiness, not an Obi-Wan Kenobi. And maybe Louise Brooks playing Hunter. Or anything, really, I don't mind what Louise Brooks plays; if all she wanted to do was hang around the set and make tea, I'd be there!

Neverwhere was Gaiman’s first novel, and it came from a TV series, so I’d like to read his later books and see what his style has become. American Gods is on my pile, and I may try Stardust since the movie’s due out.

Grade: B+

Tags: books, reviews, fantasy, scifi, fiction, gaiman, neverwhere, stardust, london

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Harry Potter not a reading hero? gasp!

The NY Times says Harry Potter can't save the world singlehanded: reading for fun

continues to drop significantly as children get older.... One Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading.

This goes back to adults not reading. Great books aren't enough; studies show that if adults don't read, kids don't read.

"Unless there's... an enthusiastic adult saying, 'Here's the next one' — it's not going to happen," said Nancie Atwell, the author of The Reading Zone.

After Harry Potter

All is not lost. 3/4 of Harry Potter readers are "interested in reading other books":

Fifth grade boys shouted with enthusiasm for the "Cirque du Freak" series, about a boy who becomes entangled with a vampire.

Parents? Teachers? These young adult and children's books might tempt a Harry Potter reader. You'd enjoy them too--my parents did.

Mary Stewart
- A Walk in Wolf Wood
Two children go back in time to rescue a friendly werewolf.
- The Little Broomstick
A girl and a cat join a school for young magicians.

Susan Cooper
- The Dark Is Rising series
Great characters, good/evil, coming of age/into power, and Arthurian legend tie-in. A film version of The Dark is Rising is due out in October.

Alan Garner
- The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Wonderful myth-based children's story

Gerald Durrell
- The Talking Parcel
Children and a parrot try to save the magical land of Mythologia from marauding Cockatrices.
- My Family and Other Animals
His animal/travel books are wonderful.

L Frank Baum
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Lucy Boston
- the Green Knowe books

Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Everyone knows The Secret Garden
- What about The Lost Prince

Roald Dahl
- James and the Giant Peach

Madeleine L'Engle
- A Wrinkle in Time series

Andre Maurois
- Fattypuffs and Thinifers
A magical land divided between two countries that don't get along.

Norton Juster
- The Phantom Tollbooth
A pun-filled book about a war between words and numbers.

Robin McKinley
- Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
- The Blue Sword

Jane Yolen
- Wizard's Hall
One of JK Rowling's influences

Beverly Nichols
- The Stream That Stood Still

For younger kids:

JP Martin
- Uncle
Sheer silliness. An elephant who lives in a castle.

Tove Jansson
- the Moomin books

James Howe
- Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery

For teens:

Salman Rushdie
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories
A screwed-up fairytale

Ann Maxwell
- Fire Dancer series
- Timeshadow Rider

TH White
- The Sword in the Stone

Mark Twain
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Fictionalized mythologies:

Roger Lancelyn Green
- Robin Hood
- King Arthur
- Tales of the Greek Heroes
- Tales of Ancient Egypt
- The Tale of Troy

Unfortunately, I bet my list doesn't address this:

Neema Avashia... said it was rare for the Harry Potter series to draw reluctant readers to books.... "Harry Potter isn’t really where my kids are coming from." She noted that her class is 85 percent nonwhite....

Tags: books, reading, children, young adult, fantasy, magic, harry potter, recommendations

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Paula Guran: Best New Paranormal Romance

• On Amazon
• Editor's website

While some of these stories are excellent, none of them resembles what I've previously read as "paranormal romance". Some are romantic; very few are paranormal. I'd call the collection a cross-section of supernatural and straight-up sci fi/fantasy, generally involving significant romantic relationships. I'll review the stories first, then talk about the collection as a whole and Guran's definition of paranormal romance.

[Update: Guran's new anthology is called Best New Romantic Fantasy 2, a much better title if it's like this collection.]

---

The stories

In many of these stories, a crucial part is the reader's unfolding understanding of the magical element. I'll try not to "spoil" that.

Follow Me Light by Elizabeth Bear
Alternately arid and gripping, in part because the story's time moves at varying speeds. At a couple of points Pinky comes into crisp focus with strong physical description; near the end the narrator does too.
Grade: B+

A Maze of Trees by Claudia O'Keefe
A strangely lovely story, full of longing and loneliness and sense of place. An excellent grounding in the physical world sets up a connection between the inner/outer realities that's essential to the story.
Grade: A-

The Shadowed Heart by Catherine Asaro
Straight-up space sci fi, of the dated variety. The characters are drawn in very archetypal male/female constructs: he large, half-machine, a warrior, isolated; she small, frail, a teacher, self-sacrificing, with a loving family.
Grade: C-

Walpurgis Afternoon by Delia Sherman
A drawing-room piece portraying magic as a charming addition to suburban life. Apparently magical people are attractive, nonjudgmental, well to do, content, and desirable neighbors. Not remotely a romance. Geoff and Burney seem to exist solely to express disapproval of (a) lesbianism and (b) magic. One such character in a short story gets the message across; two is the author clubbing me on the head.
Grade: C+

A Knot of Toads by Jane Yolen
Delightfully neo-Gothic. Yolen has a light, deft hand for a hair-raising tale. The 1930s setting adds atmosphere without making the story feel remote.
Grade: A-

Calypso in Berlin by Elizabeth Hand
Hand reaches back to the Odysseus story to evoke the cruel side of love and eternity. The most densely layered story in the collection, Calypso asks what we really love: the lover, or who we are with that person. Mordantly provocative.
Grade: B+

A Hero's Welcome by Rebecca York
Ultra-old-school sci fi. Again, archetypal characters, though better developed than in Shadowed Heart. Technically solid writing, but full of predictable tropes and not a particularly memorable voice.
Grade: C

Single White Farmhouse by Heather Shaw
More charm than plot. I enjoyed the Baba Yaga imagery and the overall concept, but that isn't enough to carry the story; it goes stale before the end. Like Walpurgis, a male secondary character serves as a disapproving Greek chorus over lesbianism and sex.
Grade: C+

Magic in a Certain Slant of Light by Deborah Coates
A well crafted story, just the right length for what it wants to tell. Nora's life is creeping toward predictability, psychically, emotionally, and professionally. Her regaining the magic is a straightforward story but with nice layerings of symbol and meaning.
Grade: B+

Fir Na Tine by Sandra McDonald
Men who burn, and the women who douse them? Something seems a little off in the premise. At its best, this should be a story of longing for the fire but being unable to survive it. But there are too many episodes that don't develop the story; it runs out of gas.
Grade: C+

A Treatise on Fewmets by Sarah Prineas
The only story in the collection that I think needs some attention to basic writing craft. Slightly clumsy prose and characterization. However, quirkiness saves Fewmets to some extent.
Grade: C-

The Hard Stuff by John Grant
Good writing, in an interestingly individual voice. I enjoyed the descriptions, from quotidian details to Fairyland experiences. The cultural setup is angry and exaggerated, but it mostly hangs together as part of the narrator's character and experiences. I was surprised by the almost grafted-on second ending. It's an interesting choice, to end a nebulous chain of events with such certainty.
Grade: B

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The collection

I enjoyed the atmospheres conjured up by A Maze of Trees by Claudia O'Keefe and A Knot of Toads by Jane Yolen. Some of the other stories didn't seem very fresh or "new" to me. The two space stories in particular were so full of old-school sci fi tropes that I can't imagine why they were included as new, paranormal, or romance.

The writing is consistently high-quality, though a couple of the stories are insubstantial and fizzle after a few pages. Several stories have a strong theme of accepting difference. Magic, myth, and love are varyingly portrayed as a sweet part of everyday life, and as a more chilling power.

Some are love stories, but some aren't even vaguely romantic; I wonder whether simply including so-called feminine concerns (matings, weddings) justified their inclusion. Among the romances, in some the couple end up together; in some the resolution is loving but not necessarily "happily ever after". I appreciated the variety, but many genre romance readers would be taken aback. Similarly, a few stories involve the paranormal in some form, but others seem questionable. Much as Guran tries to define paranormal romance to include her odd selections, the collection really is misnamed.

In another strange editorial decision, two stories had very similar secondary characters: mature men who express nearly-identical views on lesbians. The scenes are remarkably similar. Is this de rigeur in tales of alternate matings? Is this man a stock character expressing societal disapproval? The purely emblematic nature of that character is especially clear in Walpurgis Afternoon, so I wasn't impressed to run across it again four stories later in Single White Farmhouse.

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Defining paranormal romance

Paula Guran is the editor of fantasy imprint Juno Books and the Dark Echo horror blog, and not a fan of romance. Her introductory essay tries to redefine both "romance" and "paranormal". It's not an easy task (several authors attempted it on DearAuthor a few months ago). I'm more comfortable with Guran's definition of "romance" than her expansive take on "paranormal".

Guran sets out to explore both the "happily ever after" variety of genre romance and a realm of romance that doesn't guarantee the "HEA". I applaud the idea, but the execution is lacking. In particular, while I'm not a staunch defender of the HEA, it can work beautifully when done well. Unfortunately, the stories with the strongest HEAs are the weakest in the volume, laden with old-school conventions from past generations of both sci-fi and romance. I have to wonder whether Guran is trying to show weaknesses in the "happily ever after" convention, or whether she's not up to date on what is considered romance these days. In the book's introduction, Guran says she's "tried a few, but other than Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Mary Stewart, and the romantic (but not Romance) novels of Daphne du Maurier... I don't recall reading much I liked." I think that statement explains some of the collection's weakness. (She also says "LKH wrote great sex scenes." Coming from sf/f/h, I can see why she'd think so. And I don't entirely disagree... or didn't the first time I read them. But again, does she know the modern romances?)

My larger issue with the collection is on the paranormal side. Guran opens up "paranormal" to include

the supernatural--magic, the occult, ghosts, shapechangers like werewolves, psychic powers, superhuman abilities, travel through time, fantastic or legendary creatures (vampires, fairies, gods and goddesses, angels, demons, and the like), a fantasy world or alternative-Earth or -reality setting, relationships that continue to exist over eras and eons, etc.--or have a futuristic or science-fictional element.

In short, any story not set in current reality. In my view, that definition is much broader than what's commonly understood to be paranormal fiction. Including sci fi and fantasy on that list is the largest problem; those are well-established as separate genres. It's a pity, because there are many sf/f collections out there; a "best of" for true paranormal fiction would be a unique contribution.

Guran's intro and her blog list Laurell K Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, Charlaine Harris, Christine Feehan, and Sherrilyn Kenyon as exemplars of paranormal romance--both HEA and other romance. I agree; those are among the names that have shaped the genre. I also really like how Guran characterizes these authors: as "fantasy adventure stories for women", in the style of Robert E Howard's Conan the Barbarian, with "romance as part of life's adventure". However, those authors have little in common with the stories selected for Best New Paranormal Romance. (On the other hand, I appreciate her inclusion of the Elizabeth Bear and Claudia O'Keefe stories: those are out of the ordinary but still distinctly paranormals.)

Guran quotes Kim Wilkins' article The Process of Genre: Authors, Reader, Institutions (2005), which says that "genres are formed in relation to reader reception and expectation" rather than by publishers' definitions. Supporting this, Guran points out that the public uses the term "paranormal romance" in a broader sense than do genre publishers. However, in this collection Guran--as a genre editor--redefines paranormal romance in a way that I don't think would be recognized by most readers of Hamilton, Davidson, Harris, and the rest. My feeling is that Guran has recycled a number of sci fi and fantasy ideas under a different name. As some of the DearAuthor commenters said, it could be a misguided grab to get the romance market reading sf/f. But my sense is more that Guran truly believes that this is a reasonable fit. I disagree.

Grade: The quality varied enormously, so I'll average it. B.
The book at Juno: www.juno-books.com/paranormal.html

Tags: books, reviews, romance, horror, paranormal, fantasy, sci fi, witch, myth, legend, nymph, psychic, love

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Lilith Saintcrow: Dead Man Rising

• On Amazon
• Author's website

Dead Man Rising is tantalizing. So much is good... and could have been much better.

Caveat lector: I ordered Book 1, Working for the Devil. What arrived was Book 2, Dead Man Rising. I dove in anyway, curious to see whether Book 2 could stand alone.

Necromancer Dante Valentine is reeling from the death of her demon lover, Japhrimel. She copes by focusing on her bounty hunting business. You'd think that would do the trick--she lives and works with an ex, Jace, who's gorgeous, powerful, well connected, and give-it-all-up-for-love crazy about her. She's also working with the police to stop a psychic murderer, a hunt that forces her to confront childhood traumas and reconnect with fellow sufferers.

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Unfortunately even derring-do, evil in the flesh, and unconditional lurve don't distract Dante from her mourning. Quite the opposite: her mournful stream-of-consciousness intrudes on every scene. Her state of distraction conveys her sadness; she's literally distrait, distracted by loss. It's understandable, but does the story no favors: a disconnected narrator can make for a frustrating, even boring narrative. I kept flipping forward (How long is this monologue?) and looking for excuses (Maybe this is supposed to represent Japhrimel haunting her?) While some of it may be Japhrimel, the repetitive, interruptive monologue makes for long, static scenes.

The book opens with a combination of action scene and backstory through internal monologue. The action writing is great, but Dante's thoughts wander at such length that time seems to expand and contract like a scene from The Matrix. Dante stalks a killer... oh, Japhrimel... the place could blow up at any moment... this reminds me of Tijuana.... Her drifting breaks the action and makes it hard to believe she survives as a bounty hunter. Maybe she wasn't so dissociated in Book 1; maybe it's only since Japhrimel's death that she's drifty. But it's too much.

The action scenes are also bogged down by random punctuation. I had to backtrack and untangle far too many sentences.

So, does Book 2 stand alone? Not really.

It's not for lack of backstory. It's a complex and well-crafted world. Saintcrow fills us in with a variety of clever devices (in addition to all the monologue!), including a pamphlet by a necromancy academy. The problem is an underdeveloped cast of characters. Dead Man Rising is so much inside Dante's head that I never got to know the men in her life. I hope Book 1 developed the other characters more, but here the effect was rather one-dimensional.

Dante herself is surprisingly underdeveloped as a real character. The premise is promising: Dante Valentine, badass heroine with issues. Unfortunately, Dante is also... perfect. She "has the face of a holovid model" (she tells us constantly). Her golden skin and black claw/nail polish come up even more often. She makes powerful allies wherever she goes. She's half-demon, so she's nearly indestructible (she tells us over and over). She can kick any ass, including her sensei's. You get the picture. She's plenty vulnerable on an emotional level, but that only increases the sense of narcissism: everything is about Dante.

The ex-lover/live-in partner, Jace, is confusingly written. Over and over, Dante tells us that Jace walked away from ruling a Mob Family, all for her. He's also a hitman. All the signs point to "tough guy", but the Jace we see is a bit of a sad sack. Dante reflects (all too often) that Jace is human (weak), aging (while she isn't), tired (humans need sleep but she doesn't), too nice to push her. He arranges meetings for Dante, digs holes, sleeps next to her without nooky. Despite his history with Dante, he plays only a bit part. I'm always afraid I know what happens to the bit-players.

I'm sure the books hang together better if they're read in order. Regardless, as a stand-alone this book feels like it skims the surface of something that could be more substantial. As part of a series, it feels like a "treading water" middle book: there's a self-contained plot, but no movement in the overarching relationships until the last 20 pages. Nice setup for a next book, but a bit flimsy for this book.

There was a lot of good writing in Dead Man Rising, but ultimately it frustrated me more than it engaged me.

Grade: C+

Tags: books, reviews, fantasy, paranormal, psychic, urban, fiction, sci fi

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Robert Rankin: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

• On Amazon
• Author's fan club

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse is as weird as it sounds. Gumshoe detective novel meets Alice in Wonderland meets Noddy in Toyland.

A boy named Jack heads to Toy City to make his fortune, but finds the city a madhouse of nursery rhyme characters and live toys. Jack helps cuddly teddy P.I. Eddie Bear with a noir-ish investigation into the murder of Humpty Dumpty (tragically boiled alive in his pool).

Other pillars of the Toy community may also be in danger; Jack and Eddie must find the killer before he finds them. Their quest leads to a number of shocking discoveries about the Toys' high society and the nature of Toy existence. Jack also eats some of the evidence, has his first sexual experience at Mother Goose's brothel, and uncovers a conspiracy against the Creator.

I enjoyed the incongruity of an adult (sometimes very adult) story set in a land of toys. For example, Rankin reveals a striking piece of gossip about Jack Spratt (who could eat no fat while his wife could eat no lean). Turns out the Spratts divorced because he ate no fat, i.e. he refused to go down on her. Now that's good goss. Jack Spratt, a selfish lover.

Rankin is often compared to Jasper Fforde and Douglas Adams. I see the Amazon reviews are sharply divided between "Hi-larious!" and "Not so much". From the reviews, I was afraid it would be trying-too-hard silliness, but the title was good enough to reel me in. The upshot was, I found Hollow Chocolate Bunnies fast paced and fun. Each time I tired of a plot point or an extended toy joke, the story took a new twist. If the book had been longer, or hadn't moved as quickly, I imagine it could begin to grate. I'm not sure I'll look for the sequel, but I certainly enjoyed the ride.

Grade: B+

Tags: books, reviews, humor, comedy, satire, fantasy, scifi, toys, magic, mystery, detective

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