Jay LakeReseñas

I’m unsure how I feel about this novel, which can easily be called an epic fantasy. The plot includes slavery, abduction, and mystical holy wars. Green is a girl whose path in life changes when her father sells her, but by the end of the book, the reader and the character have reason to question her destiny often.

Mostly, I found the writing and story absorbing even though I don’t favour first person storytelling, but in parts I found the narrative lagged because of meticulous description, which includes all the training Green goes through. This made the book feel overly long despite much of the training being interesting. When we learn of the planned life path various people have for Green, there’s good reason to feel increasingly sorry for her. None of her choices appear to be wonderful, none of them simple. The sexual content never feels entirely natural or necessary, though perhaps realistic and handled well for those whose companionship is restricted. The details become somewhat vague when dealing with the various deities.

I sometimes found Green’s character vs her age hard to believe despite her training, but it’s nice to see a young lead treated with the same respect an adult character would receive. For so long, the ‘rule’ has been a child lead marks a book for a young audience. That’s plainly not the case here, couldn’t be, and even though Green is in infancy when taken, we are privileged to her inner thoughts as she’s moulded into what others would make of her, while she battles to keep a sense of self. Strongly character driven, wonderful in parts, weaker in others, I’m pleased to have read this, but feel disinclined to read the rest of the trilogy, although Green makes for an interesting and capable female lead.

Had a lot of promise, but never really delivered.

Much to my surprise, this series continues to be enjoyable. I believe I will be picking up the 3rd book soon.
[Audiobook bonus: all the readers were Star Trek actors. No one ever explained how this came about. But it was just a nice lagniappe.)

Aaaaand I'm done with the series. This volume had little that was new or thought-provoking.

This is unprecedented in recent history. I devoured this book in three nights of reading. Granted, there aren't that many pages. I enjoyed the heck out of them all.

In Rocket Science, Jay Lake has populated a small post-WWII Kansas town with likable folks, Nazi agents, Communist spies, traitors, mobsters, military police, and a flying machine that's not of this Earth. He blends them together in a tale that is a page turner from start to finish, with the biggest surprises at the end.

The writing is first rate, with enough description to make the characters and setting pop to life in the minds-eye. And not too much to get in the way of the action. But it was not without fault. Some of the surprises are easy to see coming, though they are still a little surprising as you see them set up. The narrators inner monologue got a bit repetitive. And there are occasional bloopers (within pages of each other, characters are pulled up "by main force"). But it's all good.

1 Book three in a series, none of which I'd read before this one

2 Steampunk

3 Fantasy

4 Romance

I gotta say, if I'd known it was all that before I got it, I probably wouldn't have bought it. But in spite of all that I did really enjoy it. Heck, I might even read the first book or two....

The fantasy steampunk thing really doesn't work for me. I can accept ice breathing dragons a lot quicker than steam powered submarines capable of 30 knots for days at a time (yeah, I'm weird that way) but never ever knowing where the heck the plot was leading kept me almost engrossed enough not to care. My only real complaint was the the large number of characters and sub plots made it long winded without spending enough time with the characters I liked.

If any or all of points one thru four sound appealing, you'll likely really enjoy this. Or maybe you'll like it in spite of them. Either way, probably worth your time.

This is Jay's last short story collection. I was never a rabid fan of Jay's writing -- I mean, I'd read his Green series and enjoyed it, but it wasn't something I'd ever freak out about. But I stumbled across his blog not long after I'd read Green and followed along since he seemed like a nice guy. And then his cancer came back. And then MY mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. And I watched him write about and struggle with his decline and defiantly rage against the dying of the light for the sake of his daughter and it broke my heart. This is his last collection of short stories. It feels like his last will and testament for me, and that by reading it, he's really gone, and I'm not quite willing to accept that. Watching him deal with his cancer helped me help my mother deal with hers...even though she won the genetic lottery he lost. It feels terribly unfair sometimes.

I enjoyed this, though maybe not so much as the first book. It seemed as though Green just sort of wandered from one thing to the next for about three quarters of the book, and then everything sort of fell into place. Still enjoy the world and Green's resistance/reaction to it, but the story was a bit weaker for me here.

Surprisingly, given the nature of a number of the reviews I've seen for this book, I really enjoyed it.

Let me rephrase. I opened it up briefly to peek at it and see what the writing was like, and ended up carting the book up and down the stairs with me while I got ready for work, reading over breakfast, reading the moment I got home, and reading well past my bedtime to find out what happened. I loved this book.

I think the author did very well communicating the depths of Green's lack of understanding about the world around her; I think he did well following her journey to understanding about her own nature; I think the journey itself had mythic qualities that not only follow the quintessential hero's journey, but the tales of folklore.

I also loved the writing style. For some reason, I found it almost lyrical and meditative.

Not what I expected, at several turns. I kept expecting it to go one way, but it went another and I enjoyed it less for it. The premise was good, but I feel like it left that behind after the first 100 pages. Also, the sex/masochism aspects felt either tacked on carelessly or edited so thoroughly that they lost all meaning to the character.
After the first few chapters, I couldn't wait to find out what was happening and get the next book. After finishing this, I'll give any further books a pass. Sad, because I really could have liked this character and this world.

I was an online friend of Jay Lake's although I never managed to read any of his books while he was alive. I picked this one up not too long ago and discovered to my sadness that his hard SF and writing style just aren't my thing.

There were a few stories that I just skipped. Most were interesting but not interesting enough for me to seek out other books of his.

Some stories were triggering for me. Jay died of colon cancer. Both my parents died of cancer. I have MS and have had one cancer scare. Just knowing Jay wrote some of these after he knew he had cancer made them hard to read. The last entry in the book is about his relationship to his cancer. I had a hard time with that one.

My favorite stories were "Her Fngers Like Whips, Her Eyes Like Razors" and "Mother Urban's Booke of Dayes." Both had different takes on the Fae and magic.

If you like hard SF, you'll probably enjoy the stories in the first part of the book. The rest is a matter of style that just didn't do much for me.

Just beware if you are sensitive to issues dealing with terminal illness.

This book had some interesting worldbuilding, if heavy-handed with its descriptions - I would've given it a 3.5, maybe, for the clumsiness in the writing, until the pedophilia aspect started.
No thanks.

DNF. I almost always can push through quickly even in a book I'm not really into. Not this time. So incredibly boring. Hit about 50%, returned to library.

I've been meaning to read this book for years, and it did not disappoint. Intricate and fierce storytelling, and an emotionally complex main character on a roller coaster of an adventure. Heartbreaking in parts, satisfying in the main, and pleasingly fluid in sexuality and humanity. Also, a fighting character that is believable in her fights.

Quit reading after a hundred pages or so. I could never find the person in the main character and finally gave up. I almost never quit a book, but I couldn't make this one work.

I want to like this, but I had to convince myself to keep reading. For about a hundred pages in the beginning, we follow a character locked away from the world, so we don't learn anything about the world and precious little about the character. Also, no plot, because it is just day after day of tutoring. 100 pages of no plot, character development, or world development is pretty hard going. After that, she just gets bounced around. It takes until page 200 for her "quest" (or whatever) to start. Wow, long buildup.

The last half of the book is what we all expect from Jay Lake, but it doesn't quite make up for the debt he's accumulated in the first half.

I was just talking about this book with Kate--who, like me, saw the cover, read the copy, and wanted to read it--and realized that I hadn't yet posted my thoughts!

This was definitely a superficial grab at free book day. I mean, just look at that cover--what person with my reading interests would be able to resist the gorgeous touch of the character's face and long, dangling hair on the spine?

The story that I was expecting to read based on the cover copy didn't disappoint--though it ended less than half the way through. Usually I might call that a criticism, but in this case it was a pleasant surprise. I think I've said it before, but I have a weakness for good world building...and this book offered at least four full-fledged cultures, plus snippets of wonderfully diverse people, to keep me rapt.

Which was a good thing, because for some reason I didn't really connect to the story emotionally. I was fascinated, interested, but I didn't particularly care about the characters, which removed my concern for their well-being and my ability to be surprised by the book's "twist."

Maybe it was a bit like reading mythology in that way; I've never been particularly moved when reading myths, just interested, but that hasn't necessarily decreased my enjoyment--I still get a lot out of it, just like I got a lot out of this book. Despite the fact that the characters always felt a step or two further removed than I'm used to, I never once considered giving up in the middle.

This book earned a lot of brownie points in my feminist heart...even if it also ruffled a few feathers. Among the pros:

Attention is paid to the diversity (and lack thereof) of people populating the world, and not just the one non-human race that's mentioned--the people themselves are multicultural, a rare find in fantasy these days. Green has remarkable strength of character, a good balance of believable characteristics...including a tendency to think about the ways she'd like to kill someone when each death makes here feel great remorse. For some reason, that contradiction really rung true to me--there's a lot of casual violence in our culture and media, but when it actually happens, it can be far more devastating than we would expect of our supposedly desensitized emotions. And while Green mocks the uselessness of her education as a courtesan, she doesn't abandon it--instead, she uses her knowledge of womanly arts in practical ways that her instructors didn't originally intend.

The things that I would consider cons are spoilers, but they didn't make me like this book less, so if you've gotten this far and are intrigued but don't want spoilers, go ahead and give it a try.

The biggest issue I had was that there was a lot of sex...and (despite the cover illustration) Green ends the book when she's only 15 or 16 years old! And she first has sex when she's 12! I don't know why, but it seems like waiting even one more year for Green's first intimacy might have made it a bit more bearable. Thankfully it was all consensual in the full definition of the term--not what you'd expect, given her upbringing--but it still seems awfully young to have an active, adventurous sex life of the kind I wouldn't expect most fully-grown adults to have. Given Green's significantly-less-than-legal age, I couldn't help being a bit extra skeeved-out by the fact that the book has a male author.

On the plus side of all of this, consent is highly valued in the text, sexualities are fluid without question or even much comment (a refreshing change of pace!), and unusual/not-vanilla sex is treated with understanding rather than villainized. In light of this enlightenment, it surprised me that a woman supposedly exceptionally well-informed about sex would laugh at the idea that someone could get pregnant after having sex for the first time. Um, hello....

One major, last-minute downside: mystical pregnancy trope
. Ew.



Quote Roundup

(15) Can you imagine what it means to lose your name? Not to set it aside for a profession or temple mystery, but simply to lose it.

(28)
- "Who made [letters] up?"
- "I do not know a name, girl. I do not know. Much like fire, the gods gave letters to men." His smile was crooked. "Some might say they were the same gift."
- We had no gods back home, not really. ... If I had a god, that was Endurance [the cow]. But he was as real as me, while gods were more of an idea. Like letters, really.
- "What if the gods are in the letters?" ...
- "Your mind is a jewel, child. Hoard it well. Others will be jealous of the way your thoughts sparkle. Mark me--" he waggled his finger "--play the dullard a bit and you will live a happier life."

(60) The lesson was clear: Anything could harm, if used in a certain way. Food. Words. A Length of silk sewn into a tube and stuffed with sand. Even a person.

(69) "Is it a manly game?" he asked, for while men are ruled by their loins, those loins have two small brains each no larger than an olive and thus do not think well.

(85)
- "Truth may be hard, but I do not call it rude. We each pace against the bars that cage us."
- "Your cage is the world," I said in frustration.
- "Everyone's cage is the world. Some worlds are smaller than others."

(94) I cried that night, so hard, the sound slipped from my mouth until I overheard Mistress Tirelle stirring. She made such noise that I found a way to stop. After a while, I realized her groaning had been purposeful. She had spared me another beating to leave me to my tears. Was that a form of love? The question made me cry all over again, this time in shuddering silence.

(153) I had taken no bells when I'd left the attic back in Copper Downs, probably because I hadn't thought to live beyond that morning. Though that moment was only days in my past, it already had the unreal remove of some other life's memories. Like something read once, and later misrecalled as if it has happened to me.

(169)
- "Indulge me in a question." His voice was low with my closeness. "I have already guessed you were raised alone, across the sea. You are like a tiger born in a cage. You know nothing of hunting, or other cats, though your claws and teeth are mighty enough. But tell me this: Are you a boy at all?"
- "Does the Death Right apply to women?"
- "Well..." Little Kareen smiled broadly. "You may live awhile after all, Green. Oh yes, it does not apply to women of our city."

(177-178)
- "A goddess is a tulpa grown large."
- Still bent to face me, she shook her head in dismissal. "Tulpas. Country superstition. Little spirits who are being worshipped by ignorant farmers and disingenuous monks.
- I had thought them more like larval gods. Or very ancient ones worn to nothing. Fragments, like in the oldest stories.
- Mother Vajpai continued. "No, Green. A goddess is the sum of all her believers, all the prayers and hopes and curses and despair ever uttered in her name. ... The hand of the Lily Goddess upon my heart is my own hand, multiplied a thousandfold. We server Her as She serves us. We are Her, and She is us."

(243)
- He looked impressed, then laughed. "You are being a great fool, whatever else you may be."
- "I am the one it takes a dozen archers to keep at bay," I said quietly. "And I cook very well."

(245) "Trade is not like a snake. You can cut the head, even gut the body, burn all the ships and warehouses. Someone will come along on the next day and begin it anew. You cannot kill trade. Not at the point of a blade, not with all the fire in your heart."

(245-246)
- "I am not a trade. I am a person."
- "People are traded everywhere. Apprenticeships, betrothals, the swearing of soldiers and the hiring of sailors."
- "They chose their fates."
- "Green." Her tone grew pitying. "How many brides select the many they marry? How many apprentices looked across the trades of their city and decided which they would pursue? Most people never choose anything. They are chosen for, or they follow what is left to them after their choices have been eaten away by time, by ill fortune, by their own actions and the deeds of others."

(261)
- "It will be good to get out of the rain."
- "It is just water." I tried to smile. "I've been told that washes away sin."
- "My people do not believe in sin. There is only circumstance, and choice. Green, you had neither circumstance nor choice when great harm befell this place."

(273) I watched the mirror as we moved to the center of the room. The reflection was delayed slightly, the way an echo might dally to follow after a noise.

(297)
- Groaning, I sat up. "I will cook."
- "That is not a only a woman's duty." He looked down at the small pan before him.
- "Dolt, I'm good at it. You manage the horrid beasts, I'll make dinner. We each have done our part that way, yes?"

(307)
- "A god indeed," I said.
- "Very good, for a priest."
- "It takes no talent to see a miracle like this." No faith, either. This was godhood for the unbelieving.

Just say no to torture porn.

I feel like there should be a warning label on books like this. There was no hint that the first 20 pages would include a dwarf masturbating while watching a young man being tortured to death - in detail.

It's too bad too, because I thought the writing was good and the story might have been interesting.

This is my 2nd 1 star book from Jay Lake, so I'm moving on.

Had a lot of travelogue feels to it. I like the theology. And green is a good character here.

It seemed like green was running around the city pretty much the whole book.

Well done fantasy world with a catlike species mixed in with but feared by the humans.

A diverse collection of stories that beautifully represents Lake's skill and depth as a writer. The world lost a great storyteller far too soon.

To be a librarian was to know everything that is known. Not the entire sum of human knowledge literally at the command of one's thoughts--Newton had perhaps been the last to do that. But to know what could be known, understand the indices and passwords of all the secrets of Creation. The science of libraries was the science of the truths hidden within the world.

"Shh," said Librarian Childress. "This is a library. At what are you looking?"

Lots of Martians.