“Four books to go until 2008 reading begins!
So here begin my own "Goodbye to 2007" final summaries:
Book 57 of 60: Family Trade (Charles Stross). This is Book 1 of an apparently very popular series called The Merchant Princes. Now, I'm told Charles Stross is revered in some circles for his fantasy know-how, but it seems to me that no one like that could have written the first 75 pages of this book. In short, they are terrible. Anyone else (not stuck on a bus/carrying an extra book to read) would have quit. These pages could be used as a workbook exercise in how to edit. Here are two examples from the worst page--and I'm paraphrasing now, bc I might have intentionally lost the book:
1] ...She was not surprised to find the forest had an edge...
2]... That there was no edge to the forest came as a surprise.
Let me reiterate: this is from the same page. Absolutely embarassing. And then, against all odds, it seems, page 76 begins a gradual turnaround, in which I learn about a medieval-seeming parallel world, in which our protagonist, Miriam, is quite important (and wealthy!!). The wealth is based on a complicated import/export system...and magic.
I am told that hardcore sci-fi readers generally prefer the kind of plot where real-world things could possibly lead to the fictional world of the book. But in the case of fantasy (and this book) it's a magic locket that takes you there.
I agree that this is disappointing. It would have been more clever to take the environmental/earth/fuel concerns going on right now and concoct a story whereby we run out of oil (we are near peak production right now), we stop traveling by plane and car so often because we really can't--we work by candelight and ride horses or bikes everywhere. We store the energy we generate by using the exercise bike and this powers our tv...THIS is the kind of story that I think is more useful.
But it's clear there's going to be a hook-up soon between Miriam and sexy Roland. Good enough to draw me to book 2? Not sure. I need to let the memory of pages 1-75 fade.”