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ATDrake · 02-07-2011, 07:25 PM

Finished Ha'Penny and Half a Crown, which concludes Jo Walton's excellent alternate-universe post-WWII fascist Britain murder mystery/political thriller/upper-class twit-lit crossover trilogy.

2nd book of the lot was the best, although the 3rd did take things to an interesting conclusion, although I'm not so sure that Britain could

Spoiler:

. But then, they've had 20 years to get sick of things and perhaps I underestimate my fellow Commonwealthers.

In any case, a chilling and perhaps spot-on set of tales with a certain applicability to the US situation in recent years (probably part of why it's written) and it turns out that Jo Walton, though Welsh, now lives in Canada, so that gives me additional incentive to highly recommend these books and will be purchasing Ha'Penny myself when Kobo comes up with a good coupon, though not Half a Crown since it's ridiculously priced at $16 for the e-book edition of a book that's been out in MMPB for years.

Also finished Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's The Godmother's Apprentice, the not-so-good sequel to her very good urban fantasy The Godmother.

While it was nice to see how the characters were getting on, this basically takes everything that was original and interestingly different about the first novel and makes it more generically fantasy cliché-ish and thus indistinguishable from the host of other ooh-ancient-Celtic-legends-are-coming-to-life-in-Ireland-and-you-a-modern-person-must-save-the-day books which already litter the field.

I also docked it points for rendering practically all the dialogue spoken by Irish people in phonetic spelling. I don't really care if actual Irish people really do speak like they're auditioning to replace the Lucky Charms leprechaun's voiceover actor. Oi jus' don' wan' t'be readin' entoire paragraphs uff wha ye think 's how it soun's 'coz 'tis rilly rilly irritatin'.

I was thinking of tackling the third Godmother book next, but now I think I'll go cleanse my palate with some more Sherlock Holmes mash-ups first.

02-07-2011, 07:25 PM	#8148
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Finished Ha'Penny and Half a Crown, which concludes Jo Walton's excellent alternate-universe post-WWII fascist Britain murder mystery/political thriller/upper-class twit-lit crossover trilogy. 2nd book of the lot was the best, although the 3rd did take things to an interesting conclusion, although I'm not so sure that Britain could Spoiler: pull itself back from the very edge of the brink they've been happily ambling towards that easily, even with the Queen's dea ex machina-y intervention . But then, they've had 20 years to get sick of things and perhaps I underestimate my fellow Commonwealthers. In any case, a chilling and perhaps spot-on set of tales with a certain applicability to the US situation in recent years (probably part of why it's written) and it turns out that Jo Walton, though Welsh, now lives in Canada, so that gives me additional incentive to highly recommend these books and will be purchasing Ha'Penny myself when Kobo comes up with a good coupon, though not Half a Crown since it's ridiculously priced at $16 for the e-book edition of a book that's been out in MMPB for years. Also finished Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's The Godmother's Apprentice, the not-so-good sequel to her very good urban fantasy The Godmother. While it was nice to see how the characters were getting on, this basically takes everything that was original and interestingly different about the first novel and makes it more generically fantasy cliché-ish and thus indistinguishable from the host of other ooh-ancient-Celtic-legends-are-coming-to-life-in-Ireland-and-you-a-modern-person-must-save-the-day books which already litter the field. I also docked it points for rendering practically all the dialogue spoken by Irish people in phonetic spelling. I don't really care if actual Irish people really do speak like they're auditioning to replace the Lucky Charms leprechaun's voiceover actor. Oi jus' don' wan' t'be readin' entoire paragraphs uff wha ye think 's how it soun's 'coz 'tis rilly rilly irritatin'. I was thinking of tackling the third Godmother book next, but now I think I'll go cleanse my palate with some more Sherlock Holmes mash-ups first.