Poison Study

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder
Read: 8/25/09-8/26/09
LibraryThing tags: haven't bothered with this yet, but they'd probably be fantasy, romance, maybe suffering and... oh, I don't know. Let's get on with the review, shall we?

I finished Poison Study earlier today. I don't normally review books so quickly after finishing them (ah, there's an understatement for you), but I've had words spinning around in my brain and I need to get them out. I've found a new favorite, thanks to amazon's recommendations based on books I like and thanks to whoever it was that sold this copy to the store I work at. I highly recommend it, and if five of you want to email the author to say I said so, I would appreciate it, since that could get me a free signed book. Blogging that feels like cheating, but I doubt she cares, and I'm sure I'll mention the book to five people in person either way. This blog post was mostly composed before I found out about the referral program. Anywho. Poison Study is about a woman who is given the choice to become food taster instead of being executed. It's about much more than that, but I wouldn't want to spoil anything.

Someone might think it's just a fun light fantasy/romance, but that person would be wrong. For example, to the amazon reviewer who said, "I thought the plot was well thought out and pretty good, although it slid over precisely what it was that Brazell had been trying to do to Yelena," my witty rejoinder is, "huh?" And I'll throw in, "I do not think it means what you think it means" for good measure. Props for liking the book despite that, but I'll give him or her the benefit of the doubt and assume he hasn't read much fantasy, making him a little more disadvantaged than the rest of us when it comes to putting two and two together in said genre. I pity him for the details he wouldn't have noticed that he didn't notice, as they added to character rather than plot (hmm, no one ever mentions "character holes"... although of course characters are "flat" if they severely lack).

Sure, I've read fluff that sort of resembles this novel -- at first glance. An author has a good idea, loves the characters and is willing to put them through horrible pain and suffering for the sake of a good story, is good at appealing to emotion, but doesn't necessarily apply very rigorous logic to the plot. Or perhaps simply doesn't have a very sophisticated grasp of history or some other subject important to the novel. This book still would have been good if that had been the case. But there were a few details here and there that made my jaw drop. She obviously thought of everything, but maybe even more importantly, she told it well, without feeling the need to prove herself and spell everything out for you. Maria V. Snyder is an amazing writer, but not in a way that draws attention to itself. I don't think most readers would notice -- not her techniques anyway, just the result of loving the book.

Side note: I hate it when literary fiction critics look down their collective noses at genre fiction, and I really hate reviews of books which "shine" in the midst of "trash" that "gluts the market." Since I only read books I'm interested in, before I worked at a bookstore I really didn't know what they were talking about, or where all these market glutters were. Even now, I'm pretty sure that the most commercial of writers take their work seriously. As Tad Williams has said. If a book seems like it was thrown together, it probably wasn't. Again, perhaps the author didn't have a very good understanding of history, or some such. Whatever. I'm not trying to make it sound like I think most fantasy is "light fare," I'm just trying to say that Poison Study is not one of those books that seem like it was thrown together -- even if seems to be one of the ones that seem like that, to some people, at first. Clear as mud? Great. End side note.

One thing in particular... well, I won't explain clearly because it involves a very minor spoiler. But some novels would have elaborated on it for pages and pages, full of emotional angst. This one mentioned it in two places, just a couple of lines each, and leaves the emotional whammy to your deductive powers. I was very impressed. Obviously.

Oh, and don't get me started on the politics of this fantasy world, because I'd probably spoil something; let me just say, once again, what seems black and white at first? Yeah, not so much. Oh, don't get me wrong: there are thoroughly evil villains. But... heh heh. Maria V. Snyder is like... like a cross between Patricia Briggs and J. Michael Straczynski. And maybe... oh, I don't know who else. I'm not literate enough to think of someone known for their subtlety right at the moment. Besides a scene from Remains of the Day which springs to mind; I'd probably just confuse the issue if I said she was a cross between Patricia Briggs, J. Michael Straczynski, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The mysteries could have been a little more difficult to solve at times, but given the character and writing strengths, I didn't mind. The characters' densest moments had good reason behind them, true to the characters (and by "true to the characters" I do not mean the characters are Dumb). Oh, and the ghost! Brilliant! Yes, I know you don't know what I'm talking about. I command you: go find out.

For myself, now I've glowed and gushed enough that I'm afraid I'm wrong, exaggerating in those first obsessive moments after reading a good book. Yep, better go read it again to check.

Stupid Internet

Okay, okay, obviously I'm not that upset with it. Still, I give up on researching SMF (standard manuscript format) online. I'm placing a hold on a good old-fashioned book (which I chose during online research, of course) through the library (well, using the library's website, of course).

Wading through contradictory advice about The Standard is getting annoying. The book is Writer's Digest, so it should be reliable. Don't know if it'll be adequate. I found very important information on epigraphs (along the lines of "DON'T" -- don't try using them until after your manuscript's accepted, because at the very least it'll really annoy the agent or editor evaluating your manuscript, for a number of reasons) here. If I see nothing about this in the book, I will conclude it is inadequate. Then I'll check to see if the beloved 2010 Guide to Literary Agents or 2010 Writer's Market I've been drooling over for so long (well, I was drooling over the 2009 ones before, but same difference) have any articles that mention it. If they don't... well, I guess I'll be sad. And paranoid about how religiously I must follow publishing sorts of blogs such as the one I already linked to or Miss Snark's.

Musings on a Kind of Creativity, Staff Picks, Standard Manuscript Format, and Author Hero Worship

Normally we use the word "creative" to mean original, innovative, that sort of thing. By that definition I am not creative when it comes to cooking. I'm good at baking because I am good at following instructions. Occasionally I'll make very specific adjustments to a recipe for very specific reasons. Unless they are easy to remember in the extreme, I will write down these adjustments for future reference. Besides things like hot dogs or spaghetti, I do not make cooking decisions based on what I have on hand. I plan to cook something, figure out what I need, and go buy it as soon as I can based on the new grocery budget I'm trying and our priorities (milk will always win out over some random thing for a new recipe). So no, I don't consider myself very creative in the kitchen.

But recently as I've perfected (according to my husband, woo!) my pizza recipe and cooked it repeatedly (mmm, cheesy goodness...), I've been thinking. In a different sense of the word "creative," cooking, well, almost always is. Provided it involves "real" food, anyway. Because cooking is about creating something, about taking diverse, often rather inedible ingredients, and bringing them together. Food-wise, it is creating order, harmony, goodness. Despite itself, it sometimes feels like it fulfills my creative urge. Especially when forming pizza crust dough from my breadmaker into a round flat disc. It'd be even better (in that respect) if I didn't use the breadmaker, I suppose, but I'll take what I can get. It's not creating anything permanent, but it's still a kind of creation. And I've always enjoyed the eating more than the cooking, so I don't mind the impermanence all that much. If it were a novel I would, but no. It is food. I will eat it. Mmmm.

In other news, remember how I wanted the books on my table of picks at work to move? And how I never updated you guys on the changes in that situation? Well, there is much good news that has stored up, what with the lack of updating and all. First off, my table was promoted! Quite a while ago now. That is, it was moved up to the ground floor from the basement. Everything on the ground floor does better than anything in the basement. This promotion was a Good Thing. And so second off, as far as I've been able to track sales (going by the sales in the computer; thus counting anything I've bought myself but not counting anything which mysteriously disappeared; whether stolen, or misplaced, or simply not scanned out when sold), a grand whopping total of 285 items has now sold off my table. This seems decent, even over the given time period, which is kind of fuzzy through a lack of adequate records on my part. Not sure when the "promotion" occured, but I last blogged about it in Feb. '08... yeah, it seems decent. And about as good as the average display table in our store. Once again being a nerd, I have the totals by author in my Palm. Not the totals by title, I'd have to be at work for that. The winner is C.S. Lewis, with 26 titles sold. He has an unfair advantage, since I put more of his books on my table to begin with, but hey, the complete Chronicles of Narnia only sold once. As far as I remember. Hmm. Second place goes to Jane Austen, with 22. I believe those are almost entirely Pride and Prejudice. Third goes to Emily Bronte with 14, I think all Wuthering Heights (What else would it be? I think I'd have noticed), fourth Orson Scott Card with 12 (Ender's Game) and fifth is a three-way tie between Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots and Leaves), Tolkien (assorted wonderfulness), and George MacDonald (also assorted, but I think mostly The Light Princess and The Wise Woman and Other Stories?) with 11 each. Some authors also have an unfair advantage with larger amounts (or any at all) of used books in our inventory, or a higher priority in our reorder list, for reasons of being wanted by people besides those who browse my table. I still find sales statistics interesting, no matter how they are skewed... Plus I love my table, and love the concept of people taking the lovely books home with them. Yes, "love" is the word of the sentence.

And in yet other news, I think I may be done changing my first draft of The Miller's Granddaughter into the second draft. There are still new scenes to add, I haven't finished going through it as far as that's concerned, but there's one particular scene that is going to change things drastically enough that I might as well just make it a new draft. I'd have to change things I've already changed once, and it seems simpler, organizationally speaking (if I'm going to have a copy saved of each draft so I have a record of all the changes). So yay. Kind of. Haven't finished adding all the handwritten edits into the electronic copy, but close.

I'm also working on standard manuscript format (SMF for the rest of this post). I need to do more research, since my first cursory bit of research yielded instructions for the romance genre (don't think it's very different, but still) and my second cursory bit yielded instructions for short stories (and thus doesn't talk about helpful things like chapter breaks or epigraphs), but it shouldn't be hard. I'm pretty sure it's one of those things that can be found all over the internet. From what I've gathered so far, SMF is Ugly. This is because it exists for entirely different purposes than the format of the published book. Editors want to catch errors. They also want to have a standard way to estimate length (other than taking your word for it, although you would be well-advised to be accurate, within the rounding formula and guidelines) and have room to write notes. But still, does it really have to be in Courier? Ah, well. My poor ugly professional-looking (er, when I'm finished making the format changes...) manuscript.

Speaking of writing and editors and research online, it seems that blogging stories and poems really does count as "previously published" to many magazines. This seems silly to me, but whatever. I may start asking some of you for your opinions and criticisms in person... or not. I think I'm probably better at novels than short stories, so how much time do I really want to take from polishing a novel in order to write and edit and attempt to publish short stories, just to make my query letters to agents about my novel that much more impressive? Hmm. Ask me again after I've collected some rejection letters... meh.

And in... um, still more news... (hey, it's been a while since I've posted [and my last post that didn't review a book or movie was back on April 15th, and that was just a little poem -- my last long non-book-review post was March 15th! Sheesh! That merits many parenthetical phrases in a great gush of words], give me a break here -- pent-up words, pent-up words!) I've decided the closest I come to hero worship or celebrity obsession is with authors. It's... not very close, I suppose, but it's the closest. I love their blogs. a) They've very entertaining, what with being well written, since they are WRITERS, after all. b) Since I only look up the blogs of authors whose books I love anyway, they often seem to have certain personality traits I like, and they feel like people I could be friends with. If I weren't a Random-Fan-whose-path-will-never-cross-theirs-unless-maybe-I'm-published-someday, that is. (And no, that's not why I want to be published. Honest. Almost 95% not why.) My latest author blog find is Tad Williams'. I quite like it. I'm on a Tad Williams blog kick. Hmm, I should go catch up on my poor neglected unread old favorite awesome author blogs, like Shannon Hale and Kristin Cashore and (at this point I closed this window by accident and nearly had a heart attack before remembering that blogspot does, in fact, automatically save your work periodically...) Writer Unboxed (because of Juliet Marillier) and Neil Gaiman (although my Neil Gaiman kick is actually pretty new and feels a little silly since I haven't read all that much of his work yet). Or maybe I should sleep. Nah, that can't be right...