Better.

Three more books finished: The Moor, Justice Hall, and The Game, all by Laurie R. King.  Before I read The Moor I was ready to give up on this series -- indeed, halfway through it, I still was.  The treatment of Mary Russell as a character has been very disappointing after the promise of the initial volume.

These three books restore that, and then some.  In cleverness, observational skill, and insight; Russell is again confirmed as Holmes' equal; and just as importantly he always treats her as such.  In every case, she is essential to the solution, a part of the action and the deduction both that Homes could not succeed without.

The Moor, however, is still not a great book.  It moves at a glacial pace, fixated on rustic detail irrelevant to the mystery within.  As an homage to Hound of the Baskervilles, it is largely irrelevant. It presents a convincing atmosphere, a firm sense of place, and serves as a paean to the unusual beauties of Dartmoor:  great.  Fine.  I wanted to read a mystery novel, however, and it isn't until halfway through the book that the author obliges me.  That second half, however, was excellently done, and renewed some of my flagging faith in the series.

Justice Hall renewed the rest.  Vivid characters, constant building excitement, a conundrum of suspects, and a strong thematic undercurrent all add to the essential strength of the mystery rather than distract:  while earlier Holmes & Russell novels often felt like novellas stretched to meet the length requirements of the form, this one did not.  The best volume in the series so far, possibly including the original.  I did have the feeling that I missed a couple of clever shout-outs here, but since I missed them I couldn't speculate more.

The Game was even better.  Merging Holmes & Russell with Kipling's Kim and playing out a post-WWI continuation of The Great Game in India, while adding a minor character to make the story a picaresque as well, this is both the most ambitious and most successful book in the series so far.  Again, Russell shines -- she's much more important than Holmes in this one, without ever rendering The Great Detective himself any less competent.  This is how a teamwork story should be, yes please.  There are places, unfortunately, where the book flirts with Temple of Doom-eqsue Orientalism; however most of them are subverted and clearly deliberate on the author's part.  Like Kipling, King approaches India with respect and sincere interest; not with awe and spectacle.  However, your mileage may vary.

if anyone else has read these, I'm very curious to hear what you think of them.  As for me, Im continuing on with the series at my first opportunity.


Dreams last night are a jumble.  Nothing clear enough to report.

Sort of a bleh day.

Accomplished some things, read some things.

Finished The Fading Dream by Keith Baker, the third in a trilogy of books set in the Eberron campaign world of D & D.  Satisfying worldbuilding, good suspense, intriguing characters, clever interweaving of narrative and game mechanics -- Keith is good, as one would expect from the guy who designed the campaign setting.  But he's too fond of leaving things unresolved, which is a good trait in a GM but gets irritating when overdone in a book -- and he overdoes it in every book he writes.  The fact that he favors open-ended conclusions or cliffhangers, and leaves characters unresolved as well, means that his books are often deeply unsatisfying, leaving you wanting more -- but not in a good way.  The conclusions, lack of character resolution/happy ending; and ongoing mysteries are all, individually, good things, handled well -- the excess of them is really not.

Very enjoyable and exciting read, though. 


I believe this makes 25 or 26 books so far this year.  Er, maybe more, I just remembered that I forgot to review two books I read last week.  Now I need to remember which books those were, and doublecheck this journal tag to make sure I didn't just forget that I reviewed them rather than forgetting to review them.

I am annoyingly scatterbrained today.