(no subject)

If my friends from the other side the the Equator want their weather back, I can deliver a virus with it. My body, it seems, thinks it's winter. This would be because Canberra came close to zero last night and it's still only fifteen degrees outside right now. There was a bit of a blizzard yesterday, too, which fell on me as slightly snowy rain and fell on the mountains as pure snow.

I did half my messages yesterday, before the whatever-I-have got to me. I also did 3/4 of my list. I'm readjusting all my remaining lists to take the extra slack, but so far this hasn't resulted in much work accomplished. I keep telling myself that I have today and tomorrow to do these things and it becomes later today and tomorrow and soon it will be very late today and tomorrow.

This is why I want to return this winter virus to its true home. It's not bad, as virii go, but it has consequences.

Things could be worse. I could have this minor ailment and got caught in the rainish stuff yesterday without proper protection. My weather sense meant that I felt the cold coming all yesterday and so I was wearing the right clothes. My weather sense doesn't say that today is going to be hugely warm, however.

My post office visit is now tomorrow, and I'm certain the weather and virus would make a very neat parcel. I just need to work out the right destination...

Ian Whates - City of Light & Shadow

It's past time I looked at another Angry Robot book. Today's is the final book in Ian Whates' fantasy city sequence (City of a Hundred Rows Book III, the website says) and it's just been launched, so it's officially out, but still brand-new and magical.

The first thing I look for in trilogies is how much of the previous volume one has to know to enjoy the story. Whates' has managed to introduce enough of the world for it to make sense. The emotional values will be stronger if you read the first two volumes, but you can get by on the third, if you want. I don't recommend it though, because the city is most magical in the first volume and it would be a shame to miss it.

I can't give you a plot summary without giving you spoilers, really. The city and its people are endangered and the hero and those around him have to save it. That's the same for all three volumes. The third volume draws together all the threads and people become what they're going to become and all veils are peeled back and, while the mystery is lost, we find out what's going on.

In many ways it's a satisfying ending. Whates draws together threads in a very efficient way. It loses a bit, however, in short-circuiting the wonderful layers of Thaiburley (the city). With less of the colour and trouble, with interactions confined to a much tighter group of characters, some of the flavour is lost. It's a trade-off: traditional fantasy quest conclusion vs local colour. I enjoyed the novel, but I really missed the sense of place that Whates had so lovingly established earlier. (Speaking of sense of place, Mary Victoria is running a series of blogs over at her place, in honour of another book - I'll talk about that soon - not tonight, I suspect, but soon.)

Whates has a tendency to use sentences that offer a steady pace and to linger on his characters' thoughts for just a moment too long. This means that City of Light & Shadow is not the fastest paced novel I've read recently. The shape of the page is a bit similar, one to the next and the eye becomes dull from time to time. On the other hand, his background explanations are clear and his worldbuilding doesn't burden.

What does all this add up to? Not the best novel I've read this last twelve months, but certainly not the worst. I still love the sense of place, even if Whates doesn't use it as much in this narrative as he has in the previous ones, and it all hangs together. If the weather were less like midwinter, I'd recommend it as good summer reading.