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I have been wanting to tell you all about Marianne de Pierres' short collection GLITTER ROSE for over two months now, ever since I returned from my short trip to Australia and AussieCon4. While there, I met a number of fabulously wonderful Australian writers, and I also discovered that books in Australia are really expensive. Shockingly so, compared to our prices and even UK prices.
BUT. There is also a small press scene with intriguing authors and material that is not seen in the USA (or presumably the UK either).
With commercial houses, de Pierres has written the Parris Plessis series (NYLON ANGEL is the first), and the Sentients of Orion series, and has a YA novel, BURN BRIGHT, coming in March 2011.
GLITTER ROSE is a quartet of four spec-fic stories whose setting--an offshore island community--is as much a part of the psychology and emotion of the tales as the characters are. The collection has lovely writing, first of all, and a nuanced and mature sense of characterization, by which I mean that people have mixed and ambivalent motives and aren't all one thing or another, and the journey the narrator makes through the four stories is complex and felt, to me, true to the human condition. It also has a strong sense of place, and I am picky about sense of place. It is clear to me that the author knows and understands her landscape and how landscape flows through and changes people.
I rarely read short stories (they're not my thing). These stories made a strong impression on me; I can still call up actions and impressions from the stories in my mind's eye. Definitely worth reading and highly recommended.
In addition, Twelfth Planet Press has produced a simply excellent book as a physical object. It's nice to hold and nice to look at and nice to read as pure physical considerations. This is something small presses can do very well indeed, and TPP has done it.
So why did it take me two months to write the above?
Because I do not write reviews. I don't really have the temperament or knack or desire--or something which I can't put my finger on--to write reviews. The best I can do is write a recommendation and tell you what I liked (it is very unlikely you will see me post a negative piece on a book in the sff field, but that's a different issue).
I note this because of a recent discussion over at Torque Control about "Why I Write Reviews." It's an interesting discussion but one I didn't join in because (see above) I don't write reviews. What I do do is read reviews, sometimes, and I admire a writer who can review or critique (these have two different goals, I think) in an incisive or illuminating way. Not all reviews I read strike me as useful; ymmv with regard to the same review and two different readers of that review. In addition, some pieces called reviews seem more "reactions," which to me is also a valid piece of writing, but it's not a review per se.
I know how the joke goes: those who can't write, teach; those who can't teach, become critics. But you know, it's not true (well, okay, there may be cases where it is true, but that doesn't make it true). The best teachers I know teach because teaching is their goal and vocation. A good review or a well written piece of criticism is another form of writing expression, just as fiction or other non fiction is. I like to explore what I read, but I'll most likely do it verbally among friends and not in writing in public.
So, after you have trotted over here to check out the webpage for GLITTER ROSE, come back and tell me your thoughts about reviewing. Do you review? What are your thoughts on the differences between reviews, reactions, recommendations, and criticism?
I just wish I had posted my recommendation for GLITTER ROSE sooner
BUT. There is also a small press scene with intriguing authors and material that is not seen in the USA (or presumably the UK either).
With commercial houses, de Pierres has written the Parris Plessis series (NYLON ANGEL is the first), and the Sentients of Orion series, and has a YA novel, BURN BRIGHT, coming in March 2011.
GLITTER ROSE is a quartet of four spec-fic stories whose setting--an offshore island community--is as much a part of the psychology and emotion of the tales as the characters are. The collection has lovely writing, first of all, and a nuanced and mature sense of characterization, by which I mean that people have mixed and ambivalent motives and aren't all one thing or another, and the journey the narrator makes through the four stories is complex and felt, to me, true to the human condition. It also has a strong sense of place, and I am picky about sense of place. It is clear to me that the author knows and understands her landscape and how landscape flows through and changes people.
I rarely read short stories (they're not my thing). These stories made a strong impression on me; I can still call up actions and impressions from the stories in my mind's eye. Definitely worth reading and highly recommended.
In addition, Twelfth Planet Press has produced a simply excellent book as a physical object. It's nice to hold and nice to look at and nice to read as pure physical considerations. This is something small presses can do very well indeed, and TPP has done it.
So why did it take me two months to write the above?
Because I do not write reviews. I don't really have the temperament or knack or desire--or something which I can't put my finger on--to write reviews. The best I can do is write a recommendation and tell you what I liked (it is very unlikely you will see me post a negative piece on a book in the sff field, but that's a different issue).
I note this because of a recent discussion over at Torque Control about "Why I Write Reviews." It's an interesting discussion but one I didn't join in because (see above) I don't write reviews. What I do do is read reviews, sometimes, and I admire a writer who can review or critique (these have two different goals, I think) in an incisive or illuminating way. Not all reviews I read strike me as useful; ymmv with regard to the same review and two different readers of that review. In addition, some pieces called reviews seem more "reactions," which to me is also a valid piece of writing, but it's not a review per se.
I know how the joke goes: those who can't write, teach; those who can't teach, become critics. But you know, it's not true (well, okay, there may be cases where it is true, but that doesn't make it true). The best teachers I know teach because teaching is their goal and vocation. A good review or a well written piece of criticism is another form of writing expression, just as fiction or other non fiction is. I like to explore what I read, but I'll most likely do it verbally among friends and not in writing in public.
So, after you have trotted over here to check out the webpage for GLITTER ROSE, come back and tell me your thoughts about reviewing. Do you review? What are your thoughts on the differences between reviews, reactions, recommendations, and criticism?
I just wish I had posted my recommendation for GLITTER ROSE sooner
