We'll Always Have Parrots, Donna Andrews (365 Books, Day 85)

[rushthatspeaks]

I'll be traveling for Thanksgiving starting tomorrow, and am not sure of the internet situation, so, as with last time I went somewhere, I'll be reading a book every day and putting up the reviews when I get back (a week from Wednesday).

This is the second one I've read of Donna Andrews' Meg Langslow mysteries, and I have no idea where it is in the series order, nor do I care. I'm sure they have an internal chronology, but I don't think it actually matters.

I found this just as charming and delightful as Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, and it also made me very happy by taking place entirely at a con. The previous mystery I'd read set at a con was Sharyn McCrumb's Bimbos of the Death Sun, which is a horrible mean-spirited book that I hated and have been trying to forget ever since. This is an antidote to that. It's a media-fandom con, so it's a little different from any of the flavors of con I've been to, but it was intensely recognizable anyway. Good books set at cons are rare.

There was a scene in which the principal actors from the TV show sat around in the green room doing a dramatic reading of some of the worst slash fic they could find about their characters. Apparently I had secretly been wanting that scene in a novel for years now.

There is also swordfighting both stage and otherwise, actual parrots (and monkeys, and tiger), crucial information provided through fan trivia contest, and a set of running gags about how bad the show actually is that were really impressive. The show sounds kind of like Xena crossed with Conan the Barbarian and the HBO miniseries about the Tudors and would in real life obviously be very popular while being completely appalling on every level.

No blacksmithery in this installment, but I didn't really miss it. If these books keep being lovely witty fluffy confections that never cause me to want to throw them across the room I am going to have to buy them all, because I can't imagine better comfort reading. Humor that works for me is rarer than I'd like.

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

You've now read both of the ones I really like, but the rest are all right too.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

So a sort of earthbound Galaxy Quest?

Nine

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

*hee* There is a bit of a metanarrative, but it's not key to reading in order (except for those of us obsessed with chronology), and as far as Entwife and I are concerned, they just keep getting better (the puffins is my least favorite one), but Wrought Iron Flamingos and Parrots are two of the favorites.

I'm using the first book in the series in my Cozy Murders class (IF it makes this winter mini).

[navrins]

If "books that take place at cons" is a subsubgenre that interests you, you should try "Fallen Angels" by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. It's not great, as I recall, but at least a significant chunk of it takes place at a con, and more involves con folk.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones!

[larryhammer]

Not to mention Asimov's Murder at the ABA, though given that the detective is modeled after Harlan Ellison I can't exactly recommend it without due warnings about Ellisonian presence.

---L.

[sovay]

There was a scene in which the principal actors from the TV show sat around in the green room doing a dramatic reading of some of the worst slash fic they could find about their characters. Apparently I had secretly been wanting that scene in a novel for years now.

*snerk*

I can only hope it's happened somewhere, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am so relieved that there is a much nicer book of that type than Bimbos of the Death Sun. I read the first little bit of that and went, "...wow, she feels hatred and contempt for, like, 90% of my friends, and would for me, too, if I didn't hit more visual cultural norms." And then I stopped reading it. Because ew, who wants it?

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I threw Bimbos against the wall at about the third "OMG fat women wearing corsets" bit. The book appears to have been written to try and convince fans that they suck.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Like the bit where the heroine explains, basically, that it's okay for HER to be a fan because she's thin, pretty, intelligent, and has a steady job and a boyfriend. GRRRR.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I didn't get that far. Although she was certainly pretty snarky about the degree to which fen put their time and effort into things that *gasp* don't pay. Or even don't pay well.

The protag is supposed to be a humanities professor. Untenured, as I recall. I'm just saying.