rushthatspeaks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks) wrote2011-04-14 09:23 pm
rushthatspeaks) wrote2011-04-14 09:23 pm
Entry tags:
Dragon Cauldron, Laurence Yep (365 Books, Day 228)
On the one hand, an unexpected flight delay meaning that we will arrive at our destination at ridiculous o'clock in the morning is annoying. On the other hand, this airport has free internet, so at least I don't have to write my book review at ridiculous o'clock in the morning, which is... something, I guess.
Anyhow! This is the third of the series which began with Dragon of the Lost Sea and Dragon Steel. The dragon princess Shimmer and her traveling companions have a list of things they need to do to set the world to rights that has become truly ridiculously long, and the unofficial motto of the series remains 'it is always more complicated'.
This is yet another notch up from Dragon Steel, although that may be a more purely fun book; this one is darker, concentrated on numinous and eerie instead of action and adventure. It's really good numinous and eerie, too, everything from soldiers who apparently spontaneously generate from snow to a woman who has a shell on her back like a snail, and not one but two of the better shut-into-a-small-space-with-something-whose-intentions-we-cannot-determine sequences I've seen. The plot threads from the first two are starting to cohere, and it's as interesting to see what Chekhovian guns haven't gone off yet as to note which ones have.
Also, because apparently the book just needed to be that much more awesome, this one is actually narrated by Monkey, who is of course a never-ending fountain of snark. I am extremely impressed by Yep's ability to communicate that things are actually creepy and serious while using a narrator who is constitutionally incapable of being anything other than perky and flippant. (I am devoutly hoping for at least a cameo by Tripitaka in the fourth book, as he has been mentioned several times and that could be very interesting. Don't tell me.)
All in all, this is some of my favorite of Yep's writing, definitely my favorite of his fantasy (although I do want to see where the series he's in the middle of now goes), and I hope he sticks the dismount, because the fourth book has the potential to be really impressive.
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Anyhow! This is the third of the series which began with Dragon of the Lost Sea and Dragon Steel. The dragon princess Shimmer and her traveling companions have a list of things they need to do to set the world to rights that has become truly ridiculously long, and the unofficial motto of the series remains 'it is always more complicated'.
This is yet another notch up from Dragon Steel, although that may be a more purely fun book; this one is darker, concentrated on numinous and eerie instead of action and adventure. It's really good numinous and eerie, too, everything from soldiers who apparently spontaneously generate from snow to a woman who has a shell on her back like a snail, and not one but two of the better shut-into-a-small-space-with-something-whose-intentions-we-cannot-determine sequences I've seen. The plot threads from the first two are starting to cohere, and it's as interesting to see what Chekhovian guns haven't gone off yet as to note which ones have.
Also, because apparently the book just needed to be that much more awesome, this one is actually narrated by Monkey, who is of course a never-ending fountain of snark. I am extremely impressed by Yep's ability to communicate that things are actually creepy and serious while using a narrator who is constitutionally incapable of being anything other than perky and flippant. (I am devoutly hoping for at least a cameo by Tripitaka in the fourth book, as he has been mentioned several times and that could be very interesting. Don't tell me.)
All in all, this is some of my favorite of Yep's writing, definitely my favorite of his fantasy (although I do want to see where the series he's in the middle of now goes), and I hope he sticks the dismount, because the fourth book has the potential to be really impressive.
You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost. There are