![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#5 Platform - Powers of Detection
Jan. 22nd, 2007 11:26 amYou know, on Wednesday, I'd intended to make a real post about stuff, and then it fell through, and I don't feel like I can do it before I have to head off to class. So I'll just make do with another one of these.
Book #4: Powers of Detection
Author: Dana Stabenow (ed.)
Provenance: Present from Nicolas, still a proud owner of no LJ after all these years
The problem with anthologies of short stories by multiple authors is that they can be really uneven. This one has an additional complicating factor: the premise, while interesting, leads a lot of these people into trouble. You see, these are mystery stories written in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, mostly by authors of the latter, and you can tell. A lot of them don't write mysteries well at all; it's long been an observation of mine that everyone thinks they can write a mystery. (Willard Scott? Martina Navratilova? At least Michael Moriarty has the name.) They're a lot harder than you'd think to write well.
A couple of the stories were just flat-out terrible, but most were just blah for three reasons. One is the aforementioned need to write a mystery: these people write something totally guessable, and don't have a really good style for it at that. A second reason is that short story mysteries are really hard to do, since you don't have a lot of space to set things up. Even an accomplished mystery writer like Anne Perry, who has a story in here, didn't do very well within the strictures of a short story space. Which leads to the third reason, which is that some authors tried tying the stories into other worlds they'd published books in, and I didn't know most of them. Maybe they'd have been better if I did, but they fell flat without it.
There were a few good stories, though. The Sharon Shinn one set in a magical boarding school in a very non-Potteresque way was good, and I didn't guess it to boot. The Charlaine Harris one was the only one tied to an outside world that I felt worked well, although I don't like it enough to try reading her other books. The Dana Stabenow one was very good, about a sword and magic duo that work as judges, and it was probably the second best (I think). My favorite was the Laura Anne Gilman one, featuring characters she turned into novel heroes after, drawing magic in otherwise everyday surroundings like electricity. Good enough mystery, good style, sorta Kelley Armstrong-ish. I'll probably pick up the first novel later.
In all, though, you could probably just sit and read the better stories in a bookstore or something. That'd be worth it.
Next up: Deep Secret.
Book #4: Powers of Detection
Author: Dana Stabenow (ed.)
Provenance: Present from Nicolas, still a proud owner of no LJ after all these years
The problem with anthologies of short stories by multiple authors is that they can be really uneven. This one has an additional complicating factor: the premise, while interesting, leads a lot of these people into trouble. You see, these are mystery stories written in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, mostly by authors of the latter, and you can tell. A lot of them don't write mysteries well at all; it's long been an observation of mine that everyone thinks they can write a mystery. (Willard Scott? Martina Navratilova? At least Michael Moriarty has the name.) They're a lot harder than you'd think to write well.
A couple of the stories were just flat-out terrible, but most were just blah for three reasons. One is the aforementioned need to write a mystery: these people write something totally guessable, and don't have a really good style for it at that. A second reason is that short story mysteries are really hard to do, since you don't have a lot of space to set things up. Even an accomplished mystery writer like Anne Perry, who has a story in here, didn't do very well within the strictures of a short story space. Which leads to the third reason, which is that some authors tried tying the stories into other worlds they'd published books in, and I didn't know most of them. Maybe they'd have been better if I did, but they fell flat without it.
There were a few good stories, though. The Sharon Shinn one set in a magical boarding school in a very non-Potteresque way was good, and I didn't guess it to boot. The Charlaine Harris one was the only one tied to an outside world that I felt worked well, although I don't like it enough to try reading her other books. The Dana Stabenow one was very good, about a sword and magic duo that work as judges, and it was probably the second best (I think). My favorite was the Laura Anne Gilman one, featuring characters she turned into novel heroes after, drawing magic in otherwise everyday surroundings like electricity. Good enough mystery, good style, sorta Kelley Armstrong-ish. I'll probably pick up the first novel later.
In all, though, you could probably just sit and read the better stories in a bookstore or something. That'd be worth it.
Next up: Deep Secret.
