[Review] Wake of Vultures - Lila Bowen

[digitaldiscipline]

In a similar vein to Elizabeth Bear’s ( @matociquala ) “Karen Memory” and @lauraannegilman‘s “The Devil’s West” series, Lila Bowen (Delilah S. Dawson’s nom de plume for a certain chunk of her ouevre) has thrown her dusty, sweat-stained, and trail-ridden hat into the “weird west,” and done a damn fine job of it.

Nettie Lonesome takes approximately no shit and makes fewer excuses in a world that is rough and surreal, kind and cruel by turns to her and everyone else in it, and holds her stubborn chin up against a litany of adversity that would have turned lesser men (and women, and variations thereupon) into buzzard buffet. Every time the characters or audience gets a breather, it’s because there’s another headlong sprint coming.

There’s no shortage of character development for both Nettie and those folks around her, regardless of precisely how human (or not) they are, and the characters and story pull no punches with each other or the reader.

Comments

[ashbet]

Ha -- I was just recommending "Wake of Vultures" and the Devil's West books on a.g. this morning!! :D

Have you read Bear's "Eternal Sky" trilogy? Not Weird West, but... weird Mongolia? :)

<3!

[digitaldiscipline]

I have! I think the word I found most fitting for them was "savory." :-)

[ashbet]

Reasonable!

I enjoy her work immensely -- also an enthusiastic fan of the Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired books.

I liked the Dust series, although it's admittedly deeply weird (and reminds me of Elizabeth Hand's "Winterlong", although the latter is "this world in ruins," whereas the Dust books focus on space and a bizarre Ark mission, with all of its strange nanotech consequences and resulting cultures and religions.

You have read "Shoggoths in Bloom," yes? :)

<3!

[digitaldiscipline]

"Shoggoths" is the only one of those I've read thus far; I just began the second book she did with Sarah Monette in the "Iskryne / Companion to Wolves" trilogy, and it's reminding me how challenging I found keeping up with the worldbuilding because of the complicated-but-similar names, and the multiplicity of them, that the first book introduced.

-Rafe

"I'm synthetic, not stupid." - Bishop, Aliens

Fitness Blog @ digitaldiscipline.wordpress.com Free-Range Ego @ etcet.livejournal.com http://etcet.livejournal.com

[ashbet]

Yeah, similar-named characters are a bugaboo of mine -- I get mixed up with real-people names, much less ones on a page. I've occasionally been known to create a short list of characters and *who the fuck they are*, in books that really require them.

The third Iskryne book is also quite good, fwiw.

Have you read Tanya Huff's "The Silvered"? An entirely different take on werewolves and magic systems, and a very enjoyable read :)

(I'd love for her to write more in that same world -- it's a stand-alone novel, but I feel like there are easily more stories to be told in that setting!)

-- A <3