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I belatedly realized that I finished reading these and didn't comment on them, because, at the time, I wanted to make sure I'd read them all before commenting severally, and then more broadly, about them... and then work ate my face.
I don't have a word for a pair of two-book diptychs, set hundreds of years apart, but that's what these are; two set in a more or less contemporary time frame with excursions to a fantastic otherworld; two set five hundred years previous and starring a couple of prominent folks you've probably heard of.
I'm no Shakespeare or Marlowe or Jonson scholar (Bear is), and am more or less negatively conditioned to Billy Wigglestick due to YOU WILL READ A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF HIS STUFF in both high school and college; I'm incapable of separating the man's work from the atmosphere it was inflicted on me through, and, as a result, I was disinclined to give him a fair shake as a protagonist and reluctant hero, though he's done sympathetically and with substantial nuance. Marlowe is much more my speed, but, of course, probably spends a lot of time wishing the word "Fuck" had been in use when he was alive (or sort-of alive, or... something).
My anti-historical predilections mean that I lean much more favorably towards the two contemporary tales. I found the fantastic elements - creatures and powers and world-straddling political machinations and all - to be more engaging than the muted political intrigues of Gloriana's England, even with a Guy Fawkes cameo. Despite it being frankly fantastic, the conflict in those books felt more meaningful; whether that's a matter of my own tastes, or just responding better to a bigger (or at least more easily grasped-by-me) payoff hanging in the balance... plus, I just liked the characters better. Whiskey, a man-eating fae steed, especially... to the point where he showed up in my workout blog.
"The tension between [Seeker and Whiskey] – two fully-cognizant individuals, regardless of their respective roles and relationship – is always palpable. He may be bound as her minion, but he challenges her control (both over him, and herself) at every turn. There is no comfort when they interact, and no assurance of victory despite her fraying self-discipline."
These aren't easy books to read (they're not skull-splitting exercises in WTF WHERE AM I AND WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE like Hal Duncan's Vellum, but they're complexly woven (or, more appropriately, perhaps, braided) from several different flavors of thread). There's a lot going on, and Bear keeps a lot of balls in the air flying through several different planes of motion.
Nobody gets a free pass in Bear's world, not even a dragon.
(If you want easy to read, pick up something by Stuart Woods, and then smack yourself in the face with it, because it's horrible, juvenile, depthless, formulaic pap.)
I don't have a word for a pair of two-book diptychs, set hundreds of years apart, but that's what these are; two set in a more or less contemporary time frame with excursions to a fantastic otherworld; two set five hundred years previous and starring a couple of prominent folks you've probably heard of.
I'm no Shakespeare or Marlowe or Jonson scholar (Bear is), and am more or less negatively conditioned to Billy Wigglestick due to YOU WILL READ A WHOLE FUCKING LOT OF HIS STUFF in both high school and college; I'm incapable of separating the man's work from the atmosphere it was inflicted on me through, and, as a result, I was disinclined to give him a fair shake as a protagonist and reluctant hero, though he's done sympathetically and with substantial nuance. Marlowe is much more my speed, but, of course, probably spends a lot of time wishing the word "Fuck" had been in use when he was alive (or sort-of alive, or... something).
My anti-historical predilections mean that I lean much more favorably towards the two contemporary tales. I found the fantastic elements - creatures and powers and world-straddling political machinations and all - to be more engaging than the muted political intrigues of Gloriana's England, even with a Guy Fawkes cameo. Despite it being frankly fantastic, the conflict in those books felt more meaningful; whether that's a matter of my own tastes, or just responding better to a bigger (or at least more easily grasped-by-me) payoff hanging in the balance... plus, I just liked the characters better. Whiskey, a man-eating fae steed, especially... to the point where he showed up in my workout blog.
"The tension between [Seeker and Whiskey] – two fully-cognizant individuals, regardless of their respective roles and relationship – is always palpable. He may be bound as her minion, but he challenges her control (both over him, and herself) at every turn. There is no comfort when they interact, and no assurance of victory despite her fraying self-discipline."
These aren't easy books to read (they're not skull-splitting exercises in WTF WHERE AM I AND WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE like Hal Duncan's Vellum, but they're complexly woven (or, more appropriately, perhaps, braided) from several different flavors of thread). There's a lot going on, and Bear keeps a lot of balls in the air flying through several different planes of motion.
Nobody gets a free pass in Bear's world, not even a dragon.
(If you want easy to read, pick up something by Stuart Woods, and then smack yourself in the face with it, because it's horrible, juvenile, depthless, formulaic pap.)
