Recently read: McDevitt and Reverte

[viktor_haag]

From doc_mystery recommendations, some of my recently read books:

A Talent For War
I'm actually not much of a science-fiction consumer; there are a few authors I like, but I don't widely consume SF the same way that, say, james_nicoll does. So, I took a flyer on this from the Doc's positive comments. And I rather liked it, at least enough to probably pick up the follow-on books with the same character. The book was a sort of historical mystery set in the far-future. Mr Nicoll commented recently that all of McDevitt's characters have names that sound like they came out of a 1950s phone book. And the implications of this statement seem true to a certain extent. But I didn't mind it, really. McDevitt's book reminded me of the Clarke and Heinlein SF books of my youth: a pleasant, old-time SF feel, not overly concerned with hard-science, not overly infatuated with big-science, not overly dependent on fire-fights, explosions, or military assaults.

Captain Alatriste
Reverte's Alatriste novels seem like they have the same relationship to their inspirations that Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger" has: informed by a childhood love of a particular genre and source material. I'm not a big fan of swashbucklery, but I like it well enough, and the first (at least) of the Alatriste series translated just fine into English. It's easy to read, has some action, some conspiracy, and some dark and cheeky jabs at religion, politics, and Spanish social culture. I liked it well enough to buy the second, "Purity Of The Blood", but I haven't yet gotten to that one.

Comments

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

One of the odd things about the two sequels to "A Talent For War" ("Polaris" and "Sequel" is that the story/narrative point of view is not from Alex Benedict, but from his superluminal pilot side-kick, Chase Kolpath.

Because I read the stories out of order (2, then 1,3), and because there was so little build up or back-story to Chase, I half-expected to be told through book 2 that Chase was really just the avatar of an unknown AI.

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Ah! Interesting. That's even more impetus for me to continue reading the series. I wouldn't mind reading at least one from inside Chase's point of view.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I actually liked books 2 and 3 much better than the first (which was, after all, written 17 years earlier).

::B::

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Even better. I liked the "old time-ness" of the first one, so hopefully that quality still is present in the others...