Books of the Week: Kim Harrison, Jim Butcher, Kelley Armstrong's BITTEN, Connie Willis's PASSAGES, Sarah Monette's THE MIRADOR and MELUSINE

The book I was sure I’d review ended up disappointing me, and now I’m at a loss as to what to say. I decided, as I finished up the last few pages, that I can take a certain amount of incompetence, brashness, rashness, and impetuousness in a heroine . . . but only so much. There comes a point when those qualities amount to idiocy, or a death wish, or simply an appalling amount of immaturity.

I would have been better off rereading a book that I respected.

What would I like to reread, if I had a lot of extra time? Oh, that’s a list that goes on and on. I’d like to reread Kim Harrison’s books from start to finish, because I know there’s a lot of I missed. Ditto, Jim Butcher. And, frankly, my own Sookie Stackhouse books, though I find myself skipping passages when I’m reading my own books. It would be good to read through and notice things I’ve forgotten, things that might enrich the future books.

I’d like to reread BITTEN, Kelley Armstrong’s flagship book, which was so good I’ve read it twice already.

And of course, Connie Willis’s PASSAGES, one of the most complex and delicately written novels I’ve read in the past decade. What a writer Willis is. I admire her and her work with a fervor that’s almost embarrassing.

I’d like to have the pleasure of reading MELUSINE and its sequel again, since THE MIRADOR will be out this year (Sarah Monette).

With a stack of brand-new books waiting for me, will I take the time? Well, I hope at some point I’ll make a space for enjoying again the books that made me so happy the first time around.

BLOG

I am lucky enough to have three children, and I love all three with a devotion that still surprises me. It’s one of the things I like about myself, that I can love other people that much. Some days I’m not too fond of me, but then I think of them, and I feel better.

My second child is in the Army, a statement it never occurred to me I’d ever make in my life when my children were young. My son is a private; he is stationed in Alaska.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and on that day I was watching fast-pitch softball in Kansas City, Kansas. But part of me was thinking about him.

He hasn’t gone to Iraq or Afghanistan or any of the danger spots around the world. But he may. And more importantly, he’s willing to go. He’s said so. He’s sworn he’d go. He’s in the Army that serves America’s purposes. It’s a public pledge that you would die for your country.
I became an adult during the Vietnam era. I had a very negative view of value of being in the armed services, and a very negative view of war. I was not sure if we shouldn’t all be conscientious objectors. I was naïve. I’m not getting into a political stance, here; this was a gut moral feeling. And I still believe that people shouldn’t kill other people on an individual level, or a systemic one.

But that’s an idealistic view.

I’ll see my son in a few weeks -- for the first time in eleven months. It’ll be like get reacquainted, he’s changed so much. He’ll be deployed next year, and I don’t even want to think about how much I’ll miss him then. He’ll be somewhere even further away, most likely, and every day will come the dragging worry, unless somehow things change.

I’m a worrier. I’m an imaginative person. And I think too much about what could happen. What I’m trying to say is not how sorry you should feel for me, but how proud you should be of him. And all the other young men and women who are willing to go to a foreign place and risk death, as so many have already.

What an extraordinary thing to do.

Charlaine Harris