Reading New Orleans
Feb. 9th, 2023 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeLate last year I started rereading Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries. I began with my usual practice of alternating rereads with something new, but ... look, I was tired, I was burned out, there came a point where the new books stopped being opened.
Reread opinions: overall I still like the books I've always liked and am meh on the books to which I was indifferent. The changes mostly came later in the series, once I hit books I haven't reread much or at all. Murder in July turns on a weak coincidence, but the Paris flashbacks are sufficiently interesting that I can be forgiving; I loved Cold Bayou and enjoyed Lady of Perdition much more on a reread, but House of the Patriarch remains my least favourite of the series -- Benjamin is separated from his usual cohort of supporting characters save the Viellards, and then there's a whisper of a promise that he and Chloe will team up ... except, of course, that is impossible, so instead he gets P T Barnum? And I simply do not find the religious movements of upstate New York in the early 1840s interesting.
On the other hand, Death and Hard Cider is a welcome return to form (and New Orleans). And it delights me how often Benjamin is forced to confront the probability that his female relatives would absolutely do a murder if they had to, and probably wouldn't feel bad about it. (The jury is out on Dominique, but given her willingness to sass thieves and slave stealers, I wouldn't turn my back on her.)
UNFORTUNATELY nothing lasts forever, not even nineteen-book series. But while nosing around in search of more diverse fiction (having just read 19 consecutive books by a white lady), I found a series by an African-American author about a Haitian-American Vodou priestess who FIGHTS CRIME in post-Katrina New Orleans.
I'm about 55% through the first book now, and it's mildly enjoyable -- but the heroine's love interest is an asshole cop who disparages her religion, intimidates her, steals from a Vodou priest, threatens to beat up her teenage friend, and is all around awful, yet she talks about him as if he's One of the Good Ones. Whether I order the second book depends entirely on how this unfolds.
Finally, I finished playing Assassin's Creed III. It was basically airline food in video game form -- it wasn't very good, but there also wasn't enough of it. Where the modern AC games have massively bloated maps and go on far too long, AC3 felt like half a game compared with its predecessors. And while the writers clearly put a tremendous amount of research into the Mohawk nation for their protagonist, they forgot to give him a personality.
AC3 came with a companion game which I was going to skip, because it had very poor reviews ... and then I realised that it's set in French Louisiana, and the protagonist is the daughter of a slave-turned-placée who FIGHTS CRIME and also COMMITS CRIME, SPECIFICALLY MURDER, which is sort of inherent to being an assassin. So clearly I had to play it at once. I'm in the early stages so far, and the writing is a thousand times better than AC3 -- except that the plot is incredibly simplistic. Which is a shame, but you can't have everything.
Reread opinions: overall I still like the books I've always liked and am meh on the books to which I was indifferent. The changes mostly came later in the series, once I hit books I haven't reread much or at all. Murder in July turns on a weak coincidence, but the Paris flashbacks are sufficiently interesting that I can be forgiving; I loved Cold Bayou and enjoyed Lady of Perdition much more on a reread, but House of the Patriarch remains my least favourite of the series -- Benjamin is separated from his usual cohort of supporting characters save the Viellards, and then there's a whisper of a promise that he and Chloe will team up ... except, of course, that is impossible, so instead he gets P T Barnum? And I simply do not find the religious movements of upstate New York in the early 1840s interesting.
On the other hand, Death and Hard Cider is a welcome return to form (and New Orleans). And it delights me how often Benjamin is forced to confront the probability that his female relatives would absolutely do a murder if they had to, and probably wouldn't feel bad about it. (The jury is out on Dominique, but given her willingness to sass thieves and slave stealers, I wouldn't turn my back on her.)
UNFORTUNATELY nothing lasts forever, not even nineteen-book series. But while nosing around in search of more diverse fiction (having just read 19 consecutive books by a white lady), I found a series by an African-American author about a Haitian-American Vodou priestess who FIGHTS CRIME in post-Katrina New Orleans.
I'm about 55% through the first book now, and it's mildly enjoyable -- but the heroine's love interest is an asshole cop who disparages her religion, intimidates her, steals from a Vodou priest, threatens to beat up her teenage friend, and is all around awful, yet she talks about him as if he's One of the Good Ones. Whether I order the second book depends entirely on how this unfolds.
Finally, I finished playing Assassin's Creed III. It was basically airline food in video game form -- it wasn't very good, but there also wasn't enough of it. Where the modern AC games have massively bloated maps and go on far too long, AC3 felt like half a game compared with its predecessors. And while the writers clearly put a tremendous amount of research into the Mohawk nation for their protagonist, they forgot to give him a personality.
AC3 came with a companion game which I was going to skip, because it had very poor reviews ... and then I realised that it's set in French Louisiana, and the protagonist is the daughter of a slave-turned-placée who FIGHTS CRIME and also COMMITS CRIME, SPECIFICALLY MURDER, which is sort of inherent to being an assassin. So clearly I had to play it at once. I'm in the early stages so far, and the writing is a thousand times better than AC3 -- except that the plot is incredibly simplistic. Which is a shame, but you can't have everything.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-09 01:11 am (UTC)You absolutely must report on this! I must know! :D
no subject
Date: 2023-02-09 01:12 am (UTC)Anyway ... yeah, I'm still buying the Ben January books as they come out, but I feel like the series has taken a definite dip in quality in the back half; for every book I've loved (and there have been some, definitely!) there were two I was "meh" about. I get that after 19 books Hambly wants to stir up the formula occasionally and explore more of the world, but I'm here for the ensemble and just don't really care about Ben meeting historical figures and solving mysteries with people like Poe or Barnum. And I miss Rose having a more active role before she had kids and started running the school. The good ones are still good, though!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2023-02-09 08:42 am (UTC)... if she doesn't end up kicking him to the curb, it will not be a book I pick up. (I read books for enjoyment. This means that when stuff gets particularly distressing, I tend to close the book.)
I am a member of a tiktok book group! It remains to be seen how it will go, but I'll be sure to give you any gossip.