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kilroyPrint date: 1987 (20s: 1, 50s: 1, 60s: 2, 70s: 5, 80s: 5, 90s: 3, 00s: 7)
Some books are easy pleasures, like sinking into the couch you've known for years. Some books you don't read so much as have relationships with-- and of those few, some are old friends as soon as you open the pages. This book is all of these things.
I know where Kelly Eskridge got "Dangerous Spaces," now. War for the Oaks is an unassuming book, the kind most people will never have heard of... unless you've read it, in which case you form an instantaneous bond with anyone else who has. I suspect its influence goes a lot deeper than most people would expect.
It's a rock 'n' roll faerie love story. It has neither that self-indulgent cleverness nor that overemphasis on the fantastic that frequently sink urban fantasy. There's no one constantly reminding you how strange and wonderful everything is. The characters are all grounded (or at least framed) in reality as we know it, and the magic is not so much unnatural as a nature we didn't previously expect. It's a tribute to the author that everything feels natural; the intersection of magic and reality is quiet and harmonious, which means that we as readers can spend time with the characters instead of trying to figure out how the world works.
And oh, how I love the characters. They are to an entity endearingly imperfect, the kind of characters that work for the same reasons Indiana Jones does-- because they sweat, and worry, and swear, and hang on out of sheer cussedness and pride. They have feelings they try to ignore, act on impulses they don't understand, and are in general gloriously, fallibly human. You form attachments to them not just because they feel like people you want to know, but because they are people you feel like you could know.
The book reads like a summer breeze. Merely owning it probably brings good luck-- but only if you share it. Which I intend to do.
Verdict: Keep and lend to as many people as possible. (15/41 keepers)
Page count: 319 (8885 total)
Completed: 24 (12 female authors, 12 male authors)
Rejected: 17 (9 male authors, 8 female authors)
Next book due: 8/6
Some books are easy pleasures, like sinking into the couch you've known for years. Some books you don't read so much as have relationships with-- and of those few, some are old friends as soon as you open the pages. This book is all of these things.
I know where Kelly Eskridge got "Dangerous Spaces," now. War for the Oaks is an unassuming book, the kind most people will never have heard of... unless you've read it, in which case you form an instantaneous bond with anyone else who has. I suspect its influence goes a lot deeper than most people would expect.
It's a rock 'n' roll faerie love story. It has neither that self-indulgent cleverness nor that overemphasis on the fantastic that frequently sink urban fantasy. There's no one constantly reminding you how strange and wonderful everything is. The characters are all grounded (or at least framed) in reality as we know it, and the magic is not so much unnatural as a nature we didn't previously expect. It's a tribute to the author that everything feels natural; the intersection of magic and reality is quiet and harmonious, which means that we as readers can spend time with the characters instead of trying to figure out how the world works.
And oh, how I love the characters. They are to an entity endearingly imperfect, the kind of characters that work for the same reasons Indiana Jones does-- because they sweat, and worry, and swear, and hang on out of sheer cussedness and pride. They have feelings they try to ignore, act on impulses they don't understand, and are in general gloriously, fallibly human. You form attachments to them not just because they feel like people you want to know, but because they are people you feel like you could know.
The book reads like a summer breeze. Merely owning it probably brings good luck-- but only if you share it. Which I intend to do.
Verdict: Keep and lend to as many people as possible. (15/41 keepers)
Page count: 319 (8885 total)
Completed: 24 (12 female authors, 12 male authors)
Rejected: 17 (9 male authors, 8 female authors)
Next book due: 8/6