A small parcel of land
Nov. 5th, 2005 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysWhen the to-read shelf has two books by an author, you really should read one of them. Its just plain embarrassing to be faced with such reading incompetence. So I chose to read The Poison Master by Liz Williams. Given that this has not been a good week for reading, it has taken a while to get through in small chunks. As such, it proved to e a rather good choice as it is an easy book to put down then pick up and easily resume.
The reason I had two books by Williams on my shelf was because I had enjoyed Empire of Bones earlier in the year. That book was well constructed, had a sympathetic main character and some very good social observation. The Poison Master only has the first of those. Not to say it isn't worth reading. It is plot driven, well paced with nicely paced descriptive material. All that rather reminds me of a lot of the good YA fiction that is out there. OK, the very best YA fiction would have a more engaging main character, but otherwise I did feel that there was a strong flavour of the style commonly aimed at the younger market - a kind of clean simplicity.
But The Poison Master isn't quite a YA fantasy - at least I don't think so anyway. The marketing people would have you label it part of the "New Weird" (boy do I hate that label) but it isn't quite that either although you can see why they might try it on, what with the magic and the industrial age setting. Having said that, if you want another referral point for comparison, you could perhaps compare Willliams to Susanna Clarke in general form and style. That is no bad thing and neither was the book, just don't look for depth and you will be entertained.
The reason I had two books by Williams on my shelf was because I had enjoyed Empire of Bones earlier in the year. That book was well constructed, had a sympathetic main character and some very good social observation. The Poison Master only has the first of those. Not to say it isn't worth reading. It is plot driven, well paced with nicely paced descriptive material. All that rather reminds me of a lot of the good YA fiction that is out there. OK, the very best YA fiction would have a more engaging main character, but otherwise I did feel that there was a strong flavour of the style commonly aimed at the younger market - a kind of clean simplicity.
But The Poison Master isn't quite a YA fantasy - at least I don't think so anyway. The marketing people would have you label it part of the "New Weird" (boy do I hate that label) but it isn't quite that either although you can see why they might try it on, what with the magic and the industrial age setting. Having said that, if you want another referral point for comparison, you could perhaps compare Willliams to Susanna Clarke in general form and style. That is no bad thing and neither was the book, just don't look for depth and you will be entertained.