52+ in 2009
Jun. 4th, 2009 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumineaux54. During last night's insomnia, I started and finished "Santa Olivia" by Jacqueline Carey
Most people know Jacqueline Carey from the Kushiel/Terre d'Ange novels. This one bears absolutely no resemblance to those. The prose is spare and streamlined. It's not an epic; the story is small and focused. Nevertheless, I really liked it. It is, effectively, a detailed superhero origin story. Set in a depressingly plausible near-future world, the heroine is the daughter of an ordinary woman and a genetic hybrid military experiment. Of course, she inherits all of her father's abilities. Our heroine doesn't come on stage until about a third of the way into the book. A lot of time is spent on her mother, her father, and her older brother. Perhaps because I've seen Carey's slow set ups before, I was only a little impatient with the delay.
The smallness of the story was a real departure from Carey's other work to date. Even her two non-Terre d'Ange novels are epic fantasies. This story is more closely grounded. Just like in the real world, bold actions bring down consequences that may not be worth the risk.
Most people know Jacqueline Carey from the Kushiel/Terre d'Ange novels. This one bears absolutely no resemblance to those. The prose is spare and streamlined. It's not an epic; the story is small and focused. Nevertheless, I really liked it. It is, effectively, a detailed superhero origin story. Set in a depressingly plausible near-future world, the heroine is the daughter of an ordinary woman and a genetic hybrid military experiment. Of course, she inherits all of her father's abilities. Our heroine doesn't come on stage until about a third of the way into the book. A lot of time is spent on her mother, her father, and her older brother. Perhaps because I've seen Carey's slow set ups before, I was only a little impatient with the delay.
The smallness of the story was a real departure from Carey's other work to date. Even her two non-Terre d'Ange novels are epic fantasies. This story is more closely grounded. Just like in the real world, bold actions bring down consequences that may not be worth the risk.
