Jesse Bullington, The Enterprise of Death
Jun. 21st, 2011 11:13 pmVoted Beverly-Nakia-Javier-Xenia on The Voice a few minutes ago. I'll be sad to see Frenchie and Vicci go, but those're our choices, and anyway I think we would sacrifice a very small child to see Bev win. Maybe not the whole child. A digit. An unimportant digit. A small child's pinky toe.
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Speaking of sacrifice. I finished Jesse Bullington's book The Enterprise of Death a few days ago, at![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
relia's behest; she picked it up at the same time I picked up Eutopia and now we are book-trading. I haven't read The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, so apparently I'm out of the genre loop, but -- The Enterprise of Death is good, solid, fun, entertaining historical fantasy/horror and I'll try and review it without spoiling it too much, as I definitely recommend it. How often do you read a book set during the Spanish Inquisition where 2/3 of the main characters are women, both of those are queer, and one of them is also black? Not very, is the thing.
Something I said to Rel about this was, roughly, "that was the least gritty book about necromancy, death, and monsters I've ever read." Which it kind of is. Not in a bad way, either. The book is over-the-toply violent, gory, disgusting, and full of technically horrific elements, but manages to maintain a sort of black-humored lighthearted jaunty tone in spite of it and even has a lot of cute, power-of-friendship, touching moments of bonding and family. Actually, I'd say it's more about bonding and family than it is about necromancy, death, and monsters. Awa, Manuel, and Monique are a ragtag band of three misfits (serious honest-to-god misfits) that come to bond like a family, and they're each what I enjoyed the most about the whole story; when do you ever have two queer female protags of something when it's not a romantic subplot between them? When do you ever have a positive but not idyllic portrayal of an open/poly marriage? But this book does, and it works -- it's also very funny, full of very interesting fantasy concepts, and a general page-turner. It's also full of squick and violence, and one genuinely non-funny but brilliantly horrific plot element I'm not going to spoil, so if you're squeamish it may still not be the best book, but it's not Frank Miller, is what I'm saying.
The book's shortcomings were all kind of attributable to beginnerism -- some choppy pacing issues, difficulty writing characters' actions/emotions consistently at the beginning, and also some degree of anachronism. Inclusion of queerness and polyamory historically is not anachronistic, of course; doing so with so little opposition or oppression seems a little idealistic, though, but I forgive the book for not wanting to be a depressing story about subjugation and hate, not everything needs to be. The anachronism I took more issue with was when jokes or puns would be made that only made sense in English and the characters would not actually be speaking English. But it wasn't that intrusive.
Overall, definitely an A! It wasn't perfect, but the author obviously has a lot of talent and I can see why Jeff VanderMeer promoted it. We're definitely going to check out Grossbart.
--
Speaking of sacrifice. I finished Jesse Bullington's book The Enterprise of Death a few days ago, at
relia's behest; she picked it up at the same time I picked up Eutopia and now we are book-trading. I haven't read The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, so apparently I'm out of the genre loop, but -- The Enterprise of Death is good, solid, fun, entertaining historical fantasy/horror and I'll try and review it without spoiling it too much, as I definitely recommend it. How often do you read a book set during the Spanish Inquisition where 2/3 of the main characters are women, both of those are queer, and one of them is also black? Not very, is the thing.Something I said to Rel about this was, roughly, "that was the least gritty book about necromancy, death, and monsters I've ever read." Which it kind of is. Not in a bad way, either. The book is over-the-toply violent, gory, disgusting, and full of technically horrific elements, but manages to maintain a sort of black-humored lighthearted jaunty tone in spite of it and even has a lot of cute, power-of-friendship, touching moments of bonding and family. Actually, I'd say it's more about bonding and family than it is about necromancy, death, and monsters. Awa, Manuel, and Monique are a ragtag band of three misfits (serious honest-to-god misfits) that come to bond like a family, and they're each what I enjoyed the most about the whole story; when do you ever have two queer female protags of something when it's not a romantic subplot between them? When do you ever have a positive but not idyllic portrayal of an open/poly marriage? But this book does, and it works -- it's also very funny, full of very interesting fantasy concepts, and a general page-turner. It's also full of squick and violence, and one genuinely non-funny but brilliantly horrific plot element I'm not going to spoil, so if you're squeamish it may still not be the best book, but it's not Frank Miller, is what I'm saying.
The book's shortcomings were all kind of attributable to beginnerism -- some choppy pacing issues, difficulty writing characters' actions/emotions consistently at the beginning, and also some degree of anachronism. Inclusion of queerness and polyamory historically is not anachronistic, of course; doing so with so little opposition or oppression seems a little idealistic, though, but I forgive the book for not wanting to be a depressing story about subjugation and hate, not everything needs to be. The anachronism I took more issue with was when jokes or puns would be made that only made sense in English and the characters would not actually be speaking English. But it wasn't that intrusive.
Overall, definitely an A! It wasn't perfect, but the author obviously has a lot of talent and I can see why Jeff VanderMeer promoted it. We're definitely going to check out Grossbart.
