Book: Sixty-one nails
Jun. 24th, 2013 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Mike Shevdon
Details: (c) Shevdon Ltd 2009; Pub Angry Robot 2012; ISBN 978-0-85766-238-5
Verdict: Sixty-one nails is credible though not outstanding trad urban fantasy.
Reasons for reading it: I met Shevdon at Eastercon and he seemed interesting, particularly his pitch of a fantasy series based on obscure but real English legal traditions.
How it came into my hands:jack or I bought the first of the trilogy from the dealers' table.
My response was similar tojack's: Sixty-one nails has some good features but it doesn't quite stand out. I definitely liked the execution of a fantasy set in real contemporary London, which brings out some of London's quirks without beating the reader over the head with how much research Shevdon has done. The sense of magic is pretty good, the characters' magical experiences feel both real and impressively fantastical and weird, not generic or clichéd. Shevdon's Feyre draw from the pre-Victorian and pre-Tolkien mythologies about the Fair Folk; they are not the most amazingly original or well-drawn example of that literary tradition but they aren't bad. The problem is that the invented Fayre world is much less vivid than the mundane London; the powers and characteristics and politics of the Feyre seem to exist only to serve the plot, you can kind of see the scaffolding.
I liked Niall as a character, particularly the fact that he is reasonably bright. He isn't a magical genius who always makes the right decisions, and he's definitely thrown (as anyone would be) by suddenly discovering that he's actually part Feyre and is the chosen one who holds the keys to resolving Feyre politics and saving humanity from the dark ones blablabla, but he doesn't do gratuitously stupid things just to advance the plot. He uses his real-world skill, such as translating his professional experience as a trader to bargaining with the Feyre, and he's neither pointlessly skeptical in the face of overwhelming evidence, nor credulous to the point of being a liability.
However I really really don't like Blackbird as a character. She's almost literally a manic pixie dream girl. It's bad enough that her entire existence as a character is to act as magical guide and mentor to the protag, but she's also unbelievably beautiful and she provides him with character-building experiences and she falls in love with him and they have hot sex and omg I suddenly don't care about this book any more. I mean, there's a little bit of possibly interesting stuff about how gender relations are a bit different among the Feyre, and a hint of something that might turn out to be interesting about how she has other priorities than simply making her Twu Wuv happy, but this set-up annoyed me enough that I probably won't bother with the sequels.
Also, the dialogue is unbelievably clunky, everybody speaks like second-rate film clichés. But in spite of these problems SON manages to be pacy and engaging, so I don't feel bad about making a punt on it at Eastercon.
I feel mean saying this, but basically Sixty-one nails wants to be Rivers of London but it's just not well enough written to match up to that.
Details: (c) Shevdon Ltd 2009; Pub Angry Robot 2012; ISBN 978-0-85766-238-5
Verdict: Sixty-one nails is credible though not outstanding trad urban fantasy.
Reasons for reading it: I met Shevdon at Eastercon and he seemed interesting, particularly his pitch of a fantasy series based on obscure but real English legal traditions.
How it came into my hands:
jack or I bought the first of the trilogy from the dealers' table.My response was similar to
jack's: Sixty-one nails has some good features but it doesn't quite stand out. I definitely liked the execution of a fantasy set in real contemporary London, which brings out some of London's quirks without beating the reader over the head with how much research Shevdon has done. The sense of magic is pretty good, the characters' magical experiences feel both real and impressively fantastical and weird, not generic or clichéd. Shevdon's Feyre draw from the pre-Victorian and pre-Tolkien mythologies about the Fair Folk; they are not the most amazingly original or well-drawn example of that literary tradition but they aren't bad. The problem is that the invented Fayre world is much less vivid than the mundane London; the powers and characteristics and politics of the Feyre seem to exist only to serve the plot, you can kind of see the scaffolding. I liked Niall as a character, particularly the fact that he is reasonably bright. He isn't a magical genius who always makes the right decisions, and he's definitely thrown (as anyone would be) by suddenly discovering that he's actually part Feyre and is the chosen one who holds the keys to resolving Feyre politics and saving humanity from the dark ones blablabla, but he doesn't do gratuitously stupid things just to advance the plot. He uses his real-world skill, such as translating his professional experience as a trader to bargaining with the Feyre, and he's neither pointlessly skeptical in the face of overwhelming evidence, nor credulous to the point of being a liability.
However I really really don't like Blackbird as a character. She's almost literally a manic pixie dream girl. It's bad enough that her entire existence as a character is to act as magical guide and mentor to the protag, but she's also unbelievably beautiful and she provides him with character-building experiences and she falls in love with him and they have hot sex and omg I suddenly don't care about this book any more. I mean, there's a little bit of possibly interesting stuff about how gender relations are a bit different among the Feyre, and a hint of something that might turn out to be interesting about how she has other priorities than simply making her Twu Wuv happy, but this set-up annoyed me enough that I probably won't bother with the sequels.
Also, the dialogue is unbelievably clunky, everybody speaks like second-rate film clichés. But in spite of these problems SON manages to be pacy and engaging, so I don't feel bad about making a punt on it at Eastercon.
I feel mean saying this, but basically Sixty-one nails wants to be Rivers of London but it's just not well enough written to match up to that.
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Date: 2013-06-25 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-25 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-25 10:15 pm (UTC)