Shinn, Sharon - The Safe-Keeper's Secret

I probably would like Sharon Shinn's The Shapechanger's Wife if I remembered it. I like some of her stand-alones; they're not great, but they're pleasant to read and very easy on the mind. I get extremely sporky at her Samaria books, largely because while her stand-alone fantasies or sci-fi books can get away with shallow worldbuilding in favor of fun romance, it really doesn't work for me with Samaria.

So I was rather curious to see how I'd like her foray into the YA world.

In the dead of the night, someone from the capitol arrives at the door of the local Safe-Keeper (all Safe-Keepers are sworn to keep secrets), leaving behind a baby. The Safe-Keeper decides to raise the boy, Reed, with her own daughter, Fiona. It's a fairly slow book -- while the main mystery is who Reed's father really is, we're also introduced to Thomas the Truth-Teller, Isadora the Dream-Maker and assorted other village characters. I don't know. There were no real emotional highs or lows in the book for me, and while the final secret revelation at the end did surprise me a little, all the ends felt a little too tied up. And there was nothing really driving the book, and I never quite connected with the characters. I don't think there was anything wrong, per se, just... it's not a book with many depths.

The world-building is a fairly standard medieval-esque kingdom, complete with herb-growers and etc. And while the idea of Truth-Tellers and Safe-Keepers and Dream-Makers could be interesting, they act more as plot devices than as actual roles in the world. In the end, it is a book about Fiona growing up and coming to terms with herself, only, I could tell where she was going anyway and didn't particularly feel very strongly about her either.

Oh well.

Willingham, Bill - Fables: The Mean Seasons

Wow, I haven't read Fables in a while. I originally loved the series -- it's about fairy tales and fables, all jaded and bitter, living in New York! How could I not love it?

But this collection and the last one (March of the Wooden Soldiers) have an underlying harshness to them that is disconcerting. It's not a sudden thing; it's been there all along, but it's been grating on me more. I can't tell if it's because londonkds's commentary on the way Willingham seems to tend toward the conservative or what. I noticed it especially in this collection.

It's the focus on Bigby and Snow as the sole people who can keep order in Fabletown, with the small exception of Rose Red, and it's especially apparent in this book, where Bigby stresses how he's the one who does the things that no one else wants to do or even know about, and it's those very same unsavory things that keep the town running. londonkds has been drawing parallels to extremely hawkish, conservative politics for a while, (alas, I cannot find the entries!), and it is rather unsettling reading about statements like this after a war and in the current political climate. I am also irked that Bigby gets a nifty, macho WWII war story background while Snow almost always is non-violent unless threatened and a firm believer in order.

( Spoilers )