Singh, Nalini - Psy/Changeling series, vols. 7-9

[oyceter]

I skipped Branded by Fire because I am still annoyed that a dominant female changeling still wants to be dominated, while the male ones are fine with submissive wives. Also, it was over-the-top ubermasculinity, which is one of my least favorite things about Singh's books. Also, I started it twice and kept not liking it.

Blaze of Memory

Dev Santos, head of the Shine Foundation that helps gifted human children, finds Katya Haas. She's hurt and doesn't remember anything, and although Dev wants to trust her, she might also be sent to kill him. As with so many of these write ups, I read this a year or so ago, and I don't remember much, save that Dev is constantly described as "ineluctably male" or "essentially masculine" or that he smells like metal. I was hoping something with an amnesiac possible assassin would have more female kickassness, but sadly, no. This has all the hypermasculinity that I dislike about Singh, with a lot of exotification and Starbucks description (of Dev) to boot, and it's the main reason why I didn't catch up on the Psy/Changeling series until the past week or so.

Bonds of Justice

I finally picked this up because I was in the mood for paranormals. Max Shannon is a human cop who has been assigned to protect Councilor Nikita Duncan. To help him out is J-Psy Sophia Russo. The J-Psy, whom we haven't seen much of before, can basically go into a person's memory and project that memory out for others. The "J" is for "justice," as they are frequently used as witnesses in court. Unfortunately, because of their job, like F-Psy, J-Psy tend to have mental breakdowns early on, and Sophia is on the verge of hers.

Thankfully, this reminds me why I like some of the series in the first place. Although there is some Starbucks description, the main relationship between Max and Sophia isn't blazing sexual tension, but rather, love and trust. This is what I missed from the past two books in the series or so, especially because Singh's way of writing sexual tension is to just throw in a lot of bad adjectives. Instead, because the sex is turned down, there's more focus on Sophia's possible mental breakdown and the plot against Nikita Duncan. It's not that these elements weren't there in the past few books, just that I felt I couldn't concentrate on them because of all the ineluctable maleness in the air. Anyway, interesting, and thank goodness without the marking and super possessiveness some of Singh's heroes have.

Play of Passion

Probably my favorite Singh to date. Indigo is a lieutenant of the Snow Dancer wolf pack, and as a dominant female, she, like Mercy in Branded by Fire, despairs of finding a mate. Drew is the pack's tracker: not in the offical pack hierarchy, he charms his way instead of taking control like Indigo. And he's wanted Indigo for a while, but she's not sure she can pair up with a wolf who can't dominate her.

Speaking of which, still annoyed by the differences between dominant women and dominant men in the Changeling packs! On the other hand, this was a much more interesting take on it than Mercy's book. Drew actually seems like the complete opposite of all Singh's heroes. Instead of being possessive and demanding, he apologizes and tries to charm Indigo in ways that are mostly charming and not stalkery. And when he is possessive and demanding, he realizes he is wrong, that Indigo likes being in control, and tells her he won't undercut her authority in front of other people! This is very refreshing, particularly in a Psy/Changeling book. I also love that Indigo is clearly competent and very controlled, and it helps that the combination of controlled woman and the fun but nice guy trying to please her is one of my favorite romance combinations. (This, by the way, only works for me if the guy is actually nice and not a stalker or a seducer. The seducer thing used to work when I was in high school, but I read too many of them, and now I roll my eyes at them.) The prose still isn't awesome, but mostly I just wanted to flail and go "OMG! A heroine who is canonically more powerful in the pack hierarchy than the hero! A hero who doesn't feel like he has to dominate her!" Minus points for Singh sticking in a line or so about Drew not being at his full power yet. In my head, he is. Also, there is more plot about Councilor Krychek and all the other stuff and Silence breaking, along with a fair amount of set-up for what Singh says will be the last book in this arc, featuring Hawke and Sienna.

I have to admit, I'm kind of curious, because I like Sienna, but Hawke is basically the antithesis of my type of hero. Also, the age difference still bugs me a bit. I'll probably end up reading it anyway just to find out what happens to the Council.

Comments

[phi]

Oh man, branded by fire and blaze of memory were *so bad* It totally killed me the way Dev was described as smelling like the Orient, like cinnamon. Killed me ded. I've had Bonds of Justice on my Kindle for months and have yet to read it because the last two were so disappointing.

Also, is it just me, or did the quality of the prose take a sudden dive in Brands? The number of times she just utterly failed at, say, complete sentences, was kind of distracting. And memorable! I read Blaze, geez, at least a year ago, and the grammar!fail still stuck with me.

[oyceter]

OMG SO BAD! Also, yes, the Orientalism was SO BAD! I read those two books and was like, "Self, why did you read so much Nalini Singh before?" It almost read like a Nalini Singh parody.

Thankfully, Bonds of Justice was a lot better, and it reminded me more of Slave to Sensation than Branded and Blaze.

[daedala]

I don't remember much of Blaze or Branded! I thought that the "metal" thing was ok because of the plot point, but the rest...eh.

Bonds of Justice I remember better, but...hmm. I think her books have just gotten to be too much the same for me. I think I would have liked it and PoP a lot better if I'd read them earlier in the series. I've become more interested in the overarching plot than the protagonists of each book, which is probably a bad sign.

Note to self: no long series.

[oracne]

OMG I forgot he smelled like the Orient. The metal, at least, has a plot reason.

[rachelmanija]

I created the tag "adverb male" just for that book! The other two sound fun - I will have to check them out, damn you!

[oyceter]

Ahaha, sorry! I must share the addiction! But I think you will actually really enjoy Play of Passion; it's very different from Singh's other adverb male stuff, and I think you'll really like Indigo.

[oracne]

I was sorta okay with BLAZE OF MEMORY in a kind of Anne-Stuart-way, because of the whole he might have to kill her thing, and it had this claustrophobic feel. I liked BONDS OF JUSTICE a lot - the ones with telepath heroes/heroines are my faves because NO DOMINANCE OMG MAKE IT STOP as well as the reasons you gave. Just finished PLAY OF PASSION this weekend. Even though it was all DOMINANCE DOMINANCE DOMINANCE I still liked it because of Drew and because the issues underlying the DOMINANCE DOMINANCE DOMINANCE were, like, real issues. But OMG the DOMINANCE and SUBMISSIVE MATERNAL FEMALE = ANGEL OF THE HOUSE *spit spit spit*.

BTW, wolves aren't really like that. It drives me NUTS when werewolves are like that, except in the Kitty books, where the pack dynamics are clearly crazy-ass human dynamics that just needed an excuse.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I really liked the dynamic in Bonds of Justice! But arggghhh so annoyed at the constant dominance of the men and how the women (except Indigo and Mercy) are these saintly angels keeping the clans together, and just arrrrrrrgh! I'm hoping Kiss of Snow will be good, because of Sienna, but arrrrggh, am worried because Hawke so far is really not my fav character.

[oracne]

I think I'll be okay with Hawke. Unless he goes all DOMINANCE, which knowing the previous books, he very well may. Sienna should be very interesting.

It's not like I'm going to stop reading them now, since I read them all even though I complain.

I didn't read the second Angel book, though. Just couldn't get into it, and don't intend to read any more of those.

[oyceter]

Haha, I know! I complain all the time, and Branded by Fire is the only one I couldn't make it through.

I have the second Angel book out from the library, and I just keep not reading it. I like the world a lot, but I think I'd rather it have a new couple per book, since I wasn't particularly in love with the main couple and wanted to see more of the side characters.

[oracne]

If only she would write to our direction.

"I would like MOAR TELEPATHS."

"Also CONDOS."

"ANGST! You're pretty good with that, but a bit more...."

"FEMALE SPIES!"

[daedala]

I finally got to Play of Passion so I looked up this post. My take is more like oracne's than yours, but heavier on the bored-ish because it's not really as different as I had hoped. I nearly stopped reading at the "he hasn't grown into his full power" bit, and only finished for the other characters. I'm still hoping to find out WTF Sienna is.

If you haven't read the second Archangel book yet, I suggest extreme caution due to the destruction of a very large city of people of color.

[oyceter]

Oh huh, more like oracne's in that it reads as pretty DOMINANCE ALL THE TIME to you?

[daedala]

Yeah, pretty much. At first I really liked that Indigo was supposed to be more dominant, but then the only relationship model was that messed-up relationship her aunt has with her less dominant partner, and Indigo turns out to not really be more dominant -- Drew is "outside the hierarchy," and if that isn't enough he's "still growing" (and given her role and position, shouldn't she have noticed that?) and so on. The book seemed to come down pretty firmly on the "the man MUST NEVER EVER be less dominant than the woman." It meant I didn't really take Drew's messing up and then apologizing for it seriously. The charm started feeling like humoring her, at least to me.

I'm also not thrilled that when Drew started arguing with Indigo in front of the others, Hawke stepped in and supported Drew even though he was behaving badly rather than supporting Indigo when he knew she would make the right decision if allowed to.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I can definitely see that! I think I had to handwave A LOT to ignore all Singh's things about Drew being outside the hierarchy and not grown into his own and blah blah blah. Romances! Why is it so hard to have cute, nice guys?! I feel like it's looking for a lot of femdom stuff, where half the time it's not really there but if I just squint a little and look at it sideways, kind of maybe....?

[daedala]

Yeah. I think I've mostly gotten tired enough that I can't handwave it, though I was happy to for the first several books. Not that that means I've stopped reading. (I've got Archangel book #3 now.) It's just that I'm reading the same way I read Star Trek books -- I started with a list of the ten best books, read them, and kept at it waaaaaaay too long looking for more Final Reflection and My Enemy, My Ally. I'm sure I would have liked this pretty well if I had read it earlier on!

Also, am I the only one noticing her using "male" and "female" as nouns instead of "man" and "woman" and being kinda weirded out by that? It's like gender essentialism is deforming the language.

[oyceter]

No, I totally noticed that! It is incredibly annoying!

Also, so, I don't know the kink community very well, but saw this blog (now defunct) on several places talking about sexism in BDSM and pushy male subs and thought you might be interested!

[daedala]

Her writing style isn't working for me, but this post is quite awesome. I will look more when I am in a less SUPERCRABBY mood.

[oyceter]

Yeah, the writing doesn't always work for me, and I don't think I always agree with her, but it gave me a lot of stuff to think about, and I love that post that you link to!

[daedala]

Did you ever get to Kiss of Snow? I'm a third of the way through, and so exasperated by the hot and cold running dominance, at this point I'm only reading for the Psy politics.

[oracne]

I haven't read that one yet - haven't been to the library for the hardcover.

[daedala]

You must report when you do! I'm having trouble calibrating whether it's actually bad or I'm just crabbycakes.

(Er, Oyce, I meant "you all" and just replied to Oracne so you'd both get the message. Um. Hiding now...)

[oyceter]

Hee, thanks! OMG so behind on book write ups...

[daedala]

Yes, you are delinquent in your duties!

It's been how long since I posted a book review? :) Haha.