THOUGHTS on Meljean Brook's "Demon Bound"

Meljean Brook's "Guardian" series is one of my favourite UF (Urban Fantasy)/PNR (Paranormal Romance) series. The book that irrevocably hooked me on the series was book 4, "Demon Bound." In this post, I evaluate whether "Demon Bound" passes three well-known tests for female presence in media: the Bechdel Test, the Mako Mori Test, and the Sexy Lamp Test.

1.0 THE SET UP: Guardians, Demons, Free Choice and Bargains

Meljean Brook's Guardian series has very intricate and complicated world-building (I love it), that I will only briefly touch on.  The overarching theme throughout the series is the importance of human free choice. The main players in the series are Guardians, humans who have sacrificed their own lives in order to save people whose lives were in danger from preternatural threats like a demon, vampire or nosferatu. These humans who have sacrificed their lives are visited by the Doyen, Michael, who offers the humans a choice. They can choose to stand by their original choice and die, or they can choose to be transformed into a Guardian. If they choose to be a Guardian, they will gain supernatural powers of shape-shifting, super strength,  the ability to fly. They will also develop a unique gift whose nature is usually a reflection of some aspect of their human life.  Guardians are bound to protect humans from supernatural threats, but there is an important catch: they can never subvert a human's free will.

The heroine of "Demon Bound" is Alice Grey, a guardian whose gift has manifested as communication with and the control of monstrously large spiders. Known as the "Black Widow," even for a guardian, Alice is considered creepy and strange; her movements are sharp and jittery like a spider's, and her academic interests are obscure. Raised in Egypt in the late 1800s, Alice has already been a guardian for 120 years by the time that "Demon Bound" takes place. The hero of "Demon Bound," in contrast, is Jake Hawkins, a novice guardian who died protecting small children from a nosferatu that was terrorizing a village in Vietnam. Jake was introduced in the previous book, "Demon Night," where we learned that his gift is teleportation.

2.0 ALICE GREY and the MAKO  MORI Test

"Demon Bound" passes the Mako Mori test - the main narrative arc of "Demon Bound" is Alice Grey's story. Before Alice was transformed into a guardian, she made a bargain with a demon. She promised to bring the demon's Michael's heart, not knowing at the time who Michael was. After being transformed by Michael into a Guardian, and learning who Michael is, Alice is horrified by what she promised. Because the makers of unfulfilled promises are punished by 1000 years of torture in a frozen field in hell, Alice is conflicted between her loyalty to the Guardians and Michael, and the promise she made as a human. The resolution of this conflict is the main narrative arc of "Demon Bound"; it is the narrative arc that connects "Demon Bound" to overarching storyline of the Guardian series. [1] Alice thus has her own narrative arc that is not about supporting a man's narrative arc - she makes "Demon Bound" pass the Mako Mori test, as it

(i) has a female character ( Alice Grey)(ii) who has her own narrative arc 
(  fulfilling her bargain without betraying the Guardians), and (iii) that narrative arc is not about supporting a man's narrative arc 

Mako Mori Test: 3/3 



3.0 DEMON BOUND and the BECHDEL TEST

"Demon Bound" also passes the Bechdel Test. Alice and Irena, another Guardian, have a four-page conversation about Baba Yaga. This segues into a discussion about Alice's bargain and the promise that Alice extracted from Irena years ago: in the event that the demon, Teqon, comes calling for the fulfillment of Irena's promise, Alice forced Irena to promise that she would lock Alice in a prison, so that Alice would not be able to fulfil her promise. Alice and Irena, two women, thus have a rather long conversation about something other than a man - so "Demon Bound"

(i) has at least two women in it, (ii) shows those women having a conversation, where (iii) the aforementioned conversation is about something other than a man. 

Bechdel Test: 3/3 

4.0 ALICE GREY, JAKE HAWKINS and the SEXY LAMP TEST

Alice Grey also passes the Sexy Lamp test. Much of the plot development in "Demon Bound" is low-action - Alice and Jake do a lot of research, given Alice's role as the Guardian's librarian, and Jake being assigned to be her assistant. The research, however, leads Alice and Jake to discover the skeleton of Zakril, one of the first Guardians. Research on Zakril's skeleton leads to Alice and Jake discovering the existence of the Grigori, one of the most important points in the overarching storyline. But it is Alice's actions/research that first leads to the discovery of the temple where Zakril is found, she thus could not be replaced by a Sexy Lamp (or in the case of Alice, a creepy lamp).

Additionally, when Alice and Jake are in Hell, held captive by demons, Alice is the one who figures out how to secretly communicate. And she is the one who rigs their prison with razor-sharp spider threads, a crucial ingredient in their plan for escape. The plan itself is Jake's, which shows that both Alice and Jake pass the Sexy Lamp test - neither of them could be replaced with a Sexy Lamp, because both take actions that are crucial to the events that occur - in this case, their escape from captivity. The issue of whether or not Jake passes the Sexy Lamp test is important for "Demon Bound" because Jake is much younger and in a lower position of authority than Alice within the Guardian ranks - i.e., he is in a role that is usually allocated to the heroines in romance novels. But in any case, both Alice and Jake pass the Sexy Lamp test.

The Sexy Lamp Test:   2/2

  Alice Grey

  Jake Hawkins

5.0 Jake Hawkins and the Mako Mori Test

Given that Jake fulfils a role that is usually allocated to heroines in romance novels, it's equally important to consider whether he would pass (a modified version of) the Mako Mori test. Does he have is own narrative arc that is not about supporting Alice's narrative arc?

Jake as a hero is a rather well-adjusted and uncomplicated guy, even if he has a problem filtering out insensitive things he shouldn't say - he's definitely not your typical broody alpha male with father issues. He does have his own narrative arc, however, even if it's small. Jake has always felt guilty about dying when he did, and leaving his then-pregnant girlfriend alone. He felt extra guilty because when he left to join the army, knowing he might die, he knew that he wanted different things than his girlfriend did, and feels that in dying, he didn't live up to his responsibility. Jake's pregnant girlfriend is a married great-grandmother by the time of "Demon Bound," as Guardians are bound to 100 years of training in Caelum before they are allowed to return to earth. Jake's narrative arc is thus about dealing with his guilt regarding what might have been his life. Although Jake's first contact with his human family is a teleportation accident, afterwards he chooses to face his daughter and see what he missed. He thus has his own narrative arc, separate from Alice's narrative arc, in which he shows agency in its resolution. All in all, Jake passes the Mako Mori test (modified to account for the fact that he's not female, he's just in the role normally allocated to female characters). So all in all, "Demon Bound" passes all three of my selected tests for feminism.

Mako Mori:

Alice:    
Jake:  N/A, , 

Sexy Lamp:

Alice: 
Jake: 

Bechdel: 

Alice:    
Jake:  N/A

6.0 Conclusion

"Demon Bound" is one of my favourites in Meljean Brook's Guardian series - the interactions between Jake and Alice are definitely funny, and there are definitely gritty parts (Alice is in a hard position), and grand parts (the way that Jake and Alice plan to deal with the demons and the bargain). The sad parts are downplayed, but there are sad parts (Alice's married life, for instance, and her students all deciding to ascend instead of staying to fight). It's thus not surprising as to why I feel justified in loving this book - not only does it fulfill all of my selected criteria for female presence, it also fulfils all my criteria for what I love in a book. It also does it while being original - very few romance novels have heroes like Jake, and even fewer books have heroines like Alice.

FOOTNOTES

 [1] I guess one could argue that the overarching storyline of the entire series is Michael's narrative arc, so every other narrative arc supports his. But Michael does not feel at all like a main character in any of the books except the final one, so I reject this analysis!

"Outgunned": A Tribute to Meljean Brook's "The Iron Duke"

"Outgunned": A Tribute to Meljean Brook's "The Iron Duke"

Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth and Rhys Trahaearn from Meljean Brook's "The Iron Duke." This was inspired by the scene in the lift, when Mina "fires back" at the Iron Duke, even though she was "outgunned."

I enjoyed "The Iron Duke" a lot on my first reading, and then grew to like it even more on repeat readings - my favourite kind of book : ) I think I didn't like it that much on my first reading because I didn't really fall in love with Trahaearn. With repeat readings, though, I think I understood why he did things better, and re-interpreted what seemed like 'autocratic jerk' on my first read as 'autocratic but that's because his past has rendered him so socially inept that that's the only way he knows how to behave.' I really loved the second in the series "Heart of Steel" as well too - I loved it on my first read, but haven't re-read it yet [1].

Although all of the books and novellas in Meljean Brook's "The Iron Seas" series are good - especially the world building. And I am rather obsessed with her Guardian Series as well.

Reference-wise: I used a picture of Lee Da Hae as a reference for Mina, based solely on the description of Mina being pretty and having a round face. And I very, very loosely based Rhys on Jonathan Rhys Meyers (because when I was reading "The Iron Duke" I couldn't get past the name and kept picturing a darker, giant Jonathan Rhys Meyers in my head.) I tried to make his nose longer and more hawk-like than Rhys Meyer's though, to fit the description of Trahaearn in the book.

This picture took me ages to paint because

   (i) there's a hand in it, and
   (ii) I tried to make it so that they were looking at each other. And clearly gave up.

Still have no clue how to systematically paint the light and pupils or whatnot in the eyes (I guess the eyelids/eyeshape might matter too) to get the effect of making the eye look where I want it to look.) That's a study that needs doing.
 
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[1] This is because it's not as angsty, and 70% of the time, I want to read angst. I like to blame L. M. Montgomery and the 'Anne' series for this.  But I loved Archimedes as a hero. And I was laughing from the outset of "Heart of  Steel,"with the Capitalized Phrases in the letters between Archimedes and his sister.

Tribute to Martha Wells' "Raksura" Series

Jade, sister queen, and Moon, first consort, from the Indigo Cloud Court, of Martha Wells' Raksura series.

I really liked the first two books of this series, especially the world-building (so interesting how the gender dynamics are switched around because the biology of the Raksura). And for some reason, the third book of this series multiplied my "like" of the characters into "love," so I wanted to paint a fanart tribute to the series.

But I had so many issues painting this! I actually started this painting before the painting of Mercy, and I ended up having to paint Mercy as a breather/break from this one. My tribulations painting this are as follows:

Originally I wanted to paint Moon in his winged Raksura form, but I had major issues with figuring out how to do black scales with a bronze undersheen, so I ended up turning him into groundling form. Which was actually good, because my attempts at the Raksura frills apparently look like girly ruffles. I didn't really know what to look at as a reference for Jade/Moon's spines and frills. And then I had to repaint over Moon's face twice because it looked weird. And then I repainted over Jade's face three times, and I'm still not happy with how she looks. I wanted to approximate how cute Moon and Jade are in when they snarl at each other (eg., because one has taken some risk that the other doesn't approve of, but would of course do themselves) but Moon looks too young to me, and Jade looks too harsh. And by the time I put a single layer of scales on Jade, I felt like there was already too much going on with her skin to do another overlying pattern of grey. Also, I originally had Jade with claws, but then the picture started to seem really sinister, since I couldn't make Jade's face look less mean, and Moon's looking all vulnerable in groundling form! So I made them more like hands and less like claws, and then decided to throw out accuracy with the book for what was fun to paint, and made her wings translucent. *breathes*.

But despite all that, now I sort of want to draw Frost, Thorn and Bitter, the royal Clutch, with maybe Stone in the background, and oh that would be way too complex for me...

I was listening to the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce while painting this (pre-Mercy breather), and actually finished it off without an audiobook. It was around Christmas Eve/Christmas though, so I MAY have been listening to Christmas music.

THOUGHTS on Steel's Edge (Book 4/4, Edge Series by Ilona Andrews)

Steel's Edge by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steel's Edge is the fourth and final installment in Ilona Andrews' "Edge" series, and it's my second favourite of the series, after Bayou Moon (the second book). Although I liked the grittiness and twists of the plot in "Steel's Edge" better than the plot in "Bayou Moon," the romance and character development worked for me better in "Bayou's Moon." And since I've always read the "Edge" books with the expectations for a fantasy/romance, as opposed to an urban fantasy (like their excellent Kate Daniels Series), there were some issues with the romance and character development that I'd let slide for an urban fantasy, but couldn't quite get around for "Steel's Edge." But even with these issues, overall, I found "Steel's Edge" to be well-written and highly entertaining - I really liked it!

One of the reasons that I love books by Ilona Andrews is that they nearly always hit all four of my "funny, sad, gritty and grand criteria" for what makes a good book - i.e., there are always parts that are funny, parts that are sad, parts that are gritty and parts that are grand. As for the "funny," there are always funny parts in an Ilona Andrews book - I love what Jason, the crimelord of Kelena, offers Richard when he mistakenly thinks Richard has married Charlotte and that they'd bought a dog together, and I laughed out loud at the part where/how Jack informs Sophie and Charlotte that he is "adored" by his adoptive grandmother. And the "gritty" part is definitely achieved in "Steel's Edge." The hero, Richard Mar, is a vigilante whose aim seems to be to single-handedly wipe out the the illegal slave trafficking that operates in the Edge. And the heroine, Charlotte de Ney, is a healer who has grown disillusioned with parts of humanity that she begins using her healing gift to kill (albeit she is killing slavers). Any book whose main characters deal with slavery, human trafficking and disease is going to be fairly dark and gritty.Also, like the previous "Edge" books, there are gruesome maimings/deaths that are omfg!shocking (a good thing, imo), especially given romance-genre expectations. SPOILER

And the gruesome maimings/deaths are not not just of redshirts, but of characters who the reader has become attached to. **END SPOILER**

And these gritty events are interspersed with enough spectacular/grandiose parts - i.e., Richard doing some brilliant swordplay, or Charlotte implementing some impressive healing/antihealing, to satisfy my need for"grand" bits. And these gritty events are interspersed with enough spectacular/grandiose parts - i.e., Richard doing some brilliant swordplay, or Charlotte implementing some impressive healing/antihealing, to satisfy my need for "grand" bits.

There are also sad parts in the book. However, the most heart-wrenchingly emotional parts SPOILER

(i.e., Eleanore's death and the major plot twist regarding the captain of the slaving ship, omfg that part was amazing **END SPOILER**)

aren't associated with the hero/heroine, but with Jack and George, who the reader has been introduced to in the first Edge book "On The Edge." Now, like everyone else who reads this series, I've completely fallen in love with Jack and George, so these parts of "Steel's Edge" really tugged on my emotional heartstrings and even made me cry. But after reading these parts, I was left wondering whether I'd been tricked by some sort of sleight-of-hand. This is because when I'm reading a romance, I have the genre expectation (whether justified or not) that the deepest emotional arc should belong to the hero and/or heroine. And although there is a parallel drawn between George and Jack's situation on the one hand, and Richard and Kaldar's situation on the other hand, I didn't find this parallel developed much beyond a single mention. So in the end, while I was definitely getting the emotional highs and lows I want from a good book, I felt as if Jack and George's high-lows were given to reader in lieu of character development for Charlotte and Richard. And so I wasn't quite sure whether in the end, I really got to know Richard and Charlotte.

This in turn affected how well the romance worked for me. Although I could understand why Charlotte falls in love with Richard, I didn't quite buy how Richard falls in love with Charlotte (although I liked her well enough). I know that one reason Richard wants Charlotte is his conviction that Charlotte would "never become jaded or lose her resolve." He comes to this belief when he observes that she doesn't let go of her revulsion at injustice, even after all of the terrible things she (and Richard) sees in the slaver city. And although I do think Ilona Andrews did an excellent job coming up with travesties that would jade (or scar) most people, I didn't quite buy that Richard would take Charlotte's failure to become jaded after this experience as evidence evidence that Charlotte would NEVER become jaded or lose her resolve. This is because Richard himself is an example of someone who has been seeing these sorts of horrors for years, and doesn't seem to be someone who became (or considered himself) jaded after his first exposure to them.

There are also parts of the romance that I liked very much, however. In particular, I liked how most of Richard and Charlotte's interactions were so unfailingly cool and polite, despite the harrowing circumstances of their situations. While an average person would throw manners out the window in these sorts of circumstances, this is not so for Richard and Charlotte. Knowledge of, and adherence to the proper behaviour of nobility is where Richard and Charlotte excel, and their maintenance of courtly politeness to each other, even among plague, death and disfiguring, as well as Richard's dry attempts at levity in rather grave situations, really captured the "regency" part of the "regency in jeans" description that Ilona Andrews used to describe "Steel's Edge" on their author blog. Although I've read some reviews that disliked this aspect of their romance (I think they saw Richard and Charlotte's adherence to proper behaviour as relationship as indicative of a cold and passionless relationship), I read Richard and Charlotte's determination to maintain manners and proper behaviour in these crazy circumstances as a subtle competition between the two of them, and believable as the sort of interaction two people like Richard and Charlotte would engage in.

Now that I've more carefully thought about exactly why I had some issues with "Steel's Edge," it seems like the issues mostly arise becaues I have specific subgenre expectations, where "Steel's Edge" doesn't really fit into the relevant subgenre. Or actually even into any standard fantasy subgenre. So I don't think that going back and rereading "Steel's Edge" with UF, as opposed to romance, expectations would make me enjoy it more. For example, even if I considered the dismantling of the slavery-ring to be the main point of the book, and considered Richard and Charlotte's romance to be a side-plot (of which I have much less stringent expectations as compared to a main romance), I think I would still have issues with the fact that the main emotional arc of the story is associated with the side-characters, Jack and George, as opposed to the main characters, Richard and Charlotte. But maybe if I went into the book with only fantasy-genre expectations, and considered Jack, George, Richard, and Charlotte (and maybe Eleanore and Sophie) to all be "main characters" or the "main ensemble cast" or something, sort of like how I read the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, "Steel's Edge" would work better for me. Although I'm not quite sure about this either! One thing that I love about Ilona Andrews books is their world-building (I already loved the aspects of the world built up from the previous books in the Edge series, and "Steel's Edge" gave me more of what I loved - I loved the description of the city, Kelena, in particular.) But one thing that throws me off-balance with the world-building in the Edge series is the way that the authors break standard fantasy genre conventions.

SPOILER

For instance, in "Bayou Moon," Cerise and William break the "You can't bring a dead person back to life" Rule.

And "Steel's Edge" seems to me to break the "When a character uses their powers for evil, what ensues is a long and bitter struggle between that character and temptations from the dark side" Rule for Charlotte.
**END SPOILER**

And although I sort of like it when genre conventions of this sort are broken, I usually want there to be a reason WHY they're broken, or to see repercussions of this rule-breaking throughout the rest of the world-system. And I'm not sure (on my first read through the series) if these reason or repercussions were made clear to me as a reader.

View all my reviews

THOUGHTS on: Sharon Shinn's "Troubled Waters"

Title: “Troubled Waters”

Author: Sharon Shinn

Series: n/a

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

I love Sharon Shinn's writing – in particular, I love her style of prose, and her style of world-building. “Troubled Waters” was no different – the prose is gorgeous, and the world is beautifully crafted. Although it's not one of my favourite books by Shinn [1], I definitely enjoyed reading it.

For the past ten years, Zoe Ardelay has lived in exile with her father, Navarr Ardelay, a brilliant and passionate sweela man who was formerly a favourite advisor of the King. “Troubled Waters” opens with Navarr's funeral, and Zoe deep in grief, unsure of what to do with her future. Her decision is made for her, however, by Darien Serlast, an advisor to the King who arrives at her village with summons. Zoe is to come to Chialto to become the King's fifth wife. Events do not unfold exactly as planned, however, and eventually Zoe finds herself surrounded by unexpected truths about her father, why he was exiled, her mother's family, the royal succession, and even unexpected truths about herself.

Since I love Shinn's world-building, I'll talk about that first. Nearly every aspect in the world portrayed in “Troubled Waters” is driven by a superstitious system of random blessings. These are blessings fall into five categories, each associated with i) a natural element, and ii) a human element: there is elay (air/soul), hunti (wood/bone), sweela (fire/mind), coru (water/blood), and torz (earth/flesh)[2]. The seasons and colours are organized according to these categories, and people also tend to fall into these five categories, each associated with characteristic personality traits. For example, if you are hunti, you are like wood, and have the characteristics associated with its random blessings like resolve, loyalty and steadfastness. If you are sweela, you are like fire, and have charm, intelligence, passion and creativity. If you are coru, you are like water – changeable, flexible, but persistent.

I found this world of random blessings interesting and intricately built, as I usually find Shinn's worlds, but what I love best about Shinn's world-building is that we are usually shown how the world works, and not told. That is, there are no paragraphs as above, whose sole purpose appears to be informing the reader of how the world works. Instead the reader gleans pieces of the world, and how the pieces fit together from observing the characters, or interactions between characters. For example, we learn what characteristics a Hunti man has when Doman, the (unofficial) hunti mayor of Zoe's village obdurately takes care of a grief-stricken Zoe; we get hints of what a sweela woman should be like when Darien tries to appraise Zoe's character. And while there are parts where we are overtly told how certain aspects of the world works, these parts are never given to the reader purely for world-building's sake – they are slipped in as explanations for assumptions that characters have made, or actions that they took which might otherwise seem strange to the reader. In other words, they are given exactly at points when the reader would be wondering about and wanting explanations, and the little bits of world-building provide this explanation in exactly the right amounts[3]. I think Shinn's skill at world-building is quite rare; it's often the case that I will be reading a book, and feel like the narrator is giving me a lecture about how the world works[4].

As for the characters, I liked Zoe and Darien, although I didn't find them particularly noteworthy. Zoe is described as a coru woman with a sweela heart – flexible, but resilient and persistent, with a passionate core. There were times when her character seemed inconsistent – while she is generally portrayed as very flexible, and easily adaptable, at times she was deliberately contrary, just for (what seemed to me like) the sake of being contrary. It was only around Darien that she behaved this way, however, which I realize now probably showed how Darien affected her. Zoe was also, at the rare time, irresponsible. I found that I could usually justify her mistakes, however. SPOILER

For example, Zoe's confrontation with Alys, where she abused her power as the Lalindar prime. I could justify Zoe's actions, although I did think it was a mistake, because i) I could see how she viewed Alys as a dangerous threat that no one seemed willing to check, and ii) Zoe's powers were very new to her, and unlike other primes, she was never trained to be prime, therefore hadn't had the time the other primes had to think about the consequences of her powers.

Darien Serlast is described as hunti through and through. This is pretty characteristic of a Shinn hero – steadfastness is the bedrock on which she builds her heroes: witness Gabriel from “Archangel,”, Tayse from “Mystic and Ryder,” Gaaron, from “Angelica”, Kent from “Summers at Castle Auburn,” etc.[5] He didn't seem to make much of an impression on me though – maybe he will improve with re-reading (Kent certainly did. I went from feeling lukewarm about Kent to him being one of my favourite heroes.) Thinking back, I suppose I can isolate one thing that makes Darien different from other Shinn heroes: although honourable, loyal and steadfast, Darien Serlast is willing to obfuscate the truth in order to keep the kingdom stable. He is willing to mislead the public and hush up scandals if he feels its for the greater good. All in all, I liked Darien, but not overmuch.

As for the romance between Zoe and Darien, like all Shinn books, it seemed to me to be fairly understated for a category romance[6], aware that I am that one would probably read it as quite blatant from a category fantasy. I was a little disappointed with the romance however – my heart didn't get caught in all the highs and lows the way it did for Rachel and Gabriel's relationship in “Archangel”[7] and I didn't fall in love with Kent like Corie did in “Summers at Castle Auburn.” I might come back and see how I feel about it when I re-read “Troubled Waters” (as I likely will).

Prose: A+ (If I could choose one writer whose writing style I could steal, it would be Sharon Shinn's. Gorgeous, lush, and yet the beautifully crafted words never distract me from the story she's telling. Unlike Patricia A. Mckillip, who I love and think has even more gorgeous prose, but I'm often distracted by just how gorgeous the prose is...)

Plot: B (I don't associate Sharon Shinn with lots of twisty plot turns, and so was surprised by at least one of the twists here. I may not have been, had been reading it as I would a Carol Berg or Diana Wynne Jones novel, where I sit up and look for plot twists. There was some political intrigue though, which is the way I like my fantasy – sprinkled with political intrigue. A bit odd considering how I have to force myself to pay attention to modern-day politics)

Characters: B- (They were ooo-kay, solid characters, though I felt pretty lukewarm towards them.)

World-building: A+ (Love, love, love.)

X-factor: A (I love Sharon Shinn)

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[1] I have obsessively re-read “Archangel” and “Summers at Castle Auburn,” and I think the only books of hers that I haven't re-read, and probably won't (excepting Gateway, which I haven't read yet), are “The Shapechanger's Wife,” “Wrapt in Crystal” (not sure why, but these ones didn't work for me) and “Jenna Starborn” (not because I didn't like it, but if I'm in the mood to read something like “Jenna Starborn”, I'll probably just go re-read “Jane Eyre”.) Oh, and “The Alleluia Files” because I borrowed that one from a friend instead of buying it.

[2] There are also three uncategorized blessings, which are rare.

[3] Of course, when I say “exactly the right amounts,” this is completely subjective. It's exactly the right amount for my default reading style. Some readers may feel she tells too much, depending on your reading style, and how much you pay attention. For example I feel that Diana Wynne Jones, whom I love, has hardly any explicit explanation of how her worlds work at all. The characters just go about their actions, and go about saying the things they say, and thinking the things they think, with the assumptions they would have having grown up and lived in their world. As the reader, you have to piece together, from their actions, thoughts and words, exactly how the world works. I felt the same way about the first Kate Daniels book “Magic Bites” by Ilona Andrews (by the later books I was already familiar with the world. I can't help but also mention here that I love this series. Kate Daniels is one of my favourite heroines). These books have fantastic world-building, but it required more active reading than is default on my part. So if you find the amount of explanation that Diana Wynne Jones gives to be the right amount, you might find Sharon Shinn to be too pedantic, but for my reading style, Sharon Shinn's world-building is just perfect.

[4] Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what I want in academic writing. In academic writing, I want the theoretical framework and assumptions to all be explicitly stated and laid in the same place, preferably with a helpful table summarizing said assumptions. And preferably under a heading labelled 'theoretical framework and assumptions' or such. But it irks me when all of the world-building in a fantasy novel is dumped explicitly on me like this – I much prefer getting little implicit hints and clues, and building the world in my head from those bits and pieces. Although getting explicit explanations in fantasy novels is not nearly as annoying as confronting implicit assumptions and vague hints in academic writing.

[5] I think Jesse from “Fallen Angel” might be an exception. He didn't make much of an impression on me. Maybe I'll re-read it to check.

[6]...modern romances, I mean. I've quite enjoyed the Georgette Heyers I've read (Cotillion, Frederica), but find the romance in her novels to be too understated for my tastes.

[7]...then again, I've read "Archangel" some 26+ times (I stopped counting after 26).