AW SF/F Book Study: Shades of Milk and Honey

Sai

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Hello and welcome to the AW SF/F Book Study :). For the month of August we will be reading/discussing Shades of Milk and Honey. Spoilers will be streaking naked through this thread, so beware!

Previous book studies include:

2008:
Ender's Game (August)
Lies of Locke Lamora (September)
A Deepness in the Sky (October)
A Fire in the Deep (November)
Storm Front (December)

2009:
I Am Legend (January)
The Onion Girl (February)
Lord of Light (March)
Small Gods (April)
Beggars in Spain (May)
The Once and Future King (June)
Foundation (July)
The Graveyard Book (August)
Neuromancer (September)
The Last Wish (October)
The Knife of Never Letting Go (November)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (December)

2010:
Battle Royale (January)
Jhereg (February)
Cyberabad Days (March)
Tigana (April)
Next (May)
Perdido Street Station (June/July)
Boneshaker (August)
His Majesty's Dragon (September)
Never Let Me Go (October)
The Child Thief (November)
Solaris (December)

2011:
Lirael (January)
Blindsight(February)
Lavinia (March)
Hugo nominees (April)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (May)
Dawn (June)
Good Omens (July)
The Hunger Games (August)
The Last Unicorn (September)
Ubik (October)
The Colour of Magic (November)
The Caves of Steel (December)

2012
The Princess Bride (January)
The Prestige (February)
Servant of the Underworld (March)
Parable of the Sower (April/May)
Little, Big (June)
The Martian Chronicles (July)

2013
Wool (January)
American Gods (February)
Old Man's War (March)
Mechanique (April)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (May)
The Rook (June)
Slaughterhouse-Five (July)
 

Sai

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I just finished this after getting it from the library yesterday. It is a light, easy and fun read, though I have more thoughts on it beyond that. For now I just want to link to this interesting io9 article where Mary Robinette Kowal talks about keeping the novel's wording period accurate. Very interesting stuff, especially if you write historical fiction (and if you write in the same time peroid as MRK, you can crib off her notes).
 

Sai

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This pretty much sums up 'Shades of Milk and Honey' for me: every now and then I think to myself 'Oh, I should read more of Milk and Honey,' and then I remember that I finished the book Friday. It's a light and easy read and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's so light and breezy that it's easy to forget about it once you're done.

The summary on my edition pitches this as halfway between 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Jonathon Strange and Mr.Norrel' but it's much, much closer to the first book. It's pretty much Pride and Prejudice and Magic. I like Austen (both Stone Cold and Jane) so I liked this, but if you're not a fan than it might be hard for you to enjoy it.

At first it bugged me that magic wasn't more central to the plot. Sure, a lot of the characters use 'glamour' to create sounds and images and decorate their homes, but if you replaced glamour with plain singing or piano playing I don't think the book would have changed drastically. As the book goes on glamour plays a bigger and bigger role, but it still doesn't feel like a cornerstone of the plot. Sure it becomes more and more prominent, but it doesn't necessarily feel more important. To be fair there is a great use of magic during the climax, but even there it's just a tool for the characters rather than something that the plot hinges on. I think if you're going to have magic in a story, it should be vital to it. Like, you can't describe Jonathon Strange and Mr.Norrell without bringing up magic ('two magicians with very different world views fight for dominance'), but you with Milk and Honey it's not the first thing I think of (two sisters- one plain, one beautiful- get involved in a love triangle in an alternate Victorian England).

Also, I was very curious about the servant class and how they used magic (when Jane called for a coldmonger it was the first time I really felt like the book was set in a different world than ours, and I wanted a bigger look at it).
 

KateJJ

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I recommended Milk and Honey to my mom, who likes Jane Austen but isn't really into fantasy. I don't know if she read it but it seems like the kind of book that should be very accessible to non-genre readers.

The sequels use magic a bit more, especially book 2, which I found problematic for certain personal reasons but did enjoy reading. One problem I had with this book is that it felt to me as though Vincent was considerably older than Jane but he is in fact several months later. I asked Mary Kowal about it and she said it was a product of all his education and experience, that Jane has had very little real world experiences while Vincent has been to university and traveled and such.
 

Sai

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One problem I had with this book is that it felt to me as though Vincent was considerably older than Jane but he is in fact several months later. I asked Mary Kowal about it and she said it was a product of all his education and experience, that Jane has had very little real world experiences while Vincent has been to university and traveled and such.

Hmm, I also got the sense that there was more of an age gap between them, though I guess I could buy Vincent just being especially gruff for his age.

Speaking of Jane and Vincent and misconceptions, I'm a little confused by the covers for the sequels. Are these two babes seriously supposed to be 'plain' Jane and Vincent?

51tBRjCMw9L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
 

KateJJ

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No! That's Jane's pretty little sister Melody! Though you'd think Jane would rate the cover of her own book even if she's not the pretty one...
 

SKDaley

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I just finished the book, and I was satisfied with the conclusion, mostly because Jane got to use her magic to do something useful. It read very much like Austen, a bare bones sort of Austen. Still, I might read the sequels for their light entertainment value. It's not as if there's some pressing need to find out what happens to these characters since she summed it up at the end of the book!
 

SKDaley

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Though I found the use of glamour to be frivolous (never mind its lofty designation of 'art'.) Really, there isn't any better use for it than to make scenery and pretty pictures? I have to agree about the coldmonger-- you mean there's a useful application of this magic? I guess it's no different than all the balls and picnics and time-wasting pastimes of the rich in Austen's novels, the wealthy must amuse themselves somehow.
 

_Sian_

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I must admit, I want to read this book not necessarily because of it's content, which still looks interesting, but because I'm so curious about Mary Robinette Kowal's writing, given I hear her once a week on writing excuses.

*eyes her bank account* Now I've just go to see if I can afford it..