 | EUROPE'S MOST VISITED SF/F WEB SITE |
|
Sunshine
by Robin McKinley check out website: www.booksattransworld.co.uk and www.robinmckinley.com
It shouldn't have been dangerous. She certainly didn't expect
to be kidnapped by a pack of vampires and shackled in an abandoned
mansion with only another, equally shackled, vampire for company.
Sunshine, being who she is, definitely doesn't plan on being dinner
when he wakes up. There's a moment, reading the blurb for 'Sunshine', when the resemblance to a certain episode of Buffy springs to mind. Start reading the book and all resemblance to anything else becomes quite completely irrelevant. McKinley may be a seasoned author with a fair number of well-received
fantasies behind her already but this is the book she hits her stride
with. The first-person narrative of Sunshine is vastly entertaining,
occasionally slightly insane and packed with so much originality
and character that you literally do not want to put it down. Even
if that means losing a fair amount of sleep until you're done.
The main plot doesn't just centre around Rae's encounter with Con,
the vampire she is imprisoned with, but the months afterwards as
she tries to hold her life together. Like most of the characters,
Sunshine is not exactly the humble coffee-house baker she claims
to be and half the enjoyment is in watching her piece together the
fragments of her past to make sense of who she is. Aside from the narration that grabs you from the first paragraph, the ideas McKinley comes up with are never quite what you would expect. Yes, its got vampires but doesn't exactly draw from Buffy, Anne Rice or any other popular modern stereotype. These vampires are beyond the comprehension of humans; properly
alien, other creatures. It makes such a nice change. No frilly shirts
and undead French aristocrats for one. It doesn't matter who they
were before they became vampires, they're something else now. It seems strange to say but I've never read anything quite like this at all. There's not many authors brave enough to write an alternate world/fantasy/SF/horror/romance hybrid with such an individual narrator and to make it work like McKinley does. It's a more than credible attempt to blend genres that borrows from many sources (Buffy included, I think it's fair to say) and ends up a quite unique, moving and haunting story all its own that leaves you with a curious craving for cinnamon rolls. Personally, I can't recommend it highly enough. Jennifer Howell
|
OTHER REVIEWS - February 2004
BOOKS The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold The Separation by Christopher Priest First Meetings In The Enderverse by Orson Scott Card Dragon Venom by Lawrence Watt-Evans The Dolphins Of Pern by Anne McCaffrey Reach For Tomorrow by Arthur C Clarke The Mammoth Book Of Best New SF # 16 edited by Gardner Dozois 1610: A Sundial In A Grave by Mary Gentle Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss Trading In Danger by Elizabeth Moon Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Vol. 1 edited by Stanley Wiater The Gates To Witchworld by Andre Norton Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Mission Gamma: Lesser Evil by Robert Simpson The Killing Of Worlds by Scott Westerfeld Star Trek: The Original Series: Gemini by Mike W. Barr MUSIC COMPUTER GAMES Wallace and Gromit - Project Zoo RPGs & WARGAMES MAGAZINES On Spec: The Canadian Magazine
Of The Fantastic vol 15 no. 2 & 3
| ||||||||
Rae,
called Sunshine, is a coffee-house baker, specialising in Cinnamon
Rolls as Big as Your Head. She works in the family business, has
a steady boyfriend, an eccentric landlady and one day takes a walk
by the lake.
Set
in the kind of alternate world that's ever so subtly different to
reality in lots of little ways (and some quite dramatic ways), McKinley
drops in titbits all the way through that completely change your
perspective on what is actually going on. 
 | |
| nest home | search engine | site directory | shop | library | tools | about us | | |
| |
... www.sfcrowsnest.com © 2004 CWant a ? Then send an e-mail to: hologramtales-subscribe@topica.com