![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Most talented so-and-so in fandom is back
Dec. 31st, 2011 06:47 pmhttp://www.fictionalley.org/authors/inverarity/AQATSA01.html
Immense talent does not have to go with sterling personal qualities. Everyone who reads this blog is aware of my "past" with fanfic writer![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inverarity - I am publishing this review here because I neither need nor want his reactions, let alone that of some of his more odious followers - but the fact remains, he is probably the best novel writer in fandom, certainly the best I know. And the first chapter of his long-awaited fourth novel, Alexandra Quick and the stars above, shows it as well as any of his previous work. IN fact, I would say he is getting better; there is a greater density, not just in events and atmosphere - as a sweet atmosphere of teen-age sentimental bewilderment is followed by an equally charming scene between affectionate half-sisters, after which the story goes dark swiftly, dramatically and very convincingly - as much as in themes. inverarity has grasped, it seems to me, one of the central facts of really great writing: it is themes, concepts, issues, that drive the story, as incarnate, of course in events. This first chapter raises most major issues of the previous three novels, not in an info-dump way, but as dynamic elements in a moving situation. Almost from the beginning, even as a charmingly clumsy teen-age couple experiment with kissing, we are reminded - not just by the girl's memories, but by her sudden and startling display of power towards an annoying ghost - that she has been at the centre of terrible tragedies, and that her fate is not like other people's. Most of the main issues of the story - the ugly secret at the centre of American wizarding life, the mysterious role and power of house-elves, the warfare waged by the heroine's father against institutions, the heroine's troubled relationship with various branches of her family, and with the sisters Diana and Lilith Grimm - are worked into a smooth, deceptively seamless narrative that comes to a sudden, astonishing series of climaxes that leave a major character on the verge of violent and terrible death; her rescue is nearly as dramatic. Indeed, the ending itself sets up an enormous amount of further dramatic possibilities - has the surviving victim, for instance, heard Alexandra and her father discuss the evil secrets at the heart of wizarding American government? And if she has, did she know it already, or is she now going to find out - and what will that do to her allegiance? Altogether magnetic reading, that leaves one waiting for the next chapter for all the right reasons.
inverarity is no friend of mine, and if you visit his story, don't mention my name. But read it anyway. I guarantee you won't be sorry.
Immense talent does not have to go with sterling personal qualities. Everyone who reads this blog is aware of my "past" with fanfic writer
inverarity - I am publishing this review here because I neither need nor want his reactions, let alone that of some of his more odious followers - but the fact remains, he is probably the best novel writer in fandom, certainly the best I know. And the first chapter of his long-awaited fourth novel, Alexandra Quick and the stars above, shows it as well as any of his previous work. IN fact, I would say he is getting better; there is a greater density, not just in events and atmosphere - as a sweet atmosphere of teen-age sentimental bewilderment is followed by an equally charming scene between affectionate half-sisters, after which the story goes dark swiftly, dramatically and very convincingly - as much as in themes. inverarity has grasped, it seems to me, one of the central facts of really great writing: it is themes, concepts, issues, that drive the story, as incarnate, of course in events. This first chapter raises most major issues of the previous three novels, not in an info-dump way, but as dynamic elements in a moving situation. Almost from the beginning, even as a charmingly clumsy teen-age couple experiment with kissing, we are reminded - not just by the girl's memories, but by her sudden and startling display of power towards an annoying ghost - that she has been at the centre of terrible tragedies, and that her fate is not like other people's. Most of the main issues of the story - the ugly secret at the centre of American wizarding life, the mysterious role and power of house-elves, the warfare waged by the heroine's father against institutions, the heroine's troubled relationship with various branches of her family, and with the sisters Diana and Lilith Grimm - are worked into a smooth, deceptively seamless narrative that comes to a sudden, astonishing series of climaxes that leave a major character on the verge of violent and terrible death; her rescue is nearly as dramatic. Indeed, the ending itself sets up an enormous amount of further dramatic possibilities - has the surviving victim, for instance, heard Alexandra and her father discuss the evil secrets at the heart of wizarding American government? And if she has, did she know it already, or is she now going to find out - and what will that do to her allegiance? Altogether magnetic reading, that leaves one waiting for the next chapter for all the right reasons.inverarity is no friend of mine, and if you visit his story, don't mention my name. But read it anyway. I guarantee you won't be sorry.
