Gypsy Poetry

My web host had a crash, and when they restored, they apparently restored from a few days ago. So, my last post is missing. As is a new subsite I uploaded and an update to another site. Looks like I’ve got some stuff to upload when I get home.

So, reading. Like I said in the Disappeared Post, I picked up Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, which had been languishing unread on my bookshelf for months and months. I read it over the course of a couple of days, and… wow. Why on earth did I put this off? It’s a fantastic book!

The main character is Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine by pretty much everyone she knows. She is the head baker at her step-father’s coffeeshop, and she makes the best cinnamon rolls you’ve ever eaten.

One evening, she drives out to the lake. And meets a gang of vampires.

Sunshine is set in a very richly detailed alternate world. It’s Earth, but it’s an Earth that’s populated by Others as well as humans, an Earth that was ravaged by the Voodoo Wars, which have little to do with Voodoo and more to do with fighting vampires and demons (a blanket term for demons as well as other Other beings), where humans are trying to hold onto their dominance of the world. There are many partbloods, where human is mixed with demon, but the vampires are the darkest Others.

These vampires are not the beautiful, alluring creatures of Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. They are otherworldly in the extreme; though they were all humans once, there is very little left that is familiarly human, and I love how McKinley makes sure her readers know that the vampires are a breed apart. Sunshine often feels like prey around vampires; the fight-or-flight response kicks in, and she’s terrified. I don’t mind vampire stories where they are alluring, but it’s refreshing to read about the scary ones once in a while.

I’d read a few comments and reviews on the book which called it a “vampire romance.” I’m not sure that’s exactly accurate, especially because of the connotations of the romance genre. It’s not a flowery romantic tale of forbidden love, that’s for damn sure, but there is some serious heart-string-tugging material in the story. Sunshine is kidnapped by a vampire gang and is used as a tease of sorts for Constantine, their master’s enemy. Sunshine, despite being conditioned to fear vampires her entire life, finds herself helping Con, and they form an unlikely alliance. McKinley doesn’t write their relationship as a smoochy romance; she instead masterfully hints at growing feelings within both characters throughout the novel, building their alliance into something more. It’s wonderful.

McKinley’s writing style takes some getting used to. It’s very conversational, and she will often spend a few pages telling the reader about the world through Sunshine’s internal dialogue. The book is written in first person, which can be a bit off-putting (the Anita Blake series, much?), but in this case, it works. After the first twenty pages or so, I got used to the rambling, talkative writing style and really got into it. Many writers drop in expository lumps in which they tell the readers about the world, and Sunshine is no different. However, the lumps don’t feel like lumps; they fit into the flow of Sunshine’s stream-of-consciousness and give the reader not only a look at the world, but also a feel for how Sunshine looks at her world.

Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys vampire lit or a good alternate universe, as well as anyone who likes experimentational writing styles. I haven’t read any of McKinley’s other books so I can’t say if this is typical for her, but it’s an interesting departure from the usual straightforward writing of the horror/dark fantasy genre. McKinley’s writing is a bit reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s, with its imaginativeness and injection of dark humor.

Sunshine is available in paperback on Amazon.com.