Well, I feel like very, very slightly less of a fool this evening than I did the last few times I read one of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's vampire books. This is damning with faint praise, but about all I can say for A Dangerous Climate
(Tor, 10/08; editor: Melissa Singer) is that it's much better than Dark of the Sun (see my thoughts on that one here). I'd say minor plot-spoilers follow, but I'm not sure you can spoil what doesn't entirely exist.
In this umptieth outing for Yarbro's vampire Saint-Germain, he is found in 1704 in St. Petersburg when it was first being built, which is to say it's basically a freezing, muddy army camp populated by work gangs and an unfortunate crew of European diplomats and spies who try to maintain courtly costume and amusements in the middle of a construction site. This isn't exactly up there in glitter-factor with, say, the 1740s Paris of the very first book (Hรดtel Transylvania) or the Renaissance Florence or ancient Rome of the second and third (The Palace
and Blood Games), but it's mildly amusing to watch Saint-Germain try to remain fastidious and extremely well-dressed (and well-wigged) while living in a three-room wooden house. As usual, the historical research is meticulous and the setting well-detailed. Unfortunately, most of the details consist of how miserable living conditions are and how cold it is.
Unlike Dark of the Sun, this book has continuing female characters that could be interesting enough to remember, but Yarbro never really gets inside their heads, and they do not establish enough of a connection with Saint-Germain to really emotionally engage the reader. They're stock Yarbro characters: Ludmilla, a learned woman, ahead of her time, with a sad relationship history, with whom Saint-Germain can establish a friendship and intellectual rapport along with the sexual/blood-drinking encounters; and Zozia, who's an emotionally unstable sexual user who wants more than Saint-Germain (in his vampiric impotence) can give. If this sounds familiar, it's because these are the same two characters as she used in The Palace, where they were called Demetrice and Estasia. Unfortunately, neither one is as well-written or interesting as their earlier incarnations.
The plot setup has potential, sadly unrealized: Saint-Germain is impersonating a Hungarian nobleman in order to pretend to be the husband of a Polish spy so that she can go do her spying in St. Petersburg. (I think a secondary reason might be so that Yarbro has ample excuse to describe colorful men's clothing in detail, which can't be done when Saint-Germain is being himself and dressing only in black and white.) In the meantime, someone else is impersonating Saint-Germain's nonexistent nephew and telling the world Saint-Germain is dead in order to inherit his property, which requires Saint-Germain to summon an old friend to impersonate him while he continues impersonating the Hungarian. Got it? There are faint flutterings of plot here: why is Saint-Germain being attacked in the streets? Who is behind it? And (once that is sort-of revealed) what's the guy's problem anyway? Why are the brother and sister sneaking around wearing slush-covered boots under their dressing gowns? Who murdered Saint-Germain's employee so brutally? And who is the guy who is pretending to be his nephew, and why is he doing it? All of these are reasonably intriguing questions which actually engaged me in the book, and Yarbro does not answer them. "Loose ends" does not begin to describe the problem here. I feel cheated. I feel teased. I don't care how realistic it is in life that sometimes people are great big jerks and do bad things for no discernible reason. It does not satisfy in fiction.
On the bright side, there are the aforementioned costume descriptions. And while she waits until page 297 (out of 382) to use her favorite term, esurience, we are also blessed with two more ten-dollar words with which to expand our arousal-related vocabulary: amplectance, which appears to have something to do with embracing, or possibly with tentacles (and what an interesting book this would have been had one of his lovers turned out to be a Lovecraftian horror), and mollescence, which means softening and is applied to a female character, not to Saint-Germain himself. (Can't get soft if you don't first get hard...)
On the less bright side, Yarbro continues her annoying habit of constantly cross-citing Saint-Germain's other adventures by having him or his servant do a lot of "remember when" bits. These references were sort of neat in the earlier books, when those stories were as yet unwritten and thus mysterious, but now looks more like self-promotion. Sadly, most of his adventures were more fun to imagine than to read. And while some of the minor characters could have been interesting, it never quite gets onto paper. Saint-Germain's friendship with one of the other diplomats could have been meaningful, if Yarbro had bothered to show it before cutting straight to a deathbed scene. Peter the Great himself was quite the character, a carpenter-shipwright-czar who is forcing his new city into existence by sheer willpower. But he's offstage most of the time. The whole story is full of these missed opportunities. It made me feel tired and sad and once again nostalgic for the first half-dozen books in the series, whose magic I suspect will never be recaptured.
Overall, I can't really recommend this book. But if you're enough of a Saint-Germain completist, or an optimist, or a fan of Peter the Great, to want to own it, you can get it here:
I need to expand my reading, but after i finish turning my brain to mush. I'm currently in a Laurell Hamilton fix, and am finishing my way through her 2 series. They are great reading when I am sitting at the overlong spotlights on my way to-from work.
Posted by: Jeff | May 04, 2009 at 09:16 AM
I gave up on Hamilton after the first eight or so. I just couldn't stand the soap opera elements.
I recommend Kelley Armstrong for light, sexy paranormal stuff.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 04, 2009 at 09:20 AM
I read and mostly liked the first ten or so of Yarbro's St. Germain (and Olivia) books, but I got increasingly tired of them. It's sort of reassuring to know that the books got worse, not just that I got bored.
Interestingly, they're about the only vampire stories I can read at all. St. Germain's the good guy, and pretty non-threatening, so they don't give me nightmares like most vampires do.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | May 04, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Hmm. I'm trying to think what other vampire books might fit your criteria. What elements give you nightmares? Would a good guy who's still pretty creepy be a problem? Is gore an issue? What if some vampires are good guys and some bad?
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 04, 2009 at 11:48 AM
gah. i just realised my typo: stoplights, not spotlights.
Posted by: Jeff | May 04, 2009 at 01:09 PM
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who feels the need to bring a book to read while stopped at stoplights. :)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 04, 2009 at 01:20 PM
Of course, when the weather breaks I'll not be able to do that. I'm riding with Team Greykell in the MS ride.
Hopefully 100 miles in one day.
Posted by: Jeff | May 04, 2009 at 01:22 PM
The whole idea of vampires completely creeps me out. Any hint of not-perfectly-goodness on the part of any vampires in the story would likely render it unreadable to me. (Tanya Huff's Blood series works for me, too, because Henry's another good guy.)
I did read Robin McKinley's Sunshine because I love her books. It wasn't a major problem because I very carefully picked it up first thing in the morning on a Saturday so I could finish it well by sundown. I treated Barbara Hambly's two vampire books the same way, with somewhat less success.
Beyond that, I don't expect to ever pick up another one. Which is killing me, because a young friend is working on what sounds like an excellent one, which I can't read. I just can't.
Posted by: Mary Aileen | May 04, 2009 at 07:08 PM
Amplectance. Mollescence. Does she use 'tumescence'? What about 'turgescence'?
Posted by: Serge | May 06, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Susan, I just received a thrilling email addressed to "Dear Costumer". A registered loan lender from Hong Kong is offering all kinds of Guarantee loans if one simply sends him ones financial particulars, presumably especially in the case of costumers. That's where I miss out. Perhaps it would suit you better than me.
(Not in the least apropos to this thread, but it seems to be where all the action is.)
Posted by: Clifton | May 06, 2009 at 01:03 PM
Clifton:
Now, why don't I get such exciting email?
All my threads disintegrate rapidly into not-apropos-ness. Fine by me.
Serge:
She used esurience! Who needs all those t-words when you have esurience to cover the entire range of male arousal?
(Also, Saint-Germain is impotent, so tumescence would not apply in the most usual/obvious sense.)
(I feel like I ought to connect this to the Watchmen discussion in the other thread somehow.)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 06, 2009 at 01:17 PM
Susan... Who needs all those t-words
I can just see the ad on TV.
"Who needs turgescence when you can get esurience?"
Posted by: Serge | May 06, 2009 at 02:34 PM
I can just see the ad on TV.
"Who needs turgescence when you can get esurience?"
I have no interest in the product, but assuming it has been targetted fairly carefully, I definitely want to watch the show it's scheduled with.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | May 06, 2009 at 04:29 PM
There goes the sedate tea-sipping and genteel conversation.
Posted by: Serge | May 06, 2009 at 05:03 PM
Mary Aileen,
Lee Killough's trilogy might work for you. The main vampire character and a major secondary vampire character are a good guys, though they do confront bad-guy vampires. Unfortunately they just went out of print again in the disintegration of Meisha Merlin. Lee Killough's books are great and she just can't seem to catch a break on publishers. Her werewolf book is one of the most interesting I've read in its genre.
Apropos of vampires - Joss Whedon is speaking right down the road from me in a few weeks, on a night I'm actually home. Hmm.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 06, 2009 at 05:57 PM
Serge,
Yeah -- you get back, and there goes the neighborhood. We were all perfectly genteel while you were gone. :)
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 06, 2009 at 06:17 PM
Susan, Thanks, but I'm not actually looking for recommendations. At this point, the only vampire story I'm interested in is my friend's. Which I don't expect I'll be able to read. (If the ALL the vampires in a given story aren't unequivocably good guys, I can't handle it. Which kind of misses the whole point of vampires, I know.)
Posted by: Mary Aileen | May 07, 2009 at 09:16 AM
Susan... you get back, and there goes the neighborhood
Humph.
Did I ever tell you about "Atomic Shakespeare", the episode of Moonlighting that spoofed The Taming of the Shrew? I liked the part where Bruce Willis as Petruchio knocks on the door to Cybill Sheperd's bedroom and says he's here to tune up her piano, and comments are then exchanged about pianist envy.
Posted by: Serge | May 07, 2009 at 10:04 AM
I am vaguely impressed that buy generic levitra almost follows on from Serge's joke. Almost.
Posted by: Neil Willcox | July 16, 2009 at 06:58 AM
Yeah, that's a better hit than most spam. Nonetheless, I shall delete it.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | July 16, 2009 at 07:02 AM
So I'm a spam magnet too now?
Posted by: Serge | July 16, 2009 at 08:35 AM