Thumbs up for Sunshine
This was recommended to me by someone whose taste I trust, as, firstly, a vampire book for someone who didn’t like vampire books, and, secondly, a Robin McKinley book for someone who didn’t like Robin McKinley (I’d read one of her books once and hated it. And no, it was not Deerskin). She was right; I enjoyed Sunshine very much and hated to put it down when I had to do irritating things like, you know, work and sleep. It’s a good story with memorable characters and a depth of creativity. However, I still cannot call myself a McKinley fan. Sunshine, for all my visceral enjoyment of it, has problems. As I read, I was reminded continually of the formula put forth in one of the few good writing books I’ve ever read: simply that 1 + 1 = 1/2. Repetition weakens. Excess weakens. The narration in Sunshine suffers severely from repeated infodumps, in which the protagonist tells us in great deal about things that are, I’m sure, interesting to the author but not at all relevant to the story. Each page, paragraph, and sentence could have lost words without loss. In short, if you are as harsh a reader as I am, you will want a red pen. But even to us harsh readers out there, I’d say: set aside the pen and enjoy the fun. (Interestingly, this was not the thing that drove me crazy in the other book of hers I read. So I will keep trying; maybe there will be a book in which all of her stars and mine will align.)
I looked around a little more. The only light was from the fire, and my dark vision was sort of half-confounded by something about this place, maybe just the thundering excess. Still, I could see a lot, and it was all pretty bizarre. The fur I was wrapped up in appeared to be real fur, long and silky, in jagged black and white stripes. I couldn’t think what animal it might be. Something that didn’t exist, perhaps, till a vampire killed it. With the slinky black shirt – and the bruises – I felt like something off the cover of this month’s Bondage and Discipline Exclusive. All I needed was ankle bracelets and a better haircut. The buttons on the back of the sofa I was lying on were tiny gargoyle faces, sticking their tongues out or poking their fingers up their noses. Every now and then they weren’t faces at all, but pairs of buttocks. The sofa was some kind of purple plush velvet…except that the shadows it laid were lavender. Well, if I could travel through nowheresville I suppose I shouldn’t protest about shadows that were lighter than their source, or about furs from animals that didn’t exist. My knowledge of natural history in black and white didn’t extend much beyond skunks and zebras anyway. Maybe it did exist, whatever it was. The fur could have been dyed, but somehow this didn’t suit my idea of vampire chic. Actually Con didn’t suit my idea of vampire chic. This hectic Gothic sensibility was a surprise. “Interesting decorating principles,” I said.
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