And Falling, Fly, by Skyler White (DNF)

[rachelmanija]

Her fist-size nipples spiral hypnotically.

Olivia is a fallen angel of desire, which means she's a vampire. She feeds via "quills" in her mouth, which make cuts so small and sharp that people don't even notice them, but need to be frequently sharpened. This can only be done by grinding her quills against the quills of another angel-vampire. She can also bite people harder with "full fang," draining "several quarts" of blood which doesn't harm them so long as they get a blood transfusion within a couple hours. She and other vampire-angels pay $8000 a pop to hunt people whose blood has been tested for drugs/blood-borne diseases.

Like other vampangels, she has no vagina.

This book has some pleasingly batshit angpire worldbuilding, but unfortunately Olivia is only half the narration. The other half is the story of tormented neuroscientist Dominic, who is plagued by visions of past lives. He is extremely boring. His assistants are named Peter and Paul, in case we missed the religious themes.

I assume Dominick's love causes Olivia to grow a vagina, but I didn't get that far.

Berkley marketed the book as dark fantasy, not paranormal romance, which explains why it goes on for so long before Dominick and Olivia meet - I gave up before they did, but flipping ahead, it looks like it's about a quarter of the way in. For either genre, it's weird.

This is the same Skyler White who co-wrote The Instrumentalists with Steve Brust - a book which I made several determined attempts at, but never got past the first chapter.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

This is the same Skyler White who co-wrote The Instrumentalists

I was wondering!

I did make it through The Instrumentalists, but remember nothing of it, and was not sufficiently impressed to read the second book. But also I can't necessarily ascribe that to just Skyler White, because my track record with Brust's solo non-Dragaera books is similar.

[rydra_wong]

Her fist-size nipples spiral hypnotically.


... what.

I assume Dominick's love causes Olivia to grow a vagina, but I didn't get that far.

Guess it could be interesting if it did and that was treated as the weird Cronenbergian body horror it should be? Or if it explored it in a trans resonances way, maybe? Or if it didn't, and you actually had het romance without vagina.

Unfortunately I am guessing that the book is not nearly interesting enough for any of these.

[oursin]

I discover that In Dreams Begin, which involves a present-day (well, 1990s I think) woman having a mystic occult connection with WB Yeats, and which I DNF, is a sequel to this?

I gave up fairly early in, but I don't recollect either vampires or tormented neuroscientists. Maybe they were hidden in the Celtic Twilight.

[tigerflower]

Goddammit, my nipples are never spiraling hypnotically. Or even spiraling at ALL.

All my problems now have an explanation.

[sovay]

Like other vampangels, she has no vagina.

Why? I don't mean narratively-diegetically, just . . . why?

[princessofgeeks]

Um.

[sabotabby]

Um what her name is Skyler White? loool

[sushiflop]

god i love weird vampire bites, too bad the rest of it doesn't live up to the unsettling mouthquills that bite painlessly and can only be sharpened with other quills

[dhampyresa]

draining "several quarts" of blood which doesn't harm them so long as they get a blood transfusion within a couple hours

As a regular blood donor, I call absolute bullshit on this. That's the vast majority of human blood volume!

[carbonel]

I've liked a lot of Steven Brust's writing, and I managed to finish The Incrementalists (note, not "Instrumentalists"), but I have no desire to reread it.

Same for Good Guys.