tea with the black dragon

[hitchhiker]

McAvoy's Tea With the Black Dragon was a charming and delightful fantasy novel (Jo Walton's review is good, as usual), but it was very subtly fantastic; you could well imagine all the fantasy elements stripped out and it would barely change, and remain a perfectly nice romance/action/adventure novel set in the 1980s Bay Area. And yet, the fantasy elements were absolutely what I liked about it, and gave the rest of it a magical feel that was a large part of what made it such an engaging book.

Tangentially, it was amusing to read it shortly after reading this comic :)

Comments

[cjsmith]

A superb juxtaposition indeed! :-)

[hitchhiker]

i know, right? (:

[lcohen]

this is somewhat how i feel about pamela dean's book tam lin if you've ever read that book. anyway, i'll have to look into it!

[hitchhiker]

i've not read tam lin; i'll check it out!

[lcohen]

you'll have to let me know what you think. i know that we agree on a bunch of books (martha wells!) so i am hopeful that you will like it and i will definitely look for the mcavoy.

[minoanmiss]

I am simultaneously giggling and want to argue with that comic (a large part of why I read SF is to see how the setting affects everything else -- on Mars, property inheritance rules will probably be different and that ought to affect the plot of Pride and Prejudice on Utopia Planitia.)

Also, I think I want to read this book. :)

[hitchhiker]

oh absolutely, i read sf/f for the setting and i would likely not have enjoyed this book as much if i didn't constantly have the fantasy element in mind as i was reading it. but i also could not help flashing back to the comic as i read the book and realised how little overt fantasy there was in it :)

[gingicat]

I should read that again, it is a lovely book.

[hitchhiker]

it really is. will definitely go on my reread list.

[psi_star_psi]

I enjoyed that book. I read it sometime in the 90s. Also enjoyed the Damiano trilogy. I should see what else MacAvoy's written...OK, WP says a few things.

Heh, Jane Austen on Mars? The name Arabella springs to mind.

[hitchhiker]

yeah, i'm looking forward to reading some of her other stuff too