50books_poc | #10: Liu, Shadow Touch; #11: Buckell, Ragamuffin

#10: Marjorie M. Liu, Shadow Touch

Elena is a healer, able to reach into people's bodies to fix them. Artur is a telepath who can read people's lives and histories from the objects they touch (is there a word for this particular talent that I missed?); he works for detective firm Dirk and Steele, which specializes in psychic crime fighting. When a shadowy organization kidnaps Elena and Artur, they accidentally form a deep psychic bond and must work together to escape and defeat their enemies.

Paranormal romance is a new-to-me genre, and I wasn't sure I'd like it, but you know, I did! The psychic bond thing could have been silly, but the way it was formed was well done, and the consequences of it (like knowing your lover can smell your morning breath). There was a little handwaving around Artur not being able to touch anyone except magically Elena, but I was okay with it. The prose is fine, and the dialogue is quite good and often entertainingly snappy. The hints of an overarching storyline for the series which develop at the end will definitely have me looking for the other books (and going back to read Tiger Eye).

#11: Tobias S. Buckell, Ragamuffin

Nashara is on the run. She wants to get back to New Anegada, if she can, and she needs to escape from the Hongguo who are on her trail. She carries inside her a powerful weapon which could save her, but perhaps at a huge cost, both to her and to the balance of order of the galaxy. Complicating her escape and her decision about the use of her weapon is her discovery that the ruling aliens of the Benevolent Satrapy are planning to wipe out all humans.

Although I really appreciated the kick-ass female protagonist and the other female characters (after noting the relative lack of women in Crystal Rain), I actually liked Ragamuffin a little less. The book just seemed a little incoherent and choppy to me, on a prose level and on an overall narrative level. It jumps back and forth among different characters and even in time a little, and the confusion this created meant I wasn't as pulled along with the story as I was in Crystal Rain. I did like the focus on the larger universe, beyond the New Anegada setting, and getting to learn more about that larger world, but I'd have preferred having that focus through fewer different characters and settings. (And this might well be my issue, not the book's, as I've always preferred less jumping around in POV.)

I do look forward to reading Sly Mongoose, though, and seeing what's coming next for Buckell's fascinating universe; I just wish his prose style worked better for me.