May 2012 - Gabriel's Ghost: VF05: Gabriel's Ghost Discussion

[Felicia, Grand Duchess]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDv72D...

Try Linnea Sinclair's "Hope's Folly" for a GREAT example of her work and the genre!!!

[Seawood]

Great show :)

To clarify on the "princess thing", cos I know I wasn't very clear and I've been thinking about it more overnight. I grew up with two AMAZING, kick-ass princesses - Leia of course, and Aura from Flash Gordon (hell, I'm 36 and I still want to be Aura!). No way were you telling these ladies to stand down, right? Real women, prepared to fight for what they believed in and they knew what and who they wanted in love, too. But the princesses in the books and TV aimed at my daughters (who are 6 and 2) are...well. Disney to the max. The message is all about being pretty so you can attract a prince. These are definitely not the princesses we're looking for - except maybe Fiona from Shrek, who I thought dealt really realistically with that pressure and was strong enough to fight it. So whilst they're small and I have most of the book-buying money :) I make an effort to find kick-ass princesses (and "ordinary" women too - I can't wait to introduce them to Buffy and Katniss!) for them, because otherwise the balance is well out of whack.

I think what I'm getting at is that this *current* princess culture of beauty and submission to men/patriarchal structure above all else has somehow extended into adult romance (or perhaps it's come the other way?) and I was wondering if this thread is common to all fiction aimed at women, and how subliminal that is. As Veronica said, Chaz starts out really strong and as the book goes on she bends further and further over for Sully. Because of his manipulation of her - which she allows as far as we can see - it's hard to tell whether she'd have stood up to his emotional blackmail crap if he hadn't been sucking her brains. Jax, on the other hand, is served well by her cynicism and stays wary until she's sure of her feelings and situation.

[Kamil]

Leia isn't exactely a good role model

[Kamil]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViftZT... and here's something that would make your day

[Crisp]

I'm really trying to finish this book... and getting less and less motivated, especially with two Nalini Singh Guild Hunter books waiting on my nightstand, and Kushiel's Dart, Gail Carriger's Timeless, and another N Singh book in-transit to my local library branch...

[MAJK]

Doing my part to promote this ridiculously fun and interesting book club - I wrote up a little recap of Monday's Session and included a link to Felicia's channel in it. You can find it at http://www.safireblade.com/ - I am really enjoying the discussions here.

[Crisp]

lol great write-up, MAJK

[Stephanie]

Crispina wrote: "I'm really trying to finish this book... and getting less and less motivated, especially with two Nalini Singh Guild Hunter books waiting on my nightstand, and Kushiel's Dart, Gail Carriger's Timel..."
I got caught up in the Parasol Protectorate which I never wanted to give a fair shot to I guess, because I loved it. I just barely finished Gabriel's Ghost in time and didn't finish Grimspace in time but I'm caught up now. Grimspace was way better.
I find so many books to try out through this club and I never had a hard time finding books in the first place. Thankfully I've re-read the two picks this month fairly recently.
As far as problems go, this one isn't bad.

[Michelle]

MAJK wrote: "Doing my part to promote this ridiculously fun and interesting book club - I wrote up a little recap of Monday's Session and included a link to Felicia's channel in it. You can find it at http://w..."

Great recap of the show!

[Christine]

I really liked Gabriel's Ghost at first, but then the chemistry between Sully and Chaz was just gone...
And it was really boring to go from one ship to the next, take turns in their shifts, send some rainbows, play cards...
I haven't finished it and started reading Kushiel's Dart.

[Crystal]

Just five pages into this book and I lost all motivation to read it. I ended up always finding something else to do. I enjoyed the alt book much more.

[Sezshares]

Thank god it wasn't just me! I felt guilty I hadn't finished Gabriel's Ghost when I watched the hang out tonight, but it seems the issues I had were all echoed by the ladies and the Good Reads Peeps.

Completely agree with Christine, it got boring, real fast - Send rainbows, play cards, new ship, different day...

Interestingly I was surprised how no one in the hang out touched on how the author never really set a scene. It was so lacking in description I found it hard to visualise the world. This was so different from previous month's two steampunk novels , which were both so rich in their colours and noises in comparison.

[Amy]

I guess I'm in the minority. I first read it years ago and loved it. I loved that there was a terrific plot alongside the romance. And I loved that Gabriel was the vulnerable one in the relationship. In a way, the gender roles are a little reversed. Although Gabriel does rescue Chaz from the prison planet, he's the one pining in love for her, whereas it's usually the woman doing the pining in traditional romances. Plus, he's scared about what she'll think of him when the truth behind his secrecy is announced, which seems to normally be the feminine role. He's scared she'll leave him and therefore the one with less power in the relationship.

After reading the critiques of the book here, I re-read the book. I can see people's dislike of both characters - they certainly have their flaws. But I like those flaws, as flawed characters are always more interesting than perfect ones. As for how Chaz accepts Gabriel (or not) and how much important information Gabriel leaves out of telling Chaz ... I see some of the problems. I think Chaz did very well at accepting Gabriel's revelations, given the history of Ragkiril in her culture. In fact, she was perhaps a little *too* accepting of Gabriel's revelations. This time around I thought it should have taken her longer to accept being bound to him. And I didn't like Gabriel's plan of not telling her a lot of this information. One other thing that did bug me this time as well as last time was the repetition of the phrase "Jukors born and Takas die." I understand it was deliberate, but it still took me out of the story. For some reason, the use of the word "rainbow" didn't. It seemed reasonable to me as a description of the empathic connection.

So I still loved it, but I did see some of the critiques and agreed with some this reading.

I've read all of Linnea Sinclair's books. I would recommend "Finders Keepers" and "Hope's Folly" for those who didn't like Gabriel's Ghost as much.

[Astrid]

I'm trying to finish reading it before I watch the hangout. The book started ok to me, but after the initial tension between Sully and Chaz was gone, the story got me bored. There is something lacking in the story, so I guess I'm the same situation as some people stated above!

[Amy]

I think one of the main reasons I liked it was the world-building. I liked that it wasn't totally secondary to the romance. It was a very balanced storyline, regardless of the quality of the romance :)

[Crisp]

I finally powered through the book this weekend and finished it, basically skimming the sex scenes, blocking out all the "Chazzy-girl"s and "rainbow"s - and that made the book okay. The other details in the book were great, but these little elements were really distracting.