{"id":2623,"date":"2011-11-08T18:53:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T23:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2012-05-02T13:32:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T18:32:44","slug":"phoenix-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2623","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel<\/a><\/em> (2011) Pip Ballantine<\/a> & Tee Morris<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was a lot happier about this book before I discovered I’d paid full price for it.<\/p>\n

Eliza D. Braun and Wellington Books are agents of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences who met when Braun rescued Books from Antarctica after he’d been kidnapped for the knowledge he has as Archivist for the Ministry.<\/p>\n

I have to say I’m not quite sure what it is about the British and Peculiar, but I prefer the Peculiar Crimes Unit<\/a> to the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. Despite the fact the later has steampunk.<\/p>\n

First, the cover is not particularly reminiscent of the story, in that there aren’t many goggles, and I can think of no instances where Braun was dressed like that, and certainly none where she was posed like that. I’m not even sure I can figure any reason for her to be dressed in that manner, except, of course, to interest boys in the book.<\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

As for the story, it was ok.<\/p>\n

Steampunk combined with pulp mystery. Pretty much a winning combination, except for the couple of places where it went off the rails completely. I could very much have done without the scene after the first dinner at mansion. Yuck. Which was the heart of the problem. The story changes from a pulp romp to some overly vivid descriptions of violence and sexual domination that were–well, I think they were unnecessary, and they put both Braun and Books in a bad light for doing nothing to stop those events. (I can almost accept them standing by as cold blooded murder occurs, but the icky pedophilia? No. Sorry.)<\/p>\n

And of course in the finest pulp fashion, the story ends with unsolved mysteries leading to the next book.<\/p>\n

No thanks.
\nRating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (2011) Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris I was a lot happier about this book before I discovered I’d paid full price for it. Eliza D. Braun and Wellington Books are agents of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences who met when Braun rescued Books from Antarctica after he’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,30,2,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternate-history","category-british","category-fantasy","category-steam-punk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-Gj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1883,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1883","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":0},"title":"The Interior","author":"Michelle","date":"August 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Interior (1999) Lisa See Liu Hulan is still in China working for the Ministry of Public Security--and pregnant with an unsanctioned child, when she receives a letter from a woman she hadn't heard from in years, asking her to come look into the death of her daughter. David Stark\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Asian"","block_context":{"text":"Asian","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/asian"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/the_interior.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/696","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":1},"title":"White Corridor","author":"Michelle","date":"October 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"White Corridor (2007) Christopher Fowler Once again the Peculiar Crimes Unit is in danger of being closed. After Raymond Land decided to close the until for a week's vacation, a member of the unit is found killed, while Bryant and May are on their way to one of Bryant's spiritualist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/White-Corridor.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":296,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/296","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":2},"title":"Seventy-Seven Clocks","author":"Michelle","date":"August 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Seventy-Seven Clocks (2005) Christopher Fowler A Bryant and May Mystery I picked this up at The Bookshelf's Clarence sale. The name intrigued me, and the back cover sounded interesting, although I wasn't quite sure what London's Peculiar Crimes unit was, other than something that sounded fascinating. It's 1973 and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Seventy-Seven-Clocks.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6057,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6057","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":3},"title":"A Gift of Sanctuary","author":"Michelle","date":"September 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A Gift of Sanctuary (1998) Candace Robb Set in Wales in 1371. Owen Archer finds himself accompanying his father-in-law on a pilgrimage to Wales. \u2018Age brings many blessings,\u2019 Michaelo said. \u2018And much humiliation,\u2019 Sir Robert retorted. Owen and Geoffery Chaucer are on a secret mission to determine whether a Welsh\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"a-gift-of-sanctuary","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/A-Gift-of-Sanctuary.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/389","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":4},"title":"Phoenix Guards","author":"Michelle","date":"June 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Phoenix Guards (1991) Steven Brust In the mood for re-reading favorites, I just finished Phoenix Guards. Phoenix Guards is one of the books that falls into my \"pretty much perfect\" category.","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1562,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1562","url_meta":{"origin":2623,"position":5},"title":"Phoenix Guards","author":"Michelle","date":"December 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Phoenix Guards (1991) Steven Brust Not feeling up to starting anything new (and hoping for a big pile of Christmas books) I decided to reread Steven Brust's Phoenix Guards I love that book.","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}