Battle of the Books (2): The Secret History vs Theodora

For those of you new to my Battle of the Books, I read two books of similar story, setting and/or genre and pit them against one another.  I base my judgements on the following criteria:

1. Main Character
2. Supporting Cast
3. Worldbuilding
4. Pacing
5. Plot Development
6. Plot Resolution
7. Style/Use of Language
8. Cover Art (Tiebreaker only)

Today's Byzantine Book Battle pits A Secret History by Stephanie Thornton against Theodora: Accress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy.

This match-up was a bit more challenging than I expected.  For some silly reason, I assumed that it would be far easier to draw comparisons when the story was with the exact same character and exact same storyline.  Instead, this makes it somewhat harder:  with the plot taking the (more or less) exact same trajectory, and using (more or less) the same cast, you have to rely on nitpicking to draw the lines.
  
1. Main Character - Thornton
Here is one huge difference right off the bat.  A Secret History is told in the first person, using Theodora's own voice.  Duffy's Theodora is told the in third person.  By using the first person, you get a clearer view of Theodora, seeing her as more impatient, impetuous and sassy.  Thornton also uses dialogue to better effect, giving a clearer characterization and letting the characters be the IN and a part of the world, rather than just occupying it.  Both authors, though, do a fine job of giving Theodora a spine and a great deal of resilience. 

2. Supporting cast -Thornton
Thornton, again, delivers with her dialogue.  By living in T's head and using more dialogue than description, the reader is given a clearer picture of the people around her.  Not all supporting characters are given the same amount of screen time, of course, but the few that are seem better fleshed out.

3. Worldbuilding - Duffy
Duffy, hands down.  Whereas Thornton's dialogue gives better opportunities to illuminate the personalities of the characters, Duffy's third person prose allows for better description of the age and the area.  For readers completely unfamiliar with the time period, Duffy gives a wider canvas on which to paint the story.  The politics, religion and culture of the time are far more clear in Duffy's version of the story.

4. Pacing - Thornton
Thornton covers all of Theodora's life in one 450-page novel.  Duffy's story goes from childhood through her being crowned Empress.  (There is a second book, The Purple Shroud, that covers the rest of her life.)  Not that covering a life at a leisurely pace is wrong, but I prefer Thornton's complete story in one volume.  There are enough series out there.

5. Plot Development -Duffy
(Possible Spoilers)
Toward the end of Thornton's story, there is a bit of a melodrama about Theodora's son, and it felt shoehorned in and awkward, as if the author was grasping for something amazing to happen to the protagonist, since her meteoric rise and ongoing challenges and victories weren't enough.  Duffy's story felt more plausible, and more like the author kept with the known sources for the root of her plot line(s). 

6. Plot Resolution - Thornton
As previously stated, Thornton's A Secret History covers a woman's entire life.  The story is wrapped up in the most logical and inevitable way there is.  Duffy's Theodora stops just at the climax of our heroine's social climb.  You can pick up the second book, but do you want to?

7. Style/Use of Language - Thornton
Duffy really likes commas.  A lot.  I am not opposed to long sentences, but it's not uncommon to see one sentence that goes on four or five printed lines in the text.  If I were listening to an audiobook, it might not make a difference.  It does make a difference when reading a printed copy, and I had to reread a single sentence to get the meaning. 

Final Score:
Thornton: 5
Duffy: 2

As another reviewer friend has stated for me, Thornton's book read a lot like Kate Quinn's novels.  If you like her style (and I really, really do), then Thornton is the clear favorite.
HOWEVER, if you like your books more descriptive and heavier on paragraphs than on spoken dialogue, you'll probably prefer Duffy's depiction of the Byzantine empress. 

If you have an idea for another Battle of the Books match-up, post your suggestions in the comments!

Battle of the Books! Tarnished vs. Kiss of Steel

Here it is - the first ever Battle of the Books on Wandering Meander.

As described in a previous post, I have decided to pit two similar books against one another and see who comes out on top.

This match-up is:
Tarnished by Karina Cooper versus Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster

Now for the points of comparison:
1. Main Character
2. Supporting Cast
3. World-building
4. Pacing
5. Plot Development
6. Plot Resolution
7. Style or Use of Language

1. Main Character.
 Cherry St Croix is the heroine of Tarnished, an opium-addicted former pickpocket who is struggling to show her face in society after her parent's untimely demise and despite her father's reputation as a mad scientist, all while leading a double life as an underworld collector (bounty hunter).  Honoria Todd is the heroine of Kiss of Steel, a young woman on the run from a vampiric nobleman, forced to resort to seeking the help of an underworld boss to save her family from starvation or worse.  While Honoria was fun to follow along with on her romantic adventures, I have to say that Cherry, with her drug addiction and "take no prisoners" attitude was more interesting.  Not only that, but Cherry carried the story herself, not sharing the "screen time" with a male lead.  Winner: Tarnished.

2. Supporting Cast
Tarnished has a broad array of characters, from Cherry's servant-friends, to the society matrons that snub her to her underworld allies.  Kiss of Steel has much the same, but the numbers are smaller.  More time is spent developing each one as an individual and drawing the reader's interest into them.  This is especially important since some of the supporting cast are the leads in the second book in the series.  While I appreciated the dichotomy between Tarnished's upper crust and the lower dregs, I think the supporting cast from Kiss of Steel was more interesting. Winner:  Kiss of Steel

3. World-building
Both of these adventures are steampunk.  Kiss of Steel introduces vampire nobility and lethal werewolves into a London that never existing and tosses some automatons and kiss-ass weapons into the mix.  Tarnished took it a step further and made the London a place that never existed at all, where the upper crust have took that a little too literally and created a raised platform that they live on while the rest of the world lives below in a permanent cloud of pollution and mist (thereby creating the need for goggles and other steampunky things).  Airships carry people from level to level and there are in-depth discussions about "the aether."  There are creepy labs and strange technology and mad scientists.  All in all, I think Tarnished did a better job with creating a steampunk world.  Winner:  Tarnished
 
4. Pacing
Both of these books are the first in a series, but only Tarnished really felt like it.  Kiss of Steel jumped onto its plot-train right away in the first chapter and didn't look back.  Tarnished took a while to find its footing, jumping back and forth between social concerns in ballrooms and back to crime-life in the underworld.  The book is almost a third of the way through by the time the heroine actually does what the book blurb says.  There was plenty of action in both books, but Kiss of Steel made it seem like it was advancing the story, while Tarnished spent a little more time meandering through the world (well-built though it was) and introducing characters who seemed more like diversions and red herrings.  Winner:  Kiss of Steel

5. Plot Development
Kiss of Steel is clearly advertised as more of a romance than Tarnished is, so I'm not going to fault it for having romance be the cornerstone of its plot arc.  Tarnished takes its time getting going, but once it's on the rails, there is plenty to keep the reader interested, and even the society-underworld split is interesting in itself.  Without spoiling anything, I will confess I laughed out loud when both books used the exact same plot twist.  Winner:  Tie

6. Plot Resolution
Here's where being the start of a series can be a disadvantage.  Kiss of Steel had its characters meet, face difficulties and fall in love all by the end of the book.  Tarnished introduced quite a few characters and set up two of them as potential love interests, but one of them fell off the pages somewhere and the other wasn't a fully realized character by the final pages.  One major mystery was resolved - sort of - but another was left wide open for the next book to pick up.  In the end, I prefer a somewhat neater package.  Winner:  Kiss of Steel

7. Style or Use of Language
Neither of these books are going to be the book that pushes Steampunk into the massive mainstream.  They are both perfectly acceptable book from a writing standpoint.  That being said, Cherry's catchphrase "Allez hop!" was annoying by the second time she said it.  Kiss of Steel had better action scenes - both the bloody and the sexy kind.  Winner:  Kiss of Steel

Results: 
By a score of 4 to 2, our winner is:

This was harder than I thought it would be, because both books were enjoyable, albeit in different ways.  I almost purchased the sequel to BOTH books when I saw them at the store.  Try either of them - I will certainly be continuing with both series as soon as I can get my hands on them.

Battle of the Books!

There comes a time in every book lover's life when you pick a book off a shelf and ask yourself, "Didn't I just read this last week?"  Sometimes the answer is "Yes.  This is just the new cover on the paperback edition, stupidhead," but sometimes the answer is "No, it's just that publishers think that every fantasy fan, young adult, new adult, or historical fictionista want to read the same books."

Is it just me, or do 97.65% of YA books have vampires or werewolves or fairies or something in them now?  Are actual teenage boys are so foreign to our teen sisters that they can only think of them as a different species?
Why do all* historical fiction novels show a woman (or two) in a period-piece dress from the collarbone down?  (My current theory is that women did not have heads before 1919.)
Do all* New Adult covers need to have two white people not-quite-kissing?  ("Not kissing" pretty much sums up my late teens and early twenties, so perhaps this is spot on.)
*not really ALL, but a lot.

It's no wonder my brain gets confused.  Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I have more books than is remotely normal.  I don't always have problems getting them straight in my head.  But there does come a time where I have to sigh, shake my head, and say, "It's been done before and it wasn't good then.  I doubt it will be good now."  I'm certain I have dismissed possibly good books just because they bore an unfortunate resemblance to another lackluster book. How can we bookaholics possibly know which books we should pick up next?

In order to make the confusion its own reward, I have decided to start a semi-regular series of entries:  The Battle of the Books.  These will be single-match, sudden-death fights between two similar books.  Why?  Because I'm far too lazy to create a March Madness-style bracket.  Besides, it's not exactly fair to compare a 2013 steampunk novel to a classic Neil Gaiman, or Lord of the Rings to David Copperfield.  After a while, it would just be a list of "Books Enjoyed by Wandering Meander."

A couple of ground rules in these matches:
1.  The books must have different authors.  Comparing Gaiman's American Gods to Neverwhere might be fun for me to read, but it's not exactly a useful comparison.
2.  The books cannot be from the same series, even if written by different authors.  Eg, "Alex Archer" of the Rogue Angel series is a pen name, not a real person, which allows different authors to write the stories under the same name.
3. The books must be from the same genre or sub-genre.  Steampunk is a sub-genre of SF/F.  So is Alternate History.  However, I wouldn't compare Boneshaker to 1632, but I might consider comparing it to The Iron Duke. 
4. Whenever possible, the books should have similar plots or backgrounds.  There are a lot of Tudor novels out there, but comparing The Autobiography of Henry VIII to The Irish Princess just doesn't seem fair. 

Now, for the competition.  How can I decide which book walks out of the ring - so to speak - as the champion, and which just walks out of the ring?  I will compare the two books on the following criteria, award 1 point for each victory (or it can be a tie, in which case zero points will be awarded):
1. Main Character
2. Supporting Cast
3. Worldbuilding
4. Pacing
5. Plot Development
6. Plot Resolution
7. Style/Use of Language
8. Cover Art (Tiebreaker only)

Why am I doing this?  Because it's fun to make pointless comparisons.  Because that way I can review two books at once.  Because I feel like it.  Because sometimes you want to know which book to read -and sometimes you find out that two books are equally good in different ways.

The first Battle of the Books will be:

Tarnished by Karina Cooper versus Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster

Want in on this and want to write your own?  Have a Book Battle you'd like to propose?  Let me know.