Sunshine, a fantasy by Robin McKinley published in 2003 and reissued in 2008, won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature (McKinley’s acceptance remarks here). I regret very much reading the screed against readers which the author posted on her blog. I’m sure we all feel that way at times about the people we deal with, but I think it says something when you let those kinds of comments stand as a public statement of your relationship with your audience. As a reader who just discovered McKinley and went to her website to find out more about her and her books, I felt insulted, slightly pissed, and deflated. I am not sure that’s what I would be going for with my author website.
But I will leave off that distressing discovery, surprising and interesting as it is, and talk about Sunshine, which was also surprising and interesting, but in a good way. I listened to Sunshine, which is written in the first person. First person often works quite well on audio, and the performer did a great job with it. Sample here.
I finished this book last week, but have had a hard time starting the review. And then I read this blurb by Neil Gaiman and figured out why:
A gripping, funny, page-turning pretty much perfect work of magical literature that exists more or less at the unlikely crossroads of Chocolat, Interview With a Vampire, Misery and the tale of Beauty and the Beast. It’s not quite SF, and it’s not really horror, and only kind of a love story, and it’s all three while still being solidly Fantastique.
Sunshine is the story of Rae — nicknamed Sunshine — a twenty something baker, content with her life working in her step-father’s cafe, where her boyfriend Mel is one of the cooks. She has the usual family issues, including a very strained relationship with her mother, and when she decides to head out one day to the lake to get away, Rae ends up being captured by vampires and brought to an abandoned mansion. The Others are known to exist in Rae’s world, where wars have decimated cities, and they include witches and demons, but vampires are the most feared and hated.
When Rae discovers she has been captured to provide a yummy temptation for Constantine, a vampire who is also a prisoner, she is sure this is the end. But Rae relearns some sorcery her grandmother had taught her as a child, and she and Con are able to escape. She learns that her father, whom her mother left and who has never been in her life, is (or was? We never know for sure.) a powerful sorcerer. Rae and Con now have a kind of bond, which develops as they realize they have to battle the vampire who held them captive if they ever hope to return to some semblance of a normal life.
In the meantime, The SOF — Special Other forces, a kind of CIA dedicated to the eradication and/or neutralization of Others — are interested in the events at the lake mansion, and in Rae’s mystical powers. Sensing an alliance with SOF is not in her — and certainly not in Con’s — interest, Rae has to finesse her relationship with them, while also keeping her family in the dark. She is confused about her growing relationship with Con, a creature she is supposed to revile, but who grows on her in unexpected ways.
Well, not entirely unexpected. The author mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an inspiration, and when a book has a female protagonist who has unexpected powers to fight the bad vamps alongside the one good vamp, who may or may not become her boyfriend, all the while keeping her concerned mother and regular human friends in the dark and keeping her normal human life afloat … well…
And yet, it feels worlds away from Buffy. For one thing, this is not a funny book (with all due respect to Gaiman). And Rae is not very likable. She’s extremely egocentric, not just in that she’s most concerned for her own welfare, but in that she really doesn’t even think about much that doesn’t directly relate to herself. She isn’t funny or sharp or that insightful. So when you are in this book, you have to be willing to be deep inside the head of a very ordinary person. A person who is probably much more like you, the reader, than most protagonists.
For another, very little happens in this book. There’s the gangbusters kidnapping and escape in the opening chapters, which for my money was the best part of the book. But the next big action is the climax. There are several hundred pages in between of just sort of being with Rae in her world, as she copes with the events out on the lake, tries and fails to go back entirely to her old life, and eventually becomes a new, better and stronger person. But she knows herself, and I really liked that about her:
One of the things you need to understand is that I’m not a brave person. I don’t put up with being messed around, and I don’t suffer fools gladly. The short version of that is that I’m a bitch. Trust me, I can produce character references. But that’s something else. I’m not brave. Mel is brave. His oldest friend told me some stories about him once I could barely stand to listen to, about dispatch riding during the Wars, and Mel’d been pissed off when he found out, although he hadn’t denied they happened. Mom is brave: she left my dad with no money, no job, no prospects—her own parents had dumped her when she married my dad, and her younger sisters didn’t find her again till she resurfaced years later at Charlie’s—and a six-year-old daughter. Charlie is brave: he started a coffeehouse by talking his bank into giving him a loan on his house back in the days when you only saw rats, cockroaches, derelicts, and Charlie himself on the streets of Old Town.
I’m not brave. I make cinnamon rolls. I read a lot. My idea of excitement is Mel popping a wheelie driving away from a stoplight with me on pillion.
Another really great thing about this book is the way the Others and magic are described. The vampires are really really awful — including Con. They look terrifying, smell bad, move in ghastly ways. In this, McKinley keeps much closer to older vampire mythology than the latest heartthrob vamps. But I especially loved the way in which Rae’s growing sense of her own magical powers is described. For once, the magic felt to me, not like a Hollywood special effect, but truly magical:
I watched the wiggling bark. It occurred to me that this was new. I’d been seeing into shadows, but merely what was there, as if there was a rather erratic light on it. This was something else. Which gave me something I could bear to think about, so I thought about it. A few more minutes passed and it seemed to me it was as if I was watching the tree breathing. I found a leaf in shadow, and looked at it for a while; it twinkled, as if with tiny starbursts, but rather than thinking ugh—weird, I kept watching, till there seemed to be a pattern. I thought, it’s as if I’m watching its pores opening and closing. I looked down at my hands. The shadows between the fingers gleamed like a banked fire. The tiny shadows laid by the veins on the backs of them were a tiny, flickering dark green edged with a tinier, even more flickering red. The daylight part of the veins looked as it always did. In the shadow places I could see the blood moving.
I was sitting in sunlight, not shade. I automatically chose sun if there was any sun to be had. I remembered the sun on my back the first morning at the lake, like the arm of a friend. I closed my eyes.
Sunshine feels very much like the first book in a series. So little happens in its pages, compared to similar books in the subgenre, that it’s a shock when it ends as abruptly as it does. As a reader, I have had almost no contact with anyone besides Rae. I wanted to know more about her boyfriend Mel, her stepfather, her mother — who is virtually nonexistent — her powerful father and his family — also nonexistent.
I am on the fence about this. Part of me feels like the book is half baked, that some of these things really should have been explored to make the story complete. We don’t even get to know much about Constantine, and nothing about whether his odd alliance with Rae will become an intimate friendship, a romance, or something else. The other part of me just enjoyed the wonderful writing and marveled at how fresh this author could make an oft-told story feel.
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I’ve been a fan of Robin McKinley since I read her earlier books, a few years back. I was really looking forward to this book, especially as it’s been a while since her last book was published – and this book was recommended by Neil Gaiman – I wasn’t disappointed.
Sunshine is a book that I adore but am also frustrated by. Love the world sliding toward Other dominion (feels like Terminator to me) and the action at the beginning and the end. Plus some beautiful language and storytelling. Am frustrated by the incomplete feeling the book leaves me with, as if there was more story to tell to make a fully-fleshed tale, but it got edited out. Or just left for a sequel. [Which is apparently not in McKinley's plans for the immediate future, if ever.]
All the editions of the book lucked out in terms of cover art. All gorgeous and kind of gothic, which suits the book.
Have you read other books by McKinley? Her Beauty (retelling of Beauty and the Beast) is a huge favorite.
I was also confused by this book, and didn’t like it much the first time I read it because of the deep first person narritive. I loved it the second time I read it for exactly the same reason. I loved that Rae was so normal and that she frankly didn’t give much of a damn about anything beyond cinnamon rolls. I remember her being in her very early twenties, and that sort of new-adult self-centeredness rang very true to me. I remember spending a lot of my very early twenties trying to figure out exactly how much control I had over my own life, so that made a lot of sense.
Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors, and has been for years and years, since I first read “Blue Sword” and then “Hero and the Crown” when I was in elementary school. Those are still yearly re-reads, they were two of my first “keeper” books. I’ve loved almost all of her stuff, but I have some problems with her construction of magic. It seems like, in her novels, magic happens through force of personality or through chance, and is more a function of who you are than of what you’ve learned. She also tends to write the first book in a series and then stop – I’ve been waiting for more novels about Damar for years, to no avail. So, if that’s a pet peeve, you might not love her stuff.
This novel reminded me a lot of “Hero and the Crown” which was much more of a fantasy novel, and had a much more solid resolution (romantically and otherwise). The hero of HatC also sort of stumbled into her magic, but she had other skill sets that she worked hard for and McKinley showed her working hard for (er, those skill sets were dragon killing and horse training). All this in spite of being a princess. Literally. I found the cinnamon rolls much more relateable.
Love it. *love it* gave it to my Dd as a Twilight antidote for vamp boyfriends that don’t stalk and stong heroines who don’t simper.
I keep wondering if she would have been able to publish something like this earlier in her career-this slipstream/genre mashup.
@jmc: I agree with all your comments. And no, I haven’t read Beauty but it sounds really interesting.
@Jocelyn Z.:
This is a really interesting point, and I think it captures Rae’s use of magic in Sunshine very well. I am not sure if it is a problem for me thought.
@Eva:
Good question! I cringed when I read an editorial review describing it as “Buffyesque”. It’s really so different from most of what I have read out there.
McKinley also wrote another re-telling of Beauty and the Beast called Rose Daughter. I was also introduced to McKinley through Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown.
For some reason, I stopped reading her after Sunshine. I need to re-read to discover if the second time is more impactful.
@Vi: I think the first time I read “Sunshine” I was expecting something more like her other YA material, and disliked it partially because of false expectations and partially because of issues with voice. If you were put off by either of those things, I’d say re-read. If you were put off by the plotting, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
As for her recent stuff, I haven’t read everything, but I thought “Deerskin” was pretty good, in line with “Rose Daughter” and “Beauty.” “Chalice” was terribly edited, wasn’t cohesive and didn’t make much sense. Characterization was lacking, as well. “Outlaws of Sherwood” I read so long ago I don’t remember much aside from thinking it was OK.
I don’t like her short stories at all. “Sunshine,” “Blue Sword,” and “Hero and the Crown” are still her best efforts, to my mind.
@Jessica: I think that the way magic is portrayed isn’t much of a problem in this book, because the main character shows so much personal drive and owns her actions in other areas. I dislike it in other books by McKinley because it doesn’t always serve the plot, and the leads aren’t always that strong.
Deerskin is my favorite McKinley, although I like pretty much everything she’s ever written. I do love Sunshine. I think the lack of detail about Con is part and parcel of the deep first person narrative — we don’t know because Rae doesn’t, and that’s the kind of book it is. I love that aspect, although I know a lot of readers don’t.
McKinley has addressed the sequel issue, but I know her explanation doesn’t work for a lot of people. (It is another subject she gets cranky about, since she has been asked about it so often.) Personally, while I would love another book set in this world, I also rather appreciate the way Sunshine stands on its own. Despite my love of romance, I don’t think every book needs a baby epilogue or the equivalent. McKinley told the part of the story she wanted to tell (or that she could tell, from her perspective), and frankly I think genre fiction could use a little more of that.
Every reader is different, but for me the best thing about this book was its uniqueness — a more conventional development of character, or a more conventionally satisfying ending, would have diminished that for me.
‘Sunshine’ is a keeper for me as much for the world McKinley created as it is for Rae’s story. I do want to know what happen’s to them next not in the sense so much of Rae and Mel/Con but in the sense that they are living in a time between the wars and the next bad things. So the question is how do you live in such times. I also took a way from the Sunshine story a sense that Rae’s focus on the immediate and ordinary lived life is showing us what we need to fight for. I also think the Buffy link is with the later Buffy – the slayer who is war-weary.
Yes yes and yes! The book is frustrating in that it doesn’t fulfill the usual expectations and it’s brilliant because it doesn’t fulfill the usual expectations, but THEN it occasionally goes beyond those expectations which makes it stay with you.
I love Robin McKinley and even enjoyed Chalice (Rose Daughter is amazing) but she often wallows in the minds of her characters longer than a reader might think is entirely enjoyable. I suppose that and the not writing the books I want to read from her are the downsides of a relationship with this author but the benefits, the moments of awe and beauty outweigh the annoyances for me.
Sunshine was such a mixed bag for me. On the one hand it has some brilliant moments most especially the opening as you pointed out, Jessica. I loved the post-apocalyptic feel coupled with utter normalcy like movie night and work. I loved that the vampire Con was not a beautiful creature of the night.
A few problems I had were the overuse of the baking descriptions as they felt like belabored and heavy-handed attempts at symbolism (she bakes, I get it, move on!); the lack of description of Sunshine herself (age, hair color, height, weight, anything?) especially as she was so self centered it seemed like I could still never pin her down; the YA feel of the book up till the almost-sex scene where she suddenly hits you with labias and hot sweaty desperation and then… back to YA.
I still liked it and even re-read it from time to time because I keep feeling like there’s something just beyond the horizon of it that I’d love to get to but it never quite delivers on its promise.
My problem with this author is that I first read her books when I was a kid, and fell in love with her stories in that intense, obsessive way that I associate with childhood. I still read and love books, but I cannot reread the same book over and over again in a week the way I used to, and I don’t get sucked into stories in the same way, and when I try to read books by this author now they feel pale and dry.
This is not her fault, of course.
I always cite The Blue Sword as one of the gateway drugs that got me into romance novels.
@Vi: Thanks Vi. I will refer to this thread when I pick my next McKinley. And thanks again Jocelyn for your take on her more recent work.
@SonomaLass: I agree that it is refreshing to read a stand alone book, but this has more of a feel of a first book in the series than most other actual first books in a series!
On the deep first person narrative, I agree. I guess I had a love hate relationship with it. It didn’t help that Con was so rarely with Rae.
@Merrian:
Thank you so much for these points. they are so helpful to me in my interpretation of the book. I really hadn’t focused on the “between times” aspect of the book — maybe that focus was lost a bit in the audio translation, or maybe I am just not that good a listener. but thinking more about it helps me put the book into perspective.
@Heloise: Hi Hleoise! Thank you for linking. I knew you had recently reviewed it, but I was too lazy to go around searching of all the other reviews.
@Pamelia:
Yeah, that was a very bizarre shock. what the hell was that all about? I am not even sure this creature has sexual equipment — or legs for that matter — and all of a sudden I get a description of his erection?
@JennyME: That’s interesting, that you went form McKinley to romance. I wonder if that’s true of a lot of McKinley readers?
I read McKinley for the first time about a week ago, and I can’t say I really like it. Chalice, the first one I read, seemed a little incohesive and belabored to me, and I kept getting a sense that the story was remarkably stagnant–honey, beekeeping, honey, yada, honey, yippee! Then, I tried Rose Daughter, and while I do appreciate the attention to detail, at some point, I got tired of staring at pages and pages of rose-growing descriptions. Based on some of the comments about the page time devoted to cinnamon rolls, I think that McKinley does pay a lot of attention to the craft she refers to in the book, but I felt it was a little too much.
I didn’t, by the way, finish Rose Daughter, so maybe my impression there is mistaken. But ultimately, I can’t say I like her work the way I’d hoped I would.
And thank you, by the way, for the link to the rant. I don’t think I’ll be seeking out her other books, then.
Sunshine is my favorite McKinley.
I recently read Dragonhaven and had this to say in my LJ: It was…interesting. At times, the first-person narration was difficult to read because of convoluted sentences, backtracking, repetition, so I got a little annoyed. But I also thought that maybe the narrative style was meant to say something about how dragons speak, and how humans found it difficult to speak to dragons and vice versa.
I did really like the reality of the world in the novel, the way bureaucracy was juxtaposed with matter-of-fact mentions of dragons, griffins, and the Loch Ness Monster in among all the other endangered species.
Deerskin is a really intense read, and one day I’m going to give it a re-read. Beauty and Rose Daughter didn’t stick with me nearly as much.
Oh geesh! I nearly died laughing when I read the rant. No matter what she thinks, we must be twins.
That is exactly the type of emails I write when my 40 year old sister tells me I don’t understand because I’ve never been a)married, b)divorced and/or c) a single parent, but she still needs me to send her (more) money to because she has to pay her cable bill, etc. Or my brother and SIL (who live in my house with their 3 cats, 3 snakes, 1 dog and toddler son) still refuse to remove their clothes from the dryer after 2 days; won’t pick up son’s toys because they’ll just be pulled out again tomorrow; texts me and asks why ate her yogurt (I hate yogurt!); lets the snakes out with out alerting me; insists on making drainpipe repairs themselves to save money so I end up paying for a new floor and patio; etc.
It’s always the accumulation of the little things that set me off (with the exception of the drain pipe incident). The difference is I always chicken out and delete said emails after I’ve spewed forth my sarcasm and ire.