(no subject)
Jun. 1st, 2007 09:37 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sclerotia.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefWhen I de-lurked about a month ago, I had intended to join in on the chat the next day and generally become a contributing member of the group. Well our very slow dial up connection can’t handle the chat, so you won’t be seeing me there. Then I read in the back log that there was a reading list in the back of the new-cover-Thief, so I found the list and ordered them out from the library. Between my own collection, the library system in the medium sized town where I work, and the library district where I live, I could find nearly all of them. Unfortunately, since they were all older books and not new and hot items, I didn't have to wait for them; they arrived at my local branch library (only 4 miles away in the small town nearest me) in two days; unfortunate because only a few days before I had picked up about 10 books I had requested. I was now awash in words and sinking fast. I have been reading in every spare moment and a lot that weren’t spare, but stolen, and have read through all the library books, but the ones in my own collection I have set aside for the moment.
I also found, that having decided years ago that a good book was better, and having ceded all but the most minimal claim to computer time at home, it was not easy to reclaim much of that time from the competing interests of my husband and my son, so you may not “see” me all that often. (Today I am taking off to have lunch with a friend, a librarian with similar tastes in books, who usually has the first Friday of the month off; naturally, we spend some of our time making book recommendations to each other. Needless to say I have not yet gotten to any of the ones she recommended to me last month. My son, out of school for the summer now, will sleep ‘til noon and my husband is at work, so until I go to meet my friend I can have the computer to myself. Yea!!)
All that aside:
1. If anyone mentioned this already, I missed it, but Lloyd Alexander died on May 17th.
2. Also, if this has been covered before I apologize, but there is a fairly recent book--one of the ones I have been wading through--The Wand in the Word; Conversations with Writers of Fantasy compiled and edit by Leonard S. Marcus. It features writers of J/YA fantasy. Intended for youngish readers, there is not a lot of depth to the interviews, but I enjoyed them, nonetheless. No, our esteemed author is not one of them, but the following are: Lloyd Alexander, Franny Billingsly, Susan Cooper, Nancy Farmer, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine l’Engle, Garth Nix, Tamora Pierce, Terry Prachett, Philip Pullman, and Jane Yolen.
3. Regarding tributes, I couldn’t find these on any of the previous posts I read, although I may have missed them:
Very near the end of Suttcliff’s Warior Scarlet, Drem tells Brai, “I am not kind.”
In The Crime of Martin Coverly, when Nickolas is imprisoned, condemned to the gallows, and hears the door, he asks, “Is it time?”. Also from The Crime of Martin Coverly I jotted down a couple of other things, although I am not sure, now, exactly what they referred to. These aren’t word-for-word quoted in KoA but they are quite similar to a couple of things. “dark blood flowing in rivulets between his fingers” and, and I think this was in regards to the map, “the best way to hide something is to expose it openly”.
4. Also regarding tributes: Mark of the Horse Lords is not one of the books I have been able to get hold of…yet. I understand that the fibula pin features in it. I have wondered if the description of Costis’ pin which has a “shaft four inches long and as thick as a cornstalk” is directly from Mark of the Horse Lords. In the US the general definition of corn to mean “grain” is only survives in a couple of uses, e.g. corned beef (using grains of salt) and corns on the feet (a sort of granular callus). Unless we are consciously writing for an international audience, “corn” is used to mean maize, so a cornstalk would be something an inch and a half thick. Clearly MWT didn’t mean maize. My own inclination, assuming that I had come up with the comparison on my own, would have been to compare the thickness to a “stalk of wheat” or “stalk of barley”, so I have been curious since I read this line why she decided to use “cornstalk” there. If it were one of her tributes, that would explain it nicely. Let me know please. Thanks
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I apologize for the length of this. Although I have read the instructions for making an lj-cut several times I have not yet been able to figure it out yet. If someone wants to describe the process in a manner that a three year old could understand, I would be grateful. As I drive to work I write mental letters to my friends and, now, posts for this comm. I seldom actually get them written down, but if I ever do, and if I don’t figure out how to make the cuts……
I also found, that having decided years ago that a good book was better, and having ceded all but the most minimal claim to computer time at home, it was not easy to reclaim much of that time from the competing interests of my husband and my son, so you may not “see” me all that often. (Today I am taking off to have lunch with a friend, a librarian with similar tastes in books, who usually has the first Friday of the month off; naturally, we spend some of our time making book recommendations to each other. Needless to say I have not yet gotten to any of the ones she recommended to me last month. My son, out of school for the summer now, will sleep ‘til noon and my husband is at work, so until I go to meet my friend I can have the computer to myself. Yea!!)
All that aside:
1. If anyone mentioned this already, I missed it, but Lloyd Alexander died on May 17th.
2. Also, if this has been covered before I apologize, but there is a fairly recent book--one of the ones I have been wading through--The Wand in the Word; Conversations with Writers of Fantasy compiled and edit by Leonard S. Marcus. It features writers of J/YA fantasy. Intended for youngish readers, there is not a lot of depth to the interviews, but I enjoyed them, nonetheless. No, our esteemed author is not one of them, but the following are: Lloyd Alexander, Franny Billingsly, Susan Cooper, Nancy Farmer, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine l’Engle, Garth Nix, Tamora Pierce, Terry Prachett, Philip Pullman, and Jane Yolen.
3. Regarding tributes, I couldn’t find these on any of the previous posts I read, although I may have missed them:
Very near the end of Suttcliff’s Warior Scarlet, Drem tells Brai, “I am not kind.”
In The Crime of Martin Coverly, when Nickolas is imprisoned, condemned to the gallows, and hears the door, he asks, “Is it time?”. Also from The Crime of Martin Coverly I jotted down a couple of other things, although I am not sure, now, exactly what they referred to. These aren’t word-for-word quoted in KoA but they are quite similar to a couple of things. “dark blood flowing in rivulets between his fingers” and, and I think this was in regards to the map, “the best way to hide something is to expose it openly”.
4. Also regarding tributes: Mark of the Horse Lords is not one of the books I have been able to get hold of…yet. I understand that the fibula pin features in it. I have wondered if the description of Costis’ pin which has a “shaft four inches long and as thick as a cornstalk” is directly from Mark of the Horse Lords. In the US the general definition of corn to mean “grain” is only survives in a couple of uses, e.g. corned beef (using grains of salt) and corns on the feet (a sort of granular callus). Unless we are consciously writing for an international audience, “corn” is used to mean maize, so a cornstalk would be something an inch and a half thick. Clearly MWT didn’t mean maize. My own inclination, assuming that I had come up with the comparison on my own, would have been to compare the thickness to a “stalk of wheat” or “stalk of barley”, so I have been curious since I read this line why she decided to use “cornstalk” there. If it were one of her tributes, that would explain it nicely. Let me know please. Thanks
------
I apologize for the length of this. Although I have read the instructions for making an lj-cut several times I have not yet been able to figure it out yet. If someone wants to describe the process in a manner that a three year old could understand, I would be grateful. As I drive to work I write mental letters to my friends and, now, posts for this comm. I seldom actually get them written down, but if I ever do, and if I don’t figure out how to make the cuts……
no subject
Date: 6/1/07 02:57 pm (UTC)Gah, I don't have the Sutcliffs on me. I'll go check. Nice ideas.
cuts
Date: 6/1/07 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/1/07 04:01 pm (UTC)1) The great man was mourned quite a bit in Chatzy, but thanks, I'm not sure anyone posted about it here.
2) Don't think anyone's posted about that, either, but I also enjoyed looking through this book. I was especially encouraged by the number of authors who describe their works in progress as a big mess until the final revision. Though there was a moment when I wondered if it was even possible to be a writer of fantasy without having been a dyslexic child...
no subject
Date: 6/1/07 04:08 pm (UTC)And the interview book sounds interesting, actually. I'll have to look for it.
no subject
Date: 6/1/07 04:39 pm (UTC)From Mark of the Horse Lord chap.21:
"They had taken his dirk, of course - odd that no one ever thought of a brooch with a pin as thick as a corn stalk and longer than a man's forefinger as a weapon, even in a camp of the Eagles, where they learned, just as one did in the Gladiator's School, that two inches in the right place were enough."
Have you seen this (http://community.livejournal.com/sounis/34004.html) post?
cornstalks
Date: 6/1/07 11:45 pm (UTC)"this" post
Date: 6/2/07 12:03 am (UTC)Re: "this" post
Date: 6/2/07 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/2/07 12:10 am (UTC)And how interesting about the cornstalk! I would have thought corn=maize. But in my head I think of "cornstalk" as something slender, even though I know actual cornstalks aren't, so maybe the British usage has crept into my subconscious somehow.
no subject
Date: 6/2/07 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/2/07 02:12 am (UTC)I should have checked my quote before I opened my fat mouth. I did change something in the sutcliff. Hmm. I'm not sure how to do this fairly. I definitely owe fabricalchemist a signed paperback as an honorable mention..
no subject
Date: 6/1/07 05:47 pm (UTC)I read The Wand in the Word after Checker's suggested it, then left it lying around and my kids both picked it up and read at least some of the interviews. Very good insights to the authors.
Interesting observation about the "thickness of a cornstalk". I assumed the American definition of corn, and simply thought "What a fat pin". The UK definition of "corn" as a generic cereal grain does make more sense. I've mentioned it before ... Costis' observation about his fibula pin is much more chilling after reading Mark of the Horse Lord
no subject
Date: 6/2/07 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 6/2/07 09:30 am (UTC)2. I've been meaning to get this book, I think someone here might have pointed me in its direction actually. Susan Cooper, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula Le Guin, Terry Pratchett and philip Pullman all in the same book? Count me in.
4. Good point. I'm a Brit, so I just assumed she was referring to grain of some sort, with a very slender stalk. I'm assuming that's the type of width she meant.
If the rich text option doesn't work with lj-cuts, just type '< lj-cut >' before the text that you want to cut and type '< /lj-cut >' (without the spaces between the words and the brackets) afterwards.