Apologies grow Boring...
Sep. 15th, 2007 12:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
idiosyncreant.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
queensthiefBut I will say, I can't believe I forgot AGAIN. This week the community was pretty active, though, so it didn't miss the chance to goof off, but I will not let my tardiness deter me this week. Tell me this:
Is there a book you've heard about, but can't decide if it's worth reading about? Let's ask each other, and see what the opinions are.
And as always...
What have you been reading?
Tell us especially about a non-fantasy you read recently that was really excellent. Or even anything far outside your normal reading that you were surprised to like, ever.
And if you took a recommendation from the community, tell us what you thought of the book!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 05:21 pm (UTC)Though the quote-heavy Lymond...I loved the way he developed, but I didn't like the feeling of ignorance I got because of that quirk. I'm mostly culturally literate when it comes to older references, so it struck me more than it would have I think.
Anyway, a great add to my list of Trickster types.
I have a [spoilerish!] question: there seem to be a zillion sequels. Are they must reads, or only if you're really dedicated to Lymond? I admit to feeling a little put off by the sheer number of them. Didn't we see him pretty much redeemed?
Just tell me which one he gets his girl in...
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:11 pm (UTC)On the fiction side (which I always have to read at the same time as non-fiction or else I would go mad from all the um... fact-ness!) is 'Marley and Me' by John Grogan. I thought it was brilliant. Really enjoyed it, even if it did make me cry at the end, though you know it's going to happen sooner or later. Normally it's only historical fiction or fantasy for me, so a cute autobiography made a refreshing change. Any one else read it?
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:19 pm (UTC)*falls over*
Ooh, I can't wait to see what madness ensues from the fangoyles around with me...
ON topic again, I'm at the tail end of a glut of historical novels, and really didn't feel like reading more of them
When I reread it later (I'm sure I'll enjoy it more) probably I will be pinging the library for the successive books every week.
I had a suspicion this would be the case, though, that you'd have to read them all to comprehend and enjoy the resolutions. Ah well.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:38 pm (UTC)My luck knows no shame, I guess. I seem to regularly miff MWT publicly by accident, so I cannot claim surprise.
Any recommendations for the week? ^_^
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:41 pm (UTC)Reading for the world I can do. Flora Segunda was kind of like that for me, this week. Except I loved it all, but the best part was her environment creation.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 07:51 pm (UTC)I don't remember who recommended the book to me, I'm not even sure that it was recommended here, but this week I read Magic or Madness by Justine Larbelestier (I THINK thats how it's spelled. Hum.) It was quite good, but not an absolute favorite. It didn't seem like a complete story to me at all... I got to the end and I was thinking, "...and then what?" It wasn't really a cliffhanger, like many series have, but it didn't feel like an (almost) complete story by itself, like many other series do. Anyone read it? Is it worth reading on?
I have The Book Thief and The View From Saturday checked out from the library, but as I've been alternately re-reading the Fellowship of the Ring and The Chosen, I haven't started reading them yet.
Some books that I've heard alot about but haven't read yet... oh, there are sooo many. Dune, Twilight, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Sorcery and Cecelia, The Dark Is Rising Sequence, Inkheart, Fire and Hemlock, I, Coriander, and Dandelion Wine are several oft-recommended books that I have not yet read that come to mind. I could name you several dozen more, but I don't think you really want to know.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 08:15 pm (UTC)Magic or Madness is a trilogy. So no, it's not finished. I really liked the first and the second was a good follow up, definitely carrying the story further, which was good. But I really am looking to the third to see how I like it on the whole. I recommend the second if you're interested.
The View from Saturday is one of my favorites ever, though. So get on to that first! I vote.
Of course, anyone else's vote may cancel mine out.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 08:16 pm (UTC)Once I'm done with Women Who Run with Wolves, maybe?
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 08:32 pm (UTC)I still can't get through Middlemarch or Deathly Hollows, which is amusing because they're about the same length.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:06 pm (UTC)Trying to forget that I'm a mad Lymond fangirl, I think it's only really necessary to read the first, the fifth, and the sixth, although you miss some important plot points...I'd get the fourth in there as well, maybe...
If you're into quick resolution, you can certainly skip to 6 - that's where he gets his girl. Eventually. Most of them are good on their own merits (2 and 3, less so) and are important in the sense that Lymond is a character who does change a lot. We've seen him redeemed, but we haven't seen him grow up, especially emotionally. If you want to track that - actually, if you want to track that, you're probably devoted anyway so it doesn't matter.
Basically, yeah, BlackHolly is right - you do sort of need to read them all, but there's no reason why you have to. Depends on how comfortable you are not catching all the references. Meh. Bit like reading The Theif and King of Attolia but skipping The Queen - you can do it, there's just a hole.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:14 pm (UTC)China Mieville and Neil Gaiman liked it, so that should give you a pretty good indication of mood. Over all, I liked the science (I've done so astrophysics, so I was just chuffed I knew what he was going on about half the time) but didn't care much for the fiction. A little too bleak and plotless for me, and Harrison's writing is slightly irritating.
I'm not sure I'd recommend it wholeheartedly, but it definitely lingered.
I also read The Worm Ouroboros which is a sort of proto-Tolkein vaguely Aurtherian 1920's Brit fantasy epic. Given that Eddison's writing is creaky and heavy and does pretty much everything you're not supposed to do when writing, beginning with two page paragraphs describing banquet halls, I was really surprised how vibrant the characters were. They jump off the page at you, waving madly, and the woman - so lacking in Tolkien - are just as much fun as the men. (oh, and it has the best mountain-climbing expedition I've encountered since I read Left Hand of Darkness).
Basically, this is LOTR with politics. If you can get through Eddison's prose, it's well worth the read.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:17 pm (UTC)I actually didn't really like Sorcery and Cecelia, but I have strong feelings about magic in my Regency novels (as in, it doesn't belong there).
Dune is way more sciency that the others.
I've never heard of Coriander, though - what's that one?
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:38 pm (UTC)If that doesn't convince you to read them all, nothing will.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 09:43 pm (UTC)And simultaneously reading Jane Eyre (for I think the third time) and The Game of Kings (for the first time).
I recently read--and would recommend--John Gardner's In the Suicide Mountains. If you like twisted fairy tales, you'll love it.
Has anyone read Time of the Eagle, and if so, what did you think?
~Feir Dearig
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 10:06 pm (UTC)Megan
ps. "Well-read in the Field of Fantasy." *needs the t-shirt*
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 10:12 pm (UTC)It's fast paced with likable characters and quite a bit of suspense.
My Suggestion for the Week
Date: 9/15/07 10:18 pm (UTC)Barry Hughart
This from Amazon.com:
Bridge of Birds is a lyrical fantasy novel. Set in "an Ancient China that never was", it stands with The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn as a fairy tale for all ages, by turns incredibly funny and deeply touching. It won the World Fantasy Award in 1985, and Hughart produced two sequels: The Story of the Stone, and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. All present the adventures of Master Kao Li, a scholar with "a slight flaw in [his] character", and Lu Yu, usually called Number Ten Ox, his sidekick and the story's narrator. Number Ten Ox is strong, trusting, and pure of heart; Master Li once sold an emperor shares in a mustard mine, because "I was trying to win a bet concerning the intelligence of emperors."
Number Ten Ox comes from a village in which the children have been struck by a mysterious illness. He recruits Master Li to find the cure and comes along to provide muscle. They seek a mysterious Great Root of Power, which may be a form of ginseng. Of course, nothing turns out to be as simple as it seems; great wrongs must be avenged and lovers separated must be reunited, from the most humble to the highest. And even in the midst of cosmic glory, Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub are picking the pockets of their own lynch mob, who are frozen in awe and wonder. --Nona Vero
How old is Number Ten Ox? The book doesn't say, but I revised my estimate upward when he spent the night with the rich man's concubine.
mwt
larbalestier's magic trilogy - spoilers
Date: 9/15/07 10:19 pm (UTC)I don't remember much of the second book, but one of the things that bugged me.....
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
Heroine is pregnant. It's not a welcome pregnancy. Why wasn't abortion even considered as an option? I'm not saying she had to have one, that abortion is good or bad, but surely it goes through your head that it's an option! I don't know the political or "moral" climate in Australia, but I doubt it's as religously conservative as the US.
And there seemed quite a bit of deus ex machina stuff at the end.
no subject
Date: 9/15/07 10:47 pm (UTC)I read The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley, which philia_fan recommended a few weeks back, and loved it.