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Aug. 22nd, 2007 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnellBack again, after a week in Cornwall (St. Ives), and not a hope of catching up on everything web-related I've missed since desperate essay-writing and being away. Bloglines was telling me 498 unread items awaited me, but it's been unable to retrieve the item count for a while now, so I may have broken it altogether. I've only managed to read about half of my LJ flist pages, so this is clearly going to take a while. Report will be sketchy in consequence, but what else is new.
Cornwall truly is beautiful, and I haven't even any pretty pictures to make up for inability to say anything matching the beauty!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
steepholm did remember his camera, and got some nice ones of Chysauster (with gair and gerald), and some others, which may appear on his Flickr account at some point. I've just come up with the untried theory that it's a place you should be returning to - either literally or through books of some sort or other (or art, I suppose, but that I really know nothing about), and I wasn't. It was my first time visiting and books with Cornish connections weren't ones I'd read and loved long enough ago to give a real sense of homecoming around them. But it was good to be with people for whom it was like this - as well as being just good to be with such wonderful company.
So there's a better-than-good reason for having got less reading done than planned! Total books read since the essay went off, only four: Catherine Murdock's The Off Season; Mary Hooper's At the Sign of the Sugared Plum; Elizabeth Bear's Hammered and OisÃn McGann's Ancient Appetites. I had to leave Sherwood Smith's Senrid behind, unfortunately, as it is the heaviest book of its size ever. Quality paper or something!
The Off Season was not at all a disappointment, which is pretty impressive, given my love for Dairy Queen. Not as funny, and much sadder in places - including a fairly shocking turn I never could have guessed was coming at all - but great. (If I weren't so tired, I'd probably manage to start this more positively. But not a let-down is saying a lot, nonetheless.) I especially liked the fact that the relationship between D.J. and Brian wasn't all one way or another. Sometimes they were good together and helped each other, sometimes one let the other down, things went this way and that, and the end of the book felt just right for everyone. (And I'd recommend these two books even for people who love (American) football as little as I do, which is little indeed.)
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum is YA historical fiction, which had been read and not much liked by both daughters already, with perhaps some reason. I was reading with my 'How's the historical being handled' red pen in hand, which isn't my least uncritical mode, admittedly. Set in London just before the big outbreak of the Plague (1665). A couple of things I found sloppy (historical-factually and emotional-treatment), but I still quite enjoyed the teen chick-lit 'girls just wanna shop for pretty clothes' back in the 1600s thing she had going on in the first part, though it didn't seem to me to blend well with the horrendous reality of the Plague.
From that to Hammered (adult SF, for anyone who hasn't heard of it) was a definite change, but I'd have liked Hammered a lot even if it hadn't followed a less-than-rave read! Great characters - damaged - almost tortured, if it weren't such an OTT word that I hate to use it - but treated with a lightness of angst-touch that has just reminded me of Emma Bull for some reason. And good political spec fic I love. Especially when Canada is a major world power (i.e., more than the US) , and it's for perfectly sensible reasons! I remember having a conversation withsteepholm in which we discussed alternate histories and tried to come up with something in which Canada was in this position, and I'd not known this as the situation in Hammered.
Finally, Ancient Appetites, which was an interesting mix of YA historical fiction, alternate history and SF (I guess). At a serious risk of getting the categorizing just wrong, I'd say the SF was excellent - one of the more interesting set-ups I've read in a long time. I didn't find the historical fiction part as effective, though it'd have been tough to pull off the tricky task of making incredibly unsympathetic characters (from a family substantially more powerful even than the most powerful Anglo-Irish families shortly after the Famine) likable enough to give something for those readers who aren't totally Idea readers. And how to present something like the attitude held by these people towards their servants without either endorsing it by not commenting or making unrealistic explanations of it from the POV characters? Tough.
Today's pickup from the PO sorting office gave me a copy ofsartorias' The Fox, which was a real joy. Yay!
Cornwall truly is beautiful, and I haven't even any pretty pictures to make up for inability to say anything matching the beauty!
steepholm did remember his camera, and got some nice ones of Chysauster (with gair and gerald), and some others, which may appear on his Flickr account at some point. I've just come up with the untried theory that it's a place you should be returning to - either literally or through books of some sort or other (or art, I suppose, but that I really know nothing about), and I wasn't. It was my first time visiting and books with Cornish connections weren't ones I'd read and loved long enough ago to give a real sense of homecoming around them. But it was good to be with people for whom it was like this - as well as being just good to be with such wonderful company.So there's a better-than-good reason for having got less reading done than planned! Total books read since the essay went off, only four: Catherine Murdock's The Off Season; Mary Hooper's At the Sign of the Sugared Plum; Elizabeth Bear's Hammered and OisÃn McGann's Ancient Appetites. I had to leave Sherwood Smith's Senrid behind, unfortunately, as it is the heaviest book of its size ever. Quality paper or something!
The Off Season was not at all a disappointment, which is pretty impressive, given my love for Dairy Queen. Not as funny, and much sadder in places - including a fairly shocking turn I never could have guessed was coming at all - but great. (If I weren't so tired, I'd probably manage to start this more positively. But not a let-down is saying a lot, nonetheless.) I especially liked the fact that the relationship between D.J. and Brian wasn't all one way or another. Sometimes they were good together and helped each other, sometimes one let the other down, things went this way and that, and the end of the book felt just right for everyone. (And I'd recommend these two books even for people who love (American) football as little as I do, which is little indeed.)
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum is YA historical fiction, which had been read and not much liked by both daughters already, with perhaps some reason. I was reading with my 'How's the historical being handled' red pen in hand, which isn't my least uncritical mode, admittedly. Set in London just before the big outbreak of the Plague (1665). A couple of things I found sloppy (historical-factually and emotional-treatment), but I still quite enjoyed the teen chick-lit 'girls just wanna shop for pretty clothes' back in the 1600s thing she had going on in the first part, though it didn't seem to me to blend well with the horrendous reality of the Plague.
From that to Hammered (adult SF, for anyone who hasn't heard of it) was a definite change, but I'd have liked Hammered a lot even if it hadn't followed a less-than-rave read! Great characters - damaged - almost tortured, if it weren't such an OTT word that I hate to use it - but treated with a lightness of angst-touch that has just reminded me of Emma Bull for some reason. And good political spec fic I love. Especially when Canada is a major world power (i.e., more than the US) , and it's for perfectly sensible reasons! I remember having a conversation with
steepholm in which we discussed alternate histories and tried to come up with something in which Canada was in this position, and I'd not known this as the situation in Hammered. Finally, Ancient Appetites, which was an interesting mix of YA historical fiction, alternate history and SF (I guess). At a serious risk of getting the categorizing just wrong, I'd say the SF was excellent - one of the more interesting set-ups I've read in a long time. I didn't find the historical fiction part as effective, though it'd have been tough to pull off the tricky task of making incredibly unsympathetic characters (from a family substantially more powerful even than the most powerful Anglo-Irish families shortly after the Famine) likable enough to give something for those readers who aren't totally Idea readers. And how to present something like the attitude held by these people towards their servants without either endorsing it by not commenting or making unrealistic explanations of it from the POV characters? Tough.
Today's pickup from the PO sorting office gave me a copy of
sartorias' The Fox, which was a real joy. Yay!
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Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-22 09:41 pm (UTC)I want to read some Diana Wynne Jones but I'm not sure what book to start with. As a fan of hers which book would you suggest?
And congrats on getting your essay away. I have two more to go and I'll have finished my first OU course!
Re: Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-22 10:21 pm (UTC)Just had a quick reminder of your authors listed as interests, but that didn't help that much in giving a recommendation (just saw Dylan Moran, Black Books etc. though - and Macs as well!) and some of my favourites are such for rather unique (not to say downright odd) reasons. Howl's Moving Castle - very unlike the film, btw - is brilliant if you like fractured fairy tales done in a funny but quite metaphorical way. Horrible description, but the best I can do atm. It has less of her usual combination of domestic drama and fantasy than many, but very good even if you prefer that. (And the personal is that it was involved in my starting to do the Lit degree with the OU.)
Fire and Hemlock is usually the one I list as my favourite - complex, layer upon layer of myth, legend and fairy tale (including Tam Lin, which I love), with great characters, and a wonderful blend of this world and other world.
Deep Secret is another huge favourite, and probably her only adult book I really love. (Not including The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which is a must read - and not a novel, so no worries about getting sucked in when you should be writing a TMA or anything.) The "real world" part is mostly set at a con, which is fantastic,and has two Neil Gaiman appearances-in-disguise. :) Nice romance too!
Haven't mentioned a Chrestomanci, though The Lives of Christopher Chant was my first DWJ, and rates for that, if nothing else. I haven't been taken with anything recent, including the two latest Chrestomancis (Conrad's Fate and The Pinhoe Egg, but you should definitely read Charmed Life, Christopher or Witch Week before either of those if you do want to read them.
Let me know if you like the sound of any or none of those and I'll try to hone my recommendations accordingly. (Which Patricia McKillips do you like, btw?)
Re: Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-22 11:19 pm (UTC)I discovered sword and sorcery fiction by accident, one of my uncles is a big reader of horror and thrillers but also occasionally sci-fi and fantasy. He left a David Eddings behind him after a visit and that got me started. Let me point out that I was 12 and my mother had just died and I had a powerful need for escapism. After Eddings came Terry Brooks, Stephen Donaldson...lots of male writers, pretty much all our local book shop stocked fantasy wise.
When I was in my mid teens I started to go to the library (I grew up in the country and getting there involved a mile walk and a half hour bus ride). One of the very first books I took out was The Sorceress and the Cygnet. It was a total revelation to me. So, so different from all the sword and sorcery stuff I'd been reading up to then. I was utterly captivated. Nyx Ro was unlike any heroine I'd met - defiantly alone, independent, selfish, not particularly likeable. But I liked her! And that world. But most especially the mood. I felt like I had fallen with Corleu into another world.
It was the first book that I'd really discovered by myself, that wasn't a hand-me-down (I'm the youngest of 4 so lots and lots of hand-me-downs!). For me that book marks the beginning of my life as an independent reader and for that reason McKillip holds a very special place in my heart.
It was years before I found any more of her books, the next being the middle part of the Riddlemaster trilogy in a second hand bookshop. It's only with discovering the internet and the gaining of a credit card that I've started to read her in earnest. But I save her up for when life is tough and I need something to escape to! The only novel I didn't like was Winter Rose, I just couldn't get into it but I enjoyed The Book of Atrix Wolf, In the Forests of Serre, Alphabet of Thorn and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. I liked The Cygnet and the Firebird but not as much The Sorceress and the Cygnet. And I did finally get the whole Riddlemaster Trilogy and it is probably my favourite fantasy series. I know it has its flaws (which the author acknowledges herself in the intro to the 20th anniversary edition) but I love it anyway!
And I am currently reading and enjoying Ombria in Shadow.
I had stopped reading fantasy for a long time - read lots of *serious* fiction but I've been rediscovering my inner child of late and it has rekindled an interest in the genre.
I think I'll probably go with Fire and Hemlock to begin with: 'complex, layer upon layer of myth, legend and fairy tale' Sounds like a winner!
Re: Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-22 11:22 pm (UTC)It's appreciated :)
Re: Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-28 11:49 am (UTC)The Sorceress and Cygnet/Cygnet and the Firebird are some of the very few Patricia McKillips I've not read. Like/love all the others you've mentioned and even Winter Rose - the first time reading, though I bounced off it later when going to reread. Have you read The Changeling Sea? That's one of our (our=my two daughters & me) very favourites. If you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend it too! The prose is less densely lush than some of her others, but it's beautifully watery, somehow - suffused with the colours and sounds and rhythms of the sea - and the magic in it is wonderful.
Re: Book recs?
Date: 2007-08-30 10:03 pm (UTC)I bought The Changeling Sea recently, haven't got around to reading it yet. I'm about to move house so I'll wait til I'm properly settled in and really savour it!
Oh and I ordered a copy of Fire and Hemlock today :)
Thanks again for the rec.