Books

[Kathy Li]

Gosh. Haven't read any Lynn Abbey since Thieves' World (remember when shared worlds were all the rage?). And then, I was mostly reading Thieves' World for the DD short stories. [they were "The Hand That Feeds You" in #6, and "Down By the Riverside" in #7, if you were wondering]

Boy, if your dad has Robert Asprin and Piers Anthony on the shelf, you ARE gonna be a while...

...has anybody ever read all the Xanth books?

[alla]

remember when shared worlds were all the rage?

Umm... when was that, because I dont't think I'm that old.

Ahh... you made me look... theres's like two and a half shelves of Piers Anthony ... Anyway, I <STRIKE>need</STRIKE> want to read them all anyway.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by kli6:
Gosh. Haven't read any Lynn Abbey since Thieves' World (remember when shared worlds were all the rage?). And then, I was mostly reading Thieves' World for the DD short stories. [they were "The Hand That Feeds You" in #6, and "Down By the Riverside" in #7, if you were wondering]

Boy, if your dad has Robert Asprin and Piers Anthony on the shelf, you ARE gonna be a while...

...has anybody ever read all the Xanth books?

Uh... Piers Anthony? His editor? I give up - have they? (Well, the first few were Ok.)

Somewhere amongst all these boxes, I have two novels by Lynn Abbey. Also several Mythadventures books by Robert Asprin, who I vaguely remember starting to read because of his Thieves' World stories, and his being married to Lynn Abbey. (I don't remember why that made sense at the time.) I can't remember which Thieves' World books I've got, but I did get Chaosium's RPG supplement .

*looks at that webpage* I'm fairly sure I've got the first 6. Not sure about ones after that. Oh look, "The Tie That Binds" in #9 is also by DD.

[Kathy Li]

alla, yes, sorry. That was an old-coot reminiscence for PM--er, the other old-coots on the board. Another similar series (but with a different group of writers) were the Liavek books (which, I believe included stories by Megan Lindholm before she started using the "Robin Hobb" pen name). The superhero variant would be the Wildcards series, edited by George R.R. Martin.

Needless to say, a lot of these evolved because SF/F writers sometimes form gaming groups.

And yeah, PM, alla, that Piers Anthony. One prolific dude.

PM: d'oh! I knew I'd forgotten something!

[alla]

No worries, Kathy.

I'm getting seriously awed by the amount of books that I'm going to be reading. I've only got through two so far ... It'd be great if I could finish them before the end of the year - and catch up with dad who has had thirty odd years to read them all - except the collection keeps expanding... I think I'm going to be wading through them for a looong time! Well, at least there is some humour coming up.

[Kathy Li]

Yes, 30-odd years is a long time to have read and accumulated books. I'd say take it easy, and just read what appeals to you. Go ahead and give yourself the freedom to rethink your decision about reading all of it in a row. There's no point to it if you're not enjoying yourself. :-)

I just finished re-reading Pratchett's Bromeliad trilogy. Man, I wanna see the Cosgrove Hall animation, now. Am also chowing down on the Pratchett NESFA collection and a biography of Christopher Wren.

[alla]

Topic Bump!

Ok, so I've got a bit sidetracked at the moment. From reading all dad's collection anyway. I have found a copy of The Phantom of Manhattan which is sorta a sequel to the musical... but yeah. I would just like to say that Erik (aka The Phantom) is a very devious and perhaps overly intelligent person. I'm about three quarters of the way through the book at the moment, and the only thing that annoys me about it, is that each chapter is written by a different person. It would be much better to have an omnipotent narrator, but yes... I guess its good

Alla

[Kathy Li]

Sounds like a good pastiche. The only Phantom of the Opera pastiche I ever read was a Sherlock Holmes one, too: Nicholas Meyer's The Canary Trainer. Better than the second book in the series (The West End Horror), but still not as good as the original, a Sherlock-Holmes-meets-Freud book, The Seven Percent Solution.

I've been sidetracked away from reading more Gaston Leroux, in the wake of seeing the Phantom movie. I've got both The Mystery of the Yellow Room and The Perfume of the Woman in Black waiting for me in a pile somewhere...

[Kathy Li]

BTW, just heard that Conrad's Fate is now shipping in the UK. Here in the US, we have to wait a whole 'nother month for the next Chrestomanci novel by Diana Wynne Jones.

OTOH, I know that I can go see Howl's Moving Castle on June 10th at the El Capitan.

[alla]

Heh. I don't think that that would ever actually show here in the cinemas . You're lucky.

There's more Chrestomanci novels?! Where does that one fit into the scheme of things? *tries to think* Nah, its been too long since I read them. I could go and look off my shelves, but that would require getting up...

hehe.. if you have to wait a month, think yourself lucky - in general Australia has to wait about a year for things like that ... or even longer

[Birdhead]

Alla- you better be wrong about Howl. If it doesn't get here (which it won't, if it doesn't make Aus) I may CRY. Ditto Conrad's Fate- we don't always have to wait if something's REALLY popular, and DWJ is a goddess, so...

Oh, okay, according to HarperCollins Australia it's due out 30th March there. Of course, HarperCollins doesn't HAVE an NZ website, so I still don't know when it's due out here...

[Kathy Li]

Given how well Spirited Away did for Disney on home video, and that they've finally gotten around to releasing the other Miyazaki titles they had tucked away, I get a feeling that Disney will at least release it on DVD, even if the film doesn't make it into wide release. I'm not sure why it wouldn't make it into wide release, though, given the subject matter. It's not like it's got head-slicing blood-stream violence, ala Princess Mononoke, and if they follow their usual pattern, they've obviously dubbed it into English.

As for more Chrestomanci books, they weren't exactly written as a series with continuing plots across volumes in straight lines (DWJ doesn't work that way, from what I've read on her website), so fitting it in shouldn't be a problem.

Man a lot of good books coming out this year: Conrad's Fate, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows (we hope), Wizards at War (we hope), The Empty Chair...

[Kathy Li]

So, I've started Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Will somebody tell me if it's like this all the way through?! Migod. I don't know if my heart can stand it...

Also, picked up the fifth Samaria novels by Sharon Shin, Angel-Seeker. Comfort reading on the level of Pern books.

And I'm also ploughing through Armadale for something like the third or fourth time. Gods, I love Wilkie Collins. He's the only writer I know who can create a snarky murderous female villain who breaks your heart for her.

So, what have you been reading?

[Birdhead]

Snow Crash? Hmmm... depends what you mean by "this". I think it slows down a bit and gets more factual (I dunno where you are, I suppose) but I have to say the beginning is totally inspired. (The Deliverator. *dying*)

As for what I've been reading that's new... Empress of the World by Sara Ryan, which was okay, and re-reading stuff by Nancy Garden, mostly. I probably need to re-read Annie on my Mind sometime.

Also, Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman is funny and clever if anyone's in the modd for that kind of thing.

[meteorite]

I enjoyed Snow Crash best of all Stephenson's books (note the sig?), read Zodiac, The Diamond Age, and The Big U, but stalled out on Cryptonomicon. Too darn big, and I kept on getting sidetracked and putting it down for a week, which meant having to go back and reread parts to refresh my memory. It was like trying to eat a whole pan of baklava at one sitting

Now that I've begun my MLIS, I can read kids' and YA books without fear of looking like a geek. Oh yeah, I used to do that anyways. My present favorites are Kathryn Lasky (who reminds me stylistically of William Sleator) and Karen Hesse. Karen Hesse will make you like poetry even if it's not your favorite topic. Read Witness and see what I mean.