Books

[meteorite]

*happy dance!*

Our library system owns the first two Temeraire books, so I'm off to place requests on them. The first two both have a publication date of 2006, but there are already a number of requests placed, so the buzz is out on the street. I also pointed our youth services librarian at them; she doesn't care much for fantasy, manga, and sci fi, so she lets me suggest much of it. Needless to say, I have waved DD at her repeatedly

[Kathy Li]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you totally rock. Librarians are the best people!

Yeah, it's interesting hearing the groundswell on this one. I've already heard comparisons (and scoffing of same) with Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell as well. It seems as if Regency-era settings may be the next fantasy vogue. (Hmmm... is this fantasy's answer to steampunk?)

[MagikMelody]

Originally posted by Angel_Star:
*squeals* Oh. My. Goodness. I absolutely adore the Wheel of Time series. I went through a phase where I'd have like one of the series per week to bring to school, and people would make comments like, "That's bigger than the History book!" or "Wow, those are huge. Why are you reading _that_?" Of course, I also got one teacher commenting on them and saying how much her son loved them, who happens to be in college.

Heh, I'm such a dork. I don't know why I like those books so much. Probably 'cause I actually have to think while I'm reading to keep up with all the things going on. I haven't read them in over a year, though, so my memory is kinda off.

Let's see, the last book that I read that was really any good would have to be Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. I grabbed a few books that looked good from the library, so hopefully something is actually worth reading in that rather large and heavy stack.

i love the Wheel of Time series too! im only on the third one (The Dragon Reborn) but im hooked!

umm Rebel Angels = amazingly super fantastic book! it was so original and adventurous (i cant spell....) and it was just exciting! and it had a plot turn i never guessed, which made me happy

just thought i would share

anyway, the books that were just mentioned were the ones i most recently read, buti just tried a new author named Justine Larbalestier. Her book is Magic or Madness and it gives an interesting outlook on magic in the modern world and its dangers of usage. it was original and quite good.

yea....

[AlidaART]

Sooo...a few days ago, a friend of mine said to me "Oh, I have that book you let me borrow...three years ago...do you want it back?" And I said "Sure!" not really quite remembering which book it was.

Well, I was in luck. It turned out to be one of my favorite for-fun books ever: Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret.

So, if I may, a short digression on the wonderful novel that is Deep Secret: It's an amazing book. If I had to pick my top five Diana Wynne Jones books, the list would go Fire and Hemlock, Deep Secret, Hexwood, The Homeward Bounders--the latter three are almost a tie-- and Howl's Moving Castle. Fire and Hemlock as the first is pretty much a given, mostly because it is probably my single favorite book ever. But Deep Secret is just fabulous too. Rupert makes an intriguing hero-- clean, very British, handsome and intelligent, but also vain, irritable and slapdash. In fact, he's even less of a "hero" than Howl is; he seems to be just a semi-ordinary guy trying to take life in stride and often failing miserably. And there is no soft hearted intent under his lashing out at Maree as there is in Howl's banter with Sophie. Rupert and Maree genuinely detest each other. But that changes, of course. And who can forget "semihemidemi-conscious" Nick Mallory--or should I say, Neil Gaiman--attempting to eat breakfast at a sci-fi convention to the undivided fascination of a number of onlookers. "What happens if you put another plate in front of him?" is the question of the day. A few little interesting, nitpicky details, too: the first time I read Deep Secret, I got it out of the library in its original edition. Now I own the Starscape reprint, and there are a couple of interesting edits for the book's new, YA audience. The most glaring and somewhat amusing one is the replacement of the word "erotic" in the following passage: "I stood up with her easily and was puzzled to discover that holding her like this, light, limp and frost cold, was one of the most erotic experiences I have ever had. I also had to fight myself not to cry," with the word "extraordinary". Um, first off, that takes away the slight, dark humour of the passage, and anyways, they leave in the gruesome deaths of children and take away the word "erotic"? That's just weird.

So. You should all read it. Well, actually, everyone should read pretty much everything by Diana Wynne Jones eventually, because she's fabulous, but I just thought I would share my thoughts on this particular wonderful novel.

(A very few of you may recognize this rant from my El-Jay. Sorry for the double-post in that regard.)

[Kathy Li]

Ummm.... is this the part where I once again mention that The Merlin Conspiracy is a sorta/kinda sequel to Deep Secret? [grin]. It has Nick Mallory in.

I think what I love about the recent tradepaper release (is that the Starscape one of which you speak?) of Deep Secret is that Charles Vess managed to draw Neil Gaiman on the cover, given his eating-breakfast-while-asleep mode having been immortalized in DWJ prose (and it's just personal taste, but I also assume that Neil Gaiman was the inspiration for the rather fanciable bloke in the black leather jacket).

And now I really want to go to a con...

[AlidaART]

Hm. The Merlin Conspiracy was good, I thought, but not as good as Deep Secret. I'm so very fond of Maree and Rupert, you see...

And yes! The cover amuses me, yet at the same time annoys me, because I think that that really is meant to be Nick Mallory, and please, he's supposed to be fourteen. And poor Maree and Rupert (if the annoyed middle-aged gentleman is indeed Rupert and not Thurless--but Thurless has a beard, right?), they look about twice the age that they're supposed to be! Sorry. The little things just get to me, I suppose.

Also--when I reread Deep Secret, the line about the fanciable bloke in black leather caught me and I said to myself "OH MY LORD THAT'S NEIL GAIMAN!"

[Kathy Li]

Meteorite: I finally read The Art of Detection. OMG, that was sooooo much fun, when she stuck the Holmes story in the middle. Plus, very nice to get back to Kate and Lee. One forgets how very very SF Bay Area Laurie King can be when she sets her mind to it.

Alida: you made me reread Deep Secret, and yeah, I like it better than The Merlin Conspiracy, but any new DWJ is cause for celebration.

I've also read Donald Westlake's Watch Your Back, which I enjoyed, but not as much as Don't Ask. Still, I can tell I have to get all the Dortmunder books.

And I finally finished up the third of the Temeraire series, The Black Powder War, which now has me wishing for the fourth one, but realizing that I'm going to have to wait for Novik to finish writing it, unlike the first three. [grin].

I also, probably because of the Temeraire, finally dug into the huge pile of unread Pern books, and finally wrapped my head around The Masterharper of Pern, which was fun in a silly Episode Three kind of way--watching the generational shift and seeing how everybody arrived where you first met them. I also like that Robinton walked the tables with the same words that he later said for Menolly.
.
I have a feeling I'm going to be re-reading Dragonsong/Dragonsinger soonish...gah, it's been years...

[Sean L.]

Alida - Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin not comical or good enough for you?

Kathy - /me wanders off to read Deep Secret, at which point I will have an opinion sometime later.

Right now, I'm finishing up Smoke and Mirrors, and probably tackling Stardust sometime soon. I just finished all of the Callahan books, and probably will read a few of the Travis McGee books, if anyone knows about them.

[AlidaART]

Sean--Woah there, buddy. I will admit, they're not my favorite DWJ books. Yes, they're hilarious, as are all her novels, but (at the risk of sounding affected or snobbish) I really love her novels that are more "serious" in tone or subject matter. The Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin are both fine examples of DWJ's brilliant gift for satire--but that's almost all they are: satire. (Of course, with a DWJ book, how can it be even marginally depthless? So I suppose what I'm saying is that they're slightly more one-dimensional than her other novels.) Sometimes I want a little more from a book, y'know?

Ooh, Dragonsong/Dragonsinger! I'd almost forgotten those. I believe they're sitting up on my old bookshelf right now...huh. More summer (re)reading for me.

[Kathy Li]

For me, one of the weird things about Dark Lord of Derkholm is that it's the novel form of The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. (grin). Nearly all the same jokes appear in one form or another. But as writing guides for what NOT to do in a fantasy novel, they're also pretty dang cherce.

But I'd also say that Dark Lord of Derkholm also holds up beautifully, satire aside. There's a plot, there are characters and you care about both the people and what happens to them. And Year of the Griffin certainly isn't quite as jokey as Dark Lord of Derkholm. It is, also, of course, the perfect book to hand to folks who lament that we won't be following Harry Potter to university.

Sean, I have heard of Travis McGee, but not read. I'm idly contemplating going after Lord Darcy and/or Solar Pons, as I feel the need for Holmes pastiches coming on, but it's summer, who knows where I'll land next? Right now, I need to study the view-camera adjustments stuff in Ansel Adams' The Camera because I want to know what a tilt-shift lens is all about...

[AlidaART]

kli said:

But I'd also say that Dark Lord of Derkholm also holds up beautifully, satire aside. There's a plot, there are characters and you care about both the people and what happens to them.

I agree with all of this, because hey, it's a DWJ book. But nevertheless, I just didn't find it as strong as some of her other novels (namely those that I mentioned earlier--I mean, I can think of few books period that live up to Fire and Hemlock, so that's saying something).

In conclusion, DWJ is fabulous no matter what. I think it's pretty safe to say that nearly anything that comes out of her pen is going to be pretty darn awesome. However, every author has their weak points--but with an author like DWJ, those weak points are still going to be better than the best work of about 80% of her fellow authors, so...yeah.

[the_peridexis]

kli, <span class="ev_code_RED">I</span> I will be following hp to university. (of course, the last book will be out by then...)but i'll keep reading them, and make my kids and husband read them(if i ever get kids and a husband ).

and who knows, maybe rowling will write another book? *praying* and i haven't read the books you pplz are talking about, but i will now that you say they're so good.

but here are some authors that i think came up with some really good reads:

fantasy:
jk rowling (duh)
tamora pierce (there are a lot)
the guy who wrote the amber spyglass (i can't belive i forgot his name! *bashes head*

mystery:
agatha christie(love her)
nancy drew series(4got author..)

random:
bradbury writes awesome short stories
hope was here
milkweed
pendragon(a bit more juvenile, but good reads)

-peri

[the_peridexis]

correction, brokencello! anne bought a bottle of dye from a peddler who SAID it was black. and then she had to cut it, yeah.

i love those books! but they're for the more patient reader;a person who likes only all-action-all-the-time would get very bored. i like all kinds of books; i'm very flexible when it comes to reading.

-peri

[Kathy Li]

Originally posted by the_peridexis:
the guy who wrote the amber spyglass (i can't belive i forgot his name! *bashes head*

No worries. Philip Pullman. I liked the His Dark Materials series, but I'm strange--I actually enjoyed his Sally Lockhart books even more: no fantasy, just historical adventure/mystery fiction. Very well written, of course.

The other funny thing was that I was constantly confusing Pullman with Garth Nix (Sabriel). Silly, nu? But their styles and stories have an odd similarity to them, at least to me.

Fantasy-wise, I'm old-fashioned enough to enjoy Tolkien. And as for reading books with patience, that can really be said of the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. I think it takes 100 pages to go something like five minutes into the story at the beginning of Titus Groan. I loved it to pieces.

The mystery author I probably like the most is Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey series. It starts out rather cardboard, but by the final half dozen or so, they're amazing. And, of coruse, there's always Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.

Historical book-wise, I love Dorothy Dunnett and Patrick O'Brian, but they really make you work hard! You can't just lazily follow the story--you have to pay attention and figure things out. But my favorite-ever historical adventure writer is Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche, Captain Blood, The Black Swan, The Sea Hawk): great history, great storytelling, rousing characters. Lots of fun.

For humor, two writers I really love recommending are Damon Runyon (Guys and Dolls, Blue Plate Special) where the language and voice alone are worth the time. And Thorne Smith (Topper, Night Life of the Gods, Stray Lamb), who did crazy screwball comedy fantasy in the '20s. A particular brand of fantasy that hasn't much survived to the present day (although Neil Gaiman did a little of it in Anansi Boys).

Ok, I'll stop recommending books now. It's such a bad habit of mine. (grin).

[Sean L.]

That's _Sir Arthur_ to you, Kathy . Actually, i haven't read a proper Holmes in awhile...might as well do that, becaues I have the time.

Mmm, I should be reading Sabriel...because I never got around to it. I read Shade's Children, which was excellent, and some of the Seventh Tower books, but for some reason I never picked up Sabriel and the like. Probably too young back then, I suppose.

Patience is overrated. Action now! Slice, dice in beginning pages!

Scaramouche? *ponders reading*

Mmm, right now I'm looking at a couple books by a guy named William Gibson - supposedly hot stuff for this age. Will see and tell.