Books

[Dragon Writer]

anyone read sword in the stone? i'm reading that, and the other books by t.h. white at the moment...though i have already read sword in the stone. i suppose, in this case, it's a GOOD thing i hadn't known there were other books earlier...

[Kathy Li]

I'm stuck halfway in T.H. White's The Elephant and the Kangaroo, and I've been meaning to reread The Once and Future King--it's been a good long while, now, since I first read it.

Unfortunately, I'm brain dead from fatigue. So, I'm reading lots of YA fiction (and romance novels, but I'll spare you the Nora Roberts wallowing. I know how delicate your constitutions are about that stuff. ) Comfort reading.

I finished the Louise Marley Singer in the Snow and it was as good as the other Nevyas, and it was very nice to revisit that world again. It also prompted me to go McCaffrey spelunking, so I had a quick reread of Pegasus in Flight. And then, I picked up a Sharon Shinn YA I'd had lying about for a while called The Safe-Keeper's Secret which I loved.

It's apparently one of three books set in this particular fantasy world (the others are The Truth-Teller's Tale and the Dream-Maker's Magic) it's mostly a vaguely medieval fantasy setting, where there are three types of people with special abilities: the Safe-Keepers who can keep any secret you tell them (there's typically one per village), the Truth-Tellers, who cannot lie no matter what they say (but they're usually itinerant because nobody likes having them around all the time ), and there's one single Dream-Maker, whose presence will make someone's dearest dream come true, only the Dream-Maker will live a life of sorrow and has no control over who or how her power manifests.

The story is about two children who have been raised as brother and sister by a Safe-Keeper. The way all the story plotlines wove themselves together was terrific, and the ending had me crying and laughing. I have got to go find the others, now, and get caught up on my Sharon Shinn (I have all the angel books, I'm just behind on everything else...)

Oh, and I just started Peter Beagle's The Unicorn Sonata.

[maxxrox]

I somehow managed to get my hands on a first-edition copy of The Silmarillion, and I've been working my way through that. This book is so old that it has a fold-out map in the back.

They sure don't make books like the used to...

[Horsefreek]

I have recently finished and an rereading The Firebringer Trilligy by Meredith Ann Pierce. Awsome!!!

[Dragon Writer]

i'm reading the once and future king for school! and i have to say...STUPID EDITORS! i read the version of sword in the stone outside of this whole book in one thing, and it was different! there was a giant, for one thing, castle charriot did not exist to my rememberence, they went up against a witch, but the name morgan le fay was not hinted at as far as i can remember, and they chased after the gore crow that grabbed that arrow! which is how they met the witch, who played upon kay's pride to get them to stay...and yeah. i must say, i kinda liked it when it was NOT part of an all in one version slightly better in some things, though the all in one was ok too...and i still wonder at the fact that though everyone in my honors english class has gone through everything i've read at this moment, minus the mists of avalon, they STILL come to me to beg help and information...

[dorotheia]

Boy. I sympathize, young reader, but take a break! It's such a block of text my eyes skim over it. *count to ten, sigh*

King Arthur, although good mythology and very good for borrowing, has so many "original" versions. Which versions were you reading? Disney version (Don't know anything about!), T.H. White, Le Morte D'Arthur, Howard Pyle... Actually, Le Morte D'Arthur doesn't have too much to do with Arthur's boyhood.

The thing is, the story was begun before there were copyrites... Like a fable. How many versions have you read of Cinderella? I'll bet it was more than fifteen. The King Arthur story never was one version. Each conflicts in at least one way with the others. For example, Merlin's demise was through Vivien, who was controlled by Morgan le Fay, in Howard Pyle (I think). In others, for example T.H. White, Merlin goes back to Avalon, or is imprisoned by Nimue. The Lady of the Lake and Nimue seem to be interchangeable, but are they? Morgan le Fay and her sister, Morgause, seem to switch places in their roles of good and evil. Bloodlines are almost never "pure" or regular, and marriages change. To make it all even more confusing, there is Magic Treehouse muddling it all up and a ton of new King Arthur branches of stories.
Probably none of this stuff is what you want. Sorry if it sounded too scholarly... I also have big feelings about it. *sigh*

I've been reading anthologies. Some short stories are good, some are bad. So I'm taking the ones I like and reading some of their full novels. Ever heard of Singing the Dogstar Blues? That's one. And I also carted home a bunch for my brother. Why do I end up reading what he reads?

*Moan* Publishing season doesn't start full tilt until April, which continues until August. Then I scrounge around again, screaming "Feed me, Feed me!" Hibernation when books go scarce is not an option. At least I found another cache... Which'll give me another month.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by dorotheia:
Disney version (Don't know anything about!)

Disney adapted the first of T.H. White's five books, not too closely as I recall.

Back in The Mabinogion, Arthur had a legitimate son, not Mordred. Things changed a lot over the centuries, adding Lancelot from one source, the Holy Grail from another, the Castle Anthrax... well, maybe not that.

[nita2011]

Hnnnn?? Uh, PM, Hate to burst your bubble, but, un *cough, cough* uh...Isn't anthrax, like,well, totaly a BAD substance?? Like, toatly ILLEGIAL??? (well, in the USA I THINK it is...is it?? hmmm...tamolart avanto mesha..oh sorry, thinking)
---
Ooo, wanna know what I REALLY hate?? Well, I don't care that you don't wanna here. I really hate it when you go a bit..nnn...psycho...ONCE, just ONCE or have, say a religious crises ALSO once, that your parents like, question you FOREVER before letting you read another book on that topic.

[edited to consolidate double-post. --kli.]

[Peter Murray]

Anthrax is a disease. I don't know if it's illegal as such here, but the Monty Python team named a castle Castle Anthrax in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I just included it as one of the more recent additions - mid-1970s.

[marina salem]

I have to say thanks to everyone who ever recommended Philip Pullman (this includes my friend Amanda, even though she'll never read this because she isn't a member). I finished The Golden Compass yesterday, and must bribe/beg my parents to get me The Subtle Knife.

[Dragon Writer]

when i said i read the original, i meant i read the version of sword in the stone by th white that WASN"t all packed into one book...it's just not as good when all packed into the once and future king! *grumbles* they took too much out, edited too much, and the other version was much better...

[Kathy Li]

marina salem, after His Dark Materials, you may also want to go out and find Pullman's "Sally Lockhart" series (The Ruby in the Smoke is the first volume)--there's no fantasy element, it's straight historical fiction, but I really enjoyed them. And the BBC is adapting them for television.

Ok, I'm on a Sharon Shinn binge, now. I've started Summers at Castle Auburn and Mystic & Rider simultaneously, which in hindsight, was probably about as stupid as that time I worked my way through the Dickens and Thackeray ouvres simultaneously. I'm going to have to put one down and pick up the other one, later.

I'm also in dire need of finishing my read of Origami Design Secrets because Robert Lang is going to be giving a lecture at a local museum in a few weeks. But I unfortunately left off in the middle of circle-packing, and I have to get back up to speed again. Not easy to think in crease patterns.

[meteorite]

The Golden Compass as a movie now has a website up, including a working (sort of) altheiometer. I played with it a bit; it's rather like tarot cards, with the same type of arcane symbolism, although I wonder what difference engine drives the final pointer. Now I have something to anticipate in December...

discovered off of the Brass Goggles blog, for all you steampunk fans out there!

[alla]

Aside from 'lol', it isn't very often that I regress to chatspeak, but


OHEMGEESQUEEEEEEEEE!!! My book from ebay arrived today. So You Want To Be A Wizard, marked first printing (), and with dust jacket Its actually in better condition than the listing said and it has a cool 80s picture of DD on the back leaf

Alla

[Rubywolf]

I don't get why people want to pay money for first d=editions and stuff like that. I'm sorry, i just don't. Isn't the literature what it's all about?