Books

[Kathy Li]

Knieve, I have a friend who loves that series. I read the first one, and it was entertaining, but somehow didn't grab me all that much. I've heard the series gets better, though. Very goofy and fun, and definitely not in the same vein (ha ha) as Anne Rice and that lot.

Vashmata, yeah, loves me Terry Pratchett and not just the Discworld books. I also really love the Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers/Diggers/Wings). I am really tempted to show up at the Discworld Convention next year in Arizona.

[Lazy Leopard]

I too tend to read just about everything Terry Pratchett puts out. Currently BBC radio is doing an adaptation of "Nightwatch" late on Wednesday evenings. I expect I'll want to re-read the book at some point, if only to see how well they've adapted it.

I'm booked for this year's Discworld Convention in the UK. I was expecting it to be large enough to be fun and small enough to be friendly, but it looks like turning into a huge convention. It's already got over 700 members. This year's Eastercon has topped a thousand members, too, so it looks like I'll be doing two big conventions this year. I guess that'll make up for last year and the year before, when all the Cons I went to were small.

[Kathy Li]

Woot! Thanks for the heads up on Night Watch! I had no idea that was going on, and I loved the adaptations Robin Brooks did of Mort and Small Gods. Much better than the previous radio adaptations of Discworld books.

Have fun at the Discworld gathering--they've always sounded like a hoot. Your comment about 700 members, though, makes me giggle. But then, my home con is the San Diego Comic-Con and last year, we topped 125,000. So, my values of what constitutes a "big" con are skewed far beyond the norm. When I went to Worldcon in Anaheim, it felt so uncrowded. That'll tell you how far off the beam I am...

[Lazy Leopard]

I figure a small Con is one at which you can reasonably expect to say at least "Hi" to everyone there. A medium-sized one is one where, by the end of the con you can probably recognise everyone without having to read their badges. Large is anything bigger than that.

[Dragon Writer]

*has started reading Tamora pierce*
Trickster's choice, is wonderful...&*can't wait to dive into tricker's queen* I'd ask if anyone else has read them, but i know a bunch of people had, making that kind of a stupid question...

[Kathy Li]

Rick--to me "small" is a con where if you're sitting watching a panel, and you raise your hand to ask a question, you get called on by your first name (e.g., Fourth Street Fantasy Fair; Fiddler's Green). But your criteria works pretty well for me, too. I remember being surprised as hell the first year that I actually missed seeing someone I expected to at Comic-Con. These days, though, you have to bring the cellphone and make appointments with very specific meeting locales ("Ok. Under the giant inflatable Pikachu at 2:15.")

YR: I have a Tamora Pierce that's been sitting on my shelf for way too long. Thanks for reminding me I need to get around to it.

I just started the second "Toby Bishop" (aka Louise Marley) winged-horse novel. But I'm also still working my way through those Pendergast books (I'm on the last one, Wheel of Darkness--it's different from the others because it's set on board a cruise ship, so it's more of a locked house mystery.

I also read my first Agatha Christie: Murder With Mirrors. I never much liked her before because I tend to read mysteries for character development, and she doesn't do that. But dang, she's good at putting the puzzle together in plain sight under your nose.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Hey, does anyone want to start a book club, where we all read the same book and then discuss it?

I just opened up another board at http://blog.donnael.com/ywnetbookclub/ so we don't waste Diane's bandwidth talking about _other_ authors. :-)

[Dragon Writer]

*has joined under the name Dragon Writer* I need to enter a book club. Even if it IS only on line...(now to find one in my own state)

Kli: um...welcome?

[Emi]

Garrett, I signed under Emi. Um, so did you make up that blog thing? That's pretty cool.

I've just finished the Faerie Path books. Can't remember the author... last name's Jones?? But it's really good. I need to start finding least expensive books.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Diana Wynne Jones, by any chance?

When you say "that blog thing", do you mean ywnetbookclub? That's a program called phpBB. It's open-source, so anyone can download it for free and modify it, if necessary, but I just did ordinary configuration for it. (And my webhost did a lot of it for me, with their one-click (yeah right) install.)

[dorotheia]

Naw....Don't confuse me! The Faerie Path books are Frewin Jones (newer books, I think). With the wispy, pastel-colored faery on the covers. Right? Haven't read those yet (though obviously I recognize them...)
I really think this post is too small, but I just couldn't let a misnomer go by.

[vashmata]

Dianna Wynne Jones, Dianna Wynne Jones... She did the seven brothers books, right? I finished the first one.
Well, I finished Pyramids, and the only books by Terry Pratchett that I can read (because the others wouldn't make sense if I just read them now) aren't directly available to me, so I guess I'll finish reading my "Bathroom Reader".

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Speaking of Pyramids, has anyone else read David Macaulay's books? I got an autographed copy of Pyramid back when it came out, and later on stood in line for The Way Things Work. He didn't just sign the books: he sketched a wooly mammoth for everyone! :-)

He gave a talk at the TED conference a while back: it's pretty neat. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/215

(And going a bit off-topic, check out this other TED "talk", where a young pianist improvises her performance on the fly.)

[AlidaART]

Heh, not sure what the seven brothers books are, but I'm pretty certain Diana Wynne Jones didn't write them. Um, her most famous series is probably the Chrestomanci books. They're usually marketed as "if your kid loved Harry Potter, they'll love Diana Wynne Jones!" and do concern young wizards living in a castle (though they predate HP by about twenty years). She also wrote Howl's Moving Castle, which was made into a movie by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki about two years ago.

[Emi]

Oh, thanks Garrett for, um, making it for us!

And I found out the author... It's Frewin Jones. I couldn't remember the name because it was so different. Any way, Dorotheia is right. I love that book. I want to start reading other stories... but I don't know where to start!