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Owls: the sequel
THEY RETURN. I heard the owls hooting outside tonight, slipped quietly onto the back porch but it was really too cold to stand outside and listen. (April. WHY.) So I went back in for a while, but they were definitely still hooting out there, louder than ever, so I put on a coat and went out the front door, and -
.... One of them was in the top of the tree right off the back porch! If I'd done what I've been doing to listen to them (slipped quietly out onto the back deck in sock feet) it would've been not 20 feet away from me. As it was, I watched it for a minute or two from quite a bit further away, at the front of the house (I mean, to the extent that I could see it, mostly a silhouette against the still somewhat light sky) and then tried to sneak back in to go out the back door, but my feet immediately crunched on the snow and the owl flew off for the trees on top of the hill.
The fact that they're clearly hanging out around here makes me hope they'll nest nearby. That would be really neat.
In other news, I discovered by total accident today that a new Vlad Taltos book is out - Lyorn! It came out TODAY! I had no idea! - so I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next couple of days. Actually, a brief comment about that - so a lot of the Vlad books are written in the style of different genres other than their main fantasy genre (one's a war movie, possibly more than one are heists or gangster films, one's a trip to the underworld and also a buddy road trip, etc) and when I found out what this one was, on the basis of reading the first chapter, I CACKLED. IT'S A MUSICAL.
.... One of them was in the top of the tree right off the back porch! If I'd done what I've been doing to listen to them (slipped quietly out onto the back deck in sock feet) it would've been not 20 feet away from me. As it was, I watched it for a minute or two from quite a bit further away, at the front of the house (I mean, to the extent that I could see it, mostly a silhouette against the still somewhat light sky) and then tried to sneak back in to go out the back door, but my feet immediately crunched on the snow and the owl flew off for the trees on top of the hill.
The fact that they're clearly hanging out around here makes me hope they'll nest nearby. That would be really neat.
In other news, I discovered by total accident today that a new Vlad Taltos book is out - Lyorn! It came out TODAY! I had no idea! - so I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next couple of days. Actually, a brief comment about that - so a lot of the Vlad books are written in the style of different genres other than their main fantasy genre (one's a war movie, possibly more than one are heists or gangster films, one's a trip to the underworld and also a buddy road trip, etc) and when I found out what this one was, on the basis of reading the first chapter, I CACKLED. IT'S A MUSICAL.
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I heard a GHOW last night, too! Just a single hoot, sadly; some years they've hung around for a bit so I hope for more. Everyone better keep their cats in! (If only....)
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No no, sorry, I think I explained badly. He uses tropes and general plot stylings from other genres in his books. This one's definitely pushing the envelope on what you can get away with in book format, though!
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How are the lyrics?
(I hope you do have nesting owls. That sounds wonderful.)
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They're parodies of well-known songs from actual musicals, e.g. Dragaeran versions of Sondheim lyrics. So far I've recognized all the songs (and been repeatedly earwormed). I know parody is fair use, but I'm still not entirely sure how he got away with this. His publisher clearing the rights for this book must have had absolute fits.
(The entire book isn't in verse - that might have been a bit much - but you get the lyrics to the full song every time a song happens.)
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That's amazing. Fictional texts and lyrics are one kind of worldbuilding, but I'm not sure I've seen that scale of filk in a novel since John M. Ford's How Much for Just the Planet? (1987).
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Mystery solved!
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And yay Lyorn too! (I finished it last night, and Brust sure does commit to it being a musical XD)
(ahaha, apparently I have the perfect icon for both halves of this comment :D)
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And so jealous of your owl sighting. I never see owls!
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Should I be reading these Vlad Taltos books?
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They're really good! They're also a very love-it-or-hate-it kind of series for many people. I think it depends on how you are with "first person snarky" as a narration style, and with morally gray protagonists, because the hero starts out as an assassin and thug-for-hire. This changes over time, and part of my delight in the series is watching him change. But it may not work for you, and that's fine!
If you do want to try it, the first book in the series is Jhereg. You can also start with Taltos, which is first chronologically. (The books take place out of chronological order, but they can be read either by publication order or by internal chronology.)