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Book report
The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch - I love these books, which might best be described as fantasy heist novels. They're like The Sting meets high fantasy, but not nearly as cracked-out as the discription makes it sound. They're tightly plotted and set in a detailed, believable, beautifully described world; and I love the characters and their snappy, funny dialogue. I'm trying not to think about the fact that the next book won't be out until 2009. *whines*
Beloved by Toni Morrison - A very well-known book, of course, about slavery and its aftermath, which has been on my "to read" list for ages. I sometimes get impatient or bored with books that are not linear in narrative, and it took me a little while to settle into this one, but once I got used to the frequent shifts in time and viewpoint, I really enjoyed it. Painful and beautiful and very emotionally taxing to read in places, but a book that everyone should read.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon - A slim and fascinating book from the viewpoint of an autistic boy who finds the body of a dead dog in his neighbor's yard and decided to investigate it like a murder. The author does a fantastic job of capturing his narrator's unique viewpoint and making it sympathetic to the reader, and I love how he stays entirely within the boy's limited and slightly inaccurate view of the world, while still making it evident what's really going on (even if the protagonist never understands all of it).
Blood Ties by Elizabeth Christiansen - yet another SGA tie-in novel. Like most of the other ones I've read, it was promising at first but ended up weak and unsatisfying, with too many plot threads going in too many directions, and a non-resolution that I really didn't like. The only part that really did anything for me from an SF standpoint was the vivid and intriguing planet where they spend a little time at the beginning -- the world from "Siege" with the T-rex. Otherwise ... meh.
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik - book four of the Temeraire series, and my favorite one yet. I had a few problems with the way that the non-Western cultures and characters in the third book were depicted, but this book is much better at that, and like the third book, it did a great job of hitting my "travel the world, see new places, meet new people!" fiction kink. I love how we're seeing the many, various effects of draconic presence on different cultures around the world, and how each continent has its own unique flavor. (And I've gotten my history-buff dad hooked on the series now! Yay!)
What I'm currently reading: Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon.
EDIT: Um, is it just me, or is this a new thing where you can expand LJ threads in all styles, even in the light and format-mine styles? I can't figure out if they just added that, or if I just never noticed the "expand" link before, but in any case, I have much love for LJ right now!
Beloved by Toni Morrison - A very well-known book, of course, about slavery and its aftermath, which has been on my "to read" list for ages. I sometimes get impatient or bored with books that are not linear in narrative, and it took me a little while to settle into this one, but once I got used to the frequent shifts in time and viewpoint, I really enjoyed it. Painful and beautiful and very emotionally taxing to read in places, but a book that everyone should read.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon - A slim and fascinating book from the viewpoint of an autistic boy who finds the body of a dead dog in his neighbor's yard and decided to investigate it like a murder. The author does a fantastic job of capturing his narrator's unique viewpoint and making it sympathetic to the reader, and I love how he stays entirely within the boy's limited and slightly inaccurate view of the world, while still making it evident what's really going on (even if the protagonist never understands all of it).
Blood Ties by Elizabeth Christiansen - yet another SGA tie-in novel. Like most of the other ones I've read, it was promising at first but ended up weak and unsatisfying, with too many plot threads going in too many directions, and a non-resolution that I really didn't like. The only part that really did anything for me from an SF standpoint was the vivid and intriguing planet where they spend a little time at the beginning -- the world from "Siege" with the T-rex. Otherwise ... meh.
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik - book four of the Temeraire series, and my favorite one yet. I had a few problems with the way that the non-Western cultures and characters in the third book were depicted, but this book is much better at that, and like the third book, it did a great job of hitting my "travel the world, see new places, meet new people!" fiction kink. I love how we're seeing the many, various effects of draconic presence on different cultures around the world, and how each continent has its own unique flavor. (And I've gotten my history-buff dad hooked on the series now! Yay!)
What I'm currently reading: Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon.
EDIT: Um, is it just me, or is this a new thing where you can expand LJ threads in all styles, even in the light and format-mine styles? I can't figure out if they just added that, or if I just never noticed the "expand" link before, but in any case, I have much love for LJ right now!
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I've bought Empire of Ivory, and I've never read a SGA tie-in novel, but otherwise I've read everything on your list, I think? ^_^ Though I read Beloved in translation, which I don't usually do. It was still painful and sharp and beautiful... I'm glad I've read it, but I don't really think I'll be looking for more of her books in the immediate future. Fiction gets to me in a way history books and even news reports don't manage most of the time.
I'm most curious about what you'll think of Jim Butcher's fantasy!
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Fiction gets to me in a way history books and even news reports don't manage most of the time.
That's precisely what it does to me too -- I think maybe because it makes you live the characters' lives, and feel what they feel, and hurt along with them. What really got to me about "Beloved" was the way it brought home certain dehumanizing aspects of slavery, and especially the way that it lingers and taints you for your entire life, in a way that I'd never really got before, even more than some of the autobio slave narratives that I've read (Frederick Douglass, etc).
I'm a few chapters into the Butcher book and so far, it's not really grabbing me much. It's a little too standard Tolkeinesque fantasy for my reading tastes, thus far. But that could change; a couple of the characters have the potential to really be my cup of tea, once I get into them.
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Question: the female character. Some people are calling her a Mary Sue, and while I can see why they might think that, she's not what I would consider a Mary Sue - at least not a full-blooded one, maybe a borderline one. What do you think?
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Without going through the whole Mary Sue Litmus Test (google it, if you haven't seen it -- it's a scream!) the things that really make a character "ping" as a Sue for me tend to come down to whether they're believable examples of whatever they're supposed to be (for example, is the female farmer who rescues the struggling hero coarse and rough and middle-aged and married, like you'd expect, or does she just *happen* to be 21, beautiful and single?), and whether the characters like and trust them when they have no real reason to. This character was okay in those areas, but not great -- didn't make me want to throw the book across the room, but could have been better.
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I love the image of the 21, beautiful and single farmer...hey, it could happen! But yeah, more believable if older and married. Thanks for answering.
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Btw, I'm making a note of some of the other books for when the ME/CFS goes away and I can *concentrate* on something more taxing than a book about someone who had a pet...or similar! (Nothing wrong with that type of book otherwise I wouldn't be reading them - but I do miss being able to read good sci-fi, detective and hard-hitting books as well!)
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I think people get a little hung up, sometimes, on the Mary Sue concept, and on the minutiae of the Mary Sue Litmus Test and things like it -- either "This character fits one of the criteria on the test! OMG! Sue!" or "Every main character in literature is a Mary Sue, so the term is meaningless."
I think Mary Sues are like art -- you know it when you see it, but it's tough to come up with a definition that can stand up to the most nitpicking of critics.
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And write fics whenever I have the energy - as a way of keeping my mind functioning, no other reason of course! *grins*
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Beloved is one I've read. I admit -- I didn't like it. It was rich and beautifully spun, but I didn't much like any of the characters, and, while the storytelling was a little like eating a triple fudge cake at times with the description, I always falter when I don't like the characters.
A similar feeling book I've read is the wildly popular No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book -- the one that takes place in Botswana. My mother gave it to me, sure I'd love it, but I got impatient for the story to start. Sounds a bit like you. If you ever read it, I'd love to know your thoughts.
Blood ties was only "meh" eh? I read the one before that on the plane...name is escaping me...casualties of war? It was only okay. Better than some of the others.
I also finally read Terry Goodkind's well known Wizard's First Rule on my trip. I couldn't help but think that it was sort of awkwardly written. Good story, but...awkward. You ever read it?
Oh -- what does that mean, you can "expand LJ threads in all styles?"
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You know how, in a long LJ discussion, the comments are hidden, so that you just see a link for them but have to click on it to read them? For example, here. There is now an "expand" link next to the collapsed comments, so you can click on it and see that part of the discussion without having to open up a new window. I love it!
Beloved is one I've read. I admit -- I didn't like it. It was rich and beautifully spun, but I didn't much like any of the characters, and, while the storytelling was a little like eating a triple fudge cake at times with the description, I always falter when I don't like the characters.
I can certainly understand that! And with that specific book, it did take me a few chapters to start getting into them ... I had to see a little of what had made them into the people they were, in order to sympathize with the people they'd become. I know what you mean, though, and there have been plenty of books that I never *could* get into, because I just didn't like the characters or because the narrative style was annoying to me, or both. (Sean McMullen is a fantasy author whose books REALLY do that to me. Being a glutton for punishment, I slogged through one entire 500-page novel before I swore off his books for good. He has such great ideas, but the books themselves ... aaargh!)
You should DEFINITELY pick up the Locke Lamora books! I think they might be very much your thing (and I admit without shame that they're really fantastic in the friendship and h/c department, too). I haven't read the others that you mention, but Glen Cook Garrett sounds good -- do you have a book to recommend that I should start with?
The Ladies Detective Agency book isn't one that's in my current "to read" stack but I remember seeing it mentioned and thinking that I might like it. Terry Goodkind I've not read, but from looking at his books in the store, they make me think of a type of fantasy I don't much like -- "hack fantasy" is perhaps too unkind, but there are a lot of authors who riff on Tolkien and medieval fantasy Europe without really having the writing ability to pull it off, and Goodkind always looked like one of those to me. I really don't want to sound like a snob, because my own reading runs very much into the "pulp" end of the spectrum, so I'm the LAST person who ought to be looking down my nose at an author! But there's still a particular type of fantasy that I find very hard to get into unless it happens to push a few specific buttons of mine, and Goodkind doesn't give me the idea that I'd like it.
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Beloved sounds like something I should read, for the perspective if nothing else.
And sad that Christiansen keeps Mary Sueing in her novels. I enjoyed that other SGA novel up until the entrance of the Sue. She's got a nice handle on the show's characters, but her originals seem to lack a lot of depth.
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My reading tends to be balanced between books I read for pure entertainment (Locke Lamora, Temeraire, etc) and books I read because I want to learn things or get a new perspective on the world. "Beloved" is in the latter category, though I did enjoy it as a novel also, and I *do* think that it's a book that ought to be read.
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My reading usually is tipped more towards the entertainment end of the scale, mostly because my time for reading offline is so limited these days. There are some subjects, though, that I feel I should have a good grasp on, especially if it's something I plan on addressing at some point in the future in my writing.
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And the ending to Empire of Ivory makes me do the flaily-hands dance; I want to know what happens! Arrgh.
Furies-- that's the first, right? I don't think that series has as strong writing as Dresden does, probably because it's in 3rd person and has to switch between so many characters, but it's still on my to-buy-in-hardback (when I have the money) list.