sholio | Stuff and things and stuff!

sga_legacy is a new community for the SGA Legacy tie-in books -- for discussion of the books and also for posting Legacy-related fanfic and fanart and, I don't know, whatever other fan things people come up with. It's co-modded by

tielan and me. Right now, since the first book of Legacy has just started shipping and almost no one has read it yet, there's just a welcome post and a discussion post for Death Game, should anyone have read that one and want to talk about it! (I, er, haven't read it. But the discussion post is up anyway!)

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I am almost done with my holiday fics, which is good, since I'm going out of town for Christmas. (I'm going to be Internetless when the Yuletide fics go live! I am SAD!) Also, it's cold. So cold. It's supposed to get near -40 this week. AUGH. This is karmic payback for the last couple of warm winters, isn't it? *bundles up*

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I have had my brain eaten by a new (to me) series of books - the Benjamin January mysteries by Barbara Hambly. They are AWESOME -- well, okay, I've only read the first one so far, A Free Man of Color, so I guess I'll say that the first one is awesome and I will be snapping up the next ones as soon as I can get my hands on them. The series takes place in New Orleans in the 1830s; the setting is richly and gorgeously depicted in its vivid beauty and equally vivid squalor, and the characters, oh, the characters. *bounces* I have no clue if these books would appear faily to eyes other than mine, but personally I thought Hambly does a really fantastic job of writing with both sympathy and empathy for all of her characters, who include black freedmen/freedwomen, mixed-race courtesans, plantation owners' wives; Americans and Creole French, working class and middle class and upper class; there's even a queer couple. I loved how the characters are all products of their society, each caught in their own kind of cage, each with their own prejudices and lives and loves and desires and plans. The plot is twisty and surprising, and did I mention that I love the characters to bits? (I can't really talk about all of them and how much I love them without getting spoilery, but basically, there are a lot of characters and I love them ALL. But ♥Shaw♥ gets some special hearts, because he is so totally Vimes that it's awesome. Vimes with a backwoods Kentucky accent. ♥)

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Barbara Hambly! She writes such great characters. I think my mom read those books some time ago, but because I'm not really into mystery novels I didn't give them a look.

I haven't read Death Game since the reviews are so mixed. Tie-in novels - I want to read them but because more often than not I end up disappointed I hesitate like crazy. To read Death Game or not to? I can't decide!

It's true that they're mystery novels, but they're not very formulaic; mostly they're about the interactions of the characters and their lives. Actually, what made me pull down the book off the shelf and read it was a post at Hambly's LJ where she's talking about how writing is really all about the characters for her. And that's mostly what I read for, too -- I mean, all the elements are important, but character is the most important thing. So I decided it was time to get caught up on some Hambly. :D

Death Game ... I don't know? I haven't read it myself, and I've heard things on my flist that are all over the map. If you want to ask the author any specific questions about what's in it, she's answering questions here; I don't know if that would help with deciding if it's a book for you or not. :D

Stuff and things and stuff!

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