January books
Feb. 3rd, 2004 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianYes! I am keeping track again! Not so many for this month, due to busy quarter and two projects for (different) babies.
East, Edith Pattou. I admit it: I judge books by their covers. Or, at least, often a cover will grab me and I'll try to find out if it's a good book, whether that means buying it cheaply, getting it at the library, or simply noticing that it was on the Booksense 76 shelf at Powell's when I first saw how lovely it is. Beautiful Cousin #4 gave this to me for Christmas, showing that people of clue sometimes actually use the wish list.
I am a sucker for retold fairy tales, and East is a Scandinavian-flavored mishmash of them, well put together into an interesting and not too predictable plot. It's a little simplistic in that YA-lit way, but that works all right with the fairy-tale theme. There's a lot of viewpoint-switching that could have worked better, but it's quite a good first novel.
Tris's Book, Tamora Pierce.
Best Lesbian Erotica 2002, ed. Tristan Taormino.
Magic Steps, Tamora Pierce.
Had emotional roller coaster ride; needed comfort reading.
I just generally like Tamora Pierce. She's not the best author out there, but her characters suck me in, I think by not being the most thoroughly detailed portraits I've ever read. Something about the style makes me identify with them and give them space in my head. Maybe I just imprinted on her writing. I certainly read the Alanna books ninety times as a ten-year-old.
BLE 2002 is one of the better smut collections I have, though I only like about 3/4 of the stories. The ones I like at all are very enjoyable. I do wish I could get a print-on-demand of all the sort of stories I actually like for bedtime reading, though.
Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope.
Found this a little hard to get through for the first bit, but it became much more interesting after all the characters were established. Not nearly as engaging as when done with dragons, but certainly interesting to read about an alien society of humans. I think I may need more practice reading this sort of thing before I can really appreciate it.
Wizard's Holiday, Diane Duane.
I liked this, of course. In retrospect, though, I am annoyed about the Earthbound plot. Conflicts solved way too easily and, to my mind, tritely. I was keeping an eye out for the moral absolutism Pamela mentioned, and that bothered me some too. Maybe the clue stick is coming in the next book. It's wanted. They really don't seem open-minded enough these days.
Birth of the Firebringer, Meredith Ann Pierce.
Dark Moon, Meredith Ann Pierce.
The Son of Summer Stars, Meredith Ann Pierce.
I read Firebringer several times as a kid, so I was glad the sequels got republished. Now that I've finished the story, I am reasonably pleased but I don't need to read them again any time soon. The story is a fairly typical destined-hero sort of thing, it's just that he's also a unicorn, as are most of the other characters. The world is fairly well put together, but I thought the differences between day-to-day unicorn life and human life would've been interesting to include. I don't have as clear a picture as I'd like of what nonheroic unicorns of the tribe did in normal circumstances. This is early Pierce; it shows only a little of the dreamy style and sometimes surreal word usage that I prize, but I found the characters and plot more inherently interesting than those of her more recent books.
The Standing Dead, Ricardo Pinto.
Don't read this. I foolishly read The Chosen, buying it cheap on a day when I had nothing to read, and, even though it was rife with terrible word usage, it never quite had a strong enough attraction to the opposite wall for me to quit reading it. This is the next one, and it was at the library, so I decided to see if the usage had gotten better. (After all, it is about a young gay man, and surely we need more homosexuals in fantasy.) The answer is no. The editor possibly didn't even look at this one. It is worse. Interesting to compare this to Pierce -- she describes nuts as "tallowy", I say, hmm, weird. Nice. Pinto, oh, I can't even remember all the crap he says. Mothers "pleating" their children's hair. It is just WRONG. I will not be reading anything of his ever again. It is worse than Sara Douglass with the StudlyCaps. (Well, maybe not worse than that.)
A Breath From Elsewhere, Mirabel Osler.
Very good garden writing from a rather too self-deprecating Brit. She has great ideas and her viewpoint is valid, and she only defends her way of doing things sometimes. (Garden writing needs a cross between her and Gertrude "Let the servants dig that" Jekyll.) After reading this, I am dying to get a clematis. I never liked my mom's, but Osler has convinced me.
Sing Down the Moon, Scott O'Dell.
Scott O'Dell! hee! It was a month for books from my childhood, it seems. This one is still pretty good. A young Navaho woman is taken as a slave, escapes, and is relocated with her people by the U.S. government. As an adult, I can see just how little hope is really in the ending, where it seemed pretty good to me as a child.
Turning the Storm, Naomi Kritzer.
Homosexual in fantasy! And this one does not suck! It's pretty good, in fact, though it didn't get anywhere near the sense of wonder I'd have liked it to reach. (It came close in one magical working scene, but mostly it just didn't feel like anything but dull ordinary stuff.) The main character is involved in a rebellion against the established church, and during the course of the war reexamines her feelings toward her ~ex-girlfriend on the other side.
The Littles Go to School, Peterson.
The Littles Have a Wedding, Peterson.
What? I needed to get to sleep, so I had to read something. These are dated and rather more sexist than I hope they could get away with now. Also, they are for awfully little kids. Will read Moomin books next time, as those work for every age.
East, Edith Pattou. I admit it: I judge books by their covers. Or, at least, often a cover will grab me and I'll try to find out if it's a good book, whether that means buying it cheaply, getting it at the library, or simply noticing that it was on the Booksense 76 shelf at Powell's when I first saw how lovely it is. Beautiful Cousin #4 gave this to me for Christmas, showing that people of clue sometimes actually use the wish list.
I am a sucker for retold fairy tales, and East is a Scandinavian-flavored mishmash of them, well put together into an interesting and not too predictable plot. It's a little simplistic in that YA-lit way, but that works all right with the fairy-tale theme. There's a lot of viewpoint-switching that could have worked better, but it's quite a good first novel.
Tris's Book, Tamora Pierce.
Best Lesbian Erotica 2002, ed. Tristan Taormino.
Magic Steps, Tamora Pierce.
Had emotional roller coaster ride; needed comfort reading.
I just generally like Tamora Pierce. She's not the best author out there, but her characters suck me in, I think by not being the most thoroughly detailed portraits I've ever read. Something about the style makes me identify with them and give them space in my head. Maybe I just imprinted on her writing. I certainly read the Alanna books ninety times as a ten-year-old.
BLE 2002 is one of the better smut collections I have, though I only like about 3/4 of the stories. The ones I like at all are very enjoyable. I do wish I could get a print-on-demand of all the sort of stories I actually like for bedtime reading, though.
Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope.
Found this a little hard to get through for the first bit, but it became much more interesting after all the characters were established. Not nearly as engaging as when done with dragons, but certainly interesting to read about an alien society of humans. I think I may need more practice reading this sort of thing before I can really appreciate it.
Wizard's Holiday, Diane Duane.
I liked this, of course. In retrospect, though, I am annoyed about the Earthbound plot. Conflicts solved way too easily and, to my mind, tritely. I was keeping an eye out for the moral absolutism Pamela mentioned, and that bothered me some too. Maybe the clue stick is coming in the next book. It's wanted. They really don't seem open-minded enough these days.
Birth of the Firebringer, Meredith Ann Pierce.
Dark Moon, Meredith Ann Pierce.
The Son of Summer Stars, Meredith Ann Pierce.
I read Firebringer several times as a kid, so I was glad the sequels got republished. Now that I've finished the story, I am reasonably pleased but I don't need to read them again any time soon. The story is a fairly typical destined-hero sort of thing, it's just that he's also a unicorn, as are most of the other characters. The world is fairly well put together, but I thought the differences between day-to-day unicorn life and human life would've been interesting to include. I don't have as clear a picture as I'd like of what nonheroic unicorns of the tribe did in normal circumstances. This is early Pierce; it shows only a little of the dreamy style and sometimes surreal word usage that I prize, but I found the characters and plot more inherently interesting than those of her more recent books.
The Standing Dead, Ricardo Pinto.
Don't read this. I foolishly read The Chosen, buying it cheap on a day when I had nothing to read, and, even though it was rife with terrible word usage, it never quite had a strong enough attraction to the opposite wall for me to quit reading it. This is the next one, and it was at the library, so I decided to see if the usage had gotten better. (After all, it is about a young gay man, and surely we need more homosexuals in fantasy.) The answer is no. The editor possibly didn't even look at this one. It is worse. Interesting to compare this to Pierce -- she describes nuts as "tallowy", I say, hmm, weird. Nice. Pinto, oh, I can't even remember all the crap he says. Mothers "pleating" their children's hair. It is just WRONG. I will not be reading anything of his ever again. It is worse than Sara Douglass with the StudlyCaps. (Well, maybe not worse than that.)
A Breath From Elsewhere, Mirabel Osler.
Very good garden writing from a rather too self-deprecating Brit. She has great ideas and her viewpoint is valid, and she only defends her way of doing things sometimes. (Garden writing needs a cross between her and Gertrude "Let the servants dig that" Jekyll.) After reading this, I am dying to get a clematis. I never liked my mom's, but Osler has convinced me.
Sing Down the Moon, Scott O'Dell.
Scott O'Dell! hee! It was a month for books from my childhood, it seems. This one is still pretty good. A young Navaho woman is taken as a slave, escapes, and is relocated with her people by the U.S. government. As an adult, I can see just how little hope is really in the ending, where it seemed pretty good to me as a child.
Turning the Storm, Naomi Kritzer.
Homosexual in fantasy! And this one does not suck! It's pretty good, in fact, though it didn't get anywhere near the sense of wonder I'd have liked it to reach. (It came close in one magical working scene, but mostly it just didn't feel like anything but dull ordinary stuff.) The main character is involved in a rebellion against the established church, and during the course of the war reexamines her feelings toward her ~ex-girlfriend on the other side.
The Littles Go to School, Peterson.
The Littles Have a Wedding, Peterson.
What? I needed to get to sleep, so I had to read something. These are dated and rather more sexist than I hope they could get away with now. Also, they are for awfully little kids. Will read Moomin books next time, as those work for every age.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 07:23 am (UTC)I liked Wizard's Holiday better than the previous in some ways, but less than the previous in a lot of ways. I'd have to read it again to pinpoint exactly what problems I had with it, but I really don't want to.
The Firebringer books, I thought, were kind of enh. I read them because I liked her Darkangel series, but they weren't nearly as good.
I haven't read the rest of the books on this list. I think. I read the Moomin books during a class assignment in fourth grade, but haven't picked them up since. Maybe I should.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 02:04 pm (UTC)I'm finding that I can't effectively compare the Firebringer and Darkangel books because I first read them at such different ages. Maybe I'd feel more interested in the world-building in Darkangel if I hadn't known about it all since an early age.
The Moomin books were first pressed upon me in adulthood. I'm a little envious that you actually read them at a fairly appropriate age. :)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-04 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 03:40 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-04 03:55 pm (UTC)Generic fantasyland Europe is a fairly standard setup for novels, really. I'm used to that. You get attitudes, armor, clothing, whatever, all mixed up and reassembled into something a bit more clean and convenient for story-writing than medieval Europe. The Yamani were very very NOT generic fantasyland anything, or even a culture unique to her world. When she's even using Japanese words, geez. That's a bit much.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 11:03 am (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 02:07 pm (UTC)(must look up Henry Mitchell.)