salinea: (Default)
I'm gonna be fast because I read most of those books ages ago

Rusalka by CJ Cherryh
Russian flavoured fantasy: a cynical party boy / dilettante must flee the city when he's accused of sorcery when the husband of the wife he was seeing dies suddenly; and enrols the help of a young hotel stable boy who has a reputation of ill luck and fears being a sorcerer himself. Out in the forest, they encounter quite a bit of sorcery.
There's some great ideas and flavours to the story, and I liked the characters' dynamics. I thought the pacing and plotting overall was much weaker though. Anyway, if you like Cherryh's other fantasy story - especially Forterss series, you'll probably like this one.

The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold
Fawn, Dag and Fawn's brother go on a boat trip.
This volume has more plot than the previous ones, and as a result I rather liked it more. I also liked the setting, the use of the river, and the new characters of this book (especially the female boat captain who had a name which I forgot). On the other hand, I still don't like Fawn and Dag all that much and consider this series one of Bujold's weakest, so you know...

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
When his family gets murdered, and toddler escapes to a cemetery and gets adopted by the ghosts who live there, as well as the resident Undead. Each chapter cover a different stage of his childhood as he grows up.
Very nice story about growing up, transformations and the relationship to death. Great writing, pacing and characterisation.

The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip
Many years ago, on a battlefield at the gate of Pelucir, something horrible rode in and spread death because of the magic of the great wizard Atrix Wolfe, although nobody knows it and he has been hiding since, and the ghosts of the event still haunt the area. Nowadays, the young prince of Pelucir is studying magic when he finds a strange book written by Atrix Wolfe.
This is a gorgeous, wonderful, subtle and awesome book and you should read it.

The Two Pearls of Wisdom by Alison Goodman
In a chinese flavoured fantasy world, Eon is, despite a lame leg, a candidate for the position of Dragoneye, one of the 12 people channelling the powers of the Dragons of the Chinese Zodiac in order to ensure prosperity and good weather to the empire. Eon is also a girl in disguise, a secret which would cost her direly if it was discovered. But when the ceremony when the dragon of the year, the Rat one, chooses which candidate will connect with him, nothing happens as Eon and her master had foreseen.
A pretty good story, with nice plotting and solid characterisation. I really liked Eon as well as one of the main secondary character, Dela, a transwoman and Emperor's favourite, and who is pretty kickass. The book ends on a cliffhanger for a second volume which is not yet out.

Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow
Boring by-the-number paranormal romance. I think that was the last chance I was giving to this genre.

The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Third volume after Night Watch and Day Watch, this is probably the best of the series so far, with all three stories of the volume being very solid and well tied with one another. Excellent plotting full of twist, tying threads in unexpected ways, and many interesting ideas as well as many interesting characters, both old and new. One of the things I love about this series is how the writer sets up a very manicheist world in theories, then keeps on playing with the concept of Light and Dark thus defined in ways that bring a whole lot of greys and ambiguities until they are near undistinguishable.

Jhegaala by Steven Brust
Vlad Taltos walks into an Easterner village, trying to find out about the background of hi mother's family. The villagers eye him warily. Then the bodies and mysteries start piling up. Poor Vlad Taltos.
A very good Taltos story in the style of Taltos stories. I was missing the sarcasm, it had been too long.

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
Tied to the Howl & Sophie stories, but not really a sequel. Young book-loving overprotected girl is charged with looking after the house of her distantly related Great Wizard of an uncle. Hijinks ensue.
Not my favourite Diana Wynne Jones story by a lot. Not really bad either, but the beginning was fairly slow and I kinda got annoyed at all the awkwardness, but not a bad story overall.

books

7 Oct 2005 10:56 pm
salinea: (Default)
I think by now, everyone on my flist but me have seen Serenity. To you all guys, I HATE YOU :p

I finished Anansi Boys this morning, which was very fun. Light hearted and pleasant to read. I always love how much of a storyteller Neil Gaiman is.

I also finished Last light of the sun the other day. Guy Gavriel Kay was once my favourite fantasy writer. I'm not sure if he's just not as good as he used to be, or if it's me who lost taste for the style and gimmickes he (over)uses. I'm a bit afraid of rereading books by him to check which it is. It wasn't a bad book by any mean, but it was far from the enchantment it used to be. No character grasped me emotionnaly. I think this is partly because he badly sold the book. It was supposed to be about norsemen damnit. That's not what I read.

I think it's not impossible either that I'm getting tired of fantasy. I mean, since I've swtiched to mostly reading in english, I've started reading much more fantasy than sci-fi. I guess there's a point where it gets wearisome.
salinea: (Default)
Done my Microeconomics test today. Tomorrow, Political Science.

Posted Passing on Clampesque and Fanfiction.net.

Read the Sworn Sword novella and the American Gods one from Legends 2. They were good. God, can these men write ! The Martin one was the better of the two though (sorry Neil) he's really got a gift for compelling images and stories out of spare words and titles. It's amazing how something can feel both so epic and legendary and nostalgic and crude, down to earth, dirty. He's also incredibly gifted for nuance and ambiguous moral dilemnas. It's so refreshing to see non manicheistic oppositions in fantasy. Okay, LOTS of good fantasy books have that, but there's lots of bad ones out there. You'd think if they had to copy Tolkien, they could have at least copied how non manicheistic he was !
But when will this Long Fall end the Winter comes at last to give a Feast for Crow ?

Winter is Coming, but it's taking its time to do so. Fashionably late.

Now, I know how i'd answer that meme about naming kittens. I'd name a boy Summer, like my favourite Direwolf, and the girl Winter. Here ! :)

Did I mention I had watched those Loki Matentei Ragnarock episodes ? Well I did. It's very cute and sweet. Chibi Loki is a compelling character, the plots are a bit slim, but it's a very nice anime. Besides, I'm a sucker for norse mythologies.

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