Reading roundup
9. Terry Pratchett, Sourcery -- Well, it's not my favorite Discworld book... I guess that cements it -- I don't much care for the Wizard series (as relative to the Watch and the Witches). And I really am fairly bored by Rincewind -- I have a hard time undesrstanding how certain DW fans love him. Nor did I care at all about the other sorta-major characters introduced in this book (Conina, Nijel, et al). But I did enjoy the vast quantities of the Librarian in this book, because how can one not love the Librarian? And I have to admit, the Luggage *is* kind of entertaining. Also, I may never forgive this book for the Vetinari bit -- overall, the Patrician (even when he is himself) doesn't seem to have hit his stride yet, in this one.
It was still a fun enough read, because it was still Pratchett -- even if it was old-style Pratchett, with the humour less subtle and less organic. It was also a lot more "meta" than other Discworld books, which wasn't a point in its favour, but also not really against. I did enjoy immensely all the "Kubla Khan" references (it's one of my favorite poems), and Omar Khayyam. And also loved all the odd Pratchett similes/metaphores, like: "Coin gave him an unblinking stare, a stare as old as time, the kind of stare that basks on rocks on volcanic islands and never gets tired" and "a distant metallic groaning noise, like a saucepan in pain," and "knurd" (both as concept and word, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out because I kept trying to pronounce it as "nerd," and how much do I love English that you can basicaly do that?). The cameo by the Four Horsemen was also nice, although it seemed a somewhat pale shadow of their appearance in Good Omens.
10. Terry Pratchett, Faust Eric -- After Sourcery, I kind of expected this one to drag as well, since it was also Rincewind-centered, but actually I finished it in less than a day (it's only ~200 pages in paperback) and really, really enjoyed it. I suppose the difference is that it is a later Discworld book and thus closer to Pterry's "mature" style, and also that, unlike absolutely every human character in Sourcery, I actually *liked* Eric, the teenage demonologist, with his hopeful would-be randiness and stumbling medievalist grammar.
Also, the satire was stronger in this one, I thought, even in the brief bits having to do with Unseen University, and the humour subtler. The perversion of the three wishes was *fun* to read, and I especially adored the Tsortian Wars bit, everything from the double-cross with the Tsortian Horse to the various sargeants, to, god help me, Lavaeolus -- even though I've always hated Odysseus, being firmly on the side of the Trojans. I also loved the whole corporate Hell thing, and especially the new-style punishments endured by the damned. This is one of my favorite Discworld concept-type things ever.
The "live forever" sequence reminded me strongly of Douglas Adams -- probably just the content more than anything else -- and therefore didn't feel particularly novel. Actually, all parts with DEATH in them felt a little slow -- possibly, I'm just down on DEATH lately. And the parrot annoyed me tremendously in the first part of the book, so I was quite glad to see him go. Other than that, no complaints!
I keep losing track of which Discworld books go in which order -- I know there's, like, a whole multi-dimensional flowchart to reflect storyline flow, but I'll settle just for publishing order, frankly, so I decided to jot it down here, along with which ones I still haven't read (quite a few of the older ones, actually).
1) The Colour of Magic (Rincewind)
2) The Light Fantastic (Rincewind)
3) Equal Rites (Witches)
4) Mort (Death)
5) Sourcery (Rincewind)
6) Wyrd Sisters (Witches) -- read Sep'07
7) Pyramids (standalone) -- read Sep'07
8) Guards! Guards! (Watch)
9) Faust Eric (Rincewind)
10) Moving Pictures (standalone/Wizards) -- read Sep'07
11) Reaper Man (Death / Wizards)
12) Witches Abroad (Witches)
13) Small Gods (standalone)
14) Lords and Ladies (Witches / Wizards)
15) Men at Arms (Watch)
16) Soul Music (Death, Wizards)
17) Interesting Times (Rincewind)
18) Maskerade (Witches)
19) Feet of Clay (Watch) -- actually, I think I might have read this one, but I'm not sure -- so I probably should reread it
20) Hogfather (Death, Wizards) -- read June'07
21) Jingo (Watch) -- read Aug'07
22) The Last Continent (Rincewind)
23) Carpe Jugulum (Witches)
24) The Fifth Elephant (Watch)
25) The Truth (standalone)
26) Thief of Time (Death)
27) The Last Hero (Rincewind)
28) Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (standalone)
29) Night Watch (Watch)
30) Wee Free Men (Tiffany)
31) Monstrous Regiment (standalone)
32) A Hat Full of Sky (Tiffany)
33) Going Postal (Moist)
34) Thud! (Watch)
35) Wintersmith (Tiffany)
Colour-coded by thread, bold means not yet read.
(ETA Sep'07 -- updated for DW books I've read in the meanwhile)
So:
Rincewind -- 6 / 7 read
Witches -- 1 / 6 read, 1 /3 Tiffany read
Death -- 2 / 4 read
Watch -- 5 / 7 read (to read: Feet of Clay, Jingo)
Standalone -- 3 / 6 read (to read: Pyramids, Moving Pictures, Small Gods)
Moist -- 1 / 1 read, and can't wait for Making Money!
Should really get cracking on the Witches and catch up on the Watch -- I don't think I fully realized prior to this exercise that Feet of Clay was a Watch book...
11. Holly Black, Tithe -- My expectations may have been a bit high going in, because, after all, this is a first novel and I think I felt that a bit. I felt it could have been tighter -- there are parts of it that I don't think do as much work as they ought to (the introductory scenes -- Kaye with her mother, Kaye with Janet, before the action really starts, Corny's introduction). As far as characters -- I found details about Kaye and Corny intriguing, but didn't find either of them to be compelling characters, really. I love Corny's coming-out story to his Trekkie Kirk/Spock slasher mom, and the fact that Kaye has two pet rats named Isaac and Armageddon, whom she acquired via shoplifting -- but, I don't know, maybe if there were more details like that... I did like the fact that Kaye was both clearly clever (e.g. rolling in the clover) and also reckless / spacey / naive -- a nice and believable combination.
I loved Roiben, though! His first appearance, the way he is with Kaye, with Lutie-loo, both of the Faerie Queens, chillin' with Kaye's mother on the couch... His understated snark, his quoting of Milton, just -- everything. I think it's an audacious move to give an inhuman character a POV ("inhuman" in both nature and nurture, I mean, since Kaye herself is Faerie as well), and I do think he comes across as *too* human, even considering that he's been displaced from his native court and has had to cope and become "his own knight" and is thus expected to have migrated somewhat closer to humanity, what, with free will and all. So that was a slight quibble, but one I could rationalize. Also, I loved his name. Just saying it randomly -- Rath Roiben Rye. And I liked the relationship between Roiben and Kaye, how it starts off, how it develops, through false starts and hidden identities, and, most of all, the funny, low-key moments they have together (like the 'What are you wearing' one, which I actually found hilarious.)
The urban part of the urban fantasy setting was too grungy for my taste, and felt a bit too "young" for me at the beginning -- which really solid books with teenage protagonists don't. Possibly it means Tithe is more realistic in that respect, but that's not necessarily a plus. The fantasy part was... mixed. I think the underhill scenes at the Unseelie Court tried too hard -- too many monstery-type critters, too much carnage, boiling blood, etc. -- it reminded me of the scene in the Narnia movie where all manner of monsters are shearing Aslan's mane -- too much going on to be truly chilling. I was also generally unimpressed by the Unseelie queen, at least as she compared to my memories of other queens of the Faerie (say, the Queen of Air and Darkness in War for the Oaks or the Elf-Queen in Thomas the Rhymer). I did like the Seelie Queen a bit better, but even she was not... glamorous enough, in the original sense of the word. I think maybe the descriptive language of the books is not dreamy enough to give that true faerie-like quality that I'm thinking of in the other books -- this may well be intentional -- but even when it gets more descriptive than it normally is (the Unseelie Queen's eyes like "blue sea glass", vs the Seelie Queen's apple-green eyes) it's not quite *weird* enough -- though I do really like the details of Roiben's "pewter" hair and the other Seelie knight's hair "as the fine, pale gold of cornsilk."
There were things that happened in the plot that I was surprised by -- not your usual YA urban fantasy fare. Janet's death, for instance -- not that I mourned her, particularly, and I don't think it had a lot of emotional impact on the reader -- too quick, and also sort of divorced from the heart of the novel -- but the mere fact of it was rather unexpected. I was impressed that Kaye found her mortal "self" -- the little girl in the Seelie Court. Nothing is *done* with that (yet, at any rate -- looks like it plays a part in the sequel), but it's quite a chilling little moment. Also just the simple fact of Kaye being a pixie -- green and with oddly jointed fingers, more than a little disturbing -- rather than just a shiny, uber-pretty Mary-Sue (Elf, or Sidhe, or whatever Roiben and co. are supposed to be).
And then there were plot things that didn't work so well for me -- I spotted the amulet of the Seelie Queen and what it meant before Kaye made the connection, so that was no surprise -- but I found Roiben becoming the Unseelie King somewhat hard to buy. I mean, yes, it ties in nicesly with the "reign in Hell" from the earlier Paradise Lost allusion, but... I actually don't see Roiben as a Miltonian Satan character. At all. And so it doesn't flow for me. I just don't see the motivation there clearly enough.
Also, a minor quibble -- or, not a quibble, even, just something that puzzled me -- Faery name consistency among the Gentry. (I liked the minor/solitary Faye names well enough, and thought they were sufficiently internally consistent.) But -- we've got Nicnevin (which, near as I can tell, is the Celtic crone goddess), Rath Roiben Rye and Ethine, which all sound more-or-less Celtic. Nephamael sounds like a fallen angel -- Hebrew-based, spelled the Greek way. And the Seelie Court folks -- Silarial, Talathain -- sound more Tolkien-Elven than anything else to me. They don't really sound like they all go together, and there doesn't seem to be a clear division along Seelie/Unseelie lines, either... Also, other than Nicnevin, if these were references/allusions to anything, that went right over my head, and Google wasn't helpful in turning anything up either, except possibly Taliessin in the case of the latter. (Except that there is an actual person named Talathain. Huh...)
I did find it amusing that Kaye's mortal friend is named Janet, like the girl protagonist in "Tam Lin" (the ballad that serves as an epigraph to the book -- as well as in 50% of other ballads dealing with Faerie, it seems). 'Course, this would be one of those non-happy-ending ballads, in this case.
So, overall, I really liked Tithe, though I would have liked the beginning to be a bit tighter and the end a bit smoother. It didn't bowl me over the way War for the Oaks -- to which I kept mentally comparing it -- did, but I can't wait to read more stories set in this world.
So, apparently now I should read Valiant (which Wikipedia calls a "loose sequel" to Tithe -- and which I think I've seen at the library), and then Ironside (which, it looks like, is a proper sequel) -- presumably due out in late April.
But first, I think I'll finish off the Weetzie Bat books that I've got lying around.
I had a rare chance to stop by a used bookstore the other day -- on our return fromt he consulate, B and I decided to have lunch at West Portal (at the colourful Raintree Cafe), and I begged to pop in to the used bookstore across the street. Sadly, I was not able to find any ASOIAF paperbacks, which is what I was really after, nor any Pratchett books, not even things I haven't read yet but am reasonably certain I'll enjoy that I would be willing to buy used sight... unread. Actually, other than an overpriced and misfiled paperback of American Gods -- nothing at all I would be even remotely interested in :( And this is a bookstore that has an entire wall of paperback SF/F, where I'd been previously been able to find some good acquisitions. Guess I'd need to go to Green Apple as a last resort...
It was still a fun enough read, because it was still Pratchett -- even if it was old-style Pratchett, with the humour less subtle and less organic. It was also a lot more "meta" than other Discworld books, which wasn't a point in its favour, but also not really against. I did enjoy immensely all the "Kubla Khan" references (it's one of my favorite poems), and Omar Khayyam. And also loved all the odd Pratchett similes/metaphores, like: "Coin gave him an unblinking stare, a stare as old as time, the kind of stare that basks on rocks on volcanic islands and never gets tired" and "a distant metallic groaning noise, like a saucepan in pain," and "knurd" (both as concept and word, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure it out because I kept trying to pronounce it as "nerd," and how much do I love English that you can basicaly do that?). The cameo by the Four Horsemen was also nice, although it seemed a somewhat pale shadow of their appearance in Good Omens.
10. Terry Pratchett, Faust Eric -- After Sourcery, I kind of expected this one to drag as well, since it was also Rincewind-centered, but actually I finished it in less than a day (it's only ~200 pages in paperback) and really, really enjoyed it. I suppose the difference is that it is a later Discworld book and thus closer to Pterry's "mature" style, and also that, unlike absolutely every human character in Sourcery, I actually *liked* Eric, the teenage demonologist, with his hopeful would-be randiness and stumbling medievalist grammar.
Also, the satire was stronger in this one, I thought, even in the brief bits having to do with Unseen University, and the humour subtler. The perversion of the three wishes was *fun* to read, and I especially adored the Tsortian Wars bit, everything from the double-cross with the Tsortian Horse to the various sargeants, to, god help me, Lavaeolus -- even though I've always hated Odysseus, being firmly on the side of the Trojans. I also loved the whole corporate Hell thing, and especially the new-style punishments endured by the damned. This is one of my favorite Discworld concept-type things ever.
The "live forever" sequence reminded me strongly of Douglas Adams -- probably just the content more than anything else -- and therefore didn't feel particularly novel. Actually, all parts with DEATH in them felt a little slow -- possibly, I'm just down on DEATH lately. And the parrot annoyed me tremendously in the first part of the book, so I was quite glad to see him go. Other than that, no complaints!
I keep losing track of which Discworld books go in which order -- I know there's, like, a whole multi-dimensional flowchart to reflect storyline flow, but I'll settle just for publishing order, frankly, so I decided to jot it down here, along with which ones I still haven't read (quite a few of the older ones, actually).
1) The Colour of Magic (Rincewind)
2) The Light Fantastic (Rincewind)
3) Equal Rites (Witches)
4) Mort (Death)
5) Sourcery (Rincewind)
6) Wyrd Sisters (Witches) -- read Sep'07
7) Pyramids (standalone) -- read Sep'07
8) Guards! Guards! (Watch)
9) Faust Eric (Rincewind)
10) Moving Pictures (standalone/Wizards) -- read Sep'07
11) Reaper Man (Death / Wizards)
12) Witches Abroad (Witches)
13) Small Gods (standalone)
14) Lords and Ladies (Witches / Wizards)
15) Men at Arms (Watch)
16) Soul Music (Death, Wizards)
17) Interesting Times (Rincewind)
18) Maskerade (Witches)
19) Feet of Clay (Watch) -- actually, I think I might have read this one, but I'm not sure -- so I probably should reread it
20) Hogfather (Death, Wizards) -- read June'07
21) Jingo (Watch) -- read Aug'07
22) The Last Continent (Rincewind)
23) Carpe Jugulum (Witches)
24) The Fifth Elephant (Watch)
25) The Truth (standalone)
26) Thief of Time (Death)
27) The Last Hero (Rincewind)
28) Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (standalone)
29) Night Watch (Watch)
30) Wee Free Men (Tiffany)
31) Monstrous Regiment (standalone)
32) A Hat Full of Sky (Tiffany)
33) Going Postal (Moist)
34) Thud! (Watch)
35) Wintersmith (Tiffany)
Colour-coded by thread, bold means not yet read.
(ETA Sep'07 -- updated for DW books I've read in the meanwhile)
So:
Rincewind -- 6 / 7 read
Witches -- 1 / 6 read, 1 /3 Tiffany read
Death -- 2 / 4 read
Watch -- 5 / 7 read (to read: Feet of Clay, Jingo)
Standalone -- 3 / 6 read (to read: Pyramids, Moving Pictures, Small Gods)
Moist -- 1 / 1 read, and can't wait for Making Money!
Should really get cracking on the Witches and catch up on the Watch -- I don't think I fully realized prior to this exercise that Feet of Clay was a Watch book...
11. Holly Black, Tithe -- My expectations may have been a bit high going in, because, after all, this is a first novel and I think I felt that a bit. I felt it could have been tighter -- there are parts of it that I don't think do as much work as they ought to (the introductory scenes -- Kaye with her mother, Kaye with Janet, before the action really starts, Corny's introduction). As far as characters -- I found details about Kaye and Corny intriguing, but didn't find either of them to be compelling characters, really. I love Corny's coming-out story to his Trekkie Kirk/Spock slasher mom, and the fact that Kaye has two pet rats named Isaac and Armageddon, whom she acquired via shoplifting -- but, I don't know, maybe if there were more details like that... I did like the fact that Kaye was both clearly clever (e.g. rolling in the clover) and also reckless / spacey / naive -- a nice and believable combination.
I loved Roiben, though! His first appearance, the way he is with Kaye, with Lutie-loo, both of the Faerie Queens, chillin' with Kaye's mother on the couch... His understated snark, his quoting of Milton, just -- everything. I think it's an audacious move to give an inhuman character a POV ("inhuman" in both nature and nurture, I mean, since Kaye herself is Faerie as well), and I do think he comes across as *too* human, even considering that he's been displaced from his native court and has had to cope and become "his own knight" and is thus expected to have migrated somewhat closer to humanity, what, with free will and all. So that was a slight quibble, but one I could rationalize. Also, I loved his name. Just saying it randomly -- Rath Roiben Rye. And I liked the relationship between Roiben and Kaye, how it starts off, how it develops, through false starts and hidden identities, and, most of all, the funny, low-key moments they have together (like the 'What are you wearing' one, which I actually found hilarious.)
The urban part of the urban fantasy setting was too grungy for my taste, and felt a bit too "young" for me at the beginning -- which really solid books with teenage protagonists don't. Possibly it means Tithe is more realistic in that respect, but that's not necessarily a plus. The fantasy part was... mixed. I think the underhill scenes at the Unseelie Court tried too hard -- too many monstery-type critters, too much carnage, boiling blood, etc. -- it reminded me of the scene in the Narnia movie where all manner of monsters are shearing Aslan's mane -- too much going on to be truly chilling. I was also generally unimpressed by the Unseelie queen, at least as she compared to my memories of other queens of the Faerie (say, the Queen of Air and Darkness in War for the Oaks or the Elf-Queen in Thomas the Rhymer). I did like the Seelie Queen a bit better, but even she was not... glamorous enough, in the original sense of the word. I think maybe the descriptive language of the books is not dreamy enough to give that true faerie-like quality that I'm thinking of in the other books -- this may well be intentional -- but even when it gets more descriptive than it normally is (the Unseelie Queen's eyes like "blue sea glass", vs the Seelie Queen's apple-green eyes) it's not quite *weird* enough -- though I do really like the details of Roiben's "pewter" hair and the other Seelie knight's hair "as the fine, pale gold of cornsilk."
There were things that happened in the plot that I was surprised by -- not your usual YA urban fantasy fare. Janet's death, for instance -- not that I mourned her, particularly, and I don't think it had a lot of emotional impact on the reader -- too quick, and also sort of divorced from the heart of the novel -- but the mere fact of it was rather unexpected. I was impressed that Kaye found her mortal "self" -- the little girl in the Seelie Court. Nothing is *done* with that (yet, at any rate -- looks like it plays a part in the sequel), but it's quite a chilling little moment. Also just the simple fact of Kaye being a pixie -- green and with oddly jointed fingers, more than a little disturbing -- rather than just a shiny, uber-pretty Mary-Sue (Elf, or Sidhe, or whatever Roiben and co. are supposed to be).
And then there were plot things that didn't work so well for me -- I spotted the amulet of the Seelie Queen and what it meant before Kaye made the connection, so that was no surprise -- but I found Roiben becoming the Unseelie King somewhat hard to buy. I mean, yes, it ties in nicesly with the "reign in Hell" from the earlier Paradise Lost allusion, but... I actually don't see Roiben as a Miltonian Satan character. At all. And so it doesn't flow for me. I just don't see the motivation there clearly enough.
Also, a minor quibble -- or, not a quibble, even, just something that puzzled me -- Faery name consistency among the Gentry. (I liked the minor/solitary Faye names well enough, and thought they were sufficiently internally consistent.) But -- we've got Nicnevin (which, near as I can tell, is the Celtic crone goddess), Rath Roiben Rye and Ethine, which all sound more-or-less Celtic. Nephamael sounds like a fallen angel -- Hebrew-based, spelled the Greek way. And the Seelie Court folks -- Silarial, Talathain -- sound more Tolkien-Elven than anything else to me. They don't really sound like they all go together, and there doesn't seem to be a clear division along Seelie/Unseelie lines, either... Also, other than Nicnevin, if these were references/allusions to anything, that went right over my head, and Google wasn't helpful in turning anything up either, except possibly Taliessin in the case of the latter. (Except that there is an actual person named Talathain. Huh...)
I did find it amusing that Kaye's mortal friend is named Janet, like the girl protagonist in "Tam Lin" (the ballad that serves as an epigraph to the book -- as well as in 50% of other ballads dealing with Faerie, it seems). 'Course, this would be one of those non-happy-ending ballads, in this case.
So, overall, I really liked Tithe, though I would have liked the beginning to be a bit tighter and the end a bit smoother. It didn't bowl me over the way War for the Oaks -- to which I kept mentally comparing it -- did, but I can't wait to read more stories set in this world.
So, apparently now I should read Valiant (which Wikipedia calls a "loose sequel" to Tithe -- and which I think I've seen at the library), and then Ironside (which, it looks like, is a proper sequel) -- presumably due out in late April.
But first, I think I'll finish off the Weetzie Bat books that I've got lying around.
I had a rare chance to stop by a used bookstore the other day -- on our return fromt he consulate, B and I decided to have lunch at West Portal (at the colourful Raintree Cafe), and I begged to pop in to the used bookstore across the street. Sadly, I was not able to find any ASOIAF paperbacks, which is what I was really after, nor any Pratchett books, not even things I haven't read yet but am reasonably certain I'll enjoy that I would be willing to buy used sight... unread. Actually, other than an overpriced and misfiled paperback of American Gods -- nothing at all I would be even remotely interested in :( And this is a bookstore that has an entire wall of paperback SF/F, where I'd been previously been able to find some good acquisitions. Guess I'd need to go to Green Apple as a last resort...