Reading roundup and memes
41. Lauren Esker, Dragon's Luck (Shifter Agents #3, but I read it without reading the previous two books and was just fine -- they're all meant to be stand-alone, although characters from previous books appear in the background) -- picked this up via rachelmanija's rec when I needed something fluffy, funny, and non-taxing to read, and it totally fit the bill. Paranormal romance of the were-whatever variety, which is not usually my cup of tea, but the were-critters were unusual enough to intrigue me (and the book is more action/thriller than romance, anyway). She is a hyperactive Korean-American California-to-Seattle-transplant gecko-shifter who works for shifter!FBI (in a world where the Muggles don't know there's such a thing as shifters). He is a dragon-shifter conartist/luck worker with family secrets. Together they fight crime (more or less; not always in very orthodox ways, even on the shifter!FBI agent's side). There are lots of ridiculous but charming tropes, most prominently pretend dating. Refreshingly, there's also rather a lot more people talking to each other and being as open as they can be, given the secrets-and-lies premise. Spoilers from here
I wasn't sure if I'd find the heroine, Jen Cho, grating or charming, but it ended up being charming. I feel like she is sort of what Kami Glass was supposed to be in the Lynburn books, a FORWARD MOMENTUM!/Refuge in Audacity sort of female character, only she actually worked for me, the whole caffeine-and-sugar guzzling, attention-attracting, pathological-friend-making, queen-of-crazy-decisions and pulling them off package. I thought I'd be all about Lucky the dragon shifter, since I tend to like humaniform dragons/dragons who can assume human form, but the dragons (Lucky the male lead, Lucia/Lux, his baby sister turned powerful drug lord, and Angel the sociopath cousin) were merely OK -- Angel is a decent antagonist, Lucky is a decent love interest (I did find his sea-sickness a neat sort of character detail; you don't get that a lot, with leading men), and Lucia *is* actually interesting, but I would've liked there to be more of her. But Jen carried the show, and my favorite character actually ended up being Marius/Matteo of the Valeria, who has some very nice development from early antagonist to fire-forged friend (and some nice back-to-back fighting with and being dramatically and often bloodily rescued by Lucky and subsequently offering naked post-transformation Lucky his bloodied jacket. I would read Marius/Lucky or Marius/Jen or Marius/Jen/Lucky, is what I'm saying). I also liked Roxy Molina, the crime boss lady funding Lucky's participation in the gambling tournament on the floating sphinx ship, and was happy to see that she survived. But I did also like that the organized crime people, though they may have worked together with Our Heroes, have their own agenda and are in no hurry at all to reform. And also that while Marius and Jen form an alliance at the end, she doesn't entirely trust him, or anyone. And even tertiary characters who show up for only a scene or two felt interesting and likeable and real, like the boutique vendor friend Jen makes on ship, Roxy's bodyguards, the ship's pilot, or Duval the chief of the redcaps.
The worldbuilding is not anything super-special -- fast shifter healing, shifters can recognize each other, shifter law enforcement, anti-shifter secret society -- but the variety of shifter types is refreshing. Jen's gecko is the most extreme example, but there's also mentioned an orca shifter, and a minor character in the book transforms into a civet. And then there are the dragons, of course, which are a secret even from the shifters, and also have special powers -- mind-control, healing, and in Lucky's case, manipulating luck. The luck manipulation is actually neat, the way it works -- it's manipulating probabilities, and seems to cause a shift not only in the things he's directly trying to influence, but in the environment in general, when he's pushing his luck -- such as a tray falling and none of the glasses on it spilling or breaking. This was neat enough in the everyday manifestations with the cards and things like good luck finding people at sea, but the climactic use of Lucky's skill to defeat Angel was especially cool, because turbulence, woo!
The romance is... cute enough, I guess. I liked that Jen and Lucky never lost sight of their primary goals for being there and never stopped thinking about the other's motivations, even while kissing/messing around/bantering. And I liked that for both of them their version of the afterglow was not peaceful cuddling but Let's Go Do Stuff. I also liked the balanced discussion they had at the end, between adjusting to each other's very different lifestyles and being a long-term thing/taking it one day at a time. And I do like the fact that when Lucky is near drowning and thinks he doesn't have much to live for, because he thinks Jen is dead and his family is gone, one way or another, it's not Jen being alive that gets him out of that and wanting to live, it's not even seeing Lucia come after him, although she helps him with the actual rescue, but it's a decision he makes himself.
My favorite funny scenes all involved Marius being put-upon, to wit:
Jen: (to Roxy, after kicking Marius in the groin in his room) Please do me a favor and keep this man away from us. He's dangerous.
'"I'm dangerous?" Marius shouted in aggrieved disbelief.'
Jen, to Marius: I was going to apologize for kicking you in the balls, but I changed my mind! And you've still got my clothes, asshole.
Lucky (to Jen, about Marius): You beat him up and stole his drugs. I'm thinking that's not going to give anyone the best impression of you, Jen.
It looks like the first two books are about Jen's shifter!FBI friends mentioned in the beginning and the end, which sounds quite a bit less interesting (veteran werebear, lone werewolf -- although the koala shifter female lead is an intriguing choice), but book 4, an excerpt from which is included at the end, might actually be kind of interesting, and features a romance beween a were-tiger with a desk job in the shifter!FBI PR department and a Muggle blogger about paranormal conspiracy theories who I believe also happens to be an amputee.
42. Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic -- I've been meaning to read this for the last couple of years, after it originally came up with... egelantier's rec, maybe? Or actually several people's rec around the same time, IIRC. But my library didn't have a copy, and the copies I could find on Amazon were above my "it's just a cup of coffee, might as well give it a shot" threshold, so I kept not reading it. But the universe clearly wanted me to read it NOW, because in the space of like two days a Humble Bundle (that isiscolo linked to) containing this book went up for sale, and then I had dinner with cyanshadow and she handed me a paper copy of this book as part of a gift. OK, universe, OK, point taken.
So, I finally read it, and I'm glad. It's an interesting case -- I think it is a good book, and it is a book I enjoyed, but it is not *my* book. I am easy for elementarl magic, but this one is unusual and somewhat counterintuitive and opaque to me (the fireblood magic, anyway; I think earth will be more intuitive for me, and what little we've seen of water and air is intriguing). I appreciated the range of characters and the range of interactions between them without loving any of them. I appreciated the themes and tensions without being emotionally swept up or moved (which is probably related to the way I feel about the characters). I admired and was charmed by quite a few turns of phrase without the prose really resonating with me. I have, I guess, an intellectual sort of appreciation for it, and a curiosity about the sequels, but I don't LOVE it, the way I love and click with considerably less well done books. But it is a very interesting construct, and I do want to know more about this world, and to know where these people go from here. Spoilers from here!
The thing that really struck me was how many different women this book contained, with so many different personalities and roles, often in opposition to each other. Zanja and Karis, of course, who are the main protagonists (as well as the A couple, eventually), but also Norina the Truthken (who ended up being my favorite), with her divided loyalties and her impatience and rigid pride and her own way of caring about Karis, and impulsive, easy-going pyromaniac Annis (whose death I was sorry about), and Mabin, who turns out to be the antagonist.
Mabin is probably my main complaint about the book (though I'm hoping she'll get something more in the sequel) -- I think she could've easily done most if not all of the things she did while having a more relatable position; she ends up with a strawman argument, I feel like, and is easy to hate or dismiss, because we never see things from her perspective, and I think that would've been better. This way the invading Sainnites come across as more understandable, almost, than the Paladins loyal to Mabin, and I feel like that's a cop-out. The rest of the politics/history is nicely nuanced -- Harald G'Deon may be a controversial figure, but we get two points of view of him, the Sainnites may have massacred Zanja's tribe, but they are also spoken for and represented by Medric. Mabin doesn't get anyone speaking for her, and doesn't get to explain her point of view either, not really. Her motivation felt inconsistent to me, or maybe more boring than it could have been -- is she just power hungry and wants to take over and rule Shaftal herself? Is she a Knight Templar who genuinely believes that Karis is an unworthy vessel and Shaftal would be better served by... what? Her dying of an overdose and the true end of the G'Deaons? Living in a vegetable state (in which state would she even be able to pass on the G'Deon's power if a worthier vessel did come along?) This was disapponting, especially since Mabin is a type of antagonist I like, which is very rare to encounter as a female character, so it especially felt like a waste.
It was also a disappointment because I thought the theme she was getting at here -- the way Shaftal moves away from being Shaftal by becoming distrustful and ruthless under the invaders' assault, the way the new Shaftal is being built/sheltered by people from the fringes (border tribeswoman Zanja and the Otter Tribe, half-Sainnite Medric and Karis, the latter of which is not even Shaftalese on the other side, either) in concert with representatives of the old Lilterwess order (Emil, Norina, J'Han) is actually a neat theme, and I like the way it's pointed out that the original ruling class of Shaftal had once been invaders also, coming to live amongst the tribesman, but all this loses its impact, I feel, when the opposition doesn't have any good points. Like, I think AtLA's The Promise did a more nuanced job of showing the challenges and opportunities of how a people can move from subjugation by foreign invaders to a new national identity which includes the descendents of those invaders.
The other characterss I all liked, including the complications between them -- the sisterly love and prickliness between Karis and Nori, the opposition between Norina and Zanja from the start, but their mutual unwillingness to force Karis to choose between them, the way Annis's roll-in-the-hay approach doesn't do anything for Zanja even though she likes the other woman, and yet Zanja's willingness to use Annis's affection and attraction in order to rescue Karis. It's all interesting and complex and different from each other. And even Zanja and Karis's relationship is nicely complicated, and their resolution and happily-ever-after feels totally earned, individually and as a couple.
I liked the (few) male characters, too, for the record. especially Medric with his two pairs of glasses (for regular seeing and for reading), and while I was very, very bzuh? about Medric and Emil's apparent love at first sight (catalyzed by old books XD), they do seem to be good for each other, so... OK? And I admire the commitment to diversity and representation in sexuality, but must say that the carefully rationed one f/f couple, one m/m couple, one m/f couple (which, looking at the excerpt from Earth Logic is apparently all raising the m/f couple's biological kid as one big happy family, with all the females functioning as mothers and males as fathers) feels rather bingo-y and a bit silly.
I found the pacing very odd, slow in places, skippy in others (although towards the end of the book it evened out mostly), especially with the added confusion of the firebloods' visions and dreams. I suppose this is meant to mimic the way of fire logic passing over thresholds, or possibly the 'hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror' of war, but it definitely took some time to get used to.
I was impressed with the theme of overcoming drug addiction and the way it was handled -- the grueling, tedious work of it, improvements measured in thimblefulls of water. There is magic, which allows Karis to feel -- and her discovering sensation, after more than fifteen years of not feeling anything, was very nicely done, too -- and the water witch gives her the gift of time, which speeds things along, but the crux of the healing is not magical, but very real suffering and effort and loved ones standing by and watching her suffer, supporting her the best they can. I hadn't expected that at all, and was very glad it was written the way it was -- I don't think I've read anything like that before in genre.
Random: Marks seems to REALLY like the word "porringer" XD Porringers everywhere! Porringer porringer porringer porringer. XD
I wasn't able to note down quotes as much because I was reading in hard copy, but this one stood out enough that I wanted to note it down:
Mabin: "Shaftal will not come into the hands of a Sainnite pretender, the smoke-addicted duaghter of a whore."
Karis: "I always thought that you hated me for what I am. But if I am Shaftal, then Shaftal is what you hate. Isn't that true, Mabin Councilor? Don't you hate Shaftal, the land and the people both, because we are half Sainnite? Don't you hate Shaftal because this land is, now, the child of violence and rape? Don't you hate the land because of its subjection and paralysis?"
Also, who is that supposed to be on the cover? I thought Zanja at first, because warrior and the mountain background, but the blond hair seems to suggest it's got to be someone else?
All in all, this book was novel and well-done enough that I find that I keep thinking about it, but not "cranberry" enough for me to just skate on through on a cloud of squee, and not so flawlessly masterful that I'm just left going "OK, wow..." even in places where it's not exactly my thing. But those are the kinds of books that make for most interesting discussion, I find.
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Oh, and in book news: I think I mentioned in a meme last time that Brust was already done with Vallista (and is maybe done with revisions as of late May?). Now he seems to be writing a Paarfi book, and seems to be a quarter along (or possibly even more like a third), moving at a very good clip, since he only started it like 2 weeks ago. He seems to be having a lot of fun with it, too. Very curious to see what more Paarfi could be about!
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Book meme from various places on my flist:
1: Currently Reading
I started Broken Elements, which I think ms_geekette recommended?
2: Describe the last scene you read in as few words as possible. No character names or title.
Not the book from above but something I'm reading in parallel before bed: Young restauranteur summons winged lizard with magic and dead rodent. (Points for guessing ;)
3: First book that had a major influence on you
It's so hard to isolate these things... But probably Kun's Greek myths -- I knew a lot of the stories already, from my mother, but learned a lot of others from here, and mythology and Greek mythology in particular has been such a foundational thing for me.
4: Quick, you're in desperate need of a fake name. What character name do you think of first?
Well, the one I think of first is Mr Underhill (it's the fake name used by the the dragon-in-human-form in LeGuin's short story The Rule of Names, which was my introduction to both Earthsea and LeGuin, and also my favorite dragon character ever). If I were really doing this, I'd go with Bill Underhill in full, because Frodo also uses "Underhill" as an alias in LotR, and Bill sounds like Bilbo while nothing sounds like Frodo.
But Bill Underhill would not make a very convincing alias for me personally, so, um. Most of my favorite characters have kind of unusual names, seeing as how I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi. The first female normal-sounding book character name that pops into my head is Astrid Llewellyn, but I'm not sure I could pull that off.
5: Favorite series and why
Tough one, but let's go with the Vorkosigan Saga (LotR is not a series but one book in three, and Discworld is not linear enough to count as a series, or at least so I have decreed for the purposes of this question).
6: Public library or personal library?
Public library in general, but I've gotten lazy when it comes to ebooks and it's easier to buy than to borrow them... And since lately I'm mostly reading ebooks...
7: What is the most important part of a book, in your opinion?
Characters. But dialogue is also very important to me. This is a matter of personal preference, though.
8: Why are you reading the book you're currently reading?
This was answered a little while earlier, when I was still reading Fire Logic. Because cyanshadow handed it to me, openly introducing it as a self-serving present. But I've actually been meaning to read Fire Logic for ages anyway, so it was perfect.
For the current book, it's because I'm a sucker for elemental magic in general.
9: If you were to publish a book what (besides your real name) would you use for your author name?
I've actually never pondered this, even when I wanted to be a writer, because of course I'd publish under my own name. I'd want to keep my first name ideally, but since that's boring for the sake of this question, mmm. SFF authors seem to have good luck with the Elizabeth + short noun formula (Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Bear, Elizabeth Hand, probably some others). So maybe something like Elizabeth Wane? I do like the name Elizabeth, anyway, and a short last name is much more memorable than mine. But this sounds like a romance writer...
In truth, I could probably not resist some silly pun. I know! I could go with the last name Ogeret, which is sort of interesting looking and means "female hamster" in Hebrew, so, basically, hamsterwoman. As for a first name to go with it, how about Jenna? It's close enough to my real name, and a name I've always liked, but sounds better with the last name than Anna does, because of the J. So, yeah: Jenna Ogeret. You heard it here first.
10: Do you listen to music when you read?
No.
11: What book fandom do you affiliate yourself with the most?
The last one I had a significant affiliation with was ASOIAF. I guess these days I'd say Rivers of London, except the fandom is pretty non-existent.
12: Tell one book story or memory (what you were wearing when you were reading something, someone saw you cry in public, you threw a book across the room and broke a window, etc.)
What you were wearing when you were reading something?? Do people's minds really work that way? Mine doesn't. But here's a book story:
I'm a big believer in book serendipity -- like, the right book coming across my path at the right time. For the longest time this even meant that I wouldn't put books on hold at the library or request them, because if it wasn't on the shelf waiting for me, then it wasn't the right time. I'd wanted to read Emma Bull's War for the Oaks for a while, since seeing it mentioned by, I think, pegkerr). But it's old (1987), and I think was out of print for a while, and was thus fairly obscure. So, I'd wanted to read it for a long while, and then one day in 2005 I got on a MUNI bus at 4th & King, at the terminus, so the bus was totally empty. And there, lying in a seat across from me, was a book. Of course, I had to see what it was, and imagine my delight when it turned out to be a brand new copy of War for the Oaks! Which I immediately started reading and totally loved -- it was probably my favorite urban fantasy book before Rivers of London came along. (The story in-situ is here) I'm not sure if someone had read the book and abandoned it there intentionally, or if they just lost it on the train, but it was a paperback, so new that it clearly had no sentimental value (there was still a Borders sticker on the back) and I figured it would not be worth going to Lost and Found for it even if somebody had lost it accidentally, so I did not feel too many qualms about taking the book.
13: What character would be your best friend in real life?
I'm not sure about BEST, but I would love to be friends with Jaget Kumar from Rivers of London (he's a pretty minor character, but I love him a lot). Peter Grant himself would also make a pretty fun friend to have.
14: Favorite item of book merch
It is a deep tragedy of my existence that a lot of my favorite fandoms tend to be tiny, so I could not buy anything for them. I'd love an eye-of-Horus pin, for instance, or something with brown and silver maple leaves for the Vorkosigan Saga, but alas, earwax. And don't even get me started on Dragaera... I do have some larger fandoms, and mostly through presents from fannish friends have acquired some swag -- a Greyjoy mug and a Scabbers from aome, Ravenclaw socks (from a shopping outing with ikel89, and Aragorn chess piece via ikel89's Secret Santa exchange, a couple of other things. Oh, and Kingkiller Chronicles cards, from a Kickstarter Pat Rothfuss had done. I do, also, have talented and generous friends, as a result of which I have an awesome Tyrell scarfy (from sephystabbity) and T-shirt and equally awesome Fellowship of the Ring T-shirt painted by ikel89. And L made me a cool Discworld shamble to my instructions.
15: Post a shelfie.
On top: forked "Weatherworker" rainstick I made in ceramics, magic wand from Hawaii, assorted geekery from friends and loved ones, dragons, including one from Krakow.
On the sides: wizard's staff I made with the help of a loupe and weak SF sunlight, postal boxes, sign in two languages instructing my grandparents not to open the door to the deck.
Top shelf: Tolkien shelf, with random Inda interloper and Strugatski fantasy on the other end. In the company of Tiny Boxes (TM), featuring boxes by alenky_cveto4ek, my Tarot deck, critters, and Buckyball magnets.
Second shelf: assorted fantasy, with the outer layer visible mostly ASOIAF and Vlad Taltos, plus anthologies on the left, with The Inklings book, which was a present from danny_li2 from Oxford; Kvothe cards on top of GoT coasters
On top: further collection of boxes and bottles
Top shelf: Things that don't fit elsewhere, action figures (LotR Pez, Tywin, Delenn in box), dragons, big-ass spider named Arnold who is 25 years old, dragons, etc.
Second shelf: Funko Magneto, awesome magnetic sand timer from deeplyunhip, Japantown hamster which is inderectly all ikel89 and L's fault, some actual books, with Vorkosigan and Rivers of London peeking out, and also lodessa's Toby Dayes.
Third shelf: More books, including the Oscar Wilde bio I bought when I took ikel89 to Green Apple, Gingema books from mauvais_pli, lunasariel's The Shepherd's Crown, and MCU tsum-tsums from sephystabbity.
Fourth shelf: Hobbit Scrabble from my friend R, more boxes, library books with one of the Paarfi books on top because I was consulting something in there for conversation with alexis_rd.
This is actually a pretty representative balance of toys/random crap and books for my shelves (the serious books live in the living room and are much less often disturbed, so stay in good order).
16: Rant about anything book related
I think I do enough of that without prompting, tbh.
17: What do you think about movie/tv adaptations?
They can be fun, but are mostly disappointing, in big or small ways. There are a very few cases where I like the adaptation as much or more than the original book -- Heart of a Dob, Stardust, Order of the Phoenix, maybe a couple more. Some adaptations are rage-inducing (Percy Jackson is one of the worst ones I've seen, but I know there's worse), some are just baffling in their choices (Home as an adaptation of The True Meaning of Smekday, Ender's Game), and even the ones I liked a lot, like LotR and the Harry Potter movies have plenty for me to quibble about. Which is fine -- they do not supplant the canon in my mind, they are just someone else's interpretation of canon, subject to a lot of constraints. One thing that's both a blessing and a curse about movie/TV adaptations is that they give visuals to a non-visual medium. This can be a good thing (all those sweeping Middle-Earth vistas!) or a bad thing (try finding a book without movie/TV stills on the cover these days, or fanart of non-Orli!Legolas, or...)
18: Favorite booktuber(s)
I totally don't get this as a phenomenon, honestly. Of all the things it makes sense to talk about on video rather than in print, why books?? So, I don't have one.
19: Book that you call your child.
What does that even mean? Wouldn't that have to be a book I actually wrote? Or does this just mean a book I'm very protective of? I do feel that way about the Vorkosigan Saga, and am constantly trying to matchmake it, so I guess it.
20: A character you like but you really, really shouldn't.
This is such a silly question. Does this just mean a character I like who is a terrible person? Let's go with Tywin Lannister in that case.
21: Do you loan your books?
Yes, although for the ones that are really dear to me, like LotR, I have a "MINE!" copy and a copy that goes out to friends' houses. And these days I mainly decide to buy dead tree copies for the purposes of lending/if I knew it's a title I plan to lend. (I really wish Kindle lending would become enabled on more titles. It makes things so much easier!)
22: A movie or tv show you wish would have been a book
That is an interesting question... kind of the flip side of a movie adaptaion one. I prefer books to movies in general, so, any movie? But at the same time, a lot of my favorite movies are already based on books, whether I've read those books (e.g. LotR) or not (e.g. Big Fish). I went ahead and looked through the nominations for Best Original Screenplay and have arrived at the following answer: Good Will Hunting. I've actually not watched the movie, even though it sounds like a great story and one I would enjoy, because I don't like looking at Matt Damon's face. So this way I could've read it. Or, oh, any of a number of animes -- but a book-book, not manga -- because a lot of those also sound like stories Relevant To My Interests, but I just really don't click with the anime style.
23: Did your family or friends influence you to read when you were younger?
My mother especially was always reading, and she read to me, and both she and my grandmother told me stories based on books -- Dumas and Greek myths and classic sci-fi. So they were definitely an influence in my growing to love reading, and also the genres I gravitated to, probably. Friends, not so much, until much later; it wasn't until high school that I was really around other big readers, and finally started getting useful recs -- some that I grew to love, like Tortall and Tad Williams, others that didn't necessarily work out for me, like Dune.
24: First book(s) you remember being obsessed with
I think the first book I was obsessed with for a long time was Roadside Picnic by the Brothers Strugatsky; I spent a whole summer playing at being the main character, and involving my grandmother in a supporting role to this, by asking her to pour me "three fingers of milk" and so on.
25: A book that you think about and you cringe because of how terrible it was
Larry Burkett's The Illuminati, aka Worst Book I've Ever Read. It was for a class, paired with The Handmaid's Tale as an example of didactic dystopia, because the instructor wanted opposing points of view. Let me tell you, though, Larry Burkett ain't no Margaret Atwood, and it wasn't a very fair comparison.
26: Do you read from recommendations or whatever book catches your eye?
Mostly recs these days. I have more of them then I have time to read.
27: How/where do you purchase your books?
These days mostly on Amazon in Kindle format. But there is a cute neighborhood bookstore on West Portal still, that I like browsing, and some used bookshops I like, too, although I don't get to go there very much.
28: An ending you wish you could change
The end of the Lynburn Legacy. I seriously have never felt so befuddled and betrayed by an epilogue before. WTF. It felt like an editor snuck in and wrote the epilogue on her own, athwart what I'd been convinced the series was doing.
29: Favorite female protagonist.
Astrid Llewellyn, but since I've mentioned her already, let's go with Granny Weatherwax (if she counts as a protagonist) or Gratuity Tucci from The True Meaning of Smekday.
30: One book everyone should read
Nah. Although I do think The Little Prince is a worthwhile rec to anyone.
31: Do you day dream about your favorite books? If so, share one fantasy you have about them.
Haha, only allll the time, since I was a little kid. I would always want to 'collect' my favorite characters from everything (often saving their lives somehow, because my favorites tend to die a lot in their canons), and they would all live in a mansion and interact with each other in a giant crossover, which was basically a one-kid multiverse RPG. And for books I especially liked, I'd often spend months pretending to be my favorite characters while I was alone (or sometimes if I could get an accomplice into it), talking for several characters, thinking about the characters and what else I could do with(/to) them as I was drifing off to sleep, stuff like that. The crossover character memes I'm so fond of inflicting on you all are the present-day manifestation of the same sort of thing.
32: OTP or NoTP?
What does that mean? One of each? Aral/Cordelia Vorkosigan for OTP. Canonical NoTP? There are a lot of canon couples I don't care about, but it's harder for me to think of one I'm emphatically opposed to -- mostly those tend to come up in books I don't enjoy enough to finish reading them. I guess I didn't enjoy Aragorn/Arwen at all, or Faramir/Eowyn for that matter (though the latter was mostly on my friend R's behalf, because Faramir was "hers" :P)
33: Cute and fluffy or dramatic and deadly?
Ideally a mix of both, but really I'm fine with either as long as the book is also funny. Probably more on the fluffy side than the dramatic side, as a steady diet, though.
34: Scariest book you ever read
I don't read horror and avoid nonfiction that I know I would find upsetting, so, pass. I did read rather a lot of creepy Edgar Allan Poe stories growing up, though.
35: What do you think of Ebooks
Instant gratification on new titles + not having to lug a bunch of hardback around for travel/a long commute + searchability + ability to bookmark and highlight without damaging the book = overall win. I do wish they were easier to lend, though.
36: Unpopular opinions
I don't think I have any unpopular opinions about books. (Unpopular among whom?) Well, about one specific book, I guess my strong dislike of Eowyn is an unpopular opinion. I can't think of anything more unpopular than that.
37: A book you are scared is not going to be all you hoped it would be
At this point I'm fully prepared to be disappointed by League of Dragons and The Winds of Winter. I'm worried about The Doors of Stone, because I liked book 2 so much (though it had a lot to quibble with, also) -- Rothfuss has been working on it so long (it's been 5 years since WMF, and the book doesn't appear to be even written yet...), I really wonder what's going to come out at the end. Also, a bit worried about The Hanging Tree (RoL #6), just because I love the series so much, but Aaronovitch doesn't shy away from drastic changes from one book to the next, so I'm worried really anything could happen. And I trust him as an author, but I'm also worried about my favorite characters.
38: What qualities do you find annoying in a character?
Obliviousness, especially in characters who are supposed to be sharp, observant, intelligent (e.g. Toby Daye, Alexia Terabotti) -- and Informed Ability in general.
39: Favorite villain
Vorbis from Small Gods. PTerry writes great villains.
40: Has there ever been a book you wish you could un-read?
Haha, yes, actually! I wish I had stopped reading the Lumatere Chronicles with Finnikin of the Rock, which I really enjoyed, without continuing on to Froi of the Exiles, which undermined my appreciation for the first book. I also wish I had stopped the Enderverse cascade with Ender's Game or at most Speaker for the Dead.
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And a fandom meme from asthenie_vd: Comment with a fandom, and I'll tell you:
Who I will protect at all costs:
Who deserves better:
Who was killed off too early:
Who I used to hate but now I love:
Who I used to love but now I hate:
Who needs to be killed off asap:
Who is unfairly hated:
Who is unfairly loved:
Who needs to sort out their priorities:
Who needs a hug:
Who needs to get out of their current relationship:
Who the writers love:
Who needs a better story line:
Who has an amazing redemption arc:
Who is hot af:
Who belongs in jail:
Who needs to be revived from the dead:
Fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6)/Angel (first season and a half), Chronicles of Amber, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Locke Lamora, Rivers of London, Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tolkien, Tortall, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.
I wasn't sure if I'd find the heroine, Jen Cho, grating or charming, but it ended up being charming. I feel like she is sort of what Kami Glass was supposed to be in the Lynburn books, a FORWARD MOMENTUM!/Refuge in Audacity sort of female character, only she actually worked for me, the whole caffeine-and-sugar guzzling, attention-attracting, pathological-friend-making, queen-of-crazy-decisions and pulling them off package. I thought I'd be all about Lucky the dragon shifter, since I tend to like humaniform dragons/dragons who can assume human form, but the dragons (Lucky the male lead, Lucia/Lux, his baby sister turned powerful drug lord, and Angel the sociopath cousin) were merely OK -- Angel is a decent antagonist, Lucky is a decent love interest (I did find his sea-sickness a neat sort of character detail; you don't get that a lot, with leading men), and Lucia *is* actually interesting, but I would've liked there to be more of her. But Jen carried the show, and my favorite character actually ended up being Marius/Matteo of the Valeria, who has some very nice development from early antagonist to fire-forged friend (and some nice back-to-back fighting with and being dramatically and often bloodily rescued by Lucky and subsequently offering naked post-transformation Lucky his bloodied jacket. I would read Marius/Lucky or Marius/Jen or Marius/Jen/Lucky, is what I'm saying). I also liked Roxy Molina, the crime boss lady funding Lucky's participation in the gambling tournament on the floating sphinx ship, and was happy to see that she survived. But I did also like that the organized crime people, though they may have worked together with Our Heroes, have their own agenda and are in no hurry at all to reform. And also that while Marius and Jen form an alliance at the end, she doesn't entirely trust him, or anyone. And even tertiary characters who show up for only a scene or two felt interesting and likeable and real, like the boutique vendor friend Jen makes on ship, Roxy's bodyguards, the ship's pilot, or Duval the chief of the redcaps.
The worldbuilding is not anything super-special -- fast shifter healing, shifters can recognize each other, shifter law enforcement, anti-shifter secret society -- but the variety of shifter types is refreshing. Jen's gecko is the most extreme example, but there's also mentioned an orca shifter, and a minor character in the book transforms into a civet. And then there are the dragons, of course, which are a secret even from the shifters, and also have special powers -- mind-control, healing, and in Lucky's case, manipulating luck. The luck manipulation is actually neat, the way it works -- it's manipulating probabilities, and seems to cause a shift not only in the things he's directly trying to influence, but in the environment in general, when he's pushing his luck -- such as a tray falling and none of the glasses on it spilling or breaking. This was neat enough in the everyday manifestations with the cards and things like good luck finding people at sea, but the climactic use of Lucky's skill to defeat Angel was especially cool, because turbulence, woo!
The romance is... cute enough, I guess. I liked that Jen and Lucky never lost sight of their primary goals for being there and never stopped thinking about the other's motivations, even while kissing/messing around/bantering. And I liked that for both of them their version of the afterglow was not peaceful cuddling but Let's Go Do Stuff. I also liked the balanced discussion they had at the end, between adjusting to each other's very different lifestyles and being a long-term thing/taking it one day at a time. And I do like the fact that when Lucky is near drowning and thinks he doesn't have much to live for, because he thinks Jen is dead and his family is gone, one way or another, it's not Jen being alive that gets him out of that and wanting to live, it's not even seeing Lucia come after him, although she helps him with the actual rescue, but it's a decision he makes himself.
My favorite funny scenes all involved Marius being put-upon, to wit:
Jen: (to Roxy, after kicking Marius in the groin in his room) Please do me a favor and keep this man away from us. He's dangerous.
'"I'm dangerous?" Marius shouted in aggrieved disbelief.'
Jen, to Marius: I was going to apologize for kicking you in the balls, but I changed my mind! And you've still got my clothes, asshole.
Lucky (to Jen, about Marius): You beat him up and stole his drugs. I'm thinking that's not going to give anyone the best impression of you, Jen.
It looks like the first two books are about Jen's shifter!FBI friends mentioned in the beginning and the end, which sounds quite a bit less interesting (veteran werebear, lone werewolf -- although the koala shifter female lead is an intriguing choice), but book 4, an excerpt from which is included at the end, might actually be kind of interesting, and features a romance beween a were-tiger with a desk job in the shifter!FBI PR department and a Muggle blogger about paranormal conspiracy theories who I believe also happens to be an amputee.
42. Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic -- I've been meaning to read this for the last couple of years, after it originally came up with... egelantier's rec, maybe? Or actually several people's rec around the same time, IIRC. But my library didn't have a copy, and the copies I could find on Amazon were above my "it's just a cup of coffee, might as well give it a shot" threshold, so I kept not reading it. But the universe clearly wanted me to read it NOW, because in the space of like two days a Humble Bundle (that isiscolo linked to) containing this book went up for sale, and then I had dinner with cyanshadow and she handed me a paper copy of this book as part of a gift. OK, universe, OK, point taken.
So, I finally read it, and I'm glad. It's an interesting case -- I think it is a good book, and it is a book I enjoyed, but it is not *my* book. I am easy for elementarl magic, but this one is unusual and somewhat counterintuitive and opaque to me (the fireblood magic, anyway; I think earth will be more intuitive for me, and what little we've seen of water and air is intriguing). I appreciated the range of characters and the range of interactions between them without loving any of them. I appreciated the themes and tensions without being emotionally swept up or moved (which is probably related to the way I feel about the characters). I admired and was charmed by quite a few turns of phrase without the prose really resonating with me. I have, I guess, an intellectual sort of appreciation for it, and a curiosity about the sequels, but I don't LOVE it, the way I love and click with considerably less well done books. But it is a very interesting construct, and I do want to know more about this world, and to know where these people go from here. Spoilers from here!
The thing that really struck me was how many different women this book contained, with so many different personalities and roles, often in opposition to each other. Zanja and Karis, of course, who are the main protagonists (as well as the A couple, eventually), but also Norina the Truthken (who ended up being my favorite), with her divided loyalties and her impatience and rigid pride and her own way of caring about Karis, and impulsive, easy-going pyromaniac Annis (whose death I was sorry about), and Mabin, who turns out to be the antagonist.
Mabin is probably my main complaint about the book (though I'm hoping she'll get something more in the sequel) -- I think she could've easily done most if not all of the things she did while having a more relatable position; she ends up with a strawman argument, I feel like, and is easy to hate or dismiss, because we never see things from her perspective, and I think that would've been better. This way the invading Sainnites come across as more understandable, almost, than the Paladins loyal to Mabin, and I feel like that's a cop-out. The rest of the politics/history is nicely nuanced -- Harald G'Deon may be a controversial figure, but we get two points of view of him, the Sainnites may have massacred Zanja's tribe, but they are also spoken for and represented by Medric. Mabin doesn't get anyone speaking for her, and doesn't get to explain her point of view either, not really. Her motivation felt inconsistent to me, or maybe more boring than it could have been -- is she just power hungry and wants to take over and rule Shaftal herself? Is she a Knight Templar who genuinely believes that Karis is an unworthy vessel and Shaftal would be better served by... what? Her dying of an overdose and the true end of the G'Deaons? Living in a vegetable state (in which state would she even be able to pass on the G'Deon's power if a worthier vessel did come along?) This was disapponting, especially since Mabin is a type of antagonist I like, which is very rare to encounter as a female character, so it especially felt like a waste.
It was also a disappointment because I thought the theme she was getting at here -- the way Shaftal moves away from being Shaftal by becoming distrustful and ruthless under the invaders' assault, the way the new Shaftal is being built/sheltered by people from the fringes (border tribeswoman Zanja and the Otter Tribe, half-Sainnite Medric and Karis, the latter of which is not even Shaftalese on the other side, either) in concert with representatives of the old Lilterwess order (Emil, Norina, J'Han) is actually a neat theme, and I like the way it's pointed out that the original ruling class of Shaftal had once been invaders also, coming to live amongst the tribesman, but all this loses its impact, I feel, when the opposition doesn't have any good points. Like, I think AtLA's The Promise did a more nuanced job of showing the challenges and opportunities of how a people can move from subjugation by foreign invaders to a new national identity which includes the descendents of those invaders.
The other characterss I all liked, including the complications between them -- the sisterly love and prickliness between Karis and Nori, the opposition between Norina and Zanja from the start, but their mutual unwillingness to force Karis to choose between them, the way Annis's roll-in-the-hay approach doesn't do anything for Zanja even though she likes the other woman, and yet Zanja's willingness to use Annis's affection and attraction in order to rescue Karis. It's all interesting and complex and different from each other. And even Zanja and Karis's relationship is nicely complicated, and their resolution and happily-ever-after feels totally earned, individually and as a couple.
I liked the (few) male characters, too, for the record. especially Medric with his two pairs of glasses (for regular seeing and for reading), and while I was very, very bzuh? about Medric and Emil's apparent love at first sight (catalyzed by old books XD), they do seem to be good for each other, so... OK? And I admire the commitment to diversity and representation in sexuality, but must say that the carefully rationed one f/f couple, one m/m couple, one m/f couple (which, looking at the excerpt from Earth Logic is apparently all raising the m/f couple's biological kid as one big happy family, with all the females functioning as mothers and males as fathers) feels rather bingo-y and a bit silly.
I found the pacing very odd, slow in places, skippy in others (although towards the end of the book it evened out mostly), especially with the added confusion of the firebloods' visions and dreams. I suppose this is meant to mimic the way of fire logic passing over thresholds, or possibly the 'hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror' of war, but it definitely took some time to get used to.
I was impressed with the theme of overcoming drug addiction and the way it was handled -- the grueling, tedious work of it, improvements measured in thimblefulls of water. There is magic, which allows Karis to feel -- and her discovering sensation, after more than fifteen years of not feeling anything, was very nicely done, too -- and the water witch gives her the gift of time, which speeds things along, but the crux of the healing is not magical, but very real suffering and effort and loved ones standing by and watching her suffer, supporting her the best they can. I hadn't expected that at all, and was very glad it was written the way it was -- I don't think I've read anything like that before in genre.
Random: Marks seems to REALLY like the word "porringer" XD Porringers everywhere! Porringer porringer porringer porringer. XD
I wasn't able to note down quotes as much because I was reading in hard copy, but this one stood out enough that I wanted to note it down:
Mabin: "Shaftal will not come into the hands of a Sainnite pretender, the smoke-addicted duaghter of a whore."
Karis: "I always thought that you hated me for what I am. But if I am Shaftal, then Shaftal is what you hate. Isn't that true, Mabin Councilor? Don't you hate Shaftal, the land and the people both, because we are half Sainnite? Don't you hate Shaftal because this land is, now, the child of violence and rape? Don't you hate the land because of its subjection and paralysis?"
Also, who is that supposed to be on the cover? I thought Zanja at first, because warrior and the mountain background, but the blond hair seems to suggest it's got to be someone else?
All in all, this book was novel and well-done enough that I find that I keep thinking about it, but not "cranberry" enough for me to just skate on through on a cloud of squee, and not so flawlessly masterful that I'm just left going "OK, wow..." even in places where it's not exactly my thing. But those are the kinds of books that make for most interesting discussion, I find.
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Oh, and in book news: I think I mentioned in a meme last time that Brust was already done with Vallista (and is maybe done with revisions as of late May?). Now he seems to be writing a Paarfi book, and seems to be a quarter along (or possibly even more like a third), moving at a very good clip, since he only started it like 2 weeks ago. He seems to be having a lot of fun with it, too. Very curious to see what more Paarfi could be about!
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Book meme from various places on my flist:
1: Currently Reading
I started Broken Elements, which I think ms_geekette recommended?
2: Describe the last scene you read in as few words as possible. No character names or title.
Not the book from above but something I'm reading in parallel before bed: Young restauranteur summons winged lizard with magic and dead rodent. (Points for guessing ;)
3: First book that had a major influence on you
It's so hard to isolate these things... But probably Kun's Greek myths -- I knew a lot of the stories already, from my mother, but learned a lot of others from here, and mythology and Greek mythology in particular has been such a foundational thing for me.
4: Quick, you're in desperate need of a fake name. What character name do you think of first?
Well, the one I think of first is Mr Underhill (it's the fake name used by the the dragon-in-human-form in LeGuin's short story The Rule of Names, which was my introduction to both Earthsea and LeGuin, and also my favorite dragon character ever). If I were really doing this, I'd go with Bill Underhill in full, because Frodo also uses "Underhill" as an alias in LotR, and Bill sounds like Bilbo while nothing sounds like Frodo.
But Bill Underhill would not make a very convincing alias for me personally, so, um. Most of my favorite characters have kind of unusual names, seeing as how I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi. The first female normal-sounding book character name that pops into my head is Astrid Llewellyn, but I'm not sure I could pull that off.
5: Favorite series and why
Tough one, but let's go with the Vorkosigan Saga (LotR is not a series but one book in three, and Discworld is not linear enough to count as a series, or at least so I have decreed for the purposes of this question).
6: Public library or personal library?
Public library in general, but I've gotten lazy when it comes to ebooks and it's easier to buy than to borrow them... And since lately I'm mostly reading ebooks...
7: What is the most important part of a book, in your opinion?
Characters. But dialogue is also very important to me. This is a matter of personal preference, though.
8: Why are you reading the book you're currently reading?
This was answered a little while earlier, when I was still reading Fire Logic. Because cyanshadow handed it to me, openly introducing it as a self-serving present. But I've actually been meaning to read Fire Logic for ages anyway, so it was perfect.
For the current book, it's because I'm a sucker for elemental magic in general.
9: If you were to publish a book what (besides your real name) would you use for your author name?
I've actually never pondered this, even when I wanted to be a writer, because of course I'd publish under my own name. I'd want to keep my first name ideally, but since that's boring for the sake of this question, mmm. SFF authors seem to have good luck with the Elizabeth + short noun formula (Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Bear, Elizabeth Hand, probably some others). So maybe something like Elizabeth Wane? I do like the name Elizabeth, anyway, and a short last name is much more memorable than mine. But this sounds like a romance writer...
In truth, I could probably not resist some silly pun. I know! I could go with the last name Ogeret, which is sort of interesting looking and means "female hamster" in Hebrew, so, basically, hamsterwoman. As for a first name to go with it, how about Jenna? It's close enough to my real name, and a name I've always liked, but sounds better with the last name than Anna does, because of the J. So, yeah: Jenna Ogeret. You heard it here first.
10: Do you listen to music when you read?
No.
11: What book fandom do you affiliate yourself with the most?
The last one I had a significant affiliation with was ASOIAF. I guess these days I'd say Rivers of London, except the fandom is pretty non-existent.
12: Tell one book story or memory (what you were wearing when you were reading something, someone saw you cry in public, you threw a book across the room and broke a window, etc.)
What you were wearing when you were reading something?? Do people's minds really work that way? Mine doesn't. But here's a book story:
I'm a big believer in book serendipity -- like, the right book coming across my path at the right time. For the longest time this even meant that I wouldn't put books on hold at the library or request them, because if it wasn't on the shelf waiting for me, then it wasn't the right time. I'd wanted to read Emma Bull's War for the Oaks for a while, since seeing it mentioned by, I think, pegkerr). But it's old (1987), and I think was out of print for a while, and was thus fairly obscure. So, I'd wanted to read it for a long while, and then one day in 2005 I got on a MUNI bus at 4th & King, at the terminus, so the bus was totally empty. And there, lying in a seat across from me, was a book. Of course, I had to see what it was, and imagine my delight when it turned out to be a brand new copy of War for the Oaks! Which I immediately started reading and totally loved -- it was probably my favorite urban fantasy book before Rivers of London came along. (The story in-situ is here) I'm not sure if someone had read the book and abandoned it there intentionally, or if they just lost it on the train, but it was a paperback, so new that it clearly had no sentimental value (there was still a Borders sticker on the back) and I figured it would not be worth going to Lost and Found for it even if somebody had lost it accidentally, so I did not feel too many qualms about taking the book.
13: What character would be your best friend in real life?
I'm not sure about BEST, but I would love to be friends with Jaget Kumar from Rivers of London (he's a pretty minor character, but I love him a lot). Peter Grant himself would also make a pretty fun friend to have.
14: Favorite item of book merch
It is a deep tragedy of my existence that a lot of my favorite fandoms tend to be tiny, so I could not buy anything for them. I'd love an eye-of-Horus pin, for instance, or something with brown and silver maple leaves for the Vorkosigan Saga, but alas, earwax. And don't even get me started on Dragaera... I do have some larger fandoms, and mostly through presents from fannish friends have acquired some swag -- a Greyjoy mug and a Scabbers from aome, Ravenclaw socks (from a shopping outing with ikel89, and Aragorn chess piece via ikel89's Secret Santa exchange, a couple of other things. Oh, and Kingkiller Chronicles cards, from a Kickstarter Pat Rothfuss had done. I do, also, have talented and generous friends, as a result of which I have an awesome Tyrell scarfy (from sephystabbity) and T-shirt and equally awesome Fellowship of the Ring T-shirt painted by ikel89. And L made me a cool Discworld shamble to my instructions.
15: Post a shelfie.
On top: forked "Weatherworker" rainstick I made in ceramics, magic wand from Hawaii, assorted geekery from friends and loved ones, dragons, including one from Krakow.
On the sides: wizard's staff I made with the help of a loupe and weak SF sunlight, postal boxes, sign in two languages instructing my grandparents not to open the door to the deck.
Top shelf: Tolkien shelf, with random Inda interloper and Strugatski fantasy on the other end. In the company of Tiny Boxes (TM), featuring boxes by alenky_cveto4ek, my Tarot deck, critters, and Buckyball magnets.
Second shelf: assorted fantasy, with the outer layer visible mostly ASOIAF and Vlad Taltos, plus anthologies on the left, with The Inklings book, which was a present from danny_li2 from Oxford; Kvothe cards on top of GoT coasters
On top: further collection of boxes and bottles
Top shelf: Things that don't fit elsewhere, action figures (LotR Pez, Tywin, Delenn in box), dragons, big-ass spider named Arnold who is 25 years old, dragons, etc.
Second shelf: Funko Magneto, awesome magnetic sand timer from deeplyunhip, Japantown hamster which is inderectly all ikel89 and L's fault, some actual books, with Vorkosigan and Rivers of London peeking out, and also lodessa's Toby Dayes.
Third shelf: More books, including the Oscar Wilde bio I bought when I took ikel89 to Green Apple, Gingema books from mauvais_pli, lunasariel's The Shepherd's Crown, and MCU tsum-tsums from sephystabbity.
Fourth shelf: Hobbit Scrabble from my friend R, more boxes, library books with one of the Paarfi books on top because I was consulting something in there for conversation with alexis_rd.
This is actually a pretty representative balance of toys/random crap and books for my shelves (the serious books live in the living room and are much less often disturbed, so stay in good order).
16: Rant about anything book related
I think I do enough of that without prompting, tbh.
17: What do you think about movie/tv adaptations?
They can be fun, but are mostly disappointing, in big or small ways. There are a very few cases where I like the adaptation as much or more than the original book -- Heart of a Dob, Stardust, Order of the Phoenix, maybe a couple more. Some adaptations are rage-inducing (Percy Jackson is one of the worst ones I've seen, but I know there's worse), some are just baffling in their choices (Home as an adaptation of The True Meaning of Smekday, Ender's Game), and even the ones I liked a lot, like LotR and the Harry Potter movies have plenty for me to quibble about. Which is fine -- they do not supplant the canon in my mind, they are just someone else's interpretation of canon, subject to a lot of constraints. One thing that's both a blessing and a curse about movie/TV adaptations is that they give visuals to a non-visual medium. This can be a good thing (all those sweeping Middle-Earth vistas!) or a bad thing (try finding a book without movie/TV stills on the cover these days, or fanart of non-Orli!Legolas, or...)
18: Favorite booktuber(s)
I totally don't get this as a phenomenon, honestly. Of all the things it makes sense to talk about on video rather than in print, why books?? So, I don't have one.
19: Book that you call your child.
What does that even mean? Wouldn't that have to be a book I actually wrote? Or does this just mean a book I'm very protective of? I do feel that way about the Vorkosigan Saga, and am constantly trying to matchmake it, so I guess it.
20: A character you like but you really, really shouldn't.
This is such a silly question. Does this just mean a character I like who is a terrible person? Let's go with Tywin Lannister in that case.
21: Do you loan your books?
Yes, although for the ones that are really dear to me, like LotR, I have a "MINE!" copy and a copy that goes out to friends' houses. And these days I mainly decide to buy dead tree copies for the purposes of lending/if I knew it's a title I plan to lend. (I really wish Kindle lending would become enabled on more titles. It makes things so much easier!)
22: A movie or tv show you wish would have been a book
That is an interesting question... kind of the flip side of a movie adaptaion one. I prefer books to movies in general, so, any movie? But at the same time, a lot of my favorite movies are already based on books, whether I've read those books (e.g. LotR) or not (e.g. Big Fish). I went ahead and looked through the nominations for Best Original Screenplay and have arrived at the following answer: Good Will Hunting. I've actually not watched the movie, even though it sounds like a great story and one I would enjoy, because I don't like looking at Matt Damon's face. So this way I could've read it. Or, oh, any of a number of animes -- but a book-book, not manga -- because a lot of those also sound like stories Relevant To My Interests, but I just really don't click with the anime style.
23: Did your family or friends influence you to read when you were younger?
My mother especially was always reading, and she read to me, and both she and my grandmother told me stories based on books -- Dumas and Greek myths and classic sci-fi. So they were definitely an influence in my growing to love reading, and also the genres I gravitated to, probably. Friends, not so much, until much later; it wasn't until high school that I was really around other big readers, and finally started getting useful recs -- some that I grew to love, like Tortall and Tad Williams, others that didn't necessarily work out for me, like Dune.
24: First book(s) you remember being obsessed with
I think the first book I was obsessed with for a long time was Roadside Picnic by the Brothers Strugatsky; I spent a whole summer playing at being the main character, and involving my grandmother in a supporting role to this, by asking her to pour me "three fingers of milk" and so on.
25: A book that you think about and you cringe because of how terrible it was
Larry Burkett's The Illuminati, aka Worst Book I've Ever Read. It was for a class, paired with The Handmaid's Tale as an example of didactic dystopia, because the instructor wanted opposing points of view. Let me tell you, though, Larry Burkett ain't no Margaret Atwood, and it wasn't a very fair comparison.
26: Do you read from recommendations or whatever book catches your eye?
Mostly recs these days. I have more of them then I have time to read.
27: How/where do you purchase your books?
These days mostly on Amazon in Kindle format. But there is a cute neighborhood bookstore on West Portal still, that I like browsing, and some used bookshops I like, too, although I don't get to go there very much.
28: An ending you wish you could change
The end of the Lynburn Legacy. I seriously have never felt so befuddled and betrayed by an epilogue before. WTF. It felt like an editor snuck in and wrote the epilogue on her own, athwart what I'd been convinced the series was doing.
29: Favorite female protagonist.
Astrid Llewellyn, but since I've mentioned her already, let's go with Granny Weatherwax (if she counts as a protagonist) or Gratuity Tucci from The True Meaning of Smekday.
30: One book everyone should read
Nah. Although I do think The Little Prince is a worthwhile rec to anyone.
31: Do you day dream about your favorite books? If so, share one fantasy you have about them.
Haha, only allll the time, since I was a little kid. I would always want to 'collect' my favorite characters from everything (often saving their lives somehow, because my favorites tend to die a lot in their canons), and they would all live in a mansion and interact with each other in a giant crossover, which was basically a one-kid multiverse RPG. And for books I especially liked, I'd often spend months pretending to be my favorite characters while I was alone (or sometimes if I could get an accomplice into it), talking for several characters, thinking about the characters and what else I could do with(/to) them as I was drifing off to sleep, stuff like that. The crossover character memes I'm so fond of inflicting on you all are the present-day manifestation of the same sort of thing.
32: OTP or NoTP?
What does that mean? One of each? Aral/Cordelia Vorkosigan for OTP. Canonical NoTP? There are a lot of canon couples I don't care about, but it's harder for me to think of one I'm emphatically opposed to -- mostly those tend to come up in books I don't enjoy enough to finish reading them. I guess I didn't enjoy Aragorn/Arwen at all, or Faramir/Eowyn for that matter (though the latter was mostly on my friend R's behalf, because Faramir was "hers" :P)
33: Cute and fluffy or dramatic and deadly?
Ideally a mix of both, but really I'm fine with either as long as the book is also funny. Probably more on the fluffy side than the dramatic side, as a steady diet, though.
34: Scariest book you ever read
I don't read horror and avoid nonfiction that I know I would find upsetting, so, pass. I did read rather a lot of creepy Edgar Allan Poe stories growing up, though.
35: What do you think of Ebooks
Instant gratification on new titles + not having to lug a bunch of hardback around for travel/a long commute + searchability + ability to bookmark and highlight without damaging the book = overall win. I do wish they were easier to lend, though.
36: Unpopular opinions
I don't think I have any unpopular opinions about books. (Unpopular among whom?) Well, about one specific book, I guess my strong dislike of Eowyn is an unpopular opinion. I can't think of anything more unpopular than that.
37: A book you are scared is not going to be all you hoped it would be
At this point I'm fully prepared to be disappointed by League of Dragons and The Winds of Winter. I'm worried about The Doors of Stone, because I liked book 2 so much (though it had a lot to quibble with, also) -- Rothfuss has been working on it so long (it's been 5 years since WMF, and the book doesn't appear to be even written yet...), I really wonder what's going to come out at the end. Also, a bit worried about The Hanging Tree (RoL #6), just because I love the series so much, but Aaronovitch doesn't shy away from drastic changes from one book to the next, so I'm worried really anything could happen. And I trust him as an author, but I'm also worried about my favorite characters.
38: What qualities do you find annoying in a character?
Obliviousness, especially in characters who are supposed to be sharp, observant, intelligent (e.g. Toby Daye, Alexia Terabotti) -- and Informed Ability in general.
39: Favorite villain
Vorbis from Small Gods. PTerry writes great villains.
40: Has there ever been a book you wish you could un-read?
Haha, yes, actually! I wish I had stopped reading the Lumatere Chronicles with Finnikin of the Rock, which I really enjoyed, without continuing on to Froi of the Exiles, which undermined my appreciation for the first book. I also wish I had stopped the Enderverse cascade with Ender's Game or at most Speaker for the Dead.
**
And a fandom meme from asthenie_vd: Comment with a fandom, and I'll tell you:
Who I will protect at all costs:
Who deserves better:
Who was killed off too early:
Who I used to hate but now I love:
Who I used to love but now I hate:
Who needs to be killed off asap:
Who is unfairly hated:
Who is unfairly loved:
Who needs to sort out their priorities:
Who needs a hug:
Who needs to get out of their current relationship:
Who the writers love:
Who needs a better story line:
Who has an amazing redemption arc:
Who is hot af:
Who belongs in jail:
Who needs to be revived from the dead:
Fandoms of note: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6)/Angel (first season and a half), Chronicles of Amber, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Locke Lamora, Rivers of London, Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tolkien, Tortall, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.