2009 Books

[linthornhill]

I wasn't so great keeping up with last year's list, but I shall try again this year, with hopefully better results. And this year, I've decided to make a 'To Be Read' list. I'm sure it will grow and roll over into 2010, but still, it'll be nice to track.

It seems I'm way behind in my reviews ...

Comments

[linthornhill]

I loved Children of the Night. I had read it several years ago, but when I found that the 'airplane reads' were vampiric, and well, one other reason for reading up on vampires happened recently, I thought to re-read my favorite vampire novel. This is it. Sadly, it's quite dated at this point, which is too bad because I think it works so very well in human terms.

Banewrecker has me lurching through the first chapter in fits and starts. She's made a mistake with this world. Her lead-in character isn't terribly sympathetic to begin with, and is something she did extremely well in Kushiel. But I'll continue to give it a shot.

I've never read White's book, although I'm not sure why not. I've never read Mists of Avalon either, for some odd reason. Actually I think Mary Stewart's Merlin (The Crystal Cave series,) was my formative Arthurian work and it may be that my affection for them outweighed any desire I had to read someone else's version. Of course, I was fifteen then, and I suppose I could throw off the judgment of a teenager, don't you think?

Bujold is an excellent writer. Her stories have pathos and very real heroes/heroines. I like a touch of realism to my fantasy.

As for The Historian, I'm having the same difficulty as you are, and it's waiting for me to run through other stuff to give it a try again.

I've put Laurie King's series on my 'must acquire' list. Probably this weekend, if all goes well.

[harmony_bites]

Banewrecker does get better--It's a kinda fantasy Paradise Lost but I was disappointed with it after reading Kushiel. She actually wrote it after the first Trilogy but before the second, and I suspect she returned to Kushiel because she just couldn't reproduce it's success. It says something I never picked up the sequel to Banewrecker

Historian is supposedly another one that gets better as it goes along, but damn I gave the thing about 100 pages and was still bored.

I'm not a fan of Mists of Avalon Maybe because well before it was published I was from childhood a fan of her Darkover series (fantasy/sci-fi--advanced spacefaring civilization clashing with feudal psychic/magical culture). In comparison I found her Arthurian stuff meh. Mary Stewart's trilogy is my favorite too--I imprinted on them and they were I think among my first Arthurian tales--I loved how they were grounded in history. But I love White's too--but they're very different.

Been many a year since I read Children of the Night Why do you think they're dated? I'd think Vampire fic would be timeless--Dracula imo holds up.

[linthornhill]

I'll push on with Carey's book then, and it's nice to know it gets better. It's entirely possible that she's really only a one-verse writer. I have the second book, but we'll see if I read it. Dunno yet.

Historian is a ponderous read. Some of the language is exquisite, and it's a perfect bed-time book. It'll lull you to sleep in three pages or less (at least, this has been my reaction so far.) ::snicker::

See. It's Mary Stewart's fault! She's created such an endearing character, it's difficult to want to read any other versions. I'll just have to look at White's version as fanfiction.

It's not the plot or the basic character dynamics, but it's terms like 'Foxy' for sexy which anchor it firmly in the eighties and nineties. Still, it remains my favorite piece of vampire-fiction out there.

[harmony_bites]

In it's way, Banewrecker is even more masterful world-building than Kushiel, and it's characters did eventually gain my sympathy, or at least my interest--but it was a distant thing compared to how I felt about characters like Phedre and Joscelyn.

I'll just have to look at White's version as fanfiction.

Or rather, given the two books really have so little in common (White is fantasy, Stewart more historical fiction) alternate universe.