crawls out from under rock*
Um... hi. I've been kinda absent, in fact I haven't looked at my flist in weeks, never mind posted anything myself in ages. Will try to be better, but RL is busy - I just finished a five week practical experience in a secondary school - it was mad. Never thought I'd end up liking the 11-12 year olds better than the older teens, but there you go. The kids can be really cute, though quite annoying too. And now I've got to write a term paper for a history seminar and also a report about the practical. Blergh.
What with this and other stuff, I spent all my online time chilling while playing browser games - lately I've been hooked on Dragoncave - do give my eggs and hatchies some loving, if you have time to spare: Scroll. And I'm trying to do some dragon pixel art for it. will post it here, if anything comes out of it. For now have the sketch. (my scanner is working again! Yeah, it's been broken for months, or rather I couldn't reinstall the driver, but now it's good again. I guess I have no excuse now to delay working on the hp_art_project ;) )
What else... I've read a bit! Not as much as I would have liked, what with the school and dragoncave, but a bit.
1. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (reread)
2. Drums of Autumn Diana Gabaldon (reread)
3. Brotherhood of the Blade Diana Gabaldon
4. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (it was really pleasant to read and interesting, but.... damn, I just like long books better. I can't help it. But of course that was not the point of it.)
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (fascinating, terrifying and disgusting at the same time)
6. Assassin's Apprentice
7. Royal Assassin
8. Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb (goooood! Need to read more of hers.)
9. Needful Things by Stephen King. (for some reason, it didn't grip me as much as other King books. The fact that I constantly had the feeling of having read it before, even though I know for sure I had not, didn't help it.)
10. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Nice, though the slapdash ending was not convincing at all.)
11. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (it could have been amazing, it was unfortunately less than mediocre. The second half was better than the first, because it had something that might have passed for a plot. What a pity and waste of a brilliant idea.)
12. Treasure Island by Robert Stevenson (Liked it. It was short, fun to read, gripping and satisfactory for such a short book.Though I did kind of have the feeling I'm reading a novel about 19th century characters who were for some reason pretending to be in the 18th century. I don't know if it is always the case of 19th century historical fiction, but this didn't feel like the 18th century, somehow.)
13. Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century by Ignatius Donnelly (I doubt anyone here has heard about it. It's a utopian "novel" from the end of the 19th century. Or at least it supposed to be. To me it read much more as a dystopia, because it was all about destroying a horrible state and society by violence. As a socio-political essay it was very interesting, as a novel it disappointed.)
14. Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (Also a utopia from the same period. The story element was just as simplistic as in the first one, though the writing style was decidedly different. I enjoyed it much more. Again, lots of socio-political and economic talk. Though this one was *really* a utopia, as the word is commonly understood: it's about a guy from the 19th century who is hypnotised into sleep and wakes up 100 years later to find that the world has changed into a socialist utopia and then the family he stays with goes on explaining it all.)
15. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald (I suppose you all know it. It was... interesting. Not the kind of book I'd read for my own pleasure, but perfect to be ripped apart in school or uni.)
16. Ursula K. LeGuin - The Dispossessed (seriously awesome)
17. Don DeLillo - Cosmopolis (most boring book ever)
18. Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong (interesting and rather moving, with amazingly strong (WWI) and dreadfully weak parts (those set in the seventies).)
19. Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (I liked it, loved it even, but it's not a book I'd recommend -you either are interested in reading it, or you put it away after the first page and won't feel like you missed anything)
20. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (really liked it, though I'm a bit sad that I saw the adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle before reading the book - as much as I loved the film, I'd have preferred to have my own images of the characters in my mind. As it is, Firth is now firmly rooted as Mr Darcy in there.)
21. Julian Barnes - A History of the World in 10 ½ chapters (I liked the writing itself, but I don't enjoy short stories and this 'novel' was pretty much a collection of vaguely related short stories with comments by the author. It was interesting to read, but no more than that.)
22. Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men (Read it in German, which was a mistake, because I kept seeing phrases and turns that were so obviously and blatantly English, I couldn't help but thinking the translator has done a poor job of it. The book itself was great though, can't wait to read it in English)
23. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey (amusing and enjoyable, even without having read any of those gothic romances she's mocking)
24. Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic (as I expected after reading the Farseer books, I couldn't put it down, but there is so much accumulated misery in this book that reading it was really depressing at times. I hope it gets better in the next two, but I suppose I should know better than to expect a 'really' happy ending of Hobb ;))
25. Robin Hobb - The Mad Ship
26. - Ship of Destiny - I really like Hobb's writing. Parts of the trilogy dragged a bit, but it was still really good. My only complain is that the ending was too neatly tied up. But that's fantasy for you.
27. Naomi Novik - Victory of Eagles - about the content: awesome! Liked it much better than #4, Empire of Ivory. BUT. The editing on this book was, simply said, abysmal. I needed to force myself to get through the first two chapters ignoring the spelling mistakes and the glaring grammatical errors that could have all been easily fixed with a little bit of editing. Like... it made me really sad, because these are things that turn off quite a few people from reading a book and becoming fans and gaaah. It's just something that takes so much pleasure from reading. It did get a bit better after the first few chapters, but the issue should not have been there at all. Big minus here.
28. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights - started on the books for next term (I'm taking a course about the Bronte sisters) - enjoyed it a lot.
What else...
I noticed that there are a few people who have friended me lately - Hi everybody! I've no idea who you are or where you come from since I haven't been active anywhere lately, feel free to introduce yourselves!
What with this and other stuff, I spent all my online time chilling while playing browser games - lately I've been hooked on Dragoncave - do give my eggs and hatchies some loving, if you have time to spare: Scroll. And I'm trying to do some dragon pixel art for it. will post it here, if anything comes out of it. For now have the sketch. (my scanner is working again! Yeah, it's been broken for months, or rather I couldn't reinstall the driver, but now it's good again. I guess I have no excuse now to delay working on the hp_art_project ;) )
What else... I've read a bit! Not as much as I would have liked, what with the school and dragoncave, but a bit.
1. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (reread)
2. Drums of Autumn Diana Gabaldon (reread)
3. Brotherhood of the Blade Diana Gabaldon
4. The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde (it was really pleasant to read and interesting, but.... damn, I just like long books better. I can't help it. But of course that was not the point of it.)
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (fascinating, terrifying and disgusting at the same time)
6. Assassin's Apprentice
7. Royal Assassin
8. Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb (goooood! Need to read more of hers.)
9. Needful Things by Stephen King. (for some reason, it didn't grip me as much as other King books. The fact that I constantly had the feeling of having read it before, even though I know for sure I had not, didn't help it.)
10. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Nice, though the slapdash ending was not convincing at all.)
11. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (it could have been amazing, it was unfortunately less than mediocre. The second half was better than the first, because it had something that might have passed for a plot. What a pity and waste of a brilliant idea.)
12. Treasure Island by Robert Stevenson (Liked it. It was short, fun to read, gripping and satisfactory for such a short book.Though I did kind of have the feeling I'm reading a novel about 19th century characters who were for some reason pretending to be in the 18th century. I don't know if it is always the case of 19th century historical fiction, but this didn't feel like the 18th century, somehow.)
13. Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century by Ignatius Donnelly (I doubt anyone here has heard about it. It's a utopian "novel" from the end of the 19th century. Or at least it supposed to be. To me it read much more as a dystopia, because it was all about destroying a horrible state and society by violence. As a socio-political essay it was very interesting, as a novel it disappointed.)
14. Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (Also a utopia from the same period. The story element was just as simplistic as in the first one, though the writing style was decidedly different. I enjoyed it much more. Again, lots of socio-political and economic talk. Though this one was *really* a utopia, as the word is commonly understood: it's about a guy from the 19th century who is hypnotised into sleep and wakes up 100 years later to find that the world has changed into a socialist utopia and then the family he stays with goes on explaining it all.)
15. The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald (I suppose you all know it. It was... interesting. Not the kind of book I'd read for my own pleasure, but perfect to be ripped apart in school or uni.)
16. Ursula K. LeGuin - The Dispossessed (seriously awesome)
17. Don DeLillo - Cosmopolis (most boring book ever)
18. Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong (interesting and rather moving, with amazingly strong (WWI) and dreadfully weak parts (those set in the seventies).)
19. Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (I liked it, loved it even, but it's not a book I'd recommend -you either are interested in reading it, or you put it away after the first page and won't feel like you missed anything)
20. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (really liked it, though I'm a bit sad that I saw the adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle before reading the book - as much as I loved the film, I'd have preferred to have my own images of the characters in my mind. As it is, Firth is now firmly rooted as Mr Darcy in there.)
21. Julian Barnes - A History of the World in 10 ½ chapters (I liked the writing itself, but I don't enjoy short stories and this 'novel' was pretty much a collection of vaguely related short stories with comments by the author. It was interesting to read, but no more than that.)
22. Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men (Read it in German, which was a mistake, because I kept seeing phrases and turns that were so obviously and blatantly English, I couldn't help but thinking the translator has done a poor job of it. The book itself was great though, can't wait to read it in English)
23. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey (amusing and enjoyable, even without having read any of those gothic romances she's mocking)
24. Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic (as I expected after reading the Farseer books, I couldn't put it down, but there is so much accumulated misery in this book that reading it was really depressing at times. I hope it gets better in the next two, but I suppose I should know better than to expect a 'really' happy ending of Hobb ;))
25. Robin Hobb - The Mad Ship
26. - Ship of Destiny - I really like Hobb's writing. Parts of the trilogy dragged a bit, but it was still really good. My only complain is that the ending was too neatly tied up. But that's fantasy for you.
27. Naomi Novik - Victory of Eagles - about the content: awesome! Liked it much better than #4, Empire of Ivory. BUT. The editing on this book was, simply said, abysmal. I needed to force myself to get through the first two chapters ignoring the spelling mistakes and the glaring grammatical errors that could have all been easily fixed with a little bit of editing. Like... it made me really sad, because these are things that turn off quite a few people from reading a book and becoming fans and gaaah. It's just something that takes so much pleasure from reading. It did get a bit better after the first few chapters, but the issue should not have been there at all. Big minus here.
28. Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights - started on the books for next term (I'm taking a course about the Bronte sisters) - enjoyed it a lot.
What else...
I noticed that there are a few people who have friended me lately - Hi everybody! I've no idea who you are or where you come from since I haven't been active anywhere lately, feel free to introduce yourselves!