When in doubt, keep calm and read YA
Good book things are happening right now on the circle (in the circle?).
First, Stultiloquentia reviews Tamara Pierce and asked for "your favourite YA sci-fi and fantasy novels starring girls"! The results are predictably awesome.
And second, toft asked for Canadian sci-fi recommendations - the Julie Czerneda love made me smile - here and here @ lj.
Particularly great timing for both, since I've been avoiding reading Skelton's Bowge of Court by contemplating a post on a wonderful series I just read by Margaret Whalen Turner ( Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia). So convenient!
I could talk about how Thief features a wonderful POV character who neglects tiny details in a way that will make your brain explode from perfect, how Eddis is a short and swordswoman Queen with a broken-nose who is totally smarter than you, how the pacing is flawless and humour and fantasy finely balanced and how it's basically all wonderful.
Then I could talk about how The Queen of Attolia is the best example of a sequel taking a premise and characters and just running with it, a sequel that is just so good it fulfills every promise you might have wanted.
Mostly, I could talk about how Attolia is a fascinating and complex character struggling with guilt and loneliness and the stress and responsibility of ruling a fractured court (which, btw, she is totally awesome at).
But I happen to have the excerpt that totally convinced me to take all THREE books out of the library just from sheer awesomeness alone.
It is long, but worth it. Read this, and tell me you don't love Attolia already.
“She returned to the capital, where she was watched by her fiance’s spies, but not closely. She was the shadow princess, dull and quiet. She waited with every appearance of passivity as a funeral was arranged for her father and a wedding for herself. Then, at the wedding feast, while the lords and ladies of her court looked on, Attolia poisoned her bridegroom.
“He’d had a porcine habit of eating her food when he’d finished his own. When his wine cup was empty, he would reach without comment for hers, having noted if she’d sampled it first. She sat through her wedding feast with her lips stinging from the poison of the powdered coleus leaf that had touched them as she pretended to drink, then watched as he took her wine, as casually as he had taken her country, and choked on it and died.
“The lords of Attolia had turned on one another then, searching for the assassin, and the queen had retired to her rooms and waited while the barons wrangled over who would be the next king. Late that night she was finally summoned to meet the man who’d managed through threats and promises to gain the allies to proclaim himself king. Her hands clenched still when she remembered the disdain of the servingwoman sent to fetch her. The barons had looked Attolia over, she remembered, the way she had seen men looking at slave girls, and one man had laughed when she had crossed the room to sit on the throne. That same man had ordered her to be ready to marry him in the morning. She’d nodded stiffly, her face impassive, and the captain of her guard had raised his crossbow and shot the claimant for her hand through the heart.
“The response had its calculated effect. In the stunned silence that followed, she divided the property of the dead baron among his competitors and informed them that the next king of Attolia would be her choice, not theirs. She then retired to allow them time to absorb the new reality of her rule: the guards around them, the hostages she held, and the army she controlled.
“They hadn’t called her the shadow queen then.”
-The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner.
Seriously, read this book. <3
P.S. Don't google it though. Oh god, the spoilers! They burn!
Also, be aware there is some weird stuff happening with a pseudo-Greek pantheon that kind of broke my brain trying to figure out what time-period we were operating in. The answer was 'a made up one.'
First, Stultiloquentia reviews Tamara Pierce and asked for "your favourite YA sci-fi and fantasy novels starring girls"! The results are predictably awesome.
And second, toft asked for Canadian sci-fi recommendations - the Julie Czerneda love made me smile - here and here @ lj.
Particularly great timing for both, since I've been avoiding reading Skelton's Bowge of Court by contemplating a post on a wonderful series I just read by Margaret Whalen Turner ( Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia). So convenient!
I could talk about how Thief features a wonderful POV character who neglects tiny details in a way that will make your brain explode from perfect, how Eddis is a short and swordswoman Queen with a broken-nose who is totally smarter than you, how the pacing is flawless and humour and fantasy finely balanced and how it's basically all wonderful.
Then I could talk about how The Queen of Attolia is the best example of a sequel taking a premise and characters and just running with it, a sequel that is just so good it fulfills every promise you might have wanted.
Mostly, I could talk about how Attolia is a fascinating and complex character struggling with guilt and loneliness and the stress and responsibility of ruling a fractured court (which, btw, she is totally awesome at).
But I happen to have the excerpt that totally convinced me to take all THREE books out of the library just from sheer awesomeness alone.
It is long, but worth it. Read this, and tell me you don't love Attolia already.
“She returned to the capital, where she was watched by her fiance’s spies, but not closely. She was the shadow princess, dull and quiet. She waited with every appearance of passivity as a funeral was arranged for her father and a wedding for herself. Then, at the wedding feast, while the lords and ladies of her court looked on, Attolia poisoned her bridegroom.
“He’d had a porcine habit of eating her food when he’d finished his own. When his wine cup was empty, he would reach without comment for hers, having noted if she’d sampled it first. She sat through her wedding feast with her lips stinging from the poison of the powdered coleus leaf that had touched them as she pretended to drink, then watched as he took her wine, as casually as he had taken her country, and choked on it and died.
“The lords of Attolia had turned on one another then, searching for the assassin, and the queen had retired to her rooms and waited while the barons wrangled over who would be the next king. Late that night she was finally summoned to meet the man who’d managed through threats and promises to gain the allies to proclaim himself king. Her hands clenched still when she remembered the disdain of the servingwoman sent to fetch her. The barons had looked Attolia over, she remembered, the way she had seen men looking at slave girls, and one man had laughed when she had crossed the room to sit on the throne. That same man had ordered her to be ready to marry him in the morning. She’d nodded stiffly, her face impassive, and the captain of her guard had raised his crossbow and shot the claimant for her hand through the heart.
“The response had its calculated effect. In the stunned silence that followed, she divided the property of the dead baron among his competitors and informed them that the next king of Attolia would be her choice, not theirs. She then retired to allow them time to absorb the new reality of her rule: the guards around them, the hostages she held, and the army she controlled.
“They hadn’t called her the shadow queen then.”
-The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner.
Seriously, read this book. <3
P.S. Don't google it though. Oh god, the spoilers! They burn!
Also, be aware there is some weird stuff happening with a pseudo-Greek pantheon that kind of broke my brain trying to figure out what time-period we were operating in. The answer was 'a made up one.'