Books read recently

[etrangere]

Been a while, right?

So having a Kobo did work very well to help get back on the voracious book reading bandwaggon.

I started with Dominion by Celia Friedman,

Comments

[mamculuna]

I think if you like reading LeCarré, you'll like the movie of Tinker, Tailor. It has the same unsettling qualities, the same great characters, and excellent acting. It's not an action film, for sure, but not just philosophical rambling, either.

And thanks for the notes on Hand of Isis! Just ordered from the library. And may try those others by Graham.

[etrangere]

I'm definitly curious about the movie, whenever I have the occasion to watch it.

You're welcome! Her writing is definitely worth checking out!

[hamsterwoman]

I really, really liked Fire, which surprised me, because I thought Graceling was vastly overhyped. I guess it helped that I liked Fire herself a lot more than I liked Katsa, and thought she was a character with a lot more nuance. Loved the parent/child relationships, and thought the relationship between Fire and Archer was also handled really well, speaking of dysfunctional ones.

(I still think Cashore's worldbuilding is, basically, one striking and well-thought-out idea per book + roughly sketched in everything else, which doesn't work for me very well, but Fire had enough interesting characters and relationships to make up for that where Graceling, IMO, did not.)

[etrangere]

Yeah, I don't remember all that much about Graceling, especially plot wise, asides that it was generally pleasant and that she did a good job at making love interests look swooning to my eyes. So overall I do think that it was a bit overrated and that Fire is better. I don't remember enough about Katsa to compare her to Fire XD which probably speaks for itself

[hamsterwoman]

I know the term is disfavor now, but I genuinely thought Katsa was a bit of a Mary-Sue, because she was randomly good at things it didn't seem logical for her to be good at, with people who had more experience deferring to her, everybody liked her (though it was hard for me to se why) but she was oblivious to it, she was so good but thought of herself as evil because of her Grace. It was just a lot of fairly hamhanded stuff piled on top of each other, which made it harder for me to enjoy the things I did like, like her relationship with Po once they'd sorted themselves out and her refusal to marry even though they loved each other. (I did like Po in Graceling quite a bit; Briggan in Fire, though, was total catnip for me XD)

She did a good job at making Archer's good qualities exist despite the fact that he was mostly an overly possessive asshole.Yep, and Fire and the text acknowledged him to be a possessive asshole, but you could also see why Fire still loved him, and also why breaking off the relationship with him was the only sane

[etrangere]

(I did like Po in Graceling quite a bit; Briggan in Fire, though, was total catnip for me XD)
Hahaha, I'm the opposite. Liked Briggan a great deal, but Po was the one who was total catnip.

But actually even with the concept of Graces there were some things in Graceling that I don't think made any sense, like Leck's (? bad guy's, anyway) Grace being somehow transitive while nobody else's seemed to be.
Yeah, that was a bit weird :/ Very "It's Magical, shut up!" as we say in French.

[silver_sandals]

Off topic, but: you have a Left Hand of Darkness icon. You have a Left Hand of Darkness icon.

Er. It's just that I don't know ANYONE else whi's read that book, so this is pretty exciting for me. :)

[etrangere]

I know a lot of people who have read Left Hand of Darkness. It is a brilliant and very important book which I loved and have read many times ♥

[silver_sandals]

I envy you your circle of acquaintances then :)

I adore that book, but I find it hard to reread since the -spoiler!- ending was so incredibly depressing.

Also I -know- there's a version out there with gender-neutral pronouns but I can't seem to find it...

[etrangere]

Well lots of my aquaintances I've made on forums/communities dedicated to Science Fiction & Fantasy books, or related, so it's not a huge surprise XD

I love depressing ending so I did not mind too much :)

someone's currently writing a Thor fandom fanfics that's inspired by the setting of the books an it works in awesome ways!

I didn't know that!!! I will have to look out for it!

[williamjm]

I've not read the book, but I really liked the film of TTSS. It does have a lot of scenes with people sitting around a table talking in it (as well as quite a few with Gary Oldman staring silently off into space), but I think they did a good job of making a compelling film from what was probably quite difficult material for an adaptation. I'll have to get the DVD sometime, I'm sure there are plenty of things I missed first time I saw the film.

I'll have to read more Zelazny sometime. I've read Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Doorway in the Sand and the first 5 Amber books and liked them all (although the first two I mentioned more than the others). Annoyingly, most of his work seems to be out-of-print now.

[etrangere]

I look forward to watching the movie sometimes.

Yes! Too many of his books are out of print or otherwise hard to find. I think the only reason I was able to read so many in my youth is reading in French translation (French cultures does keep at least some books in print more easily than American culture does) but even so I'm so glad that getting into reading ebooks allow me to catch up with those that had so far escaped me, like Jack of Shadows.

I'd reccomend a few mother Zelazny books. Night of a Lonesome October, for example; and Roadmarks. And probably a few others that escape my mind right now :)

[williamjm]

I'll probably watch the old BBC TV adaptation of TTSS with Alec Guinness as Smiley sometime as well, it's also meant to be good.

I'll keep an eye out for those Zelazny books. I do have a couple more Zelazny books on my to-be-read pile - the short story collection "The Last Defender of Camelot" and "To Die In Italbar" (although I've heard the latter isn't meant to be one of his best).

[etrangere]

oh, I didn't know there had been a BBC adaptation. Alec Guinness does sound promising :)

I read that short story collection not very long ago!! It had some good thing in it. To die in Italbar was a bit meh, yeah, IIRC.

[angerfish]

Ahh yes I liked Fire a lot. :D In addition to being interestingly feminist, I liked that the character was introverted too.

[etrangere]

Yes, that too :)