50bookchallenge, 15000pages
Book #44 -- Cate Tiernan, Full Circle (Sweep #14), 190 pages.
The further I get into these, the more I enjoy them, the more the faulty history starts to annoy me again. At first, the laughable idea of Wicca being an ancient religion with real 'things-floating-in-midair' type magic annoyed me enough that I almost didn't read the second book. But the story intrigued me enough that I went ahead and continued and eventually I put my annoyance aside. But the better the books got, the more that one *huge* flaw kept bugging me. The fly in the otherwise thoroughly enjoyable chardonnay. I don't have a problem with the idea of hereditary witchcraft. In a fantasy novel, I don't care if you want to build a story around a secret society of hereditary witches tracing their origins back to the mists of prehistory. It's fantasy, that's kinda the point. But if you're going to do that, for Goddess's sake don't call it *Wicca* and provide practically word-for-word Gardnerian rituals and claim they've been handed down for centuries. Come *on*. Be original damn it!
Ok, rant over. That not-so-minor criticism aside, I love the books. They're thoroughly enjoyable cheesy teen romance with characters who manage to be realistic teenagers without being incredibly annoying, which is in itself no small feat. The end of the series is coming up and I will be sad to read the last book.
Book #45 -- C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, 216 pages.
And now for something completely different. Read this one cover to cover while soaking in the bath for about an hour and a half last night. Beside getting all pruny, I discovered the book to be somewhat shorter (not just in pages but in plot) than I remembered from first reading it waaaay back when. A good half of the book is over before the children even meet any Narnians and another half again is dedicated to tromping through the woods. Once the battle is engaged, it is annoyingly short and anticlimactic, as is The Return. I'll be interested to see what the movie does with this one (the reason I'm rereading it in the first place, of course) as it struck me all along as a book that would be difficult to film effectively without boring the audience to tears. That is not to say it wasn't enjoyable, just rather slow-paced.
Progress toward goals: 141/366 = 38.5%
Books: 45/150 = 30.0%
Pages: 12787/50000 = 25.6%
2008 Book List
cross-posted to 15000pages, 50bookchallenge, and gwynraven
The further I get into these, the more I enjoy them, the more the faulty history starts to annoy me again. At first, the laughable idea of Wicca being an ancient religion with real 'things-floating-in-midair' type magic annoyed me enough that I almost didn't read the second book. But the story intrigued me enough that I went ahead and continued and eventually I put my annoyance aside. But the better the books got, the more that one *huge* flaw kept bugging me. The fly in the otherwise thoroughly enjoyable chardonnay. I don't have a problem with the idea of hereditary witchcraft. In a fantasy novel, I don't care if you want to build a story around a secret society of hereditary witches tracing their origins back to the mists of prehistory. It's fantasy, that's kinda the point. But if you're going to do that, for Goddess's sake don't call it *Wicca* and provide practically word-for-word Gardnerian rituals and claim they've been handed down for centuries. Come *on*. Be original damn it!
Ok, rant over. That not-so-minor criticism aside, I love the books. They're thoroughly enjoyable cheesy teen romance with characters who manage to be realistic teenagers without being incredibly annoying, which is in itself no small feat. The end of the series is coming up and I will be sad to read the last book.
Book #45 -- C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, 216 pages.
And now for something completely different. Read this one cover to cover while soaking in the bath for about an hour and a half last night. Beside getting all pruny, I discovered the book to be somewhat shorter (not just in pages but in plot) than I remembered from first reading it waaaay back when. A good half of the book is over before the children even meet any Narnians and another half again is dedicated to tromping through the woods. Once the battle is engaged, it is annoyingly short and anticlimactic, as is The Return. I'll be interested to see what the movie does with this one (the reason I'm rereading it in the first place, of course) as it struck me all along as a book that would be difficult to film effectively without boring the audience to tears. That is not to say it wasn't enjoyable, just rather slow-paced.
Progress toward goals: 141/366 = 38.5%
Books: 45/150 = 30.0%
Pages: 12787/50000 = 25.6%
2008 Book List
cross-posted to 15000pages, 50bookchallenge, and gwynraven