2 confessions

[meganbmoore]

1. While I am generally up for almost any fairy tale riff/sequel, I have very little interest in the upcoming Hansel and Gretelmovie. Largely because every "grown up" Hansel and Gretel I've encountered has basically had one or both as a mini-inquisition. And while I like the fairy tale and can see "professional witchhunters" as being a logical next

Comments

[nutmeg3]

It doesn't help that the latest GRRM is a bit of a disaster, imo. Sloppy, rambling, repetitious...could have been shorter by half and the room used to continue the plotlines people actually give a crap about.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah. Unlike a lot of people, I didn't reread the other books before reading this one, so I thought that was likely the case but couldn't safely compare.

And, well...yeah, DEFINITELY re: plotlines and story people care about. Dany almost feels like an afterthought (he seems more interested in having men talk about her than actually having her, so far) and I'm really disliking reading Tyrion. Davos I'm ok with but not really interested in reading his POV, and ditto Bran. (I need Bran and Rickon to be ok, but Bran gives me a fingertwiddling feeling.) The Tyrell dude interests me so much that I barely remember his family name.

[sartorias]

Heh! I am just the opposite--don't care for epic fantasy in film, but will read it in books (if there is sufficient character, interesting women, and humor)

[meganbmoore]

I suspect part of it for me is being a kind in the 80s, where there were a decent number of epic fantasy films (and young teen in the mid-90s, when things like Dragonheart still snuck in) so I "met" the genre that way?

[streussal]

In the Kaori Yuki managa Ludwig Kakumei (Ludwig Revolution), Hansel and grew up to be assassins. Not witch-hunting assassins, just assassins. Deeply damaged, psychologically twisted assassins. ...Red Riding Hood also became an assassin, but one with a better grip on reality. (The series is sexist in that way Kaori Yuki series tend to be, but I like it.)

[estara]

Couldn't it be that because women are so often under- or misrepresented in epic fantasy written by men, you don't enjoy that anymore?

I find I still adore the Essalieyan books by Michelle West (with probably the most female movers and shakers of all epic fantasies I've read) or Sherwood Smith's Inda series, for example. And then there's Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars.

[meganbmoore]

That's definitely a large chunk of it, but the West and Smith books are actually the one I was referring to that I've had for ages but not read. (I've read the first Smith and the first several West books.)

[estara]

Oh okay! I can stop a book in the middle and not finish it for ages when I can see a big tragedy coming up that I can't handle emotionally at the moment (if it surprises me I read myself through it) - this makes the distance to the first emotional engagement far enough that I can then finish it, but I usually end up down anyway and do a comfort reread.

Tastes do change - I find myself buying a lot of older books I used to own and simply didn't like enough the first time round to keep (I donated them to the library in my university town, mostly).

[ulkis]

I agree with nutmeg3's opinion. I don't really understand why Martin didn't start to kind of wrap things up in this latest book since it seems he's not really interested in continuing, but maybe I'm wrong. But then I have the opinion that while I like the first three books (I actually skipped over # 4), they were meandering as well.