lost weekend (now with added bookblogging)

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Where did my weekend go??? It's like it disappeared into this fever dream of bad Libertines fanfiction and compulsive wikipedia-ing of eighties post-punk bands...wait, that's not like what happened, that is what happened. ;_;

Suppose the weekend isn't over. Suppose, if I am very good tomorrow, I may finish on time for a late movie at

Comments

[startredder]

I expect to hear some talking about House of Many Ways from /somewhere/, dammit!

SPOILERS for House of Many Ways

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I really loved Charmain -- a girl who can't do anything for herself and needs to read books to feel calm is a girl after my own heart -- and Peter, and was prepared to really love the book, but it just doesn't sit right. I wanted it to be about how clothes you throw on the floor don't just magically disappear, someone picks them up and puts them away; similarly, the house's Morning Coffees and Afternoon Teas don't just magically appear, a group of kobolds labors underground in sweatshop-like conditions for minimal pay (a jug of milk? when milk comes free with Breakfast?) to put them together. But, you know, the kobolds enjoy laboring for paltry wages! Or even when they aren't being paid at all! (See: Prince Ludovic.) That's just the way they are! Nothing to see here, Humans Rights Watch, move right along

Re: SPOILERS for House of Many Ways

[startredder]

You put this /so/ much more coherently (and I mostly agree with you, although I was delighted by Howl, but it's really hard to separate than from being delighted with Sophie being disgusted with Howl) than I managed to when I talked about House of Many Ways, but somehow I didn't even think of the kobolds and their completely inappropriate treatment, which is weird, because I have picked up on something similar, equally offensive, and equally unaddressed in previous books (do not read Paula Volsky), and yet by the time I got around to writing about this, it had completely flown out of my head. Maybe because by the time I got to the end of the book, the kobolds had become such a non-issue in the text.

The more I think about it, the odder it was, because DWJ has brought up versions of the kobold-problem in previous books (definitely The Merlin Conspiracy and a bit in Dark Lord of Derkholm, I think) and /did/ have characters shake the status quo up because that's the right thing - not have one of the slaves bitch because the Inherently

[baka_neko]

I want to know about the last two books! I've read the last one, (which was unfortunately overshadowed by my mad mad love for Howl and Sophie) but I plan to get Victory of Eagles. Just wondering whether it's worth buying or borrowing.

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See this comment (contains spoilers) for the DWJ. Another thing I liked about House of Many Ways, but forgot to mention, is according to the author, compulsive book-reading is both useful and a character flaw. I was definitely one of those compulsive book-readers, and it definitely didn't occur to me that I was being inconsiderate or anti-social when I removed myself from work to read. So, uh, now I know. (Obliviousness is probably also both a useful trait and a character flaw. XD;)

I borrowed Victory of Eagles from the library because I plan to buy the paperback. But it is GREAT, definitely worth paying for. France and England finally enter full-on historical AU territory (like China, Africa, and N. America have already done), Temeraire becomes a leader in his own right, and some of the changes he wanted in the way the government treats dragons actually happen. It's like, woah. XD Also there's a love interest for Temeraire, which I thought was hilarious, although canis_m (to name one) was Not Amused. There's also some fairly

[baka_neko]

Ahaha yes, I was a compulsive book reader too! Eventually I also wised up to the fact that things needed to be done. Like laundry and cooking. (Which now gives me an excuse to read cook books instead. -_-;;) I do love the fact that when she is dug out of her books, she holds her own against Rollo and that she's brave enough to write to the King asking for a volunteer position

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2. Victory of Eagles: see short nonspoilery comment to baka_neko and long spoilery comment to canis_m.

1. Octavian Nothing: I liked Octavian's writing style and the period writing styles in the letters and newspaper clippings Anderson sometimes used to supplement it. I also liked that the book seemed, at first, like it was going to be Steampunk -- inappropriate scientific progress in the 18th century -- but you gradually realize that the level of scientific inquiry is appropriate, which lends weight to the feeling that the experiment on Octavian could very well have happened (and did, in a way that involved fewer wigs and gold chamber pots). Also, I liked the gap between the sense of Octavian you get from his writing and the way that other people perceive him. Also, the Pox Party: so creeeepy, the past as a foreign country.

Octavian's greatest selling point is contrast it has going between "completely unbiased scientific experiment" and "injust system that doesn't allow blacks to succeed and then points to their failures as proof of their

[uminohikari]

Ah, I can't get to NYC this weekend, since my brother is sick. (and I'm back in NJ, now :D) Some other time, maybe?

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Montgomery Cinemas are in Princeton! I asked because I knew that you were back in NJ. ^^; Sorry, should have specified.

[uminohikari]

Princeton is the same amount of time away >>

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Aww, I'm sorry. Maybe next time.

[canis_m]

Yr thoughts on VoE!

SPOILERS for Victory of Eagles

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1. How can they get together, he knew her when she was an egg.

2. Although you could say the same thing about Temeraire and Laurence. In Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, this isn't an issue, because the dragons are hatched already knowing their own names and personalities. But in VoE you really get the sense of the dragons as infants and the handlers as (sometimes doting, often not) parents, and the fact that dragons never outgrow that (exploitative) relationship is what allows them to be controlled for the good of King and Country.

3. Temeraire POV = <3 <3 <3 <3. What I really like about the way Novik writes the dragons is that they really think differently, in ways that you could classify as simplistic or childlike or "savage", and yet they are not less intelligent than English people -- and not less rational, either, just irrational in different ways. Different, not deficient, as Rev. Wright would say

Re: SPOILERS for Victory of Eagles

[canis_m]

Everyone except me seems to have loved it! I feel like a loser now. I just couldn't enjoy Temeraire's side of things as much as I wanted to while Laurence was busy being miserable for the entire book. (He was miserable, wasn't he? That wasn't my imagination?)

Okay, as a crazed OTPer I have limited credibility here, but I swear it's not the Iskierka -> Temeraire that pissed me off at Iskierka (no really! I was amused, for all the reasons you list in #11), it was her idiocy in haring off to get herself captured. Pre-VoE I kept dreaming that she'd grow out of her loli dominatrix phase to become a real badass, but at the moment she's just...incorrigible, with poor judgment. Next book, maybe

Re: SPOILERS for Victory of Eagles

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He was very miserable -- Temeraire only gradually realizes how miserable, and never seems to make the connection between "Laurence is distant and miserable" and "Laurence is betraying his principals to make up for the time when he upheld his and mine" when they're going on their "raids". Which was actually a bit scary, in that dragons are huge dangerous beasts, and then you learn that the unharnessed ones are perfectly willing to eat people, and even the harnessed ones only feel a bit bored by the idea of slaughtering defenseless enemy people under orders -- it's not sporting, but it's not wrong, either.

And then you realize that England really needs to move with the times and give the dragons some stake in their own government, for the safety of their own citizens, if nothing else.

Iskierka is kind of unlovable in this book. Like, if she'd at least been sorry that her idiocy nearly got Arkady's band, Laurence, Tharkay, AND GRANDBY killed -- probably also giving Napolean the war -- that would have been one thing, but she's not