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It's Wednesday, and I'm actually awake enough to note what I've been reading since my last memepost.
Finished:
Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon: A quick fantasy chapter-book with cartoon interludes and many laugh out loud moments. Am waiting for sequel (Attack of the Ninja Frogs) to come available from library.
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer: Still not a good book, but if you go into it wearing your gothic romance goggles it works better than when you belatedly realize you needed them only after finishing. Not that it's particularly good at being a gothic romance, what with Heyere defanging most of the creepy tensions well before the climax, leaving social anxieties to power the last third of the story. At least the writing is good enough to make it readable.
The Magic of Recluse by L.E. Modesitt: Better-written than I expected (if not necessarily a better fantasy than expected). In fact, the manner reminds me a lot of Graydon Saunders, though any influences there may be would of course run the other direction. I liked it enough to want to read more Modesitt.
Speaking of which -- in progress:
The Magi'i of Cydor by Modesitt, which has prose that's nowhere near as crisp, dull pacing (three-quarters through, it's clear this is not a complete story but part 1), and worldbuilding that feels almost leaden -- the same few cultural details get trotted out everywhere. Which is especially odd for what essentially amounts to an origin-story installment, set earliest in the cycle. I may finish it anyway.
More of Life and Society in the Hittite World, to about 1/2.
Officially DNF:
Outlaws of the Marsh. Time to circle back to Dreams of Red Mansions. Or maybe more modern wuxia novels.
Plus I poked at the openings of a couple L. M. Montgomery books, none of which caught me.
---L.
Subject quote from Thebes," Seymour Green Wheeler Benjamin.
Finished:
Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon: A quick fantasy chapter-book with cartoon interludes and many laugh out loud moments. Am waiting for sequel (Attack of the Ninja Frogs) to come available from library.
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer: Still not a good book, but if you go into it wearing your gothic romance goggles it works better than when you belatedly realize you needed them only after finishing. Not that it's particularly good at being a gothic romance, what with Heyere defanging most of the creepy tensions well before the climax, leaving social anxieties to power the last third of the story. At least the writing is good enough to make it readable.
The Magic of Recluse by L.E. Modesitt: Better-written than I expected (if not necessarily a better fantasy than expected). In fact, the manner reminds me a lot of Graydon Saunders, though any influences there may be would of course run the other direction. I liked it enough to want to read more Modesitt.
Speaking of which -- in progress:
The Magi'i of Cydor by Modesitt, which has prose that's nowhere near as crisp, dull pacing (three-quarters through, it's clear this is not a complete story but part 1), and worldbuilding that feels almost leaden -- the same few cultural details get trotted out everywhere. Which is especially odd for what essentially amounts to an origin-story installment, set earliest in the cycle. I may finish it anyway.
More of Life and Society in the Hittite World, to about 1/2.
Officially DNF:
Outlaws of the Marsh. Time to circle back to Dreams of Red Mansions. Or maybe more modern wuxia novels.
Plus I poked at the openings of a couple L. M. Montgomery books, none of which caught me.
---L.
Subject quote from Thebes," Seymour Green Wheeler Benjamin.