Six short takes

[larryhammer]

When I first read Paladin of Souls, a couple years after The Curse of Chalion, I thought it the better book. Rereading them in quick sequence reversed my opinion: I spent Curse admiring how well-constructed the book is, every scene in place and purpose. Yes, Ista is one of Bujold's best characterizations, if not the best, and Paladin has more entertaining incidents, but overall, it's not as tight, despite the repeated use of structural echoes; also, I can't say I like the expansion of the world to include sorcery, even if it had been implicit.

I'm all for more Tiffany Aching books, but I didn't enjoy A Hat Full of Sky as much as The Wee Free Men. One telling detail: the Nac Mac Feegle all but coast along on previous work, with very little new invention -- there's nothing as howl-worthy as calling a Feegle battle poet a gonnagle. Also, the gonnagle was little more than a standard bard, rather than a weapon. I worry the pictsies will go the way of Rincewind. But until then: Crivens!

Singularity Sky is the sort of wickedly inventive SF that suggests the author has learned a lot from Neal Stephenson. Unfortunately, around the time the two spies fall in love, it loses much of its acid bite and energy. At least Stross it ends better than Stephenson usually does.

The Royal Treatment is yet another thing I get to point to when I point out that skiffy isn't just for science fiction any more: alternate history romance between a commoner and the crown prince of Alaska. Hardcore SF readers may be driven buggy by the way Davidson rarely propagates a change past its first consequence and scoff at it for being typically bad mainstream use of skiffy techniques, but that'd be missing the point -- which is the witty banter, growing into the consequences of personal decisions, and insulting cute penguins.

Magic or Madness just might be the best book I've read all year, even with the inconclusive first-book-of-trilogy ending. It isn't, but that doesn't invalidate the subjunctive. Magic, madness, mathematics, teenagers, training, betrayals, and a Sydney house with mysterious back door -- it's all good.

If "my family name is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character" doesn't make you want to read Bridge of Birds, nothing else I can say will. The ending still makes me sigh.

Plus a short shameful confession: fifteen years after misreading the credits of Henry V, I still confuse Ian Holm with Brian Blessed.

---L.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

Magic or Madness is definitely one of my favorites this year. It and Stormwitch.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Paladin didn't engage me as much as Chalion, maybe because the characters were all confused and it ended so indefinitely.

On your (plural) recommendation I read Magic or Madness and enjoyed it.

I just requested Bridge of Birds from my library. You genenerally recommend books definitely worth reading. Thanks!

On another note, I started The Historian but the constant quotation marks fuzzed before my eyes. I can't see why they put gramatical correctness before readability; if everythign is being related, why put quotes around everything?

Ian Holm was Bilbo Baggins. Brian Blessed was JarJar Bink's king/ruler in the latest Star Wars trilogy. That help?

[acanthusleaf.livejournal.com]

Brian Blessed was in a Star Wars movie? I guess I was just so annoyed with Jar-Jar that I missed anyone else in the scene. And no, I didn't go and see them twelve times like I did with the first trilogy. :-)

If you see Flash Gordon, you will never again confuse Brian Blessed for anyone else. Ever.

Now that my to-read list has grown a bit, I'm off to Amazon...

[galeni.livejournal.com]

Oh, Flash Gordon. Not the other one (which shows up on tv late at night far too often). I saw it once, but don't remember him in it. Unlike Blackadder and I, Claudius and Much Ado About Nothing. He's one of my favorite Teddy Bear guys.

Only 12 times? Ah, a dilettante! (I was young and living on the equivalent of the Lars farm, and saw it 25 times that summer.) The others I've seen fewer times, until I saw the last two once each only. It went way downhill, darn Lucas anyway. And speaking of Leigh Brackett who wrote Return of the Empire, I just noticed she wrote my favorite John Wayne movie, Hatari, which I just picked up on DVD widescreen. Have to IMDB her and see what else I adore that she wrote. And what else to look for.

[larryhammer]

That would only help if I'd seen the latest Star Wars movie.

---L.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

He was in both Phantom Menace and in this latest one. I think I liked him best in I, Claudius, as Augustus.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Blessed is a bit bigger (g)

Blessed is the bear, Holms is the weasel (I am fond of weasels)

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

by the way, have you read Jasper Fforde? Start with The Eyre Affair.

I have just found the web site of his heroine, www.thursdaynext.com

Full of stuff.

[larryhammer]

I await the fourth book reaching paperback. I'm addicted.

---L.

[mcdolemite.livejournal.com]

Most people confuse Blessed with John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in LOTR and the voice of Treebeard). Both are big, bluff bearded guys and, if Blessed isn't Welsh, he sure sounds like he could be. Blessed was the king of the Hawkmen in FLASH GORDON and Blackadder's bloodthirsty warrior father in the first BLACKADDER series. In HENRY V he's perhaps most memorable in the scene where he lumbers into the French court like a human tank and delivers Henry's message, deliberately referring to the French ruler as the "Dolphin." He is, if such a thing is conceivable, even bluffer and more macho than Rhys-Davies. I have no idea if he's as conservative.

[maryosmanski.livejournal.com]

And checking Blessed's list of credits at imdb.com, I found out there's to be an As You Like It next year. This is nice to know, and I hope I don't have to drive two hours to reach a cinema that's showing it.

[larryhammer]

Exeter's message to the French court was what I imprinted on, and somehow managed to read that the human tank was played by Holm. I still, when someone mentions Ian Holm, think of that creature, until I see the man.

Blessed is like Rhys-Davies only in the sense that Holm is like Derek Jacobi.

---L.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing me towards The Royal Treatment (I love well-written alternative histories), and Magic or Madness.

Bridge of Birds is one of my all time favourite books. I reread it every year or so, particularly if I'm down. I own multiple copies, including a much-treasured hardcover. The ending makes my throat constrict and heart soar every time, and I must have read it at least fifteen times.

"The abbott used to say that the emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them."

[larryhammer]

Have you met Davidson's Undead and Unwed? Anita Blake meets chick lit, sort of. Only funnier than that sounds. Betsy Queen of the Damned, who's had two books so far and a third coming out RSN. The other two books of Davidson's I've tried I've had mixed results with, but these charm me even more than The Royal Treatment.

Oddly enough, she started out writing YA.

---L.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't but am more than intrigued by the idea of someone named Betsy Queen of the Damned.

Added to the list...I'm looking for something, quickly, to get into after the latest Harry Potter (which I'm still irritated by).