Book Binge 2009-2010, Part II

[adelynne]

If you're wondering why these things are taking so long, blame Dorothy Dunnett and Francis Crawford of Lymond. Blaming Lymond in particular seems to be a time-honored tradition, so you'd only be joining in. Otherwise, the book binge continues! Once again, spoilers in the discussion of series books, but nothing major.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

And then he wanted to know why the first car in a traffic jam doesn't move faster. XP

Not an RPer, but had to agree with your description of Kaylin's personality being arrived at by that mode -- that, and the repetition, and the clunkiness (and the sentence fragments, dear god, the sentence fragments) annoyed me a lot in the first book.

While consulting on that (which turns out way better handled than I expected, and shows significant progress in terms of the writing),

Agreed! I was kind of dreading it, from the cover blurb description of the plot, but it was actually handled quite decently, I thought.

I read the first 1.5 of the Magic or Madness books (I didn't quit mid-way -- I left the book on a train and haven't gotten around to reacquiring it), but what I've read of them didn't quite win me over, though from Reason's name and obsession with math, I was kind of hoping they would.

[adelynne]

Not an RPer, but had to agree with your description of Kaylin's personality being arrived at by that mode -- that, and the repetition, and the clunkiness (and the sentence fragments, dear god, the sentence fragments) annoyed me a lot in the first book.

I think it is very noticeable in the first book, and then she starts not doing it so much (aside from the "Oh noes, not the Emperor" bit). Which is good, but it detracts from the story and the world. I don't want to be recommending a series despite how it's written.

Actually, the world-building at first felt like someone made it through a role-play design, too, in the first book. "Let's see, Castes are different races, and each has pluses and minuses. Dragons are all non-player characters, except Tiamaris, who is visiting with his character sheet and has more XP to burn." I'm glad that it no longer feels that way to me, in part because I dropped the last book that did that and never picked it up (The Lies of Locke Lamora, if you're wondering).

what I've read of them didn't

[hamsterwoman]

Actually, the world-building at first felt like someone made it through a role-play design, too, in the first book.

Yeah, it did. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think I might've even said that in my write-up of the first book. Which is why I liked very much that subsequent books seemed intent on exploring the races on a much deeper level. I mean, I can't say that the Barrani add anything wildly original to the faux-Elves canon (but I don't mind, I'm happy with tried-and-true faux-Elves, too) and the Tha'alani I'm not terribly interested in, in practice, though there are some neat ideas there. But I like what she's doing with them.

Lies of Locke Lamora, huh? I've heard things about that series that made me intrigued, but haven't gotten to picking it up yet.

Though I was wondering if she kept looking, would she find a divergent series or something?Hee! That would be pretty cool, actually. Though I wonder what it would mean... (nothing good, I assume). But, yeah, even from my partial reading, it seems like there are some neat

[lareinenoire]

My copy of Soulless arrived yesterday! But I am finishing The Book Thief before I start it (which is wonderful, by the way, and not a series, so you can read it as a one-off ;)).

Also, hee, Lymond. Must reread those sometime...

[adelynne]

Yay Soulless!

I've heard good things about TBF. And I'm on The Ringed Castle, which is leading me to suspect that Checkmate shall be full of melodrama and I shall be annoyed.

[lareinenoire]

There is melodrama in Checkmate, but at least I think it's the good kind of melodrama.

(That being said, Pawn in Frankincense was the book that ripped out my heart and stomped on it. I swear, reading Dunnet requires a healthy streak of masochism.)

[adelynne]

To be honest, I was more hurt by The Disorderly Knights than PiF. The body count went way up and the people dying had been around a while.