Reading List

[rolanni]

...which is to say, books I've read thus far in 2006.  The mountain of books to be read is much too lengthy to include here.

...basically just a list for my own information...

The Carousel Keepers, Carrie Papa
The Celestial Steam Locomotive, Michael Coney
Worldwired, Elizabeth Bear
Fire Sanctuary, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Pretender, C.J. Cherryh
Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt
Skeletons in the Zahara, Dean King
Dead to the World, Charlaine Harris
Dead as a Doornail, Charlaine Harris
Saturday Night at Moody's Diner, Tim Sample
Fruits Basket, Volumes 8-13, Natsuki Takaya
Uglies, Scott Westerfield
Pretties, Scott Westerfield
Narbonic, Volume 3, Shaenon K. Garrity
Murder with Peacocks, Donna Andrews
Murder with Puffins, Donna Andrews
The Man Behind the Iron Mask, John Noone
It Happened in Maine, Gail Underwood Parker
Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
Blood and Iron, Elizabeth Bear
The Unstrung Harp, or: Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, Edward Gorey

Comments

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Did you like the Donna Andrews? I loved Peacocks -- I could see how someone could get suckered into Meg's role. Puffins is probably the weakest in the series, but still amusing. The other Meg stories are pure fun.

I've only read one of hers about the computers. It wasn't "enough" to be a fantasy, but too much to be "five years from now". W said a lot of the computing was possible, but thought it was a little over the top.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Did you like the Donna Andrews?

Alas, I did not. I've read three of them now -- the most... amusing (and not very, imho) was Something Buzzard, Something Loon because I worked at MicroProse back in The Day. I can see how the Meg books could be funny to some, but I just thought Andrews was 'way too heavy-handed with Meg's crazy-cute family.

W said a lot of the computing was possible, but thought it was a little over the top.

I mean to try the AI books, which have also come recommended. I don't actually mind if the computing is possible or not, as long as the story hangs together. Call me a libertine...

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I can see how the Meg books could be funny to some, but I just thought Andrews was 'way too heavy-handed with Meg's crazy-cute family.

Yes, I think part of the reason she went overboard is that a touch of that is fun -- and she probably got great feedback on it. But once she gets them to a convention (her man getting a small, reoccurring role on a fantasy series) it's hard to make the convention seem as wonderfully bizarre as it is -- because the family is a closet of eccentrics, and they have to continue to get weirder to provide contrast.

But as fluff when I need fluff, they work just fine. Sort of like the Janet Evanovich caper novels. I like the heroine/occasional bounty hunter, but the things that made her fun and believable are that her family is all too human, if loved, and she really loves the on again, off again cop in her life -- and like her, if I thought corralling a drunk and hauling him back to jail would save me from rep-ping nylons all day, I'd think about it.

I have been planning a caper novel in the back of my mind. But I want it to provoke smiles -- I don't ask for howlers. If it does get written, I'll see if you have a hole for reading. I value restraint in some things -- like, please hold on the clinical sex scenes, and so on. Don't want the extreme forms to overwhelm the story.