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usuallyhats) wrote2012-12-04 12:10 pm
usuallyhats) wrote2012-12-04 12:10 pm
Books read in November
Angel Isle - Peter Dickinson
Doctor Who Short Trips
Cold Magic - Kate Elliott
Doctor Who: Timewyrm: Revelation - Paul Cornell
Dead Men's Boots - Mike Carey
Arthur: At The Crossing Places - Kevin Crossley-Holland
The Swan Kingdom - Zoe Marriott
In The Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction - Sarah LeFanu
Angel Isle confused me mightily by setting up a really skeevy romance but then a) handling it very realistically (and as well as possible) and b) refusing to confirm or deny whether the two characters actually went there in the end. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL.
Cold Magic was marvellous, if a little hard on the thumbs in the format I read it in. The main character, Cat, was excellently drawn; I felt some of the secondary characters were a bit sketched in, but they were vivid sketches, if you can have such a thing, and I look forward to spending more time in their company in the sequels. (I also want to know more about Cat's parents! *crosses fingers*) The world building was great too: it's set in an alternate-history-with-magic world that hangs together very well. (Here is an interesting and mostly spoiler-free blog post by the author on why Cat sews.)
Timewyrm: Revelation is definitely my favourite of the Timewyrm books - it has good Ace moments, which is a quick way to my heart. ("Ace held certain things to be important. These, in order, were loyalty, street cred and high explosives.") It was also interesting from a "first book by Paul Cornell" perspective: I felt like there were a fair few themes, images etc in there that turn up again in his later work, of which I am very fond (Knight and Squire, for example, is one of my favourite comics. ♥).
Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy, of which I have read the first two, is extraordinary. They have this lovely clear, crisp prose, which draws you straight into the strange familiar twelfth century world. Highly recommended.
I picked up The Swan Kingdom, a fairly straightforward reimagining/expanding of the Swan Princess fairytale, from the library because I've been enjoying the author's blog. I wasn't blown away by it, but I'm glad I read it and am looking forward to reading her later books (this was her first) - from what I've read about them on her blog they look like they're going to be more complex and diverse. Yay!
(This post and the next were originally going to be one post, but it got out of hand, and since there was a logical way to split them, I used it...)
Doctor Who Short Trips
Cold Magic - Kate Elliott
Doctor Who: Timewyrm: Revelation - Paul Cornell
Dead Men's Boots - Mike Carey
Arthur: At The Crossing Places - Kevin Crossley-Holland
The Swan Kingdom - Zoe Marriott
In The Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction - Sarah LeFanu
Angel Isle confused me mightily by setting up a really skeevy romance but then a) handling it very realistically (and as well as possible) and b) refusing to confirm or deny whether the two characters actually went there in the end. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO FEEL.
Cold Magic was marvellous, if a little hard on the thumbs in the format I read it in. The main character, Cat, was excellently drawn; I felt some of the secondary characters were a bit sketched in, but they were vivid sketches, if you can have such a thing, and I look forward to spending more time in their company in the sequels. (I also want to know more about Cat's parents! *crosses fingers*) The world building was great too: it's set in an alternate-history-with-magic world that hangs together very well. (Here is an interesting and mostly spoiler-free blog post by the author on why Cat sews.)
Timewyrm: Revelation is definitely my favourite of the Timewyrm books - it has good Ace moments, which is a quick way to my heart. ("Ace held certain things to be important. These, in order, were loyalty, street cred and high explosives.") It was also interesting from a "first book by Paul Cornell" perspective: I felt like there were a fair few themes, images etc in there that turn up again in his later work, of which I am very fond (Knight and Squire, for example, is one of my favourite comics. ♥).
Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur trilogy, of which I have read the first two, is extraordinary. They have this lovely clear, crisp prose, which draws you straight into the strange familiar twelfth century world. Highly recommended.
I picked up The Swan Kingdom, a fairly straightforward reimagining/expanding of the Swan Princess fairytale, from the library because I've been enjoying the author's blog. I wasn't blown away by it, but I'm glad I read it and am looking forward to reading her later books (this was her first) - from what I've read about them on her blog they look like they're going to be more complex and diverse. Yay!
(This post and the next were originally going to be one post, but it got out of hand, and since there was a logical way to split them, I used it...)
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(BTW, turned out that The Earthly Crown's actually the second book in that series - the first is Jarran (sp?))