Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?

[venta]

Book #2 (as recommended by lathany): I noted last month that starting to read Rivers of London was like settling into the familiar. Starting The Curse of Chalion immediately afterwards was jarringly the exact opposite.

Instead of slipping quietly into a twenty-first century London, it was obvious in the first paragraph or two that I was going to have to learn a whole new geography, new religious symbolism, new terms and titles for the characters...

Which is not a criticism of The Curse of Chalion, I think it says more about my own laziness when it comes to reading fantasy :) Actually... I do occasionally notice that I've probably read far more fantasy-parody than I have actual, genuine, fantasy which gives me a skewed perspective at times.

I also have a bit of an antipathy towards books which stitch a central character into an unwinnable, irretrievable situation... then proceed to retrieve it such that they win. As soon as I realise this is happening to a character, I start dreading the deus ex that is going to get them out of it... (I don't want to risk spoilers for the ending, so I shall content myself with saying that the book actually turned out not to be much of a sinner in this regard).

Anyway, once I'd got over my own personal issues, I quite enjoyed reading about Chalion and its curse. The characters were pleasantly grey, rather than the dreadfully black eats-the-heads-of-puppies villain and white beautiful-maiden types that occasionally turn up in this sort of story. The characters were well drawn, and I enjoyed the way the story fitted together. A subsequent novel from the series also turned up on my list and I'm looking forward to it.

Book #3 (as recommended by kauket): I was initially quite confused by Sabriel; I hadn't realised that it was aimed at young adults. Which isn't a problem - I frequently read YA or children's books anyway - but the mismatch between what I thought I was getting and what I got threw me briefly.

Also, my inability to take fantasy seriously kicked in, and immediately equated Sabriel with Susan Sto Helit. But never mind.

Anyway, Sabriel turned out to be a real page-turner, and I really like the way the world is set up. I enjoyed it a lot, until I finished the book and realised I had remarkably little idea what Sabriel herself was like. She starts the book as a fairly bland schoolgirl, and then a huge weight of obligation and duty falls on her and she becomes the things she needs to be. And there just isn't room in the book for much personality for her, as well as all that.

Having said that, I've put this theory to a few other people who've all looked at me a bit funny and disagreed, so YMMV. The stack of books from wimble included another two novels about Sabriel, and I'll definitely be reading them before returning.

Book #4 (as recommended by dr_bob): After the easy-going read of Sabriel, wading into Neal Stephenson's lengthy prose was quite hard work :)

(Yes, yes, people who've read Anathem will tell me I don't know I'm born.)

I'm a huge fan of Snowcrash, and lots of the things I liked about it carried over into Diamond Age. I love the way Stephenson writes his future technology, always expressing it through how it's achieved rather than the effect it has. I don't for a minute claim his nanotech fabrics and blood-borne mites and skull guns are possible, but they are written in a way that makes them very plausible. Also he doesn't treat computers as Big-Box-Does-Magic.

Diamond Age has something of the sweep of great fantasy epics, taking in a huge cast of characters over a large period of time. There are plenty of little substories to keep you caught up along the way, and despite the massive amount of tech which has to be explained, the reader doesn't get bogged down in it.

I did slightly get the feeling that the overarching philosophical wossnames had run away a bit out of control at the end, and were left slightly flapping in space - but that may have been me failing at comprehension. Overall, this book took care of my commutes for really quite a lot of February and kept me entertained.

Trouble is, neither little Nell nor Hackworth is quite as cool as Hiro Protagonist ;)

Comments

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it overall and that the ending did not live down to expectations.

I think that Paladin of Souls is a better book and I like the central character more (Ista). But Curse comes first and I feel you have to read them in order. I don't know whether it's Paladin or Hunt that is also on your list.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I did like it! And yes, it's Paladin of Souls which is also on the list. Recommended by shui_long, I think.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I did like it!

:-)

I forgot to say above - I know what you mean about the deus ex bit. She (Bujold, I mean) can be rather prone to that.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Although it was deus ex in the most literal of senses, it did fit nicely into the world. So it felt reasonably justified.

What bugs me is when authors produce a thing they have never hitherto mentioned to get a character out of a hole. Or use a really tenuous bit of linguistic legalism ("no man born of woman", indeed!)