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krystalynn03

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Just finished Goldenhand, by Garth Nix.

This is the latest installment in the Old Kingdom series of books, which started with Sabriel. The original trilogy I adored. Some of the shorts that have come out since have been alright, and Clariel was amusing. This one was... hrm. It felt like Nix was falling into YA conventions more than writing his own story a lot of the time. The romance between Lirael and Nick seemed very rushed. The romance between Sam and Ferin even more so. I realize that romance is sort of a hallmark of YA, I guess I just... I don't know. I enjoyed previous stories with Lirael because it was more about her personal growth and crippling anxiety. Goldenhand had great moments, where she came back to the Clayr and they had to adapt to her being a stronger willed person, but in other places, Lirael just sort of became another nondescript YA female lead.

I enjoyed the third person omniscient writing style, even with info dumps. I think Nix handles these well and I never find them jarring or out of place (although I do identify them more now that I've started writing). Again, I didn't care for the second POV in Ferin, but not because she was poorly written. Rather, I have so much emotional investment in Lirael that I really just want to read about her. That makes me wonder if thats how people feel about my series sometimes. Heh. Erin's POV definitely made the story richer, and as a stand alone character she was great. I really just wanted to read about Lirael and awkward times with the Clayr.

It was well written, like all of Nix's books I have read, just not as rich. I don't regret buying it by any means, but it does make me, once again, realize the peril of the multiple POV book.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another one down - Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren

I didn't buy this. It was sent to me by a friend, one of some ten people who insisted I just had to read this book because it is so me. 

The writing was fine. It was a familiar clean, to the point, little embellishment style that I use. In that respect I found it easy to read. Mostly though I just found it confusing. The field is too similar to mine, but without the focus. This particular writing style does not tend to lend sympathy to characters or contribute to author voice (and let me tell you, that is something I struggle with every day), and so I was bored. Why should I cheer for a character I have no connection to, other than our eerily similar lives?

So, yeah. If I ever write a memoir, may it not be this. Or at least if it is this, let me have figured out author voice well before the writing of it, so I don't bore the pants off of another scientist who gets told to read it. 

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Has anyone else read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch?  I just finished listening to it.  It's definitely grittier than the things I usually gravitate towards.  Overall I liked it.  The world was fascinating and super creative, if dark, and the characters are great - lovable rogues, indeed.  I thought his writing was smooth and well-done, and his long descriptive passages usually rewarded attention by being relevant later, as well as just being really interesting.  I'm not sure I'll read the rest of the series, though.  There were some pretty disturbing bits.  Actually, many disturbing bits.  Plus, revenge turned out to be such an important character motivation in this book, and I just never buy into revenge plots.  Sure, be angry, be upset, but what has revenge ever done for anyone?  Book one wrapped up well, so I might just leave the series alone.  Lies barely passed the Bechdel test, though... I'm wondering if anyone else has opinions about the gender dynamics in the book.  There were certainly strong women, but there weren't so many of them, and I have a specific question about fridging in the spoiler box below.

Spoiler

Does Nazca's death count as a fridging?  It was a major part in the plot, and it certainly was used to fuel her father's emotional shift and subsequent actions.  The thing is, everyone is being used in this book, left and right - and it wasn't just the author killing her for an emotional purpose, it was a character killing her for an emotional purpose.  A slimy character at that.  But then was the author using her death to show us what a slimy character the Gray King is?  Hmmm...

Overall, I still recommend it, but with quite the content warning.  Violence, sex, language, drugs, and yes, there is also a brief description of sexual assault.  

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16 hours ago, Hobbit said:

Has anyone else read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch?

I read this not long ago, and read the next two books soon after.  I really enjoyed the story, but it certainly has all the content warnings you list.  It's  a lot grittier than I usually read, but was also very heartfelt and light(?) at the same time, not like Game of Thrones, say.

I also listened to this on audio book, so I may have had a different perception if I had read it.

On your spoiler box question, I don't think that is fridging, based on what @kaisa outlined, because the character was well developed and had a reason for being killed (whether the killer's reasons were good or not).  

At any rate, I'll add my recommendation to read the books, if only for Lynch's skill in weaving two timelines together in his stories.

 

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I'm reading it now, and enjoying it so far. Still trying to decide if the interludes are annoying or not. On balance, I think better now that they are shorter. I'm at Page 224. I read like the sloth in Zootopia / Zootropolis stamps a driver's licence.

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About the spoiler, I'm going to waggle my hand and go 'actually yeah probably a fridging'. That character doesn't exactly have their own plotline; they're an adjunct to several others' stories. They're not the only character the story treats in this manner though, and it's got a lot of well-realized female characters so I'm not as bothered as I am under a lot of circumstances. Especially after the third book I'm pretty well satisfied the author's doing his best with women and he's doing better than most, I think.

As far as Bechdel goes, this is a series that's always going to struggle with that because it's very tight third person POV of a male character; I'm not going to sweat it if the rest lines up. And I very much appreciate the way some stuff is handled in the third book; I'm not going to say more than that because it doesn't sound like others are there yet? 

I would not call the flashback bits interludes per se; they're as much the story as the present-day stuff, and I think it's an interesting way of going about it.

It's a series I actually very much enjoy, on the whole.

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On 25/10/2016 at 10:04 PM, neongrey said:

I'm not going to say more than that because it doesn't sound like others are there yet?

I'm on Page 286 of Book 1 - and I'm enjoying it. I've become comfortable with the interludes, which are now more sparse, after the initial jumble. At this stage, there is something of a dearth of female characters, basically just Lady Salvara and the boss's daughter, but they are reasonably well drawn, I thought.

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Yeah, the first book is short but the women he does have I think are done well; it's definitely something gets better at and does more of as he goes. I don't think the next two books are quite as good as the first, but I like them pretty well. And I appreciate some of the stuff in 3, quite a lot.

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  • 2 weeks later...

On the subject of Lies of Lockes Lamora: Final Fantasy! Well, Locke's name actually comes from the character Locke from FFVI (apparently), in which Locke is the game's thief, and has some of the most character development of the massive roster.

What I mean to say is that I learned a lot of character building skills from playing RPGs. It's a bit tricky to find a good one, but if you go back you can find some incredibly well-developed protagonists with little dialogue. Take the golden olden Chrono Trigger. The entire cast (I feel) is developed, with only a few lines of dialogue (the protagonist doesn't even speak!) and one sidequest per character. If you ever want to find an object lesson on how to cram in character development with only a few dialogue lines and one or two scenes, dust of a few old titles and see how they did it.

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  • 1 month later...

I keep forgetting this thread!

On recommendation from a friend I read Sword-Dancer and Sword-Singer by Jennifer Roberson. 

This is one of those instances where I know the books are older, so I am trying to view them fairly for the time. I understand why they are popular. They are well written, with good tension and the blocking is superb. 

With that said, I really disliked the first book. The way rape and male gaze was used would have had me put the book down and blacklist the author if my friend wasn't wide-eyed awaiting how much I loved the books. 

They did get better, as series do and as writers develop, but the problems of the first book leave me with such a coloring of the author and the characters that I don't want to pursue further works. 

I think this is a good thing to note for us newbie writers. Readers may judge you just on one work. You may never get them back. That's a lot of pressure!

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Ah, the 80s. May you never return.

I'd try Katherine Kerr's stuff, starting with Daggerspell-- there's a series that is just not popular enough, because I think if it was starting in the 90s or today and, sigh, was written by a dude, we'd be watching getting mangled by HBO now. I think Jill's a character you'll appreciate though.

Edited by neongrey
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Just finished reading Scythe by Neal Shusterman. I made a list of, I think, seven good reasons I shouldn't like it, but I do. Neal Shusterman is one of the best dark writers today. Not horror, but his work is very dark (Dark Fusion is worse.) I'm going to reread it to catch all the subtleties, but Scythe is an expertly written novel for learning how to incorporate darker elements without delving into body horror or jump-scares, or the like.

Also, if you want to know how to write from the perspective of an insane person, he's also written Challenger Deep. I read it in a locked room in a single sitting, which wasn't a good idea on my part, and I found it amazing. Challenger Deep is told from the perspective of someone who is insane, crafted in part from Neal Shusterman's own experiences.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally got around to reading Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear. I don't read much steam punk, so I enjoyed the imagery a lot as it was a steep learning curve for me. With that said, I did feel it moved slowly and yet sometimes, maybe too fast? 

Some elements, like the plot, just plodded. In fact I didn't see much of a plot for the first half. Other areas, like the romance, were so sudden I was a bit dumbstruck (but I do like a long, drawn out romance). 

This is the first time I've been able to stomach a book written in dialect. It was alright, but it did make the book more difficult to read. I don't know if I would ever make this choice as a writer. 

 

Second book just just finished is Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor. I was confused at first when I started this, as I thought it was YA and it is actually middle grade. With that in mind, I thought it was snappy and lovely, with the right amount of exploring and world building for this age group. I do wonder how much it gets compared to Harry Potter, as there are some similar thematic elements. Such a neat premise for a book, and I really have nothing to quibble over. Some writing, good tension. 

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I would like to read more of Nnedi Okorafor's stuff, yeah; YA and MG don't really do it for me, but I should at the very least pick up Binti. Who Fears Death was really good, if not the easiest thing to read.

Elizabeth Bear though... man, I don't believe so much in holding people to things that happened years ago if it seems like they're actually doing better, and it was 2009, but I do remember Racefail, so I always feel a bit awkward there. I don't consciously avoid her stuff but I don't know if the fact that I do avoid it is a result of that or not.

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43 minutes ago, neongrey said:

Elizabeth Bear though... man,

o_O ? It's my first time with her. Does she have some troublesome other work? Karen Memory was really diverse and well paced, and I can't say I had any issues with it other than sometimes being a little bored or thinking the romance was rushed. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally finished Ancillary Justice. I... have mixed feelings. LOVE the writing style. Very easy to read and engaging. I didn't care for the chapters flipping between present and past (which is exactly what I've done with ATD, so lesson learned there). I was so engaged with present that I didn't care about past. I was much more engaged when the timelines synced. I did love the gender perspective, and I can see why it won awards. I'm not disappointed I read it, but it didn't hook me enough to read any of the others in the series.

Which, I suppose, is the real trick to a series. It tied up well at the end. There was no pressing OMG BUT WHAT ELSE? to make me want to go buy the next book. Good to note, for series, and makes me wonder if I did the same mistake with AFD. I expect you all to tell me.

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7 hours ago, kaisa said:

There was no pressing OMG BUT WHAT ELSE?

But this is the danger, I suppose, in writing a first novel, but not being an established author that can have the confidence to know that they will be picked up for the rest of the series. Do you think you would have been any more likely to pick up another of Ann Leckie's books if they were a different stand-alone, different chrs, different setting, etc?

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16 hours ago, Robinski said:

Do you think you would have been any more likely to pick up another of Ann Leckie's books if they were a different stand-alone, different chrs, different setting, etc?

Oh for sure! I LOVED her writing style and I would adore another chance to read something. Maybe just not the same world? Ugh, its hard because I'm looking back more fondly on the book post reading, and I like it the longer I am away from it. Yet I still don't have motivation to read the next. So yeah, something in another world, or even same world with different character, I would totally do.

NEW BOOK I just finished - The Bone Flower Throne by TL Morganfield.

Uh. Yeah. This book was on my Amazon wishlist, meaning someone at some point recommended that I read it. That someone and I should probably talk. The funny thing is, it was a good story, and rich, and the characters were great! But it didn't escalate. I think there's some general rule somewhere (maybe I'll get to this in one of the RE podcasts) about steadily increasing stakes in a book. Building tension and all that. I think most of us manage it alright, even as new authors. This book... it didn't. This author needed a meaner editor. 

It starts off strong. Great hook, great tension, stakes escalating for like the first four chapters them BAM. We're in a holding pattern of the same old same old for the rest of the book. It was boring. The characters were still great. The culture was great. Everything was great but about 100 pages in I found myself reading solely for the POINT, that point where things really go to gravy and everyone is scrambling and OMG EVERYTHING WILL END!

That never came. 

And when it didn't come, and the book ended, I felt cheated. Like there had been all these promises and all this great character work and this is such an amazing world and... we're still at the same tension level as chapter three.

SO, lesson learned. Increase stakes because otherwise book is boring. Severely boring. So boring I don't ever want to read anything else by this author. 

I feel like I'm really critical of books on here, so I should probably clarify that I'm trying to do the intended 'reading like writers' thing, and not just gush about the awesome things in the book. And I'm not a book snob, I swear. I mean, one of my favorite series is The Black Jewels Trilogy, which is... well I don't often admit to having read it let alone having tattered copies about my house so...

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4 hours ago, kaisa said:

Like there had been all these promises

This is something you will encounter again and again in the WE casts, making promises and keeping them, how to keep them, when to keep them, promises for minor characters, promises for a series of books that go beyond the first novel, to keep them all in the last four pages (the Sanderson avalanche - LOL), but always, always, always it's about making them and keeping them, somehow, somewhere.

Edited by Robinski
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