A little book-geek blogging.

[vulgarweed]

Just finished: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD THIS WILL GIVE ME NIGHTMARES FOR LIFE I'm SO requesting and offering this for Yuletide. Bloody brilliant. But wrenching.

(Is it just me, or does the Hybrid from BSG talk an awful lot like the Weaver?)


Now starting: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. 'cause all the cool kids are doing it. So far so good - much lighter, relatively speaking, which is a necessary thing. Just a few chapters in and I like Laurence already.

Comments

[tyellas.livejournal.com]

My opinion of it was "brilliant, if over the top, but heartless." Which raises the question of whether a book has to have a heart, of course.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Not really heartless, because there was real emotion there. It was worse than heartless - it was both soulful and cruel. Ouch, a million times over.

It has something, though, because writing that's merely cynical and nihilistic I walk away from in disdain, because I guess I'm so cynical that I'm OVER cynicism. ;) Maybe it's just the amazing writing. That's usually enough to hold me.

if slake-moths were real they wouldn't even have to try with me.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Looking at it in a nit-picky kind of way....the resolution (such as it was) of Yagharek's story felt anticlimactic and tacked on. (I was disappointed to see that my first impulse guess of what kind of "choice-theft" it might have been was correct - too obvious, obviously!)

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Will definitely pick up on next visit to library - I'm always put off by how LARGE it is.

And omg, PLEASE read all five books of the Temeraire series. The first two are light to the point of fluff, but I'm still reeling from the emotional deathpunch I got from finishing the fifth one. They build. *cling*

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

I must read that book. I read Mieville's collection of short stories, Looking For Jake, and loved it to bits. And I also got the Iron Council at a bargain bin and didn't realise it was a sequel, woops!

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD THIS WILL GIVE ME NIGHTMARES FOR LIFE

That sounds interesting. *puts on reading list*

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

I'd love to have you in the fandom! Because chances are you will realise what's the most adorable and obvious pairing in there and write brilliant fic for it, which somehow no one else does. For totally selfless reasons!

Just a few chapters in and I like Laurence already.

It's hard not to like him! (Or most of the characters, actually.) I've often been tempted to slap him, though. He's such a little girl at heart.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Is it Laurence/Temeraire? Because that's a Frodo/Sam, Aziraphale/Crowley level of obvious. Doesn't bother me a bit that one's a dragon.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how happy you are making me. *beams all over the place* I knew you'd see that too! The only Laurence/Temeraire fic I found so far was this one by wikdsushi. It's really good, true, but read it (erm, probably not yet; read canon first *g*) and you'll see why it feels a little like cheating.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

I'll finish the books first, don't want to get spoiled. I'll tell you this though: I don't have a bestiality squick, I actually have a little bit of a bestiality kink--in fantasy at least. What squicks me about it IRL is the consent/communication issues. Give me an animal with humanlike intelligence and ability to talk in fantasy and I am ALL about the wildly different bodies finding ways to pleasurably interact. /TMI.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

*nods* I share that opinion to the letter. *sits back and waits for you to finish the books and subsequently find creative ways for pleasurable interaction*

[lacewood-lune.livejournal.com]

Interesting -- well said, and yes -- exactly.

Looks like I've got some cool reading to do!

[schwap23.livejournal.com]

Mielville's next, Iron Council, is tasty as well, but slightly different in flavor. Same world, but set outside the city which changes it. Since the city felt like the main character to me, it's kind of a shift. Still, it focusses on The Changed, which is good stuff!

Looking For Jake, however, creeped me out to the point that I haven't finished it! I have to be in just the right mood for it, and that mood doesn't come along very often...

For a similar feel, I would recommend Paul Di Fallipo's Ribofunk or John Shirley's City Come A Walking. Not strictly related, but I file them together on my bookshelf!

[fyrdrakken]

I wound up reading The Scar first and thought it was a sequel but it was brilliant anyway. And then I finally laid hands on Perdido Street Station and discovered that The Scar was basically about one barely-mentioned character from the first book drawing the wrong conclusion about the researcher guy disappearing and going on the run unnecessarily and winding up involved in strange events in a magnificent floating pirate city.

[tears-of-nienna.livejournal.com]

You are the second person today to recommend China Mieville to me. I think that is a sign. ;D

[lacewood-lune.livejournal.com]

Yep. Nightmares for life. Yeah, that's about right. Unless I'm *completely* getting my book titles mixed up -- and in this one rare case I'm pretty damn sure I'm not -- I think I read it about 5 years ago. And unlike most books the imagery is still clear as...well. "Clear as a bell" is most definitely not the appropriate cliche to throw in there. More like as unforgettable as the recurring nightmare you had as a kid and can't ever quite shake. And utterly, completely cruel, in a world that is breathtakingly strange and painful and yet still relevant. I put the book down at the end wondering if it had really been necessary to read something quite that -- grueling? Horrifying? Gut-wrenching? I'm not even exactly sure how to put it. But it was the only time I've read something that was really a little more than I could handle, and I kinda wondered if it might have been better for me to just put the book down and walk away. But I couldn't and I didn't and years later I'm glad I didn't, as haunting as it was. Because it was also beautiful and had so much to teach. It took so many ideas from *our* world to their insane over-the-top utmost logical conclusions, pointing out so vividly where some of the ideas in our world could take us. And so much more...

Okay, I will now stop gushing -- really I will... (grin)

[foxxfire5.livejournal.com]

I read "Perdido Street Station" for a class I took in college last year. It was absolutely wonderful. Hard, cruel, cynical, but all in a very well written way.

I must say, as you like that book and Good Omens, you have very good taste in books. <3 :D