We all go to hell
Oct. 2nd, 2007 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbFreshers' Week. Really busy. So many things to do, so little time.
Three days ago, I wouldn't have imagined I could be this busy before term even properly starts, but whoa, was I wrong.
Maybe by next week I'll have caught up on enough sleep to manage to start writing again.
Books 145-147, Fiction 138-141
138. Jennifer Roberson, Karavans.
Interesting, if somewhat lacking in direction. The land of Sancorra had been conquered by the Hecari. Refugees trying to leave have to pass by Alisanos, a sentient forest that moves without warning, swallowing people up and returning them changed, if at all. Roberson's characters are part of the last 'karavan' of the season, trying to get away. It's not so bad a read, but I didn't find it particularly engrossing, either.
139. Anne Bishop, Sebastien
This was a book that could have been more than merely diverting. Alas, the boring Big Bad Evil had nearly as much screentime as the interesting characters. Bishop's world-building is interesting and her characters compelling, and but for that one glaring flaw (Big Bad Inhuman Evil can be so damn boring) this would have been a good book.
140-141. Julie E. Czerneda, A Thousand Words For Stranger and Reap the Wild Wind.
Czerneda's first published novel and her latest, respectively. Stranger's a decent book with a good pace and compelling characters, good solid science fiction of the space opera kind. While it suffers from a few minor digressions, it's still more than good.
Reap the Wild Wind, in contrast to Stranger, starts off rather slowly, building up a picture of an entirely different world. (It takes place in the same continuum as Stranger, but earlier and in a different locale.) It's a much more measured book - an exploration, rather than a thriller. It follows Aryl Sarc of the Om'ray, the least power of three sentient species inhabiting the planet Cersi, as she begins to discover the world is not the same thing she thought it was. It's sort of a Bildungsroman, I think, and both it and Stranger are well worth the read.
---
Right now I'm reading F.W. Walbank's The Hellenistic World, and wonder of wonders, it's not only erudite and knowledgeable, but quite definitely readable as well. The introduction, explaining the sources, their pros, cons, and origins, is one of the clearest such explanations I've yet read. Lovely.
Three days ago, I wouldn't have imagined I could be this busy before term even properly starts, but whoa, was I wrong.
Maybe by next week I'll have caught up on enough sleep to manage to start writing again.
Books 145-147, Fiction 138-141
138. Jennifer Roberson, Karavans.
Interesting, if somewhat lacking in direction. The land of Sancorra had been conquered by the Hecari. Refugees trying to leave have to pass by Alisanos, a sentient forest that moves without warning, swallowing people up and returning them changed, if at all. Roberson's characters are part of the last 'karavan' of the season, trying to get away. It's not so bad a read, but I didn't find it particularly engrossing, either.
139. Anne Bishop, Sebastien
This was a book that could have been more than merely diverting. Alas, the boring Big Bad Evil had nearly as much screentime as the interesting characters. Bishop's world-building is interesting and her characters compelling, and but for that one glaring flaw (Big Bad Inhuman Evil can be so damn boring) this would have been a good book.
140-141. Julie E. Czerneda, A Thousand Words For Stranger and Reap the Wild Wind.
Czerneda's first published novel and her latest, respectively. Stranger's a decent book with a good pace and compelling characters, good solid science fiction of the space opera kind. While it suffers from a few minor digressions, it's still more than good.
Reap the Wild Wind, in contrast to Stranger, starts off rather slowly, building up a picture of an entirely different world. (It takes place in the same continuum as Stranger, but earlier and in a different locale.) It's a much more measured book - an exploration, rather than a thriller. It follows Aryl Sarc of the Om'ray, the least power of three sentient species inhabiting the planet Cersi, as she begins to discover the world is not the same thing she thought it was. It's sort of a Bildungsroman, I think, and both it and Stranger are well worth the read.
---
Right now I'm reading F.W. Walbank's The Hellenistic World, and wonder of wonders, it's not only erudite and knowledgeable, but quite definitely readable as well. The introduction, explaining the sources, their pros, cons, and origins, is one of the clearest such explanations I've yet read. Lovely.
