Bookses, preciousss. Yesss, bookses....

[hawkwing_lb]

Tonight I read a most excellent book - Naomi Novik's Temeraire. Officially it's supposed to be on sale tomorrow - release date 03/01/05 from Voyager - but I was in Hodges Figgis in Dublin today, and thought to try my luck...

Apparently they've been selling it since the beginning of last week. I was informed by the very helpful counterperson who got it from the New Books section for me, after I failed to find it in SF/Fantasy, that they've sold five copies already. Mine makes six, so I suppose Ms Novik might be doing very well, indeed.

The book deserves it. The Napoleonic Wars, with dragons. Period dialogue worthy of the name. Reminiscent, somewhat, of the handful of Patrick O'Brian Aubrey and Maturin novels I've read, but much more readable (I found O'Brian a hard writer to read because of his prose style, despite otherwise excellent books).

The Napoleonic Wars. With dragons.

I will write more about this when I am coherent. Suffice to say that it is eminently praiseworthy, and comes in a pleasant cover, as well (the cover art is absolutely beautiful).

I'm given to understand that it will be out later in the year in the US, under the title His Majesty's Dragon. So let me just say;

Hah! Hah! I tell you! You don't know what you're missing!

::clutches book:: ::loves book:: ::gloats::

Preciousss. It's ours, preciousss. Ours!

*mine all mine*


/unnatural gloating.

Since it's usually the other way around, perhaps the gloating isn't so unnatural after all...

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Hah! Hah! I tell you! You don't know what you're missing!

Well, now that you mention it, I do. You've just told me, haven't you? And I've made notes to go buy this one too.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

It is truly a most excellent book. But then, I've been suffering a fiction drought lately, so... I could be over-reacting :-).

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Drought? Lately? You? The purveyor of names I haven't read, and books I have now had to buy?

::sceptical look::

If you say so.

:-P ;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Temeraire was my first new fiction read since before the holidays, I assure you.

::checks::

The last before that was Bear's Worldwired, so. A couple weeks at least without fiction except for re-reads - I was practically tearing out my hair!

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor thing! Not weeks!! and only re-reads!

No, I remember how life was all dull and boring if I didn't have something new to read each and every day. My sympathies. I do hope you haven't been reduced to reading boxes and labels at mealtimes?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

reading boxes and labels at mealtimes

I do that anyway: it's a habit I can't shake. (Unless I have lovely bookses to read, in which case - well, I'm sure you know.)

Strange thing is, I can read fiction without stopping for hours, even days (sleep? what is this sleep?), but non-fiction? I can only manage that in small bites. The maximum seems to be about 50 pages, and then I have to put it down or I just don't process.

Non-fiction is dense. Fiction can be dense too, but it's a different kind of dense, and I think a rather more forgiving one.

Forgiving, that is, unless we speak of literary fiction. I've managed to read one literary novel with more enjoyment than pain - Adam Williams' The Emperor's Bones, a massive book, simply huge -

But you're already familiar with that rant, I think, and there's no need for me to go on about it further :-).

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

yes, i do understand..all too well. sorry, typing one-handed as i have a cat on the other hand, sleeping.

non-fic is information-dense, so one can't skip words and still get the meaning. fic draws us into another world, where we weave the spell before our eyes and time passes unknown to us.