Here be bookish, and also filmic, ramblings

[hawkwing_lb]

I've given up trying to remember and record all the books I read while I was sick. They were Many, and I've forgotten most of their plots. Except in the case of Dorothy L. Sayers: Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night must be two of the best books anywhere, with Busman's Honeymoon running close in third.

But since my memory started working again, there've been a couple of books worth remembering.

Mary Gentle's Ilario: The Lion's Eye is one of them. Set in the same alternate history universe as her Ash: A Secret History, but earlier.

The main character is Ilario, a hermaphrodite and former King's Freak of the court of Taraconensis. I can't tell you what the story's about: Gentle is too complex a writer for me to do that; but I can tell you it takes place all over the Med, from Carthage under the Penitence, to the crumbling Rome of the Empty Chair, to Venice, to Alexandria-in-Exile - Constantinople, where Pharaoh Ty-ameny rules over the last remnant of Egypt. There are golems, and assassins, and eunuchs, and mercenaries, and artists, and kings.

I love Gentle's work with the very great love. Ilario isn't the book that Ash was: it's very, very different. But equally good.

Elizabeth Bear (matociquala)'s Carnival - well, what can I say? Diplomats, spies, remnant alien cities, a future about as strange as anyone could wish for, much plotty goodness, and, oh. So many twisted and conflicted loyalties.

It kept me up all night reading. Read it.

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Eragon is an enjoyable film, if you aren't expecting too much from it. It suffers from, perhaps, a slight overdose of the clichés - farmboy hero, check; farmboy hero sans parents, check; death of remaining family, check; has Teh Specialness of the Very Special, check; evil sorcerer, check; evil king, check; young-and-beautiful love interest (with red hair and odd-looking eyes) who must be rescued, check; Big Battle, check - and an urge to offer homage to the LotR trilogy with every second sweeping camera angle, but the dragon is lovely and Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich are both extraordinary actors - Irons, in particular, is magnificent.

If you don't mind the - at times - outrageously stilted dialogue, it's actually quite a good film.

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Season's greetings. Whatever holiday you're celebrating this time of year, have a good one.

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Just finished Carnival myself. Plotted full of twisty, conflicted loyalties, oh my. I confess that I admire those wardrobes, but I'm not sure I would want one just yet.

My son is currently reading Eragon, and is entertaining hopes of seeing the movie.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Heh. We're both white types from developed nations, right? We'd both be Assessed in that universe long before we could get a wardrobe. :)

What's Eragon-the-book like, anyway? I tried to read it once, but I couldn't get past the first couple of pages. The film's good fun, though. I might go back and see it again before the New Year, now that there's a cinema within walking distance.

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

LOL..I'd just as soon skip right over that Assessment part and get to the wardrobes. ;-)

I haven't read Eragon yet; he got his hands on it first. He says it's good, but what does he know? ;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking of checking it out from the library for purposes of comparison. Though from the samples available online, I think I might read it simply for the joy of mocking it later. :)

(Alright, Paolini was 15 when he wrote it. More power to his elbow. That's not going to get in the way of a good mocking :))