Bad brain. Very idle. No biscuit.

[hawkwing_lb]

My skills in time-wasting procrastination improve apace: over the past five days I've done none of the college work I'm supposed to be doing. Instead, I've screwed around, read books, slept and last night, when I ought to have slept, failed to sleep*, leading to me missing my lecture of the day.

The books: 15-18/16-19

Scott Westerfeld, Pretties and Specials.

I really, really like these books. The worldbuilding is fun and interesting, the plot is twisty and fast-paced, and Tally Youngblood is a very interesting, compelling character.

There was a minor hiccup in believability about halfway through Specials, but the ending felt note-perfect, and made up for it.

Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards.

I read Dumas as a child (I was nine or ten, I think), and looking back, most of the action probably went right over my head. Brust's work here is, I think, very much a homage, and I enjoyed it exceedingly. I want more: alas, I will have to wait.



Persons who have read the books of P.C. Hodgell: are they worth reading? Should I read them?

*

*There was the Purring Cat, the Coughing Parent, the Paw-in-the-Eye, and finally my very own coughing fit. Getting to sleep at 0430 does not encourage me to arise with wakefulness at any point before noon. Joy.

Comments

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

how come you gotta wait to read the rest of the Khaavren romances?

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Hodgell: I think on balance yes. They are innovative, interestingly complicated, non-standard secondary world fantasy with a lot of clever things going on and many interesting characters who are sympathetic from the distance of reading about them [ though in the "just set your house on fire now, it'll save time" direction of not sympathetic company in real life. ]. The only caveat I'd add is that the series is incomplete - I've no read To Ride a Rathorn yet but I gather it does not by any means tie everything up - and Hodgell does not write particularly fast, so goodness knows when there'll be another volume.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Cash. Or rather the lack of it. :)

Since Amazon is out of the question for the moment, and sadly, my library does not specialise in getting in US-published novels (it'll take them at least three or four months if I put a request for them in now), I'll just have to be patient. :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's precisely what I did and did not want to hear. :)

*makes additions to the very long list of books to read this lifetime*