Personal Note: What's in the queue

[nebroadwe]

The pile of books on my (notional) bedside table has grown a bit since Christmas, although I've finished the bulk of the books I received as presents -- including Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Mislaid Magician and Philip Reeve's Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space (which gets a startling amount of mileage out of its central conceit, i.e. that the sun never set on the British Empire because it went extraterrestrial shortly after Sir Isaac Newton discovered spaceflight). Still, there always seems to be something else to read, such as ...

Beauvallet (Georgette Heyer)

I'm not a romance fan, but I do enjoy Heyer's novels. I'm particularly partial to Frederica, The Corinthian and The Grand Sophy, though I'll also put in a good word for The Unknown Ajax and Venetia. Beauvallet is Heyer in Sabatini-mode: her protagonist, Nicholas Beauvallet, is a daredevil privateer in the service of Queen Elizabeth. He's got his heart set on a fiery Spanish beauty (query: is there any other sort?), Dominica de Rada y Sylva, and at the moment he's impersonating a French courier in order to pluck her out from under the nose of her guardians. Good clean fun; the Renaissance English slang (Heyer loved slang) adds flavor to the dialogue without becoming unmanageable tushery (see My Lord John. Or, better yet, don't.)

The Pandora Principle (Carolyn Clowes)

A Star Trek: TOS novel loaned to me by my good friend Katie the Elder, it concerns (amid the action plot) Spock's relationship with Saavik. The author seems to have been influenced by Diane Duane's ST:TOS work, which can only be a plus, IMO. Duane is probably my favorite writer of media tie-ins -- I don't understand why other people insist on making such a fuss over what's-his-name, Peter Somebody. ;-)

Rise of a Hero (Hilari Bell)

Book two of a projected trilogy about how the kingdom of Farsala, a Persia-analogue, escapes (or doesn't escape) domination by the neighboring Hrum and its legions (guess who they're based on?). I wasn't all that thrilled by the first book (Fall of a Kingdom), but I did have some mild curiosity as to whether (or how) competent Jiaan, petulant Soraya and traitor-turned-patriot Kavi were going to stall the conquest for the required year (after which the Hrum, by their own law, are obligated to give up and go home). I've enjoyed some of Bell's other books, such as The Goblin Wood and A Matter of Profit, so I've got incentive to give this one a try, but it keeps slipping down the stack.

Drowned Wednesday (Garth Nix)

Garth Nix won my heart with the magnificent Sabriel and its interesting sequels, but his Keys to the Kingdom sequence, after a rousing start in Mister Monday, has been flagging. Nix is fond of creating elaborate hierarchical otherworlds, but this one takes that elaboration and turns it up to eleven, to the point where the principals (not to mention the plot) are in danger of being overwhelmed by the world-building. Still, as with Rise of a Hero, I want to know how it all turns out and the author has a great deal of goodwill banked with me, so I'll give this series another shot.

Scrapped Princess (Sakaki Ichiro, Yabuki Go; tr. Nibley/Bradner)

This came as a Christmas present. I've seen and liked part of the anime, but am told there's no plot overlap with this piece -- and that the manga consists of a limited number of volumes (3?). Manga's too expensive for me to make any more long-term commitments (right now I'm acquiring Fullmetal Alchemist and Cardcaptor Sakura in both English and Japanese and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle in English, and just put acquisition of the English version of Fruits Basket on hiatus). But on first glance I liked the artwork in Scrapped Princess; the characters look engaging and the stories seem interesting, so if this really only involves two more volumes, I might keep an eye peeled for them.

The Time-Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

This has been touted to me by both silverkatie and James Berardinelli, my favorite online film critic. The title aptly high-concepts the book; I got about fifty pages in and stopped, picking up Beauvallet instead. Hasn't grabbed me yet, but since it comes as highly recommended as it does, I intend to give it at least another fifty pages before I decide whether it's worth my time. (The hundred-page rule got me through the rather dull opening of Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep, for which I am profoundly grateful. What a wonderful novel! Truly an inspiration to librarians everywhere! :-)

The Chrysanthemum and the Fish (Howard Hibbett)

Non-fiction; a highly readable analysis of Japanese humor which I picked up for a research project but am happily engrossed by on its own merits. It's fun to discover the Japanese equivalent of the shaggy dog story.

So, dear reader, what's in your queue?

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I read The Time-Traveler's Wife and thought it was engaging and interesting.

As for my queue...er...something about white horses and volume 12 of Fruits Basket.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I read The Time-Traveler's Wife and thought it was engaging and interesting.

People keep saying that, which is why I'm giving the book that hundred pages. But I do occasionally find my tastes running counter to consensus. Frex, I don't enjoy Neil Gaiman's novels (although I find his short stories engaging) and while I zipped right through Books of Magic, I keep putting down Sandman after a page or six. De gustibus non est disputandum, eh?

As for my queue...er...something about white horses and volume 12 of Fruits Basket.

I'm borrowing FB from friends who collect it. I loved the anime, but I go hot and cold on the manga. Takaya's art style doesn't always jump up and grab me (particularly her character designs) and sometimes I'm just not in the mood for melodrama. I may wait and see how the art and the story work together to the end (I already know what happens) before deciding whether to pick up the entire run.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

You note I didn't say I'd recommend The Time Traveler's Wife or that it made me all quivery. It was interesting and engaging. *grins* Of course, I'll read just about anything. Ask me to remember it, though...while I still remember key phrases (and can quote them) from Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover, I just remember the main plot points for TTW.

Really? You love the anime? Are you watching dubbed or subbed of Furuba? The voices for the dubbed just made me crazy mad but I never tried it subbed. I'm mostly reading to see what happens with Haru and Rin and Momiji *points at icon* (and Shigure! *siiiighs*) and I'm remaining very unspoiled.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

You note I didn't say I'd recommend The Time Traveler's Wife or that it made me all quivery. It was interesting and engaging. *grins*

I'll take interesting and engaging, at least for an afternoon or two. Heck, Beauvallet was interesting and engaging, but hardly life-changing (or likely to be added to my personal collection).

Really? You love the anime? Are you watching dubbed or subbed of Furuba? The voices for the dubbed just made me crazy mad but I never tried it subbed.

By all means try it subbed: Horie Yui in her (I think) breakout role as Tohru, Seki Tomukazu (who else? :-) as Kyo, and Hisakawa Aya (heart-heart-sigh: what range that woman has!) as Yuki. And Daichi Akitaro managing to construct and alternate ending that works -- or at least that I think works. I know mangaphiles who excoriate it, but I just can't see that. I think what happens to everybody in the final two episodes takes the manga material then available and rounds off the character arcs in a way that's plausible, dramatic (and then some!) and just finished enough to give you a sense of closure without being so finished as to give you a sense of finality (which would have run counter to the theme of the work).

I don't mind the dub -- in fact, I think it's pretty lively (always a plus in my book), though it irks me exceedingly that they can't pronounce the names in the correct meter. None of them is that difficult. But I still prefer the sub for overall casting of VAs and quality of delivery -- the dub has a couple of miscast voices (notably, Kimberly Grant as Momiji, ick) and doesn't push the ending hard enough.

I'm mostly reading to see what happens with Haru and Rin and Momiji *points at icon* (and Shigure! *siiiighs*) and I'm remaining very unspoiled.

I shall not spoil you, then. :-) Your icon is darling, by the way.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I haven't been reading a lot lately; too much time on the computer and when I do read something, it's usually manga or something along that line. There are some books I'm interested in - I finally found a copy of A Maiden's Grave which I read about ten years ago to foist off on my mom and one of Cleveland Amory's books about his Black Beauty Farm.

cornerofmadness brought the Furuba anime the last time she came to visit and we skipped around watching episodes (with Haru, specifically).

*pets icon* COM found it and pointed it out to me.

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

In queue:

Anime: From Akira to Howl's Moving Castle by Napier
Children of Men PD James
Otherworld: Volumes 2-4 by Tad Williams
To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K Dick

Skewing a little heavy to the sci-fi, but that's okay. The last couple months were skewed to fantasy.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

HEE. I remember trying to read that last one after Bladerunner came out. I think I got past the first two or three chapters and gave up but I'm not a hard SF reader anyway.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for a class -- otherwise I probably wouldn't have picked it up: dystopic SF isn't really my thing. I'm really a space opera fan; I like my SF less sensawunda and more goshwow! :-) Mostly because the goshwow! end of things seems to have more interest in the characters, while the sensawunda people are really more intent on presenting concepts. No intent to diss the harder edge of SF; just a matter of personal entertainment preference.

I haven't read Children of Men, but I worked my way through most of P.D. James's mystery novels at one point. (I've also enjoyed several of the t.v. adaptations.) I read Williams's Tailchaser's Song a zillion years ago, but haven't been inspired to pick up any of his other stuff.

Peace!

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

I saw Children of Men in theatres and got curious about the book. I've heard the movie is only a loose adaptation of the book, but the general premise (mankind becoming infertile) is a really intriguing one.

The Tad Williams I picked up first was War of the Flowers, which was just great fun (and bonus, it's only one long book instead of four or five). I was really entertained by the way he kind of played with the fourth wall with some of the elements in Faerie.

Looking forward to Androids; I love hard sci-fi (Robinson's Mars trilogy is one of my favorites because its science is so well researched).

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Robinson's Years of Rice and Salt is in my extended queue (I used to be a medievalist). The only book of his that I've read so far is Icehenge, which was a bit of a slog -- the characters annoyed me for reasons that I now find difficult to recall. I think one of the middle-part narrators whined too much or something. I do remember being interested by the archaeology-of-revolutionary-Mars bits, though.

Oh, dear. I don't want to sound like I don't like science fiction when it gets sciencey. I have enjoyed Janet Kagan's Mirabile and Hellspark (although the last suffered from not quite giving everyone the proper amount of time on-stage from what I'd expected given the initial build-ups), as well as Charlie Stross's Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise (though the whole information singularity trope confuses me a bit -- I begin to think I lack a certain kind of imagination). I guess I'm really more of a Lois McMaster Bujold / Rosemary Kirstein sort of SF reader. Give me surface plausibility on the science and I'm perfectly happy. It's probably also a matter of what kinds of science-things I'm familiar with, too: I spent a happy couple of hours with Jack McDevitt's Engines of God recently, but I kept having to grit my teeth and read past an essentializing view of gender that spanned entire non-terrestrial species. (Ditto a mildly essentializing view of language, but at least McDevitt seemed to be aware of the problem and spent a few paragraphs having his linguists handwave past it. I give people more slack when they show willing. :-)

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed The Years of Rice and Salt much up until the ending, where Robinson kind of goes off on a rant. Granted, he ranted in Mars too, but that was more of a science rant than a religion rant. It really just kicked me out of the story at that point.

No worries, you didn't come off sounding like you didn't like sciencey sci-fi! I just really love it when the author goes into detail and obviously knows that the world he's constructed is plausible (in Mars it was even probable). But I'm an aerospace engineer, so I kind of have a big soft spot for that kind of thing.