samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Friday, September 25th, 2009 04:50 pm
Reading opportunities have been, well, lacking really.
  • Regenesis by CJ Cherryh. I've been waiting for this book for, oh, 20 years and I enjoyed it a lot. I don't think I can talk about it well though, I loved the way it talks about sweeping socio-political relationships and the way it maps intimate psychological moments. I love the language, the ambivalent morality, the complex slave culture, the way Cyteen society is so evolved in some ways and so brutal in others. I love Justin and Grant, the azi team Caitlin and Florian and the tensions arising from psychologically cloning generations of twisted relationships.
  • Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch. Princess! Witch! Dragon! Sort of! Benevolence uses her magic and wits to survive the tragic loss of her parents, drudgery as a slave in an enemy army camp and the vagaries of her own youth.
  • tithe by Holly Black. Teen supernatural romance, Kaye discovers her faerie roots just in time to become aware of her future as a potential sacrifice, clearly an elven knight and some homicidal encounters will make this relationship one to remember. I question the choice to hook a 16 year old up with some old elvish guy, but I recognise the genre is hypnotically compelling for some.
  • The Stepsister Scheme by Jim Hines. A bit on the silly side, Cindarella's husband has been stolen away, who will help her? The angry, violent and talented Sleeping Beauty and the magical Snow White (who work for Cindarella's mother-in-law) take her on the adventure of a lifetime. I like the weaving of the different myths.
samvara: Photo of Modesty Blaise with text "All this and brains as well" (Default)
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 03:39 pm
The Spiderwick Chronicles books 1-5 by Holly Black and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. This is the first time I’ve read a book in the hope it will ‘fix’ the movie and I’m glad I did because the books are charming and the illustrations magical. To be fair I enjoyed the movie a lot and my problem was with some of the bigger plot leap-holes – which don’t happen in the five little books – they tell roughly the same tale.