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"Just sitting here watching our barren lives pass us by...
Oh, look, a cockroach."
Can we do that thing where you give me a subject and I list TOP 5? Please? Because I'm bored, and needs should definitely be met. As long as it doesn't require ointments the next day.
Can we do that thing where you give me a subject and I list TOP 5? Please? Because I'm bored, and needs should definitely be met. As long as it doesn't require ointments the next day.
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Glad you're going to let the other questions stew. Should make for some interesting answers.
Smooch!
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Top 5 lines in fanfic:
-last line of
-last line of
-from
-from
-from
Top 5 lines in my own fanfic:
I just chose one from each fic, since I have five.
-Down There In The Reeperbahn: The world is your cunt is an alley, rainy and dark; his dick was his -and-take is your stake; your child is your give-and- your final climax.
(I am really, really proud of that sentence in my head, but I'm still not sure it makes sense to anybody else. It's very convoluted.)
-from Bodiless Within The Bodies: She is someone else now, some shaley fossil of herself with herself piled atop herself atop herself atop herself but without that single self underneath, and she’s so thick, so gravid with life and death she’s sure she can’t fit anywhere, this woman who is the Slayer but who is also Buffy, this woman who is a killer but also a friend, this woman who will love Angel forever and ever—but also, she realizes with horror—a woman who no longer loves Angel at all—this woman who’s been to Heaven, lives on Earth, and feels like she’s in . . . she’s in-between, she’s in God, where am I?, she’s in . . . Hell, Buffy, that question should be “who” . . .
(same for this sentence. What I'm impressed with is that I could bear to write that Buffy sees part of herself as someone who doesn't love Angel any more. I wanted that to be a part of this fic, but I have a hard time with the idea, so...)
-from Blood Types: Her womb is a mud-soaked grave, and she births you in cold blood.
(I'm just impressed that those two ideas--the womb as a grave and the play on the idiom "cold blood"--came out so simply. I have a tendency to convolute things.)
-from The Confessional: He’s looking at one of his hands; the fingers are moving, thumb and forefinger, a caress over a bead that isn’t there.
(I just like that image.)
-from Best Souvenir: "Giles and I were debating between the An-GEL-us and the AN-gel-us option.”
(BS is much more about the story, so I try to make the style as unobtrusive as possible. As such, I'm mostly unimpressed by the way I phrase things. I do like this line though, because I love it when fics--especially long epicky fics--can work in something that kind of jokes at the show or nods to fans.)
5 top novels
It's be impossible to name them, because I read novels for two main different reasons which don't really cross over: enrichment and escapism. Usually, these fall into the genres of classics and fantasy (respectively), so I just picked five authors in each of those genres.
Top 5 classic novelists
-Jane Austen
-Victor Hugo
-Fyodor Dostoevsky
-Ayn Rand
-Charlotte Bronte
Top 5 best fantasy novelists
-Guy Gavriel Kay
-Robin McKinley
-Jennifer Roberson (not for her fantasy, but for her historical fiction, which is fanciful enough.)
-Frank Herbert (okay, sci fi)
-Marion Z. Bradley, in honor of my preteen years (I'm guessing if I read her now I wouldn't think quite so much of her)
Thank you for making me think!
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(Anonymous) 2006-01-23 12:18 am (UTC)(link)no subject
Robin McKinley is excellent. Her first novel, "Beauty", is a retelling of beauty and the beast. It's kind of young adult oriented, but I still read it all the time. She's done several other retellings of fairytales. "Deerskin" is much more adult. The icon I usually use (the one in this post) is from the cover of that novel.
She has also done two fantasy (adventure oriented, instead of fairytale oriented) novels (set in one world), which are also young adult oriented. I recommend "The Blue Sword" if that's where you want to start. The other "Hero and the Crown" won the Newberry, but I don't think it's as good.
Most recently, McKinley wrote a book called "Sunshine," which deals with vampires and a sort of Buffyesque heroine. I did not enjoy it very much (as I have not enjoyed any of her latest novels), but I have been told since it has many nods to Buffy which I didn't notice because I read it before I'd ever watched the shows.
Jennifer Roberson writes bad fantasy. I do not recommend it. However, her tale of Robin Hood, called Lady of the Forrest, is really, really entertaining. It's a historical romance, which might be just up your alley from what I understand you to be currently writing. It has a sequel, called Lady of Sherwood, which is not as good (interestingly, Robin McKinley has also written a novel about the Robin Hood legend, called Outlaws of Sherwood, which I don't think is as great as some of her works). She's written another historical romance set in Scotland, but I also don't think it's as good.
Mostly I just like Lady of the Forrest. It reads as easily as a romance novel but seems pretty historically accurate and deals with a few weighty concepts without getting incredibly thinky. I think a lot of people on our mutual flists would enjoy it (one day I'm going to do a post about both of these authors for that reason.)
Thank you for sounding so interested. I'm going to stop rambling now ;o)
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I'm stopping into ramble cause . . . Robin McKinley
I think Robin McKinley's style varies a lot from book to book, and lately it's been a lot more purple-prose-y than it used to be (especially in Rose Daughter and The Outlaws of Sherwood). Which I like, but it can be dense and difficult to get through.
As for The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, I think that a great deal depends on the order in which you read them. Most people I know that read THatC first liked that one better, and vice versa for TBS. I believe Robin McKinley meant for TBS to be read first, but either works. (Read THatC first. Like it better.)
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What I'm having trouble with in her later novels is how convoluted the plots are. The writing is more sophisticated in some ways, but I have not like the characters and stories as much. I don't think she's as adept at building complex worlds and ideas as she is at simple straightforward story-telling. Imo. But then again, I love Beauty and pretty much hate Rose Daughter.
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If you like his works, have you tried George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series, which starts with A Game of Thrones? I also used to adore Tanith Lee, and can't recommend Night's Master the first book in her Flat Earth series, enough. It's an erotic, adults only, Arabian Nights for adults. She wrote a lot of novels I loved in the 70's and 80's, but I kind of lost track of her in the 90's, when she started going in a direction with one series that I couldn't quite get into. That said, I understand she's coming out with a sequel to one of my favorite books by her, The Silver Metal Lover which will be called something like Metallic Love which I'll have to read on princple.
Thanks for the details about the other books. I"ll have to check them out.
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Thanks for the heads up on Martin and Tanith Lee. I've heard of them both, and have been meaning to read Lee forever. Night's Master sounds particularly interesting--thank you!
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And while I haven't gotten into a lot of Martin's work, the Game of Thrones hooked me, my spouse and our child on the series.
In the sciene fiction/fantasy genres, have you ever read Roger Zelazny? What about Glen Cook?
In Historical Romance, have you read Roberta Gellis and as you are a Jane Austen fan, have you read Georgette Heyer?
So many books, so little time...
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On the historical front, I have been meaning to read Georgette Heyer . . . and I'll check out Gellis. Thanks again!