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jackI was reading Komarr (Miles Vorkosigan) *again*. I know they're often dismissed as space opera, but I find something more to like every time I read them.
* Budding authors are often given the advice to make characters have flaws. That's a reasonable first approximation to good advice, in that characters without flaws will tend to be boring, but leads to making a list of virtues and flaws. What's most adorable and realistic is traits that are *both*.
Miles is a reasonably good example, LMB even says his first book was partially defined by Miles' triumverate of defining sins.
What do you like about him? Impulsiveness. What do you hate? Impulsiveness.
* Or alternatively, stubborn optimism, that he *will* make things go right whatever, and pushes through everything he allowes himself to really want to reality without much respact for the laws of the possible. Yet, how is this different to Tien Vorsoisson? Tien also rolls the dice aiming for the win, but mucks it up every time. Is he just incompetent? That means we like people who are gifted with skill, which is understandable, but doesn't seem fair. Does he fixate on one thing, when he should be solving something else? That could be it. As sonic repeatedly enjoins me, you can do worse than take Mile's attitude to life, even if to even LMJ he's wish fulfillment :)
* I need to read Dreamwaever's biographies again. What happened to LMJ that she always writes women who are browbeaten into staying in boring relationships? Tien is interesting; he doesn't *intend* to be evil, his mistakes and weaknesses just always fall on Ekaterin. But he's realer for it, though I know of people who are that deliberately evil :(
* Ekaterin says she could always be goaded by accusing her of nagging, or being disloyal, or naive. My goads are ignorance and stupidity, I think. It should be a meme: "What is your most besetting sin? Not that which you are most prone to, but that which you most fear and are most careful to flee from?"
ETA: Yeesh, that was a lot of posts. A lull at work, a release of tension, and I'm pouring out :) Yesterdays two were enough to eat half my morning replying. Maybe no-one will be online at the weekend :)
* Budding authors are often given the advice to make characters have flaws. That's a reasonable first approximation to good advice, in that characters without flaws will tend to be boring, but leads to making a list of virtues and flaws. What's most adorable and realistic is traits that are *both*.
Miles is a reasonably good example, LMB even says his first book was partially defined by Miles' triumverate of defining sins.
What do you like about him? Impulsiveness. What do you hate? Impulsiveness.
* Or alternatively, stubborn optimism, that he *will* make things go right whatever, and pushes through everything he allowes himself to really want to reality without much respact for the laws of the possible. Yet, how is this different to Tien Vorsoisson? Tien also rolls the dice aiming for the win, but mucks it up every time. Is he just incompetent? That means we like people who are gifted with skill, which is understandable, but doesn't seem fair. Does he fixate on one thing, when he should be solving something else? That could be it. As sonic repeatedly enjoins me, you can do worse than take Mile's attitude to life, even if to even LMJ he's wish fulfillment :)
* I need to read Dreamwaever's biographies again. What happened to LMJ that she always writes women who are browbeaten into staying in boring relationships? Tien is interesting; he doesn't *intend* to be evil, his mistakes and weaknesses just always fall on Ekaterin. But he's realer for it, though I know of people who are that deliberately evil :(
* Ekaterin says she could always be goaded by accusing her of nagging, or being disloyal, or naive. My goads are ignorance and stupidity, I think. It should be a meme: "What is your most besetting sin? Not that which you are most prone to, but that which you most fear and are most careful to flee from?"
ETA: Yeesh, that was a lot of posts. A lull at work, a release of tension, and I'm pouring out :) Yesterdays two were enough to eat half my morning replying. Maybe no-one will be online at the weekend :)
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Date: 2006-04-21 05:13 pm (UTC)Hang on, when did space opera become a bad thing? :)
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Date: 2006-04-21 05:20 pm (UTC)I like many Vorkosigan-like books, but I can see how someone could object. I think the plots and universe and history and characters are very well thought out, but people will condemn it as: unrealistc; or as being able to just as well be written as a western; or a non-scifi-book having done it better and this is just reprising; or it's a silly mix of running around action that doesn't have to make sense because the physics is made up to justify it and cliche characters.
But to me the characters seem wonderfully painted, every time you look you see new nuances. But then, maybe I'm reading into it; that's what we did with startrek, basically.
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Date: 2006-04-22 09:09 am (UTC)that's something else I would want to do if I had you at my bidding, get you to collect up all the interesting books you've mentioned that I want to read, and lend them to me :-)
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Date: 2006-04-22 11:28 am (UTC)I can't decide which is the best, but you probably want to start with Warrior's Apprentice (the first Miles book) if you like space adventures or Shards of Honour (about Miles parents, now republished as half a double volume called Cordelia's Honour) if you like romance.
that's something else I would want to do if I had you at my bidding
I worship you and live to serve. http://semichrome.net/~jack/books.txt
If you tell me which ones you've read I'll enjoy figuring out which others I think you mihgt like.
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Date: 2006-04-30 06:14 pm (UTC)I was more thinking of things you've blogged reviews of that I've mentally tagged as "would like to read", but
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon read, loved
Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light / early Amber Chronicles
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien got bored by the end of the hobbit and never faced this
Three Men in a Boat
Discworld - Terry Pratchett I read and liked wyrd sisters once ...
CS Forester - Hornblower
Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy love dirk gently, not got on so well with the hitchhiker's guide although I may give it another go sometime as everyone else seems to know it so well
To Kill a Mockingbird
Orwell - Animal Farm / 1984 we did animal farm at gcse and I didn't like it. I've read 1984 but in a phase when I read a lot of things sleepily and don't remember much of it
Frank Herbert - Dune I have a feeling I ought to read this
Richard Adams - Watership Down I don't think I have, although my mum loves it (or should that be "loved it"?)
Three Musketeers
Umberto Eco - Name of the Rose/Foucault's Pendulum
Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game think this might be on my "flagged" list somewhere
Dianna Wynn Jones
JK Rowling - Harry Potter liking them increasingly less as they go on, but know them pretty well
Ursula Le Guin - Earthsea
Stephen King - Eg. Firestarter, Carrie, [but some are bad]
Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones saw the film ...
Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park read this, probably reread some times, but I prefer others of his; airframe, disclosure ...
Asimov - Foundation, some short stories not a short story fan.
Larry Niven - Mote in God's eye, Moat Around Murchusun's Eye, Ringworld, Warlock universe
Mervyn Peake - Titus Groan
Tim Powers - Anubis Gates
Vernor Vinge - Fire upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky
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Date: 2006-05-01 04:14 pm (UTC)Amber Chronicles: Our world is one of the parallel worlds cast like shadows from the true world, Amber, through which princes of amber can walk, of which Corwin when he wakes in our world without his memory eventually realises he is one.
Hornblower: Classic adventure. Hornblower is so a kind hearted mathematician who's forced into becoming a ruthless naval officer.
Terry Pratchett: People differ on how good they are, but you should definitely try a couple more and see what you think.
Name of the Rose and Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel are slightly reminiscent of Cryptonomicon in different ways.
Stephen King: of very variable quality, but if you like Chrichton techonothrillers some King would be worth reading.
Ender's Game: Read it. It's a classic, but ever so easy to get in to, and stayed with me for ages. Ender is a boy selected for military training as the next generation of commanders in the bugger wars; if you were ever a bullied gifted child you want to know Ender.
Mote in God's Eye, Fire upon the Deep -- great scifi, wonderfully crafted alien but understandable aliens, characters and sweeping galactic stuff as well.
When is your birthday? :)
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Date: 2006-05-01 07:51 pm (UTC)I have a lot of trouble with long books at the moment; if I start them I often drift away before finishing them, likely forget I was reading them and when I remember have forgotten what happened. I liked Tom Clancy but he's got too long for me these days.
I like: smart people, a bit of mystery/brainteaser, a bit of romance. I don't like lots of violence/deaths. Cool ideas I like. I'm not fussy about scientific accuracy or pedantry. I like things that play with words and language and love Charlotte Bronte for that as well as her characters. I like characters I, er, possibly fancy I guess. Captain Von Trap ftw ;) I don't like mindblowing of the Greg Egan style. I like quite a lot of tacky chick lit, but not the really tacky. I like "nice" and I don't like farce, but I have some sense of humour. (see: Douglas Adams). There's some fantastic children's/teenage literature out there too. Some of my favourites and quoted recently include "Wise Child" and "Juniper" (same series) and the sisterhood of the travelling pants (what a name!). There's also religious literature which is a whole other world from your lists, I suspect...
*goes to look at bookshelves and finds that all the hallway lights have gone and I can't see the books*
I read books very much according to mood. I haven't got on with a lot of the sort of popular modern classic type things.
*finds photo of a bit of bookshelf*
http://cat.flurble.org/soton/tn/DSC_3294.JPG.html
right, from there...
oh, I tried to read Snow Crash and failed, and will have another go at the Diamond Age sometime which I didn't get far with. Thief is good. In the Deep End came free with a Teen Magazine and is all about discovering sex and wonderful. The Crichton is a random string of deaths and dull. Ben Elton I love, except for Popcorn and Blast from the Past. Dreaming of Larry is another lovely teen fiction, and the rest of the Jean Ure. Chick lit in varying qualities (Linda Taylor and Cathy Kelly are great, Sheila O Flanagan a little dull, Carole Matthews fun but not too rereadable...). Anne McCaffrey ... I started liking her Dolphin things but haven't found any I'm keen on lately, enjoyed the Killashandra lot but got a bit weary of them by the end of the third...
Neville Shute rocks. Barbie and the Alex stories; more lovely kids' books...
hm, I've rabbited on. I wonder if that gives you any idea ;)
January, dude.
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Date: 2006-05-01 07:56 pm (UTC)