let's book
May. 17th, 2017 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishWhat are you reading?
The ebook of Max Gladstone's first five Craft novels was $13, and I've been meaning to read them for ages, so I picked that up. I'm about halfway through Three Parts Dead so far.
It's very good, as expected. Like Walter Jon Williams's Metropolitan / City On Fire, it would be "urban fantasy" if that term hadn't been co-opted first for punk-rock elves and then for werewolves and vampires. Secondary-world fantasy, set in a city that's decidedly post-medieval. It's detective-ish: a failed wizarding student and her mentor come to town to find out why the god who powers the city seems to have died, and what if anything they can do to fix things. Neat stuff, neat characters.
It's also hitting the exact tone and close to the exact feel that I was going for in my own partially-begun novel. This is mostly frustrating: someone already did the thing I want to do, now if I do it I'll be ripping him off. It's also kind of validating: hey, I had a pretty good idea, there, maybe I ought to stick with it.
What did you just finish reading?
The Skill of Our Hands, by Steven Brust and Skyler White. Took me forever to get through this, for reasons that are not necessarily the fault of the book. It's disconcerting to read a book set in 2014 about how the immigration nonsense in Arizona was clearly a threat to decency, while living through 2017 as it's enacted. So that threw me. More, I think these are just not my kind of book, at least not on first read, and I'm not sure why.
What do you think you'll read next?
At the Gathering, Jason Holt, one of the guys from Czech Games Editions, handed out copies of his Galaxy Trucker novel to everyone who got something at the prize table. Emily's read it and was highly amused, so, probably that. Along with the second Craft novel in ebook.
The ebook of Max Gladstone's first five Craft novels was $13, and I've been meaning to read them for ages, so I picked that up. I'm about halfway through Three Parts Dead so far.
It's very good, as expected. Like Walter Jon Williams's Metropolitan / City On Fire, it would be "urban fantasy" if that term hadn't been co-opted first for punk-rock elves and then for werewolves and vampires. Secondary-world fantasy, set in a city that's decidedly post-medieval. It's detective-ish: a failed wizarding student and her mentor come to town to find out why the god who powers the city seems to have died, and what if anything they can do to fix things. Neat stuff, neat characters.
It's also hitting the exact tone and close to the exact feel that I was going for in my own partially-begun novel. This is mostly frustrating: someone already did the thing I want to do, now if I do it I'll be ripping him off. It's also kind of validating: hey, I had a pretty good idea, there, maybe I ought to stick with it.
What did you just finish reading?
The Skill of Our Hands, by Steven Brust and Skyler White. Took me forever to get through this, for reasons that are not necessarily the fault of the book. It's disconcerting to read a book set in 2014 about how the immigration nonsense in Arizona was clearly a threat to decency, while living through 2017 as it's enacted. So that threw me. More, I think these are just not my kind of book, at least not on first read, and I'm not sure why.
What do you think you'll read next?
At the Gathering, Jason Holt, one of the guys from Czech Games Editions, handed out copies of his Galaxy Trucker novel to everyone who got something at the prize table. Emily's read it and was highly amused, so, probably that. Along with the second Craft novel in ebook.