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Jan. 16th, 2008 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chu_totoroFinals are nearly over!
edit: To add some point to this post, some recently-read book recommendations--
Stardust by Neil Gaiman - If you haven't seen the movie yet, IMO you should read the book first. Just to get a chance to picture the characters without... movie images interfering. But that's just me, personally. (This has a possibility of ruining the movie for you, because then you'll see all the discrepancies.) Neil Gaiman's amusing, as always, if you like that sort of humor.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Long book. My paperback copy is 875 pp., each page roughly half the size of a normal sheet of printer paper. Tells the tale of King Arthur, Sword in the Stone, Round Table Knights, all that good stuff... from the POV of the witch, Morgan le Fay. So a retelling style akin to Wicked, if you will. Lots of detail on Druids and Celtic religion, and plus to that, the whole thing tilts from a feminist POV. If you think about it, none of the medieval tales ever emphasize the women much (Aragorn son of Arathorn! Gloin son of Bloin son of Moin son of Poin! The mother? Who cares.), but this book takes all those arbitrarily mentioned names of mothers or daughters or distant relatives and fleshes them all out. Of course, everyone knows the tale of King Arthur to some extent, so everyone'd have some idea of where the plot's headed, and in Morgan le Fay's case this is rather depressing, but aside from that it's a good book.
Dreamsongs by George R.R. Martin - Collection of short stories. The actual fantasy shorts are debatable, but the sci-fi/horror combinations are deliciously disturbing. Like "Sandkings." I actually had a dream a day or two afterwards that involved sandkings in some arbitrary way, though it wasn't scary at all and was actually kind of hilarious. "Meathouse Man" reminded me somewhat of Card, maybe just because the title sounds like Card's "Kingsmeat." "Remembering Melody" gave me the chills. "The Pear-Shaped Man" and "The Monkey Treatment" were just strange and disturbing. It's not horror exactly, a little bit of horror and a little bit of that mildly-disturbed feeling like what happens when you read Dahl's short stories, and very little actual Poe-style grotesqueness. The rest of the stories aren't as memorable, but make for a good read if you're a sci-fi/fantasy fan. :)
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - This isn't technically a recent-read, more a recent-reread, but if you like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style humor, go for it! It's hilarious.
edit: To add some point to this post, some recently-read book recommendations--
Stardust by Neil Gaiman - If you haven't seen the movie yet, IMO you should read the book first. Just to get a chance to picture the characters without... movie images interfering. But that's just me, personally. (This has a possibility of ruining the movie for you, because then you'll see all the discrepancies.) Neil Gaiman's amusing, as always, if you like that sort of humor.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Long book. My paperback copy is 875 pp., each page roughly half the size of a normal sheet of printer paper. Tells the tale of King Arthur, Sword in the Stone, Round Table Knights, all that good stuff... from the POV of the witch, Morgan le Fay. So a retelling style akin to Wicked, if you will. Lots of detail on Druids and Celtic religion, and plus to that, the whole thing tilts from a feminist POV. If you think about it, none of the medieval tales ever emphasize the women much (Aragorn son of Arathorn! Gloin son of Bloin son of Moin son of Poin! The mother? Who cares.), but this book takes all those arbitrarily mentioned names of mothers or daughters or distant relatives and fleshes them all out. Of course, everyone knows the tale of King Arthur to some extent, so everyone'd have some idea of where the plot's headed, and in Morgan le Fay's case this is rather depressing, but aside from that it's a good book.
Dreamsongs by George R.R. Martin - Collection of short stories. The actual fantasy shorts are debatable, but the sci-fi/horror combinations are deliciously disturbing. Like "Sandkings." I actually had a dream a day or two afterwards that involved sandkings in some arbitrary way, though it wasn't scary at all and was actually kind of hilarious. "Meathouse Man" reminded me somewhat of Card, maybe just because the title sounds like Card's "Kingsmeat." "Remembering Melody" gave me the chills. "The Pear-Shaped Man" and "The Monkey Treatment" were just strange and disturbing. It's not horror exactly, a little bit of horror and a little bit of that mildly-disturbed feeling like what happens when you read Dahl's short stories, and very little actual Poe-style grotesqueness. The rest of the stories aren't as memorable, but make for a good read if you're a sci-fi/fantasy fan. :)
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - This isn't technically a recent-read, more a recent-reread, but if you like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy style humor, go for it! It's hilarious.
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Date: 2008-01-17 06:45 am (UTC)Lol I actually bought the book a year ago on my random book-buying fest. Ahaha the star's fall was pretty funny. xD
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Date: 2008-01-17 03:09 pm (UTC)