Member: chauvetp

Hi Paul,
For fun I was looking at libraries of other people who have Jennifer Fallon's 'The Gods of Amyrantha'. I haven't read it yet, so can't say anything about it. :-)
I have a ton of SF/fantasy - most not in my LibraryThing records - and I was amazed we have so few books in common. I have the George RR Martin books you gave 5 stars to but didn't get a chance to read them yet. Basically I haven't read any of the books you gave 5 stars to. I have a feeling we generally have different reading tastes! Even if we do both like fantasy a lot.
I am looking forward to the Jennifer Fallon books, though. I learned for myself never to read a trilogy before all three books are out, so I haven't started them yet. Or a lot of other books - seems like so many books are in series!
I laughed when I saw your comments on Lord of the Rings. I gave the set to my son when he was maybe 12. He's 15 now, soon 16, and still hasn't picked them up. Well, he told me he picked The Two Towers up (why he started to read with #2 instead of #1, don't ask me) and read a few pages, but that was about it. I hope he reads them someday. You eventually did - maybe there's some hope. We always hope to give some of the great experiences to our kids that we had, but often it's not as good for them because they're not the same people that we were and it's a different time. But we still try! I'll never forget reading those books when I was in junior high school, around 1968 - it was the first fantasy of the sort I'd ever read, and it was fabulous. I've read many fantasies of various kinds since, but nothing ever matched that, so I stopped trying to find anything as good. That's probably why I don't read so much sword and sorcery. I've found great fantasy, but not of that sort (though I have hope for Martin. And come to think of it, Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever were just as good, just different). I've heard that if Lord of the Rings was written today it might not even get published - novels are expected to have plots that get moving immediately, and Lord of the Rings doesn't do that. And with countless pages of scenery description strewn throughout... I guess that's why you gave it only 4 stars! Who knows, I might if I read it now, too. But I still have those memories, so hard to say.
I bought a book over the weekend you might like. 'Flesh and Fire' by Laura Anne Gilman. I read the long Prologue and the first chapter before I bought it, and see it is written very well, has a really unusual presentation of magic, and will be quite interesting. Check it out if you feel like it. It's not the typical sword and sorcery fantasy you have read a lot of - I'm not sure because I haven't read it yet, but it isn't looking that way - but it looks like it will still have a lot in common with that sort of book, and if it shares enough and is yet a bit different, you might find it extremely interesting and entertaining. The author has written some other books, but I've not read any of them.
Anyway, just thought I'd say hi.
Sincerely,
Jim

posted by bibliojim at 1:13 am (EST) on Oct 19, 2009