Okay, after a generous dollop of Caroline Stevermer's excellent A College of Magics, I allow that maybe I was just a teeny bit harsh to poor Kristen Britain earlier. She is only the product of decades of epic fantasy crap being written, published, and read. I suppose she fills some sort of niche, and I'm sure her more recent books are better.
On the other hand, her editor should never, ever have let this phrase stand: "It blinked, extinguishing its moon eyes, and twisted its head away, as owls do." Not a bad turn of phrase--except that she is talking about an owl. It is actually an owl. So she has told us that an owl is doing what owls do. And that's only on page three.
But let me quit belaboring the book as if I cared that much. I'm enjoying A College of Magics hugely, and after that I may just go reread a few favorites. I seem to be in a reading mood right now, not a writing mood, and I'm just going to go with it. NaNoWriMo's coming up, I'm finding steamships unexpectedly tedious, and I'm worried that my 3-day novel entry never arrived (no confirmation email). And I have three novels now under consideration at various small presses and one under consideration by a prestigious agent. I'll just read other people's books for a while and try and chill.
6 comments:
Eek fingers crossed for all your novel subs - I've had one out with a small press since February and I'm too afraid to query.
I may be doing NaNo - can't fully decide. So then again, I may not be doing NaNo. :)
Oh, I hope you do! Nano's a lot of fun! This will be my fourth time.
Good luck on your novel sub too!
Fingers and toes crossed for you on your subs. NaNo sure was fun the one time I did it but there's no way I can keep up with my blogging addiction and do it. :)
Aw, you'd have lots of fun with NaNo this year! I'm trying to talk everyone I know into doing it with me this year. :)
Since you have established yourself as an authority on fantasy -- maybe not THE authority, but certainly one willing to lop heads (RIP KB) -- may I ask for your recommendations on solid treatments of dragons? And if you have any thoughts you will share on books written about dragons or with dragon characters published in 1905 or before, that would be absolutely wonderful. I'm not aware of anything.
lol, I don't know that I'm any kind of authority. I do like books about dragons, though! I don't know how my recommendations would fit with your tastes, but here's some suggestions:
Naomi Novik's Temeraire series you've probably already run across. For a SF treatment of dragons, Jane Yolen has a series starting with Dragon's Blood that you might find interesting. Patricia Wrede has a charming YA series starting with Dealing with Dragons. Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, of course. Lawrence Yep's Dragon of the Lost Sea has Chinese dragons. You might also like Tea with the Black Dragon--can't remember the author right now. Those are just off the top of my head--feel free to email me!
Oh, and before 1905? Hmm. E. Nesbit wrote around that time or a little before, and she occasionally wrote about dragons--at least one short story, and probably they show up in her books but I can't think of any specifically right now.
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