Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 394

Two books I most want to read / am most fervently putting off reading

Are Elizabeth Wein’s CODE NAME VERITY and ROSE UNDER FIRE.

I don’t think I even have these formally on my wishlist. Because the chance I’ll forget about them is zero.

When I feel prepared for something emotionally hardcore, I will reach for one of these.

In the meantime, I appreciate reviews like this one by Liz Bourke, which sing their praises without spoiling the books.

The very very best writers today

How about that for a topic that absolutely no one will agree on? Yes, I know, it’s all a matter of personal taste. Or not ALL, because some aspects of quality are just objective and an author who lacks a feel for language need not apply for best-of lists, but *basically*, yeah, personal taste.

I mean, for me, in mysteries? The actual mystery and plot are not as important as the characterization and setting. Obviously that’s just me. And I’ve read A LOT more fantasy than, say, contemporary romances.

In fact, I should probably mention that I have read uncountable novels in the fantasy, SF, historical, and mystery categories, but much more lightly in some of the other categories below. But why should I let that stop me from tossing out a highly opinionated list, right?

So, forging ahead:

1. Very best historical novels: Gillian Bradshaw

2. Very best romances: Laura Florand

3. Very best fantasy: Patricia McKillip

4. Very best magical realism: Sarah Addison Allen

5. Very best mysteries: Barbara Hambly / Barbara “Hamilton”

6. Very best SF: Um, there I skid to a halt. Um. Yeah, here I want a top-five list, minimum. OKAY FINE how about CJ Cherryh

7. Very best horror: Dean Koontz, but I admit I like horror-lite, not real horror

8. Very best satire: Terry Pratchett

9. Very best middle-grade/young adult: Diana Wynne Jones

10. Very best classic novelist: Jane Austen

Gillian Bradshaw is the very best –

When it comes to historicals, especially impeccably researched historicals with a strong romance subplot.

So pleased to see that Maureen has started reading Bradshaw’s backlist. Yay! Such a pleasure when you get to watch someone discover a favorite author.

My own Bradshaw list:

Fighting it out for top place:

A Beacon at Alexandria

Island of Ghosts

Cleopatra’s Heir

The Sand-Reckoner

Also very good:

Render Unto Caesar

The Bearkeeper’s Daughter

Imperial Purple

The Sun’s Bride

Wolf Hunt

Not as good imo:

Dark North — I’d almost put this in the set above, though

London in Chains

Horses of Heaven

The Arthurian trilogy

The ones I haven’t read:

Her science fiction (I have one on my Kindle, though)

Her children’s books

If you’ve already read a lot of Bradshaw’s list, which ones are on the top for you? And do you think there is a bottom to her list? I have no impulse to re-read the Arthurian trilogy, but then for me Mary Stewart wrote the definitive Arthurian series.

Taste in books, then and now

Nathan Bransford first offers a post in which he critiques the idea that in those halcyon days of yore the general public loved highbrow literary fiction, while today cultural tastes have degenerated.

Nathan’s take: “Personally, I’m very skeptical of golden era attitudes toward the past. While books have had to cede cultural ground to other media with the rise of movies, TV and the Internet, I also don’t know that there was ever an exalted period in the past where everyone in America was reading literary fiction and arguing about Proust vs. Flaubert at the dinner table, or even that there were more people who did that in the past than do now.”

Then! To explore the issue, he also offers:

A list of the best-selling novels every year this century, and, for good measure,

A list of the best-selling nonfiction books every year this century.

But I don’t know! Much as I admire Nathan Bransford, I’m afraid that for me, having Dan Brown appear twice in the past ten years is, um, not a positive sign. Also, having Fifty Shades as the 2012 bestseller kinda adds weight, all by itself, to the thesis that cultural tastes in books have degenerated in the modern day. Is there anything half as bad in the first 15 years of this list, as the bad ones in the last 15 years? And here I mean “badly written,” not just “pornographic.”

A Finnish Spitz can bark 150 times a minute

Do you want one?

Pretty, aren’t they? But they are also called “the barking bird dog” and in Finland, their fanciers actually have barking contests for them. If you’re going to get a puppy — or even just put a dog in your book — then it would be nice to know something about dogs and about the breed, right? (I really like Ilona Andrews’ dogs; they clearly do know their breeds!)

If you want esoteric information about random topics, well, there’s an expert for everything, right? Here’s a post about that. I hadn’t actually heard of the Joys of Research list, but these days there are all kinds of resources for a writer who wants to know something weird and random.

My favorite bit from the post linked above (from Book View Cafe) is actually this from the comments:

“A thriller writer friend of mine once phoned a local chemical supply house. How much hydrochloric acid would it take to fill a bathtub? What concentration should she buy to dissolve a piece of meat that weighted, oh, 180 lbs? Could she carry the carboys in her truck? Would it be necessary to reglaze her tub? What about the sewage system? The clerk was perfectly informative and told her everything she wanted to know.”

Which made me laugh! Wouldn’t YOU sort of wonder about someone who called with these questions?

I actually have called my brother to ask things like:

How many men would be in a typical medieval army?

How long would it take to go 100 miles on horseback?

Which saint would be a good patron saint to protect you from werewolves?

I’m not obsessive enough to maintain a list of People Who Know Things, but I’m definitely interested in sources of expert information. Every now and then you come across a site like this , for example, and forever after make sure your swords weigh two pounds, not twenty. And that gives you one fewer thing that will annoy any of your readers who happen to know that swords weren’t actually super-heavy.

Ridiculous but funny take on Myers-Briggs

Which Harry Potter character shares your personality type?

I’m tempted to ask you all to guess where I land on this chart, but no, I’ll just tell you: I’m Draco Malfoy. Maaaybe Hermoine Granger, but . . . no, probably Draco Malfoy.

How about you?

If you don’t know your Myers-Briggs score, there’s a online version here.

You can see the official Myers-Briggs definitions of the types here.

This link guaranteed to improve your day

Or at least make you laugh. Which is a win right there.

Amazon’s collection of hilarious reviews.

I laughed out loud at the very first entry, but I suggest you keep going at least till you get to the uranium ore.

Enjoy!

I think today is a good day to start a revision

I’ve taken more than two weeks off! And technically I have time to take more time off, because when the deadline is next spring, well, not like it’s going to be an effort to get this project in on time.

I hope.

Anyway! I have read a lot of books in the past couple weeks and I have started to get to the point where I’m okay with turning my back on the TBR shelves for a while. I am even almost sort of looking forward to starting this revision! (That won’t last.)

I don’t know that I’m in the mood to write anything extensive about the books I’ve read most recently, but:

I like the Kushiel’s Dart series better than the Naamah’s Kiss series. I think I just prefer a spy-courtesan to a Girl With A Destiny, but there were also stylistic things about the Naamah series that bugged me a little that I don’t remember from the Kushiel trilogy. Maybe I was not such a critical reader when I read the latter, I don’t know. Plus, wow, are we re-arranging the entire world or what? China AND Russia AND Central America, among others. Wow. Maybe that was a little much of a muchness for me. I did like Moirin’s kinder, gentler sex life better than Phaedre’s S&M thing, though.

I like Bansh from The Range of Ghosts better than Kasimir from All the Windwracked Stars. They are not really comparable, though, since Bansh is a horse who is only subtly magical, whereas Kasimir is a character in his own right — an angel shaped like a horse. Or something. I had some trouble visualizing him. Antlers AND horns? (He has two heads.)(Apparently both heads are the heads of horses, but one has antlers and one horns?) What is that based on, anybody know, and I will try to google up an image.

I also liked Range of Ghosts better just overall. To me, Muire, in All the Windwracked Stars, is too ineffectual and weak and too stuck in self-loathing to really appeal to me, until the second half of the book. In contrast I truly loved all the pov characters in Range of Ghosts.

I really am enjoying Margaret Maron’s mystery series, which starts with Slow Dollar. I needed something contemporary to intersperse with those big fantasy novels, and these were perfect. I like the protagonist, Deborah, and I particularly like the second book of the series, where she admits to herself that she has fallen in love with the guy she thought she was marrying just as a convenience. (He was already in love with her, though he was trying not to let on.) I love the setting and characters and so far I don’t think I’ve ever found the murderer super obvious, either.

However, I’m switching to nonfiction for a few weeks or a month. Gotta knock this ms into shape so I can send it to my agent without being embarrassed.

To get into the mood for revision, this, from Terrible Minds.

Not that you would ever lie about having read a book –

But here‘s an entertaining list of the top ten books people do apparently lie about having read. Which seems strange to me, but then I’ve read the actual unabridged version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, so I have big-book cred despite never having read War and Peace.

I’m surprised James Joyce’s Ulyssesisn’t on here. I hear it’s basically unreadable. Never looked at it myself, so I wouldn’t know.

I’ve read five of the books on this list and actually very much enjoyed two of them. I only read Jane Eyre so I could better appreciate Sharon Shinn’s Jenna Starborne.

I can’t say I have ANY desire to read 1984. I mean, we kind of know how that one comes out even without reading it, right? No, thanks. I’m grateful to have got off without reading it in high school.

Any of your favorites / least favorites make the list? Truly?

Guest post today –

I have a guest post up today, over at Mel’s World.

All about dragons!