Monthly Group Reads: Reading the Poll Losers Instead?

[Dawn]

I looks like I'm gonna be reading both poll losers from October. And because of prior engagements for 3 of the 4 weeks in October I've started them already!

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I shall send Scott Oden a message to let him know to keep an eye on this thread. that some comments on Men of Bronze may appear.

[Dawn]

'Tis true, they may! I've only read a chapter so far but I like it already! My kind of hero and I do love a good Egyptian story.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I really liked it from the start to. It was at about halfway that it went from a 4, possibly 5, star to a three. All up though, I really meant my three star. I 'liked it'. :)

[Dawn]

I finished Child of Vengeance

Actually only ended going 2 stars. Part one I liked, the rest of the book was so boring.
I may be getting tired of reading about young men's coming of age stories though. I found myself thinking that I really didn't care about this or that tragedy, which was probably a defining moment in his young life.....I just wanted to get to the man's story, not the boy's. But this book doesn't have that part of the story.
So for anyone looking to read this, take my opinion with a grain of salt (except for Terri, these opinions are for you!). The author does do a pretty good job of the Japanese setting and some of the characters are quite good.

[Dawn]

Now I shall concentrate on Men of Bronze

Maybe Egypt is more to my liking, and the hero is not 13 which will be nice!

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Dawn wrote: "I finished Child of Vengeance

Actually only ended going 2 stars. Part one I liked, the rest of the book was so boring.
I may be getting tired of reading abo..."

I feel your quandary. When I chose it I did wonder, do I really want to read yet another coming of age story? I don't like them to begin with, but lately I have been reading a couple and I am over it big time.
It was something I thought long and hard about before putting the book in the poll. I knew that so many of our members enjoy coming of age or don't have issue with it like me, so I included it for them. I was hoping it wouldn't win though. :)

In the book I am reading right now, The Ill-Made Knight the character is a teen, but I don't notice. Mostly because it is narrated by that kid as an adult, so the child part of the story is told in an adult voice. So many coming of age stories are told childishly.

[Dawn]

That would be better. An adult narrator to make it a adult story.

I don't mind if the child/teenage years are only part of the book but the entire book is too much. But it's been one after the other this year......The Road to Jerusalem, City of Thieves, Hannibal: Enemy of Rome, Honour And The Sword.......three Michelle Moran books (girls coming of age but still the same idea). Just too many!

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Strategos - Born in the Borderlands


I hear ya. I wish authors would not make the whole book on kids too.
Bernard Cornwell does it fairly well. Makes the child part about a third...but then he too uses an adult narration so the child parts are the adult looking back and describing their childhood. The adult feel stays there in the telling.

[Daniel]

Dawn wrote: "Now I shall concentrate on Men of Bronze

Maybe Egypt is more to my liking, and the hero is not 13 which will be nice!"

I think I shall join you in this

[Jane]

Terri wrote: "Strategos - Born in the Borderlands


I hear ya. I wish authors would not make the whole book on kids too.
Bernard Cornwell does it fairly well. Makes the child part about a third...but then he too..."

@Terri, @Dawn, This book is only the first part of a [projected] trilogy. So I think it's only natural to focus on the boy's formative years, growing, maturing, and learning life's lessons--a Bildungsroman like I suggested in the Strategos group read thread. I've now read part of Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart and it begins 12 years later than the other book. I have read far enough that I see the action progresses forward. The MC has memories, but they don't take up a large part of the book.
I agree with you that I'd get sick of a whole string of stand-alone Bildungsromane one after the other, like you folks. :)

[Dawn]

Oh, I assumed it was the first in at least a trilogy. Same as three of the others I mentioned. But I'm still tired of the entire first book being about the teenage boy.
I'd personally prefer flashbacks instead of the first person narrative. Then I get enough of the adult hero and I still find out about the trauma that made him this way. Because you know there is some kind of trauma!

I don't want to read about a boy's formative years. This, I know, is very much a personal opinion on a storytelling type I don't like. So I hope I was clear for others about that, the book isn't bad. In fact the Japanese setting was refreshing, but I just don't want to read that much about teenagers anymore.

[Dawn]

I have to remember this bit of German though Bildungsroman

It describes these books in one nice looking word!!

[Jane]

@Dawn, I didn't realize that it is part of a trilogy [or more]. The subject just didn't interest me in the first place, so I'm not reading it.
Maybe the combination of 1st person + formative years just didn't do it for you?

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Dawn wrote: "Oh, I assumed it was the first in at least a trilogy. Same as three of the others I mentioned. But I'm still tired of the entire first book being about the teenage boy.
I'd personally prefer flash..."

I agree with everything you say.

I don't fault others liking coming of age stories, I just don't like them. There are a hundred fabulous trilogies out there that start with the child coming of age and yet they don't have to take up nearly the whole book like Strategos - Born in the Borderlands does.
As Dawn says, this is very much a personal preference thing. I personally feel that books, if written for adults, should not take up nearly a whole book with the childhood.
Strategos for example, there are dozens of times where the author was describing the child's day to day life and it had no importance to who he becomes as a man. The child bit could have been shaved right down without it affecting the 'coming of age' feel. Authors who know how to critically edit their work don't need to take up the whole first book of a trilogy with the childhood phase.


Many books are like this. But if they are writing for adults, in my opinion, childhood should not take up more than a third of the book.
If a reader enjoys reading Young Adult as well as Adult Fiction then a whole book on kids would not be offputting. For adult readers who don't read Young Adult a whole book with juvenile subject matter is offputting.

It is all personal taste and it is all about being different to one and other in our likes and dislikes.

[Dawn]

Jane wrote: "@Dawn, I didn't realize that it is part of a trilogy [or more]. The subject just didn't interest me in the first place, so I'm not reading it.
Maybe the combination of 1st person + formative yea..."

Once I got to the end of the book it seemed pretty obvious that there had to be more to the story. That's why I assumed.

And definitely the first person teenage story is just wearing thin for me. They also tend to combine that with a simpler writing style....not bad writing and not what I would consider YA, just less complicated and also not typically a preference for me.

[Jane]

Dawn wrote: "I have to remember this bit of German though Bildungsroman

It describes these books in one nice looking word!!"

Yes, even Gordon said he thinks that word describes it. :)
BTW, how do you write italics in your text? Of course it appears automatically up above when I reply to someone but I can't write something in italics in my text to someone else. Thanks.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Hi Jane,
Click at the top of the comment box on (some html is ok). a box will drop down and show you how to do all the fancy stuff. :)

[Jane]

Thanks, I'll give it a whirl!! I never clicked on that html box before; I thought it was all about computer language stuff. Where are the sideways carets--or whatever they are called? Is it an alt + a certain # combination?

[Dawn]

Mine are on the keys right above the Alt key. With the period and comma.
But you can always copy and paste from the HTML box. I do that for some of the longer ones.

[Jane]

Oh, found 'em--to the right of the lowest bank of letters; never paid attention to 'em before. Thanks, Dawn.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

haha. I can sense the Jane's comments will be awash with her new found skills with bold, italics, underlining and strikes. ;)
Hold onto your hats people!

[Jane]

Gosh, you read my mind! :) But, no, I'll try to hold back--only when needed!

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Oh yes, a lady must not use all her 'devices' at once. Only ever sparingly. :)

[Jane]

I'll be devious and not use all my 'devices'! :)

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

hahaha! :D

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Jane,
You and Dawn were my muses yesterday. :)
Our chat about childhoods in hist fic prompted me to post an opinion piece about the subject on the A&M blog.

Thanks muses!!! :D

http://ancientandmedievalmayhem.blogs...

[Bryn]

I'm a hundred pages into Men of Bronze. Enjoying the tangled intrigue and the atmosphere of an Egypt past its heyday. So far I haven't much sympathy for the main character (Barca) but it's such a big cast that doesn't matter. I've been kept on the edge of confusion with the different factions and who's from where, but I like that whirlwind effect. Besides I think I've never read any Egypt fiction. Nice description.

[C.P.]

What time period is it set in, Bryn? I don't think I can fit it in this month, but I love books about Egypt, if they are pre-Ptolemaic.

[Bryn]

@C.P. 526 BC.
I'm in total ignorance on Egypt.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I'm a bit that way too. There is so much more to the country's history than Pharaohs and pyramids.

[C.P.]

Bryn wrote: "@C.P. 526 BC.
I'm in total ignorance on Egypt."

Thanks!

[Jane]

Terri wrote: "I'm a bit that way too. There is so much more to the country's history than Pharaohs and pyramids."

How about later on: the Copts then the Fatimids?

[Eileen]

Egypt has a long history. Knowing something about the pharaohs won't help you much when dealing with the Fatimids, or the Copts.

[Jane]

Oh of course it won't help you. I just suggested something else in Egypt's history, non-pharaonic.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying. :)
That Pharaohs and Pyramids are where most of the hist fic lays. Not much else on other eras in Egypt's history. Which is a pity. Since I don't find the Pharaohs and Pyramids very interesting, but I find other eras in Egypts history fascinating....and don't know enough about it all.

[Jane]

Terri and anyone else who might be interested,
Might you consider reading Naguib Mahfouz The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street? This is about three generations of a Muslim family in British colonial Egypt of the earliest 20th century and how they are affected by the events of those years. Mahfouz got the Nobel Prize a few years ago. The 3 parts are either bound as 1 volume or as separates.

I remember my brother- and sister-in-law's youngest boy was just born [he's in high school now] and they considered Naguib as a name--my suggestion. [My husband and his siblings are originally from India and are Muslims.] So I read the trilogy awhile ago and liked it.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I don't think so. I read very little modern history. The only modern history I read is pretty much military stuff. Rarely anything else.
But thanks for thinking of us. :)

[Jane]

That's ok, someone else might be interested. It's something a little different. This is a family saga and how historic events affect this family.
I'm with you; I get tired of pharaohs and pyramids--and Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra. :)

[Bryn]

I'm back with Men of Bronze. It tailed off for me between pp.100-200 as it seemed to be a lot of people killing each other, but now again we're in this complex situation I very much enjoy. Maybe I can even like Barca, with his ragtag Egyptian army. He has a moment on p.235 that might rescue me from dislike.

Perhaps the author intends my feelings to change towards him through the book. :)

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I felt the same. I really liked it until the first battle around the midway. Unlike you though, after that first battle it couldn't get me back. I did not like the back half. Until halfway it was a 5 star book for me. By the time it finished I had dropped it to 3.

[Bryn]

I've finished Men of Bronze. A three I think but a strong three.
The romance, that I'd been warned about in the second half, didn't take as much room as I'd feared, but was romancey and I only wanted to ignore it. I cared about Jauharah at first and had hopes, but once she got together with Hasdrabul I wasn't into it. I'd picked out Callisthenes early on as a character I can like, so I was glad he was in to the end. Because I was off-side with Hasdrabul Barca, but that's me, he hit a nerve in me.

The situation/setting was truly interesting, with this mess of ethnicities, and that's what I liked it for, along with... a kind of writing that started to come into it, that also had that complexity, but that I don't know how to pin down. Maybe in my review. Makes me look forward to his Memnon.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

We share a lot of the same thoughts when it comes to MoB. And I know what you mean about the writing. He can be a good writer and I think that really comes into its own in Memnon.

[Bryn]

Bring on Memnon. !

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Do you own it yet? or is it 'bring on Memnon!...after you have bought it?' :)

[Bryn]

No, that's when I get ahold of one... My eye's out.

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Ah. There must be a lot of used copies out there.
As you already know, I won't give you mine. :D

[Bryn]

Not even for a pumpkin, I know, I know. :D :D

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

haha! :D

[Terri, Wyrd bið ful aræd]

I started our December Medieval (or later) loser last night.


What a treasure this book is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!