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owlfish at 10:23pm on 30/03/2010 under the art of reading
owlfish at 10:23pm on 30/03/2010 under the art of readingLavinia is a much-improved retelling of Voices, both by Le Guin. I found this so distracting that it took me a third of Lavinia to really become involved in it instead of noting new elements from Voices as they cropped up.
The City and the City is an application of Althusser on ideology. (If I'd been reading a different theorist at the time, I might have thought otherwise.) It's other things too, but they would involve spoilers.
Rosemary and Rue reminded me of a (much less compelling) Lackey elves-in-L.A. novel which started at a Renn Faire - the same origin story with which the Sasharia en Garde books are built on. (The recently-read Sasharia en Garde books are, sadly, my least-favorite Sherwood Smith books to date; what killed their momentum for me was that they are in two books. The first ends at an emotional pause, but with plot bleeding all over the place. I would have given up there had I not already bought the sequel.) Of course, R&R and the Lackey novel are all elves-in-CA novels, so of course they would speak to each other.
River of Gods (read thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coalescent's regular recent mentions) resonated with a minor, second-rate romance, Gambler's Woman, by Stephanie James, who can write much better work than this. (Give how old it is, I thought of it as juvenalia.) Both follow the plot, not the gaping wounds of half-seen story glimpsed along the way. Both have more sex scenes than I felt each needed, plot- or story-wise. Both featured major plot threads wound around inadequate communication. Both contrast luxury and artificial worlds with mundanity and "reality". Other than that, they have very little in common; but I keep thinking of them together.
The City and the City is an application of Althusser on ideology. (If I'd been reading a different theorist at the time, I might have thought otherwise.) It's other things too, but they would involve spoilers.
Rosemary and Rue reminded me of a (much less compelling) Lackey elves-in-L.A. novel which started at a Renn Faire - the same origin story with which the Sasharia en Garde books are built on. (The recently-read Sasharia en Garde books are, sadly, my least-favorite Sherwood Smith books to date; what killed their momentum for me was that they are in two books. The first ends at an emotional pause, but with plot bleeding all over the place. I would have given up there had I not already bought the sequel.) Of course, R&R and the Lackey novel are all elves-in-CA novels, so of course they would speak to each other.
River of Gods (read thanks to
coalescent's regular recent mentions) resonated with a minor, second-rate romance, Gambler's Woman, by Stephanie James, who can write much better work than this. (Give how old it is, I thought of it as juvenalia.) Both follow the plot, not the gaping wounds of half-seen story glimpsed along the way. Both have more sex scenes than I felt each needed, plot- or story-wise. Both featured major plot threads wound around inadequate communication. Both contrast luxury and artificial worlds with mundanity and "reality". Other than that, they have very little in common; but I keep thinking of them together.
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