Books have been happening too...

[byslantedlight]

I have way too much to do today, work-wise and making-the-annexe-fit-for-guests-wise, and finishing-off-those-garden-bits-wise, and fiddle-practice-which-I-haven't-for-ages-wise - so naturally I felt the need to make a books-post first... *headdesk* In theory it's to do with tidying-up, mind - now I can move the books from the corner of the desk... *g*

I've been reading more Ramage books to start with - they're not quite as fab as Aubrey/Maturin (I miss Ramage having someone he can talk to properly, although I'm glad there are recurring characters) but I'm liking them enough to keep searching out the series. I've found more, but in splatches. I paused for a bookclub book, and because I got distracted by Astreiant again - I can't just look something up in one of those books, I have to re-read the whole series. Anyway - more on Ramage when it's not been so long since I read the last one (in terms of books in between...)

I re-read my favourite Points books, as I said... *g* They really are the best kind of fantasy books (if you ask me *g*), so they should count for my Once Upon a Time challenge too - Scott and Barnett's world building is just glorious, and of course I adore her Rathe/Eslingen, not just for obvious Pros-y reasons, but because they're absolutely themselves at the same time, and you want to know more about them in their own right.

I read this book last year, and suggested it for my reading group when we were asked to submit ideas, and hadn't expected it to come up so fast, but it absolutely stood up to re-reading, and I'm actually really glad I did (It doesn't hurt that I have a butterfly-memory for books at times... *g*), because I was able to re-discover little details about it that I didn't focus on the first time. One of these was Mor's discovery of the world, in that way that happens when you're fifteen, so that she had some wonderful thoughts, such as it's amazing how large the things are that it's possible to overlook, and the way she thinks about everything being connected - the more we use something, the greater a connection we have to it (which makes you think in a different way about "consumer" society, distancing us from the world that we're in as well as being wasteful). And I was pleased to find that more people in book group liked it than I expected - though they tended to say they liked the growing-up part of the story more than the parts involving science fiction or the fairies. Still - yeay.

My next book was for the Once Upon a Time challenge - but I couldn't get to the end of it, so I'm not sure whether it counts. I did get to page 178/336, so I read as far as novel-length... I picked it up thinking it was fantasy - the great Sword of Power vanished beyond the Circle of Mist... - wrapped up in history and myth - Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Brigante tribesmen mass together to destroy the realm - and it was both of those things to start with, and felt more historical, if anything, all bold warriors leaving their women at home etc. etc. Well, okay... Only then one of the characters - Merlin - turned out to be some mythical being who was responsible for everything in history (alright, if you have to...), and then he claimed not only to be responsible for Boudiccea's victories against the Romans, but also that she wasn't actually there, that he was the one who did it in her name. Gargh! I can live with a bit of history-rewritten if it's clearly fantasy, but I'm very tired of men wiping women out of history, and it really wasn't necessary for this story, but the author chose to do it anyway. I decided to struggle on for the sake of finishing the book, but then they were magic-ed away to what seems to be another planet, and I just... too much. It wasn't one thing or another, but I didn't feel it was done well enough to successfully combine all three. Quite apart from coming over as your everyday-sexism kind of basically misogynistic tripe. So I didn't finish - hey ho!

What next..? Oh - The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater, the second book in the Raven boys series. And like the first one, I enjoyed it. It still rubs a bit that the author had to transplant a legend to the US, though as per my post about The Raven Boys I can go with it, could the eccentric Brit professor and all that surrounds him be more of a stereotype, and why-oh-why did she make the villain-du-jour a Russian? I should perhaps not be surprised - but it means that I'm waiting for the Brit to turn out to be a bad guy in the end, and for any other such unimaginative tropes that might fit in. Which is a shame, because the rest of the story and the other characters are refreshingly different and very readable. Although in one way it absolutely centres around the three Raven boys, it turns out that the boys live just as much in the world of Blue's vastly-female and vastly-extended family, so actually there's an evenness about the world that I miss in alot of books. So I shall look for the third.

And then as I was off to Cornwall on my mini-break, I decided I'd start Poldark, which I'd bought not at all for the cover when the series ended, for comparative purposes. *g* It started a little slowly, I thought, but before long we were trotting perfectly happily along together. And actually I was surprised at how well the new BBC version fit to the book - it really did. There's a sense of more time passing in the book, and the villains have not been made out quite as villainous, but we might just not have got there yet. The tv series goes beyond the first book after all, so I've bought Demelza now too. Very readable - I'm glad I've been reminded of them!

Finally, I re-read the third Famous Five book, because... well, you know. Sometimes you have to read a Famous Five book. And it's possible that I won't take more than a year to write a third story for the older lads... *g* Though this is a very tricky one to fit the lads into actually - there will have to be much wiggling of things, though I do rather find that half the fun... *g* Aunt Fanny has been taken to hospital, followed by the scary Uncle Quentin who'd rather leave a household of four children alone than his wife - I like his devotion! And in fact the children aren't alone of course, they've been left in care of the Stick family, of whom Mrs Stick is the temporary housekeeper. This turns out to be most unsatisfactory, however, and soon the five decide there's nothing for it but to run away... *g*

So - where does this leave me in my Once Upon A Time challenge? Well, if I add what I have read to the list it looks pretty good - but I feel as if I've cheated a bit so far, because four were beloved re-reads, one was a re-read for the bookclub, and another was a book I didn't finish. So I've sort of only read two new fantasy books - and they were from the same series, so perhaps really only count as one. Help - I'd better get on! *g* Oh, the pressures of life... *vbg*

One fantasy
Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
Point of Knives by Melissa Scott
Point of Dreams and Lisa A. Barnett
Fair's Point by Melissa Scott
Ghost King by David Gemmell (178/356 - unfinished...)
One folklore
One fairy tale
Among Others by Jo Walton
One mythology
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater