#6: excessive villain-cam
May. 11th, 2011 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateSo, I'm reading this book... well, books to be more precise. Which is to say that on jazzfish's recommendation, I ordered up Stephen Brust's Agyar from the library system next door, and got a little more than half way through on the strength of good writing and momentum, and haven't quite had the heart to pick it back up again. I think at this point there's only one character I like enough to care what happens to her (well, and I like the ghost, but it doesn't seem likely that anything is going to happen to him, being fairly statically dead and all) and possibly I ought to be going back to jazzfish and asking what I ought to start with from Brust given that I prefer not to read about characters I would hate in real life.
I keep having this discussion withgrauwulf, too; he goes on about how fantastic the Iron Man movies are, and I pointed out that we know someone who acts a bit like Tony whatsisface, and he (grauwulf) can't stand him. I find the real person, not being exaggerated to the point of stereotype, much less appalling. The idea that it would be fun to watch someone, even purely fictional, behaving in exactly the same way that drives one up a wall in real life, completely baffles me. (I only got through the first half-hour of Ghostbusters with someone else sitting there making me watch it, too.)
The other book I'm in the middle of is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon Path, which is the beginning of some giant epic fantasy series, and it's reminding me why I don't commit to these sorts of things very often. I'm reading it because someone described it as being about accounting in a way that's actually interesting (which is true), and it also has sub-themes about truth, and how to deal with having a superpower you're not morally comfortable with. The world is full of legacies of a time when dragons ruled, and sculpted humans into various less-human forms. Unfortunately, of the four rotating POV characters, one I actively dislike (though his wife is fantastic), and another has been put into situations he's increasingly unsuited for since the book began and has made some appallingly poor decisions. The sort of thing that haunt one in the night, having just read about them. But I need to keep reading about these two or lose track of what the rest of the world is doing in relation to the characters I'm interested in. Also, the "dragon's path" of the title refers to large-scale war, so the whole thing is leading up to some manner of the world breaking down into chaos, which I also find disappointing.
(Can anyone think of a sweeping epic fantasy that doesn't involve some sort of either "great battle between good and evil" or global warfare? Inquiring minds would like to read...)
When this gets too irritating, I can always go back to the urban gardening books, which are all newfangled and newly published, and I am very sorry they were not around a decade ago when I was nursing a horde of sickly potted plants through apartment living. Now, they represent mosquito-free gardening options. Then, they would likely have improved the lives of many plants, and possibly the health ofheuchera's and my diets. (But! My purple-podded peas arrived on monday, and I took a chance and put three of them in the ground already. It's been a slow spring; maybe they'll get as far as producing something before the heat kills them off.)
jazzfish's recommendation, I ordered up Stephen Brust's Agyar from the library system next door, and got a little more than half way through on the strength of good writing and momentum, and haven't quite had the heart to pick it back up again. I think at this point there's only one character I like enough to care what happens to her (well, and I like the ghost, but it doesn't seem likely that anything is going to happen to him, being fairly statically dead and all) and possibly I ought to be going back to jazzfish and asking what I ought to start with from Brust given that I prefer not to read about characters I would hate in real life. I keep having this discussion with
grauwulf, too; he goes on about how fantastic the Iron Man movies are, and I pointed out that we know someone who acts a bit like Tony whatsisface, and he (grauwulf) can't stand him. I find the real person, not being exaggerated to the point of stereotype, much less appalling. The idea that it would be fun to watch someone, even purely fictional, behaving in exactly the same way that drives one up a wall in real life, completely baffles me. (I only got through the first half-hour of Ghostbusters with someone else sitting there making me watch it, too.)The other book I'm in the middle of is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon Path, which is the beginning of some giant epic fantasy series, and it's reminding me why I don't commit to these sorts of things very often. I'm reading it because someone described it as being about accounting in a way that's actually interesting (which is true), and it also has sub-themes about truth, and how to deal with having a superpower you're not morally comfortable with. The world is full of legacies of a time when dragons ruled, and sculpted humans into various less-human forms. Unfortunately, of the four rotating POV characters, one I actively dislike (though his wife is fantastic), and another has been put into situations he's increasingly unsuited for since the book began and has made some appallingly poor decisions. The sort of thing that haunt one in the night, having just read about them. But I need to keep reading about these two or lose track of what the rest of the world is doing in relation to the characters I'm interested in. Also, the "dragon's path" of the title refers to large-scale war, so the whole thing is leading up to some manner of the world breaking down into chaos, which I also find disappointing.
(Can anyone think of a sweeping epic fantasy that doesn't involve some sort of either "great battle between good and evil" or global warfare? Inquiring minds would like to read...)
When this gets too irritating, I can always go back to the urban gardening books, which are all newfangled and newly published, and I am very sorry they were not around a decade ago when I was nursing a horde of sickly potted plants through apartment living. Now, they represent mosquito-free gardening options. Then, they would likely have improved the lives of many plants, and possibly the health of
heuchera's and my diets. (But! My purple-podded peas arrived on monday, and I took a chance and put three of them in the ground already. It's been a slow spring; maybe they'll get as far as producing something before the heat kills them off.)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 03:10 am (UTC)Sun Moon & Stars might hit some of the same "i hate this guy" buttons as Agyar. To Reign in Hell hasn't aged as well as I would have liked. I think you'd get on with Freedom & Necessity (co-written with Emma Bull). The first of Brust's main fantasy series is Jhereg (or the collection The Book of Jhereg has the first three); his other fantasy series in the same world starts with The Phoenix Guards and is a Dumas pastiche.
If you've not read Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword (by Ellen Kushner) you are doing yourself a great disservice. They're definitely fantasy (without magic), but not exactly epic as such. And I've heard good things about Sarah Monette's Melusine books as well.
I dunno. A distaste for Epic is a lot of why I'm not reading much fantasy these days myself.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 11:18 am (UTC)I tried Swordspoint and failed to care after the first few chapters; possibly I ought to start with the third one and see if that helps. Melusine is on my long list, although I just read a very peculiar alternate Regency detective story by S Monette, and was mainly impressed by how much more I would have liked it if she hadn't been trying to be all hard boiled and pseudo-romantic.
On the other hand, I read more than half fantasy, and this is only the second "epic" sort of thing I've picked up in the last year or so. (The previous being Kate Elliott's new series, which is thus far pretty good, although there may yet be global warfare there, too.) So there is a lot of it out there.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:07 pm (UTC)The idea that it would be fun to watch someone, even purely fictional, behaving in exactly the same way that drives one up a wall in real life, completely baffles me.
For me it's the difference between having the annoying behavior directed at me versus having it directed at people who are even worse and thus 'deserve' it in some sense. Even so there are parts of Ghostbusters that I wince through. (I do it, on the rare occasions I do, because there are enough entertaining bits in the rest of the movie that it's worth the wincing. But good lord, if that movie had even one iota more of Peter Venkman I would be forced to throw it out the window.)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-16 09:16 pm (UTC)Relatedly, you mentioned not getting on with Patricia McKillip-- have you tried her SF? There's not too much of it, but I was just rereading Fool's Run, and thought you might enjoy that-- it's slightly dated (century+ future with tape recordings...) but not too obtrusively, & has some neat characters, stuff about music, the problems inherent in running a prison satellite, and some interesting problems with inter-species communication.
Yeah... if people are being awful at people who are even more awful, this just lowers my interest in putting up with any of it. This, I find, is the common thread between most modern (in my lifetime) comedy, dystopias, Russian literature, and all the world-going-to-pot epic fantasy we started with. I also have a similar reaction to doom & gloom foreshadowing about people I might like, though (which is why I haven't tracked down the second Patrick Rothfuss book yet)... so possibly I'm just picky? I think in general the paragraph or more descriptions of why a book is worth the time are usually better than straight "try reading this" recs, though, since if I have a little half-spoilery notion of things good to come then I'm more likely to wade through the slow or less savory beginning. And then go back & re-read Memory seven or eight times starting on page 50 or so... ;)