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chomijiThese are mostly for smillaraaq. Somewhere deep in the guts of the Meta Thread from Heck (f-locked, I am afraid), which started out innocently as a notice of a fic posting on my other account and now exceeds 300 posts, she mentioned that she had not read much (or did not recall much) Cherryh, and as CJC is about my favorite SF writer, I felt this needed to be remedied. And when I said so, she said she'd also appreciate recs for DWJ - who is one of my favorite fantasy authors. So, without further ado ... .
Diana Wynne Jones
- Apropos of some of the themes showing up in "Cupidity", I have to rec Fire and Hemlock, which is probably her most complex book. Curiously enough, rushthatspeaks has just written a marvelous essay on this book, but you should on no account read the essay until you are finished with the book.
- As smilla is a dog lover, I must rec Dogsbody - and hope that it will not break her heart.
- For something much lighter, and very cleverly silly, I recommend Archer's Goon.
- Because smilla is something of a gamer, because it has one of DWJ's best (albeit saddest) endings, and because it is a less-well-known book than it deserves, I recommend The Homeward Bounders.
- And because it is my favorite aside from those I have recommended, and because it involves a science fiction convention, the Lyke Wake Dirge, centaurs, and Babylon, I recommend Deep Secret
C.J. Cherryh
- As a standalone, as a cool book about martial arts in a fantasy oriental setting, and as CJC's best fantasy, I recommend The Paladin.
- As a tough, no-nonsense short series about what it's like to be a cog in the future industrial and military complexes, I recommend Heavy Time and its sequel Hellburner. This will also introduce the Company Wars, the subject of several additional novels.
- As either a standalone, or as an introduction to her Compact Space books, I recommend The Pride of Chanur, which is a good example of one of CJC's most famous and durable themes, the human being as the alien. It is also pretty much a space opera, and fun. And if you like it, there are 4 more books in the series. (And Pyanfar Chanur is one of my most enduring POV characters! Gods be feathered, I am that long-suffering Hani ship's captain ... !)
- And because smilla likes dark themes about the evils that people do, I recommend Cyteen, with the caveat that the introductory section can be slghtly sticky going as CJC sets up the political situation from the opposite POV of the Company Wars books. These are the Bad Guys of those books, and the book covers themes of identity, what it is to be human, what makes a person him or herself, and what it is like to be brilliant in a world of lesser minds, against a setting where cloning - ranging from production of custom children for the wealthy to supplying slave labor for a developing world (and including the production of attractive "companions" for those who can afford them) - is common. Unsettling and involving.
Enjoy!
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Date: 2007-11-21 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 04:21 pm (UTC)Homeward Bounders is the only really good book that came out of several attempts by various authors in the late 1970s/early 1980s to write something that had the feel of what it would be like to be a real person trapped in a roleplaying game (Quag Keep, anyone? ... >shudder< ).
I really appreciate that DWJ didn't attempt to push the boy/girl aspect of things in that - which she could have, because Jamie and Helen and Joris and Adam all seem to be about 13 years old. But yes, I think that Helen and Jamie could have grown into a real relationship, because there is a certain amount of spark there and a lot of mutual respect, and Jamie was even showing signs of being able to understand her early traumas and to give her space when she needed it, without getting all mushy about it.
(And redbrunja, if you're reading this, and can find and read this book, I'd be interested in your take on this relationship in reference to the buddies vs. lovers conversations we've been having. Jamie calls Helen his "friendly neighborhood enemy" ... . Of course, they are both quite young.)
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Date: 2007-11-27 02:45 am (UTC)Heh ... I liked Andre Norton quite a lot as a kid, but I was already a moderately sophisticated gamer when it came out ... a disaster was the only way I could describe it!
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Date: 2007-11-27 08:55 pm (UTC)LotR was my first grown-up fantasy, but The Witches of Karres was my first grown-up SF. I may have read Norton after that, but I'm not sure. Oddly enough, the only Nortons I can remember very much are Catseye and The Stars Are Ours, even though I think I read everything she ever wrote through 1970 or so.
(I also remember learning (partway through college) that she was very squicked out by the brother incest in Elizabeth Lynn's The Dancers of Arun ... . Poor woman - luckily she never discovered manga!)
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Date: 2007-11-28 11:01 pm (UTC)Yes, Norton was squicked.
Elizabeth Lynn wrote a trilogy that consists of Watchtower, The Dancers of Arun, and The Northern Girl. The books are widely separated from each other by their internal timelines, and you don't need to read any of them to appreciate the others ... however, the only one I really like is The Northern Girl. (And I like that one enough to have worn out my first paperback of it.)
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Date: 2007-11-23 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 02:49 am (UTC):-)
I think 13 or 14 is young for much boy/girl stuff! You're a chunk older than that - at this stage, those few years make a big difference, especially for the boys. I don't think that Joris was thinking about Helen much except as a member of the upper class, from his viewpoint - you remember he kept saying that Helen looked like a Khan.
I'm also a sucker for friends or companions becoming lovers, whether straight or not. But although Jamie was definitely forming some early thoughts along those lines, I can't really see it in Joris. But they say the parents are always the last to know!
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Date: 2007-11-27 02:52 am (UTC)But yeah...Joris...I dunno about him. He's such an interesting character! I mean, it was also pretty clear that he was in love with that Khan girl, and I kind of saw his insistence that Helen looked like a Khan an indication that he was a bit attracted to her. Gosh, I need to read it again.
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Date: 2007-11-27 07:47 pm (UTC)Hmmm, yeah, but Jamie's heart hasn't aged (to get mushy and metaphysical on you) - he's still a 13-year-old boy, more or less, in matters of the heart. I mean, he's got more perspective on how much it should matter, and on being compassionate and non-judgmental, but the circumstances under which he's likely to find himself smitten are probably the same.
Yes, Joris had a crush on Elsie Khan, it seemed. At least, he got all pink when Konstam brought her up. And there, of course, is the real target of Joris' devotion: he hasn't got much room for an emotional attachment to a crush when he's so totally obsessed with his teacher/master! But I don't think he was transferring his crush to Helen. (Good memory, you! I had forgotten all about Elsie - presumably named for her impressive grandmother Elsa, the leader of the Khans.)
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Date: 2007-11-27 08:49 pm (UTC)Hahaha, God I love Joris. His obsession with Konstam is GENIUS.
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Date: 2007-11-28 03:00 am (UTC)Hmmm, let's see ... Jamie's been working so hard at surviving as he wanders the Bounds that he hasn't had much time for social interactions outside what's necessary to survive, and probably relatively little interaction with peers. Remember that the other Homeward Bounders he met rather looked down on him because he was just a kid. He's had to learn compassion etc. from the inside out, by experiencing being on the receiving end, but because of his apparent age, no one's going to play at romance with him. You'll notice that he never mentions any female person's looks until he runs into Vanessa (Adam's older sister), and that's when he finally has something of a peer group, and can relax a little - he's got the leisure to notice something like that and the social atmosphere to make it seem worth noticing.
Yes, the Great God Konstam!!! Poor Joris, he's such a mess emotionally ... .
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Date: 2007-11-28 03:22 am (UTC)MUST. RE-READ. I'll get back to you once I do.
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Date: 2007-11-28 10:57 pm (UTC)Oh, I was never arguing that he didn't! I think he truly did, although I don't think that he himself fully realized it until the very end, when he's talking about what he now has to do to keep Them from regaining power.
Any excuse will do, for re-reading a good book!
:-D
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Date: 2007-11-28 11:12 pm (UTC)Indeed!
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Date: 2007-11-29 09:36 pm (UTC)Oooh, sorry!
Yes, romance is a complicated topic (I'm sure Jamie thinks so, too ... .)