Reading Wednesday

[chomiji]

Another drive-by. I worked from home today (snow/sleet closed things), then got into a computer graphics project, made dinner, cleaned up from dinner, and now it's nearly bedtime. (The Mr. cleaned up from breakfast/lunch, served me lunch, and made banana bread.)

I finished Circe: yeah, there was a slight twist to the ending. I saw half of it from about 50 pages out. I'm not 100% sure I believe in the other half. Not likely to be on my Hugo short list.

Then I digressed from my Hugo reading and re-read Andre Norton's Catseye, which I had bought some little while ago as a Kindle deal. I remembered some bits of it from my teen years but not others, and I'm definitely much more aware of her writing flaws now. (Um, you can call him "Troy" more than once, really you can; you don't have to keep alternating it with his surname and various epithets. Also, it's from his POV, so some of the editorializing about him comes off oddly.) But it was fun.

I'm now reading Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. She has finally written a book that I think I really like, although we'll see how the ending goes. Sadly, I was never better than lukewarm on her Napoleonic dragons series, and Uprooted was somehow not really my thing. I felt like Uprooted was dutiful. somehow? But this one is really drawing me in so that I can immerse myself in the story.

Comments

[sovay]

I saw half of it from about 50 pages out. I'm not 100% sure I believe in the other half

I'm curious?

I've heard really good things about Spinning Silver. I should just read it already. I drifted away from Temeraire despite the series theoretically being my jam and enjoyed but did not adore Uprooted, which reminded me a lot of early Robin McKinley.

[chomiji]

I agree with the comparison of Uprooted to early Robin McKinley. There are a number of more recent fantasy novels (as opposed to things that existed when I was the target age) aimed primarily at the YA audience and aiming to give teens female characters with whom they identify, and many of them seem to miss somehow with me.

Re the ending of the novel Circe (highlight to read spoiler): she falls in love with Telemachus some time after he arrives at her island, Penelope replaces Circe as the enchantress of the island (both of which I anticipated once it became clear that neither of them hated Circe), and Circe eventually works her transformation magic on herself to become mortal (which surprised me and which I did not feel was quite right for the character as depicted in the rest of the story).

[oracne]

I felt like Novik took a leap forward with SPINNING SILVER, so far as themes and complexity.

[chomiji]

I can see that some people might not like the number of viewpoint characters, though, which is increasing as the story goes on.