Crossposted for Charmian, mostly
Mar. 19th, 2010 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaArnaldur Indridason, Voices: bought this while browsing used book stores in the free hours between work and radio, looking for something to occupy me as I ate. It's kind of grim - nearly all the characters have tragic pasts and depressing presents, drug addictions, fractured relationships with their families, etc. - but not in a wallowing darkfic sort of way; more a sort of melancholy. That four-hours-of-sunlight-a-day feeling (the story takes place over Christmas in Reykjavik). Wondered, though, if there were as many addicts and foreign prossies in Iceland as this makes it seem. XD;; Reykjavik has a population of 120,000! Proportionately there ought to be like 25 junkies with everyone knowing who they are! (It definitely seems easy to find people - rarely does it take the police more than a few hours to track down and talk to someone, even on the vaguest hearsay. No one has the expectation that the police wouldn't be able to find them, either.)
Steven Brust, Issola: darn, I shouldn't have skipped this. XD;; Not only does it infodump re: the worldbuilding (which is now Clear As Mud), but there's more characterization as well; the variety of stuff that, as I once complained to Charmian, Vlad either doesn't know about his friends and doesn't care to know, or knows and doesn't care to think about. There's this sort of graduated approach to theory of mind - Cawti >= Loiosh, Grandpa Taltos > Kragar, Keira >= Morrolan, Aliera >>>>> all other Dragaerans - by which I don't mean the characters are more psychologically complex (Loiosh is a simple guy) or even that Vlad/the reader knows more about them (arguably he didn't know shit about Kragar or Keira XD;;), but that the model he holds of them in his head is more three-dimensional, and 90% of the time you're in his head. Which is beautifully congruent to Vlad's character, tbh. Actually, Charmian said she didn't get this vibe at all, but to me it's really obvious in the plots like this one, where Team Great Weapon embarks on an endgame campaign of willpower rolls against elder deities. Even at this late date it feels like Morrolan and Aliera are RPed by other people.
Thing is, theory of mind is really central to these books, in that whatever conceit Brust has going tends to involve some spotlighting of the eponymous House's psychological profile - and of all fantasy novelists that have done houses/tribes/castes as personality sorter, Brust works up his stereotypes in the greatest detail... when he wants. IIRC Orca didn't feature the sort of deep convo Vlad had with Teldra, or with the young Lavode dude in Dzur. (This book actually feels really Vlad/Teldra, which given the ending, well. I mean they're literally soulbonded, among other salient aspects. ^^;)
Not gonna lie, I half-expected Dragaera-verse to turn out to be a virtual-reality simulation run by the Jenoine. XD;; The whole feel of the thing reminded me of nothing so much as going up the Infinite City in GetBackers, I was sort of wigged out.
G gave me the Forgotten Realms Dark Elf Trilogy for my birthday and I still haven't gotten around to it - it makes me think of those SSBB stories, yanno. XD;; I've a couple more books to order (Novik is like Pratchett, once one falls behind one may well never catch up) and then maybe I'll have the courage to eyeball my manga backlog. Steel Ball Run isn't over yet! But they seem to have made it to New Jersey, so the end is in sight.
Easter Sunday: Classic Flavour Easter is the same as Regular Flavour Easter this year. May be able to get hold of the new Doctor Who ep on Saturday night, assuming the usual Internet Jolly Rogers,* but if not it'll accompany the lamb-and-retsina mayhem. Until then this establishment is back to .**
* Apologies to those of you paying the fee ahaha; ironically I wasn't watching during the years it was co-produced by the Ceeb.
** Insert own Jesus Lives joke.
Steven Brust, Issola: darn, I shouldn't have skipped this. XD;; Not only does it infodump re: the worldbuilding (which is now Clear As Mud), but there's more characterization as well; the variety of stuff that, as I once complained to Charmian, Vlad either doesn't know about his friends and doesn't care to know, or knows and doesn't care to think about. There's this sort of graduated approach to theory of mind - Cawti >= Loiosh, Grandpa Taltos > Kragar, Keira >= Morrolan, Aliera >>>>> all other Dragaerans - by which I don't mean the characters are more psychologically complex (Loiosh is a simple guy) or even that Vlad/the reader knows more about them (arguably he didn't know shit about Kragar or Keira XD;;), but that the model he holds of them in his head is more three-dimensional, and 90% of the time you're in his head. Which is beautifully congruent to Vlad's character, tbh. Actually, Charmian said she didn't get this vibe at all, but to me it's really obvious in the plots like this one, where Team Great Weapon embarks on an endgame campaign of willpower rolls against elder deities. Even at this late date it feels like Morrolan and Aliera are RPed by other people.
Thing is, theory of mind is really central to these books, in that whatever conceit Brust has going tends to involve some spotlighting of the eponymous House's psychological profile - and of all fantasy novelists that have done houses/tribes/castes as personality sorter, Brust works up his stereotypes in the greatest detail... when he wants. IIRC Orca didn't feature the sort of deep convo Vlad had with Teldra, or with the young Lavode dude in Dzur. (This book actually feels really Vlad/Teldra, which given the ending, well. I mean they're literally soulbonded, among other salient aspects. ^^;)
Not gonna lie, I half-expected Dragaera-verse to turn out to be a virtual-reality simulation run by the Jenoine. XD;; The whole feel of the thing reminded me of nothing so much as going up the Infinite City in GetBackers, I was sort of wigged out.
G gave me the Forgotten Realms Dark Elf Trilogy for my birthday and I still haven't gotten around to it - it makes me think of those SSBB stories, yanno. XD;; I've a couple more books to order (Novik is like Pratchett, once one falls behind one may well never catch up) and then maybe I'll have the courage to eyeball my manga backlog. Steel Ball Run isn't over yet! But they seem to have made it to New Jersey, so the end is in sight.
Easter Sunday: Classic Flavour Easter is the same as Regular Flavour Easter this year. May be able to get hold of the new Doctor Who ep on Saturday night, assuming the usual Internet Jolly Rogers,* but if not it'll accompany the lamb-and-retsina mayhem. Until then this establishment is back to .**
* Apologies to those of you paying the fee ahaha; ironically I wasn't watching during the years it was co-produced by the Ceeb.
** Insert own Jesus Lives joke.
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Re: o.O
Date: 2010-03-23 09:07 pm (UTC)I read Brust's blog sometimes, and at one point there was a discussion about how if he put out Godslayer/Spellbreaker/Morganti letter openers, ppl would be all over them—I can't remember if a collaboration with Starbucks was mentioned, though. But maybe I will hang onto my eggshells from now on, he does give a pretty description of how to make it in the tavern with Lady Teldra....