So, I just watched a video review* of the heinous monstrosity (hah) that is the Queen of the Damned movie. Which, for the purposes of this commentary and this commentary only, I am going to acknowledge it exists. Beyond that, it doesn't.

( Read more... )

How do you define YA fantasy/sci-fi/horror/speculative fiction as opposed to adult f/s-f/h/sf? I'm pretty sure it's not about the issues tackled--look at The Hunger Games, or Harry Potter, or the Heralds of Valdemar books. All of those deal with some pretty complex, adult issues, and all are primarily (at least initially, I think) aimed at teen readers. And I'm not sure protagonist age is a good indicator, either. Not many adult f/s-f/h/sf protagonists are under eighteen, but some are around that age, and some YA protagonists are older (see Dragonlance and some of the Heralds of Valdemar books). I know I can pick a passage from...say...Twilight and compare it to one from The Vampire Chronicles (trying to keep all other factors like genre, sub-genre, etc. the same) and know that Twilight is aimed at teens and The Vampire Chronicles at adults, but...I was just wondering if anyone knew exactly what goes into that?

/random question
/is possibly overly obsessed with analysis/genre categorization
/writing something that's supposed to be YA and unsure how to make sure it's differentiated from adult-aimed origfic written in the past

So, I just reread one of my favorite novels, 40,000 in Gehenna, written by C.J. Cherryh (the first one of hers I read, as a matter of fact). And...iono, random thoughts ensued. Mostly good ones, but, especially having read most of the Foreigner series (my favorite of Cherryh's novels/series), there were some things that stuck out at me in a less-good way.


( summary and rambly commentary behind the cut )

Anyway, I really love this book--the last half of it, at least--and definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to read it.  And the rest of Cherryh's work, too.

This one, to be precise. And I have some...thoughts.


( Many, MANY thoughts )

Okay. I feel better now. Hopefully that was relatively coherent, and to anyone who stuck with me through all that, thank you.

...well, sort of.

anyway, i've been rereading 'the three musketeers', which is one of my favorite books. now, all the stuff about george villiers and anne of austria must be taken with a grain of salt, but this is a historical novel (dumas pere wrote in the 19th century) based on a historical novel (written in...1701, i think) based on the real-life 1620s adventures of a musketeer named d'artagnan.

( cut for spoilers. )

i find that bizarrely awesome. congrats to dumas pere. :D

i'm putting this up because i was talking about this series with some friends of mine, and they raised some very valid points that made me honestly wonder why i keep coming back when jordan repeats the same mistakes over and over again (sanderson has cleaned up some of them, but he is trying to keep the books in the same mold, so).
( thinky thoughts, incredibly wordy and rambly )
also, i kind of get a kick out of chapter 1 of each book starting with the exact same paragraph with just the place where the wind originates changing. formulae like that are kind of cool ^_^