What other fantasy books do YOU read?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I understand that on a certain level, the "life is a chess game" concept may have some appeal to some, but taking it to the level of, at the end of the game, putting all the same pieces back on the board and starting the game all over again leaves me flat.

Quite understandable. It's sort of interesting as a twist of convention, but that's it. What I liked about TWO wasn't the plot but, as I said above, the characters and, horribile dictu, the writing.

I've got to add a disclaimer here: I haven't yet read TWO in the original, only in two German translations, one of which was in more or less modern literary German while the other tried to reproduce Eddison's artificial archaism, but of these two I preferred the latter. I got the impression that E. uses archaism successfully to create a certain atmosphere both lofty and remote - e.g. calling a crocodile a crokindrell takes us back to a time where a crocodile wasn't to be seen in every zoo and made into handbags, but a mythical beast of the same order as a manticore or a hippogryff. But I withhold final judgment of his prose until I've read him in his own language (praise be to Project Gutenberg!).

One thing I dislike about the book is how he uses Demon, Goblin, Imp etc. as mere names for various humanoid races which don't seem to differ that much. When I hear Demon I expect to see a being of the under- or otherworld, not just a handsome heroic humanoid with decorative horns slapped on.

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Quite understandable. It's sort of interesting as a twist of convention, but that's it. What I liked about TWO wasn't the plot but, as I said above, the characters and, horribile dictu, the writing.

I've got to add a disclaimer here: I haven't yet read TWO in the original, only in two German translations, one of which was in more or less modern literary German while the other tried to reproduce Eddison's artificial archaism, but of these two I preferred the latter. I got the impression that E. uses archaism successfully to create a certain atmosphere both lofty and remote - e.g. calling a crocodile a crokindrell takes us back to a time where a crocodile wasn't to be seen in every zoo and made into handbags, but a mythical beast of the same order as a manticore or a hippogryff. But I withhold final judgment of his prose until I've read him in his own language (praise be to Project Gutenberg!).

One thing I dislike about the book is how he uses Demon, Goblin, Imp etc. as mere names for various humanoid races which don't seem to differ that much. When I hear Demon I expect to see a being of the under- or otherworld, not just a handsome heroic humanoid with decorative horns slapped on.

I understand, it's sort of like the cringe I get everytime I see any anime (and there are a lot of them) that has a natural born creature that happens to be made of rock and decides to call it a Golem. Not every rock based creature is a Golem, just as not every monster that sucks blood is a vampire.
It's really silly, but when you talked about an archaic German version, I suddenly had images of a version written in the old Gothic blackletter type (actually depending on when the book was fist translated into German, a blackletter version may actually exist; a lot of German publishers were still using that typeface for books in the 1920's)

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

Personally, I hated the way it seemed that Slytherin automatically meant you were evil, with a few exceptions (and those weren't presented well either).

I heartily agree and add to that that for some reason almost all Slytherins look like trolls. In the 7th book Malfoy shows some, errr, loyalty, but then it doesn't really last...So fits your description perfectly. But I won't press that point to avoid spoilers.

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

...of course, Remus and Fleur are my favorite characters so....

*giggles* My personal favourite as a character is dear Belatrix....

Originally Posted by Galadriel

I thought the vocabulary in the narrative was fine. The truly awful bits were the dialogue. Yes, 'reckon' does seem to be her favourite word! She does a really poor imitation of British slang, sadly. They don't speak that badly

I'm quite sure that the anglophones across the pond use more colourful words than "reckon" and "bloke" (the two most common words there, IMO)!

Originally Posted by Galadriel

It's irritating how they gasp and gawk when I say I haven't read Harry Potter.

I sympathise. They did it to me before I read it. And they still do when I say that I know many better books than HP.

Originally Posted by Galadriel

PS - Can anyone tell me how to quote different bits of a paragraph at a time? I've no idea how

You can copy/paste the bit you want to quote, hilight the text, and click on the "quote" icon on top of the post-box-writing-thingy. The computer will automatically quote it for you. Or, you can type [QUOTE ] (except without the space) when the quote starts and [/QUOTE ] (again, no spaces) when it ends. You can add a =name for it to say "originally posted by X" (like this: [Quote=X ]...[/QUOTE ]).

Edit: Ah, wait, LBrooke has already said that. I posted before I got to her post. Ooops!

[Galadriel]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

*giggles* My personal favourite as a character is dear Belatrix....

Bellatrix? Why would that be? My personal favourites are Mad-Eye and Snape Harry is such a goody-two-shoes.

I sympathise. They did it to me before I read it. And they still do when I say that I know many better books than HP.

This.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Bellatrix? Why would that be? My personal favourites are Mad-Eye and Snape Harry is such a goody-two-shoes.

I don't really like Snape after some revelations in the 7th book. And MadEye is nice, but... For some weird reason, if I had a choice to be any of the characters, I'd be Belatrix. (My true nature showing! Mwahahahaha! XD)

Oh, and yes, Harry is always good and right. He does wrong, but then he solves all and saves all and is such a brilliant little Boy Who Lived.

[Galadriel]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Oh, and yes, Harry is always good and right. He does wrong, but then he solves all and saves all and is such a brilliant little Boy Who Lived.

Amazingly, some people argue that that's why he makes such a good character

[Galadriel55]

I just started reading A Game of Thrones, from the series of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I already love it!

A few pages into the first chapter Finlandmoot suddenly started to make sense...

Edit: and Shasta's recent WW game too... Winter is comming...