(no subject)

[sab]

LJC's Book Lovers Book Meme, pinched from musesfool

1. What book is in your bathroom?
Heart of Darkness and The Story of Ferdinand

2. What book is in your purse/backpack?
The Deed of Paksenarrion (hey, has anyone read that?)

3. What book is on your bedside table?
Cripes! Um. Taran Wanderer, No One Ever Thinks of Greenland

4. What was the last book you lent someone?
DeLillo's Libra, to my downstairs roommate

5. What was the last book you lent out that someone brought back to you?
Ooh. I lent Tipping the Velvet to Julie and she brought it back. Good thing too, because I'd forgotten she had it.

6. What book do you have loaner copies of, solely for the purpose of foisting it on unsuspecting friends and relatives?
Woody Allen's Getting Even, Josephine Humphreys' The Fireman's Fair and Dreams of Sleep

Comments

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

I've read Deed of Paksenarrion.

- hossgal

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

Tell me what you thought of it. I'm about a hundred pages from the end. But we should talk. I'm curious.

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

hmmmm. Okay.

It was good. It was not as good as either her later novels nor (as cofax points out) Mary Gentle's Ash series.

As I remember the triology, I was most impressed with the first one. The second one was...*thinks*. Moon was trying to write Paks into a conflicted character. But all she really did was abuse Paks and laden her with a lot of self doubt. There was not, actually, any darkness worked into her soul. No impulse to kick an enemy when they were down, and then pull out a knife and go to work on them.

The last one picked up the pace some what, but dang if I can remember what the big battle was ever about. And Moon seemed to have stuck in Tolkien-type elves for no reason what so ever.

Things I liked - the siege that ended so badly. The sergeant. The progression from foot solider to knight, even if that did happen somewhat fast. The silver disk.

Things I was not so keen on - the 'God meld' where all the different dieties join together in the fireplace. Way, way, way too PC. The rape attempt in the first book and the torture in the last one.

Cofax is also right in that the military details were solid. The first barracks inspection was scary accurate. The escape through the woods after the seige was also good.

I read the series twice, the last time about eight years ago. I have no real intention of reading it again.

- hossgal

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Taran Wanderer

God, that book breaks my heart.

::goes off to find her copy::

[cofax7]

I love this meme. I'll have to do it. Time! Time! Time! -- to quote Bilbo.

"Deed" is pretty good -- I like some of the long-term plotting in it, although I'm not sold on the Paladin aspect as much. I liked it when I read it, but I haven't been inspired to reread it, if that means much. And I didn't much like her other one-offs in that universe. That said, Moon is a former Marine and her descriptions of military life "feel" right to me. HG could tell you more on that front. *g*

I like Moon's space opera, the Herris Serrano/Esmay Suiza stuff, and she's getting *really* good reviews of her new novel about an autistic man in the near future, the name of which escapes me. She's up for the Clarke award for that.

If you like "Paksenarrion", you must read Mary Gentle's Ash books. You must. Gritty and sweaty and bloody and brain-twisting in all the best ways. They're fabulous and I want to reread them but I foisted them on Max when she was last here and I dunno when they'll come back...