Reading

[stoutfellow]

It's been a while since I updated my reading list. Since the last time, I've read the following: Georgette Heyer's Lady of Quality; Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne (and reviewed the latter); Roberta MacAvoy's Damiano and Damiano's Lute (I once read, and promptly discarded, the third volume, Raphael, but the first two are quite good); Roger Zelazny's Isle of the Dead; Kristine Smith's Law of Survival; Rosemary Kirstein's The Outskirter's Secret; 1634: The Galileo Affair by Flint and Dennis; and Charles Stross's The Family Trade. I won't review any of them at the moment, but I will comment that Zelazny was a wonderful writer, that I intend to continue with Kirstein's "Steerswoman" series, and that I'm not sure how much I like the Stross. (Introducing modern sensibilities into an essentially medieval setting is tricky; sometimes it works, but often it doesn't. It's easier with humor than with serious work, but Stross is attempting the latter, and I'm not sure that's his forte. On the other hand, my experience with him is limited to the bizarre Singularity Sky, so my judgement is not necessarily well-founded.)

I'm continuing to read Hewitt & Ross, and also Trollope's Framley Parsonage and Barbara Hambly's A Free Man of Color. Arthur Herman's To Rule the Waves and Heyer's The Spanish Bride are sitting in the living room with bookmarks in them, but I haven't looked at either in a week or two.

Comments

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Heyer's The Spanish Bride

I had a very hard time getting through that one...

I'm not as fond of her more history type ones. A bit too dry to be fun, but not even that much fun as history.

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

I've read several of the Benjamin January series but had to stop - nightmares. My great-great grandmother lived on a plantation in LA, but I don't know whether it was before or after the War. Hate to think that I may have had a slave-owning ancestor.