Re: McKinley: Re: epic fantasies

  I've read "College of Magics" (at least, I think I read it, but I might
have just skimmed it). It was good, except the ending disappointed me. It
fit with the rest of a story, but it's, IMO, a damper on the romance. I
LOVE Patricia McKillip. The Riddlemaster Trilogy is beautiful, and the list
I'm on for her has been re-reading it, except that the members haven't been
to good at posting regularly. However, her more recent works are absolutely
gorgeous, with language that you can just fall into. I would recommend her
3 recent ones: The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Winter Rose, and Song for a
Basilisk. The books are as beautiful as the titles, and the covers are
wonderful too. I love art, and to me the illustration aspect is really
important- I try to search around for a copy with the cover that I like.
Anyway, I hope that continues, because I've heard that she has two more
books in the works, and I think she gets better and better. Also, her
Forgotten Beasts of Eld is NOT TO BE MISSED! I know I'm raving about her,
but I've always kind of connected her and Robin together, since they are
close alphabetically and they both have strong female characters. I can't
wait for both authors' new books to come out!
   As for "Captal's Tower", I'm also impatient for it. I actually like
Sarra's daughter, but I think that her character makes some highly
irritating choices. Characters keep saying she's like Collan, but IMO Rawn
doesn't show this enough. I really dislike Cailet- there's something about
Rawn's books that often I dislike the main character: Pol, and now Cailet.
I really don't want her to be matched with that really handsome guy- I
forgot his name. I hate older women, younger men dynamics, or vice versa.
However, sometimes I'm disappointed by what happens. I keep reading anyway.
  I wonder about Collan too- he and Sarra were my absolute favorite
characters, and I hated it that he died. I loved the first book in the
series, and the second less so, probably because Collan died, Cailet seemed
to degenerate, and the son of Glennan was really annoying.
      -Katie (taking up more space on this list)

>From: Danielle <zildjian18@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: mckinley@its.caltech.edu
>To: mckinley@its.caltech.edu
>Subject: Re: McKinley: Re: epic fantasies
>Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 05:17:42 -0700 (PDT)
>
>the "errors-to" section of the header. Since
>that line includes a bunch of "caltech.edu"
>stuff, I guess it's caused by a spat between
>Hotmail and the list server (or something ;) ).
>Hotmail doesn't like Yahoo much, either, btw.
>Hey, speaking of "Sorcery and Cecilia" - Caroline
>Stevermer, the coauthor of that book, wrote
>another called "A College of Magics" which I
>highly recommend. (I thought of mentioning it
>during the 'mazes' discussion, but never got
>around to it - it's got a couple in there.
>Mazes, that is.)
>(Oh yeah, and about the riddles - did anyone ever
>bother to mention "The Riddlemaster of Hed," an
>old trilogy by Patricia McKillip (whose
>"Sorceress & the Cygnet" is some of the best
>stuff I've ever read)? I can't remember, and it
>was probably already known by everyone,
>anyway...)
>I did not like Terry Goodkind's work. Although I
>have a few friends who love him, they're the
>people whose opinions of writing I don't
>necessarily trust. His books read like the rough
>drafts of a sadistic Terry Brooks wannabe - who
>is immature in every area except that of
>torture/pain/killing. If he could actually
>write, I would like him - I mean, if he had
>written "Deerskin," Lissar would be a weak,
>really weird idiot who killed herself or
>something at the earliest opportunity (after a
>million pages of description of her rape and
>ensuing pain, of course).
>
>Robin Hobb isn't a favorite of mine, but she's
>certainly better than Goodkind. The offputting
>thing about that trilogy was, how could Fitz be
>such an incredibly stupid jerk all the time?
>Does anybody know any actual men who are like
>that, or does Robin Hobb just fantasize a lot in
>entirely the wrong direction?!?? I met her at
>the NW Bookfair (or whatever it was called, that
>thing on the waterfront), and she was okay,
>although extremely cold during the panel. Kinda
>witty. Hey, J. Gregory Keyes, Terry Brooks, and
>Steven Brust were there, too... if anyone's
>interested I'll give detail. To sum up, Brust
>was the life of the party, Hat and all.
>"Dealing with Dragons" was the first of Wrede's
>Enchanted Forest series, and IMUO the best.
>Terry Brooks wrote two series about the Sword of
>Shannara (well, they weren't all about the sword,
>but it was peripherally there), and in each, the
>first was the best (again IMUO). If you get
>bored by the beginning of "The Sword of
>Shannara," take heart and keep in mind that it
>was his first book - it gets a lot better. (I
>wish I were as lucky as Shirl ;).) (But what is
>UP with everyone getting married to the wrong
>people throughout his series?) I haven't read
>anything else by him - his perceived
>'commercialism' is 'cause of his writing the book
>versions of a couple high-profile movies, huh?
>I can hardly wait for "The Captal's Tower." The
>character I'm annoyed by, so far, is Sarra's
>daughter... Cailet is kinda backward sometimes,
>though, yeah. I'm kind of glad the Malerrisi
>sister finally died, but WHO WERE COLLAN'S
>PARENTS??!? excuse me, you who don't give a rip,
>but the tension is just making me a little
>nuts... ;)
>"Tigana" is awesome, and GGK deserves more
>readers.
>Just remembered - Brust considers "Agyar" his
>best work. Hmmm. My favorite of his is tied
>about five ways... I liked "Freedom and
>Necessity," with Emma Bull - anyone else read it?
>
>People who like Pamela Dean, there's a website
>called "A Little Bit of Not Much,"
>http://home.earthlink.net/~panflx/index.html
>which includes 'the Annotated Dean' (that section
>lives up to the main page's title, but hopefully
>he'll get around to doing it proper; it's a great
>idea, anyway). From there, you can get to her
>own page; and then, if you care to go to
>www.dd-b.net (or click 'server root' at the
>bottom of her page), her husband's site has some
>pretty nifty stuff on it - like pictures of a
>couple of my favorite authors, under the
>photography page.
>
>I really wish that Washington were next to
>Virginia (or even within a weekend's drive), so
>that I could come to the 'minicon;' maybe I'll
>get stationed there next year, who knows :).
>Nobody has mentioned Kate Elliot. Although her
>recent stuff has rather sucked, I love her book
>"Jaran." The series that it was a prequel to was
>a letdown (I kinda liked some of the fourth one,
>though), but "Jaran" is awesome, if you don't
>mind some futuristic stuff and skip all the parts
>about Charles.
>Okay, I'll quit now! promise. Thanks for putting
>up w/ bs... ;) luv y'all.
>Danielle
>
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Received on Wed Aug 4 22:54:32 1999