McKinley: Where in the world are the McKinley fans?

7th August, 1999. 11:38 a.m.

Hello,

I'm from Sydney, Australia. I can't remember how I started reading Robin -
someone lent me "Beauty" and I picked up "The Hero and the Crown" and "The
Doorr in the Hedge" in the local library and adored it. Eventually I
snapped them all up for my own personal collection! ;)

Glad to hear that there are so many Guy Gavriel Kay fans out there! I may
be ignorant but I've always wondered why there isn't more info about him on
the web like there is about other authors - e.g. mailing lists, homepages,
etc. "Tigana" is on my top 10 list of books and, IMHO, the best thing he's
ever written. I'm looking forward to reading "Sailing to Sarantium" but
it's only available in the tall trade PB here at the moment and even though
I work in a bookstore and get a discount on the books it's still a bit much
for me.

Orson Scott Card is another favourite author. I love the breadth of his
scope. "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" are also in my top 10. So
is "The Worthing Saga" but that one doesn't seem to be as popular as the
former two.

Has anyone read "The Little Prince" (Antoine Saint-Exupery)? That was one
of my favourite books as a kid.

Anyways, about Beauty and the Beast retellings, Mercedes Lackey did one
called "The Fire Rose". Set about the turn-of-the-century in America. A
young woman (called "Rose" of course) is left destitute after her father
dies (her mother died years ago) and so accepts a
too-good-to-possibly-be-true offer from a rich but mysterious millionaire
to come and be a "nanny" for his children. When she arrives she finds that
there are no children, she was really wanted becase of her research skills
and her knowledge of ancient languages, and she never sees her employer
face to face but reads to him through a speaking tube. I enjoyed the book
more for its opulent luxuries and the interplay between the characters,
which seems to be one of the aspects of the tale that more and more writers
are concentrating on, than the actual plot (which tends to sag a bit in
places as Lackey gets bogged down with her discussion of elemental magiks).
I wish that there could have been more development between Rose and her
"beast" for the ending left something to be desired, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Just out of interest, what do you find the most appealing about the
fairytale anyway? I'm interested because I'm writing a short novella for my
Honours - joining the ever-increasing list of people who have dabbled in
rewrites....

Karen.

P.S. Does anyone like Brian Froud? "Lady Cottington's Pressed Book of
Fairies", "Strange Smells and (I can't remember the rest of the title)",
"The Goblin Companion", "Faeries", and he also created the goblins in "The
Labyrinth"....

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Karen Chan kkchan@zip.com.au ICQ 2293920 http://www.zipworld.com.au/~kkchan

"'The rule is," said Vertue, 'that if we have one chance out of a hundred of
surviving, we must attempt it: but if we have none, absolutely none then it
would be self destruction, and we need not.'"

(C.S. Lewis, "The Pilgrim's Regress")
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Received on Fri Aug 6 18:58:12 1999