What I’m Reading
I thought I would give folks a review of the latest book I just finished reading. THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA by Scott Lynch was a delightful romp, and I’m so impressed with this author because this is his first novel. Damn, I wish I had been this talented and artful back when I first started writing.
I found no big surprises in this book despite it being a fantasy Ocean’s 11, but then I’m Structure Girl so I tend to see the twists and turns coming and know where they are going. It didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the read. I loved the Gentlemen Bastards, but the wonderfully overpowering character is the city of Camorr. The Elderglass was an amazing creation, and I wish I had thought of it.
It’s a gift that some writers possess to turn landscape and cities into full characters. Tolkien did it brilliantly with Middle Earth. When I reread the LOTR I always think of it as going back to Middle Earth rather than any particular character or event. (Not that I don’t love those, but there is something about the world he created.) A far less accomplished writer, Marion Zimmer Bradley,accomplished it with Darkover. Marion’s prose was plodding at best, but I just loved that world.
It’s not something I’ve managed to master as a writer. I tend to write in present day because it’s so much easier than creating a well realized world. I’d like to get people’s opinions on how you create memorable places.
Melinda
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I totally agree on Middle Earth. Rereading LOTR is like coming home.
Another world I love is the one Jacqueline Carey created. I liked those books despite the fact I wanted to shake some sense into Phèdre most of the time - she’s great as observer and narrator, but the moment she is but herself, she deserves a spanking (except that she likes it too much, lol) But the world, the language, and some of the other characters made me stick with the series.
Darkover was interesting, too. In historical fiction, Dorothy Dunnett is one of the writers who can make a bygone world come back to life, and I have some hopes for the first novel of David Blixt, The Master of Verona. According to the reviews it’s something I’m going to like.
And don’t forget George.
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I still love Earthsea. I reread that from time to time because I want to live there.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:07 am
When I think of George’s books my mind goes first to the characters — Tyrion, Jon, Little Finger. I think his people are more the focus then the land and the cities. Not that he doesn’t give good place, but his people are so complex and interesting that they hold my attention.
I confess I’m not real big on long passages of description. When I hit the waving seas of grain I tend to start skimming and flipping pages in search of people talking or something going _boom_
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
Lol, you should like my stuff then. I surely have more battles than descriptions of grain fields.
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Cool, and you write about the Romans which is a culture and a time I find totally fascinating.
I feel remiss for not asking you this sooner — where can I buy your books in the U.S.? With the dollar sucking so badly I don’t know when I’m going to get back to Europe. Of course I could use Amazon UK, but it’s a lot more fun to browse bookstores.
When Walter first introduced me to Patrick O’Brien he wasn’t published in the U.S. When we were in England in 1987 for Worldcon we haunted book sellers buying up books we didn’t have.
August 4th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Oh dear, I should probably make it more clear on my blog and my website that my novels are in progress and not yet published.
I’ve published a short story and non fiction, so I took the “_aspiring_ writer” out of my profile, but I’m still on the first rung of the ladder.
There’s a group of bloggers who post a snippet every Friday, and you can find those on my snippet blog. A lot of it is from the Roman trilogy, but sometimes I post S&S scenes I write for fun.
Sorry for that. I’d love to give you an Amazon link to my books, believe me, but it takes time to write the things.
August 4th, 2007 at 7:20 am
A number of years ago, I interviewed Vernor Vinge for Prometheus (the Libertarian Futurist Society’s newsletter). At one point I asked him a question about how things worked in the setting of A Deepness in the Sky. It struck me that the way he phrased his answer made it sound as if this were a real place, and my question had an objectively true answer, which he happened not to have discovered yet; he didn’t speak of it as something that he was free to make up to suit himself. Of course this is how mathematicians think about the fictions they deal in professionally; but it’s also how Tolkien thought about Middle-Earth, as his letters show. So I think part of the key may be thinking of your fictional world as a real place that you can explore, and spending a lot of time there.
I deal with this problem as a game master and game writer—it’s the part of roleplaying games that most closely resembles what novelists do, I think (because games are participatory fiction, game masters don’t, or shouldn’t, be creating major characters or planning plots in advance). I find it useful to describe the setting in great detail, long before I actually use it. One of my players once joked that there were some national governments that kept fewer statistical records than I used for my campaigns! Not that it has to be statistics, if you don’t enjoy numerical information for its own sake as I do—maps are good, or historical timelines, or family trees, or any other description of the setting that gives it substance before you use it. Then when you need a piece of it for a story development, you can look for suitable pieces.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Hey Gabrielle, I will definitely check out your snippets. Yes, it does take time to write, and you’ve got the added issue of tons of research. My friend Ian is writing a WWII era novel and he’s got a barricade of books on his desk. And you’re going back 2000 years which makes it even harder.
Maybe it was my WWII novel (which I still haven’t sold) that set me screaming into present day for my settings. I was dealing with an era that’s only a few decades past, and I was finding contradictions between sources on fairly major points. Aaaagh, to quote Charlie Brown.
Reading you blog makes me totally confident that you will sell your books. You evoke your trips and the history so wonderfully.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Thank you.
Yes, tons of research doesn’t make is easier. Nor does the fact that my plots grow tentacles and get really epic help.
And I can’t for the life of me stick to one novel at a time.
A LAND UNCONQUERED is the one about the Varus battle, CALEDONIA DEFIANT the one with the pre-Hadrian’s Wall setting, and KINGS AND REBELS is S&S.
Represented with less snippets are EAGLE OF THE SEA , another Roman Britain novel, THREE TO CONQUER; the other S&S one, and ENDANGERED FRONTIERS, about the Visigoths.