I'm procrastinating again, news at 11

[silverflight8]

If book reviews could just be my off-the-cuff analysis and flailing about books and characters and such, it'd take me less than half an hour to do them, instead of (some of them) months because I procrastinate. Writing plot summaries is the bane of my reviewing life, because it's boring and also the author did it much better than me: that'd be the novel. And you have to try to limit spoilers or else it's not useful to people who haven't read the books.

The best part about reviewing is where you can just dissect the novels. If I want to take issue with your dinosaurs on spaceships (side note: if anyone has read a novel with this premise, tell me now please) then I totally can, or I can run about yelling it's the very best part of the book, everyone on my flist, you should go find this book! Or--and this is my favourite part of the speculative fiction umbrella--it's the speculation on what parts are taken from Earth and what's not. (Even secondary world fantasy invariably borrows from earthly institutions, beliefs, political structure, biology, climate.) For some reason this is so satisfying. And also I can talk about characterization or plot twists or just the writing flat out (like C.S. Lewis', because it was simply, remarkably beautiful), anything I think is relevant.

This has been brought to you by the fact I finished Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief. Review forthcoming.

Comments

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Yes! A ring that was imbued with POWER. That turns wearers invisible. It just sounds so silly out of context!

[gothrockrulz.livejournal.com]

Indeed. When I first saw LotR, the ring annoyed me, because I didn't understand the brilliant symbolism and storytelling.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Hm, what sort of symbolism? I always assumed Tolkien just picked a piece of jewelery offhand, something small and concealable. Never really thought about implications!

[gothrockrulz.livejournal.com]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of how the lust for the ring was symbolic of the lust of power in general. Wasn't really thinking about any symbolism connected with the jewelry itself. Though, now, I'm starting to think maybe there was a purpose in the choice of a ring, since often kings would seal decrees with wax impressions of their rings, and those decrees wouldn't be lawful until they bore the king's seal. Also, to be given an iconic ring by a king was to be given permission to do anything, all in the king's name.

[silverflight8.livejournal.com]

Ohh, neat. Yeah, didn't Sauron put a lot of himself (including his powers) into the ring? And he's pretty ambitious--only defeated by Isildur et company that last time from really taking over.

I was thinking of xkcd's comic http://xkcd.com/712/ which was funny but also kind of...unsupported by the text. But funny.