ironymaiden: (reading)
[personal profile] ironymaiden
Recently Finished
The Keeper of the Isis Light is the science fiction of my childhood, though i didn't read it then. a young woman lives an innocent and carefree existence manning an interstellar outpost until colonists arrive, and then she has to learn about her world and her place in it from another point of view. i enjoyed it now; i would have had SO MANY FEELS about it as a teen.

otherwise i have been reading this one book all week, then realized it's an omnibus edition. i've finished The Riddle-Master of Hed and Heir of Sea and Fire from the Riddle-Master trilogy.

these books are deeply weird. McKillip notes in the forward that she was heavily influenced by Tolkien, and i see it, but there's something about these books that is so...Cliff's Notes of a modern fantasy novel? it's very detached and distant from both the characters and the events; hugely important things happen to our protagonist offstage and often i barely catch things that turn out to be important. and then there are a bunch of people who have names that are only one letter off from other people's names. but this is a nifty world and i do want the answer to the central mysteries.

note: none of the things they call riddles are actual riddles. they're just straightforward questions along the lines of the Bilbo Baggins classic "what do i have in my pocket?"

Currently Reading
Harpist in the Wind, the third one. everyone is overpowered and we still don't know what the antagonists want or what our hero is actually supposed to do.

What's Next
i have so many library books queued up that i'm starting to hit return dates. fortunately the oldest ones are on my kindle which is in airplane mode, so they won't disappear. also i have beta reading to do for C, and he's been very patient. (this pileup came from a combination of Jólabókaflóð suggestions and that big list [personal profile] james_davis_nicoll posted at the end of the year.)

Date: 2019-01-18 12:01 am (UTC)
dhampyresa: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dhampyresa
none of the things they call riddles are actual riddles. they're just straightforward questions along the lines of the Bilbo Baggins classic "what do i have in my pocket?"

THE FUCKING WORST

Date: 2019-01-19 04:33 am (UTC)
dorchadas: (Yui Studying)
From: [personal profile] dorchadas
Huh. I remember trying to read those books decades ago and giving up, and I couldn't remember why and thinking recently that I should go back and read them again.

Maybe I'll pass.

Date: 2019-01-21 03:52 pm (UTC)
flexagon: (Default)
From: [personal profile] flexagon
The Keeper of the Isis Light was one of my favorites from my early teen years, as well. But I didn't realize until adulthood that it's the first in a trilogy, and the third one has some really interesting character growth for Guardian. I'm not sure it gets better from the first one, but it continues the story and I'm glad I read the whole thing. There's a hardcover called "The Isis Trilogy" that you might be able to find used, if you're interested.

I read the Riddle-Master trilogy too, but don't remember it so much... also I need an icon for talking about books. Should fix that.

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ironymaiden

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