30 Days of Genre - Days 13/14

Yep, it's a twofer, given that I forgot again yesterday... (am having a totally braindead week this week...)

Sooooo....

Day 13 – A genre novel you’ve read more than five times.

Stephen King. My ultimate comfort reading. IT probably takes the prize as most read as I'm on my third (very ratty) copy, but The Stand is another favourite (at least, up until it gets all over religious towards the end. Apocalypse hijinx!). Also various of the early short story collections. And bonus points because once you read the Dark Tower books you keep seeing all the connections between all the rest, which makes you go back and re-read again. Which is fun.

A similar thing happens with Charles De Lint. The Newford books have an excellent criss-crossing of characters so you'll get a walk on in one book becoming the lead in another. I think, on reflection, that Someplace to be Flying (crow girls!) would be one of my most read. Also Spiritwalk (my first De Lint!), and, again, like with King, the short story collections get more rereading than the novels do.

There is also the legendary Lord of the Rings. It has to be done at least once a year (although I don't re-read the Hobbit quite as much and have only touched the Silmarillion once.) I find I skip different bits on each reading, though. Currently, I can not being doing with the interminable Frodo angsting (the movies have ruined me...) and so I tend to give more attention to the rest of the Fellowship shenanigans; while in earlier times it was the other way around.

And as I tend to re-read collections and anthologies more than novels, Esther Friesner's Chicks in Chainmail anthologies are a definite favourite. Comic fantasy full of excellent action heroines - what's not to love?

Day 14 – Favourite book trailer from a genre novel.

No idea. Have to confess to not completely getting the big deal with book trailers - I get sold on books by either reading the reviews of and/or articles/interviews by the author, or listening to the author at a convention. Actually, especially that last one. Authors at conventions tend to make me immediately pick up at least one of their books, even if I'd only vaguely heard of them before and never gotten around to searching out titles. Especially if they give good panel.

30 Days of Genre - Day 9

Day 9 – Saddest scene in a genre novel.

Ooh, tricky one. Especially since I've got the emotional depth of a puddle in a drought. And the memory of a leaky sieve.

One that springs to mind is the gut punch that is Gage's death in Stephen King's Pet Sematary (and if I could find my copy I'd be able to go into more detail on the why. (Alas, the great house tidy has mysteriously vanished many things...) That whole damn book creeps me out, but Gage's death comes out of nowhere and is utterly tragic.

And, actually, now I think about it, there's a similar such saddest scene in Chaz Brenchley's Shelter (which I also can't find...) - as I recall, there's a particular scene near the end that is all the more wrenching by the fact that when you're reading it, you're absolutely certain there's no way he's not going to deliver the predictable happy ending. And yet... I do recall having to flip back and re-read it a couple of times to check, that, yes, actually, he really did let that happen...

Year End bits

• Oh noes! Elastic Press is ceasing to be... Andrew's done a full press release thingy on the Elastic newsfeed, a copy of which is also on the BFS boards. 'tis a great shame as Elastic always put out some neat looking books.

• Coo... Stan Nicholls of the The David Gemmell award thingy reports that they've had 800 votes since they opened the polls on boxing day. How cool is that! And that's just to get the long list to short list. If you've not voted for your fave heroic fantasy book of the year, get over there and do so as the voting is dead simple and you don't even need to register on their website or anything. Apparently, the final award will be given out at a do in June, at the Magic Circle HQ in London. Crikey! (Must remember to mention this to our Hell's magician boyf.)

• Ooh er... Newcon 5 is down for 26th - 27th September '09. Which, unless I'm very much mistaken, is the week after Fcon is due to be... Oh that's going to be interesting... :-> (Of course, the Fcon site is due a major relaunch next month so our details aren't up on the current site yet...)

Book blast:

And talking of David Gemmell, have recently read Legend and Waylander as I'd never read them before and thought I really should get around to it... Legend was pretty intense and it had me hooked right up until the end... and then there was a bit of a cop out with one of the characters and a miraculous resurrection when they really should have stayed dead. Bugger. Things were going so well until then. Didn't help that the purpose of the resurrection felt like a blatant rewarding of the hero chap by bringing his woman back to life. A woman that died a decent fighting death too. Sigh.
Waylander didn't quite have the intensity but the ending was a bit more solid and the characters were very well drawn.

Also read Ravens of Avalon by Diana L Paxson - which I picked up from our Jan at the last Fcon. Apparently this is connected to the Mists of Avalon series that Marion Zimmer Bradley did (which, of course, I hadn't read...) But Ravens was some serious fabulous stuff - it was a pagany telling of the Boudica story just busting with enchantment all over the place. So, quite naturally, I then had to read Mists of Avalon by MZB just to see where it all began and I was totally blown away by it. Utterly, absolutely, magical stuff. Doing the Arthur thing from Morgan le Fay's perspective. Brilliant!

Also read Duma Key by Stephen King. Definitely a cracking good yarn, that one. Bit of a heartrending death towards to the end and some great characters.

Now I've a pile of Xmas and birthday books to get through so hope everyone had a fab Xmas and have an excellent new year!

- X -