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Well, day three commences with all aches, congestion and headaches intact. At least the oogly stomach is mostly better.
I just finished Diana Wynne Jones' The Merlin Conspiracy. As usual for her, it was quite good. It's actually tangentially related to one of her previous books, which always makes me squee. (What can I say, I'm a continuity junkie.) And as a side note, it was driving me crazy that I could remember every detail of its semi-prequel, Deep Secret, except for its name. I finally had to get up in the middle of the night and look the title up before I could get to sleep - it had me nearly pulling out my hair because I knew I'd read this book, I remembered everything, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was called!
Here's an interesting article DWJ wrote about the differences between young adult fiction and adult fantasy/sf. While I do think part of it was that she merely had a bad editor for her adult fantasy, I think a lot of her criticisms are valid. (Especially the bit about how mixing sf and fantasy in adult novels is, by and large, anathema.) It's one of the reasons I've always liked YA fantasy...a lot of these are books that could never be written for adults, simply because they are a very different type of book than those marketed as adult sf/fantasy, but they're still wonderful books that deserve to be read.
And it's another reason that I hate the ghettoization of fiction by age and genre - I mean, authors like Susan Cooper and Madeleine L'Engle and DWJ are wonderful and should be right up there with the top names in fantasy (and they've certainly had more longevity than some who are - I mean, all these writers have been continuously writing and constantly read since the '70s), but because they're stuck in the YA ghetto, they end up never getting the chance. And what's even sadder, people who I'm sure would like their books are turned off by the fact that they're "kids' books," and so they never take the chance to read them. That is one thing that I'm glad Harry Potter has done...it's made it OK for adults to read "kids' books" again. (Not that I ever stopped.) So maybe more people will encounter gems like the Dark is Rising series now that might not have otherwise. (Which, for the record, is desperately begging to be made into a movie. They've done LotR and Harry Potter, they're doing Narnia...it's time to do Susan Cooper, Hollywood, as long as you do it right.)
Also, is it just me, or do a lot of libraries actually put adult books in their YA section? I mean, now, I haven't read Tamora Pierce or Sharon Shinn, but I'm fairly certain they're not being marketed as YA books. So why are some of their books in the YA sections of my libraries and some in the adult sf/fantasy? It boggles the mind. Still, it's yet another reason to check out your local YA section.
I just finished Diana Wynne Jones' The Merlin Conspiracy. As usual for her, it was quite good. It's actually tangentially related to one of her previous books, which always makes me squee. (What can I say, I'm a continuity junkie.) And as a side note, it was driving me crazy that I could remember every detail of its semi-prequel, Deep Secret, except for its name. I finally had to get up in the middle of the night and look the title up before I could get to sleep - it had me nearly pulling out my hair because I knew I'd read this book, I remembered everything, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it was called!
Here's an interesting article DWJ wrote about the differences between young adult fiction and adult fantasy/sf. While I do think part of it was that she merely had a bad editor for her adult fantasy, I think a lot of her criticisms are valid. (Especially the bit about how mixing sf and fantasy in adult novels is, by and large, anathema.) It's one of the reasons I've always liked YA fantasy...a lot of these are books that could never be written for adults, simply because they are a very different type of book than those marketed as adult sf/fantasy, but they're still wonderful books that deserve to be read.
And it's another reason that I hate the ghettoization of fiction by age and genre - I mean, authors like Susan Cooper and Madeleine L'Engle and DWJ are wonderful and should be right up there with the top names in fantasy (and they've certainly had more longevity than some who are - I mean, all these writers have been continuously writing and constantly read since the '70s), but because they're stuck in the YA ghetto, they end up never getting the chance. And what's even sadder, people who I'm sure would like their books are turned off by the fact that they're "kids' books," and so they never take the chance to read them. That is one thing that I'm glad Harry Potter has done...it's made it OK for adults to read "kids' books" again. (Not that I ever stopped.) So maybe more people will encounter gems like the Dark is Rising series now that might not have otherwise. (Which, for the record, is desperately begging to be made into a movie. They've done LotR and Harry Potter, they're doing Narnia...it's time to do Susan Cooper, Hollywood, as long as you do it right.)
Also, is it just me, or do a lot of libraries actually put adult books in their YA section? I mean, now, I haven't read Tamora Pierce or Sharon Shinn, but I'm fairly certain they're not being marketed as YA books. So why are some of their books in the YA sections of my libraries and some in the adult sf/fantasy? It boggles the mind. Still, it's yet another reason to check out your local YA section.
