Dance with Cult Shadowborn

[maribou]

A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R. Martin
The story dragged in places, due to the problem of "I want this character's stuckness to make the reader uncomfortable" lasting long enough to make this reader not just uncomfortable but kind of bored.... but I still tore through it, and once said characters got UNSTUCK: Woot! High gritty adventure galore. This is one of my all-time favorite fantasy series; try it if you are intrigued by multiple viewpoints, dire happenings, and a slow build of magic rather than a lot of flash up front. Also if you can deal with the fact that it will be YEARS until book six comes out.
(118/200)

Shadowborn, by Alison Sinclair
I'm pretty sure that my diminished experience of this book falls squarely into the "it's not you, it's me" category. It brought all the same nifty world-building, thoughtful characterization, and sharp dialogue to the yard that the previous two (excellent) books in the series did; but I brought a level of distraction, poor memory, and inattentiveness to reading it that didn't match how I read the first two.
(119/200)

The Cult of Information, by Theodore Roszak
O, curmudgeonly jeremiads seasoned with trenchant insights, how I do love ye. This one is from 1986, railing against the dangers of the "Age of Information" in both reasonable and ridiculous ways. Lots of salient history mixed in with the railing, too.
(120/200)

Comments

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that years thing is why I am not touching this yet. :p

[libskrat]

I feel like the only person on earth who thought the first Martin book was rapey, abusive, nihilistic, and generally awful, and couldn't be arsed to pick any of them up ever again.

[maribou]

I'm pretty sure you're not the only person who feels that way, thinking of the various conversations I've had about the series; I probably should have been blunter than "dire" in my comments - normally I do tend to put "you all remember that I like stories full of awfulness sometimes" tags on that sort of recommendation, but I guess I either forgot, or assumed that with all the hype going around the books right now, people would be pretty clear on that.

If you're interested to know why I didn't feel that way (I usually am interested, when I hate stuff that seems widely popular among my friends), here's my best shot at expanding my opinion:

I would agree that scenes aptly described by all of the adjectives you use happen in the first book (and throughout the series), but I find their part in the story relevant and meaningful (and occasionally cathartic) rather than gratuitous; I would never characterize the book as the mere sum of those awful situations, although I can see how it could strike someone else entirely differently.

To me, contemplating how people react in miserable extremis (with suprising strength, or with self-betrayal, by becoming better or becoming worse) is of personal value even when it's been turned into melodrama - some small piece of my enjoyment is that it feels like an easier or safer way to soothe some of my own unhappinesses, because it is so obviously fictional and part of the world-building that I can get some distance. I think Martin's always pretty clear that reprehensible behaviors are reprehensible, regardless of the context he provides for them, and I like that none of his protagonists exist in a static moral position; they're all fiendishly complicated, bad and good muddled up, and experience moral change in different directions as the series goes along.

Now, on reflection, do I find it sort of obnoxious, and feel vaguely complicit, that this sort of book makes a bajillion dollars and other sorts of books, which I love as well or better, but which don't rely on violent extremism as part of their toolbox, will never make their authors a living? Well, yeah, sometimes. But I try to write these reviews as honestly and off-the-cuff as possible, even when it shows up my internal adolescent.

[maribou]

:)

[libskrat]

De gustibus non disputandum... but I dunno, I prefer a little more hope with my catharsis.

Also, the thought of cheap Martin imitators with less subtlety makes me vaguely ill.