Dear Self,

When vacuuming your room looks good to you, you should know that you're procrastinating. Now get back to studying for your exams

Sincerely,

Kellicat

I'm now down to three books on my list: Broken Crown, Firethorn and The Deed of Paksenarrion. Right now I'm reading Firethorn and the Paksenarrion books. So far, I like Firethorn better. I will review them both when I'm finished with them.


As for the other three, I ended up not reading Gloriana, but I have read most of City of Saints and Madmen and Daughter of Ancients. Here are my reviews:

City of Saints and Madmen


This was a rather eclectic and interesting book of short stories and novellas centering around the fungus-infested city of Ambergeris. I liked the way Vandermeer structured this book because it was different from the usual type of short story/novella collection. In fact, the last half of the book didn't even have page numbers because the last half of the book is supposed to be marginalia related to the last "proper" short story , "The Strange Case of X". The Marginalia is all over the place from a glossary to a letter to a squid pamphlet to a family history to dagger-like short stories. With all this combined, Jeff Vandermeer manages to give the reader a picture of Ambergeris without resorting to an omniscient voice, which is something I really liked.

As for the content of the stories and the marginalia, I was less enthused for the most part. My favorite stories were "Dradin, In Love" and "The Hoegbotton Family History". I liked "Dradin, In Love" for the rich and vivid picture of Ambergeris presented in this story. Character and Plot came second to it. In fact, the only story where I felt anything for the characters was "The Hoegbotton Family History" , a story in which a member of the Hoegbotton family tells of his family history in a way that made me care about the Hoegbotton family. Other than that though, I mostly read the book for the setting because Ambergeris is one of those cities that's truly unique and fun to read about.

However, my patience does have its limits and I found myself unable to read "The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergeris", the squid pamphlet and other exercises in fictional academia. I admit, I have a very low tolerance for fictional histories, pamphlets and other fictional academia so this is a case of my own bias at work. Just be warned that a good deal of City and Saints consists of this.

Overall, I would say that this is a worthwhile fantasy book to read, especially if you want a break from LOTR clones. It's not my favorite, but I don't feel dumber after reading it and I wouldn't mind re-reading some of it.
I would give it a four out of five.

(the next entry will be on Daughter of Ancients)

Finally, a reading list that's not the Big Read (I've given up on that one for now). This is a list of the fantasy books that I'm planning to read or finish reading as soon as I finish my next essay. (Or before that if I give in to temptation).

Library Books

Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer


My Own Books

Daughter of Ancients by Carol Berg
Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
Broken Crown by Michelle West

The library books are both due on the 17th so I'd best read them first. Knowing myself though, I'll probably only finish one of them by the due date or get distracted by another book instead.

Inkheart

I finished reading this book about a week ago and although I enjoyed it, I felt no urge to read any of the sequels. I liked the premise of the magic (reading things out of books at the cost of having something equivalent disappear into the book), I liked the fact that the villain was not stupid and I liked the fact that the book had a definite ending, but I was left dissatisfied.

( Here are the reasons why )

I'm doomed. I've decided to read my way through the Big Read list. This is why I refuse to look at the F/SF list, because that will be at least another fifty books I'll feel inclined to read. At least the Big Read has some worthwhile books on it.

( My progress so far )

I just thought that it would be fun to go through last year's Big Read list and see how many more books I've read off that list

( Here are the results )

My brain is like a sieve when it comes to writing fanfiction. No, worse than a sieve, it's just a fucking void. I signed up for femgenficathon and got an interesting prompt. Should be good, right?

Wrong. I don't have a single fucking idea that can developed into a good story. Oh I have plenty of original fiction ideas, but fanfic? Total blank. Writer's block at its worst.


I have no idea what to do.

I saw the Big Read on gehayi's LJ, so I decided to try it for myself. I knew that I had definitely read more than six books, but I wanted to see for myself how many I had read.

( Here is the result )

One day, I was thinking about Dark Lords and how most fantasy Dark Lords (especially Galbatorix) frustrate the hell out of me. The result was this rant on Dark Lords. I hope everyone enjoys it.

( I'm sure you can tell I was thinking a great deal about the Inheritance Cycle when I wrote this rant )

Here's the first installment of my Fifth Sorceress anti-fan fic. Right now I'm calling it Magic's End. I'm not promising anything in the way of quality but hopefully it's better than that stupid book.

( Enter and Enjoy! )

This parody fic was inspired by Limyaael's Game of Gods parody fics and the scathing reviews on Oyate, particularily the review of The Legend of the Petoskey Stone.


Enjoy!

Mary Sue Comes to Save the Natives


Alallalafunigujerynoahujikonerasxanthyuiopewlikopquienaracevunagerazinuyteraderfyunipokemiba gazed verdantly over the verdant green hills. Her shimmering golden hair, twined with silky and smooth ribbons, floated around her angelic and heavenly face. Her elegant and graceful hands reached to the heavens. She was clothed in the most beautiful, gorgeous and pretty white toga, which the gentle wind tugged to reveal the pellucid radiance of her white thighs. As her mahogany ship drew near to the radiantly glowing sandy shore, she saw endless rows of natives holding baskets of colorful flowers and gargantuan chocolate-brown and snow-white chocolates. They were all swaying together, singing nobly savage songs and ballads in anticipation of their glorius and wonderful saviour. She smiled, showing her paper-white and snow-white teeth to the world. She stepped off of the golden and yellow prow of her barnacle-free, mahogany ship to float down to her new people.

Instead, she fell and the rip tides pulled her out to sea and drowned her. Since she forgot to secure her ship, the current pulled it back out to sea where it was never seen again. The natives who were forced to wait for her cheered and divided the flowers and chocolate among themselves. Then they all went home to their various nations and all was well.

The End

I've never seen anybody make a list of literary books for speculative fiction writers to read so I might as well write one. By literary, I mean novels with no supernatural elements in them.

1. Emma and other books by Jane Austen: Emma's generally considered the best of Jane Austen's novels, but I recommend that you read them all for their wonderful portrayals of character. Her plot may be a little thin on the ground in some of her other novels, but her characters in all of her novels are fantastic. I believe that it's especially important for SF & F writers to read her books because one of the major things that drags speculative fiction down is poor characterization.

2. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: I recommend David Copperfield because it has a rich world, wonderful characters, a flawed protagonist and a good plot. It's also an excellent coming-of-age book and since the coming-of-age plot seems so popular in speculative fiction, it would be a good one to study for that.

3. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens: I recommend this novel because its rich world and the wonderful characters that inhabit that world. However, the plot is shaky and there's at least one point in the story where Deus ex Machina rears its ugly head so it's also good to study for its flaws.

4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: I recommend this novel because the characters drive the plot, not the other way around. It's also yet another good example of a rich and logical world. There are no easy escapes from society in Tolstoy's world. There are also no idyllic relationships or marriages in his world either. Levin has idyllic fantasies about Kitty, but Tolstoy shows that Levin's fantasies are just that: fantasies. If you're tired of idyllic relationships or marriages in SF & F and want to write more realistic relationships, this book is for you.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: If you're absolutely sick of high-status people being portrayed as good simply because they have high-status, this book is for you. The Great Gatsby doesn't just stamp on this idea, it tears it to shreds and leaves it for the carrion crows. If you want to write about rich nobles who are so rich that they never develop any strength of character, this book will show you how to write them. It's also a great example of a narrative told by a witness character.

6.Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert: If you want to write about delusional characters who make major mistakes, this book is for you. This book is about as anti-Mary Sue that you can get in a novel. No character escapes suffering from the consequences of their actions, especially the protagonist Emma Bovary. While Emma's world may revolve around her, no one else's revolves around her. Every single character in this book suffers from human flaws and they're all products of their world. There is no happily ever after ending. It's a good antidote to all the Mary Sue stories out there.

It's a short list, but I'd rather have a short list that I can justify than a long list of titles with no explanation of why you should read these books. The reason most of them are from the nineteenth-century is that I think nineteenth-century literary novels are useful for aspiring SF & F writers. They're useful because they're set in a different world than the modern world and yet they're still accessible for the modern writer. I know that one of my main goals as a fantasy writer is to write a different world yet still have it be accessible for a modern reader. So study nineteenth-century novels to see what details they put and which ones they leave out. What details draw you in? Are there any that push you away? What details do you want more of? Study the rich worlds that these authors described and your world will probably be the better for it.

Recently I found myself wondering why almost all of the modern novels I read are fantasy novels. Then I realized that it's because I despise a lot of literary fiction. I despise it because it's so pretentious, so didactic and so precious that I grind my teeth and try not to vomit over the pages of these "Oh-so-great" books. These books are graphite trying to masquerade as a diamond and I'm sick of publishers trying to tell me "X book is wonderful" when it's really not. If I want literary fiction, I find myself turning to older novels instead because many of them are diamonds that have stood the test of time.

Therefore, I've got an advice list for anyone who wants to write literary novels. Take it with a pound or two of salt.

1. Do not write didactic books that sacrifice character and plot for the message.

Seriously, this is my number one pet peeve. I can't tell you how many promising books have been derailed by the need to push a message across to the reader. Just focus on creating a good story and your message will shine through. Unconscious messages are fun for the reader to interpret. Conscious messages are a drag for the poor reader because the author's done all the interpretation for them.

When was the last time you enjoyed being talked down to as though you were an idiot compared to the speaker?

Probably never so why would you want to put your reader through that experience? Leave the messages for the reader to interpret and your work has a chance of becoming great. Nothing kills greatness in a novel like didacticism.

2. Do not think that beautiful language is a substitute for plot and character in a novel.

This piece of advice is especially true for beginning writers who are unlikely to write in beautiful language. If a writer is praised for their beautiful language, their beautiful language is probably not the only thing that was good about the novel. Some writers may have a shaky plot, but they have wonderful characters done justice by a beautiful use of language. Or vice versa. The best novels have wonderful plots, wonderful characters and beautiful language.

I can't remember a novel that stood the test of time just because it had beautiful language. Beautiful language is a tool that should serve plot and character, not obstruct it. Focus on plot and character first and language second. If you do a good job on plot and character, beautiful language will follow.

If you want to create beautiful language for its own sake, write poetry, not a novel.

3. Banish all Mary Sues from your work.

It does not matter what genre you write in, a Mary Sue is never an enjoyable character. For a serious literary work, a Mary Sue can be the kiss of death. Literary fiction is trying to write realistic characters and a Mary Sue is far from realistic. Can you think of anyone in real life who's a self-insert with no major flaws and never annoys anybody good? I sure can't.

You may think Mary Sues are never seen in published literary novels, but I've seen them and they aren't pretty, even though the author wants me to think they are. Even a minor Mary Sue is enough to degrade a book in my mind.
And that leads quite well into my next point.

4. No perfect minority characters please.

If you want to write a minority character, do not make them into a Mary Sue and/or a saint. To me that's just another form of racism. How dare we have a flawed minority character who's a realistic person? She MUST be a perfect character or she's unworthy of appearing in my book alongside my more realistic majority characters. I think many authors write idealized minority characters because they don't want to be accused of racism, but writing them just widens the gap between minorities and the majority group. You do a minority group no favors when you create an idealized character from that minority group. However, I am not urging you to go back to demonizing and denigrating minority groups. Not a bit of it. I'm just urging you to go the middle ground where the realistic characters are made.

I know this is a loaded topic, but I feel compelled to write about it because the Mary Sues that I've seen in literary fiction are from minorities. And I see Mary Sues far more often than I do Gary Stus. Give me a realistic minority character and I will be happy.

And that's all for today. I'll continue the list some other time.