Wisteria wrote:I'm rereading Beauty by Robin McKinley. She is a fabulous fantasy writer- I read her books first in late elementary school/junior high, so they are accessible for young teen readers but well enough done that they are still very enjoyable. And I don't say that about every book I used to love. I adored The Work and the Glory when I was in junior high and I honestly lost count of how many times I read those books. But I went back to read them again in college and while it was fun (especially while I was living in Nauvoo), I was kind of wincing at Gerald Lund's phrasing. But Robin McKinley I still love. She does great retellings of fairy tales, like Beauty, Outlaws of Sherwood, and Spindle's End (Sleeping Beauty).
I LOVE Beauty! It's one of my all-time favorite books! If you like Robin McKinley, I'd also highly recommend The Hero and the Crown and the Blue Sword. They are both very well written (she won a Newberry medal for one of them). You might also want to check out some of our previous discussion of her earlier on this thread if you didn't see that already (we found she also has some books that aren't as great of reads).
That's my wife's favorite book. I promised her I'd read it when we were dating. I still haven't read it, but she married me anyway.
She, on the other hand, did read my favorite book: The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.
Does she hold it over you, Yarkja?
And Rifka, I admit I have not read a good chunk of this thread. I've read a lot of Robin McKinley's books and I loved the Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. Her short stories aren't as compelling to me, like the compilation A Knot in the Grain. And I don't know what she was trying to do with Sunshine, but I just stopped reading that one. It almost could have been Twilight a few years before the Twilight craze . . .
Also, I love Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in the same vein of teenage fantasy writing.
Since this thread is also stuff we're listening to, just wanted to say I started using Grooveshark today and it is really cool. I didn't use it before because I didn't really "get" it or care to figure out how it works. But it is actually a neat site. The only thing that bothers me about it, and basically any site with a Classical radio station, is that its Classical station is really eclectic. There should probably be an opera station, and a modern classical station, and a choral station... I guess that would get very complicated quickly.
Wisteria wrote:Does she hold it over you, Yarkja?
And Rifka, I admit I have not read a good chunk of this thread. I've read a lot of Robin McKinley's books and I loved the Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. Her short stories aren't as compelling to me, like the compilation A Knot in the Grain. And I don't know what she was trying to do with Sunshine, but I just stopped reading that one. It almost could have been Twilight a few years before the Twilight craze . . .
Also, I love Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in the same vein of teenage fantasy writing.
I loved the Enchanted Forest Chronicles too! It sounds like we have pretty similar tastes in fantasy reading, Wisteria.
Wisteria wrote:Does she hold it over you, Yarkja?
And Rifka, I admit I have not read a good chunk of this thread. I've read a lot of Robin McKinley's books and I loved the Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. Her short stories aren't as compelling to me, like the compilation A Knot in the Grain. And I don't know what she was trying to do with Sunshine, but I just stopped reading that one. It almost could have been Twilight a few years before the Twilight craze . . .
Also, I love Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in the same vein of teenage fantasy writing.
mic0 wrote:Since this thread is also stuff we're listening to, just wanted to say I started using Grooveshark today and it is really cool. I didn't use it before because I didn't really "get" it or care to figure out how it works. But it is actually a neat site. The only thing that bothers me about it, and basically any site with a Classical radio station, is that its Classical station is really eclectic. There should probably be an opera station, and a modern classical station, and a choral station... I guess that would get very complicated quickly.
I never tried Grooveshark's radio system, but I agree that classical internet stations seem to think that anything with violins is in the same genre. Have you tried using Spotify at all? Their collection is a bit more organized, although you have to install the program to your computer.
I've been listening to lots of podcasts recently while I work, and it's wonderful to feel like I'm learning again. The best (so far) have been The Partially Examined Life (a philosophy podcast, listening to episodes pertaining to arguments for the existence of God. Challenging stuff, and I'd like to discuss some of it here with you guys sometime), Skepticality, and Big Illustration Party Time.
So I like Skepticality because it's a "science" podcast that a) doesn't have terrible sound quality , b) doesn't put forth pseudo-science as fact (a la Radio Lab), and c) isn't all-around annoying. Does anybody have another science podcast they like?
krebscout wrote:doesn't put forth pseudo-science as fact (a la Radio Lab)
When did Radio Lab do this?
Oh I don't know that I can cite you a specific instance, I haven't been taking notes. But I got the general feeling that Jad Abumrad preferred to report things that sounded cool and appealed to the emotions rather than real critical thinking. I learned some good stuff from the show, but it didn't quite feel like hard science.
And Science Friday, I listened to a few a long time ago, then forgot about it. Thanks, I'll give it another try.
krebscout wrote:doesn't put forth pseudo-science as fact (a la Radio Lab)
When did Radio Lab do this?
Oh I don't know that I can cite you a specific instance, I haven't been taking notes. But I got the general feeling that Jad Abumrad preferred to report things that sounded cool and appealed to the emotions rather than real critical thinking. I learned some good stuff from the show, but it didn't quite feel like hard science.
It probably doesn't help that Radio Lab's hosts aren't scientists or even science reporters, so they may not be as good at analyzing the science information as they could be.
Wisteria wrote:Does she hold it over you, Yarkja?
And Rifka, I admit I have not read a good chunk of this thread. I've read a lot of Robin McKinley's books and I loved the Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword. Her short stories aren't as compelling to me, like the compilation A Knot in the Grain. And I don't know what she was trying to do with Sunshine, but I just stopped reading that one. It almost could have been Twilight a few years before the Twilight craze . . .
Also, I love Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in the same vein of teenage fantasy writing.
I loved the Enchanted Forest Chronicles too! It sounds like we have pretty similar tastes in fantasy reading, Wisteria.
I love the Enchanted Forest Chronicles as well! Also in that vein the "Minds" series by Matas and Nodelman, but I've never heard of Robin McKinley before. I'll have to put some of those on my to read list once my grading pile becomes less than ridiculously enormous again.
"The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit." ~ Alfred North Whitehead
On a Robin McKinley related note, she's having an auction! If you've ever meant to get any of her books you might take this opportunity, because you can get it signed. Also she wants to get her bells restored. Click here for more information.
Over the weekend I just read Poison Study and most of its sequel, Magic Study, by Maria V. Snyder. The premise of Poison Study was intriguing-- it starts out with a girl, Yelena, who is condemned to death but given the opportunity to escape death by becoming a poison taster for the Commander (head of the military government of her country). I've never read a book focusing on that kind of theme-- it was promising and well-written, but it had a bit of sensuality at the end that I didn't like. The sequel, Magic Study, was even worse. It started out promising as well, but quickly turned out to be mostly a repeat of the threat of the first book. Also, it became more sensual than the previous book. Yuck. The series had such good ideas to start with, but the sensuality ruined it for me. I feel like I wasted a weekend reading them!
Ah man. I actually really like Poison Study despite the fact that I don't actually think it's well-written. Maybe she got sloppier in her later books or something, but those sentence fragments drive me crazy.
At any rate, Poison Study is the only one worth reading. Magic Study and Fire Study are okay but not that great (and it follows the PotC pattern where the first is good and stands alone well, but then you have to introduce a whole new plot element in the second in order to eke out a third...yeah). And then the Glass trilogy that follows (Storm, Sea, and Spy) got worse as far as sensuality and writing. By the end of the third one I just felt sick. And also I thought the romance was way dumb in that one.
I started playing the new HD remake of ICO (you're a boy with horns made a sacrifice, you get out and save a girl from a cage, and it's a puzzle-platformer where you need to hold her hand most of the way). The 3rd-person camera angles and the camera that jerks back to a certain point make it kind of feel like a horror game, but I'm not sure why I find it scary. It almost seems worse for her to die than me.
