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English--

Archer's Goon, Wynne-Jones
- now see, DWJ has Aliens With Powers quite often, I believe, but she doesn't have to tell us straight out that they're aliens from a distant galaxy (because possibly they're not) nor why they're here (mining expedition or collapse of the home world), nor does she show us the silver space ships in which ~~The Earthmen~~ they arrived. I have only just realized that there /are/ spaceships in this book, and they're so neatly worked in that I didn't for a moment register that DWJ had got that nasty SF into my pristine fantasy. DWJ being DWJ the possibility still exists that she didn't, and we're still doing Weird Brit Fantasy TM. The refusal to name, or rather, to slap a convenient label on things, is a virtue. If something is strange, do I care that it's strange because it's from another planet (which makes it SF) or from another world (which makes it fantasy) or from the brain's recesses (which makes it psychological horror) or Just Is (which makes it either manga or an English kids book)? Just let the thing be without annotation, and concentrate on the family dynamics instead, and I at least will be happy. (More or less. I ought to like Amber more than I do because it has a large dysfunctional family in it, only I fancy Zelazny's attention was *not* on the family as organic unit at all; and that's why I don't.)

Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Priest
- people heal from stab wounds and gunshots rather quickly in this one. Maybe they're all vampires.

Polite Lies, Mori
- series of essays on how Japanese social customs stack up against midWesterners'. The author prefers the midwest. By a Japanese woman who's lived half her life in Japan (in an upper middleclass dysfunctional family) and half in Minnesota. Reminder that the Japanese are no more the Borg than we are, though the author doesn't make that point.

Gifts, Leguin
Cloud Atlas, Wossname

Japanese--

100 Demons 18
100 Demons 17
The Do Everything Company Now Prospering Mightily, Kirishima
-- Kirishima manga are fun, even when dropped into midseries. Woman is not afraid of wasting ink. Fluff, but visually satisfying fluff.
Ouchou Romanse 2

And by a nose (= finished y'day), a one dollar book from BMV, Detective Stories from The Strand. The Strand was the magazine that published the first Sherlock Holmes stories and personified the between-Wars golden age of English detective writing. There's a number of fun stories in this one, suitable for reading on the subway or the bus-- which is fine, I later discover, because the originals were intended to divert people on the train. Included are several late Holmes stories, which I'd read, alas; and a pastiche by Ronald Knox, which I hadn't. I have read better pastiches, il faut dire; the plotting may be good but the style is just a trifle off. Possibly it's the author's name that ensured inclusion.

This leaves me thinking still, and again, about Judge Dee. I have a copy of the one and only English-language pastiche sitting around here somewhere. A casual glance inside suggested that it was less pastiche than cut and paste, which some people get confused. I'm hoping to be proved wrong, but still... I should like some decent Judge Dee pastiche, and am wondering how to do it. Alas, the first order of business is a plot or three, and plot is so not my thing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You know I love your 'things read' posts. It's like reading without having to. If that makes sense and it always makes me want to read whatever too! Except of course I almost never get round to reading them ... except maybe one or two things ... ah yes ... make that one. ^_^

But yes it helps me feel kind of 'get ~~some of~~ the experience'! Also yes hope that didn't sound too weird. (I just re-read the comment and damn it sounds weird to me) *smacks self*

It's the reason people read book reviews, surely, especially for things they'd never read themselves. 'Nattering about books--- just, nattering about books' is a pleasant occupation no matter which end of it you'r eon.

See, I would have imagined that Judge Dee pastiche is easy too do, once you solve that pesky little problem of the plot. It reads pastiche to me in and of itself. And what's more, it's very self-consciously so. So as long as you have the backgammon and other required props, voila, you have it.

It is... easy enough, I suppose, but I'm guessing that there's a temptation always to 'improve' van Gulik's Judge, make him more congenial to our thinking, give him the traits one wants him to have under the guise of rounding out his presentation. If nothing else, make the local characters less stock types and the ambience of the books less male chauvinist piggy. But you can't do it and keep whatever is the innate charm of van Gulik (about whom I am, as ever, highly ambivalent.) Me, I think van Gulik pastiched himself in his later novels; you can see the falling off.

And of course the problem of those triple plots. One must have a triple plot, and ohh are they a horror to compose without using some element van Gulik himself already did. Well, they're a horror anyway. Plots. Ugh.

You can use an element he has already used. It's difficult for the readers to keep track of his plot as well, as I'm sure no one will notice. :P I wonder if I should send you some of these Yue Opera plotlines. Some of them are quite gothic, and if you tell don't use the straightforward narrative it'll be quite mysterious to the readers.

Yes, do, please, if you have them handy.

I mean yes, one can use elements van Gulik did, but one needs to do it without tipping off the reader. 'Oh yes this one, it's never the most unpleasant character, it's the ascetic scholar or the young student.' One can do reversal, I suppose, in which the Buddhist monk and the imperial eunuch are the good guys. But Dee wouldn't recognize that fact, which may be why they're always the villains in van Gulik.

Thank you for sending me that French Judge Dee, by the way: I have been reading it, and while I did enjoy it, I really don't quite get the same feeling from it that I get from the van Gulik.

No. It's not even close but no cigar. It's 'who is this man you're calling Ti'? I half-hope it's just the first prentice work and eventually he hits his stride, but comments here and there suggest that he doesn't.

I suppose I could buy a later one and see if it improves, but... I'm not sure that I'm convinced enough that it will.

Archer's Goon is one of my favorites. ^__^ I like that they're never really explained. The title of the Japanese translation flat-out calls them sorcerers/wizards; I think they should have called them "farmers." (I.e., I also have the BBC mini-series of this one, which was only released on DVD in Japan.)

I read all three of Priest's Eden books, one after the other, in bed, by lamplight during one of those electricity-free weeks we endure in the winter. And now that I'm thinking about them, I . . . can't actually remember much about them other than that they made for an A+ distraction from life's larger problem.

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