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Dec. 7th, 2007 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAs I said in the first entry, this is my reading since July. It's been quite a while since I read some of these books.
Caine, Rachel. Ill Wind - I've been trying to put my finger on why this book didn't really work for me. I love some stories in which the magical intrudes into the mundane world that I know or is hidden, just out of my sight, in my world, but other stories of the sort just don't work for me. I didn't hate this book, but I'm also not going to seek out the next book in the series (though I'll read it if I've got nothing better and it's shoved in front of me). I like the idea of Weather Wardens. It acknowledges the sheer power of natural forces and the constant potential for disaster that accompanies them. I think that, in this case, I never quite connected to the narrative voice. I didn't care about the main character very much.
Cantarella 1 - I want to read more of this series. It's obviously cracked, and it's cracked in a way that appeals to me. I mean-- The Borgias! Demons! Assassins! The history of that place and time is complicated to begin with, adding a layer of manga complications can only add to the fun, right? Well, actually, I was afraid that it wouldn't work, but I liked this volume enough to add all of the rest of the series to my BookMooch wishlist and to hope that I can get my hands on it.
Castle, Jayne. Silver Master - No surprises here. The book was exactly what I expected it to be. I do wonder how many times the author can keep coming up with previously unknown psychic powers before I start mocking the setting. Possibly indefinitely because I don't expect these books to contain consistent world building. So, romance, action, a very thin layer of mystery. It'll appeal to anyone who's enjoyed the other books Krentz has published as Jayne Castle.
Ceres 10-12 - Yuu Watase is so good at this particular type of adolescent fantasy. She pushes all the right buttons to make her target audience squeal. I occasionally wonder if I should be embarrassed that I still enjoy her manga given that I'm decades beyond the target demographic. Then I shrug and go back to reading. Of course, I suspect that I'd have a much harder time reading this series if I hadn't already seen the anime. That takes a lot of the tortured tension out of it for me.
Chronicles of the Cursed Sword 1-19 - I ran through what the library has of this series rapidly because I kept finding long runs of it on the shelf. I suspect that this is a series that will end with everybody dead and the world destroyed. It seems to be tending that way. Of course, I think it will also take so long getting there that it will never end (or it will end abruptly, much earlier than I expect). I get a bit of whiplash from the back and forth between minor fights that don't do much for the plot and epic fights that kill gods. I'm not sure if it's a problem with pacing or a problem with my expectations. I do wish that the characters I like wouldn't keep getting possessed, killed, abandoned and so on.
Dale, Anna. Whispering to Witches - I don't remember this book very clearly. It's a kids' fantasy novel about a normal boy who stumbles into a magical culture co-existing with the mundane world. I think that I hit the end and was annoyed because the pieces of the plot didn't seem to fit together properly. Not so much that the progression wasn't logical as that it wasn't presented in a way that made the end feel connected to the beginning. I could see that it was and that it made sense, but it didn't really work because the story skimmed the surface, only touching down in a few, disconnected spots.
Dark Angel 1, 5 - I read these back in August. I'd gotten 1-5 via BookMooch. I read 5 because I picked it up, thinking that it was 2, and dragged it to the nature center where Delia had camp. I started reading it and realized that I didn't recognize any of the characters and had no idea how the story had gotten to the place it was (either geographically or plot-wise). I read bits of it anyway after I'd finished the other books I'd brought and decided not to bother with 2-4 because I didn't like where it had gone. For anyone who does pick it up-- 1-5 are all that exist, as far as I can tell, and v.5 ends with a huge, never to be resolved cliffhanger. Well, that or it's a hugely nihilistic ending, which also doesn't appeal to me.
DearS 1-3 - This series is disturbing me. I'm going to keep reading because (a) the library has it and (b) I'm curious to see what Peach-Pit does with the themes. The DearS are aliens who are trying to integrate into Japanese society. They have a big secret, though-- They were slaves, and they *want* to be slaves. They don't value themselves if they're not. This is part of that genre of manga about the kind of screwed up boy who's living alone and getting by and then takes in or is forced to take in a girl/alien/android/critter that disrupts his life entirely. (It amuses me to realize that that description is common enough to be a genre of manga/anime.)
DeMatteis, J.M. Abadazad: the Road to Inconceivable - This book is an odd mix of text and comic pages. I haven't really figured out why the story switches back and forth (except that it can). Perhaps I'm trying to analyze too deeply, but I want there to be significance to what's in text and what's in pictures. Bits of the story riff on the Oz books. This is obviously a first volume. It doesn't end with a cliffhanger, but it also doesn't end with any resolution at all. The main character has just arrived in the magical world in order to search for her younger brother who's been missing for several years when the book ends.
DiCamillo, Kate. The Tale of Despereaux - I just finished this, so I feel like I should have more to say about it, but... There's a mouse and a princess and a rat and a scullery maid, and everybody but the princess is unhappy with their culturally ordained roles. I think that my main difficulty was that I finished the book and felt that none of the difficulties had actually been resolved. I also ran into trouble when I tried to think about the dungeons as real rather than symbolic.
DNAngel 7-11 - I don't think I actually have anything to say about this series. I'm mildly curious about where it goes, but if I never find out, I doubt I'll notice. Are there any more volumes of this out? The library doesn't have them, and Amazon's unreliable for manga.
Dragon Knights 1 - I can't tell the three main characters apart, so I haven't managed to sort out their personalities either. Um.... One likes killing things. One likes loot. One just wants to get the job done. I think. Maybe. The volume I have in hand is kind of hard to read because the central gutter is non-existent. I kept tilting the book in an effort to get more light in there without breaking the spine.
Dream Saga 1-5 - So, the natural world revolting against humans due to human abuse seems to be a common theme in anime and manga. Because we, the readers, are human, the happy ending always consists of the humans winning, surviving and re-subjugating the natural forces that were arrayed against them. I now kind of want to see the story from the other side. Dream Saga is not told from the other side; it just made me think again about the other side. This is a magical girl manga that draws on Japanese mythology. I think it's aimed at a pre-teen audience, but it's hard to be sure.
Durgin, Doranna. Checkmate - I picked up a bunch of Durgin's Silhouette Bombshell books via BookMooch based on having read and liked Durgin's fantasy novels years ago. This one is more action than romance. It's rather Die Hard-ish with the main character (female) trying to deal with a hostage situation in the Middle East somewhere (a fictional country, as I recall).
Elemental Gelade 1-5 - I suspect that this series may take a long time to get to the story elements that really interest me. That is, I'm not very interested in the episodic story and events. I want more about the world, the history and so on. Whether or not I read more will probably depend on whether or not my library gets more.
La Esperanca 1-2 - I may go on with this series. The library has more volumes. Still, I've taken a several month break from it because I found myself simply not caring. I couldn't discern a story arc and didn't care much about the characters. (It's a bad sign when one finds oneself reading a side story without noticing the transition.)
Please do talk to me about these books.
Caine, Rachel. Ill Wind - I've been trying to put my finger on why this book didn't really work for me. I love some stories in which the magical intrudes into the mundane world that I know or is hidden, just out of my sight, in my world, but other stories of the sort just don't work for me. I didn't hate this book, but I'm also not going to seek out the next book in the series (though I'll read it if I've got nothing better and it's shoved in front of me). I like the idea of Weather Wardens. It acknowledges the sheer power of natural forces and the constant potential for disaster that accompanies them. I think that, in this case, I never quite connected to the narrative voice. I didn't care about the main character very much.
Cantarella 1 - I want to read more of this series. It's obviously cracked, and it's cracked in a way that appeals to me. I mean-- The Borgias! Demons! Assassins! The history of that place and time is complicated to begin with, adding a layer of manga complications can only add to the fun, right? Well, actually, I was afraid that it wouldn't work, but I liked this volume enough to add all of the rest of the series to my BookMooch wishlist and to hope that I can get my hands on it.
Castle, Jayne. Silver Master - No surprises here. The book was exactly what I expected it to be. I do wonder how many times the author can keep coming up with previously unknown psychic powers before I start mocking the setting. Possibly indefinitely because I don't expect these books to contain consistent world building. So, romance, action, a very thin layer of mystery. It'll appeal to anyone who's enjoyed the other books Krentz has published as Jayne Castle.
Ceres 10-12 - Yuu Watase is so good at this particular type of adolescent fantasy. She pushes all the right buttons to make her target audience squeal. I occasionally wonder if I should be embarrassed that I still enjoy her manga given that I'm decades beyond the target demographic. Then I shrug and go back to reading. Of course, I suspect that I'd have a much harder time reading this series if I hadn't already seen the anime. That takes a lot of the tortured tension out of it for me.
Chronicles of the Cursed Sword 1-19 - I ran through what the library has of this series rapidly because I kept finding long runs of it on the shelf. I suspect that this is a series that will end with everybody dead and the world destroyed. It seems to be tending that way. Of course, I think it will also take so long getting there that it will never end (or it will end abruptly, much earlier than I expect). I get a bit of whiplash from the back and forth between minor fights that don't do much for the plot and epic fights that kill gods. I'm not sure if it's a problem with pacing or a problem with my expectations. I do wish that the characters I like wouldn't keep getting possessed, killed, abandoned and so on.
Dale, Anna. Whispering to Witches - I don't remember this book very clearly. It's a kids' fantasy novel about a normal boy who stumbles into a magical culture co-existing with the mundane world. I think that I hit the end and was annoyed because the pieces of the plot didn't seem to fit together properly. Not so much that the progression wasn't logical as that it wasn't presented in a way that made the end feel connected to the beginning. I could see that it was and that it made sense, but it didn't really work because the story skimmed the surface, only touching down in a few, disconnected spots.
Dark Angel 1, 5 - I read these back in August. I'd gotten 1-5 via BookMooch. I read 5 because I picked it up, thinking that it was 2, and dragged it to the nature center where Delia had camp. I started reading it and realized that I didn't recognize any of the characters and had no idea how the story had gotten to the place it was (either geographically or plot-wise). I read bits of it anyway after I'd finished the other books I'd brought and decided not to bother with 2-4 because I didn't like where it had gone. For anyone who does pick it up-- 1-5 are all that exist, as far as I can tell, and v.5 ends with a huge, never to be resolved cliffhanger. Well, that or it's a hugely nihilistic ending, which also doesn't appeal to me.
DearS 1-3 - This series is disturbing me. I'm going to keep reading because (a) the library has it and (b) I'm curious to see what Peach-Pit does with the themes. The DearS are aliens who are trying to integrate into Japanese society. They have a big secret, though-- They were slaves, and they *want* to be slaves. They don't value themselves if they're not. This is part of that genre of manga about the kind of screwed up boy who's living alone and getting by and then takes in or is forced to take in a girl/alien/android/critter that disrupts his life entirely. (It amuses me to realize that that description is common enough to be a genre of manga/anime.)
DeMatteis, J.M. Abadazad: the Road to Inconceivable - This book is an odd mix of text and comic pages. I haven't really figured out why the story switches back and forth (except that it can). Perhaps I'm trying to analyze too deeply, but I want there to be significance to what's in text and what's in pictures. Bits of the story riff on the Oz books. This is obviously a first volume. It doesn't end with a cliffhanger, but it also doesn't end with any resolution at all. The main character has just arrived in the magical world in order to search for her younger brother who's been missing for several years when the book ends.
DiCamillo, Kate. The Tale of Despereaux - I just finished this, so I feel like I should have more to say about it, but... There's a mouse and a princess and a rat and a scullery maid, and everybody but the princess is unhappy with their culturally ordained roles. I think that my main difficulty was that I finished the book and felt that none of the difficulties had actually been resolved. I also ran into trouble when I tried to think about the dungeons as real rather than symbolic.
DNAngel 7-11 - I don't think I actually have anything to say about this series. I'm mildly curious about where it goes, but if I never find out, I doubt I'll notice. Are there any more volumes of this out? The library doesn't have them, and Amazon's unreliable for manga.
Dragon Knights 1 - I can't tell the three main characters apart, so I haven't managed to sort out their personalities either. Um.... One likes killing things. One likes loot. One just wants to get the job done. I think. Maybe. The volume I have in hand is kind of hard to read because the central gutter is non-existent. I kept tilting the book in an effort to get more light in there without breaking the spine.
Dream Saga 1-5 - So, the natural world revolting against humans due to human abuse seems to be a common theme in anime and manga. Because we, the readers, are human, the happy ending always consists of the humans winning, surviving and re-subjugating the natural forces that were arrayed against them. I now kind of want to see the story from the other side. Dream Saga is not told from the other side; it just made me think again about the other side. This is a magical girl manga that draws on Japanese mythology. I think it's aimed at a pre-teen audience, but it's hard to be sure.
Durgin, Doranna. Checkmate - I picked up a bunch of Durgin's Silhouette Bombshell books via BookMooch based on having read and liked Durgin's fantasy novels years ago. This one is more action than romance. It's rather Die Hard-ish with the main character (female) trying to deal with a hostage situation in the Middle East somewhere (a fictional country, as I recall).
Elemental Gelade 1-5 - I suspect that this series may take a long time to get to the story elements that really interest me. That is, I'm not very interested in the episodic story and events. I want more about the world, the history and so on. Whether or not I read more will probably depend on whether or not my library gets more.
La Esperanca 1-2 - I may go on with this series. The library has more volumes. Still, I've taken a several month break from it because I found myself simply not caring. I couldn't discern a story arc and didn't care much about the characters. (It's a bad sign when one finds oneself reading a side story without noticing the transition.)
Please do talk to me about these books.
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Date: 2007-12-07 09:37 pm (UTC)I think tags ate at least one book?
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Date: 2007-12-07 09:44 pm (UTC)