Reading

[quislibet]

Yesterday I finished reading The Scar by China Miéville, which was a good read. Miéville's "gosh, my setting sure is grim and ugly" style can be a bit much at times -- rain falls like pus, sinister dark clouds are shat out of the sky, that sort of thing -- it makes me roll my eyes in the same way that I do when Siouxsie sings about the "urine-coloured sun" in that one Creatures song -- but the story was engrossing, not just gross-out-ing.

Aren't I clever.

Anyway, this morning I moved on to something as different as possible while still being fantasy-genre stuff, John Barnes' One for the Morning Glory. This is a book I judged by its cover, despite the usual admonitions; it was my hope that Charles Vess wouldn't be associated with a bad novel (and I see from the reviews on Amazon that I was not the only one). So far, it looks like it will be fun. Barnes's stylistic conceit that may become wearing is the whimsical misuse of words (the new Captain of the Guard gives the young prince a "great, heavy festoon for his thirteenth birthday" and takes him "all the way to the Ironic Gap to stalk gazebo" -- although I appreciate the gazebo reference), but we'll see.

So that's what I've been reading.

Like you care.

Comments

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

City Of Saints And Madmen

Thanks for the recommendation!