Megan Whalen Turner

[rushthatspeaks]

Dear iTunes:

It was a touch of diabolical brilliance to play Tori Amos's song 'God' while I was reading the second-to-last chapter or so of Megan Whalen Turner's lovely book The Queen of Attolia. I appreciated it all the way to the bookstore, where, fortunately, they had The King of Attolia, so that I merely had to bite my tongue and pay hardcover prices instead of running screamingly mad.

Mind you, the bookstore trip was not your fault. The bookstore trip was entirely the fault of the author and the people on the Internet who recommend me books. I wasn't that fond of The Thief, which is the first of these-- I mean, it was a perfectly reasonable and entertaining book, but not necessarily something I'd rave about and make others read-- but the second one managed to do everything I've always wanted a Judith Tarr book to do less overdramatically and that I've wanted a Tamora Pierce to do with more subtlety and fewer friendly animals to be the protagonist's mascots, and I'm very, very happy about that.*

Therefore I am not actually going to have the computer exorcised, especially since I doubt Tori would respond to exorcism in any case, unless it in some peculiar way involved popcorn and snow-globes and everyone dressing in teal, and then she'd only leave the computer to come to the party.

But I am holding it against the universe in general that hardcovers are so madly expensive these days.

Sincerely,
Me

*Actually, I quite like Judith Tarr and don't object to Tamora Pierce; it's just that I have a vague subtle sense that I would prefer something a little different aesthetically about both of them. Turner hits whatever it is, as does Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince. Uh... 'grit' is not the word I'm looking for, because it can be very pretty. The sense of real wounds?

Comments

[oyceter]

Whoo! I'm having so much fun seeing all the people on my flist reading Turner! And I'm so glad you liked Queen; I absolutely adored it, despite being not quite so impressed by Thief.

Would love to see what you think of King!

I finished Queen and broke my bookbuying moratorium to get King in hardcover the very next day too!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

... I just read King in one sitting, neglecting such things as dinner. I have no self-control at all-- I'd wanted to give it a couple of days.

King was damn good. I'm not sure if I liked it as much as Queen-- it didn't jump up and down on my buttons in quite the same way-- but it is an extremely worthy follow-up and made me very happy. Want more. Want MORE. At least these got to the top of my reading pile *after* King came out and not, say, last December.

[sovay]

I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the bookstore on the day it came out. Don't feel bad.

At least these got to the top of my reading pile *after* King came out and not, say, last December.

Unlike some of us, who have been waiting for years . . . : P

(I'll go away and stop cluttering up your journal now.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

You're not cluttering. This is a salon: you are practicing the gentle art of conversation.

Unless you're procrastinating, which is also totally allowed as long as you don't get any on the furniture.

[sovay]

Unless you're procrastinating, which is also totally allowed as long as you don't get any on the furniture.

Nice. Perverted, but very nice. : )

[oyceter]

I totally did the same thing with King. I loved it, though I still like Queen a wee bit better (am so in love with Attolia, which I gather most people aren't?). And really really really want yet another follow-up!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

YA hardcovers are about $10 less than adult hardcovers, too. It's nuts. (I have so far resisted King but that's partly because I have felt too crummy to get to the bookstore again.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Local Bookstore had two copies of the trilogy, one in YA, one in SF. This makes me happy, because honestly Queen and King are YA-because-the-first-was-and-we-say-so.

[sovay]

I was immensely pleased to see both The Thief and The Queen of Attolia reprinted with covers to match, when last I was in a bookstore. I own both books in the original hardcover, but prior to this I think I'd seen The Thief only in a disastrously-covered YA paperback; it deserved better. I was also impressed by the back-cover text in the new editions: it is simultaneously spoiler-free and accurate and intriguing. Somebody clearly cared about these books. Thank God.

And because I was in the bookstore, and what I do in bookstores is read books, I read the little interview with Megan Whalen Turner included at the back of The Thief and was delighted to discover that I hadn't been hallucinating the Rosemary Sutcliff echo after all. Yay, The Eagle of the Ninth.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have the horrible YA paperback of The Thief out of the library, and I have my nice shiny new reprint trade paper, and just... no contest. But I do think the back of Queen is still a tadge spoilery, and have covered it with paper.

[sovay]

Mmm. I thought the only danger was the name Eugenides, rather than Gen, but that the distinction wouldn't mean much to someone who hadn't read The Thief anyway. Is there some critical mention I've missed?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Country of origin.

[sovay]

Well, the broadsides did mention that his mother was Eddisian.

[sovay]

I do rave about The Thief: it's one of very few novels I've read where the twist not only holds up in retrospect, it's a valid and integral part of the story. I'm also very fond of Eugenides. Πολύτροπος.

I have The King of Attolia here on the couch beside me: it will serve as a reward when I have finished Augustine's Confessions. Because right now, saint or not, I'm ready to beat him senseless with a Woody Allen film.

The sense of real wounds?

Yes. And the emotional knife-twists that are not gratuitous. And the fact that people have to work them out with exactly as much difficulty and complexity and sometimes less than complete success as in real life. It's rare in fiction, and both Megan Whalen Turner and Elizabeth E. Wein do it very well.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Eugenides. Sing to me, Muse, that man of many turnings. Only not quite. I did see the twist coming, though-- probably too much Diana Wynne Jones in my youth.

My condolences about the Augustine. King should be an excellent antidote.

And the fact that people have to work them out with exactly as much difficulty and complexity and sometimes less than complete success as in real life.

Yes, exactly, so that when something happens you know there aren't going to be any take-backs and you know that there is no guarantee that worse things won't come of it, or even that anyone will really adjust; the previous state of normality is over. Which is one of the things that gets me really emotionally invested in a book, and which I don't see as often as I'd like. One of the many things I loved about Queen is that the final state of equilibrium is both unthinkably better and unthinkably worse for essentially everybody, meaning that it averages out to being the new normal.

[sovay]

I did see the twist coming, though-- probably too much Diana Wynne Jones in my youth.

Oh, yeah. (My mother actually figured it out in the scene where the look on Gen's face actually makes the magus back off. She's been reading Diana Wynne Jones for even longer than I have.) But I still thought it was beautifully done; and there were consequences I hadn't foreseen, which I always appreciate.

One of the many things I loved about Queen is that the final state of equilibrium is both unthinkably better and unthinkably worse for essentially everybody, meaning that it averages out to being the new normal.

Heh. Yes. Which is one of the reasons I can't wait to see where The King of Attolia goes with these characters: I can make absolutely no predictions based on The Queen of Attolia's final scene.

Oh, Augustine. I know journaling works for many, many people, but why did you have to publish yours?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I went into King thinking, I know all these *people* really well now, but the plot? Could be *anything*. One of the things I like about a good series: seeing characters one knows thrown into situations in which they have as much of a chance at surprising you as real people often do. Of course, this is also one of the things I hate about a bad series, because the author will get something wrong about the characters, but nothing of the sort happens to Turner.

Did Augustine publish the Confessions himself, or was it unearthed by posterity? I don't recall. But once you get past 'Oh, Lord, make me chaste but not yet' there's not much point.

[sovay]

Did Augustine publish the Confessions himself, or was it unearthed by posterity? I don't recall.

I have a vague impression that it saw print in his lifetime, but I can produce no evidence whatsoever to support this claim; and we're talking ancient-world publication anyway, which is all up for grabs as far as distribution and editorship and whatnot goes. Either way. I can only hope that the writing of the Confessions helped Augustine work out some of his issues, because it's damn sure not helping me any.

Da mihi castitatem et continentiam sed noli modo!

[kate_nepveu]

I haven't read _The Thief_ yet, but I thought in reading the Alanna's-daughter duology that Pierce doesn't write grief in a way that grips me. (Though the numb resolve in _Lady Knight_ wasn't a problem.)

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Frankly, Pierce doesn't write *emotion* in a way that grips me. I do read her, especially since I think she's been getting better as she goes, but I mostly read her as, well, beach reading. Which I enjoy very much, but she's never made me laugh, or feel sorry for a character.

[sovay]

My total experience of Tamora Pierce is the original Alanna quartet, which I read in eighth grade. (I can be certain of the year because of the classrooms in which I read the books under my desk.) I suppose it's relevant that I don't remember very much about the books, except that I liked a couple of Pierce's deviations from the expected script—how Alanna wasn't naturally, brilliantly talented with a sword, but had to learn it like anyone else; how her first lover is not the love of her life—and I think my early tendencies toward fucked-up characters must have been evident in my interest in her twin brother. Also that "the roof of the world" was a cool phrase. That's about it.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Agreed about hardcovers. Really, I feel the same way about new books in general — I remember mass-market paperbacks normally being about $5 not that long ago, and now they're more like $8, which just seems ridiculous for something so cheaply made. I think the only new hardcover I've paid anything like full price for in the past several years was The Lord of the Rings, which I decided I needed a really nice edition of. Fortunately, I seem to have pretty good self-control when it comes to reading parts of series and not finishing them — thus, Titus Alone has been sitting waiting to be read for months; I've read the first two books of A Song of Ice and Fire, and have decided not to read any more until all six are out, because I can't keep track of everything while waiting the several years it takes George R. R. Martin to complete another segment, and nor do I feel like rereading several eight-hundred page novels for each one; and I have not yet even glanced at Harry Potter 6, and didn't read 5 until I was able to pick it up at a book sale for a dollar (and in hardcover, no less).

I do quite enjoy hardcover books, though. Paperbacks just don't feel the same. For books that are important to me, I tend to keep an eye out at book sales and replace my paperbacks with hardcovers when I see them.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I've fallen into a pattern of buying either new hardbacks or used paperbacks, because if I really love something a lot it's worth the hardback price and I'd like to vote with my wallet, but if I'm just trying something I do not want to pay $8 for a softcover that could die on me anytime. It works fairly well.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Yes, that makes sense. I do find that some of the books I love best for their physical incarnations are the ones I've picked up on the cheap: an Oxford Shakespeare for a dollar, the (signed!) Frank Herbert collection Eye for the same price, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, et cetera. This is partly just my love of a good bargain, though.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

But Turner is YA and therefore cheaper!

Signed,

Got it at 30 or 40% off via huge online retailer

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

But I needed it right away!

Signed,

It was worth the $25 but I growl in your general direction anyhow

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Cover price is only $16.99, so even more worth it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Turner hits whatever it is, as does Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince. Uh... 'grit' is not the word I'm looking for, because it can be very pretty. The sense of real wounds?

I know exactly what you mean. I see it in some of Robin McKinley's books, too; Deerskin, and The Hero and the Crown.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. And Laurie Marks, and Steven King's Dark Tower books, a.k.a. 'the series in which I have most desperately and hopelessly wished for take-backs'.

It continually astonishes me that Deerskin is readable, enjoyable and lovely, considering, but there it is.

[kate_nepveu]

Were you the person who was not reading the very ending of _The Dark Tower_?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yup. Still haven't.

[kate_nepveu]

This is probably a good thing.

[eredien]

Like new icon. How's that going for you, then?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Slooooooowly. Sigh.

[larryhammer]

I know what you mean about the sense of real wounds in Tarr and Pierce. When Tarr is really on, she can get it, at least for me -- in, say, A Fall of Princes or The Shepherd Kings or Alamut. But she doesn't reach that deeply very often.

Pierce, for me, is deeply comforting beach reading. Except for Alana, which I've never managed to reread. Not an author I turn to for emotional peril.

---L.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Agreed about A Fall of Princes. I actually don't think I've read either of the other two you mentioned; I should look into them.

[larryhammer]

Alamut was the first prequel to The Hound and the Falcon -- OOP, alas, but dancinghorse has been doing fire sales of her old stock and may still have some left. The Shepherd Kings was an Epona novel that only appeared in hc, as far as I know -- it's about the fall of the Hyskos. Plotwise nothing's dependent on the other Epona books.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Oh, one other Tarr that did it for me: Devil's Bargin, a recent tradepb set in Richard's crusade (whichever one that is -- I get the numbers mixed up).

Her recent one about william the Conquerer came close, but it's hard to tell -- I spent most of the book cackling like mad at the demented ways she was playing the brains of anyone who imprinted on Ivanhoe as a child. It's a bee-oooooo-tiful book, but not necessarily a real-wounder.

---L.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think Pierce does hit a note of emotional peril in Cold Fire, though I do bring a lot of personal emotional issues to the particular mentor/hero-worship dynamic that Daja has with the firefighter. But it would have been a lot more devastating if we only got Daja's point of view.

And I think that's about all I can say about that without huge spoilers.

[larryhammer]

Agree about the impact of the POV choices in Cold Fire. That's also my largest problem with Shatterglass as well, the POV choices.

---L.