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eowyns_helmet's reviews
1911 reviews
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
5.0
This is a very thrifty story. Le Guin gets us right into a coming-of-age story involving a young wizard in this archipelago called Earthsea. Le Guin establishes his character with a few sure strokes, then takes us on a very believable journey. Some really lovely writing:
All at once he saw the shadow for a moment not far from him. The world's wind had been sinking, and the driving sleet of the storm had given way to a chill, ragged, thickening mist. Through this mist he glimpsed the shadow, fleeing somewhat to the right of his course. He spoke to the wind and sail and turned the tiller and pursued, though again it was blind pursuit: the fog thickened fast, boiled and tattering where it met with the spellwind, closing down all around the boat, a featureless pallor that deadened light and sight. Even as Ged spoke the first word of a clearing-charm, he saw the shadow again, still to the right of his course but very near and going slowly. The fog blew through the faceless vagueness of its head, yet it was shaped like a man, only deformed and changing, like a man's shadow. Ged veered the boat once more, thinking he had run his enemy to the ground: in that instant it vanished, and it was his boat that ran aground, smashing up on shoal rocks that the blowing mist had hidden from his sight.
Some elements may seem hackneyed, but of course that's mainly because Le Guin was first and 10,000 fantasy writers have come behind to use them. I have some quibbles -- he defeats the Pendor dragons too easily and the Lady of O also; but the rest is engaging, fast-paced and still highly readable.
JK Rowling does owe a lot to her -- essentially, the Harry Potter series is the first third of this book, with Ged in school. This is no ding on Rowling -- school is filled with many stories, which Le Guin passed through perhaps too quickly. Le Guin herself has praised Rowling for giving the "whole fantasy field a boost..." But she's also lamented that Rowling "could have been more gracious about her predecessors. My incredulity was at the critics who found the first book wonderfully original. She has many virtues, but originality isn't one of them. That hurt." (interview in The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/17/booksforchildrenandteenagers.shopping).
All at once he saw the shadow for a moment not far from him. The world's wind had been sinking, and the driving sleet of the storm had given way to a chill, ragged, thickening mist. Through this mist he glimpsed the shadow, fleeing somewhat to the right of his course. He spoke to the wind and sail and turned the tiller and pursued, though again it was blind pursuit: the fog thickened fast, boiled and tattering where it met with the spellwind, closing down all around the boat, a featureless pallor that deadened light and sight. Even as Ged spoke the first word of a clearing-charm, he saw the shadow again, still to the right of his course but very near and going slowly. The fog blew through the faceless vagueness of its head, yet it was shaped like a man, only deformed and changing, like a man's shadow. Ged veered the boat once more, thinking he had run his enemy to the ground: in that instant it vanished, and it was his boat that ran aground, smashing up on shoal rocks that the blowing mist had hidden from his sight.
Some elements may seem hackneyed, but of course that's mainly because Le Guin was first and 10,000 fantasy writers have come behind to use them. I have some quibbles -- he defeats the Pendor dragons too easily and the Lady of O also; but the rest is engaging, fast-paced and still highly readable.
JK Rowling does owe a lot to her -- essentially, the Harry Potter series is the first third of this book, with Ged in school. This is no ding on Rowling -- school is filled with many stories, which Le Guin passed through perhaps too quickly. Le Guin herself has praised Rowling for giving the "whole fantasy field a boost..." But she's also lamented that Rowling "could have been more gracious about her predecessors. My incredulity was at the critics who found the first book wonderfully original. She has many virtues, but originality isn't one of them. That hurt." (interview in The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/17/booksforchildrenandteenagers.shopping).
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
5.0
Spectacular book, excellent on character, a page turner. Really digs into the lives of the main characters and some lovely, lovely writing. My one quibble is that there is no way even a psychopath can be that perfect. It would have been interesting to have more disconnects, just enough to make people doubt the created story a little more. But that's a quibble -- finished at 4 am and that is testament enough!
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
5.0
I'd avoided this book for a long time (gathered dust on my night stand for a year), then picked it up only to see how Riggs handled the transition from Book 1-Book 2 ([b:Hollow City|12396528|Hollow City (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #2)|Ransom Riggs|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1381258937s/12396528.jpg|17377739]). For me the photos were a danger sign: too hipster and slick. But when I finally gave the story a chance, I loved it. Miss Peregrine pushes my buttons -- the fantastic embedded in the every day, a portal, WWII, a surprising narrative that then makes perfect sense (so much of what I read is utterly, stagnifyingly predictable), play with numbers, a bit of English fussiness within a frame of Florida weirdness, riffs on technology and time, some border-pushing sex and swearing, plucky characters who have distinctive voices, a bit of adventure... In the end, the photos (and the lush production) made the book superior, something as a kid I would have felt was pulling one over on the teachers... an immersive and delightful read.
The writing is also excellent, fresh, interesting and very vivid. It's hard to pick a section that's not a spoiler but here goes (and this section was so well done and timely that I stopped to savor it several times):
The writing is also excellent, fresh, interesting and very vivid. It's hard to pick a section that's not a spoiler but here goes (and this section was so well done and timely that I stopped to savor it several times):
I clenched my jaw and shut my eyes and held my breath, but instead of the deafening blast I was bracing for, everything went completely, profoundly quiet. Suddenly there were no growling engines, no whistling bombs, no pops of distant guns. It was as if someone had muted the world. Was I dead? I uncovered my head and slowly looked behind me. The wind-bent boughs of trees were frozen in place. The sky was a photograph of arrested flames licking a cloud bank. Drops of rain hung suspended before my eyes. And in the middle of the circle of children, like the object of some arcane ritual, there hovered a bomb, its downward facing tip seemingly balanced on Adam's outstretched finger. Then, like a movie that burns in the projector while you're watching it, a bloom of hot and perfect whiteness spread out before me and swallowed everything.