Warrior and Witch.
Aug. 13th, 2009 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwenI finished reading Doppelganger (a.k.a. "Witch"), by Marie Brennan. I've been in a mood for some good swords and sorcery lately, I think -- probably explains my rewatching Fellowship of the Ring the past two days and finally getting around to Netflixing Beowulf. (The latter movie is not recommended. Trippy! Bad CG! And not even in 3D!) But it's different when you already know the story, y'know?
Doppelganger wasn't the greatest writing in the world, but the plot is engaging -- even when you've accidentally spoiled yourself by reading the summary for the sequel. I couldn't put it down. [I figured I'd read about a hundred pages a day and finish it in four days, but I finished it in more like two.] And, most importantly for me, I loved the characters.
I guess I'm a teenage girl at heart, because I can't resist the protagonists of novels written for them. You know, the headstrong, stubborn girls who capture the admiration and loyalty of all the boys. Characters like Tamora Pierce's. It's not Mary Sue, but it's just as compelling of an archetype.
Oh, and I have a crush on Eclipse, which I knew would happen pretty much the moment his role was introduced. Similarly-skilled brother-figure with whom the protagonist can operate seamlessly? Sign me up.
One complaint about Brennan's writing: she doesn't do physical descriptions, apparently. I never picked up much about Miryo and Mirage's appearance except that they had red hair. I tried looking later, and I found nothing about Eclipse. I think the first physical description in the book, more than a chapter in, is about an antagonistic side character, and is limited to the color of her eyes, because of their poetic effect.
...in essence, Brennan writes the way I think -- in words, without much visualization. It's probably how I'd write, too, if I didn't force myself to try to give people faces. [To the extent that I write at all, of course.]
So it's unfair of me to criticize her, since I didn't even really notice that Eclipse had no appearance until my crush solidified. The other thing that helps is that I just finished FF4, so I basically picture Eclipse as looking like Edge in the FMV. Since the Hunters in Brennan's world are basically ninjas. She can call them bounty hunters all she wants, but they dress in all black and sneak around.
Her bio says she's an anthropology grad student, and it showed in the way she structured witch society: super-systematic, to the point of being unrealistic. [Again, much like I set up magic systems in my earlier worlds like Telarin and Icanthra.] She also used Japanese-inspired names, which was incredibly distracting for me. Maybe just because it made some of the names, like Tari-nakana, feel really clunky.
Anyway, those were my random babblings about the book. It was enjoyable, and kind of just what I needed. [And then I watched Aeon Flux just now, and the way Aeon ran around and fought people was just like Mirage and the fight scenes in the book, haha. Minus guns, of course.] Now my dilemma is whether to go borrow the sequel and read it before I leave for Japan. Considering I already have located the nearest branch with a copy, and have the page with its hours open in Firefox, you might guess how that is going to come out. ^_^;;
Story about the library, with lots of boring background: so there are two big library systems that serve my area. We're only just on the fringe of the San Jose system, though, and the nearest little outpost they had is being closed at the end of this week until 2011 for rennovations. So I rushed there on Tuesday to check out Doppelganger, since the other library system doesn't have any books at all by Marie Brennan. [Sadly, the sequel must be obtained from further towards San Jose.] It's a funny little branch -- it has mostly children's books and Chinese materials, which suits its location, I guess. So I ended up also checking out the two volumes of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, but I can't read those until I've reread the first series of Kingdom Hearts, because I don't remember how that goes. [I gave up on trying to understand the story through the games a long time ago, so now I resort to the manga... that is starting to feel kind of hopeless, too. Square-Disney, why must you tease me so?]
And I should read those before Japan, too, so I shouldn't be rushing off to check out Warrior and Witch (a.k.a. "Witch"), the sequel. [Yes. The books were reissued by splitting the title of the sequel in half. This created a lot of confusion and probably delayed my tracking the book down at all.] Ah well, I can renew, or check them out again when I get back.
Oh, so part of the story about going to the library was that it's been so long since I've used my card -- I prefer the other library system, since it has better coverage where I live -- that they deleted my data from their system. So I had to apply for a new card, and she cut up the old one. If I'd known she was going to do that, I might not have handed it to her -- it had a legacy signature, from back when I wrote it out slowly and meticulously, before the loops became cross-outs. XD
Oh yeah, so the way I discovered this book is that it was recommended to me at some point by PaperBack Swap. Somehow I found it intriguing enough to follow up on. And I'm glad I did.
Doppelganger wasn't the greatest writing in the world, but the plot is engaging -- even when you've accidentally spoiled yourself by reading the summary for the sequel. I couldn't put it down. [I figured I'd read about a hundred pages a day and finish it in four days, but I finished it in more like two.] And, most importantly for me, I loved the characters.
I guess I'm a teenage girl at heart, because I can't resist the protagonists of novels written for them. You know, the headstrong, stubborn girls who capture the admiration and loyalty of all the boys. Characters like Tamora Pierce's. It's not Mary Sue, but it's just as compelling of an archetype.
Oh, and I have a crush on Eclipse, which I knew would happen pretty much the moment his role was introduced. Similarly-skilled brother-figure with whom the protagonist can operate seamlessly? Sign me up.
One complaint about Brennan's writing: she doesn't do physical descriptions, apparently. I never picked up much about Miryo and Mirage's appearance except that they had red hair. I tried looking later, and I found nothing about Eclipse. I think the first physical description in the book, more than a chapter in, is about an antagonistic side character, and is limited to the color of her eyes, because of their poetic effect.
...in essence, Brennan writes the way I think -- in words, without much visualization. It's probably how I'd write, too, if I didn't force myself to try to give people faces. [To the extent that I write at all, of course.]
So it's unfair of me to criticize her, since I didn't even really notice that Eclipse had no appearance until my crush solidified. The other thing that helps is that I just finished FF4, so I basically picture Eclipse as looking like Edge in the FMV. Since the Hunters in Brennan's world are basically ninjas. She can call them bounty hunters all she wants, but they dress in all black and sneak around.
Her bio says she's an anthropology grad student, and it showed in the way she structured witch society: super-systematic, to the point of being unrealistic. [Again, much like I set up magic systems in my earlier worlds like Telarin and Icanthra.] She also used Japanese-inspired names, which was incredibly distracting for me. Maybe just because it made some of the names, like Tari-nakana, feel really clunky.
Anyway, those were my random babblings about the book. It was enjoyable, and kind of just what I needed. [And then I watched Aeon Flux just now, and the way Aeon ran around and fought people was just like Mirage and the fight scenes in the book, haha. Minus guns, of course.] Now my dilemma is whether to go borrow the sequel and read it before I leave for Japan. Considering I already have located the nearest branch with a copy, and have the page with its hours open in Firefox, you might guess how that is going to come out. ^_^;;
Story about the library, with lots of boring background: so there are two big library systems that serve my area. We're only just on the fringe of the San Jose system, though, and the nearest little outpost they had is being closed at the end of this week until 2011 for rennovations. So I rushed there on Tuesday to check out Doppelganger, since the other library system doesn't have any books at all by Marie Brennan. [Sadly, the sequel must be obtained from further towards San Jose.] It's a funny little branch -- it has mostly children's books and Chinese materials, which suits its location, I guess. So I ended up also checking out the two volumes of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, but I can't read those until I've reread the first series of Kingdom Hearts, because I don't remember how that goes. [I gave up on trying to understand the story through the games a long time ago, so now I resort to the manga... that is starting to feel kind of hopeless, too. Square-Disney, why must you tease me so?]
And I should read those before Japan, too, so I shouldn't be rushing off to check out Warrior and Witch (a.k.a. "Witch"), the sequel. [Yes. The books were reissued by splitting the title of the sequel in half. This created a lot of confusion and probably delayed my tracking the book down at all.] Ah well, I can renew, or check them out again when I get back.
Oh, so part of the story about going to the library was that it's been so long since I've used my card -- I prefer the other library system, since it has better coverage where I live -- that they deleted my data from their system. So I had to apply for a new card, and she cut up the old one. If I'd known she was going to do that, I might not have handed it to her -- it had a legacy signature, from back when I wrote it out slowly and meticulously, before the loops became cross-outs. XD
Oh yeah, so the way I discovered this book is that it was recommended to me at some point by PaperBack Swap. Somehow I found it intriguing enough to follow up on. And I'm glad I did.
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Date: 2009-08-14 08:41 am (UTC)