posted
Too late. There must be any number of 'murder of crows' stories out there. Not to mention 'unkindness of ravens', 'parliament of rooks' - incidentally one of my favourite Gaiman stories - and 'pitying of turtledoves'. In fact, considering the amount of dreck Turtledove is putting out these days, a pitying of turtledoves is most apropos.
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posted
How is Gaiman? i've read some of his comic stuff, but i couldn't bring myself to read a real book of his. And turtledove really gets old quick.
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posted
There was actually a short story called "A Knot of Toads" in one of the fantasy slick mags a month or so ago.
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posted
One of my favorite groupings is an implausibility of gnus. Far as I know, it isn't the title of anything yet, but I'd pick it up as a book, just for the title.
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posted
A bunch of stuff.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
EXCUSE ME!? DRECK? Harry made some AWSOME books, "In the Midst of Mine Enemies" is going to become an all time favorite for me, that and Days of Infamy.
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Turtledove is a wonderfully inventive writer, who found a niche that he has made his own. I like his work, and only don't read him now because he's so darn prolific I just can't keep up. Also because while I loved his Byzantine stories, I have a hard time caring much about alternate civil war history ...
Meanwhile, there was a spate of deliberate inventions of collective nouns a few centuries ago, like "a murder of crows" etc.; they never never arose as a natural function of language. They were devised like a parlor game. So it's not as if you can be "wrong." And no rule that says you can't invent others.
I, for one, think a Nasty of Crows is just as appropriate. I think I heard from someone else "A cacophony of crows," which is superb. How about a Bathtub of Ducks? And how about the obvious "A Hat of Rackers"? Or is that a Rack of Hatters ...
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posted
You know, I think I would've enjoyed parlor games. It's a pity we don't go in for that kind of amusement any more.
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Blayne Bradley
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woah who would ever of thought I would have to look up "prolific"....
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quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: Turtledove is a wonderfully inventive writer, who found a niche that he has made his own. I like his work, and only don't read him now because he's so darn prolific I just can't keep up. Also because while I loved his Byzantine stories, I have a hard time caring much about alternate civil war history ...
Meanwhile, there was a spate of deliberate inventions of collective nouns a few centuries ago, like "a murder of crows" etc.; they never never arose as a natural function of language. They were devised like a parlor game. So it's not as if you can be "wrong." And no rule that says you can't invent others.
I, for one, think a Nasty of Crows is just as appropriate. I think I heard from someone else "A cacophony of crows," which is superb. How about a Bathtub of Ducks? And how about the obvious "A Hat of Rackers"? Or is that a Rack of Hatters ...
I did notitce your blurbs on his early hardbacks.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: EXCUSE ME!? DRECK? Harry made some AWSOME books, "In the Midst of Mine Enemies" is going to become an all time favorite for me, that and Days of Infamy.
While a fun read, In The Presence of Mine Enemies had a few too many card games described way too intensely.
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Blayne Bradley
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Are you kidding? That was the best part!
Seriously now, the card games I actually enjoyed since I'm a Magic: The Gathering and YuGiOh! fan and I like card games once in a while.
But what, it had like 5 games of Bridge in total?
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I just thought they were a little drawn out. I guess it was partly because I have never played bridge before. But no complaints otherwise.
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Whales do come in pods, but not what you think. They come in large green sacs, similar to pea pods. These sacs are then placed in sandwiches. which are eaten by ocean dwelling sand witches.
Posts: 883 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Yes, well, I loved the Worldwar series. The first time I read it. The second time, I noticed how much he repeats himself, and how much he talks down to his readers. And how every time he makes some clever little historical allusion, he insists on drawing attention to it, like a three-year-old proudly holding up his latest masterpiece. It distracts from the story when characters are constantly having thoughts that serve no other purpose but to draw attention to something that happened in our timeline, not his, but this action is going on in the same place, and isn't that wonderfully clever!
Then there is the issue with all his characters being cardboard two-dimensional figures, the obligatory sex scene in each book, and and the way he always has to point out how characters never consider the other side of any given issue - mainly when someone is thinking something that a modern lioberal wouldn't approve of, of course.
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posted
I can't really dispute what KoM says about Turtledove's writing, but I will say that Turtledove's flaws as a writer don't stop his books from being an enormous amount of fun for me. I haven't read all of his latest stuff; as OSC says, he's just too prolific for that to really be feasible, but I've read most of his older stuff, and have enjoyed it flaws and all. Turtledove's strength isn't in his writing so much as it is his ideas. He's like Niven in that, I think, although the types of ideas the two authors have occupy different enough spheres that it's never occurred to me to compare them before.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
While I noticed the repetitions and were extrenely annoyed in the least by them it also didn't spoil the books for me, I simple glanced through when ever he repeated himself.
However he seems to have fixed some of his flaws in his newer books: Settlings Accounts Trilogy, In the Presense of Mine Enemies, and Days of Infamy.
The first one is a series that had relatively few (if any) repetitions (though he killed off some good characters *cries*) and its going to be a series starting from "How Few Remain" that will supposedly get around to OUR time.
The second one I enjoyed very greatly it kept me fearing just as the characters were fearing for the day that they might be discovered as Jews and when one of the children's teacher one morning walks in and yells "JEWS!" I jumped like 5 feet.
Days of Infamy is interestingly enough a novel that has the smallest ambition as a alternative novel yet, rather then making some catastrophic change its something small, a simple decision, the decision to invade Hawaii with army troops and launch the third wave of attack. This is a novel that no matter how much I want a sequel for I'm content with it as a stand alone.
The Worldwar series I loved so much simple because he had aliens invade in 1942 forcing the war to screach to a halt.
What I believe makes Turtledove's books fun to read is not his writing but primarily the idea's behind the writing that makes it great to read.
So dreck does not describe his work IMHO.
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Blayne Bradley
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However, as for the POV of his characters I think that's one of his greatest abilities, it allows the audience to some certain extent understand the motivations of the characters, thus I don't really think their 2 Dimensional but accurate portrayals of human beings, the very grittiness within his novels spells realism not some fantasy world, the very hero's in the novels aren't particularily heroic and have their flaws its how they cope with circumstances and their particular contribution to the overal story thats makes his characters one of the pillars that holds his books up high.
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quote:You know, I think I would've enjoyed parlor games. It's a pity we don't go in for that kind of amusement any more.
Some of us do. My almost-step-mother has a book of Victorian parlor games, and I've been known to suggest them now and again-- word games and romp games both. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
A Parliament of Owls- as found in The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis. I'm not sure if that's an actual term, but reading that made me think of this, so naturally, I had to post it. ^o^
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