I finished Sabriel a few nights ago. It's been about six or seven years since I last read it and it's not quite as good as I remember, but still very enjoyable. It's the rare book that feels like it should be longer, despite coming in around 300 pages.

Finished the sixth Ranger's Apprentice book and started on the newest one.

Finished both The Lightning Thief and The Iron Ring yesterday.

Ah, I love Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen. They're such interesting books--such a weird blend of fantasy and science fiction. My favorite character has to be the Despicable Dog. I'm not sure if she's in the first book, but I love her in the second two. So great.

Garth Nix is an excellent author with a knack for original and inventive plots. I'm never quite sure where the story is going to take me, but in this case that's a really good thing.

Still rereading Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship just descended from Caradhras. Still rereading The Four Loves, and waiting for my sister to finish A Wizard of Earthsea so I can read it.

I'm sorry, GtG! I read your request for which McKillip to pick up next, and I had an immediate, well, Riddlemaster of course! moment, and then I thought, well, it's so... there are pieces that are mind-bending because there are other pieces of the story that have beautiful Christian parallels and when you try to make the whole thing a parallel it just doesn't work! but you're left (or at least I'm left) going this has to mean something!... so I thought that maybe Forgotten Beasts of Eld would be better (especially considering that it's a single volume), but then I couldn't decide and I was really hoping someone else would be able to speak up and spare me the agony of indecision.

See? ^ less than helpful; I'm not even sure it makes sense! (Also, I was hoping to be able to get and read Fool's Run because you never know, it could be a new favourite... but apparently the hold expired. )

It would save me a lot of time… What do you guys think?

Hm. I couldn't really tell you... because I read all of the books for the first time in the past 2 weeks. Well, except Conspiracy of Kings... I think maybe I'm saving that one to--savor it.

Ah, yes, Garth Nix is a very good author. I think he's even Australian. I also really enjoyed the Abhorsen Trilogy. Quite different to the majority of fantasy. Definitely not Tolkienesque - phew!

As much as I love Tolkien, it does get old having every fantasy world be a Middle-Earth clone. Pretty much everything about the Abhorsen Trilogy is new and original. Even the magic system is different from anything I'd come across before. He's supposed to be working on both a prequel and a sequel to the series, set to come out next year. Very excited about those.

Mel: . Lys didn't fare much better when I asked him in the square- I think he gave me 10 options or so . I'll just have to see what my library has I guess .

I've finally started reading The Thief (I'm waiting for The TItan's Curse to arrive at the lirbrary) and I like it . Hopefully I can get my hands on the rest of the series too...

What? That's so exciting! When I read Abhorsen, I was very sad because it was published several years ago and more sequels hadn't come out yet. That makes me so glad that Nix is writing more. Hurray!

The thing that was so weird and cool in the world was that the Old Kingdom was the fantasy place, but smack dab on the other side of its wall was a modern world type place. The modern world had a vague idea of the Old Kingdom, but not really anything concrete (except that it was there). It was also strange that machine-type things disintegrated/fell apart from the modern world to the Old Kingdom.

This world was just so thought out, and the characters knew it and lived in it just as naturally as they would in our world. Or in a Tolkien world, for that matter. I'd like to meet Garth Nix.

Have any of you read his The Seventh Tower series? It was my first series of books by him. Second was the Abhorsen trilogy, and now I'm plowing through the Mister Monday books. Or whatever you call them.

Started A Wizard of Earthsea last night. It is good so far.
Though I haven't read the books you're talking about, I agree with you about the Tolkien-clone thing. I love The Lord of the Rings to pieces, it is one of my favorite books ever. But precisely because it is my favorite, I don't want to read badly-done imitations of it. The new fantasy I like best is always the books that are different from Tolkien. (The Damar books by Robin McKinley, Earthsea, Lloyd Alexander novels, Ella Enchanted and other books by Levine, etcetera.)

GtG, at least we came up with the same first answer.

I just finished the Miller Brothers first Codebearers book, Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow. It's constructed in the grande tradition of the Archives of Anthropos, the Seven Sleepers and Rise of the Wyrm Lord to name all the series' I can think of off the top of my head. It was a decent read, but it didn't really pull me in. It's a shame, because all those books sound super-duper from their descriptions, and if only they lived up to the possibilities my imagination had painted for them... Unfortunately, mostly they just felt like "I have 'cool' monsters and despicable bad guys and nonstop events and allegorical world building! Do you like me yet? Please? I'm awesome and you'd have liked me ten years ago... maybe..." It's almost the 'fantasy worlds must be created like Middle Earth' problem, except I have yet to find a series that actually lives up to its potential.

Ly: Thank you for your responses to my questions. I'd really like to try Heyer sometime this summer.

In order to prevent giant catch up posts, I thought I'd post before this thread gets away from me.

As much as I love Tolkien, it does get old having every fantasy world be a Middle-Earth clone.

Isn't it intriguing how the fantasy genre seems permanently stuck in the Medieval era? (It's probably because of Beowulf and the Arthur legend), but it's so interesting that almost all fantasy novels have swords and arrows and castles and feudalism. (Excepting, of course, books like JSMN and Harry Potter, but even Rowling's wizards wear robes).

I'm taking a break from The Once and Future King before I get to Lancelot (who I hate). I finished The Queen of Air and Darkness. So far, the endings to the two books were very abrupt. I wonder if White felt he wasn't very good at them.

Instead, I picked up my first Dickens since I put down the despised Pickwick Papers. This time, I'm reading Great Expectations. So far, I like it a lot. Pip is a likable protagonist and it is such a comfort to be safe int he hands of someone who commands the English language so well. Dickens is just phenomenal.

I got my wisdom teeth out, so I'm spending the day on The Riddlemaster of Hed. It's amazing really, how wonderful she is. After the first chapter I was hooked. All that had happened was some farm and trading babble, but I was totally on board. Since then, I got kind of lost in the mythology of the fantasy land and the book took a serious turn for the worse when Morgon

I'm currently rereading The Thief for the first time. I hope to make it through all of them again, but especially the first three, as I just read ACoK earlier this summer.

Also on the up-and-coming reading list is the second Percy Jackson, along with a few other books that I can't decide between.

Mar_girl, you don't have to reread any of the Attolia books to understand ACoK, but I found that some of the details of TT had sneaked away from me in the interim between the books. So rereading that one would help, but it's not necessary.

I agree, Sword in the Stone is the best part of Once and Future King (granted, it's the only part I've ever made it through). I like the full version of this part better than the edited one included in OaFK.

Given all of the talk about The Iron Ring, I think that will go into my soon-to-be-read pile. It's been calling to me from my shelf for months now. Maybe I'll follow that up with a Prydain reread.

Yes, Tolkien seems to be the standard for everyone, and the downside to that is that he's the first to be copied. (I'll admit, in my own writings he's a big influence.) I think a lot of that has to do with the Western view of the world. The myths Tolkien used and the era he set his works in just seems to be the most agreeable for folks I guess.

I thought you'd be interested in that. The story is "The Discreet Princess, or the Adventures of Finette." The translation/collection is by Jack Zipes, and is called Beauties, Beasts, and Enchantments: Classic French Fairy Tales. It's out of print, but my dad found a cheap copy on AbeBooks, I think. Oh, and it's also featured in Zipes' The Great Family Tradition, if that's easier to find. I think Zipes' may be the only English translation of the tale.

Ah, thank you! I'll keep an eye out for it. Oh, and I just remembered to tell you I finally used "go roast a squirrel." On my younger brothers, who deserved it.

They did have slightly less to choose from, and the differentiation between 'big kids/little kids books' didn't really take hold until about mid-century. [citation needed ] So I wouldn't write it off as being wholly impossible. I actually had more patience with the classics when I was 9-12 than I do now...

Hmm, yes, that makes sense. Plus kids were educated differently back then and stuff. Like schoolboys learning Greek. I probably had more patience with the classics too back then. Well, I had less "set" ideas about books so I'd be more likely to pick up something; I'd be less likely to be daunted simply because I saw it as a book to read and not a Classic. Or something like that.

I think some people complained about the similarities to The Thief when they read CoK as part of a re-read, and they had the other two volumes as a buffer. So, no, I wouldn't read TT and then CoK until you've read CoK for the first time. (I didn't do any re-reads at all, actually...)

I like that quote! (And the Hark! A Vagrant comics. I bet you're surprised. )

Thanks! For both the advice and comments, actually.

On another note, I just picked up The Penderwicks to read to my 11 year old sister. I started it, but liked it too much to read it on my own. It will be good for "bonding." Also, the Watson video is funny. Jam!

Ooh, yay. I do like that one. And I'm glad you liked the video.

I love The Lord of the Rings to pieces, it is one of my favorite books ever. But precisely because it is my favorite, I don't want to read badly-done imitations of it. The new fantasy I like best is always the books that are different from Tolkien.

YES. I feel quite the same way. I do enjoy reading ye old quest & swords & dragons, etc., types of stories (as long as they're done well and aren't totally rip-off-y, *cough*Eragon*cough*), but it is such a breath of fresh and exciting air to read a fantasy book that is different. That's why I found Clive Barker's Abarat books so enthralling. They're about a girl who gets into a different, magical world and and has an evil magician as her enemy because it's her destiny, etc., but it's so uniquely done. Not that Tolkien's books were precisely about that, but you know what I mean.

Isn't it intriguing how the fantasy genre seems permanently stuck in the Medieval era? (It's probably because of Beowulf and the Arthur legend), but it's so interesting that almost all fantasy novels have swords and arrows and castles and feudalism. (Excepting, of course, books like JSMN and Harry Potter, but even Rowling's wizards wear robes).

OOOH good point. You're right; I hadn't thought about that before. Maybe because that particular era in the past seems so romantic and dashing? And that's where most if not all of the old fairy tales come from?

Instead, I picked up my first Dickens since I put down the despised Pickwick Papers. This time, I'm reading Great Expectations. So far, I like it a lot. Pip is a likable protagonist and it is such a comfort to be safe int he hands of someone who commands the English language so well. Dickens is just phenomenal.

Heh. I actually liked Pickwick Papers more than Great Expectations, I think. PP made me laugh, and Pip annoyed me with his self-centered money jealousy. Dickens is indeed phenomenal.

Mar_girl, you don't have to reread any of the Attolia books to understand ACoK, but I found that some of the details of TT had sneaked away from me in the interim between the books. So rereading that one would help, but it's not necessary.

Ok, thank you (and thanks to all who advised ). I probably won't reread TT just because of my not having much time.

My Reads:
Finished In the Clearing (Robert Frost's last collection of poems during his life). I quite liked it, although I'm not sure if I 'got' it, but I'm used to that with poetry so I didn't mind.
Also read I Capture the Castle, which was good. I think. I both loved it and hated it. THE FOLLOWING IS PROBABLY QUITE SPOILERY: It's surprising of me to say this, but I basically kind of hated all the romance stuff, which I usually enjoy. It was too… modern? But not. It felt like Cassandra's love came sort of out of nowhere. I suppose there were hints, and I am a rather dense reader. Probably if I were to reread it again I would see where I was supposed to pick it up. It was all very infuriating. All the selfishness was . I really liked Cassandra (and identified with her, altough it must be said I usually identify with everybody), but I hated what she did. Poor Stephen is just the Fanny Price of the book--servile, underappreciated, put-upon, a second choice. I very much liked the English/countryside/writing/Brontë-Austen girls/adventure-y aspects, but overall the book just left me feeling sad, borderline depressed. I think it was because I wasn't expecting it to be that way. I mean, all I knew about it was that it was a book about a girl who lived in an English castle and wanted to be a writer. "What larks!" I thought. "This sounds just like my kind of book, and several NWers have recommended it to me!" I thought it would be a delightful romp, like an Austen novel set in the forties. I didn't realize there would be so many broken hearts along the way.
I think I'll need to return to this one in order to see it clearly and talk about it more fairly. I'm disappointed, but not, and basically confused about it only I don't need any questions answered. (I swear this paragraph has been as convoluted as Mr. Mortmain's writing.)

Let's lighten up with literary Savage Chicken cartoons!
Zombies of Shakespeare
More Shakespeare zombies
Chicken-paraphrased Hamlet
More Hamlet
1984
Harry Potter/Olympics joke (Yes, I know, very old)
Autobiography
The Wizard of Oz
Aaaaaand Dickens!