Squick

[oyceter]

I did many things today -- grocery shopped, repotted the calla lily, laundry and etc. And I invented a casserole that tasted pretty good.

Just finished reading Octavia E. Butler's Dawn and Donna Jo Napoli and Richard Techen's Spinners. Both good books -- Dawn talks about nuclear holocaust and the survivors being rescued by aliens who want to mingle genetic data. Sounds silly, but works out to be an interesting book on what it is to be human, how different one can be before not being yourself, communities and the building thereof. Spinners is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Not so much a retelling, since the authors stick to the plot completely, but they flesh out all the characters and make them real people. And oh it's a miserable book. Not the craft of it, which is good, but just so depressing! I think I'm going to have to stop reading Donna Jo Napoli because almost everything in her books end in death and destruction and in human faults never being redeemed or anything. It's a rather bleak worldview, IMHO. And Dawn wasn't much happier of a read, so now I'm desperately backpedaling and picking up Nora Roberts, which is much more feel good.

That is all.

Comments

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Nora Roberts, the BNA (Big Name Author) of romance fiction. How well I know her and spend money on her books even though I could just borrow them from the library :) But yeah, sometimes you just need a few happily ever afters to counter the depressing stuff. I'm fond of the MacGregor clan series. *g*

[rue10.livejournal.com]

Have you picked up the other two books in the Dawn series? Just got around to reading them, and I enjoyed them quite a bit. The whole series ends far more uplifting-ly than the first book does. :)

[oyceter]

OOo I keep hearing about that one, but I've never read it! I figure she's a BNA for a good reason -- most of her books aren't too bodice-rippingly anti-feminist and she generally doesn't do the too stupid to live heroine. These qualities, sadly, are greatly lacking in romance sometimes =(.

[oyceter]

Oh the end of the first book isn't quite as awful as the end of Spinners, but it's definitely not happy and bright! Plan on picking up the next two in the series as soon as I hie my way to the library. I've found I really enjoy what I've read of her so far (Wild Seed and this....)

[rue10.livejournal.com]

I was eh on Wild Seed, but I loved Parable of the Sower and even more loved Parable of the Talents, it's sequel. Loved. :P

[oyceter]

Ooo... that's been sitting around forever.. I got a hardcover copy for two dollars or something because it was ex-library, and I've just never got around to it. And of course there was that bag sale two days ago... oh dear. Am drowning in books ;).