Yeah, I'm rather buried in academic work at the moment. :/ And because clearly I don't have enough to do, I spent the last three days as part of the organisation/staff team of a conference for all professors whose focus is the education of mentally handicapped people (...I totally lack all English academic terms for this and I'm too tired to try to find them out ^^") in all of Germany (and the German-speaking part of Switzerland). The first day I worked 12 hours, yesterday I worked 16 hours and today I worked another 6 hours and I spent about 4/5 of that time on my feet. I have to confess, at the moment I'm wondering whether my feet will ever stop hurting. ^^" But it was fun anyway. ^-^ And I got to know all the big names that I usually read books by, so that was great.
Anyway, on to the books! ^-^
I'm going to guess that Lessa is your girl?
Actually, not really. ^^" Lessa was always too bitchy for my taste. As a person, I always liked Brekke much better. But I really liked Lessa's strength (even if her pig-headedness got a bit too much, sometimes) and I enjoyed the relationship she had with F'lar. (I like the kind of "Benedict/Beatrice" relationship where the two partners enjoy verbally sparring with each other.) Plus, and this might sound really, weird, but I always loved Mnementh. ^^" He alway struck me as the most sensible character in the whole book. XD
I liked Brekke and F'nor, too, but I hated what happened to Brekke's queen. :( It put me off the book pretty much for good, because I couldn't stand the thought that Brekke had lost a part of herself forever.
So I've figured out, my favorite characters are usually the ones who are normal and a touch dreamy like me (like Menolly) or normal and no-nonsense and practical (and thus kickass, like Kel). :P
Exactly like me! ^-^ Well, I tend towards the "normal and no-nonsense" people more than the dreamers, even though I'm a huge dreamer myself. But I just like someone like Kel, who gets the job done, instead of making a big fuss about it.
The vast majority of what I've read have kind of skewed my outlook towards defaulting characters to something vaguely blond/European/American unless explicitly stated otherwise, and in the beginning other than Dragonsong everything seemed to be all white guys.
I know what you mean. Fantasy and Science Fiction especially has a huge northern European slant in general - and a nearly equally big slant towards men. I didn't notice that as much when I was a teenager; partly because I am northern European, and partly, I think, because I was lucky enough to discover Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword And Sorceress very early on in my life, and not only were those all about interesting and kick-ass heroines, but even though a majority of the stories' heroines still belonged to the northern European stereotype, a lot of the stories that I found most interesting were about non-European heroines (like the two stories about an African amazone that I really enjoyed).
Thinking about it, I consider myself also lucky in the way that I was introduced to the Dragonriders books by my father (who had the habit of telling me summaries of the books he was reading at the time as bedtime stories...^^"), so I kind of grew up with strong heroines through my father's stories. There were still a lot of heroes, but it wasn't until I was much older and buying my fantasy/science-fiction books myself that I noticed just how male-dominated the fantasy field truly is.
Tiffany Aching! I love Tiffany Aching. ^-^ And I love it just as much that Terry Pratchett got complimented by his local girl-scout squad (of which he's an honorary member, apparently, for helping them out once) for writing "a real girl". XD And the Wee Free Men are really, really hilarious. (And I like the way they reproduce...)
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Re: Yummy books
Date: 2009-06-13 10:25 pm (UTC)I have to confess, at the moment I'm wondering whether my feet will ever stop hurting. ^^"
But it was fun anyway. ^-^ And I got to know all the big names that I usually read books by, so that was great.
Anyway, on to the books! ^-^
I'm going to guess that Lessa is your girl?
Actually, not really. ^^" Lessa was always too bitchy for my taste. As a person, I always liked Brekke much better. But I really liked Lessa's strength (even if her pig-headedness got a bit too much, sometimes) and I enjoyed the relationship she had with F'lar. (I like the kind of "Benedict/Beatrice" relationship where the two partners enjoy verbally sparring with each other.)
Plus, and this might sound really, weird, but I always loved Mnementh. ^^" He alway struck me as the most sensible character in the whole book. XD
I liked Brekke and F'nor, too, but I hated what happened to Brekke's queen. :(
It put me off the book pretty much for good, because I couldn't stand the thought that Brekke had lost a part of herself forever.
So I've figured out, my favorite characters are usually the ones who are normal and a touch dreamy like me (like Menolly) or normal and no-nonsense and practical (and thus kickass, like Kel). :P
Exactly like me! ^-^ Well, I tend towards the "normal and no-nonsense" people more than the dreamers, even though I'm a huge dreamer myself. But I just like someone like Kel, who gets the job done, instead of making a big fuss about it.
The vast majority of what I've read have kind of skewed my outlook towards defaulting characters to something vaguely blond/European/American unless explicitly stated otherwise, and in the beginning other than Dragonsong everything seemed to be all white guys.
I know what you mean. Fantasy and Science Fiction especially has a huge northern European slant in general - and a nearly equally big slant towards men. I didn't notice that as much when I was a teenager; partly because I am northern European, and partly, I think, because I was lucky enough to discover Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword And Sorceress very early on in my life, and not only were those all about interesting and kick-ass heroines, but even though a majority of the stories' heroines still belonged to the northern European stereotype, a lot of the stories that I found most interesting were about non-European heroines (like the two stories about an African amazone that I really enjoyed).
Thinking about it, I consider myself also lucky in the way that I was introduced to the Dragonriders books by my father (who had the habit of telling me summaries of the books he was reading at the time as bedtime stories...^^"), so I kind of grew up with strong heroines through my father's stories. There were still a lot of heroes, but it wasn't until I was much older and buying my fantasy/science-fiction books myself that I noticed just how male-dominated the fantasy field truly is.
Tiffany Aching! I love Tiffany Aching. ^-^ And I love it just as much that Terry Pratchett got complimented by his local girl-scout squad (of which he's an honorary member, apparently, for helping them out once) for writing "a real girl". XD And the Wee Free Men are really, really hilarious. (And I like the way they reproduce...)