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Kraps posted:Is Codex Alera not considered YA? Because if it is, people in this thread should really read it. And if it isn't, people in this thread should really read it. I'm not sure if it is considered YA, but I wholeheartedly agree! It is an awesome series by Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files. Rumor has it he came up with it when a fan challenged him to write something great from two seemingly random ideas thrown out by said fan: Pokemon and the lost legion. Result? Pure badassery in a way that you cannot imagine. Again, highly highly recommended!
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Nov 17, 2013 17:23
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Panda So Panda posted:I'm not sure if it is considered YA, but I wholeheartedly agree! It is an awesome series by Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files. Rumor has it he came up with it when a fan challenged him to write something great from two seemingly random ideas thrown out by said fan: Pokemon and the lost legion. Result? Pure badassery in a way that you cannot imagine. Again, highly highly recommended! He insists its YA every time he comes on Writing Excuses.
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Nov 17, 2013 23:56
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aslan posted:Did they? I'm surprised too. Maybe it did okay enough internationally to justify it, and they think they can cut the budget down with the second one? The big problem is that a lot of YA novels would probably work super well as lower budget movies aimed at bringing back a modest return. Studios want big budget movies to bring in huge returns. Yet they are hesitant to invest huge budgets in properties that are blowing up the mainstream. I am really interested in what The Vampire Academy movie will be like. It sort of could be a great sleeper hit. Same director and tonality as Mean Girls. I like that they aren't slavishly adapting a property to satisfy the core fanbase.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:36
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What I most want to see is a "Mortal Engines" movie, but I realize that is probably a long shot.
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Nov 18, 2013 01:51
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cptn_dr posted:What I most want to see is a "Mortal Engines" movie, but I realize that is probably a long shot. YES I strongly suspect the media's tendency to sex things up and gloss over imperfections that Philip Reeve satirizes in those very books would rear it's ugly head though. Hester Shaw in particular is an amazing character but very un-hollywood and particularly un hollywood-YA. She's beligerant, insecure, and has a pretty unpleasant personality in many ways, though of course it's clear to a reader that she's a product of her experiences and so she becomes a complex and fairly sympathetic character. Plus of course a female co-protagonist with severe facial scarring/deformity. She'd be harder to get onto the screen intact than a character like Katniss I think, especially in the later books. Katniss is all PTSD and survival but Hester has come through the immediate trauma and is just broken on a much deeper level and makes some seriously questionable decisions that movie makers might find hard to justify in a children's film I would love to see a relatively faithful adaptation in the spirit of the books, like hunger Games, but I worry that we'll get something that looks faithful on the surface but somehow lacks the essential animating spark and end up with another Golden compass. That's if it ever goes anywhere, doing it properly would not be cheap and the books aren't that well known, it would have to carry itself on the premise alone rather than riding on the popularity of the series.
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Nov 18, 2013 02:48
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Apparently Anna Dressed in Blood is being adapted by Stephanie Meyer for the big screen. Blegh.
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Nov 18, 2013 03:01
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Fatkraken posted:YES I want a Mortal Engines animated film directed by Miyazaki. But that would be too good for this fallen world. I was comparing Mortal Engines with the Hunger Games the other night, because my girlfriend dragged me to see the film. I have no idea how faithful an adaptation it is, but something that deeply bothered me about it was the mixed messages. Like, "oh how awful it is that the Capitol is forcing children to fight, and oh no Katniss really doesn't want to do this!" But then the movie spends a huge amount of time obsessing over strategy and the other contestants (who all have specialties, as though they're Pokemon) and the weird puzzle set-up of the arena etc. And it's fairly clear that "oh how horrible this violence all is" is basically lip service and that the idea of fighting in the Hunger Games is actually a large amount of the appeal to a YA/kid audience. (On the other hand when I read Animorphs as a kid I brushed off all the "war is bad" stuff and would have loved to have found myself in that world, so idk.) Likewise the fame and adoration Katniss receives, which she supposedly doesn't want but which, again, I'm sure teenage girls think they would love to have. Compare this to Mortal Engines where the characters remain obscure figures on the world stage and where it's made pretty clear that killing is an awful, awful thing that scars your soul forever.
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Nov 29, 2013 05:09
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freebooter posted:I want a Mortal Engines animated film directed by Miyazaki. But that would be too good for this fallen world. I think you're making a pretty big leap in thinking the appeal of The Hunger Games is the intended reader wanting to take part in the games. I'm not very familiar with the movies but the narrative of the books makes it very clear that participating in the games is an awful experience that horribly scars Katniss. In the books the attention and fame Katniss has was never portrayed as desirable but rather as a tremendous pressure that tears her life apart. They're good books, they might not live up to the pressure of the hype now but they're definitely worth reading.
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Nov 30, 2013 02:45
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I actually think the Hunger Games movies are better than the books.
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Nov 30, 2013 04:03
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freebooter posted:But then the movie spends a huge amount of time obsessing over strategy and the other contestants (who all have specialties, as though they're Pokemon) and the weird puzzle set-up of the arena etc. That's because a big part of the Hunger Games is the entertainment of the Capitol citizens. If the Capitol only wanted to kill the Tributes, they could have the Peacekeepers execute them at the Reaping, but where's the fun in that? The Gamemakers encourage the Tributes to develop specialties for the same reason that the Romans trained their gladiators to fight in many different styles, and they add crazy environmental features to the arena for the same reason Romans made gladiators fight naval battles: because decadent and jaded people want to see others kill and die in interesting ways. (The Rome-Capitol parallels are pretty explicit, what with all the Roman names the people and things in the Capitol tend to have. MOCKINGJAY SPOILER:Even the name of the country, Panem, comes from the Latin phrase panem et circenses, "bread and circuses.") On the topic of the Hunger Games, a friend of mine is way into the franchise and wants to read more stories where a strong girl fights to survive. The only other such series she knows of is Divergent, but she found the second book disappointing; I knew from reading this thread that the third one would be even more disappointing and I encouraged her to stay away from it. What books might my friend like? She has a horse and loves him, so I think that a story featuring a horse-girl friendship would go over especially well with her.
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Nov 30, 2013 07:51
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Pththya-lyi posted:
On the topic of YA with a strong female protagonist, maybe she'd like Ashes by Ilsa J Bick? And the Chaos Walking trilogy is great, though the first book is only told from the boy's perspective.
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Nov 30, 2013 11:04
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Possibly the Obernewtyn series by Isobelle Carmody - post apocalyptic world, main character is a female and the mutant powers let them talk to horses (well all animals).
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Nov 30, 2013 12:09
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Pththya-lyi posted:On the topic of the Hunger Games, a friend of mine is way into the franchise and wants to read more stories where a strong girl fights to survive. The only other such series she knows of is Divergent, but she found the second book disappointing; I knew from reading this thread that the third one would be even more disappointing and I encouraged her to stay away from it. What books might my friend like? She has a horse and loves him, so I think that a story featuring a horse-girl friendship would go over especially well with her. John Marsden's Tomorrow series, for sure. For horses, maybe check out Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books - they're not about "fighting to survive" but they do feature a lot of strong female characters (and their magical horses). The first book is aimed at a fairly young audience (12-14) but the later books tackle more mature subject matter. Also, Tamora Pierce's books feature a lot of animals; Protector of the Small would be my suggested starting point if she loves horses.
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Nov 30, 2013 12:10
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Paragon8 posted:I think you're making a pretty big leap in thinking the appeal of The Hunger Games is the intended reader wanting to take part in the games. I'm not very familiar with the movies but the narrative of the books makes it very clear that participating in the games is an awful experience that horribly scars Katniss. In the books the attention and fame Katniss has was never portrayed as desirable but rather as a tremendous pressure that tears her life apart. I'd go further and say that the Hunger Games is actually intended to be a deconstruction of the traditional "overcoming the oppressor" plot. To be fair, this isn't particularly obvious in book 1, but it grows increasingly clear over the series--and I think part of the problem with the mixed reader reaction to book 3 was that there were a lot of readers who did identify so heavily with the first-person violence of the Games and wanted that traditional oppressed hero's narrative where the protagonist overcomes the oppressors, sacrifices a few worthy companions who die heroes' deaths to further the cause, escapes sans any major scars and rebuilds a better society on the ashes of the dead one. Part of Collins' point is that this narrative of oppression ("we have to sacrifice a few of the good ones for the greater good") looks much different from the point-of-view of those who are sacrificed for the "greater good" (or their loved ones) rather than those who just see them as plot devices. The problem with Gale is not just that his actions might have led to Prim's death, it's that Gale sees Prim, and the rest of those people killed by the revolutionary forces, as plot devices, those worthy sacrifices that pave the way for victory, whereas Katniss sees them as individuals with loved ones and dreams, etc., that don't deserve to be sacrificed without their consent. When Katniss chooses Peeta over Gale, it's an implicit rejection of the idea that collateral damage is acceptable if the stakes are high enough. For Katniss, it's not. Suffice it to say that, if you don't think that Suzanne Collins addresses the "war leaves scars" themes in the earlier books to your satisfaction, you'll be quite happy with the final book in the trilogy.
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Dec 1, 2013 05:09
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I think I might have enjoyed Mockingjay more if Katniss and her team's final lengthy mission comprising a massive chunk of the story ended up serving literally any purpose at all in the scheme of things. I mean...I guess that was the point? That she gathers this team of loyal companions to save the world and ends up doing nothing but getting most of themselves killed while the war was being ended by other people doing other things offscreen, so to speak? If the story was supposed to be a massive send-up of the badass Hollywood superteam ending tyranny across the land, I guess it did its job pretty well. Maybe a little too well. Actually y'know what, my least favorite moment of the entire series hands-down is near the end when one of the characters said something like "Maybe this will be the last war, maybe this will be when humanity finally learns to move past such things," and I'm like, wait, is this supposed to be serious or tongue-in-cheek or what? I don't think I could possibly envision any situation more ripe for further warfare and conflict and strife than the sociopolitical state that things were left in at the end of this series! I think Collins does unbelievable character work and Katniss is seriously the most well-realized character I've ever experienced, but the further that the books ventured out from the logic vortex epicenter that is Katniss and into its philosophical and political musings, the less I was able to engage with it.
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Dec 1, 2013 08:32
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Pththya-lyi posted:That's because a big part of the Hunger Games is the entertainment of the Capitol citizens. If the Capitol only wanted to kill the Tributes, they could have the Peacekeepers execute them at the Reaping, but where's the fun in that? The Gamemakers encourage the Tributes to develop specialties for the same reason that the Romans trained their gladiators to fight in many different styles, and they add crazy environmental features to the arena for the same reason Romans made gladiators fight naval battles: because decadent and jaded people want to see others kill and die in interesting ways. (The Rome-Capitol parallels are pretty explicit, what with all the Roman names the people and things in the Capitol tend to have. MOCKINGJAY SPOILER:Even the name of the country, Panem, comes from the Latin phrase panem et circenses, "bread and circuses.") Yeah but my point is that in that case the readers/viewers are as bad as the Capitol citizens - well, not as bad, because we know it's not real, but you get my point. Maybe that's meant to be a satirical take, but I didn't get that impression, at least not from the film.
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Dec 2, 2013 05:05
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freebooter posted:Yeah but my point is that in that case the readers/viewers are as bad as the Capitol citizens - well, not as bad, because we know it's not real, but you get my point. That's exactly the point! We are the Capitol - you, me, everybody in the first world - and when a Spartacus or a Nat Turner or a Katniss Everdeen comes along to remind us that we spend our lives walking on the backs of the oppressed, we have trouble accepting that. But that's a discussion for D&D, not for here. Thanks to everybody for the recommendations. I'll look them over and get my friend a nice Christmas present.
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Dec 2, 2013 09:35
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Yeah but you only quoted the first half of my post. If it's a deliberate satire then it's a clumsy one, and the author/film-maker seemed more interested in the mechanics of the games and kick-rear end archery skills than in pursuing the satire.
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Dec 2, 2013 09:42
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freebooter posted:Yeah but you only quoted the first half of my post. If it's a deliberate satire then it's a clumsy one, and the author/film-maker seemed more interested in the mechanics of the games and kick-rear end archery skills than in pursuing the satire. The Hunger Games is a deliberate, if clumsy, satire. I just wasn't sure if you'd gotten that.
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Dec 2, 2013 09:46
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freebooter posted:Yeah but you only quoted the first half of my post. If it's a deliberate satire then it's a clumsy one, and the author/film-maker seemed more interested in the mechanics of the games and kick-rear end archery skills than in pursuing the satire.
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Dec 2, 2013 10:01
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Pththya-lyi posted:On the topic of the Hunger Games, a friend of mine is way into the franchise and wants to read more stories where a strong girl fights to survive. The only other such series she knows of is Divergent, but she found the second book disappointing; I knew from reading this thread that the third one would be even more disappointing and I encouraged her to stay away from it. What books might my friend like? She has a horse and loves him, so I think that a story featuring a horse-girl friendship would go over especially well with her. Kristin Cashore's Graceling Realm trilogy (Graceling, Fire, and Bitterblue) might be up your friend's alley. I enjoyed the middle book best, which is a prequel to the first (the synopsis on the site I linked is misleading; it's much better than it sounds there), but they're all pretty good and all feature young women who fight to survive in a variety of ways (physically, magically, or politically).
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Dec 2, 2013 16:57
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Pththya-lyi posted:
Echoing this, but I'd like to see one with a distinct Urban Fantasy setting. I'm still looking for the "Buffy" of YA novels and haven't really found one aside from the Demon Trappers series. They all seem to devolve into Twilight-ish romance and it's quite disappointing. Then again, that may be more a commentary on the publishing industry than anything else. Cater to the popular trends and don't try anything else. Certainly nothing with a cross-gender/age appeal. Captain Mog fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 21:25
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Pththya-lyi posted:On the topic of the Hunger Games, a friend of mine is way into the franchise and wants to read more stories where a strong girl fights to survive. The only other such series she knows of is Divergent, but she found the second book disappointing; I knew from reading this thread that the third one would be even more disappointing and I encouraged her to stay away from it. What books might my friend like? She has a horse and loves him, so I think that a story featuring a horse-girl friendship would go over especially well with her. I really enjoyed Gallagher Girls by I think Alley Carter. It starts off as quite fluffy teen spies but ends up getting a great deal darker. TL;DR is basically there's a Hogwarts but instead of magic its spying. Protagonist is daughter of the headmistress and her father died in the field but nobody tells her how/why. She's aided by some plucky friends and there's some teen drama but as the series goes on it escalates quite quickly and you end up dealing with a bigger espionage conspiracies and the struggle of the protagonist to feel normal especially after some brutal encounters leave her with PTSD. No horses though.
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Dec 3, 2013 02:11
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I was friends with the author way back in high school so I can't really be objective but this book is pretty drat good anyway: http://www.amazon.com/Twistrose-Key...s=tone+almhjell The basic deal is a plucky young girl transported to fantasyland, which is sort of flavoured similar to a modernized Narnia without the rather hamhanded religion and also doubles as the afterlife for deceased pets of human children (where they talk and walk upright and live in a city). Of course there's a horrible crisis and there are many very creepy things and there's blood and death and stuff. It is, notably in this day and age, a standalone story and not part 1 in the whatever of whatsit trilogy.
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Dec 4, 2013 06:53
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I have two books from the same author which I think would be marvellous for the YA section. The first is Shades Children by Garth Nix, this is one of the most sinister, creepy YA novel I ever read. It has a Logan Run vibe in a post alien conquest earth, with the manufacturing of children, (young adults) into monster. It follows a rebel group through the perspective of an extremely unreliable narrator AI,as well as a new freedom fighter freed from an extremely unpleasant place. It has a really good atmosphere (I hope this isn't a repost) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shades-Children-Garth-Nix/dp/0007174985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386201295&sr=8-1&keywords=Shade+Children The other by Nix is Confusion of Princes This completely different a s. A SC-FI novel with to me a rather unique setting, which I can't really explain well but clever and rather unusual in the way they portray the central character who is a deeply unpleasant character until he starts to develop and see himself as other people. It rather excellent descriptions of combat both land and space. What interesting to me is that it has a re-spawn mechanic as well as a moderator as a central plot point http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Confusion-Princes-Garth-Nix/dp/0007298358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386201642&sr=8-1&keywords=confusion+of+princes Englishman alone fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 01:07
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I'm a voracious YA reader and also a YA author and I used to maintain the old thread here in TBB. Thank you for running this. Gonna drop a fuckton of book recs up in here~ Seraphina by Rachel Hartman A fantasy YA about dragon-people that is actually brilliant and beautifully written and full of smart new twists. Dragons are like uber-logical vulcans who are in an uneasy truce with humans; bad things happen. Unfortunately the sequel is taking forever to come out and just got pushed back to 2015.  Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein Depressing but thrilling and awesome WWII stories. CNV is about a British pilot who gets shot down over occupied France and must recount her story to her Nazi captors. I haven't read RUF yet but I believe it's about Ravensbruck concentration camp and Nazi medical experimentation. Something lighthearted and fun like that. The Raven Boys et al by Maggie Stiefvater Psychics and prep school boys searching for an ancient king in rural Virginia and ghosts and dream thieves and all sorts of crazy poo poo. Just read it. I want to eat Stiefvater's brain and steal her writing abilities. Also check out her standalone book, The Scorpio Races, about murderous horses that come out of the sea and is somehow not nearly as ridiculous as that statement would suggest. All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill Twisty time travely scifi thriller. I think her publisher called it "Terminator meets Time Traveller's Wife", which is a bit of a stretch, but it's very fun.
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Dec 7, 2013 18:49
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Paragon8 posted:The big problem is that a lot of YA novels would probably work super well as lower budget movies aimed at bringing back a modest return. Studios want big budget movies to bring in huge returns. Yet they are hesitant to invest huge budgets in properties that are blowing up the mainstream. Oddly enough, this statement could apply to YA publishing imprints in the Big Five houses, too. Everyone is desperately looking for the next Hunger Games and/or John Green and they throw millions of dollars at series that ultimately fizzle and flop (see: Crewel, Falling Kingdoms, Burning Sky, etc etc etc). Meanwhile, editors are having to fight harder and harder to publish quirkier or riskier stories. The midlist is shrinking.
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Dec 7, 2013 18:59
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Bohemienne posted:Oddly enough, this statement could apply to YA publishing imprints in the Big Five houses, too. Everyone is desperately looking for the next Hunger Games and/or John Green and they throw millions of dollars at series that ultimately fizzle and flop (see: Crewel, Falling Kingdoms, Burning Sky, etc etc etc). Meanwhile, editors are having to fight harder and harder to publish quirkier or riskier stories. The midlist is shrinking. Wouldn't the rise of ebooks mitigate this? Even if it's hard to get books published in print, you'd think it'd be much easier and less risky to throw a book up on Amazon/B&N for download.
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Dec 7, 2013 22:16
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Englishman alone posted:The other by Nix is Confusion of Princes This completely different a s. A SC-FI novel with to me a rather unique setting, which I can't really explain well but clever and rather unusual in the way they portray the central character who is a deeply unpleasant character until he starts to develop and see himself as other people. It rather excellent descriptions of combat both land and space. What interesting to me is that it has a re-spawn mechanic as well as a moderator as a central plot point http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Confusion-Princes-Garth-Nix/dp/0007298358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386201642&sr=8-1&keywords=confusion+of+princes You know, I loved (and still love) Nix's Old Kingdom and Keys to the Kingdom series, as well as Shade's Children, but never looked into this one. The stuff he put out pre-release never really endeared it to me so I didn't worry about it too much but I've always sort of intended to look into it. Is it actually good? Like, Abhorsen-good? Abhorsen is by far my favourite book of his. The whole of the Old Kingdom trilogy is great, although it felt like Sabriel was meant to be a single book. Lirael and Abhorsen are really good books on their own, but Sam is the weakest of the characters and I think his connection to Sabriel doesn't help with that. The ending of Abhorsen is masterful though. Speaking of the Keys to the Kingdom series, I'm not sure they're so much young adult as... very young adult - they're very, very easy reading but the books are solidly long and the series is 7 books in total, I guess it's sort of on the level of Philosopher's Stone-era Harry Potter. I really enjoyed most of the books, there are a couple that are weaker than others especially near the start but after the first three or four I was reading them as they were released so I was well into my twenties by the time I got my hands on the seventh, Lord Sunday. They're fairly noticeable since they're named after the days of the week: Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, etc... Nix is a fantastic writer, and these books would be perfect for someone looking for an easy, friendly read, or for a young teenager. Talking about Sam in the Old Kingdom books and how he's a weak character reminded me of the problems with Tamora Pierce's sequel to the Lioness Series - in that everything afterwards takes place years later, when Alanna has grown up and had children and is no longer the protagonist - I liked Daine's series and Kel's series well enough, but the use of Alanna and her family and friends always felt kind of forced. It stands out especially with Jonathan, who's integral to the later books but is such a completely different man from the person we'd got to know in Alanna's books. Reading all of the Tortall books back to back is not recommended imo, the changes are so jarring. It's the same for me with the Old Kingdom books, where after the first book Sabriel is barely a character, just a means to an end, while her son is the male lead. I guess it's a problem with writing a sequel where your previous main characters have to be a decade or two older, but it's jarring as hell to see nothing of Jon, or Sabriel, when characters like George, Gary, Raoul and in the Old Kingdom, Touchstone, still manage moments of their personality from their earlier stories.
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Dec 7, 2013 22:39
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Democratic Pirate posted:Wouldn't the rise of ebooks mitigate this? Even if it's hard to get books published in print, you'd think it'd be much easier and less risky to throw a book up on Amazon/B&N for download. The "new adult" category (decide for yourself if that deserves to be a real thing or not) has actually done the best with self-publishing. My crit partner, after getting turned down on multiple mss that were just a little too mature/risky for YA, decided to self-publish a new adult romance and managed to hit the USA Today bestseller list with it. She got a new agent and now has publishing houses coming to her begging to buy it. General consensus seems to be that ebooks haven't really permeated the YA and younger audiences yet though like they have for adults, probably because parents act more as gatekeepers for those categories. But that will probably change, and there certainly are YA self-publishing success stories (Amanda Hocking).
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Dec 7, 2013 23:06
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eating only apples posted:You know, I loved (and still love) Nix's Old Kingdom and Keys to the Kingdom series, as well as Shade's Children, but never looked into this one. The stuff he put out pre-release never really endeared it to me so I didn't worry about it too much but I've always sort of intended to look into it. Is it actually good? Like, Abhorsen-good? Abhorsen is by far my favourite book of his. The whole of the Old Kingdom trilogy is great, although it felt like Sabriel was meant to be a single book. Lirael and Abhorsen are really good books on their own, but Sam is the weakest of the characters and I think his connection to Sabriel doesn't help with that. The ending of Abhorsen is masterful though. I fully agree on Keys to the Kingdom. A really easy read with a rather formulaic plot on each book I stopped around Lady Saturday and have had no desire to go back. In regards to Confusion of Princes I feel it as good as Sabriel which was my personal favourite in the series (I do really like Abhorsen). I felt the short stories help give a greater sense of the characters and the mythologyinAcross the Wall.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Across-The-Wall-Abhorsen-Stories/dp/0007221460/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1386460045&sr=8-8&keywords=sabriel The main appeal to me was the place I loved the idea of Edwardian Britain co-existing with this magical world(something I feel he was inspired by Neil Gaimans Stardust)and the rather physical magic. Another recommendation that comes to mind is a very old book Moonfleet its what I consider the best pirate novel. If you enjoyed Treasure Island its like it but much better plotted and far more interesting characters. It also is very regional touch as its set in Cornwall for a large part of the novel and gives nuanced look at piracy and its costs as in parts its rather grim. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moonfleet-Puffin-Classics-Meade-Falkner/dp/0140367047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386460440&sr=8-1&keywords=moonfleet
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Dec 8, 2013 00:54
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Englishman alone posted:I fully agree on Keys to the Kingdom. A really easy read with a rather formulaic plot on each book I stopped around Lady Saturday and have had no desire to go back. My love of the series had died off by the time I read Saturday but the cliffhanger at the end is so ridiculous I was on tenterhooks for about three years until he finally came out with Sunday. It was fine. As an adult I know it's not a great series but as a teenager I was in love with it all and were I a teenager when I read the later books I would have adored them too. I haven't read Across the Wall yet but the Gaiman influence seems minimal beyond the "a wall separates two worlds" aspect, which in no way originated with Gaiman, as much as I love his work. I adore Stardust but it's nothing like the Old Kingdom trilogy.
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Dec 8, 2013 01:03
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eating only apples posted:My love of the series had died off by the time I read Saturday but the cliffhanger at the end is so ridiculous I was on tenterhooks for about three years until he finally came out with Sunday. It was fine. As an adult I know it's not a great series but as a teenager I was in love with it all and were I a teenager when I read the later books I would have adored them too.
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Dec 8, 2013 01:21
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Englishman alone posted:It never gripped me the Keys of the Kingdom as A Series of Unfortunate Events did which I loved. I also enjoyed re-reading it discovering the many many references to classic literature. I read the first three books of Unfortunate Events and really, really hated them. This was when the movie was in the works, when the trailers came out and I wondered what the fuss was about. So it was nine or ten years ago, when I was about 14. I found the writing style just insufferable. I was probably too old for it honestly and maybe I should try them again now but I just can't get over remembering how much I hated them as a teen.
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Dec 8, 2013 01:37
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eating only apples posted:I read the first three books of Unfortunate Events and really, really hated them. This was when the movie was in the works, when the trailers came out and I wondered what the fuss was about. So it was nine or ten years ago, when I was about 14. I found the writing style just insufferable. I was probably too old for it honestly and maybe I should try them again now but I just can't get over remembering how much I hated them as a teen. By the point of the movie I was already at book 5 or 6 can't remember which so the movie was mealy a massive disappointment. I was already court up in the YA miserable-ism of a Series of Unfortunate Events, I also rather liked the fact it had a very interesting anti-Semitism undertone. It was really difficult to figure out what was the inspiration for the place in which stories inhabit I was thinking 1930s Germany crossed with 30s America as its inspiration plus a little absurdity from Kafka. The first three I consider the weakest anyway and in later books it has some really interesting thinks to say about the nature of evil and the rightness of actions.
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Dec 8, 2013 01:58
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Englishman alone posted:By the point of the movie I was already at book 5 or 6 can't remember which so the movie was mealy a massive disappointment. I was already court up in the YA miserable-ism of a Series of Unfortunate Events, I also rather liked the fact it had a very interesting anti-Semitism undertone. It was really difficult to figure out what was the inspiration for the place in which stories inhabit I was thinking 1930s Germany crossed with 30s America as its inspiration plus a little absurdity from Kafka. The first three I consider the weakest anyway and in later books it has some really interesting thinks to say about the nature of evil and the rightness of actions. The fourth, fifth, and sixth books are undoubtedly the weakest, I think, because they're closely following a formula rather than establishing one (as the first three books did) or breaking out of one (as the later books did).
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Dec 8, 2013 02:01
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LaughMyselfTo posted:The fourth, fifth, and sixth books are undoubtedly the weakest, I think, because they're closely following a formula rather than establishing one (as the first three books did) or breaking out of one (as the later books did). Englishman alone fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Dec 8, 2013 |
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Dec 8, 2013 02:14
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The only truly redeemable aspect of Unfortunate Events (aside from the art!!) is how good Daniel Handler is at tapping into that misanthropic, life-isn't-fair, gently caress-everything attitude of 9-13 year olds. A lot of adults are completely oblivious as to how gore-obsessed and macabre kids are at that age. But yeah, Unfortunate Events is about 8 books too long. 8. BOOKS. And it's not YA Lit, it's more suited for 10 year olds than teenagers. I tried reading them all recently—bleugh.
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Dec 8, 2013 02:34
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I read the first book of the prequel series that Handler is writing, and I thought it was pretty good. It had some decent writing, and had a nice Noir feel that I really enjoyed.
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Dec 8, 2013 03:17
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To be contrary, I loving loved the Lemony Snicket books when they came out, and right after #12 was published had my one and only experience being pulled over for speeding while I was rushing to the library before it closed to check it out. I thought they were cute. v  v
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Dec 8, 2013 04:49
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