Graphic, Text, Audio
Apr. 13th, 2012 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearJust a few catch-up reviews before I go on holiday for a week - yay!
Tamara Drewe - graphic novel by Posy Simmonds:
I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. It was well produced, with good art and an interesting combination of text and pictures - but the story was just really dreary. Real life setting, characters in various degrees of pathetic/annoying/unpleasant, themes of deceit and betrayal leading to untimely death. All round depressing, really.
Throne of Jade - second Temeraire novel by Naomi Novik:
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first in the series - but I think it suffered a bit from the fact that I really wanted to be reading The Hunger Games trilogy again, so it didn't really catch my interest. The first two thirds was basically voyage, with not much in the way of intrigue, just a couple of storms and a sea monster attack. Once they got to China, it picked up a bit, and I thought the discussion of dragon rights (juxtaposed with Temeraire's discovery of human slavery) was well done and interesting. It certainly set up a good idea for book three, so I will be carrying on with the series to see what happens. Temeraire himself seemed less likeable in this book, though - he came up with some odd notions and seemed resistant to rational discussion, which turned me off him a bit.
The Bishop's Heir - second Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz:
The narrator was different to the one for the first series, and all the voices were very wrong, so it took me a while to get into this. It was a good story, though, and I liked the characters, especially the newly introduced Dougal. But it ended on such a downer! I suppose I shouldn't have expected the wedding at the end of the first book in a trilogy to go well - but I was hoping for development of the relationship and political intrigue surrounding its succession implications, rather than awful violence and incredible despair. Still, I expect I shall persevere in the hopes that things get better, as I really can't leave poor Kelson where he ended up in this one!
Tamara Drewe - graphic novel by Posy Simmonds:
I wasn't quite sure what to make of this. It was well produced, with good art and an interesting combination of text and pictures - but the story was just really dreary. Real life setting, characters in various degrees of pathetic/annoying/unpleasant, themes of deceit and betrayal leading to untimely death. All round depressing, really.
Throne of Jade - second Temeraire novel by Naomi Novik:
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first in the series - but I think it suffered a bit from the fact that I really wanted to be reading The Hunger Games trilogy again, so it didn't really catch my interest. The first two thirds was basically voyage, with not much in the way of intrigue, just a couple of storms and a sea monster attack. Once they got to China, it picked up a bit, and I thought the discussion of dragon rights (juxtaposed with Temeraire's discovery of human slavery) was well done and interesting. It certainly set up a good idea for book three, so I will be carrying on with the series to see what happens. Temeraire himself seemed less likeable in this book, though - he came up with some odd notions and seemed resistant to rational discussion, which turned me off him a bit.
The Bishop's Heir - second Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz:
The narrator was different to the one for the first series, and all the voices were very wrong, so it took me a while to get into this. It was a good story, though, and I liked the characters, especially the newly introduced Dougal. But it ended on such a downer! I suppose I shouldn't have expected the wedding at the end of the first book in a trilogy to go well - but I was hoping for development of the relationship and political intrigue surrounding its succession implications, rather than awful violence and incredible despair. Still, I expect I shall persevere in the hopes that things get better, as I really can't leave poor Kelson where he ended up in this one!
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-14 11:46 am (UTC)At least, ISTR a long-ago book conversation where we both said we didn't much care for Thomas Hardy because he was too depressing...
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Date: 2012-04-30 07:10 pm (UTC)I guess I completely failed to mention that Kurtz isn't exactly kind to her characters at times. I suppose I was so used to it that I forgot. I was absolutely gutted at the end of The Bishop's Heir, just as I was when at the deaths in Deryni Checkmate :(
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Date: 2012-05-01 06:35 am (UTC)And you're reminding me of another trauma with that icon!! :o)
(I'm watching Game of Thrones through my fingers, waiting for something awful to happen to him in that, too...)