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Messages - chasingisis

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Books / Re: What are you reading mark II
« on: May 25, 2005, 07:35:21 PM »
Now, see, I loved CORALINE. It was creepy: like an edgy ALICE IN WONDERLAND. It didn't so much scare me as give me the shivers. It was the kind of book I wish I could have read when I was a kid.

My friend and I are Neil Gaiman fanatics. NEVERWHERE is excellent, but I'm more fond of AMERICAN GODS. That's a much darker (again edgier) book, (definitely with sex scenes), but I also thought it rose above some of what he'd already done. He has another one coming out, I don't know what it's about or where it falls (YA, Adult, what) called the ANANSI BOYS. Also, there's supposed to be a movie later this summer, called MIRRORMASK.

If you're into graphic novels, Gaiman did the excellent SANDMAN series.

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Books / Re: What are you reading mark II
« on: May 23, 2005, 07:59:33 PM »
Chimera,

Thanks. I looked at the book, and it should fit the bill. Actually, I will have to recommend it to my best friend, who is really into YA fantasy and would enjoy it too.

;D

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Books / Re: What are you reading mark II
« on: May 23, 2005, 12:48:41 PM »
I just finished Elantris myself. (Which is how I found Brandon Sanderson's site, which is how I found this site, which is why you are all stuck with me when I can't get writing done.)

Now, I'm flying out for this CONduit and I'm looking for a book to read on the plane. I'm coming from PA, so there's a puddle jumper and a layover and then another flight....so I need something preferably light in tone, but long. Maybe a Terry Pratchett? I don't know. Any suggestions?


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Books / Re: Mainstream Fantasy
« on: May 22, 2005, 01:24:15 AM »
Ok. That explains so much.  :) I was worried I had really offended somebody, and I felt bad about it.

Actually, though, it is very funny ? that newbie must have been so frustrated!

From now on it's WU-THERING HEIGHTS


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Books / Re: Mainstream Fantasy
« on: May 21, 2005, 08:03:05 PM »
It's okay. I figured you guys would have to slap me down. I'm just too passionate about fantasy to shut up about it. And I probably stepped on someone's toes. Sorry.

I'm also intriegued as to why I can't change the modification to my post. But I'll assume some higher-up has control over that.

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Books / Re: Mainstream Fantasy
« on: May 21, 2005, 07:24:36 PM »
Ok. I tried. I really did. I went and looked at other threads and repressed all my urges in responding to this old (already jumpstarted once) thread. I finally couldn't control myself any longer. I'm a newbie. You can slap me down, curse me, whatever appeases your irritation, but I have to put in my two cents worth, because it's killing me.

Nothing to do with Jade, but with something EUOL said....

Fantasy is old, man. More than a quarter of a century old. You can trace it back all the way to Lord Dunsany, a century ago, with THE KING OF ELFLAND'S DAUGHTER and his other novels. (Try Hope Mirrlees' LUD-IN-THE-MIST, same time period.) If you like, you could go back further and argue that ALICE IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS are early fantasy works. Heck, I've even seen scholars claim that WU-THERING HEIGHTS ( ;D ) is a fantasy novel. And if that doesn't count, certainly the intense fantasy worlds created by the Bronte siblings do.

Fairy tales are in the fantasy genre: tales told first by mouth centuries ago, before they were even written down or bastardized by Walt Disney. The Arthurian saga (completely muddled by the French) represent a perfect example of medieval fantasy, very popular and mainstream at the time. Although I don't honestly believe Homer, or the Celts and the Norse, the Chinese, the American Indians, etc. thought of their great mythological stories as fantasy, we as fantasy writers draw upon their work in creation of our own.

The reason Tolkien gets so much attention, and so many imitators is because he thrust open the floodgates in this country. Prior to the publication of THE HOBBIT and even afterwards, the only works accepted by publishers (who published anything other than mysteries, romances, or literary works) was science fiction. These were the glory days of Heinlein, Asimov, and others. Fantasy was the dark, second cousin that crouched uninvited in the doorway. People like Fritz Leiber had trouble getting their fantasy work published. Robert E. Howard's Conan thrived in the pulps, and he would be a good example of one person who was able to feed the need for fantasy.

Then came Tolkien. My father remembers when the bootleg additions were first released in this country; back when people were starved for Tolkien and had to have copies shipped from overseas. Suddenly, people wanted fantasy. Publishers wanted fantasy, too - not just any fantasy. They wanted more Tolkien. So other writers wrote in the same vein, and they were published, to feed the market. If you want to trace the "Tolkien-esque fantasies" back to their source, there it is.

But I don't personally believe the market is drowned in it today. I see the copies, and the wannabes, and I usually glide right on past their books. I love Tolkien, but not enough to read quest novels by other people writing Tolkien. And thankfully, I don't have to. That's why I'm curious. EUOL, you mentioned all the divisions in SF, and those are true - but you don't seem to mention all the little branches of fantasy you can find today.

There's the dark fantasy of Tanith Lee and Joyce Carol Oates; the return to the fairy tales (started by Terry Windling and Ellen Datlow - read FITCHER'S BRIDES as an excellent example of this dark, rich fantasy series). I love Tim Powers, of course, with his LAST CALL and DECLARE; there's Jonathan Carroll (LAND OF LAUGHS); William Browning Spencer (ZOD WALLOP); the works of China Mieville, which read like the opium-addicted offspring of Marvyn Peake and Edgar Allen Poe. How about the novels of Octavia Butler?

Dark fantasy, urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy, magic realism, historical fantasy, weird fantasy....the list goes on and on. I see the Tolkien-esque fantasy as only a minor drop in the bucket of a far richer world. There's room enough for all of us to write what we like - to read what we want - and never, ever lack.

This is a very old genre, and its roots go back in time towards the beginning. The stories we tell now have been told a thousand times before. But like any romance reader will tell you, it's not what's the same, it's how different it seems.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Annotations
« on: May 21, 2005, 12:22:33 AM »
In that case, let's get back to the shrine. Does it have pictures or has he evolved to statues of himself?  ;)

Ugh! The annotation for Chapter One is up, and I've read it, and now there's nothing else. I need to learn self-control. I should let them build up for a while, and then just read three. Let them build up a little more....

I'm thinking too much. I'm always doing that. So anyway, as a note for EUOL, I didn't notice the odd POV in the first sentance until after I read the book and was showing it to a friend of mine. I didn't think it was too bad.

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Annotations
« on: May 20, 2005, 10:31:57 PM »
Okay, so I used the wrong phrasing. (Although, one's own religion is appealing. I can see creating it, but how do you get any believers?)

What I meant was the fictional religions of Elantris.

Although if anyone has actually started their own religion, I'd love to hear about that, too.   :)

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Annotations
« on: May 20, 2005, 10:53:12 AM »
No pressure, but I love the annotations and I have been gobbling them up as soon as they're posted.

Do you plan to discuss at all the creation of your religions, or their evolution?  

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Site News / Re: Introduce yourself - right on!
« on: May 20, 2005, 10:38:37 AM »
Okay...

Let's see my name is Elizabeth and I live in Pennsylvania. I've been writing since the age of seven or eight. I participated three times in the Labor Day Weekend Novel Writing contest, and just did my first NaNoWriMo (while getting my second bachelor's - secondary education). I suppose this also shows I'm a glutton for punishment.

I'm working through a torturous novel right now; it's mostly the problem of getting it down on paper the way that feels right. But besides this - and the ever present demands of school  :P  - I have a number of other interests:

I'm a movie nut; I love history (going to be a social studies teacher); I read voraciously; I pamper my vain, spoiled golden retriever; I battle a secret addiction to chocolate; I surf the internet constantly; and I love economics.

That's me in a verbal nutshell.

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