Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Books => Topic started by: fuzzyoctopus on February 28, 2004, 09:21:12 PM
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I'm going literature-stiri-crazy. I need a good chick fantasy book to read. Of course if Brenna or MoD has a suggestions, please let me know. Young adult is fine, if it's not too young, and adult is fine. Any good high fantasy aimed at a female audience. Something in another world.
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Well, let's see...
Have you read Orson Scott Card's Enchantment? Adult
Or Garth Nix's Sabriel? (and the two sequels) YA/Adult
Then there's Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which is Cinderella from the ugly stepsister's point of view. YA/Adult
Robin McKinley's newest (that I know of) is Spindle's End, a nice retelling of Sleeping Beauty. YA
Celia Rees, Witch Child, which is about a girl who gets sent to New England because she's thought to be a witch, and of course just jumps from the frying pan into the fire. It's more historical fiction than fantasy, but it is a fantasy. YA
Have you read Ella Enchanted? It's coming out as a movie soon. Really good book. It's middle grade, and a very quick read, but so good. Highly highly recommended. It's by Gail Carson Levine.
And Shannon Hale just came out with a nice retelling of Goose Girl. It's YA.
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Also, you might find the following interesting:
Price, Susan. The Sterkarm Handshake. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Time travel book. Not my favorite--I still haven't finished it, actually. American scientist travels back in time to study a Scottish border clan.
Napoli, Donna Jo. Beast. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
McKinley, Robin. Rose Daughter. New York: Greenwillow, 1997.
McKinley, Robin. Beauty. New York: HarperCollins, 1978.
Highly recommend Beast. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast from the Beast's perspective. It's YA. Rose Daughter is an update of Beauty--same story, written 20 years apart. Both pretty good.
Napoli, Donna Jo. Zel. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1996. Retelling of Rapunzel. YA. Very good. Told in present tense, as most of her stories are, and kind of annoying at first, simply because of that.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Fire and Hemlock. New York: HarperCollins, 1975.
Cynthia Voigt, Elske (1999)
Dickinson, Peter. The Ropemaker. New York: Delacorte, 2001.
Elizabeth Pope, The Perilous Gard (1974)
Billingsley, Franny. The Folk Keeper. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Really good. More middle grade than YA, so it's a quick read, but really enjoyable. Scottish legends are involved, but I can't tell you what or I'll give it away. WARNING: DO NOT read the Library of Congress description of the book. It gives away the whole suspense of the story.
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One of my favorite fantasy trilogies is by Janny Wurts and Raymond E. Feist. They are "Daughter of the Empire," "Servant of the Empire," and "Mistress of the Empire." I have all three if you're interested. The main character, Mara, is a lot of fun. She's a very strong protagonist.
The "Alanna" books are a quick, fun read. The first one is my favorite. This is YA.
Spindle's End and Enchantment are both worth reading.
Ella Enchanted is a WONDERFUL book--I agree with Stacer.
The Midnighters isn't aimed just for females, but it's a fun read (also YA). It's one of the books Chris reviewed for TLE. It's worth reading.
Jennifer Roberson has some fun fantasy books. The Cheysuli series is pretty good--long and convoluted, but pretty good.
Amy's Eyes is a YA book. It's pretty long (as in about 500 pages or so), but lots of fun. Amy's sailor doll comes to life, and there are many adventures with stuffed animals who've come to life and become sailors.
And, if you decide to read any of these, I have all the ones I've mentioned above.
I like most of the stories that Donna Jo Napoli has done, with all the rewritten fairy tales. The present tense is kinda irritating at first, but you get used to it, and the stories are worth getting past it.
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With the "daughter of the empire" trilogy, how strong are each of the books? Only I often find with trilogies that the first book is great, and the 2nd or 3rd is good, but the other one is very weak.
It sounds good. I must borrow them from you.
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I have "Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister", I haven't read it, or I don't remember reading it anymore. I bought for that crappy GE English class I took. But you can borrow it if you like.
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I wish I could un-remember books I've already read so that I could read them again for the first time. *sigh*
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In my opinion, none of the books in the series are particularly weak--that's one of the reasons I like the books so much. I think the first book is my personal favorite, but the other two are very good as well.
You are welcome to borrow them--just let me know, and I'll bring them to TLE for you.
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Have any of you read any of Diane Duane's fantasy? She is, hands down, my favorite Star Trek author, but I've never read any of her own fiction, because I've learned the hard way with some other great ST authors. I guess just because these authors can write amazing novels with other people's characters, doesn't mean they can make up their own....
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Diane Duane wrote Star Trek novels?!
Her series, starting with So you want to be a wizard (I guess it's the "Young Wizard" series, or something like that), is *excellent*! I loved those books! I highly recommend them. The magic is very interesting, and the world is a lot of fun. Interesting exploration of good and evil too. Her books are a lot of fun to read. I've read the first three in her series (I think she's up to seven or so now), and I really need to get around to reading the rest.
You should definitely read them.
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The liveships series, Robin Hobb, has lots of female characters. I think they might be of some interest. It is, however, situated halfway between two other series's with a male protagonist chronologically so it will give away some of the plot.
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Fuzzy, with the Servant of Empire series, it follows the general rule that you should apply to all of Feist's novels. When he introduces a setting and a new set of characters, then he can write really well. Once he's established a setting, or builds on old characters or the children of those characters, his work is really lame.
The Riftwar Saga was pretty good, at least, the first couple books. Then they got well.... icky. Pirate's Buccaneer or whatever it was called... and more. Then he did Servant of the Empire with Janny Wurts. That was pretty good. It's still in the same universe as the Riftwar, but it's set in the world that invaded. So he still gets a lot of new setting. It was very interesting.
Then he did soem more medkimia crap. And crap it was.
But the Serpentwar Saga, which again introduced all new characters and sent them across an ocean to a new place, was again fairly interesting. The crown of his crap, however, was the last "Krondor" series, which is actually some of the worst tripe I've ever read.
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Ok, so the Krondor is not the worst - i have read crapper - but it is deeply average at best. When he says he is basing it off of a computer games plot, you know you are in trouble.
The serpent war series really was quite good. Not great, or good, but quite good. I think i prefer the Mallorean and the Belegariad in retrospect - they did not have such bog standard settings. I have heard that Midkemia started out as a D&D setting, which sounds about right.
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You've probably already read her, Fuzzy, but how about Melanie Rawn? Her main protagonist in "Dragon Prince" (or whatever it's called) is a guy, but the books are definitely chick high fantasy.
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What about that trilogy thats based off of the Willow movie? I read the first two, liked them. Never got around to the third.
Shadowmoon, Shadowdawn, and Shadowstar. Thats what it is. The Shadow War Trilogy.
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Diane Duane wrote Star Trek novels?!
Oh goodness yes. Some of the best Star Trek novels ever written. Original Star Trek; I don't think she ever did TNG, which is fine, because the original series books are almost always better. I own 4 or 5 of them, and have misplaced my two favorites, (of course) which I just realized last night, and panicked about.
You know, I seem to remember having this conversation with my husband about Peter David. ("He wrote Star Trek novels???" "He wrote comic books???")
And Fell, I picked up a copy of Melanie Rawn's "Dragon Prince" a few years ago, and all the characters annoyed me by being idiots, especially the lead male, who I recall as having the I.Q. of a prawn sandwich.
Edit: Oh, I stand corrected- Duane did at least one TNG novel.
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Prawn not that smart, eh?
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Fuzzy--come raid my library. I've got somewhere around a thousand books, after all.
Rawn, McCaffery, and Dragonsbane (Barbara Hambly) are all very nice. I realize this thread was begun to intentionally ask Stacer and the other ladies for suggestions, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in, because I'm like that. (So there.)
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Ok, after input from this and another message board, I'm going to get these books. Brenna if you could bring "Daughter of the Empire" to TLE on Tuesday, that'd be great. Sequels to be determined by my enjoyment of each book, of course, and if I"m smart I'll write down all the call numbers and hit the library before class tomorrow.
Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker
Elizabeth Haydon - Rhapsody
Janny Wurts and Raymond E. Feist - Daughter of the Empire
Robin Hobb - Ship of Magic
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wait, you read Spanish, right Fuzzy? El cuarto de atrás by Carmen Martin Gaite is very good, though more "fantastic" than fantasy. It's not otherworldly, just... weird.
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I can read spanish passably well, yes. This will probably wait until summer, however, because the translating from spanish in my head will cause more mental work than I'm able to give right now.
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Hmm, I was worried because I already have 7 or 8 books checked out of the library, but I checked the website and it says I can check out 50 books at once. (!?!) Is this true, byu alumni.
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Ohhhh yeah.... I was always pushing the limit, especially when I was in my children's lit classes (because of the picture books). Fun thing is, with the Boston public library system there's NO LIMIT. I've had upwards of 80 books checked out at once sometimes during the semester. Yikes. I think I still have about 25 or 30 here at home right now.
And sidenote for anyone interested: tomorrow is the deadline for my paper!!!! Which means I should be done with it, right? Riiight. But which also means that Tuesday I'm free, done or not. Back to a normal life.
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In late 2000 I got a letter from the library stating that, as an Honor's student entering his final year, I would recieve expanded library privileges including a locker and a checkout limit of four or five months. Of course, I graduated college in three years instead of four, and had just defended my finished thesis the previous week, so it wasn't much help. Cool, though.
As a side note, I want to go on record as saying that "some of the best Star Trek novels ever written" is a very funny sentence.
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Why is it funny? You trying to insinuate that Star Trek novels are, by definition, bad?
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If I had said it, I would have meant not that they're by definition bad, but that everyone I've tried to read has been bad, and based both on that and on the "fan fiction" like nature of them, I expect them all to be so.
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*shrug* I don't blame anyone who's read them and honestly dislikes them. I actually am a fan-fiction kind of person at heart. I just like it to be plausable within the series and true to character, instead of "OMG, i 'm gonna rite a story about Snape and Harrypotter having Sex0rz! LoL he's so hawt." Or, "wow I'm going to write a Sailor Moon/ Star Trek crossover!!!"
Being professionally published books, the Star Trek novels fall within that; and they're especially good for the Original series because the acting, writing, and special effects are all so much better than in the actual show.
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I just have an inherent bias against fan fiction, bolstered by the fact that I, like SE, have never liked one that Iv'e read (though I've read very few). Which is not to say that, if offered money, I wouldn't prostitute myself by writing one.
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oh, hell yes. I've made no bones about how I'd be willing to whore myself out to write Star Wars/Trek/Buffy/ANYTHING if I were paid enough. I have a price for things like that. So long as it's not porn...
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There was a Wizards writer at LTUE. Dan Willis. Anyway, I tried to talk contracts with him, but he said that he was under a strict non-disclosure agreement. He did mention that his earnings were substantially lower than what a regular novelist would get--but, Wizards justifies this by pointing out that most of their books stay in print far longer than standard fantasy novels, and therefore earn better royalties over-all for their authors.
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Hrm... I never figured a game company would be the ideal place to get a novel published.
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That might depend. Lets say this is your first published novel and its a Forgotten Realms book. There's already a fan base there, and not many authors are going to have a fan base buying their books when they are previously unpublished. Imagine if you were unpublished but your first book was Star Wars: Episode III, that's a much safer place to be than starting a brand new series by an author nobody knows.
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but then, in most cases, you're locked into a setting which a) doesn't pay much, and b) doesn't get as much respect and c) doesn't allow for as much independent work.
Who are the most famous D&D writers? Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. THeir first was an entirely NEW setting. If you have the creativity and ability to make an entirely new setting, generally, you're better off not going to someone like WotC to publish.
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And the best Star Trek novels (IMO) are the ones where they go to an alien planet and meet a new NPC that the author makes up themselves, who joins the party for the novel.
Or like with Diane Duane, write out an elaborate history of the planet Vulcan in a really cool fashion.
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According to Dave Wolverton, the author gets a good half-million for a Star Wars book. He should know. However, he also said that the editor for the Star Wars series is kind of a dork. He usually only gives the author two to three weeks to write the book.
It just kind of depends how lucrative the series stays at. Going on to other series isn't impossible. Though it gets harder the more fanfics you write, or so I hear.
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last time I heard from him he said that they don't pay as much as he got anymore, making the endeaver much less worth it.
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Since this topic has your name in it, I thought I would put this here.
Stacer, or Brenna, or Fuzzy, have you ever heard of/read a story about a girl who's father is a tinsmith, and then he dies and she has to run away because her village is going to condemn her as a witch? Then she meets up with this dragon (a "golden" one) that can shapeshift into a human? Very 13 yo girly, but the fact that I can't remember the title has been bugging me since I was a freshman in college.
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Umm, I think it's "Dragon's Bait" by Vivian Vande Velde, who has the COOLEST name in the world.
While you're at it, can anyone tell me the name/author of another book I can't remember. It's about this family who takes in foster children, and one day a baby is left on their doorstep and his name is Floris (which I remember because everyone keeps saying "florist??") and it turns out he's from another realm, and he's a prince there.
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Wow, I've never read either book. Makes me want to find the VVV book, just for the fun way VVV looks all together.
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Kind of like the chick in Total Recall.
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Haha, i like how gemm remembers the important things in that film.
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Ewwww.
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Hey, so I'm 4 chapters/~100 pages into "Daughter of the Empire". Is quite good indeed. Has Chris read it? I can't help but think of him with all the Asian-ness to the culture.
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I didn't like that series, Fiest shouldn't have had a co-author. I think that's what ruined it.
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I disagree. Janny Wurts has done a respectable enough job on her independent work (though, like Feist, hardly Genius in most cases) and Feist needed that fusion. this set of novels sounds LEAST like an adaptation of a role playing game session of all his work, aside from, perhaps, Faerie Tale.
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Also this is a thread to tell me what books are good, not which ones are bad. And when it comes to female-oriented high fantasy, beg your pardon if you're not a person whose opinion I trust.
You lack the necessary hormones, I believe.
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Nope, Chris hasn't read them yet. I keep telling him he needs to, since the series is one of my favorites.
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Well, I finished it this afternoon. Pretty good. My big complaint is that as a stand-alone book it's pretty poor. Everything in it screams "I'm the first book in a trilogy!" The ending, therefore, is rather unsatisfying. Not the authors' fault, though, I've been more in the mood for "you just saved the entire world from destruction; what are you going to do next?!?" books.
I'd definitely like to read the other two, though, sometime after finals.
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So the "what's everybody reading" thread has gotten me thinking that I need a new book for the train ride to work. I have so many on my shelf I should just read one of them, and I have a fine at the library I don't want to pay, so that's out for a while. :P I borrowed a C.S. Lewis book from someone, and that was good for a while, but it's gotten kind of boring because it's only excerpts, not the whole book--a few chapters of Mere Christianity, etc.
I have enough on my plate right now that I should be fine with not having anything to read, but I feel so decidedly anti-intellectual right now, what with not being in class.
So, anybody read anything good lately they'd recommend? Anything deep and lasting that should be on a must-read list, or any new YA fantasy that might suit my tastes? Maybe I should go back on this thread and pick up one of Brenna's suggestions.
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I hear some guy named Robison Wells wrote a pretty cool book.
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Done! And yes, it was really good.
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I'm about to have to read a Dragonlance novel (volume two of the Heroes series, which I think is independent sets of stories). I can send it to you instead. (since I have two forgotten Realms novels too, part one of some trilogy and part three of the Dark Elf Princess series). want any of 'em? I've still got like three RPG supplements to read.
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Sure, I'll try it. Probably ought to go for any of them that are part ones, because I've never read any of them.
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email me your address then, I'll send you the part 1. The series is called "The YEar of Rogue Dragons" or something like that. Tell me if it's too grounded in D&D culture/rules for someone who's not played. If I remember right, they generally do a good job of making their books accessible for non-players. apparently the protagonist is a half-golem (sort of a magic prosthetic I guess) and has a mad-on for killing dragons.
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On its way. I sent it to the lemur address.
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perfect. I'll get it out this week.
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Yeah, I heard the Dragonlance series was excellent. I know someone who's read the whole series...I've only read half of the first book, due to time issues (and laziness), but what I did read was excellent.
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The original dragonlance trilogy reads like a D&D campaign spruced up.
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*bump*
For chimera.