On drabble requests, writing and books
Apr. 28th, 2004 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
Being in a writing mood, I've decided to do that drabble meme that everyone was doing several months ago and that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hinotori is doing now. Since only a few of my LJ friends are familiar with my writing and even fewer would actually want me to write something for them, I think I should be able to handle all the requests I receive without feeling too much pressure. Yay for being obscure and nonprolific!
Guidelines: I will write for any anime series if I've watched more than ten episodes of it and any manga series if I've read more than three volumes of it. However, your best bet is to stick to Hikaru no Go, Peace Maker Kurogane, Gundam Wing and Weiß Kreuz. I will also break my principles and write Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings (book canon), Ender's Game or any other SF/F book I've read, if requested. Yes, even Harry Potter. Please don't request pairings, however--not because I'm anti-het or anti-slash but because I really can't write romantic/sexual relationships. I tried in Returning and failed miserably. I don't know how you all do it. Please do specify the characters you want featured (and any other conditions that you'd like to attach to it).
Oh, and if for some reason you want something entirely original, you may request that as well, but give me a place to start from. I'm seeing this as a writing exercise so I can practice getting myself to write on demand.
I survived the chemistry midterm, mostly because the head TF took pity on us and wrote a shorter, easier test (quite a contrast from the first two). Because I did not study sufficiently, I don't think I did particularly well, but I finished the exam with about 75% certainty, so I think I'll be at the mean this time. Which means that as long as I do well on the final, I may pull through (though I'm pretty sure it's too late for me to manage an A).
And more importantly, I think I have a decent chance of really learning the material. You understand, my neurotic fits over organic chemistry aren't only about the grades--I need to know this material for future courses (I have three semesters of chemistry and at least one semester of chemistry-related biology courses left), not to mention my research.
Also, my expos essay ended up having a decent conclusion, and for the first time this semester, I've handed in something that I can be proud of. So, yeah, my mood has improved considerably despite the lack of sleep. Although I just got back my last problem set and for some reason did abominably on it. Ugh. That's what happens when you try to calculate eigenvalues at the last minute.
I promised myself to take the day off after classes, so I went and read Catherine Asaro's Primary Inversion at the Coop. You see, it turns out that Jenny's a SF/F fan, which I consider an incredible stroke of luck since the last time I had a friend who shared my genre preferences was around ninth or tenth grade with oniichan, and she's stopped doing any outside reading altogether. So, anyway, Jenny and I have read many of the same authors, but she has, of course, a different range than I do and emailed me a long list of her favorite series. Wah, how nice getting recommendations from someone else for a change! Well, not to insinuate that any of my RL friends don't--tryogeru and lush_rimbaud do more than their usual share of recommending--but no one's specifically an SF/F fan, or at least they don't like to admit it. (Lyd-chan, for example.)
Primary Inversion is extremely absorbing, although its writing is not quite as polished as I would like. Asaro takes the time and effort to lay out the scientific explanations for her futuristic technology--she even finds a way of explaining telepathy as a complex quantum phenomenon--which I found absolutely fascinating because they were so convincing. I haven't read any SF author who took so much care to give rigorous technical explanations--the incorporation of imaginary numbers in the physics behind the faster-than-light spacecraft engine was particularly creative, I felt--and I think that was the part of her writing I enjoyed the most. On the other hand, it wasn't very well-incorporated into the rest of her narration, and I have to admit that a lot of her tactics to provide the backstory of her story's societies and characters were really too transparent. I've gotten quite sensitive to such awkward authorial manipulation, for some reason--probably Orson Scott Card's fault for losing all subtlety in his latest novels. The "show, don't tell" maxim applies to every single level of your story, or at least it does in my book of standards for fiction, and Asaro hasn't quite mastered it yet in this first novel. But then again, it is her first novel, and according to Jenny, she's a scientist by profession, so it's understandable that her writing is a little rough. I expect it gets smoother and less heavy-handed in her later books. Besides The Quantum Rose is either a Hugo or Nebula winner (or quite possibly both), and I haven't come across a Hugo/Nebula novel that I didn't enjoy.
I think that if I found these books earlier--say, when I was in ninth or tenth grade--I would have obsessed over them completely. It's a bit harder for me now because, well, the main character does verge a little on the side of a Mary Sue: she is the heir to the Skolian empire, she is beautiful with exotic hair colors, she has unrivaled psionic powers and is part of an elite fighting force in the Skolian military, she is brilliant and talented yet vulnerable (she's a rape victim). The saving grace is that she's still very interesting and very well-rounded as a character, and the author takes the time to really delve into her psychology, even if the method is a bit obvious. Her other characterizations are more uneven--it's difficult to understand Rex's motivations, for example--but still interesting and not at all two-dimensional. Furthermore, Asaro's world is full of complicated political intrigues (something that I adore in SF/F fiction) and, as I've mentioned before, the most awesome technology ever. I wasn't too thrilled by the "Aristos are all unredeemingly evil by nature" line--I mean, if it's their biological makeup, is it really morally wrong of them?--and I have to admit that this particular sort of space drama romance subgenre has lost a lot of its attraction for me after I read Anne McCaffrey's Talent series. But despite all that, I have to say that it was a thoroughly absorbing read, and I plan to finish the series.
I also started reading The Book of Jhereg, by Steven Brust, another recommendation by Jenny--and here I was on much more comfortable territory. Brust writes with a familiar style, and his main character happens to be an assassin (I love assassin stories). I only read the first three chapters, but from what I've gathered so far, the writing is much more assured and less awkward than Asaro's--I could fall in love with this book immediately in a way that I couldn't quite with Primary Inversion. Was tempted to buy the $16 volume right there, but realized I didn't have enough money. Saved by the empty wallet, I suppose. But wow, that's the kind of fantasy I've been wanting to read lately--again, full of political intrigues--and I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's a nice long series too, so it'll take me a while to finish.
I was kind of surprised to notice that Jenny has, hm, darker tastes than I do. Or maybe not quite "darker", but...edgier, perhaps? Still, she liked X and angsty Fuuma/Kamui, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It got me thinking about my own subgenre preferences, actually. I'm at heart an epic fantasy person, although Robert Jordan completely turned my stomach with his inability to come to a conclusion. Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence started me on fantasy, Tolkien pretty much launched me into the genre as a whole, and then Tad Williams came along and made me love high epic fantasy more than anything else. I've also realized that a lot of the fantasy authors I've liked best are often shelved as children's or young adult authors: Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia C. Wrede, Orson Scott Card, etc. The unequivocally adult SF/F novels I've read aren't the ones that tend to stick with me, but rather have been material for indulgence. Exceptions to that rule probably are Ursula K. LeGuin (well, other than the Earthsea books), Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams...I suppose I should just stop skirting the issue and say that I'm just a pretentious little snob who likes reading books with lots of references (whether it be to mythology, history, science or contemporary society) and patting herself on the back whenever she recognizes a particularly clever/obscure allusion.
Anyway. What I'd like to say is that over the years, I've started to become increasingly picky in my choice of SF/F authors, so my "edgier" range is limited to very specific writers and I haven't branched out very much at all since junior year. (Although I had been meticulously tracking down every published book of the authors I did know.) So it's kind of nice having a new starting point because there are whole subgenres that I've unconsciously dismissed because I didn't know any good authors for them.
On the other hand...I'm seriously getting sick of epic. I haven't come across a new one that's worth reading. There was a lot of hype about Eragon because the author is nineteen and started writing the book when he was only fifteen, so I downloaded the e-book and gulped all 500+ pages of it down. It shows promise, especially towards the end where he stops being so dependent on epic fantasy conventions and branches out on his own, but before then, it was getting positively grating. The writing was just too uneven. I mean, I have a fondness for flowery prose and overdone descriptions myself, but that doesn't mean that I consider it worth publishing if it's done that badly. Furthermore, I was just so bored with the main character (again, a bit too typical hero archetype) until about two-thirds of the way in. David Eddings uses the same archetypes but he's very light-hearted about it, humorous just to the point of being slightly satiric, that it makes it interesting. This boy-author, on the other hand, like most teenage writers, takes himself too seriously. I mean, not that he shouldn't be serious, just that he also then needs more of a motive to write than simply a desire to be the next Tolkien. (He's apparently invented the languages in Eragon, basing them on Old Norse, etc. Unfortunately, the invented language doesn't feel like it has any etymological history behind it, which Tolkien's definitely does.)
I'm not saying that Eragon was a terrible book, but I think the editor should have been a lot more cruel and forced him to rewrite the first half. I daresay that I wouldn't have done a better job myself, but then again, I don't see myself aiming to get published do I? Actually, I would like to write a book before I graduate from college--I don't know if I'll actually go to the extent of submitting for publication--but I want it to be a nonfiction account of some arcane subject that will prove to be marvelously interconnected with my other interests and allow me to create a little spiderweb of a book, in miniature imitation of The Golden Bough.
...Tari
Post-script: I think I'd be a lot less annoyed if I didn't pay so much for the e-book in the first place.
Being in a writing mood, I've decided to do that drabble meme that everyone was doing several months ago and that
hinotori is doing now. Since only a few of my LJ friends are familiar with my writing and even fewer would actually want me to write something for them, I think I should be able to handle all the requests I receive without feeling too much pressure. Yay for being obscure and nonprolific!Guidelines: I will write for any anime series if I've watched more than ten episodes of it and any manga series if I've read more than three volumes of it. However, your best bet is to stick to Hikaru no Go, Peace Maker Kurogane, Gundam Wing and Weiß Kreuz. I will also break my principles and write Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings (book canon), Ender's Game or any other SF/F book I've read, if requested. Yes, even Harry Potter. Please don't request pairings, however--not because I'm anti-het or anti-slash but because I really can't write romantic/sexual relationships. I tried in Returning and failed miserably. I don't know how you all do it. Please do specify the characters you want featured (and any other conditions that you'd like to attach to it).
Oh, and if for some reason you want something entirely original, you may request that as well, but give me a place to start from. I'm seeing this as a writing exercise so I can practice getting myself to write on demand.
I survived the chemistry midterm, mostly because the head TF took pity on us and wrote a shorter, easier test (quite a contrast from the first two). Because I did not study sufficiently, I don't think I did particularly well, but I finished the exam with about 75% certainty, so I think I'll be at the mean this time. Which means that as long as I do well on the final, I may pull through (though I'm pretty sure it's too late for me to manage an A).
And more importantly, I think I have a decent chance of really learning the material. You understand, my neurotic fits over organic chemistry aren't only about the grades--I need to know this material for future courses (I have three semesters of chemistry and at least one semester of chemistry-related biology courses left), not to mention my research.
Also, my expos essay ended up having a decent conclusion, and for the first time this semester, I've handed in something that I can be proud of. So, yeah, my mood has improved considerably despite the lack of sleep. Although I just got back my last problem set and for some reason did abominably on it. Ugh. That's what happens when you try to calculate eigenvalues at the last minute.
I promised myself to take the day off after classes, so I went and read Catherine Asaro's Primary Inversion at the Coop. You see, it turns out that Jenny's a SF/F fan, which I consider an incredible stroke of luck since the last time I had a friend who shared my genre preferences was around ninth or tenth grade with oniichan, and she's stopped doing any outside reading altogether. So, anyway, Jenny and I have read many of the same authors, but she has, of course, a different range than I do and emailed me a long list of her favorite series. Wah, how nice getting recommendations from someone else for a change! Well, not to insinuate that any of my RL friends don't--
tryogeru and lush_rimbaud do more than their usual share of recommending--but no one's specifically an SF/F fan, or at least they don't like to admit it. (Lyd-chan, for example.)Primary Inversion is extremely absorbing, although its writing is not quite as polished as I would like. Asaro takes the time and effort to lay out the scientific explanations for her futuristic technology--she even finds a way of explaining telepathy as a complex quantum phenomenon--which I found absolutely fascinating because they were so convincing. I haven't read any SF author who took so much care to give rigorous technical explanations--the incorporation of imaginary numbers in the physics behind the faster-than-light spacecraft engine was particularly creative, I felt--and I think that was the part of her writing I enjoyed the most. On the other hand, it wasn't very well-incorporated into the rest of her narration, and I have to admit that a lot of her tactics to provide the backstory of her story's societies and characters were really too transparent. I've gotten quite sensitive to such awkward authorial manipulation, for some reason--probably Orson Scott Card's fault for losing all subtlety in his latest novels. The "show, don't tell" maxim applies to every single level of your story, or at least it does in my book of standards for fiction, and Asaro hasn't quite mastered it yet in this first novel. But then again, it is her first novel, and according to Jenny, she's a scientist by profession, so it's understandable that her writing is a little rough. I expect it gets smoother and less heavy-handed in her later books. Besides The Quantum Rose is either a Hugo or Nebula winner (or quite possibly both), and I haven't come across a Hugo/Nebula novel that I didn't enjoy.
I think that if I found these books earlier--say, when I was in ninth or tenth grade--I would have obsessed over them completely. It's a bit harder for me now because, well, the main character does verge a little on the side of a Mary Sue: she is the heir to the Skolian empire, she is beautiful with exotic hair colors, she has unrivaled psionic powers and is part of an elite fighting force in the Skolian military, she is brilliant and talented yet vulnerable (she's a rape victim). The saving grace is that she's still very interesting and very well-rounded as a character, and the author takes the time to really delve into her psychology, even if the method is a bit obvious. Her other characterizations are more uneven--it's difficult to understand Rex's motivations, for example--but still interesting and not at all two-dimensional. Furthermore, Asaro's world is full of complicated political intrigues (something that I adore in SF/F fiction) and, as I've mentioned before, the most awesome technology ever. I wasn't too thrilled by the "Aristos are all unredeemingly evil by nature" line--I mean, if it's their biological makeup, is it really morally wrong of them?--and I have to admit that this particular sort of space drama romance subgenre has lost a lot of its attraction for me after I read Anne McCaffrey's Talent series. But despite all that, I have to say that it was a thoroughly absorbing read, and I plan to finish the series.
I also started reading The Book of Jhereg, by Steven Brust, another recommendation by Jenny--and here I was on much more comfortable territory. Brust writes with a familiar style, and his main character happens to be an assassin (I love assassin stories). I only read the first three chapters, but from what I've gathered so far, the writing is much more assured and less awkward than Asaro's--I could fall in love with this book immediately in a way that I couldn't quite with Primary Inversion. Was tempted to buy the $16 volume right there, but realized I didn't have enough money. Saved by the empty wallet, I suppose. But wow, that's the kind of fantasy I've been wanting to read lately--again, full of political intrigues--and I'm definitely looking forward to it. It's a nice long series too, so it'll take me a while to finish.
I was kind of surprised to notice that Jenny has, hm, darker tastes than I do. Or maybe not quite "darker", but...edgier, perhaps? Still, she liked X and angsty Fuuma/Kamui, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It got me thinking about my own subgenre preferences, actually. I'm at heart an epic fantasy person, although Robert Jordan completely turned my stomach with his inability to come to a conclusion. Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising sequence started me on fantasy, Tolkien pretty much launched me into the genre as a whole, and then Tad Williams came along and made me love high epic fantasy more than anything else. I've also realized that a lot of the fantasy authors I've liked best are often shelved as children's or young adult authors: Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia C. Wrede, Orson Scott Card, etc. The unequivocally adult SF/F novels I've read aren't the ones that tend to stick with me, but rather have been material for indulgence. Exceptions to that rule probably are Ursula K. LeGuin (well, other than the Earthsea books), Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams...I suppose I should just stop skirting the issue and say that I'm just a pretentious little snob who likes reading books with lots of references (whether it be to mythology, history, science or contemporary society) and patting herself on the back whenever she recognizes a particularly clever/obscure allusion.
Anyway. What I'd like to say is that over the years, I've started to become increasingly picky in my choice of SF/F authors, so my "edgier" range is limited to very specific writers and I haven't branched out very much at all since junior year. (Although I had been meticulously tracking down every published book of the authors I did know.) So it's kind of nice having a new starting point because there are whole subgenres that I've unconsciously dismissed because I didn't know any good authors for them.
On the other hand...I'm seriously getting sick of epic. I haven't come across a new one that's worth reading. There was a lot of hype about Eragon because the author is nineteen and started writing the book when he was only fifteen, so I downloaded the e-book and gulped all 500+ pages of it down. It shows promise, especially towards the end where he stops being so dependent on epic fantasy conventions and branches out on his own, but before then, it was getting positively grating. The writing was just too uneven. I mean, I have a fondness for flowery prose and overdone descriptions myself, but that doesn't mean that I consider it worth publishing if it's done that badly. Furthermore, I was just so bored with the main character (again, a bit too typical hero archetype) until about two-thirds of the way in. David Eddings uses the same archetypes but he's very light-hearted about it, humorous just to the point of being slightly satiric, that it makes it interesting. This boy-author, on the other hand, like most teenage writers, takes himself too seriously. I mean, not that he shouldn't be serious, just that he also then needs more of a motive to write than simply a desire to be the next Tolkien. (He's apparently invented the languages in Eragon, basing them on Old Norse, etc. Unfortunately, the invented language doesn't feel like it has any etymological history behind it, which Tolkien's definitely does.)
I'm not saying that Eragon was a terrible book, but I think the editor should have been a lot more cruel and forced him to rewrite the first half. I daresay that I wouldn't have done a better job myself, but then again, I don't see myself aiming to get published do I? Actually, I would like to write a book before I graduate from college--I don't know if I'll actually go to the extent of submitting for publication--but I want it to be a nonfiction account of some arcane subject that will prove to be marvelously interconnected with my other interests and allow me to create a little spiderweb of a book, in miniature imitation of The Golden Bough.
...Tari
Post-script: I think I'd be a lot less annoyed if I didn't pay so much for the e-book in the first place.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 06:10 pm (UTC)4. I have been told by a trusted authority that Harvard inflates grades like there's no tomorrow. So, hope your prof. isn't under investigation like mine is (otherwise he'd love to give us all A's)
6. Watch Hero! Good movie! ::poke poke::
8. I have so much tenipuri to watch, oi...
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 06:18 pm (UTC)Rumors of Harvard's grade inflation have been greatly exaggerated. And anyway, even if there is grade inflation, this orgo course really is much worse than the ones at most other colleges--the material is the same, but our problem sets and exams are much more sadistic.
As for the request, I'll try my best--it won't be a pairing fic, though, and I'll need to reread the Fudoumine chapters again. ^_^;;
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 06:32 pm (UTC)An admissions person from Berkley said...oh wait, she was talking about med schools not recognizing the inflation...PhD programs she said do...oops..
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 06:35 pm (UTC)So in the courses where I do benefit from inflation...grad schools won't care at all right? ::sits in happy-nonpremed-land::
Uh...sorry, don't mean to gloat. I really, sincerely do sympathize with you about the "One Ring"; after all I'm going through the exact same hell here.
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 12:03 am (UTC)But don't worry, it's only one woman's opinion. You're gonna get into any program you want anyway! ^__^
>.o <-- My right eye has gone wonky again
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 09:24 pm (UTC)How about a confrontation between just a few members of Weiß and Schwarz? Say... (Oh, I want Schuldig and Youji or Aya, but I'll go unconventional. At least for me, anyway.) Hmm... Ergh. Okay! Crawford vs Youji! Don't care how, don't care where, but make it set in the original series, yes? I want to cry when I think of what happened to them in Gluhen... (Youji's beautiful hair!) You can put the others in there, too, but I'd like to see these two in the leads.
^_^ Can't wait to see what you come up with. Take your time, unless there's a deadline in the meme. Good luck!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-28 09:26 pm (UTC)But if you are in SF at the moment you should try Lois McMaster Bujold. OK, I admit that there is less tech-stuff and physics explanations but I simply love her books. The humour and dry wit can make even me laugh and I like almost all the characters including the main ones (which is very rare) ^^.
Hm... I am no fanfiction writer so it would be unfair if I requested anything but actually if you wrote something about Susumu from PMK I would be happy ^_~
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 07:34 am (UTC)Oh, and it doesn't matter whether you write fanfiction or not. ::grins:: Susumu, it is, then.
...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-29 10:15 am (UTC)Yay! Susumu! *_*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-01 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-01 10:21 pm (UTC)