Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category
January 20, 2010
I read the book How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N Frey over the past two days. It was a gift a year or two ago, and I had not yet read it.
I didn’t have high hopes for the book, as my initial impressions of it were of a ‘popular’ novel-writing guide, but I was pleasantly surprised that it had a lot of good things to say. Although in general I consider myself more an artistic novelist than a mere slogger of books, as I pointed out in my discussion of my aesthetic, there is something fundamentally appealing in popular novels, and knowing what it is and how to recreate it can only help, no matter my artistic ambition.
So, like other sources of writing advice I go to, this book helped me focus my desire to write, to guide my thinking just a little bit, and gave me a bit of encouragement that I am not completely deluded. However, I have now picked up John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction for a reminder of the true artistry that novels can reach for, that I want to reach for.
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January 13, 2010
Considering my recent book review made me think about other Fantasy (and Science Fiction) books I have read in the past few years. Here is a list from memory:
2009: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson; Contact by Carl Sagan
2008: The Children of Hurin by J R R Tolkien; The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien [reread]; The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer; The Claw of the Conciliator; The Sword of the Lictor; The Citadel of the Autarch)
2007: Runes of the Earth by Stephen R Donaldson [reread]; Fatal Revenant by Stephen R Donaldson; Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell
2006: The Gap Cycle by Stephen R Donaldson [reread] (The Real Story; Forbidden Knowledge; A Dark and Hungry God Arises; Chaos and Order; This Day All Gods Die)
2005: A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin (A Game of Thrones [reread]; A Clash of Kings [reread]; A Storm of Swords [reread]; A Feast for Crows)
2002-4: The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Red Mars; Green Mars; Blue Mars); Enchantment by Orson Scott Card; Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer; (this was also the time when I first read Runes of the Earth, The Gap Cycle, and the Martin books, reread the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and yet another rereading of The Lord of the Rings)
Posted in Thoughts
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