World Enough and Time

30 Day Book Meme: – Day 09 – Best scene ever

This is going to have to be a multi-part answer. I love good scenes; I love rereading good scenes even when I don't reread the whole book.

I'll start off with ( Dorothy Dunnett... )

Then for other books:

1. The choice of the new king in A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay
   
2. The ambassadorial climax of A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whelan Turner
   
3. The long conversation between Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre, late on what was supposed to be their wedding day, in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
   
4. The visit of Bradley Headstone, the Schoolmaster, to the lawyer Eugene Wrayburn's place, in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
   
5. Any moment in any of the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich in which Ranger calls Stephanie "Babe"
   
6. The funeral scene at the beginning of It Had to be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
   
7. The scene in which Xax's wings are stripped in The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox
   
8. The first meeting with Strider, at Bree, in The Lord of the Rings
   
9. Sam Vimes comes into the mines in the climactic "Where's my cow?" scene in Thud! by Terry Pratchett
   
10. Miles Vorkosigan is tried for treason in The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold. Or maybe the scene where he confronts Gregor and Cavilo in the airlock in The Vor Game. Or the scene in which he wrestles with temptation in Memory. Or the scene in Barrayar in which Cordelia presents the results of her Shopping Trip.
    

30 Day Book Meme: Day 07 – Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise

I looked up "plot device" in Wikipedia, just to see if the phrase meant what I thought. It did.

Well: I don't believe one plot device is better than another: a good writer can make something wonderful of a plot detail that would be stupid in a less writer. It's easier to think of plot devices I like, than ones I don't; usually stupidity (on the part of the plot or the protagonist) will drive me out of the story.

I have come to really dislike the 'refrigerator syndrome' plot device. But it still won't scare me away from a good story.

I dislike the 'overlooked detail' - a plot in which the hero overlooks something crucial to the story, with the assumption that everyone will overlook that detail, including the reader. Often I don't; sometimes it's significant, sometimes it isn't. Examples: in Sherlock, a generally brilliant show, it is assumed that 'no one thinks of the cabbie' but of course I did think of the cabbie, who was noticeable by his omission. In other cases, I've come across stories where the plot would be changed or solved with the possibility of one of the characters being gay, but the characters and writer never consider it.

But even that doesn't drive me out of a story.

I dislike stories (almost always written by men) which purport to be romances, but which separate the protagonists at the end, usually by death or duty. Faugh. Romance should be about people getting together. But that's more of a plot resolution (or non-resolution) than a device.

In theory I dislike a mystery when the narrator withholds important information from the reader - for instance, they enter a room, see something astonishing and significant, and then we carry on with other characters or about other matters without learning what they saw. Or, alternately, they omit information because they are the killer. I don't approve, but I can think of at least one book I loved, that did this - which I will not name, to avoid spoilers.

30-Day Book Meme: Day 05 - A book or series you hate

Hmm. I suppose there have been many I started and didn't like. "Hate" is rather too strong for most... Truth is, there are a lot of series I wouldn't want to read. Don't want to read. Most vampire series. Most urban fantasy, I'm afraid. I keep trying to read them, and just don't like them at all - the Harry Dresden series is a good example here, but you can name just about any of them.

But there are a lot of things that can turn me off a series. Unlikable or stupid characters, bad sex, boring passages, plots that don't make a lot of sense.

Often it's because there's too much humour in the book. But then, that's a matter of writing style, isn't it? My like or dislike of a book is much more likely to relate to the writer than the style or theme.

On the other hand, there are cases where I like one series by a writer much more than another. I love Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels; can't get into the Jesse Stone books. Sunny Randall is okay, but still not the treat Parker is.

30-Day Book Meme: Day 03 – The best book you’ve read in the last 12 months

Not much competition here. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner.

She is such a good writer.

Since I have finished the thirty day movie meme, I might as well feature the Thirty Day Book Meme. Making this Day One. I got the meme from the book meme lj community and marifee's blog and Dreamwidth's Anna Genoese. (Thanks to them all!)

Day 01 – A book series you wish had gone on longer OR a book series you wish would just freaking end already (or both!)

1. I don't care if series I don't like go on and on. Let them! I don't have to read them.
   
   
2. Wanting more: The "Dumarest of Terra" series by E.C. Tubb. It's a series of space adventure novels about a man from the planet Earth, a planet that has been lost and forgotten and long considered a myth. Earl Dumarest stowed away on a spaceship as a child, and now, as a battle-toughened adult, is trying to find his way home, wandering from planet to planet, taking high-risk, high-paying work (bodyguard, gladiator, bounty hunter) to earn his way back to a place which may no longer exist. And there's a sinister quasi-religious organization who wants him dead.
   
   I always pictured Dumarest as a youngish Clint Eastwood.
   
   ( I loved those books. )
   
   
   
3. Wanting more: The notorious series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, a dark medieval fantasy about a world falling into chaos. Beautifully, beautifully written - until Martin began running out of steam and wandering away from his own storylines. Projected publication dates for A Dance of Dragons have become more and more fanciful and some of us think Martin never will finish this saga. It was magnificent for a while.
   
   Very soon the first book, A Game of Thrones, will be an HBO miniseries starring Sean Bean as Eddard Stark - brilliant casting. I'm looking forward to this.
   
   The story has a cast of way too many people and huge diverse families - I'm delighted to see people putting together and encyclopedia with cast list on Tower of the Hand.
   
   
4. Wanting more: I hope there will be more Torchwood novels.