Kate, the Jonathan Strange one, what is that about, and is it really Tolkien-esque?

As Corwood notes, it isn't really Tolkein-esque, except that they're both Big Fat Fantasy novels that draw heavily (though in very different ways) on English/Northern European myths and fairy tales to create rich and vivid histories. Stylistically, I think Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is much closer to Dickens, in that it's a long, sprawling, episodic story told through the interactions of a large cast of characters, some strange, some funny, some poignant, but all vibrant.

The plot concerns the friendship and rivalry between two English magicians during the Napoleonic Wars, and their attempts to revive the tradition of English magic. If that sounds dry and boring, well, I thought so too, which is why I put off reading it for so long despite the raves from my friends and people I trust; but when I finally started it, I was pulled in almost immediately. It was such a pleasurable reading experience that I kept having to stop and read back over the previous paragraph or page because it was just so good.

DH finished it today and was disappointed with the way it ended (NFI),

What does NFI mean? I was also a little let down by the ending, but I think that's partially because I didn't want it to end!

I've managed to get about 50 pages into Jonathan Strange, but it really hasn't grabbed me, and I kept drifting off.

I am avoiding Corwood's review, as I haven't yet finished the book.

His review is less spoilery than anything anyone's said here about it.

He also says that it took him a few chapters before it grabbed him.

NFI is "no further information;" I've asked him not to elucidate as I don't want to be spoiled for the ending. He said, "Well, that's not likely," which I took to mean that it doesn't actually end.

I think the style is Austen, rather than Dickens, but mostly I'm in the "didn't grab me" crowd. It's started to grow on me now that I'm dedicating my reading time to it; when I had other books as choices I would easily put down Strange as I thought it dragged in places.

I felt that JS&MN was sort of a mashup of Dickens, Austen, and Pamela Dean; or at least that's what it felt like to me. Much of magical plot is actually told by implication rather than explicitly, which is a very Dean-ish thing to do. Or Patricia McKillip.

I read the entire thing in about four days (I was home sick), and enjoyed it immensely. I did think it dragged a bit, about 3/4 of the way through (the whole Vienna sequence went on a bit too long), but overall I just really liked it. It's very much its own kind of thing: despite all the evident influences, I can't think of anything else it really reminds me of.

If a reader doesn't like Dickens and Austen, though, I suspect they wouldn't it. And maybe even if they did.

If that sounds dry and boring, well, I thought so too, which is why I put off reading it for so long despite the raves from my friends and people I trust

If a reader doesn't like Dickens and Austen, though, I suspect they wouldn't it. And maybe even if they did

Heh. Before reading the sec ond quote, i was about to say "Comparing it to Dickens doesn't make me want to go run and pick it up, even if everyone says it's good!"

The book is too damned long. I'm reading it, and I'm liking it, every page, but I do feel impatient nonetheless. I'm never finishing it at my current rate of consumption--it keeps getting longer as I go.

I read it, was very "eh." I'd re-read it if it were the only book in jail, but I didn't see what all the fuss what about.

Lukewarm, if not chilly.

Anyone read this on scifi in the NYTimes? I was...irked.

He seems absolutely clueless about what he's been reading. It's just occurring now to him that science fiction often has wooden characters in support of a plot only a geek could love? It's hard to take him at all seriously when he includes Cats Cradle among his 10 best list, and calls it:

The perfect, Platonic balance of science and fiction, one that still finds room for merciless satire and a moral that resonates to the present day: that self-destruction is mankind's one true calling.

I love that book, but it has barely a passing acquaintance with science.