I don't recall the reason (perhaps limited libary sci-fi section?), but I read The Guns of Avalon first, then to the end of the original Amber books, and only went back and read Nine Princes in Amber years afterwards. Didn't like it nearly as much, and I can't judge if that was due to the book itself or just me being exposed to the subsequent story at an earlier age.
Elliot: I thought I said discreet. Gwen: What, do you see nipple?
'Just Rewards (2)'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Matt the Bruins fan - Mar 01, 2010 6:50:26 am PST #10987 of 28350
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
DavidS - Mar 01, 2010 7:05:31 am PST #10988 of 28350
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
That's funny, Matt. Because for me Nine Princes in Amber is easily the best of the series and each succeeding book is like a shadow further from the original pattern.
(See what I did there?)
Connie Neil - Mar 01, 2010 7:42:28 am PST #10989 of 28350
brillig
Cute, Hec.
Consuela - Mar 01, 2010 7:42:59 am PST #10990 of 28350
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
See what I did there?
Hah!
I loved the first Amber series--I got the whole sequence in a two-volume set from the SFBC when I was in high school, so I can't tell you what happened in each individual novel--but I bounced pretty hard off the second one. Merlin just never gelled for me as anything more than a more self-involved knockoff of Corwin.
ION, there's this auction going on to send fans of color to Wiscon this year, and among the items being auctioned is an ARC of Cryo-Burn, the next Vorkosigan novel.
Even the ARC won't be out until the fall, and already my heart is clenching in my chest in fear. This despite the fact that I found Diplomatic Immunity fairly dull and haven't reread it since it came out. But oh, I'm worried about Aral.
Connie Neil - Mar 01, 2010 7:44:37 am PST #10991 of 28350
brillig
Has anyone done any studies in how the long-careered writers have treated women in their books? The various women in Nine Princes are referred to as girls, but in the second Amber series the women are more involved in the intricacies of the plot. I'm curious as to how women achieved more--though I hate the word--agency in the plots of a writer who might have tended to overlook women.
Jessica - Mar 01, 2010 8:36:35 am PST #10992 of 28350
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
the next Vorkosigan novel.
Oh, yay!!!
(Please let this one be much more like Komarr than Diplomatic Immunity. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease.)
Consuela - Mar 01, 2010 8:55:22 am PST #10993 of 28350
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
Pleeeeeeeeeeeease
From your lips to her ears. Or, um, fingers. Given the title, I suspect it's going to give us some more fallout from Memory, but of course I could be entirely wrong.
Vonnie K - Mar 01, 2010 12:40:59 pm PST #10994 of 28350
Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick.
Diplomatic Immunity.
But wasn't that the one with the bug butter and that dinner party scene that played like it was straight out of a screwball comedy by Ernest Lubitsch? I'd love that book for that scene alone. Komarr was pretty forgettable though. I could never get into whatsherface that Miles married. Elena something? No, that's his first girlfriend.
Toddson - Mar 01, 2010 12:45:12 pm PST #10995 of 28350
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"
That was A Civil Conflict (? do I have that right?)
Abby - Mar 01, 2010 12:47:20 pm PST #10996 of 28350
Jumping in, it was A Civil Campaign.
I love Bujold!