I'm currently reading Connie Willis' Blackout and skimming this conversation is confusing. But I figured it out.

An excerpt from the audiobook of A Dance with Dragons is up on the Random House site. (There is an excerpt from the ebook too - and it's a different chapter.)

Awesome, I'm in the Acknowledgments for Deadline too, even though I still didn't do shit! At least I'll earn my spot for Blackout.

Toddson, did you read the excerpt from Blackout ? It may address your question.

Actually, that's what led me to the question.

Ok! I finished Embassytown and I still liked it, but I think your eyes will roll a bit at the ending Raq. I loved the feeling I got that Language was a character, kind of like Gossip is in Middlemarch - which could be, as you said, something only a writer could love.

The protagonist seems to be speaking to everyone from inside a sealed container though. Things that should resonate don't. Except when they happen to people not the protagonist.

So, still thinking on it. I am too soft when it comes to Mieville.

Then I started Feed - which was a gear shift from E-town, obviously, but whoah what a great ride this is going to be.

I'm planning The Quantum Thief next, but after that I'll probably mux back around to Embassytown.

Deadline got to me in at least one way; NPR had a bit on the rise of tropical diseases in Florida, and mentioned that the Aedes aegypti mosquito is proliferating there again...and I went into Left 4 Dead mode.

Actually, that's what led me to the question.

Oh. Well, I think it's pretty clear from that first chapter that she remembers everything to the point of her death.

So I finished Deathly Hallows on the ride into work this morning. (Well, basically finished--I apparently forgot to put the epilogue on my iPod. Possibly on purpose.)

I may do a biggish LJ post to talk about the series as a whole, but here's a few thoughts:

1. Rowling really knows how to write a hella long action sequence--the big finale is like three chapters long! Everything from the dragon-back escape to the finale battle with Voldemort happens in one twenty-four hour period! without letting the narrative sag. Well, much. The two info-dumps from Snape and Dumbledore's ghost at least give the reader a breather, even though at the same time you're reading, you're thinking "Hurry up, Harry! He's gonna kill someone else while you stand around pondering the philosophy of wandlore!"

2. On the other hand, there really isn't a denouement. You get the big battle, there's a brief description of everyone cheering, and then a conversation with Dumbledore's portrait--and then bang, done. (Not counting the epilogue, which as an epilogue isn't supposed to be part of the main text.) It feels kind of unbalanced, although the reader, like Harry, is kind of exhausted.

3. Thinking back, I think she did a pretty good job with Snape throught the series. His characterization is at least consistent, although possibly too consistent--he never really changes from the date we (and Harry) meet him. He's a nasty bigot from start to finish, it's just that he Has a Secret Pain that drives his actions, and a fairly impressive loyalty to Dumbledore. I still don't see why people love him, but he is interesting. I did like that JKR made the parallels between Harry, Snape, and Riddle so explicit--Snape is sort of the mid-point between Harry and Riddle, as someone who was raised without love but learned to value it, even if he never really learned to express it.

4. It was lovely to see Neville have his CMOA, as they say. Go, Neville! And Molly Weasley, too.

5. I'm still sad about the body count: I had managed to forget that both Lupin and Tonks died--somehow I'd thought Lupin survived. And with Bellatrix and Ted Tonks' death, that leaves Andromeda with only two living family members: Narcissa and Teddy. Poor woman.

link to your lj when you are finished. I'd love to read it.

second that.