More books
May. 2nd, 2011 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjornwilde So I'm still reading Deathless and I am getting near the end. VERY good book but I've had to take a break here and there as it is so rich. It's been like drinking a really smoky tea and eating a spice cake. As I took my breaks to cleanse my palette, I discovered two new series.
First is the Goddess Girls by Joan Holub and Suzanne WIlliams. The first book is Athena the Brain and the premise is the Greek Gods as high school students and yes it is very light and fluffy but still an entertaining read. Some of the elements are a little weird, like Zeus is the school principal yet Poseidon is a student and monsters are teachers and admin staff. Supposedly set in ancient Greece, there are some weird anachronisms as well (the goddesses eat chips, Poseidon invents a water park, the very existence of a school system like ours) but it's easy to ignore them. Some of the fun bits are the class project in Hero-ology was the Trojan War and the Inventors Fair was basically the competition between Athena and Poseidon that resulted in the olive and the city of Athens choosing to honor Athena. For the most part I like the portrayal of the Olympians though I haven't come across Hades or Ares whom tend to be shown as the bad guys in most literature. In this book Medusa was the nemesis of Athena which worked pretty well given mythology. In fact I felt there were a lot of honest nods to classical mythology rather than Hollywood mythology.
I've started the next book, Persephone the Phony, and I'm a little wary of her portrayal as she is coming across as timid and meek with an over bearing mother. The whole story of Demeter/Persephone/Hades far too complex in my opinion to shoehorn as either a kidnapping or an over bearing mother/timid daughter troupe yet still it is used. I am curious to see how Hades is portrayed though.
Moving on, in my car I've just finished the audiobook for Outcast by Michelle Paver, read my Sir Ian McKellan and it was a very good listen. I picked it up solely due to Sir McKellan as I've also heard his reading of The Odyssey and I am convinced he could read the phone book and make it entertaining. The story reads very much like a YA version of the Clan of the Cave bear books though I must say I never actually read them, just saw the movie. The time is a little hard to pin down but the characters never use metal tools so I feel safe to say paleolithic era is a safe guess. The is one glacier mentioned but the over all climate seems temperate. The book featured a thrilling man hunt, shamanic mysticism and good character development. I am very curious to read the rest of the series now. Big bonus was this turned out to be the fourth book of the series but it stands on it's own, i.e. you didn't need to have read the other books to understand the story and they also didn't go into pages of detail about what happened. The story was completely self contained though you know elements that occurred were the result of what had happened before.
Next I will be listening to Territory by Emma Bull with the voice talents of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading (who also read the Wheel of Time series) and I am looking forward to it as I love their narration and I've always meant to pick up Emma Bull's work.
First is the Goddess Girls by Joan Holub and Suzanne WIlliams. The first book is Athena the Brain and the premise is the Greek Gods as high school students and yes it is very light and fluffy but still an entertaining read. Some of the elements are a little weird, like Zeus is the school principal yet Poseidon is a student and monsters are teachers and admin staff. Supposedly set in ancient Greece, there are some weird anachronisms as well (the goddesses eat chips, Poseidon invents a water park, the very existence of a school system like ours) but it's easy to ignore them. Some of the fun bits are the class project in Hero-ology was the Trojan War and the Inventors Fair was basically the competition between Athena and Poseidon that resulted in the olive and the city of Athens choosing to honor Athena. For the most part I like the portrayal of the Olympians though I haven't come across Hades or Ares whom tend to be shown as the bad guys in most literature. In this book Medusa was the nemesis of Athena which worked pretty well given mythology. In fact I felt there were a lot of honest nods to classical mythology rather than Hollywood mythology. I've started the next book, Persephone the Phony, and I'm a little wary of her portrayal as she is coming across as timid and meek with an over bearing mother. The whole story of Demeter/Persephone/Hades far too complex in my opinion to shoehorn as either a kidnapping or an over bearing mother/timid daughter troupe yet still it is used. I am curious to see how Hades is portrayed though.
Moving on, in my car I've just finished the audiobook for Outcast by Michelle Paver, read my Sir Ian McKellan and it was a very good listen. I picked it up solely due to Sir McKellan as I've also heard his reading of The Odyssey and I am convinced he could read the phone book and make it entertaining. The story reads very much like a YA version of the Clan of the Cave bear books though I must say I never actually read them, just saw the movie. The time is a little hard to pin down but the characters never use metal tools so I feel safe to say paleolithic era is a safe guess. The is one glacier mentioned but the over all climate seems temperate. The book featured a thrilling man hunt, shamanic mysticism and good character development. I am very curious to read the rest of the series now. Big bonus was this turned out to be the fourth book of the series but it stands on it's own, i.e. you didn't need to have read the other books to understand the story and they also didn't go into pages of detail about what happened. The story was completely self contained though you know elements that occurred were the result of what had happened before.Next I will be listening to Territory by Emma Bull with the voice talents of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading (who also read the Wheel of Time series) and I am looking forward to it as I love their narration and I've always meant to pick up Emma Bull's work.
