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Re: Re: suggestions, please...

Hi,

> But the best series in the known universe is Tad Williams' "Memory, 
> Sorrow and Thorn" series.

Hmmm... that's the Dragonbone Chair, right?  I thought it was okay.  A bit too
Tolkien-derivative, although it's hard to point to a fantasy book that isn't.
Still, he lifted both the idea and the characterization of those elves right
out of Tolkien.  I also have mixed feelings about the elements of European
History thrown into the mix.  Sometimes I found it clever, other times I found
it distracting.  I had similar reactions to Guy Kay's _Sailing to Byzantium_, I
think it was called, only there it bothered me so much, I couldn't get past the
first few chapters.  But what *really* bothered me about Memory, Sorrow, and
Thorn was the old "scullery boy turns out to be the long-lost heir to the
throne" motif.  Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, but whereas I used
to find the idea appealling (Lloyd Alexander's Taran, for example, I loved as a
kid), now I find it disturbing.  All through the book, the main guy... I'm
blanking on his name... keeps calling himself "just a scullion", although he
does all these amazing, heroic, things.  Then he find out he's really royalty
after all; doesn't that then mean that if he really were just a scullion, he
wouldn't have been able to do all those things?  What about the idea that
people, any people, can rise above expectations and be heroes?  Wouldn't it
have been more inspiring if he *had* been just a scullion and had still managed
to be a hero?  Is heroism genetic, after all?  It's the sort of thing that
ticks me off about what Lucas did to the Star Wars universe.  In the first
movie, the force is everywhere, and Obi-Wan even offers to teach Han how to
access it.  Then it becomes "the force is strong in that family", and by
episode 1, we've got these midiclorian things that determine how in tune with
the force you are, thus removing Jedi Knight-hood to the elect by birth.  I
don't like myths that enforce caste systems.

How'd you get his email?

> BTW, isn't it Neal Stephenson, not Neil?

Probably.  :-)

> His "Diamond Age" confused the hell out of my, but I loved it.

Yeah; I just wish it had had a better ending.  Or any ending at all really.
It just kind of stopped.  Great ride up to that point, however.

> And his "Snowcrash" just blew me the hell away. LOVED it.

It took me a couple of times through to appreciate that one.  What did you
think of Zodiac?  I think that one is my favorite to revisit, although
I think Crypto is the best-written.

Gotta go,
-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu        http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

"Go to red alert!"  "Are you *absolutely* sure, sir?  
It does mean changing the bulb."			    - Red Dwarf

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