is the owl service the one that takes a lot from the Mabinogion? that keeps cropping up here and there to the point where i feel i should read it.
― koogs, Friday, 4 October 2024 12:19 (two months ago) link
(yes - The Owl Service interprets a story from the Welsh Mabinogion, namely, portions of the story of "Math Son of Mathonwy.")
― koogs, Friday, 4 October 2024 12:20 (two months ago) link
strangely, published in the US as "Maths son of Mathsonwy"
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Friday, 4 October 2024 14:29 (two months ago) link
Blurb for this edition:
In his earlier novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingstone, The Moon of Gomroth and Elidor, Garner used the sucesssful formula of the spilling of the twilight world of ancient legend into the present day. Here he uses the formula again, with an added depth, and even more compulsive terror-haunted beauty.
― dow, Saturday, 5 October 2024 20:46 (two months ago) link
i pulled the trigger on the first three mole books. etsy was the only place i could find a good deal for the first three books! someone should really reissue them.
― scott seward, Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:03 (two months ago) link
enjoy
they are pretty dense, iirc, you wont blitz through them too quickly
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:12 (two months ago) link
What other Garner should I read? All of it?
Yes, there's only nine novels (ten if you include The Stone Book Quartet which is four interlinked stories) and none of them are long. Plus what I've read of the short fiction is equally good. Haven't read anything from the 'Other Books' section from the link below, I'm guessing they're mostly for younger readers? Plus Where Shall We Run To? is a memoir.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner#Works
― RIO Speedwagon (Matt #2), Sunday, 6 October 2024 02:13 (two months ago) link
Thanks! Am I ready for Red Shift---?
Emma Donoghue recalls reading Red Shift as a teenager: "It looked like other Garners I had read: a children's fantasy. But Red Shift, with its passionately bickering adolescent lovers and vertiginous plunges through the wormhole of time, shook me to my core every time I read it, and still does... Garner makes the past numinous, terrifyingly real: anything but passed."[42]
― dow, Sunday, 6 October 2024 04:20 (two months ago) link
Finished Red Shift six months ago and still have it on my desk because I'm convinced I'm going to solve the cipher.
― default damager (lukas), Sunday, 6 October 2024 04:57 (two months ago) link
i pulled the trigger on the first three mole books. etsy was the only place i could find a good deal for the first three books! someone should really reissue them.― scott seward, Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:03 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglinkenjoythey are pretty dense, iirc, you wont blitz through them too quickly― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:12 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
― scott seward, Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:03 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2024 23:12 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink
can scott do a mole book reax thread where he shares his trauma and everyone who read them earlier relives their own trauma
― Tim F, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:15 (two months ago) link
Stroke it Mole
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:24 (two months ago) link
you guys are scaring me!
― scott seward, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:46 (two months ago) link
looking forward though.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:47 (two months ago) link
W-what are the---mole books---?
― dow, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:06 (two months ago) link
one who must ask has not yet achieved stoneness
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:09 (two months ago) link
(duncton books, William horwood)
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 20:10 (two months ago) link
kirstein (the steerswoman) (trilogy, I think?)
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, September 18, 2024 5:57 PM (three weeks ago)
It's planned as 7 books and she has written 4. There hasn't been a new book in two decades and her next book is not in that series.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 10 October 2024 20:23 (two months ago) link
i dont want to come across as harsh but that should be prison time tbh
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Friday, 11 October 2024 22:35 (one month ago) link
I was discussing the other day that this sort of thing isn't uncommon at all. There's tons of writers who've had an ending for their series in their heads for decades but demanding day jobs, right issues, depression, illness, other book series and many other things get in the way. If anyone should be punished it should be editors who keep asking for trilogies, quartets or more and don't allow the writer to complete them if the early books sell poorly.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 October 2024 02:14 (one month ago) link
otm
― mookieproof, Saturday, 12 October 2024 02:39 (one month ago) link
i said what i said
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 12 October 2024 09:09 (one month ago) link
That's a lot of dead people in jail.
I think it comes with the territory, if series epics are what you like to write then there's a very high probability that you won't finish them all, or even one of them.
It seems like there's quite a lot of writers who do series that consist of standalones and their fans don't know how many further books were intended. I just found out that Gormenghast was planned as at least 5 books.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 October 2024 16:35 (one month ago) link
― Tim F, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 02:15 (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink
genuinely seeking an update scott
i love those books fiercely but jesus christ they tore me to bits
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 November 2024 23:20 (one month ago) link
haha, sorry, didn't see this. i'm reading those daniel woodrell books first and then it will be mole winter. i'm just in a groove with the woodrell stuff. inspiring to me. but i'll get in a mole hole before you know it!
― scott seward, Friday, 8 November 2024 20:54 (one month ago) link
you need not sound so enthusiastic we are only waiting for your devastation
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Friday, 8 November 2024 21:52 (one month ago) link
i am still a little frightened...
― scott seward, Friday, 8 November 2024 23:49 (one month ago) link
yes. correct approach.
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 November 2024 00:12 (one month ago) link
is The Black Company a fun read at all? I see mookieproof described it as “military porn” upthread and I think I could be down for some of that in a dark fantasy setting.
― brimstead, Sunday, 17 November 2024 23:48 (three weeks ago) link
Someone here liked it. I read a bit of the first book and thought it was okay, but maybe it wasn’t quite my thing.
― Sir Lester Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 17 November 2024 23:59 (three weeks ago) link
I tried it, having heard people rave about it, but it's a bit try-hard. Not terrible writing, but frequently unpleasant and with deus ex machina magic stuff that can do whatever the plot demands at the time. Didn't bother past the end of book 1.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Monday, 18 November 2024 00:27 (three weeks ago) link
ie it was mostly the opposite of fun
i would send someone to joe abercrombie instead, easier read if nothing else
― tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Monday, 18 November 2024 00:32 (three weeks ago) link
ty all
― brimstead, Monday, 18 November 2024 16:19 (three weeks ago) link