More on the Mythopoeics and other ramblings

[steepholm]

All the nominees for the various Mythopoeic awards have now been announced. By-passing my own category, I can't help but be intrigued by the children's book shortlist, which pitches J.K Rowling (the entire Harry Potter series) against Holly Black's Tithe, Valiant and Ironside. Two very different takes on fantasy, I think it's fair to say.

Also in the running are Nancy Springer and two Irish authors - Derek Landy and Kate Thompson.

lady_schrapnell, currently in 48-hour Reading Challenge purdah, suggested to me recently that I should blog more of my own reading. And probably I should - but I'm very, very slow, and much of my reading is dictated by work commitments such as teaching and reviewing, which require me to talk about the books in other places anyway. However, today I impulse-bought (well, it was a semi-impulse, but that's another story) Jenny Valentine's Finding Violet Park. You'd be appalled how seldom I buy books in bookshops at retail prices, but this one passed the five-dip test* triumphantly, and before I knew it my hand was reaching, as if possessed of a will of its own, down, down, down, all the way to my purse and taking out £5.99. This despite the title STARTING WITH A PRESENT PARTICIPLE - which is a YA cliche that would normally rule a book out for me sight unseen (yes, I know it's a silly prejudice - and I have more where that came from).

* Five-dip test = reading five paragraphs at random and seeing if they make you smile, laugh, cry, sigh, and sneeze - preferably in that order.

Will the rest of the book stack up? If it does, I'll be back to say so. Always with the proviso that I may, in fact, not.

By the way - tonight's Doctor Who was bloody amazing! The only trouble being (and I know gair disagrees here) that it showed up just how mediocre the first half of the series was. If I never see another slick corporation that turns out to be a front for an alien invasion it will be too soon for me. But Steven Moffat! That man has sent so many people behind the sofa he should be on commission from DFS.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

A lot of the committee feels that Rowling's impact on the genre is being acknowledged, not the books themselves. I can buy that.

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

But then how does anyone judge that against an actual book?! Or trilogy, or whatever.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That I don't know. I strongly suspect people are judging the books as a phenomenon, rather than as texts.