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From: dca@edison.UUCP (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Metropolis and Brunner
Message-ID: <454@edison.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 10:53:52 EST
Article-I.D.: edison.454
Posted: Tue Mar 26 10:53:52 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 01:26:01 EST
References: <980@topaz.ARPA> <448@edison.UUCP> <142@hyper.UUCP>
Organization: General Electric Company, Charlottesville, VA
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> 
> ...  SONGMASTER, in my humble opinion, falls apart
> at the end, although it is tremendous up until then.
Let's pick some nits.  I have to disagree with you here.  All books
must end sometime (though I'm beginning to believe XANTH will go
on forever) and how the book ends quite diverse and varys a good
deal.  I found the end of SONGMASTER quite refreshing.  Its not
the "and everyone lived happily ever after", nor is it "and everyone
died and all was depressing and dark" nor "and Joe went home to grow
wheat, Same went in search of the mysteries of the Universe, me ..."
ala lol instead SONGMASTER had a delicately bittersweet ending and
end which though sad, didn't leave me sad.  A rather insightfull ending
in which a man with a rather unhappy life left his mark for posterity
not linked to his name but rather to the most important facet of his
life, his song.
The reason I have a hard time coming up with a "best" book is that
all these books have things about them unusual and outstanding.
> RIDDLE OF
> STARS is very good, but not up their with the others.
What I liked about RIDDLE OF STARS was not so much the writing which at
times was confusing and obtuse but, the very deep sense of a common but
very good man caught in the tempest and his hardening and alteration.
I was caught up by the majestic tone and feeling of his ascension to the
high one.
>  Neither
> Bradley or Eddings are quite good enough word-smiths.
>
Bradley tends more toward the world of the mind, the internal conflict.
Perhaps she is not in the same class but some of her later books are
awfully good.
Eddings is definitely not a heavy read, one simply doesn't get a mystery
or awe from any of his characters.  The reason I believe this to be true
is that he shows all his characters even the awesome ones as humans with
their foibles intact.  Elf equivalents are conspicuously absent (beings
with awesome powers that can do no wrong which many writers tend to use
as a crutch).  His characters are so accessible as to make it difficult
to see them as anything out of the ordinary but, I found this unusual and
actually quite pleasant.  Wonderfully funny, especially in his use of
anachronistic behavior by the characters.   Certainly vastly different
from Lord of Light and lacking much of its inner meaning, but then I'm not so
sure I'm that fascinated by inner meaning anyway.

I evaluate books by a more ad hoc scale.

a)  The book must grip and not let go.
b)  I don't care if the book was wonderful for its time, it must
    be wonderful for MY time, unreadable old-style english need not
    apply.  I think a book should be evaluated without regard for
    the place and position of the author and any acclaim the book
    may have received.
c)  Symbolism stinks, virtually always societal, culture, and time
    oriented, misplace any of these and you have an unreadable piece
    of trash.  No thanks.
d)  I want the book to move me, how or where it moves me will largely
    affect my feelings for the book.
e)  The characters should feel real and I should care about them (not
    always are requirement but it certainly helps).
f)  I don't go through a book with a notepad finding inner meaning.  If
    it's there it often adds depth to the book but in any case will
    not vastly affect my personal opinion on how the book rates.

Enough.

David Albrecht

David Albrecht
, and CREATURES
> OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, while I love it muchly, isn't quite
> accessable enough.
> 
> I tend to diferentiate "This is good" from "I like this."  Lord
> of Light brings everything together.  It...oh well.  I'm glad
> this discussion began.  I'm enjoying it.
> 			- SKZB

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