Meme and mishmash

[dolorosa_12]

Thirty Day Book Meme Day 9: Film or TV tie-in

You know, I don't think I have ever owned, or even read, a book in this category. I've read lots of books that went in the other direction (i.e. were adapted for film or television), but not tie-ins. So rather than rack my brains trying to think of a book that I know doesn't exist, why don't those of you who do read tie-ins use the comments to tell me about your favourites?


10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.

Matthias and I are heading out later today to catch up with two of our friends who are visiting from Vienna. They're just two among the many people I know who have left the UK because of Brexit. It will be good to see them (we're all going out for a curry at a new restaurant), but I'm sad about the circumstances.

I don't have much to catch up on in terms of reading. I finished P. Djèlí Clarke's novella 'The Haunting of Tramcar 015' (another story set in an alternate, steampunk Egypt when djinn and other supernatural beings live openly among the human population), which was excellent, although as with all of Clarke's work, it left me wishing that it had been expanded to novel length. I also read 'Lullaby for a Lost World,' a creepy, gothic short story by Aliette de Bodard (freely available on the Tor.com website should you want to read it), and have begun reading God's War by Kameron Hurley. I'm nearly finished it, but it's left me with the conclusion that Hurley's writing is just not for me. It's grimdark in a specific way that I find really repellent, and I particularly dislike that she writes societies where women are uniformly violent, cruel, and exploitative (I do know that this is kind of her thing, so I wasn't unaware of this element going in). This is the second book of hers I've read, and I think it's probably time to stop trying her writing.

Comments

[merit]

I'm planning on reading The Haunting of Tramcar 015 and I kind of expected I would want more out of it. Hopefully Clark publishes a novel in the near future as it would be interesting to see what he produces at that length.

I'm always intrigued~~ by Hurley's books from the blurbs. But yeah, I read one book and after skimming other reviews, the grimdarkness is just a bit too much for me.

[dolorosa_12]

I really enjoyed 'Haunting', and I hope you do too. He's so good at worldbuilding, it always feels slightly wasted on shorter stories.

See, I don't mind tragedy, and I don't mind dystopias, and I don't even mind characters suffering. But that relentless grimness, the bleak view of human nature, and the discrimi-flip settings she always writes (they're matriarchal, but what that always seems to mean is that the women in power are just as vile to each other and to everyone as in the worst patriarchal societies in our own world) are reallly not my cup of tea.

[shadaras]

I read a lot of Star Wars tie in novels when I was a teen (and some Dragonlance), and my favorite ones of the lot were the X-Wing novels, especially the ones about Wraith Squadron, a new group made up just for the books that was built out of skilled fuckups to give them another chance. It's found family, military scifi, and hijinks, and also did a really good job of expanding the Star Wars universe and showing what it's like to be a fairly normal, if skilled, person in the world.

Also, I agree with your assessment of Hurley's work -- it's well written, but not for me. Too gross, too grimy, too focused on the negative.

[dolorosa_12]

I suspected there would be several people in my circle who read Star Wars tie-in novels! They sound like a great way to expand the world and explore the perspectives of characters not seen in the films.

Yeah, I'm not going to try Hurley again. I don't mind tragic writing, I don't mind characters suffering, but I can't stand the relentless grimness where no one is kind, no one has any hope, and no one seems to have any sense of community.

[shadaras]

Yes, exactly. I'm curious about how the new expanded universe books are going, but the first ones published were written in a style that I knew was solid but that just wasn't compelling for me, and I'm not particularly interested in novels that just follow the movie characters (giving them backstory, etc.) right now, which is what the rest have been. Maybe I'll pick them up again eventually.

Yes! The Broken Earth trilogy has a lot of the same characteristics as Hurley's writing on the surface (apocalypse, human suffering, etc.), but uses it to form a narrative of people coming together and surviving and building towards a better world. Infinitely easier to read, because it isn't dragging me down. I get enough meaningless tragedy reading the news right now; I don't need it in my fiction too.

[dolorosa_12]

Yeah, I felt that too about the Broken Earth books — they showed how people, even in the face of the most terrible cruelty, apocalpytic horrors, and violence will carve out spaces of kindness, community and support, even if it's not enough to overcome the terrible things that they're facing. I'm not interested in a grimdark story that doesn't at least show something similar.