Comments on: Book log: Of Harps and Rings

By: Odette

Odette — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:03:01 +0000

Ditto about seeking her out in used bookstores — I’m sure that’s how I found Harp, and probably Ring as well. If I ever run across any of those older, long out of print books, I’ll send ‘em your way after I’ve read them. )

I love my British folklore, but I love my pioneer, wagon train, Old West stories, too.

I agree about the fourth book of the Chronicles, and I figure it’s probably because of the order in which they were written — the fourth one first in the late ’80s, then revised later when the others came out. Or so wikipedia told me when I asked… And partly I just don’t love Daystar as a narrator as much as I love the others. All the same, I have to read it, because book three ends on such a cliffhanger.

By: Elf

Elf — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:49:12 +0000

The Harp of Imach Thyssal and The Raven Ring are the only Wrede books I have. (Barring the co-authored epistolaries, of course.) It amuses me that those are the Lyra books you’ve managed to find as well. (There’s an omnibus of three or four of them. Somewhere. That I cannot find. Because it was published who knows how long ago as well. Rar.)

She’s one of the authors I head into a used bookstore and hunt out specifically before backtracking to browse. I can’t even find The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Le sigh. (I found out about Thirteenth Child by checking for the Chronicles in the bookstore a couple months back and was amused to find it, but no Chronicles. It came across as vaguely Dark Is Rising, except with Americana instead of British folklore. Which makes it less appealing to me, but eh, I may give it a try later.)

And you’re right about the styles of Harp of Imach Thyssal and Raven Ring, but the same can be said of the Chronicles- book four comes across as more unpolished than its prequels. (I’d give it a miss too, except I can’t find *any* of them, so they’re all getting a miss.)

By: Tae

Tae — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:36:45 +0000

I totally almost ‘gleed’ when you mentioned she’s got a new book out. Granted I need to get my mits on the others to simply have them but yes. Loooove her Regency era ones in particular and I am rather comfortable in my good YA and odd little fantasy niche (as in Not Trying to Be the Next Lord of the Rings).

I think I was reading something about the Heroic Journey being a staple of myths and it really is one of those things that’s hard to escape- I think it depends on how much attention you draw to the actual journey part. It can work well- especially for introducing the world- but as you said, it’s so standard as to be comic.

But in any case, yay, I can stalk Ms. Wrede politely now! <33