snarp | Entries tagged with a: lackey mercedes

My brain is broken. I've been working at home today, and am about to go in to the office and print and fax the thing I've been working on, but I'm having a slight anxiety attack about driving. The dog is going with me, so I need to calm down before I get in the car. Don't want to scare the dog.

Stuff I've read or reread recently:

~~Elvenbane~~ Elf Opposite Day, by ~~Andre Norton and~~ Mercedes Lackey - I was not actually able to finish this. I got to the part where the girl is crushing on her brother, and he knows they're siblings but she doesn't, and rather than just telling her, he pressures her into getting engaged to his boyfriend. This is how you solve problems on Elf Opposite Day.

His Majesty's Dragon, by Naomi Novik - Reread. I always skim the battle scenes in this, as I'm unable to clearly picture what's going on. Maybe it would all make more sense if I read Patrick O'Brian?

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman - Reread. Every time I get to the end I wish Pullman'd just like, waste some time writing a few unnecessary self-indulgent books about Lyra causing/solving smaller post-adventure problems.

Homestuck, by Andrew Hussie, over and over - My brain has been recolonized by carapacians following a catastrophe that extinguished all life. Perhaps someday their society will reach a level advanced enough that I can think about, like, anything else.

Crossposts: http://snarp.livejournal.com/451470.html

Yes. It's about evil elves who breed evil unicorns and then release them into the wild where they destroy the ecological balance oh noes. They have also enslaved all the humans for purposes of general elvish debauchery.

I'm pretty sure that this is the process by which this book was written:

Andre Norton: You know what, I think no one's done an Elf Opposite Day book yet! I'd might as well get going on that - I mean, I'll basically take any premise and just run with it, right? That's my whole thing.

Tor Books: We will buy this book.

Norton: Yeah, I know.

*time passes*

Norton: I don't know... I mean, I named this character Serina Daeth, and I just - I'm not feeling this anymore, I don't know how that's even pronounced. Maybe it's just that I'm fricking eighty. Mercedes Lackey, you're not doing anything important right now, right? Put on an Elf Opposite Day for me.

MERCEDES LACKEY: OH I AM SO VERY GOING TO GET SOME PEACEFUL ECOLOGICALLY-CONSCIOUS DRAGONS UP IN.

Norton: What - dude, no, you are totally fucking up Elf Opposite Day. You're just making the dragons be the elves, you are barely maintaining fidelity to our awesome cheapass trope reversal.

LACKEY: NO NO SEE SOME OF THEM ARE MEAN THOUGH. SO THEY CAN BULLY THE HEROINE. SHE IS A HALF-ELF-HALF-HUMAN WIZARD RAISED BY A DRAGON, THE DRAGON'S A SHAMAN.

Norton: Even your name is in all caps.

LACKEY: OH OH AND I'M TOTALLY GOING TO THROW SOME UNCOMFORTABLE IMPLICIT DRAGON/BIPED SEXUAL STUFF IN THERE, I MEAN THAT REALLY WORKED WELL FOR ME IN THE BLACK GRYPHON (MAGE WARS BOOK 1, WITH LARRY DIXON, 1995). OH WAIT THAT WORK ACTUALLY POSTDATES THIS ONE HUH.

Norton: I am going to go be eighty someplace else.

LACKEY: OKAY THAT'S FINE BYE! A BABY DRAGON IS LEARNING TO SEW NOW :) :) :)

Tor Books: We are giving this book a particularly goofy Boris Vallejo cover as a sort of oblique warning as to its content. There will be no visible elves.

Norton: Worst. Elf Opposite Day. Ever.

Crossposts: http://snarp.livejournal.com/450091.html

( For some reason I was looking at the Japanese covers for Jacqueline Carey books. )

( Amazon recommends Mercedes Lackey's Mage Storms series to people looking at Jacqueline Carey books. )

( In Japan, as elsewhere, the Vorkosigan books appear to be cursed with awful covers. )

And OH GOD

the Japanese title for Brothers in Arms? It's Shinai naru clone. This literally means Beloved Clone. You can use "shinai naru" for letters or messages, like "dear," so maybe it doesn't come off quite so strongly, but 1) you only do it on personal correspondence to people you actually like, and 2) there ought to be an "e" tacked onto the end if that's what they were going for, anyway.

1) THAT IS KIND OF A SPOILER, YOU GUYS.

2) It is also hilarious.

3) Disappointingly, Mirror Dance does not get a similar interesting change in title.

Crossposts: http://snarp.livejournal.com/306808.html

I cannot now find it, but james_nicoll at one point made a post saying something like:

“Dear fantasy writer,

The word “gypsy” refers to an actual, reality-based ethnic group. Having gypsies appear on your imaginary world without explanation is roughly equivalent to having the 1982 cast of The Mikado appear on your imaginary world without explanation.”

I think he was talking about a recent book, so I guess this has happened more than once.

Arrow’s Flight page 258:

“The gypsy family who died of snow-sickness two months ago—the ones in the Domesday Book report; wasn’t there a child left living?” she asked, her eyes still a little glazed.

Talia gives the baby to a woman who went mad after her own baby died, and it cures her and they live happily ever after, and it turns out the baby is her son reincarnated. I don’t think these apparent gypsies ever show up again, so I guess they just popped into Valdemar to have the baby and die. That was thoughtful of them.

I don’t know what the Domesday Book was doing in Valdemar, either - it’s not mentioned again after this page, so I guess it went home.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

I’m rereading the Dragonriders books. Yes, I am perfectly aware of the foolishness of this course of action.

They’ve actually aged worse than Mercedes Lackey. I don’t know if it’s that Lackey’s big fetishes (the H/C and the angsty slash and the didactic liberalism) have actually retained their cultural relevance more than McCaffrey’s (the bodice-ripper alpha-male rape-romances and benevolent fascism); or if they’ve just retained their me-relevance better; or if it’s just a matter of the politics.

Because you know something about Lackey? She really does try.

(Assume spoilers for pretty much every single Mercedes Lackey book under here, if that bothers you.)

( Read the rest of this entry » )

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)

Originally published at I Am Completely Serious. You can comment here or there.

I’m re-reading Mercedes Lackey books. This is how you can tell I’m tired.

Somehow I always forget how stupid Vanyel is. He’s pretty stupid.

Spoiler cut in case there is a person out there who can’t guess what sort of stuff happens in Magic’s Price:

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.

So take the sum of 5337 and 7793, then google it, and examine the second result.

…

This isn’t evil! I already own the books I’m using it for! This maneuver merely conserves fossil fuels by making it unnecessary for me to have the physical items shipped across the Pacific! I see nothing wrong with that! (There regrettably seem to be no torrents containing Moomins books, so my brain’s recent insistence on re-reading has led me inexorably to Amazon.co.jp.)

Anyway, I’ve just reread The Ship Who Searched, which is a collaboration between Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey in McCaffrey’s brainship universe. Brainships are spaceships with a very intelligent bodiless human brain attached to them, generally one of a congenitally deformed infant who would die if not kept hooked up to complete life support all her/his life. Brainships travel around space having adventures with a human partner, called a “brawn,” preferably of the opposite sex.

What will Mercedes Lackey do with this premise? She will make ambiguously freaky sex out of it. That is what Mercedes Lackey will do with every premise.

This was one of the books I read over and over and over and over when I was in middle school. I think I actually re-read this more than I did Dragonsong and the Valdemar book where the pantsless furry kept raping the Native American stereotypes. (Yes, I totally read the “Mornelithe Falconsbane” book many, many times. I am not proud.) Something about the combination of McCaffreyan benevolent autocracy and Lackeyan sexual dysfunction is deeply soothing.

That said,

( Read the rest of this entry » )

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Entries tagged with a: lackey mercedes

Generally nonfunctional.

Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey ALLEGEDLY wrote a book together.

Japanese book covers are AWESOME.

And not appreciating Mercedes Lackey

Appreciating Mercedes Lackey

Oh, Mercedes Lackey.

Villainy

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December 2018

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