Bibliophiles of Loathing discussion

I'm looking forward to this one. The eldest of my spawn received a copy for her birthday recently, so I don't even have to go searching for a copy :D
Also I'm a terrible person for not realising Garth Nix is an Aussie...

Thanks to whoever picked this for our group.

I'm a big fan of Garth Nix. I reread Sabriel a few months ago, and then I read the prequel, Clariel, which might have been even better. Great worldbuilding and interesting characters.

I knew nothing about this book when I started, but I do like Fantasy, it is my favorite genre. I liked the world, the structure of death having different gates. Having positives and negatives of necromancy, being able to both raise, and put to rest.

A few things bugged me though. One is very small, but it bugs me about fantasy occasionally. I believe at one point she talked about speaking English. English is from England. Is there an England in this world? Also there was an "St. So&So's Cross" which again, is a real world figure, not a fantasy world figure. I know it's a little detail, but it bugs me.

Bigger annoyance I had with the world was the mix of Modern world and fantasy "old world." I don't care for modern weapons bein mixed with old. It bugs me that machine guns are somehow not effective "because magic" Like, ok, I guess I understand that magic could effect electricity... but combustion? Does it stop gunpowder? I don't understand. So ok maybe a magically imbued sword is more effect than bullets... why not make magic bullets? So while she is in the Old Kingdom things are fine, at the border it bugs me. This is probably more of a personal feelings thing than any sort of failure on the part of the author.

Another detail is, the two main characters falling in love. I guess this is probably for a younger audience and blah blah blah, whatever. But these people literally just met, and for Sabriel it is like, the only guy she has ever met like ever, and then she's just like "I love you because I totally understand what love is and even though I just met you and you can barely remember who you are and seem to be marginally crazy I am fully confident in this feeling." Like, ok I can believe them falling in love... eventually, but when Touchstone was like "I think I love you" I was just like, baaah. No! Too soon! Maybe I'm just a curmudgeonly old man poo-pooing young love.

But anyway, I liked Sabriel as a character. She had the feeling of being a big fish in a small pond to being lost in an ocean. She was so advanced at her school but there was so much she didn't know in the old kingdom. So even though she was powerful she was young and inexperienced and that was a good balance. Mogget was an interesting character. I don't like cats, but I like talking cats, and I don't know why this is. And his backstory (or what was revealed) of it was interesting.

So right before I finished this book I finished a 10 book series that was like 1000 pages per book, so this felt really tiny in comparison and I'm just like "I need to know everything about this world now!" so I'll probably read the rest of the series.

I'm a bit late with this, but whatever. I finished this book weeks ago while on vacation, and then just forgot to post about it. I remembered cause I just started on the sequel. So clearly I enjoyed this enough to want to read the rest of the trilogy. So far I'm liking the next one even better.

I liked the Charter magic the most, it felt like a more concrete system than the vague "bells do things" of necromancy and the "Free Magic does things?" of Free Magic.

Story wise(Spoilers in here), I thought it was pretty decent. The romance aspect was rather teen-like, but as a YA book, that makes sense. The location of the final boss was a bit too convenient, and just kinda felt forced to me. Also, the fact that the Great Charters blocked people from discussing them makes no sense at all. What benefit could that possibly provide? Some attempt at Security through Obscurity? Then how does anyone know about it, or is there some rite of passage where they take you on the ocean and explain? Or they rely on children to explain it to the younger children? Or you can write about it, so everyone has to read about this stuff? It makes no sense!

Shaun wrote: "A few things bugged me though. One is very small, but it bugs me about fantasy occasionally. I believe at one point she talked about speaking English..."

I've thought about this often, mainly in relation to my genre of choice, Sci-Fi, where aliens speak English, and people 1000 years in the future speak English. Maybe they'll call it Common or Standard, but we read it as English.

My apologist explanation is that what we're reading is simply a translation into English and cultural references also have to be translated. So they might be speaking a different language, but since we're reading it translated, they might as well call it English. You could state that they're speaking Ancelsterrian or Old Kingdomese, but if it's not important to the story(since there's only one language apparently), why bother? And you might as well translate the imagery(St. Whatever's Cross) since otherwise you'd have to explain it in greater depth, when you could just that and say it looks like something else we're already probably familiar with.

I just use that explanation so I can glide over the plotholes, and focus on having fun. YMMV.

I have been super slack about posting, but now that I'm done with uni for the year it's time I caught up...

I have to agree on the English front, but it's not just this book that bugs me with that, but I'll just pretend there's a babel fish in my brain and I'm good.

I liked the mix between old and new, and especially the fact that guns don't work... sure there's no explanation, but I'm ok with that because I don't like guns.

Charter magic was interesting, and I like the idea of the necromancy bells, I felt the 'free magic' was a bit of a last minute addition... maybe it's explained more in another book?

I quite enjoyed the story, even the romance bit was believable enough, sure they'd just met, but it's pretty common for people who share an intense experience, or who spend a period of time together will form a bond of some sort.

Was picking up the rest of the series for my eldest anyway, so I'll get around to reading it at some point.