fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2654 ]

[ SECRET POST #2654 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2654 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[Ioan Gruffudd/Fantastic Four 2005]

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02.

[Laurell K. Hamilton]

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03.

[Bates Motel]

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04.

[Sherlock]

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05.

[Korn; Breaking Benjamin]

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06.

[American Horror Story]

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07.

[Gwyneth Paltrow, Iron Man]

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08.

[Kino's journey/Kino no tabi]

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09.

[Roxy Music]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 019 secrets from Secret Submission Post #379.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Dark Lord of Derkholm by Dianna Wynn Jones

it's 328 pages, would that count as "too hefty" for the first one? (Not trying to be sarcastic/snarky; I'm not actually sure how you'd like "too long" to be qualified. :3)

Agreed! What an excellent book and everyone needs to discover the magic that is Dianna Wynne Jones. I'm afraid the ending might be a bit too fluffy and neat for the more sarcastic anons and regulars here though.

Eh, if they don't like the ending, they can complain about it in the book club, yes? :3

(I'd say one of the Discworld books, but my fav is and always will be Nightwatch (followed by Thud!, and I don't know how well those'd go as first-Discworld books. ^^;)

Ah well, I suppose so. And I personally liked it, it had been so long since I read something that tied up all the strings so neatly. Well maybe someday we could begin with Guards! Guards! then, widely recommended as the starting point for Discworld books? I'm just wondering how many people there are here who have read them. How many Discworld anons are there, actually?

I adored the ending. :D

Maybe! Though, honestly... I'm not sure if Guards! Guards! is the best place to start, personally. I feel like it shows that it's one of his earlier books, and I know that when we tried to read it in a different bookclub, the end status wasn't that it was bad! But that it was meh, and no on really wanted to read other books by Terry Pratchett...

Going back in time, I wish I could have smacked my younger self over the head with a copy of Nightwatch, because reading it is what got me into Discworld properly, but there was so much I didn't *get* because of where I started. ^^;

IDK, maybe it was just my book club? |D

Re: Book club

badass_tiger - 2014-04-10 00:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

loracarol - 2014-04-10 00:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

badass_tiger - 2014-04-10 00:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

loracarol - 2014-04-10 00:44 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

badass_tiger - 2014-04-10 00:50 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

loracarol - 2014-04-10 00:55 (UTC) - Expand

Personally, I would love to start reading Discworld books. I've read The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and The Wee Free Men, but I don't know where to start with his other books.

Re: Book club

badass_tiger - 2014-04-10 00:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Book club

tabaqui - 2014-04-10 02:21 (UTC) - Expand

Small Gods is my favourite and Nightwatch is a close second. They're the two Discworld books he wrote before about 2010 that everybody hated :(

wait, what

Not only do I like those, I honestly thought Nightwatch was close to being a consensus pick for best book in the series. I guess I must have got that wrong...

Small Gods is unpopular, yes, but Night Watch? That's one of his most popular books! Widely considered the best book although ~~these people have clearly yet to read the Lipwig books~~ I personally disagree.

Nightwatch is brilliant, but yeah, it might be an odd starting point. Perhaps one month we could have a "discworld" themed poll?

Also, apropos of nothing, here's something I didn't know: Dreamwidth doe not let non-paid accounts create polls. that was a fun discovery. I am putting together a work around now.

Yeah, I agree. Though a Discworld theme poll might be fun!

...I did not know that either. Hm. Maybe a different website/outside of dw thing? Like, I know people can do polls on google, I think?

I read my first Diana Wynne Jones last year (Charmed Life) and I hated it so much. I'd been recced her for years and it was such a horrible disappointment.

I had to get my physical copy out of the house sharpish, I disliked it so much. Urgh. All the worst 'tall forbidding dark stranger is secretly the hero' cliches, worse than any romance novel.

I don't know about Darkholme, but Charmed Life's ending was opposite to fluffy.

I honestly haven't read Charmed Life, though I'm sorry you didn't like it. :(

If it helps at all, Darkholme isn't a romance-centric book, though I think there was some romance in it? It takes place in a universe that is being held hostage by someone who runs "fantasy world" tours through the other world, complete with all the cliches you can imagine. The people in the world are starting to get sick of being used like that, so they consult two oracles to find out who should play the titular Dark Lord in the upcoming tours (and the tour guide) to force things to stop.

There's also a companion book called "The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land" which acts like a "tour guide" for the universe.

If the book is chosen, and you decide to read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts! As much as I love DLoD, I don't actually like all of her books, so it'll be interesting to see if that's the case with anyone else. If that makes any sense. ^^;

Darkholm has very minimal romance. It's actually more about what happens to a family [and to some extent, the world].

The "tall, dark stranger" thing doesn't really happen so much [there *is* an exception - but there is a reason why here appears that's supported by the plot, and he's far from the main character, and is only there for the last bit of the book.

The end is...I'm not sure I'd call it fluffy, personally, but it's got a lot of really happy reunions and everything gets wrapped up for the better. So it might be better to say it's "happy", instead of fluffy.

Also...Idk how much you'd care about these but the main character is a man whose the nurturing parent, *and* who isn't shamed for actually grieving [in a fairly realistic way, imo] instead of doing the normal "I hurt, but must press on!" thing

I'm certainly interested.

Lovely! :D

ooh. I have a friend who adores DWJ. This might be a good push to start reading her! Also that length sounds perfect, definitely not too long.

Oh yay! And thanks for checking the page count. :3 I used to read a lot, but college has skewed my idea of what's "long" and what isn't. |D

I actually haven't had to read a lot of (non text-)books for college (science major), but the series I love most and am just now aaaalmost finished with it has upwards of 800 pages per book (sometimes 1000+ for the smaller-page paperbacks). heh

Same!

I mean, not how long the books I've been trying to read are (I'm more trying to read through a genre than a series. |D) but yeah, science major, text books, yeah...

Ohh yes. And while it's a teeny bit long, DWJ is very readable. I've read Dark Lord of Derkholm before but I'd love to reread it and talk about it =D

:D

Did you ever read the companion book of the sequel? Tough Guide to Fantasyland is probably one of my favs of her, (though I don't think it'd be a very good book club book because it's written like a fake dictionary), and I did like Year of the Griffen quite a bit as well. :D

You know, I don't think I knew there was a sequel O:
I haven't actually read all her stuff, even though I'm a huge fan (and when I have kids, you bet I am going to stock my bookshelves with everything she ever wrote basically). I will go check these out!

I think my favs of her are still the Chrestomanci books, though, and especially The Lives of Christopher Chant. I just love how she write such magical stories, you know?

ETA: I also recently read Eight Days of Luke and found it really nice, too (especially funny after watching the MCU)

Edited 2014-04-11 02:26 (UTC)

Yeah! Funny thing is, because that book was in my middle school library, but the first one wasn't, I read the sequel first.

It was actually pretty good, and I feel like it was written in a way that a younger audience could read it first, and not feel like they were missing too much. Fantasyland is my fav, though. I really do adore the fake-encyclopedia style; world building is one of my favorite parts about writing, and it's basically a book about world building! But funny!

I haven't read the Chrestomanci books yet, though. I think I tried once, but picked up the wrong book? Or my high school didn't have those of hers? Something like that. I've been meaning to read them, but I just haven't had a lot of time for anything not-school related recently. |D

2nding or some number to this one. I haven't read it but I've enjoyed her other works so...

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