Nice. My parents occasionally busted out with Canterbury Tales, and Mum taught me a tiny amount of Old Norse from her college days reading the Sagas, but no Beowulf, alas.
If you're into that sort of thing, the Decameron is funny, and probably smuttier than Canterbury Tales. 14th Century frame novel that takes place during an outbreak of plague, oh baby. Obviously, I never read ye Olde Italian version.
Yeah, I'm onto the sequel, where things have gotten a lot more interesting. There was a lot of "but what about...?" With the first book, and now some of that stuff is getting addressed. How far have you read? You're the one who recommended these as not terrible, right?
(And I can't bring myself to admit this officially, but I just finished the entirety of Meljean Brook's Guardian series, which I read starting when I broke my foot and through beaches and airports. Starts pretty bad but works to a believable creshendo. You can see her really growing as a novelist as that series goes on. Not as good as Iron Seas; not even close to Fever, but it killed the time amiably.
I'm just now learning about the separatist Irina people, and I am grooving on that hard. The baddies are dumb, as you say, but it seems like they are usually dumb. It's like people can't imagine why people do bad stuff, which seems weird because we all do bad stuff occasionally. Did you read Hunter's vampire series?
Yeah, that first Guardian book is way bad. Like, it made zero sense to me anyone's motivation. Too much supernatural wooo. The next isn't that great either, actually. It's not until she starts running an arcing plot that they pick up. I think the real problem is that even though there gets to be a lot of mythology, it never feels more than schematic. Still, a few deal with sexual trauma and/or grief in that way that PNR can be attuned to (like those Ward books), and I dig that sort of thing. I also finally got the first of the Kraken King from the library - like hell I'm spending $2 a pop on those - and I kinda loved it. It's about Zenobia! Yay!
I think they all have angels on the cover? The Guardians are demi-angels, not dissimilar from the scribes, actually. Both writers are drawing from the same medieval hokum about angels and gregori and the like. I think the Forged one was my favorite? There's this just awesomely silly sex scene that...I don't even know how to describe. More people should be creative with magic beyond just giving the hero a supernaturally sized dick, is all I'm saying. I'll maybe download Hidden Fire and see how it goes, but thanks for the offer!
Glad to hear it's coming out as a book book. I'm still waiting on the other installments from the libs.
Yeah, the first is Lilith and an angel guardian. It just didn't make any sense to me. I liked the way the girl in book two was like, even though there are angels and stuff, that doesn't mean I have to believe everything and skepticism is still good. The way the vampire is described as stunningly gorgeous gets old, as does the sex frenzy thing.
Yeah, that first Guardian book is way bad. Like, it made zero sense to me anyone's motivation. Too much supernatural wooo. The next isn't that great either, actually. It's not until she starts running an arcing plot that they pick up. I think the real problem is that even though there gets to be a lot of mythology, it never feels more than schematic. Still, a few deal with sexual trauma and/or grief in that way that PNR can be attuned to (like those Ward books), and I dig that sort of thing. I also finally got the first of the Kraken King from the library - like hell I'm spending $2 a pop on those - and I kinda loved it. It's about Zenobia! Yay!
Glad to hear it's coming out as a book book. I'm still waiting on the other installments from the libs.