Looking to Be Charmed
Aug. 25th, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynOnce upon a time, when I was a child, I was an avid gourmand of a reader. I'd read pretty much anything. Mostly I read sf, fantasy, and romances, but I'd read classics and the occasional contemporary fiction for fun, too.
When I went to college, I largely stopped reading for pleasure, and I've never really gotten back to doing so. I've been doing more leisure reading in the last few years than I did through my college and graduate years, but I find that my tastes have gotten narrower.
Most of my joy in reading comes from a very particular sort of novel nowadays, and the trouble is that it's not a genre of novel. I can't plop "science fiction" or "romance" or "fantasy" into a search engine and come up with what I want.
Because what I want most from novels is to be charmed.
I want books full of likeable, engaging, witty and preferably genteel characters. I want light-hearted, well-written stories with entertaining plots and happy endings. I majored in Literature with a capital L and I've read more tragedies than I ever wanted to. I've read hundreds of epic, sweeping novels about TEOTWAWKI or the prevention thereof; I even wrote one myself. And in the process, I've acquired a taste for small stories, stories about ordinary people with people-sized problems. Every struggle doesn't have to be life-or-death, and every life-or-death struggle doesn't have to involve the welfare of whole nations or worlds.
To list off the qualities I'm looking for:
- Likeable characters
- Witty dialogue
- Gentility *
- Happy endings
- Light-hearted
- Good-natured
- Humorous **
- Fantasy or sf setting
- Romance
- Problem resolution by wit rather than raw force or power
* "Gentility" is not the same as "nobility". By genteel, I mean "well-mannered and courteous". Jane Austen's characters are rarely if ever nobles, and the few who are noble often aren't genteel. So I'm not looking for books about princes and princesses; I'm looking for ones about people who are polite and well-spoken.
** Again, not the same as a comedy. The Harry Potter books have plenty of humor in them, but they're not written as comedies.
Examples of works that fall into my newly-created subgenre:
Jane Austen novels
Ms. Austen didn't write fantasy or sf, but otherwise almost all her novels hit all of the other qualities I'm looking for. Her books are about quite ordinary middle-class Britains struggling with quite ordinary middle-class problems. They are, nonetheless, lots of fun to read, and often an exercise in demonstrating just how much trouble an overabundance of gentility can create.
The Crown Jewels (and its two sequels) by Walter Jon Williams
Yes, Walter Jon Williams, the cyberpunk author. He wrote a trio of lighthearted sf novels that are quite charming and, sadly, long out of print. Lut has copies; I should dig them out and re-read them, as it's been a few years. Depending on the reader's preferences, these might be weak on the "likeable characters" count, since many of the characters have moral codes that are somewhat peculiar. But there's an endearing and usually humorous emphasis on good manners, and almost all problems are resolved by wit, not force.
Diana Wynne Jones novels
She has a much larger and more diverse body of work than Jane Austen, so it's not fair to say that all her books fit in here. Ms. Jones does have a penchant for plots of world- or universe-spanning impact, which isn't my first choice, and her characters don't tend to be especially genteel. Still, her protagonists are almost uniformly likeable, she writes with wit and humor, and nearly all her books have upbeat, happy endings.
The first three Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling
This series has gotten considerably darker over time, and while I enjoyed reading books 4 and 6 a great deal, they don't really fit in the "light-hearted, happy endings" genre. The earlier books lacked much in the way of "romance" and, as with Ms. Jones, there's no emphasis on the genteel, they do have an abundance of likeable characters, humor, and much of the problem-resolution was based on quick thinking
My main incentive in writing all this out was to solicit recommendations. There aren't many books that fit all the criteria I've listed, but perhaps some of you can recommend books that fit several of them. Any suggestions?
When I went to college, I largely stopped reading for pleasure, and I've never really gotten back to doing so. I've been doing more leisure reading in the last few years than I did through my college and graduate years, but I find that my tastes have gotten narrower.
Most of my joy in reading comes from a very particular sort of novel nowadays, and the trouble is that it's not a genre of novel. I can't plop "science fiction" or "romance" or "fantasy" into a search engine and come up with what I want.
Because what I want most from novels is to be charmed.
I want books full of likeable, engaging, witty and preferably genteel characters. I want light-hearted, well-written stories with entertaining plots and happy endings. I majored in Literature with a capital L and I've read more tragedies than I ever wanted to. I've read hundreds of epic, sweeping novels about TEOTWAWKI or the prevention thereof; I even wrote one myself. And in the process, I've acquired a taste for small stories, stories about ordinary people with people-sized problems. Every struggle doesn't have to be life-or-death, and every life-or-death struggle doesn't have to involve the welfare of whole nations or worlds.
To list off the qualities I'm looking for:
- Likeable characters
- Witty dialogue
- Gentility *
- Happy endings
- Light-hearted
- Good-natured
- Humorous **
- Fantasy or sf setting
- Romance
- Problem resolution by wit rather than raw force or power
* "Gentility" is not the same as "nobility". By genteel, I mean "well-mannered and courteous". Jane Austen's characters are rarely if ever nobles, and the few who are noble often aren't genteel. So I'm not looking for books about princes and princesses; I'm looking for ones about people who are polite and well-spoken.
** Again, not the same as a comedy. The Harry Potter books have plenty of humor in them, but they're not written as comedies.
Examples of works that fall into my newly-created subgenre:
Jane Austen novels
Ms. Austen didn't write fantasy or sf, but otherwise almost all her novels hit all of the other qualities I'm looking for. Her books are about quite ordinary middle-class Britains struggling with quite ordinary middle-class problems. They are, nonetheless, lots of fun to read, and often an exercise in demonstrating just how much trouble an overabundance of gentility can create.
The Crown Jewels (and its two sequels) by Walter Jon Williams
Yes, Walter Jon Williams, the cyberpunk author. He wrote a trio of lighthearted sf novels that are quite charming and, sadly, long out of print. Lut has copies; I should dig them out and re-read them, as it's been a few years. Depending on the reader's preferences, these might be weak on the "likeable characters" count, since many of the characters have moral codes that are somewhat peculiar. But there's an endearing and usually humorous emphasis on good manners, and almost all problems are resolved by wit, not force.
Diana Wynne Jones novels
She has a much larger and more diverse body of work than Jane Austen, so it's not fair to say that all her books fit in here. Ms. Jones does have a penchant for plots of world- or universe-spanning impact, which isn't my first choice, and her characters don't tend to be especially genteel. Still, her protagonists are almost uniformly likeable, she writes with wit and humor, and nearly all her books have upbeat, happy endings.
The first three Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling
This series has gotten considerably darker over time, and while I enjoyed reading books 4 and 6 a great deal, they don't really fit in the "light-hearted, happy endings" genre. The earlier books lacked much in the way of "romance" and, as with Ms. Jones, there's no emphasis on the genteel, they do have an abundance of likeable characters, humor, and much of the problem-resolution was based on quick thinking
My main incentive in writing all this out was to solicit recommendations. There aren't many books that fit all the criteria I've listed, but perhaps some of you can recommend books that fit several of them. Any suggestions?
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 07:03 pm (UTC)Seriously.
-The Gneech
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 07:09 pm (UTC)You might also enjoy the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold, and her Chalion books as well.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:32 am (UTC)That's two recommendations for Vorkosigan now -- these must be more upbeat books than I realized; the couple I read struck me as a bit dark.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:53 am (UTC)You might also like Doris Egan's Gate of Ivory - The Complete Ivory reprints all three books together. Great fun! Probably closer in feel to the Drake Majistral books. And has anyone mentioned the Steve Miller/Sharon Lee Liaden books? Though you don't get the courtly, gentile characters until somewhat later in the series, the Liaden setting seems as if it would qualify.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:06 am (UTC)Here's a couple I read recently that fit:
Date: 2005-08-25 07:37 pm (UTC)2. David Copperfield and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. These contain all of your points (in my non-lit-major-influenced opinion) except neither are Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I don't recall any romance in Oliver Twist, and there are parts in both that are not light-hearted, and can be kind of sad, but things get better. What can I say other than these are classics for good reason. But being a Lit student (note the capital L :-) ), you've probably already read them. The more Dickens I read, the more I like him. I also love A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities. Next on the list is Great Expectations.
Re: Here's a couple I read recently that fit:
Date: 2005-08-26 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 07:48 pm (UTC)I write stories with the objective that I want to take the reader on an emotional rollercoaster ride. I want the reader to be excited, happy, sad, furious, frightened, all the biggies. To do that, I make characters that people can care about (love or hate) and stories that make the reader want to keep going.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 08:14 pm (UTC)The "Talking With Dragons" YA series by Patricia Wrede. (In fact, practically all of Wrede's stuff.)
Several of the early works of Anne McCaffrey, including her YA "Harper" series. (Starting with "Dragonsong", I believe.)
The original "Belgariad" by David and Leigh Eddings.
I'll stop now. (Sorry.)
Recommendations are good!
Date: 2005-08-26 12:29 am (UTC)Re: Recommendations are good!
Date: 2005-08-26 12:59 am (UTC)I've heard that the following Belgariad/other universe books amount to rehashes as well. What I've read hasn't really prompted me to read any more.
I'm looking for new ideas, new stuff, new ways to play off of old theme.
Re: Recommendations are good!
Date: 2005-08-26 06:30 am (UTC)The 'Retief' short stories by Laumer -- though there is social satire lurking in there as well.
For a peculiar twist, you might try Crawford's "Rossacotta" series. I think it qualifies, although each book is essentially a murder mystery and there are always atrocities and debaucherie which figure into the plot. The only reason I might suggest it is that the 'dark' features are presented in such a ... matter-of-fact way, incidental to the significant events of the story, that they don't paricularly flavor the overall tone. (At least for me. I'm probably not describing it very well. You'd have to try one for ourself to properly get the sense of it.)
Longyear's "Circus World" is a collection of short stories, several of which would qualify, but containing one or two "sombre bits". Still recommended, though.
John Maddox Roberts' "Space Angel".
Hope you find some of these to your taste.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 09:06 pm (UTC)Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain might suit.
I'll also add a second vote for Terry Pratchett, but with an emphasis on Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky. I think they'll fit all of the criteria.
And of course Lois MacMaster Bujold, but I suspect you've already read everything she's ever written.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 08:50 pm (UTC)Ha ha ur ugly
Date: 2005-08-25 09:27 pm (UTC)Re: Ha ha ur ugly
Date: 2005-08-25 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:11 am (UTC)Re: Ha ha ur ugly
Date: 2005-08-26 12:13 am (UTC)I do not understand why people would do the internet equivalent of throwing rocks at people as they drive by. It makes me mad/sad every time I see it.
Hmm. can't seem....
Date: 2005-08-26 05:58 am (UTC)obviously, an individual with an insufficient amount of peace and joy in their life...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 09:35 pm (UTC)Summers at Castle Auburn, perhaps. Sharon Green? I don't remember the author offhand.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:37 pm (UTC)And Tooth and Claw is also highly recommended. Is written as an Anthony Trollope-with-dragons novel (but don't let that turn you off. Is quite charming.)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 09:35 pm (UTC)Susan Cooper - The Dark Is Rising series, also childrens books
Elizabeth Moon - anything by her alone, not when she is writing for another party.
Alan Dean Foster - science fiction, pulpy, the Flinx books are nice up untill the last of the "old" ones, Bloodhype. The new ones are more dark.
Tanya Huff's keeper chronicles are amusing.
Elizabeth Haydon's Symphony of Ages series starts out fluffy, does get a little...gloomier as time goes on
Terry Goodkind's first 3 books in the Sword of Truth are nice. Then he sort of falls into a trap of only have one charector and everyone else is supporting case, so they lose their appeal(ie he starts off with a rich cast of charectors with their own identifies, but from book to book he focuses more on his main charector and the rest might as well be puppets for the main charector to interact with. That and he seems to get more and more political, more and more black and white as the books progress)
Jane Lindskold's Wolf series(starts at "Through Wolfs Eyes")
Diane duane's Young Wizard series is nice for the first 3 books, than can get bogged down in itself(sensing a pattern here of my liking the opening of series of books, but disliking the ongoing ones? It's not that I so much dislike them, as that the first few are amusing over and over and the rest are amusing once. Pratchett's discworld is like that, I like the first few books, and then it sort of skips around. Mainly they are entertaining when Pratchett take a new look at the world, like when Guards came out, but when he focuses on existing charectors in a repeat story they drag)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:20 am (UTC)I read "The Dark is Rising" and the Prydain books multiple times as a kid, but y'know, it's been so long that I should read them again. Obviously, I loved them. :) I even picked up at least one of "The Dark is Rising" novels at a used bookstore with the intent of re-reading it, and then never did.
I've read Elizabeth Moon's Paksinarion(sp) books; they were good, but rather more somber and serious than what I was thinking of in this post.
Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions! I'll keep them in mind. :)
Pimping the Baen
Date: 2005-08-26 06:04 am (UTC)Eric Flint (especially Pyramid Scheme. 1632 also seems to fit.
Re: Pimping the Baen
Date: 2005-08-26 06:05 am (UTC)Re: Pimping the Baen
Date: 2005-08-26 06:38 am (UTC)But not so many of them are thoroughly light-hearted, and most of them have 'bittersweet' endings, rather than stereotypical "happy endings". Some are lighter than others, though. (Flint, some Weber, Dickson, Ringo, Rosenberg's fantasy, etc.)
Just MHO.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:40 pm (UTC)Lawrencee Watt Evans "Misenchanted Sword" book and the other books set in that world is light hearted though. Not sure about "polite" charectors and such. The only problem I have with him is seperating his other fiction from that series, every now and then I accidentally read one of the others and am not so happy.
Not "science fiction/fantasy", but amusing is Caroline Douglas' "Irene Adler" series. At least the first one, "Good Night, My Holmes" and the second one "Irene Adler" was fun. Looking them up on Amazon, I note that she has written more Irene Adler books, so I expect I would enjoy them once but not twice.
Irene Adler is basically a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, solving mysteries and such with her own Watson-esq partner writing about them. The first book is amusing in how it interlinks with the Sherlock Holmes "Scandal in Bohemia" story(and of course how her charector is basically drawn from that story - the only case Sherlock Holmes ever failed to solve....or at least the only case chronicled by Watson that he failed to solve)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-25 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-26 02:27 am (UTC)The last time Rowan asked me for these sorts of books, I was hard pressed to come up with something other than the Drake Majistral books. My library isn't given to 'light' or 'happy'. Entirely too much Weber, Clayton, Cherryh, Glen Cook, Niven, Poul Anderson. Although, I'm not sure its possible to have too much of those.
Chess With a Dragon
Date: 2006-11-18 09:57 pm (UTC)Where does one go from there? I'll go out an a limb with a grocery list, some of which are bound to please:
Gerrold's Space Skimmer
Brust's Khavren cycle (pastiche of Dumas' Dartagnan cycle)
Mike Resnick's The Dark Lady or Stalking the Unicorn
Robert Chase's The Game of Fox and Lion
James White's Sector General series
Haldeman's There is No Darkness
Bill Adams/Cecil Brooks' The Unwound Way and The End of Fame
Orczy's Pimpernel books
A good translation of Dumas' Dartagnan cycle
Hello!
Date: 2005-08-26 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 09:55 pm (UTC)Consider Phlebas (not as good)
The Player of Games (my favorite)
Use of Weapons (1st one I read)
The State of the Art
Excession
Inversions (kinda a Culture novel)
Look to Windward (haven't read it yet!)
There's a very fun article on The Culture here. It's the onlu utopia I've read about that I'd actually like to live in...
My mother reccommended Use of Weapons to me originally, and pressed Excession into my hands one X-Mas; she has great taste. She also recommended An Exchange of Hostages, in fact!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 05:56 pm (UTC)While I like Bank's work (both Culture and non-culture fiction), and would recommend a fair number of them, when I pulled the books out of the library for her, I deliberately passed over the copies of his that I owned.
While she might like them overall, I didn't think they'd fall into the category she was looking for. Don't ask me to explain why I thought 'Chess with a Dragon' did.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:40 pm (UTC)(The first book is The Eyre Affair, and I can't remember the sequence of the rest of them.)
(Hi!