Where are you? How many times must I turn?

[ashlyme]

My nightmares this morning at least had the decency to frame themselves as horror stories. But it's disconcerting to be both the reader who knows what's coming and the character who doesn't. I don't know if they escaped their doom; I woke up briefly then went back into what felt like the second chapter and that was... horrible. No idea where they came from - the weather's been bright and warm and that's done wonders for my mood. My dad's been ill, my nerves have been a bit ragged and haven't wanted to talk about it on the net, just post frivolous stuff until things blew over.

I managed to read and review an anthology on the Cambridge Chit-Chat Club for the M. R. James zine Ghosts and Scholars at least. With things unlocking a little I've predictably been going a bit wild in charity shops.(Rock n roll, eh?) Recent hauls have included a handbook to a collection of Edwardian taxidermied birds, which should be subtitled Things I Have Shot (I've got a theory it was written by one Colonel Sebastian Moran, late of Moriarty's gang); a coffee-table book on Bakelite radios; a 1950s pocket mapbook of Brum and a biography of Francis Dashwood (both presents for a friend).

I must have at least two or three friends who are DWJ fans - do any of you think highly of the Dalemark Quartet? I got it as a late birthday present. I don't mind a few spoilers!

Comments

[cmcmck]

Weird things dreams!

There are pics on mine if you are in need of some niceness! :o)

[ashlyme]

Good pics they are, too!

[sovay]

I must have at least two or three friends who are DWJ fans - do any of you think highly of the Dalemark Quartet? I got it as a late birthday present. I don't mind a few spoilers!

I read the last novel first by accident and I recommend the series highly! I sort of bounced off the first one, but I like all the rest.

[ashlyme]

SOLD. I don't know nearly enough DWJ. I've got them all in a nice US omnibus so I'll have to read them in order.

[thisbluespirit]

I have mixed feelings about The Dalemark Quartet, because I read Drowned Ammet first & liked it a lot, never got hold of the first one, the other was set in a completely different time, and I bounced violently off the last one for reasons I've never been able to explain but is unlikely to happen to anyone else. (Although having mainly read DA, I was very disappointed with some of the characterisation relating to that.)

A lot of people seem to like it a lot though! It probably helps if you don't just read one of them out of context for years. But, I mean, it's DWJ, it's worth a try.

(/world's most useless review)

[ashlyme]

*(/world's most useless review)*

Nope - I'd say it's very useful. :-) Interesting that you and Sovay have bounced off different books.

[thisbluespirit]

I can't explain why I bounced off Bk4. I had some annoyance with what happened with one character from Bk3, because of me only ever having read Bk3, and being biased that way, but I just had a weird visceral reaction to a scene for no reason that I have ever been able to explain to myself - it's as if it provoked some deeply unpleasant memory and yet there was no deeply unpleasant memory for it to evoke. V weird. But you expect weird things to happen with DWJ. It's only right that it should be one of her books that caused such strangeness to go on in my mind!!

My favourites are most of the standalone ones, really.

[skygiants]

I love the Dalemark Quartet! It's much dreamier and less whimsical than much of DWJ's other work, but it's a really interesting story about the costs of revolution, and gods as myths and as people, and the arcs of history -- I'd put it in conversation with Alexander's Westmark and MWT's Queen's Thief books.

[ashlyme]

Thank you! From the cover blurb, it looks a bit darker than the few DWJs I've read. A friend gave it to me and said "it's fantasy about folk musicians, should be up your street." Called out much? I don't know either series you also mention!