Prompted by this post, I'd like to ruminate a bit about types of magic in fantasy novels.
( diffindo! )

This entry was originally posted at http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/586185.html.

Today I saw "Inkheart" with my nieces. Good film. I've had "Inkheart" on my to-read pile for ages and ages, so I feel all guilty that I still didn't manage to read it before watching the movie. Well, I shall just have to read it now.

( ramblings )

After the movie, I wandered around the shopping centre, looking for bookstores to see if I could get the next two books in the trilogy (since I already have the first one). Alas, no joy; in one store they only had Inkheart (but they also had Knife! So I bought a copy to have a copy ready to give someone as a present). The other store had Inkheart, Inkdeath, and a all-three-books-in-one-volume tome, which I didn't want to buy because I didn't want to have to lug around such a big book, and since I already have a copy of Inkheart, it would be wasting money to pay for two copies of the same book.

Then I went looking for a new watch. My previous watch still works, but it has no strap (cheap plastic, it broke, and then broke some more, and then it broke a bit more after that). Normally I carry it in my pocket, but this morning I couldn't find it, and it was a bit stressful being without a watch, particularly when one is wandering around a shopping centre and have to meet people at a particular time.

So I went to one jewelery store, and they were not much good. I looked in the window of another, but they didn't have much range either. Then I looked at the Information screen, and found other jewelers, and went to Bevilles. They turned out to have a very large range of watches, so I looked at them all in the window to see what subset of same I would be most interested in. No plastic straps for me this time. Leather. And a digital watch. With 24-hour time. A simple set of requirements, yes? No, apparently not. But the shop assistant was really helpful, and I was laughing at our predicaments (such as not being able to find any instructions for the watches we were looking at) rather than getting cross, and that made it all pretty pleasant. The shop assistant reminded me a bit of lizbee, actually - pretty, young, thin, friendly, helpful.

I now have a new watch. I guess it will take a little while to get used to it; it is much bigger than my previous one, but the strap is really good thick leather, a sort of double-strap, with a wide leather band at the top, and a normal-sized strap over the top of it. The kind of watch that Rick O'Connell would have if he had a digital watch.

The Joy of a Mad God

God's Grandmother

The Quill of the Gods

The Hammer of the Carpenter

Mouse Quest

The Forge of Goodness

The Way of Light

The Shadow of Remaking

One where, instead of Mary-Sue American going into a fantasy world and having an unexpected Talent for Magic, we have Our Heroine coming from a fantasy world and having an unexpected Talent for... um... pistol-shooting? (I was tempted to say "computer programming" but that's not something that one picks up in ten minutes like they seem to need to if they're Saving The World).

Poison Study by Maria V Snyder

"About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. As a food taster, she'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace -- and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia."
( thoughts on book )
I hope there's a sequel.
ETA There is a sequel, "Magic Study", which is already out in hardback. Hmmm.

Another thing that happened today, this morning actually, was that I went to see "The Lion The Witch and the Wardobe" with aizain.
( ramblings )
Must. See.

Well, I've just come back from seeing "Howl's Moving Castle" with aizain and I have a mixed report. It was, yes, pretty, and there were bits that were delightlfully true to the book... but it was like they'd taken 50% of the plot and made a tossed-salad of it, with extra ingedients.
( here be spoilers )