Free books.

[mrissa]

I have another set of books up for grabs. As usual, people in the Twin Cities area get first dibs, and I'm not really willing to send things out of the country. Sorry.

I have decided that the work of Leah Cutter is not for me. The descriptions of her novels always sound like things I really, truly want to read, and then I read them, and...meh. Meh! And we aren't so overendowed with shelf space that I want to keep them. So I have:

Paper Mage, about an origami-directed mage during the Tang Dynasty

The Caves of Buda, about Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans doing magic

The Jaguar and the Wolf, Vikings meet Mayans, Viking gods meet Mayan gods

Let me know if you want them.

ETA: No more free books left today. allochthon and the Reverend Selena's monkeys have claimed them.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think they're pretty darned mediocre, but if I was writing something called Paper Knives, I'd want to read Paper Mage just in case.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I found it mediocre, too, so good then. You have now read all the Leah Cutter you need to read, as far as I'm concerned.

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

Damn, those *do* sound like books I'd want to read. how do they end up going meh on you?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There's just no spark to them. The emotional arcs feel wooden to me. The Caves of Buda features as one of its prominent threads the decline of a beloved grandfather. I read it on the way to say goodbye to markgritter's grandmother, who was dying, who was beloved by both of us, and I could read The Caves of Buda without a quiver, without a moment where I had to stick my finger in the book and close my eyes and swallow hard. Nothing in them made me rear back and go, "Wow." Not even, "Wow. This one paragraph is really cool, it's too bad the rest of the chapter sucks." Just: meh. They read like Cutter has a very sound theoretical grasp on what makes a fantasy novel cool and just can't translate it into practice.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I too love her premises, but not the execution of them: admirable but dull. Here's my review of The Caves of Buda:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_cutter_cavesofbuda.html

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Just so.

[allochthon.livejournal.com]

If no one else who you'd see first claims them, I'd love to have them. I can swing by, sometime, if that works.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Since I'm hermitting, I don't have a list of people I'm likely to see (and I checked with the few I am first), so I'll set aside the first two of them for you for when we can manage it.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

careswen amd I are interested in The Jaguar and the Wolf. We actaully had a conversation this morning about Viking, Mayans, and their Gods. It seemed to much of a coincidence to pass up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I will tag it for you.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

None left? But I love Vikings!

[zalena.livejournal.com]

On second thought (I read Amazon description) it doesn't sound like it's really for me.

Do you have some favorite fiction about Norse culture?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking and thinking about this, and the closest I'm coming is Will Shetterly's children's book and joelrosenberg's alternate world fantasy, and neither is really about Norse culture per se.

I like my book, but that's not really readily available at this point.

I haven't read Sea of Trolls yet, so we'll see on that one.