khaosworks | (Reply)

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I don't think my situation is quite the same. I would ordinarily say the massive Sinophilia kick that grabbed my brain last year and refuses to let go, ever, had done this - I can't remember the last time I bought an SF/F novel other than things by Pratchett - but I've been looking over my reading list of the last few months. I don't know that it's so much the historical aspect that I'm after as the cultural, the anthropological - not so much what happened as what was it like. The almost 'straight' historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms wasn't nearly as compelling for me as Outlaws of the Marsh - although Outlaws had the distinction of causing me to take a good long look at the tv series "Bonanza" and laugh long and hard at how pathetic the characters were by comparison*. And I don't think anyone could call Journey to the West historical - but as something that offered a leg up on understanding a culture, as an anthropological work, it was bloody outstanding and the first book that ever convinced me to spend $80 for something other than nowhere-else-in-the-world pictures**. I've recently launched into Louis Cha's The Deer and the Cauldron; it's just the sort of fiction I'm looking for right now. I'll happily pounce on anyone's literature, so long as it's good enough to get me inside the heads of the people it's written for. Which is, I think, how Pratchett survived the radical shift of interest; there's always something going on there that's worth understanding.

*BEN CARTWRIGHT: I have pneumonia or something. EVIL GANG: Come out and fight! BEN: Um. CARTWRIGHT BOYS: We need help, townsfolk. TOWNSFOLK: Eek. We all have better things to do. BEN: *hack cough wheeze* BOYS: I'm drafting someone to help fight. For comparison, the guys in Outlaws given the same situation: SONG JIANG: I have pneumonia or something. EVIL GOV'T TROOPS: Come out and fight! LU DA: I'll do it! LIN CHONG: I'll do it! OTHER PEOPLE: We'll help! LI KUI: I'll do it! I'll do it naked! I'll do it naked and with one hand tied behind my back! I'll attack them solo and armed with nothing but my teeth! SONG JIANG: Somebody hold him down before he does something stupid?

**Textbooks don't count. They're not bought by choice.