What you describe was my experience with George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series - great epic fantasies, except time-consuming and a tad on the long side. It got to the point that I felt as if I was only reading George RR Martin and that was after the second monster. Took me five months. The dang things were too bloody long - (1000 pages each). The man overwrites and feels a need to describe every battle in minute detail.
Have decided to try Outlander based mostly on an offline friend's rec - who I share similar reading interests with and stated that she hates romance novels but this one pulled her in and wouldn't let go. But your description above makes me think that it may annoy me. I don't like heroines who always do the right thing, get the guy with little effort, and have consequences imposed as opposed to just happening. It's a problem I have with the historical romance genre and to some extent the fantasy genre.
I think the reason I haven't read or *cough*been avoiding*cough to read books like Middlemarch is I don't like the Victorian era. Books published about and during that era, grate on my nerves for some reason. Jane Austen is pre-Victorian and the books published prior to that era and after it, are much easier for me to digest. They seem to have a sense of humor and play that I'm not certain the Victorians possessed in their writing. The Victorians come across as a bit on the "haughty" side for my taste - Whedon actually did a good job of making fun of them in the series, which I adored.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-08-06 01:54 pm (UTC)The dang things were too bloody long - (1000 pages each). The man overwrites and feels a need to describe every battle in minute detail.
Have decided to try Outlander based mostly on an offline friend's rec - who I share similar reading interests with and stated that she hates romance novels but this one pulled her in and wouldn't let go. But your description above makes me think that it may annoy me. I don't like heroines who always do the right thing, get the guy with little effort, and have consequences imposed as opposed to just happening. It's a problem I have with the historical romance genre and to some extent the fantasy genre.
I think the reason I haven't read or *cough*been avoiding*cough to read books like Middlemarch is I don't like the Victorian era. Books published about and during that era, grate on my nerves for some reason. Jane Austen is pre-Victorian and the books published prior to that era and after it, are much easier for me to digest. They seem to have a sense of humor and play that I'm not certain the Victorians possessed in their writing. The Victorians come across as a bit on the "haughty" side for my taste - Whedon actually did a good job of making fun of them in the series, which I adored.