What Makes This Book So Great

Posted on 24 February 2018 by Jo Walton

As any reader of Jo Walton s Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re reader of books In 2008, then new science fiction mega site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re readingabout all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field s most ambitious series.Among Walton s many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge the question of what genre readers mean by mainstream the underappreciated SF adventures of C J Cherryh the field s many approaches to time travel the masterful science fiction of Samuel R Delany Salman Rushdie s Midnight s Children the early Hainish novels of Ursula K Le Guin and a Robert A Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. Best Read What Makes This Book So Great [ Author ] Jo Walton [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr If you re into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Intertextuality in SF What Makes This Book So Great by Jo WaltonI ve been reading SF forthan 30 years I ve probably read everything worth reading in the field, and I ve been always intrigued by the two questions 1 What makes a SF book a good example of its kind 2 Why is SF relished by practiced readers, while others hate it Walton s book tries to answer the above mentioned questions Walton is clearly a SF devotee on If you re into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Intertextuality in SF What Makes This Book So Great by Jo WaltonI ve been reading SF forthan 30 years I ve probably read everything worth reading in the field, and I ve been always intrigued by the two questions 1 What makes a SF book a good example of its kind 2 Why is SF relished by practiced readers, while others hate it Walton...I can say without blushing that I felt like I was in a long drawn out conversation about books and reading with a long time friend.It might not be true, but it certainly felt true, and it was a continued conversation with whom I spent some truly memorable moments as I walked through the fantasy that was Among Others I m still not blushing, but perhaps I should be, because I dropped a goodly sum of money trying to hunt down all these other books, the ones I hadn t already read, simply because I can say without blushing that I felt like I was in a long drawn out conversation about books and reading with a long time friend.It might not be true, but it certainly felt true, and it was a continued conversation with whom I spent some truly memorable moments as I walked through the fantasy that was Among Others I m still not blushing, but perhaps I should be, because I dropped a goodly sum of money trying to hunt down all these other books, the ones I hadn t already read, simply because her enthusiasm was simply the last push I needed after realizing that her taste in SFF is sublime.I feel blessed, as I always feel blessed, after being introduced to fantastic and sophisticated works of high literature No one can gainsay me on this I ve spent a lot of time in both worlds, and genre li...If you re looking for SF must read novels, I would say to start here or by exploring the original posts on Tor.com rather than with something like the 100 Must Read books I ve been reviewing recently They barely scrape above the level of a list while they include a bit about each book and why it s worthwhile, Jo Walton ispassionate,excitable,like another fan she doesn t claim any kind of authority for her choice in books, doesn t hedge about including one book over If you re looking for SF must read novels, I would say to start here or by exploring the original posts on Tor.com rather than with something like the 100 Must Read books I ve been reviewing recently They barely scrape above the level of a list while they include a bit about each book and why it s worthwhile, Jo Walton ispassionate,excitable,like another fan she doesn t claim any kind of authority for her choice in books, doesn t hedge about including one book over another because it wasinfluential Those 100 Must Read books are a reference, a list this book is a conversation.It s rare for a non fiction book to keep my attention so strongly as this one did Part of it is, I guess, that various things Jo Walton s written resonate right through me and I also know a little of her personal warmth and kindness While I ve spoken to a few authors and even trade tweets semi regularly with a couple, Jo Wal...I really wanted to post about this new book by Jo Walton one of a few coming out this year by the author , but I find that if I wait until I m done reading, it ll be years before I can say anything.And the reason for that is right there in the title What Makes This Book So Great is about as clever as you can get for a book containing Jo Walton s reviews and other posts she has done for Tor.com, referring to both the reviews and the immediate book Full of wonderful reviews, Walton covers many I really wanted to post about this new book by ...This fulfills that same sweet spot as Hornby s writing for The Believer and Anne Fadiman s Ex Libris I really enjoy reading what a devoted reader has to say about reading Forgive the recursion, please In this case, Walton is an astoundingly prolific readers, and surely she is the most prolific re reader the modern world has ever known Her tastes aren t exactly mine, although there is enough overlap to make some of these reviews into I must read this now urgency But even the titles I This fulfills that same sweet spot as Hornby s writing for The Believer and Anne Fadiman s Ex Libris I really enjoy reading what a devoted reader has to say about reading Forgive the recursion, please In this case, Walton is an astoundingly prolific readers, and surely she is the most prolific re reader the modern world has eve...I didn t enjoy this quite as much as I d hoped to, but that is partly my fault for failing to read the description and the Table of Contents as carefully as I should have This is, as Walton explains in her introduction, a collection of blog posts which were written for Tor.com between July 2008 and February 2011 They are all short mostly around three pages long That part is great What was less great for me was that Walton is not writing reviews of new books, which I knew, but is writing I didn t enjoy this quite as much as I d hoped to, but that is partly my fault for failing to read the description and the Table of Contents as carefully as I should have This is, as Walton explains in her introduction, a collection of blog posts which were written for Tor.com between July 2008 and February 2011 They are all short mostly around three pages long That part is great What was less great for me was that Walton is not writing reviews of new books, which I knew, but is writing about books she is rereading This would be fine, except that, of course, one mostly rereads books one really enjoyed, and if you enjoy one book by an author you very likely will be fond of their other books as well The upshot being that she has four essays on C.J Cherryh, four on Robert Heinlein, fifteen on Lois McMaster Bujold, and seventeen on ...I love Jo Walton s blog posts on Tor.com Walton is a passionate, thoughtful reader and re reader and I appreciate her sharing this with so many For one, I know I will never read or re read as much as she has in this lifetime, but I get the benefits of her experiences one essay after another I am about halfway through these and they were perfect for a family trip in which I had little time or concentration to read a sustained narrative I just finished reading her many awesome chapters on I love Jo Walton s blog posts on Tor.com Walton is a passionate, thoughtful reader and re ...When I read Jo Walton s award winning fantasy Among Others winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards , I especially enjoyed how the young character constantly visited to her local library to get stacks of science fiction and fantasy books through interlibrary loan I thought at the time that Walton must be an avid reader Avid is an understatement When I read Walton s book of columns, entitled What Makes This Book So Great Re Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy, I found out When I read Jo Walton s award winning fantasy Among Others winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards , I especially enjoyed how the young character constantly visited to her local library to get stacks of science fiction and fantasy books through interlibrary loan I thought at the time that Walton must be an avid reader Avid is an understatement When I read Walton s book of columns, entitled What Makes...This was great, and confirmed what I have always believed that Jo Walton and I are completely in sync when it comes to books I loved hearing her thoughts on a lot of favorites of mine, like why Jonathan Strange Mr Norrell isn twidely imitated, or how the first few books of the Dragonriders of Pern were the best It was also interesting, and left me a lot of things that I want to read, to hear her talk about things that I had either not read or never...If you know me well, then you probably know that I can be a little excessive about reading about other people reading If I could, I would force everyone I like, some people I don t like, and possibly some borderline strangers to regularly update me on their reading habits Instead of satisfying that addiction, goodreads only made things worse when I joined I m personally responsible for forcing convincing a number of friends to sign up, promising them that it s fun but really, driven by my If you know me well, then you probably know that I can be a little excessive about reading about other people reading If I could, I would force everyone I like, some people I don t like, and possibly some borderline strangers to regularly update me on their reading habits Instead of satisfying that addiction, goodreads only made thi...

English
24 February 2018

Jo Walton