SBD--woof, snarl, meow
Lori has an article up about shapeshifters. Heck, she's a shape-shifting writer. She can write homespun/funny or tense/scary. Not a one trick pony.
Notice the "pimping self" in the list of tags on this entry? because Lori's got Summer Devon in her article.
Listen, it's okay if you don't like them, but don't whine or growl to me about shape shifters. The whole shifting thing is fun, dammit. Disbelief??? No, nope, pfah, I don't have a problem with that unless the characters don't reflect their various forms even a little bit. If you shape-shift into a cat, you ought to have a taste for fish when you come out of it.
I like the glitches that cause characters to be more complex because of their shifting. My current favorite shape-shifter is the werewolf, Angua, from Pratchett. She thinks like a dog and can't quite abandon that--absently picking up a squeaky bone and playing with it, running straight to Carrot when he snaps his fingers. The great thing about Pratchett is that there are degrees of shifting, like there's Greebo the cat that's shifted but not really. He's a great studly shell with pure tomcat center.
Not sure Pratchett has the bats/vampire thing sorted out, but then, neither do the vampires. (Interesting that there's a single bat vampire in Witches Abroad. Guess the whole 120 lbs to 6 ounces conversion thing hadn't occurred to him yet.)
Yes, I plan to think about other writers some day and it will be soon because
1. I've run out of Pratchetts to read
2. Even I'm bored by myself thinking about them.
But I'm away from fantasy and am currently plowing (I'm doing more than a book a day) through Victoria Thompson's mysteries. Not that I want to but they have an addictive quality and she knows NYC. I was addicted with the first book even though I didn't particularly like it. Now I care about the characters, and I think she's gotten better, so I'm trapped like a rat.
I have to be very, very careful I don't imitate her or steal any of her old NYC stuff. Yikes, scary. I'll go read Kings Guide to New York after I finish her stuff so I don't know where I get the details.
Notice the "pimping self" in the list of tags on this entry? because Lori's got Summer Devon in her article.
Listen, it's okay if you don't like them, but don't whine or growl to me about shape shifters. The whole shifting thing is fun, dammit. Disbelief??? No, nope, pfah, I don't have a problem with that unless the characters don't reflect their various forms even a little bit. If you shape-shift into a cat, you ought to have a taste for fish when you come out of it.
I like the glitches that cause characters to be more complex because of their shifting. My current favorite shape-shifter is the werewolf, Angua, from Pratchett. She thinks like a dog and can't quite abandon that--absently picking up a squeaky bone and playing with it, running straight to Carrot when he snaps his fingers. The great thing about Pratchett is that there are degrees of shifting, like there's Greebo the cat that's shifted but not really. He's a great studly shell with pure tomcat center.
Not sure Pratchett has the bats/vampire thing sorted out, but then, neither do the vampires. (Interesting that there's a single bat vampire in Witches Abroad. Guess the whole 120 lbs to 6 ounces conversion thing hadn't occurred to him yet.)
Yes, I plan to think about other writers some day and it will be soon because
1. I've run out of Pratchetts to read
2. Even I'm bored by myself thinking about them.
But I'm away from fantasy and am currently plowing (I'm doing more than a book a day) through Victoria Thompson's mysteries. Not that I want to but they have an addictive quality and she knows NYC. I was addicted with the first book even though I didn't particularly like it. Now I care about the characters, and I think she's gotten better, so I'm trapped like a rat.
I have to be very, very careful I don't imitate her or steal any of her old NYC stuff. Yikes, scary. I'll go read Kings Guide to New York after I finish her stuff so I don't know where I get the details.
When you've run out of Pratchetts to read, there's only one course of action--start over. That's what I'm doing. I STILL LIKE DEATH and DEATH OF RATS the best. Oh, and the luggage. Makes me smile just thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteI don't really like shapeshifters. Sorry. And I wrote a shark one. So go figure.
Shark? really?
ReplyDelete(goes to inspect Ciar's backlist)
And I have reread a bunch of those Pratchetts. Always pitiful what an addict does to get a fix.