Audience participation

[lightreads]

Okay, you guys were so great last time, let’s try this again. Any opinions on where one ought to start with these guys? Cautionary tales?

• Iain M. Banks’s Culture series: I understand they’re mostly standalones and that the first book by pub order is not great, so where do I start?
• Charles de Lint: *gestures helplessly* that is a pile of books.
• Andre Norton: ditto
• Gene Wolfe

Also, if anyone can rec a relatively sane biography of Anne Boleyn, I’d be most grateful. For values of “relatively sane” meaning with at least a pretense at considering evidence before speculating.

Comments

[cahn]

I do not like Banks as a general rule; too cerebral in his violence and too distant. (I always have this picture in my head of Banks with a monocle, gravely and scientifically eyeing a bug with the wings and legs pulled off. I'm not saying he does that! But that's the image his books give me.)

However, I actually liked Feersum Enjinn quite a lot, although it took me two tries to get through the awful phonetic spelling. I feel it's his only book where there is any actual character sympathy going on. I also liked Player of Games; though it also is devoid of character sympathy, it is interesting enough that I didn't mind. Too much.