Flat Earth!

[yendi]

No, this post is not about Mike Huckabee. It's about the fact that Tanith Lee's Flat Earth books are coming back into print. Yay!

My wife and I disagree on Lee's writing, but these books were hugely influential in my younger days, both in terms of reading and writing. I was ten or eleven when I ordered the first collection from the Sci-Fi Book Club, and I'd never encountered something that played with story structure (or adult themes) in the way Night's Master did.

Comments

[norda.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, Tanith Lee's writing is a great teaching tool to use to dissect writing.

Her use of words and vocabulary made an impression on me in high school and college and she had some truly memorable vignettes. But I can't say she's a superb novelist.

She's marvelous for narrative, not so good for the mechanism of making the action of storytelling unfold and move along. This can be seen in her screenplays for BLAKE'S 7. Wonderful visual description, but really more style than substance.

But I love The Flat Earth books, for all their flaws, and am just as happy to see these back in my publisher's catalogue.

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

Her early writing for me is mostly *those* books. I had all three Master books in the DAW mmpb ed's with the beautiful covers, lost them one of my giant sell-off of books to raise money,
found Night's Master again and always looked for the others everytime
i hit a used book store.

A seemingly limitless mythology influenced fantasy universe with gorgeous
descriptions and stories you could get lost in. I never really got nearly
as much into her later stuff though i like some of it, the very moody atmospheric works she wrote.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

Lee's writing has always been very hit or miss for me...some of her stuff I loved; other things just made me feel off...as if I was missing something in the story. I think it has to do with the pacing of her stories.

[stevietee.livejournal.com]

Being in the Sci-Fi Book Club when I was in junior high school and high school was instrumental in my current reading habits, most especially in regards to Pterry!

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

I love most of her stuff, but I'm enamored of the Flat Earth series.