LJ lives again!

[brigdh]

So, I keep seeing Georgette Heyer mentioned as an influence on Swordspoint, and I want to read some of her books, but apparently she wrote, like, fifty, and I have no idea where to start. Does anyone have recommendations for ones that are particularly relevant/well-written?

Any other book recommendations, by the way, are also welcome. And I know, I know, asking for such general recommendations tends to get me few responses, because it's so wide open that it actually stymies thought instead of encouraging it, but I can't think of a genre I want at the moment, other than "good". Um. Epic fantasy with interesting relationships always gets bonus points from me?

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

. . . and oh, what the hell. Not everyone loves Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun as I do, but you might: the relationships are interesting as hell, although some of my friends have complained that the narrative voice is so cool and distanced that they didn't get a real feel for any of them. I found that to be a strength rather than a weakness, but then, see above regarding how much I'm not a natural romance reader. And both the language and the visuals are gorgeous.

And I can't resist saying once again that as much as I liked The Years of Rice and Salt -- and I did -- I still love The Memory of Whiteness more. So much so that I can't even begin to guess whether it's actually a better book in some abstract and aesthetic sense, as I am inclined to think, or whether it's just something internal to me. I keep pushing it at other people in the hope that some of them will some day be able to tell me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh! I'd forgotten to tell you, then: I did read The Memory of Whiteness, off your recommendation. I didn't like it as much as The Years of Rice and Salt, but I think it might be because I know history, but not the technical aspects of music at all, so that I was lost in the more detailed descriptions of the instruments and songs. I did quite like a lot of it, though, particularly the world-building, the way each of the planets and moons were so different, and the scenes of Earth were beautifully described.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Damn. Now we clearly need for Dorian to read both of them, because she actually knows music and might be able to tell us whether and to what extent that helps. At first I was going to say, no, it must be something else, because I don't know much about music either.

But then I thought about it and realized you may well be right. I don't know much music, but I have just enough exposure to the Western canon to be familiar with both the original piano version of Pictures At an Exhibition and with the orchestration, and to have an opinion about them. So it may be that in fact, what I know is the minimum necessary to really love the book.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Which is far more than I know. Clearly my musical education was deficient, which is hardly a surprise, as the only thing I learned from it was how to play 'Hot Cross Buns' on the recorder. I generally even had to guess as to which songs were real- in the sense that someone had actually written them, and I could track down a copy if I wanted- and which ones either are in our future, or simply don't exist.

It was a gorgeous book though, and I encourage attempts to recommend them to Dorian, if only because I'd like to see what she'd say.