I am NOT a huge fan of fantasy. My likes are limited to only the extremely original: LORD OF THE RINGS; CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT, UNBELEIVER; CHRONICLES OF NARNIA; SWORD OF SHANARA; JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL; and a few others. When I step out of “sword and sorcery”, the fantasy I like best falls into the “urban fantasy” variety – WAR FOR THE OAKS and A MADNESS OF ANGELS are my prime examples. Keeping that in mind, I was looking for an idea and I came across this page: http://www.teenrc.ca/booklists?page=1&tid=2635. It’s a page of reviews about books (in this case, the spark was a review of a book called DIE FOR ME (author Amy Plum, review by happy_Panda) aimed at young adults/teens.
I turned the idea upside down: the family of fifteen-year-old Dude who lives on an organic dairy farm in Wisconsin
He adjusts to his new life and a new school because of another quiet girl. They talk, discover that they love reading – she like mythology, he likes science fiction – but they eventually go on a date and then start to hang out together. That’s when he meets her family. They treat her as if she’s a pariah; some sort of diseased freak. He can’t figure out WHAT’S wrong. Then she tells him her secret: the Angel of the Lakes, Guardian of the City of Minneapolis is about to be devoured by the Demon of the Wind, Oppressor of the City of Chicago and in so doing, will enslave all of the inhabitants of Minneapolis
The Dude doesn’t want her to Sacrifice herself. She doesn’t want to. Obviously, the Demon doesn’t want her to. But surprisingly, the Angel doesn’t want her to either – and might have another plan…
2 comments:
You've got to read PERDIDO STREET STATION. One way to describe it is to say that it's urban fantasy on another world. Another is to say that it's the book Neil Gaiman thought should have won the Hugo instead of his own AMERICAN GODS, and I think he's right.
I read PSS about six years ago at the recommendation of Todd Wallace and I loved it. In fact, the style of writing inspired me to create the only fantasy world I'd ever attempted. I've written the first book in a series -- but it's currently on my "future" revision pile. It's how I've started to write now: do the original as a series of short pieces of either flash fiction or vignettes; compile them into one file and put it aside and pull if from my blog. Once it's had time to sit, it comes up in the queu and I begin to edit it into a superior novel. We'll see if the method yields a salable book! The first two books are nearing finished and I'm fast in the middle of the other. So -- thanks for the advice! I KNOW I loved it!
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