papersky's new book is out

[xiphias]

I just finished Jo Walton's new book, AMONG OTHERS. Her working title was "An Industrial Landscape of Elfland", and it's her most autobiographical book to date. Her comment is that it has the same relationship to her life that the Sulien books have to the Arthurian legends.

Which means, of course, that there is a deep temptation to try to figure out which parts of the thing are fuction and which are not.

Here are some of my guesses -- and I have an unfair advantage in that I know Jo and therefore have heard her talk about her life. So I know that the fairies are real, and so is the evil insane mother, but I don't know whether the evil insane mother is actually a witch in real life or not. I know that Jo walks with a cane, but I don't know if that was from a childhood injury in which her twin sister was killed, but it wouldn't surprise me.

On the other hand, the bit about there being something called a "Phurnacite plant" is obviously made up. "Phurnacite" is just not a plausible name in the first place, and there's no way that there would be an actual factory that was so poisonous that it killed all the plants and animals for two miles around. It's obviously just a pastiche of Sauron's factory in Mordor, and she all but acknowledges that in how she writes it.

Also, she clearly ripped off the "four houses in a boarding school competing for some stupid house cup" thing from Harry Potter. Again, that's just not plausible to be something in the real world.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right! I should have known I couldn't fool anybody with that kind of nonsense.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Also, she clearly ripped off the "four houses in a boarding school competing for some stupid house cup" thing from Harry Potter. Again, that's just not plausible to be something in the real world.

You're joking about that, right?

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

OK, yes, you're joking.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

So you know, you've got a spam outbreak going on here. (Although a singly inept one, as there don't seem to be any links or URLs in either one.)

Also, you are funny.

-Nameseeker

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I intended to deal with that, but hadn't gotten around to it. Thanks.

[curmudgn]

If you wanna get down to it, she stole the "competing for some stupid house cup" from Gilbert Patten, who stole it from the various writers of the Jack Harkaway series (Bracebridge Hemyng et al.).