Failure of Merry Gentry?
Jun. 15th, 2010 11:20 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
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Hi Guys!
I have been a Lurker for quite a while and have read along nodding with alot of the points you have all brought up on here. I was just wondering though the focus seems to be more on the AB series and granted this has fallen a long, long way since Obsidian Butterfly. I stopped reading the series after NIC but have followed the rest of the series in the brillaint blogs posted on here. Thank you, all of you who have saved me the time of actually reading them myself. It is rather like watching a rollercoaster to hell as the series sinks even further.
My question for you is did anybody ever read the Merry Gentry like i did and prefer it? When I read the first Merry book I thought it was great. I had read the first three AB books by the time i read the first Merry book. I preferred it to the AB series. I thought it was a better premise and being more into mythology, Old World Fairy Tales and the Fae I found it really interesting. I initially liked the fact she was loud and proud about her sexual activities and likes and it got me up to the third book believe it or not. I liked the world that was set up and characters surrounding Merry, including her men all had sinister, suspect motivies. I find it rather sad the series has been ruined in Hamilton's hands. Does anyone else see that this series had the bones of a really awesome series that failed? What do you think Hamilton could have done to make it a better series, aside from not assasinating characters like Doyle and Sholto or turning it into a sexual free for all, or what could another author have done with this? Yasmine Galenorn and a few YA authors I've read over the years feature Fae and do a far better job, making them into the scary, unnerving and unpredictible Fae I expect to see.
I have been a Lurker for quite a while and have read along nodding with alot of the points you have all brought up on here. I was just wondering though the focus seems to be more on the AB series and granted this has fallen a long, long way since Obsidian Butterfly. I stopped reading the series after NIC but have followed the rest of the series in the brillaint blogs posted on here. Thank you, all of you who have saved me the time of actually reading them myself. It is rather like watching a rollercoaster to hell as the series sinks even further.
My question for you is did anybody ever read the Merry Gentry like i did and prefer it? When I read the first Merry book I thought it was great. I had read the first three AB books by the time i read the first Merry book. I preferred it to the AB series. I thought it was a better premise and being more into mythology, Old World Fairy Tales and the Fae I found it really interesting. I initially liked the fact she was loud and proud about her sexual activities and likes and it got me up to the third book believe it or not. I liked the world that was set up and characters surrounding Merry, including her men all had sinister, suspect motivies. I find it rather sad the series has been ruined in Hamilton's hands. Does anyone else see that this series had the bones of a really awesome series that failed? What do you think Hamilton could have done to make it a better series, aside from not assasinating characters like Doyle and Sholto or turning it into a sexual free for all, or what could another author have done with this? Yasmine Galenorn and a few YA authors I've read over the years feature Fae and do a far better job, making them into the scary, unnerving and unpredictible Fae I expect to see.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 02:30 am (UTC)Not addressing any particular person, but this has bugged me for some time:
The fey are magic. They can make dead plants come to life with a touch, they can bring a storm from a clear sky, they can make people see things that aren't there, so why do so many people seem shocked and disgruntled that their procreating involves magic too? LKH didn't even make that up, she took it from Celtic legend about the sidhe. Maybe some people here should go tell the Irish that their mythology ought to follow the rules of biology?
I'm no LKH fangirl, but I wish people here wouldn't try so hard to find things to complain about. The Anita Blake series is one thing, but she stated from the start of the MG series that these are magical beings and the rules are different for them.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 02:23 pm (UTC)Biology as far as when they were having sex vs. waiting for ovulation, I always thought that was fine because, hey, magic.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 09:38 pm (UTC)You make a good point, but it would also help if LKH didn't like whipping out her so-called biology degree and blathering about making her worlds realistic so people will accept the impossible.
See, to me, that would require thought, and maybe the explanation wouldn't get into the text, but the mechanisms would be all laid out. For example, consider any vampire myth...let's take feasting on blood. You could say it works by magic and leave it at that, or you could ponder out capillary action and digestion and circulation, which would in turn affect healing abilities and sexual abilities or not, what kind of blood is acceptable and therefore who is victimized by vampires...and so on.
By the by, did one of the multi-fathers of Celtic legend help knock the lady up after she went down on him? Because that also really strains credulity.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 12:11 am (UTC)So far as I know, that particular story didn't have conception from anything but regular sex, but mythology in general has much weirder things happen. Look at Athena's origins, for examples:
In order to avoid a prophecy made when that change occurred, that any offspring of his union with Metis would be greater than he, Zeus swallowed Metis to prevent her from having offspring, but she already was pregnant with Athena. Metis gave birth to Athena and nurtured her inside Zeus until Zeus complained of headaches and called for Hephaestus to split open his head with his smithing tools. Athena burst forth from his forehead fully armed with weapons given by her mother.
And Aphrodite's? Even weirder:
According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite.
Kind of make conception-by-blowjob seem normal by comparison, don't they?
(I'm sure there are "unusual" conceptions in Celtic mythology as well, but Greek/Roman is more my area of expertise.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 10:19 pm (UTC)Hahaha; point.
And from what I've read, her dual biology and English degrees came from some obscure Midwestern university. Note to high school grads: avoid that one.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-19 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 04:35 am (UTC)Just think of all the shagging Merry could have saved herself by dunking one of the little fairies in her coffee and slurping it down!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 04:56 am (UTC)