2019-04-16 - Christina's Reading Questions - Part 1
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 Saw this as  a conversation point on someone  else's phlog, thought
 I'd take part.
 
 Just  doing the  first  few  questions has  taken  longer than  I'd
 anticipated, so I'll split this over a few posts.
 
 > What is the first book you remember loving?
 
 Anne Holm's _I am David_. 
 
 I must have read  this when I was six or seven  years old, I'd read
 and  enjoyed  books before  then,  but  I  don't remember  them.  I
 remember this, though. I guess it  was the feeling that David and I
 shared, I don't know, something. Some sort of shared commonality of
 origin.
 
 I cried when the  dog died. (spoiler: the dog dies)  I cried at the
 books last line. I loved this book, and was a little put out when I
 discovered that  it was  a standard text  now  here in  Ireland for
 primary school kids.
 
 > What book/series would you like to see adapted to film?
 
 Steven Erikson's _Malazan Book of the Fallen_.
 
 Not that it could  ever be a _film_, but there's  enough in them to
 create  at  least  seven  seasons of  a  Televisial  Fantasy  epic,
 certainly more  to them than the  godawful Game of Thrones.  It has
 everything, magic, dragons, war, murder, more war, more magic, more
 dragons, arcane  politicking and even several  long-thought extinct
 races of creatures.
 
 There's a few elements which would  need to be excised (Erikson has
 acknowledged these flaws in various appearances) but as a whole the
 series has  so much to offer  a reader that could  be translated to
 the screen.  The Chain of  Dogs, one  narrative in the  second book
 _Deadhouse  Gates_,  alone  could  make  for  a  single  season  of
 incredible television.
 
 > Who are your favourite protagonists?
 
 Ankh-Morpork City Watch, _Discworld_.
 
 More  particularly,   Samuel  Vimes,  described  on   wikipedia  as
 "somewhere  between an  Inspector  Morse-type 'old-school'  British
 policeman, and a film-noir-esque  grizzled, jaded detective." Vimes
 is just such an utterly and completely decent human being, spending
 time inside his head is a pleasure.
 
 > Who are your favourite antagonists?
 
 The  Crippled  God/Forkrul  Assail  of  the  _Malazan_  Books.  The
 Crippled God is  revealed to be behind  all of the Big  Bads in the
 earlier books, and the Forkrul Assail come after.
 
 > What, so far, is the best book you've read this year?
 
 Kameron Hurley _The Light Brigade_
 
 I've waited for this book for  so long, and it delivered everything
 I could  have wanted.  Mil-SF, but  with all  of Hurley's  rage and
 anger distilled into  one titanic scream of despair.  Not _as_ grim
 as her usual grimdark adventures, but the only light in the book is
 the  one on  the cover.  Just  a great  book, and  one I'd  happily
 recommend to anyone.
 
 
 TO BE CONTINUED...