in which Chloe gets off topic
Jun. 16th, 2009 02:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grassangelSo... I randomly picked up Dragon Wytch by Yasmine Galenorn to see how bad the paranormal romance genre is most of the time.
And yes, the title does give a good idea of how bad it is.
I tried reading it through, but the first person past tense/the character narrating it annoyed the hell out of me. So I skimmed.
It does seem paranormal romance is romance + fairies/dragons/elves + fighting. There was more fighting in this book as far as I could see though. In terms of pages worth at least.
The romance portion consisted of some love square/triangle though. The summary of that seems more or less that the drow/dark elf was a traitor/spy and now the main character is in a 'triad' with a dragon and kitsune instead of with a dark elf and kitsune.
So it was a bit "Yay! Threesome" except it wasn't a good one like DouWataHima and was more like IshiTatsuHime. It was all focused on the main character.
I actually have something approaching a term for the different threesome formations I've observed. Their shapes also echo their stability.
Arrow is the above, when two of the three are focussed on the third member. An example would be the above IshiTatsuHime. An arrow is sharp as well, so this doesn't work so well, usually.
See-saw is when one member is balancing the other two, like Sakura with Naruto and Sasuke. This one can kind of work, except the one in the middle does most of the work.
Finally there's triangle, in which all three members are more or less equal, like DouWataHima. And triangles are an extremely strong shape, so they're the most stable.
Anyway, threesome was weird, even if dragons and kitsune are in my top five mythological creatures.
And when is Morio a Japanese name? 'Mori' and 'Rio', yes, but Morio sounds like some weird variant on 'Mario'.
I think I'll stick with my regular fantasy/sci fi and urban fantasy/modern faerie books.
These lists actually fluctuate a lot, but the five listed are my general top five.
Mythological animals
1. Dragons
Seriously, I love them. Ever since I read a picture book about one called Benjamin who liked honeycomb/hokey pokey and whose best friend was a hedgehog. They don't deserve the bad reputation they get in Western mythology. In all the cases when young women/virgins were fed to dragons, it was the villagers who decided that the dragon would find them tastiest.
My top three dragon types are western dragon, eastern dragon and wyvern.
2. Phoenixes
I likes the pretty fire birds. The rebirth motif is kind of interesting too, but I mostly like phoenixes for the pretty.
3. Kitsune (tied)
To be fair, I like the kitsune more because it's a fox than anything else. Inari is pretty spiffy as and I do proclaim my love for Renamon, but MYTHICAL, MAGICAL FOXES.
3. Baku (tied)
A half elephant, half lion monster that eats your nightmares. It gets a bad rep for appearing before plagues, even though it EATS the plague spirits.
I think it's cute, even in the uglier illustations. The dreamseller in xxxHOLiC? Yeah, that's a baku.
5. Unicorn
Another one that's mostly for the pretty. Although, for the record, I don't like the abominations that are winged unicorns.
Regular animals
1. Hedgehogs
Two words. Mrs. Tiggywinkle.
And they eat up slugs and bugs and are generally all kinds of useful in the garden. Plus they're the cutest little Insectivora around.
2. (tied) Foxes
I blame Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Animals of Farthing Wood and, kind of, Jemima Puddle-Duck. The first two because the foxes are horribly clever in the face of adversity and the third because I always felt a bit sorry Mr. Fox didn't get to have his dinner.
2. (tied) Cats
I don't think I should have to explain this animal. Because while I can stand dogs, cats can purr and meow and while they can be horrible snooty they at least don't get over excited and slobbery.
4. Badgers
Another animal liked because of The Animals of Farthing Wood. And because they're cute.
5. Armadillos
I cannot quite remember why I started liking armadillos except I went quite fanatic over them for a period of time. They're rather curious mammals, always having four identical offspring (depending on which species) and having a rather low body temperature.
They're rather curious looking creatures too, which like the Baku, are kinda ugly but I think are kind of cute and endearing.
And yes, the title does give a good idea of how bad it is.
I tried reading it through, but the first person past tense/the character narrating it annoyed the hell out of me. So I skimmed.
It does seem paranormal romance is romance + fairies/dragons/elves + fighting. There was more fighting in this book as far as I could see though. In terms of pages worth at least.
The romance portion consisted of some love square/triangle though. The summary of that seems more or less that the drow/dark elf was a traitor/spy and now the main character is in a 'triad' with a dragon and kitsune instead of with a dark elf and kitsune.
So it was a bit "Yay! Threesome" except it wasn't a good one like DouWataHima and was more like IshiTatsuHime. It was all focused on the main character.
I actually have something approaching a term for the different threesome formations I've observed. Their shapes also echo their stability.
Arrow is the above, when two of the three are focussed on the third member. An example would be the above IshiTatsuHime. An arrow is sharp as well, so this doesn't work so well, usually.
See-saw is when one member is balancing the other two, like Sakura with Naruto and Sasuke. This one can kind of work, except the one in the middle does most of the work.
Finally there's triangle, in which all three members are more or less equal, like DouWataHima. And triangles are an extremely strong shape, so they're the most stable.
Anyway, threesome was weird, even if dragons and kitsune are in my top five mythological creatures.
And when is Morio a Japanese name? 'Mori' and 'Rio', yes, but Morio sounds like some weird variant on 'Mario'.
I think I'll stick with my regular fantasy/sci fi and urban fantasy/modern faerie books.
These lists actually fluctuate a lot, but the five listed are my general top five.
Mythological animals
1. Dragons
Seriously, I love them. Ever since I read a picture book about one called Benjamin who liked honeycomb/hokey pokey and whose best friend was a hedgehog. They don't deserve the bad reputation they get in Western mythology. In all the cases when young women/virgins were fed to dragons, it was the villagers who decided that the dragon would find them tastiest.
My top three dragon types are western dragon, eastern dragon and wyvern.
2. Phoenixes
I likes the pretty fire birds. The rebirth motif is kind of interesting too, but I mostly like phoenixes for the pretty.
3. Kitsune (tied)
To be fair, I like the kitsune more because it's a fox than anything else. Inari is pretty spiffy as and I do proclaim my love for Renamon, but MYTHICAL, MAGICAL FOXES.
3. Baku (tied)
A half elephant, half lion monster that eats your nightmares. It gets a bad rep for appearing before plagues, even though it EATS the plague spirits.
I think it's cute, even in the uglier illustations. The dreamseller in xxxHOLiC? Yeah, that's a baku.
5. Unicorn
Another one that's mostly for the pretty. Although, for the record, I don't like the abominations that are winged unicorns.
Regular animals
1. Hedgehogs
Two words. Mrs. Tiggywinkle.
And they eat up slugs and bugs and are generally all kinds of useful in the garden. Plus they're the cutest little Insectivora around.
2. (tied) Foxes
I blame Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Animals of Farthing Wood and, kind of, Jemima Puddle-Duck. The first two because the foxes are horribly clever in the face of adversity and the third because I always felt a bit sorry Mr. Fox didn't get to have his dinner.
2. (tied) Cats
I don't think I should have to explain this animal. Because while I can stand dogs, cats can purr and meow and while they can be horrible snooty they at least don't get over excited and slobbery.
4. Badgers
Another animal liked because of The Animals of Farthing Wood. And because they're cute.
5. Armadillos
I cannot quite remember why I started liking armadillos except I went quite fanatic over them for a period of time. They're rather curious mammals, always having four identical offspring (depending on which species) and having a rather low body temperature.
They're rather curious looking creatures too, which like the Baku, are kinda ugly but I think are kind of cute and endearing.
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-15 02:24 pm (UTC)I don't like any other kind of tapir though. Just the black and white ones.
And your list, is pretty much my list. Wow!
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 03:30 pm (UTC)And which list? Mythological or normal animals?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 04:58 am (UTC)Dragons are my favorite mythological animals, tops, ever.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-16 03:27 pm (UTC)Nor do they have the horrid cover/blurb combination that this one had.And genre's an iffy subject. One person's Paranormal Fantasy is another's Modern Fantasy.And yus, another dragon lover.