A little HP trivia

Bought the book yesterday at Target;

began reading at 3:40 pm;

finished at 8:15 pm!

To be honest, I was slightly disappointed, but it's not like I regret reading the book or anything. What I find fascinating about book series (serieses? how does one pluralize that?) is how you get sucked into the world that the author has created, to the extent that you're willing to read dross just to see what happens next. Which is not meant to suggest that Book 6 qualifies as dross; the best examples I can give here are various sci-fi/fantasy series, like the David and Leigh Eddings books, the Xanth books (both of which I gave up on years ago), and Anne McCaffrey's Pern books (which I will still read, but refuse to spend money on any more, and really, I can't bring myself to read the ones her son has been involved with either). I guess sci-fi fantasy is especially prone to this because this is a genre in which the authors most explicitly create new and different worlds, but I suppose in another sense you could apply this even to something like Danielle Steel (because I refuse to believe that the world she describes in her books bears any resemblance to reality).

Anyway for discussion of some of the book's defects - which are now being debated - check out Phantom Scribbler's  Harry Potter spoiler comment thread. But not if you haven't read it yet!

Oh, and this isn't very surprising, but in case anyone wanted to know:

I'm a Ravenclaw!

(I'm way too chicken to be in Gryffindor!)

Comments

[Phantom Scribbler]

LOL! Another intelligent chicken like myself.

I haven't read the Pern books since I was in junior high. Are there more, since the early 80s? Good grief!

[meg]

I already had you figured for Ravenclaw.

Back in grad school, my friend the French medievalist and I used to amuse ourselves by giving everyone we knew the Sorting Hat treatment. And you know one thing we figured out?

There are no full professors in Gryffindor. Plenty of Slitherins and Hufflepuffs, a sprinkling of Ravenclaws, but no Gryffindors. Go figure.

[Rebecca]

I got mine at 12:15am Saturday and I was done as the sun came up. I liked it--it isn't my favorite HP book, and the ending was truly upsetting, but I think the book was doing a lot of tying up of loose ends and setting up the final installment. I was by no means disappointed though. It was an entertaining read. Can't ask for much more than that!

If you want a REALLY LONG fantasy series in which the three or four most recent installments have had absolutely no point, try Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Nuts. I'll take Pern over that any day...

[russianviolets]

Damn, I wish the book would arrive. I took the quiz, though, and I am in Gryffindor. Perhaps the hat does make mistakes? :-)

[Another Damned Medievalist]

I am also Ravenclaw. But isn't McGonagall also a Griffyndor product? and although they don't say about Dumbledore, you get the feeling he was -- or Ravenclaw.

[sheepish]

Yeah, I've got a certain 10+ book fantasy series on my shelf. I compulsively bought the hardbacks when they came out, but I haven't even read the last two yet. I suppose I will someday, if only out of embarrassment.

[overread]

hehe - I read the Xanth books many many moons ago. I actually started to think of them as a kind of pre-porn for gifted young teens. Fun stories, lots of good puns, and a sprinkling of sex. Good times. Is he still writing them?

[dafina girl]

We have the same taste - I enjoyed Eddings and Mccaffrey books even when they turned to crap.

I felt the same way about the latest HP book as well: just so-so. I'm pretty sure the next one will be better. I guess I have series-itis too.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Phantom Scribbler - yes, there are MORE Pern books. They're an industry!

And overread, I think there are more Xanth books - I think that series runs into the double digits by now! Though as I understand it, they're unmitigated crap by now. (Though I stopped reading them years ago, so who knows!)

Evie - I can read fiction soooooooo fast. Of course, I scarcely remember what happened now! (Which means I can read it again with pleasure.) Sadly, this does NOT translate to medieval history, which I read much more slooooooowly...

meg, I love the idea of sorting full profs...I'm fascinated that there are no Gryffindors. I can see that, I guess. But kind of odd/amusing...

ADM, yes, I see McGonagall and Dumbledore as both being Gryffindors. I was glad that Hufflepuff did get a hero there for a while, even though us Ravenclaws get shafted for attention. ;-)

[Anon]

Gave up on Xanth long time ago (10th grade?)....My theory is that Anne McCaffrey herself is bored with Pern but her publisher/agent/bank account won't let her stop writing. I've read a few of the newer ones. It's like reading history--a broad survey of what happened, little character development.

I do pay (paperback prices, when it's 9pm and the library is closed and I'm desperate) for Terry Pratchett, Guy Gavriel Kay, Elizabeth Moon, and Lois McMaster Bujold. All highly recommended. I don't pay for HP--I'll scrounge it from someone in the next year or so.

[What Now?]

I'm chiming in on this discussion very late (been out of town with no internet access), but I just wanted to say that I too was disappointed. Well, let me qualify: I was afraid that the book was going to be as bad as Book 5 was, which was even worse than Book 4, and in fact both D. and I found the book to be better than the previous two, so in that regard, it wasn't disappointing at all. But still, the series has gone so downhill from the first three, which I enjoyed. Here's what I think that Rowling really has going for her: She's said all along that there will be seven books, which means that I'm willing to keep reading them even as they go downhill, whereas if this were an open-ended series, I wouldn't even have bought this one.

And you read even faster than D.; she read it in several hours, and I got it the next day and took two days to read it, mostly because I got kind of bored in the middle and wandered away from the book to do something else, leaving the remainder for the next day.

I'll certainly read the next one, just to finish up the series, but I'm not waiting with bated breath or anything.