(no subject)

[nny]

A couple o' questions, part the first:

What was your favourite genre at age (around) 12?

Favourite book?

What was it about?

Why did you like it so much?

Comments

[dramaturgca.livejournal.com]

My favourite genre was...*thinks*...Sci-fi, but my favourite book was Gone with the Wind...

Civil war epic. And I wanted to be Scarlett O'Hara.

[manynames.livejournal.com]

I was mostly into sci-fi fantasy lite at that sort of age, I think.

I had a major love affair with the Animorphs books round about then, altough everything I liked was pretty much the same: ordinary kid/s plucked from obscurity, given special powers and told that they must fight evil. My absolute favourite book was one about fish though, 'cause I was a massive dork who wanted to be the world's first evil-fighing marine biologist or something.

Mostly though, it was books were the characters were elevated from ordinary to special, quite often with a healthy dollop of angst and self-sacrifice - make my favourite character have to make a choice between saving the world or saving themselves/something they hold dear and you had me in the palm of your hand.

I think I liked it for the escapism factor, and the fact that they were all normal people made it that much more tantalising. I knew that nothing in the books was ever going to happen to me, but it made it so much easier to imagine that it might. I was rather a day-dreamer.

Hope that my rambling on isn't entirely useless!

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

My favourite genre was fantasy.

I think favourite book was... 12. Wow, it's hard to think back that far. Year 7. Probably the Belgariad, by David Eddings, which is actually a series but anyway.

It was about an orphan called Garion who grows up on a farm with his 'aunt' only to learn one day that his aunt is really the legendary sorceress Polgara, that she's hundreds of years old and that she's his great great great etc aunt, and he learns this when she suddenly decides they have to leave the farm and go on a journey. Wow, that is like, the most inept summary I've ever given. Spoiler-free, though.

And I liked it then- and still do now- because I ADORE the characters.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

...dude, you just stole my answer.

Okay, everything that Shivs just said, plus: it was my introduction to the world of witty banter, and whilst Eddings' banter can get quite wearing and repetitive after a while I absolutely adored it at the time. The world was interesting. The plot was detailed enough to suck me in. The characters were fun.

I think my favourite book was 'Polgara the Sorceress', which is one of the two prequels to the series (although written after he finished it, and should be read afterwards too to avoid spoilage, kind of like the first three episodes of Star Wars!). It's a long, lovely memoir-style thing from the point of view of a strong female character. It's a bit richer, a bit less flippant and more personal than the Belgariad itself, and deal with different ideas.

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I loved Polgara the Sorceress, I just don't remember if I'd read it when I was 12. Also, Belgarath the Sorceror. Not as good as Polgara the Sorceress, but still good.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Fantasy! Fantasy fantasy fantasy and also horsies. Horsie books.

They are not at all still my favorite genres. *shifty*

I don't remember what my favorite book was, though. Well, actually, I remember I never had a favorite book, except whatever I was reading atm.

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

Oh, sci-fi/fantasy liek wo.

Favourite book? Oh, um. Probably one of the Anne McCaffreys. I shall say Dragonflight for the sake of argument. Although I also read one hell of a lot of the Star Wars novels.

It was about the dragonriders attempting to save their planet from the return of Thread - evil stuff falling from the sky that consumed all organic matter. Fun!

I liked it because it was imaginative and exciting - plus I really wanted a dragon of my own. Sentient telepathic telekinetic fire-breathing dragons, baby.