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Post by zemira on Apr 17, 2007 18:32:39 GMT -5
Yeah, he mentioned that most people he writes about don't even know it's about them. But it would still be cool. ^_^
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Post by Maliris on Apr 18, 2007 3:10:53 GMT -5
We would notice if he killed characters with our names. And I wouldn´t even mind. Which would be rude. *cough*
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valca
Full Member
Layer 18
Posts: 203
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Post by valca on Apr 18, 2007 4:21:47 GMT -5
I was referring to the fact this existence of ours could merely be within Chris' head, or even a book written by him, and we wouldn't know it, because there is a fourth wall.
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Post by Maliris on Apr 18, 2007 11:30:58 GMT -5
I wonder what the book´d be called...
That is one of the reasons I like his books. There´s always a philosophical theme in them. Somewhere... waiting... XD I was surprised at the end of Poison. And it pleased me immensely. Other examples are Broken Sky and Alaizable. TBP has its pantheon of gods, doing god-stuff and meddling with people´s fates. Or so they think anyway... xD
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Post by zemira on Jun 29, 2007 8:42:21 GMT -5
Yeah. Sometimes, I think his books should be categorized differently. Instead of Teen, or Young Adult, or whatever most of them are, they should be with the regular books. Like Alaizabel is always shelved with the kids' books at my bookstore, and I just don't see a teen of 14 or 15 really enjoying it all. I think that book especially is mis-categorized. But for people to actually see all the little things, like any hidden messages or whatever in his books, they need to be a bit older than what the books are supposed to appeal to.
TBP is obviously in the right place when shelved with Fantasy books. Well, Adult Fantasy books. ^_^
Think about it this way, too: If his books were made into movies (as many threads have already speculated), what would the rating be? Ok, so I don't know what the rating system is in the UK. That makes this harder...but in America, we have G (for everyone), PG (parental guidance suggested for children under 7 to 10, I think it is), PG-13 (parental guidance for children under 13...this contains language, violence, etc in small doses), R (17 or older are only permitted), and NC-17 (basically, pornos and things with actual sex, not just nudity). Poison I can't imagine being anything lower than PG-13. Not unless they removed a ton of stuff from it. It just wouldn't work.
Sorry if you have the same system, but I thought the UK had a different one...And sorry if you already know all the ratings. :-(
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 29, 2007 9:12:42 GMT -5
Hey, I'm pretty sure I read Alaizabel when I was younger than 14 and I loved it. It's definitely not an adult book, so where else would it be but YA or teen?
UK has U (universal) PG (parental guidance) 12A (children under 12 have to have an adult with them) 15 (no under 15s) and 18 (no under 18s).
It'd be hard to do though, because as far as I can tell America rates there films with a heavier weight on sex content, whereas Britain tends to rate them on violence. I've seen films rated R in America that are only a 15 over here or even a 12A, then some over here that are an 18 for violence and over in America are only PG-13.
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Post by kaiku on Jun 29, 2007 9:33:20 GMT -5
Wow, shyviolet just beat me to saying everything I was going to say! Serves me right for being a slow typist! I'll say what I was going to say about the books anyway... Like Alaizabel is always shelved with the kids' books at my bookstore, and I just don't see a teen of 14 or 15 really enjoying it all. I read Alaizabel when I was about 13, and Poison when I was a little bit younger, and I enjoyed them both! ;D I do see what you mean though. Part of the reason why I enjoyed Alaizabel and Poison were because they were ... well, cleverer than some of the other stuff I'd been reading, and still remain that to this day. I like all the deeper messages that really get you thinking. After reading Poison for the first time I was just sitting on my bed, mulling over the idea of being characters in a story for about an hour. And about the ratings, I always figured Poison would be best as a 15.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 29, 2007 10:13:09 GMT -5
I feel a bit stupid because to be honest I didn't really get the message in Poison. I mean, I could tell it had one, but I didn't think it would be so specific as 'what if we're all characters in a story?' so I just missed it. I think it was because not all the people in her world had a story, y'know? And when the Hierophant died nothing really happened, so they weren't dependant on him for their existance, so it never really occured to me that he was effectively god because beyond manipulating events to a certain extent he was pretty much a normal person. I thought it was a bit more vague, but then I've never been good at picking up on that stuff. I thought the message was in how Poison dealt with the concept of being written by someone, not in the concept itself. Shows what a good English Lit student I am. >_<
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Post by zemira on Jun 29, 2007 11:42:23 GMT -5
Well, I just realized that as a whole, and this is probably increadibly rude of me to generalize, but American children learn a bit slower than British or the UK. I know one of my friends over there was in college/university when I was just in my 10th year of school. I first read Haunting when I was 19. Still in my first year of college/university. But I would not have understood as much as I did if I were 13 or 14. And I was a very good student, usually one of the smartest (and the most well-read) in my classes. So I guess it's just for Americans then, heh.
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anna
New Member
Posts: 34
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Post by anna on Jun 29, 2007 21:24:34 GMT -5
Actually, in regards to the shelfing of some of the books....
The books are shelved by a mix of their difficulty rating and their interest level. I was working with my mother (an elementary school librarian) and found that many of Chris's books are in the middle grade interest level. In the reading program they use, most of his books are between a 5-4 difficulty level, which is the higher elementary kids.
I thought that it was silly, but made my mom order them with the tests for the kids...just because they are great books. I'm still not sure about some of the ratings on them though.
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Post by shyviolet on Jun 30, 2007 3:18:40 GMT -5
I find in bookshops around where I live they're all YA by default, except for the Braided Path. I think they assume that the people shopping will pick up whatever they're interested in regardless of which shelf it's on. (True in my case.)
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Post by Aryeec {E.F. Forester} on Jun 30, 2007 15:16:14 GMT -5
My favorite parts are the Witch's house and dodging the giant spiders on the web.
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Post by iamthelizardqueen on Jul 23, 2007 11:34:22 GMT -5
If you have a relatively happy/uncomplicated life though, I think it's safe to say you aren't created by him... ...Unless you just aren't a protaganist, and therefore don't have to go off on some big quest/revolution/killing spree...although the latter would probably be antagonist rather than protagonist... If he is, he's kind of given away all his Hierophant-y secrets by writing Poison . Then again, why should he care, we're just characters in his story. ;D
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Post by zemira on Jul 23, 2007 12:00:05 GMT -5
Some of the characters knew they were only made up, but they didn't have any choice but to continue doing what they did. Maybe that's us too. Maybe he wrote us to speculate that he wrote us, but we never accept it enough to try doing anything different. He wrote us with very little free will. But I don't mind, because that just means that I'm part of a great story because he's writing it. ^_^ It's like we're his pencils or paper or keyboard or whatever. ^_^
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Post by iamthelizardqueen on Jul 26, 2007 12:01:26 GMT -5
Maybe he wrote us to speculate that he wrote us, but we never accept it enough to try doing anything different. Also, if we tried doing something he didn't want us to do, it would wreck his story. And that would just be rude.
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