{"id":37094,"date":"2019-10-21T06:30:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T17:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=37094"},"modified":"2019-10-20T19:25:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T06:25:58","slug":"watchtower-by-elizabeth-a-lynn-aka-the-unreliability-of-book-lists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2019\/10\/21\/watchtower-by-elizabeth-a-lynn-aka-the-unreliability-of-book-lists\/","title":{"rendered":"“Watchtower” by Elizabeth A Lynn — aka The Unreliability of Book Lists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cover of the version I first read.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week I posted an “off-the-top-of-my head” list of favourite reads<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As with everything, there can be positives and negatives to impromptu lists. On the one hand, one tends to reach for the tried and true, so the chances are these are books one has really liked, without too much internal editing before jotting down the titles.<\/p>\n

On the other, there may also be a tendency to tread well-worn paths, with a bias toward older titles. And sometimes you just forget really great reads that are on your internal list but somehow—for no discernible reason—don’t get mentioned.<\/p>\n

For me, Elizabeth A Lynn’s Watchtower<\/em> <\/strong>is one of those books.<\/p>\n

The irony in omitting Watchtower<\/em> last week is that I’ve been thinking about mentioning it here for some time, because at a time when readers are looking for more diverse reading material and recommendations, this is a book—and series—that checks those boxes. And<\/em> it’s been around since 1979, winning the World Fantasy Award in 1980.<\/p>\n

The series name is The Chronicles of Tornor<\/strong>, and the second and third titles respectively are The Dancers of Arun<\/em> and The Northern Girl<\/em>. Gender diversity—and ambiguity\/fluidity—are defining characteristics of Watchtower<\/em> and the series, as are its haunting physical and cultural worldbuilding, within which the gender diverse aspect plays a distinct part.<\/p>\n

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Current Kindle edition cover<\/p><\/div>\n

If you haven’t read Watchtower<\/em> already then I would say,\u00a0 “Definitely put it, and its sequels, on the TBR list.” It really is a classic Fantasy read and you’d go a long way to find anything quite like it, particularly with such powerful and compelling worldbuilding, as forementioned, but also distinctive and intriguing, if not always entirely likeable characters.<\/p>\n

So in terms of my favourites, while it mayn’t have been captured in last week’s post, Watchtower<\/em> is definitely right up there on my list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I posted an “off-the-top-of-my head” list of favourite reads. As with everything, there can be positives and negatives to impromptu lists. On the one hand, one tends to reach for the tried and true, so the chances are these are books one has really liked, without too much internal editing before jotting down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37094"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37104,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37094\/revisions\/37104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}