(no subject)

[lareinenoire]

Stolen from rynne. Looks like fun, and I'm lazy. But we knew that last bit.

Prose or Poetry? Prose, probably. Though if Renaissance drama in some way counts as poetry, because it isn't prose either...I don't know.

Book you’re reading now: Les Trois Mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas. Also rereading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. And a large pile of books on the role of history in nineteenth-century France, and the memoirs of Alexandre Dumas. Add random Shakespearean criticism to the mix, and we get...my dissertation.

Last book you’ve read: Hmm...for pleasure? I finished The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman not too long ago, and read Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden on the coach to visit rosamund last week.

Next book you’re going to buy/read: Well, I have a large TBR pile for after I finish the aforementioned dissertation, though some may end up read in the interim when I'm going insane from too much French Romanticism. Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman, Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones, Partisans by Alistair Macleane, Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, The Reckoning by Charles Nicholl, The Talisman by Stephen King...and the list goes on. And on. And on. The books I mentioned are only the ones I already own. We will not get into the To Be Bought pile.

Book you’ve read the most times: Oh my, I have no idea. Phantom by Susan Kay is up there, I know. As is Le Comte de Monte-Cristo and The Sunne in Splendour. And almost certainly A Little Princess. Oyy, I don't know! Too many books read too many times...I have comfort books, dammit!

Longest book you’ve read: Either War and Peace Les Misérables, or Monte-Cristo. I believe Tolstoy is the longest...I seem to recall 1800 pages coming into the mix somewhere.

Book you’ve read in the shortest time (relative to the number of pages): I'm not sure what the question is, there. I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in five hours, but I also read Prisoner of Azkaban in an hour and a half, so I'm not sure which one comes out faster. And the first time I read Sunne (936 pages), I finished it in...seven hours, I think? Possibly six. It was a long time ago. And then A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (992 pages) in a single afternoon, but I'm not sure where the afternoon began and where it ended.

One book you wanted to read that disappointed you: I've run across quite a few, but let me see...Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. After all that fuss about her, and the exquisite rendering of the first scene, I *wanted* to like it. So much. But I simply didn't understand it.

Have you read books in a language different from yours? Lots! ::is a postgraduate student in French, after all::

Writer you’ve read the most books from: Umm...William Shakespeare? ;)

Some books you like (not necessarily your faves):
Just putting these down as they come to mind...
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
A Dead Man in Deptford by Anthony Burgess
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Kushiel's Legacy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

3 books you don’t like:
The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway. Man goes out to sea. Man chases fish. Man catches fish. Sharks eat fish. Man is sad. Why write a book about it??? /rant
Ulysses by James Joyce. Another one I simply do not understand.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I suspect I'm going to be flamed for this one, but I truly didn't like it. The first twenty chapters did nothing for me. The last five were good, but tainted after slogging through the first twenty.

3 people who should take this survey (and why):
Well, nobody needs to, certainly. I suspect rosamund and adelynne would probably like it. As would most people on my flist, should they have the time and the inclination.

Comments

[quistis218.livejournal.com]

Have you read Charlotte Bronte's Villette?
I loved that book.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's one of the books I keep meaning to read, what with the autobiographical elements and everything. Especially after running across a facsimile of one of Charlotte Brontë's letters to M. Heger (I believe that was his name). Gorgeous letter.

Sadly, I have no time. Someday I will read it.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Villette is just totally awesome. Seriously. Make the time.

Reviews: Moons of Deceit

[(Anonymous)]

Dear LaReine Noire,

I know this isn't the most appropriate place to contact you, but for some reason FictionAlley has debarred me from sending private messages to other members, so this is the only way at present.

Thank you for all the reviews you've written me (Grace has Victory) for "Moons of Deceit". They are very much appreciated, and I shall write you a proper reply later. Today I only have time to thank you for putting in the effort, and to assure that I take all my reviewers seriously.

There are to be three more chapters, and two of them are already in the FictionAlley system waiting to be posted. But if you don't want to wait, a finished version of the story is already available at The Sugar Quill. My author page there is at http://www.sugarquill.net/index.php?action=profile&id=796.

Best regards,

Diana (Grace has Victory)

Reviews of "Moons of Deceit"

[(Anonymous)]

Dear La Reine Noire,

Thanks for leaving such detailed reviews. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the story enough to keep reading this far.

[quote]Came here on Hannah Marder’s recommendation, and I’m quite intrigued. Nice start, giving very little away, but Remus certainly seems IC. Poor dear. [/quote]
I did wonder whether I gave away [I]too[/I] little in this opening scene.

[quote]Love the descriptions. You’ve done a wonderful job with the setting in this story. The food sounded delicious, by the way. [/quote]
You can thank my beta for that. She wanted to know the exact menu!

[quote]Small grammatical thing.
[quote]William was in the byre now, charming the milking equipment onto each cow in turn, but he was forgetting to check that the milk landed in the tank. Once they had collect the milk from every cow, William rolled the tanks to the front gate (he rarely remembered to use magic) and waited for the Muggle agent who bought it from them.[/quote]
The phrasing is somewhat awkward, and I can’t figure out if Remus managed to fix the problem, or if they sent empty tanks to the agent! I assume he fixed it, but you might want to rephrase. [/quote]
Yes, Remus did manage to fix the problem! I’ll clarify that if I post a corrected version later.

[quote]Snape was...thoroughly IC. [/quote]
I just appeal to my own inner Snape and something nasty always turns up.

[quote]Interesting to see he’s a relation, and now that you’ve made it clear that the MacDougals are pureblooded, it makes sense. A very interesting gathering indeed. [/quote]
I assume that all pure-bloods are more or less related; there are only about 10,000 of them in the whole of the British Isles. I had designed quite an elaborate genealogy for the MacDougals, most of which won’t be mentioned in the story.

[quote][quote]“I know you’re surprised,” she said. “My parents see nothing odd in gathering all their friends together. Nobody here - officially - ever did anything wrong, so all of them - officially - are glad to celebrate You-Know-Who’s downfall.” [/quote]
And I am officially intrigued! [/quote]
Well, keep reading …

[quote]Hmm...I like the use of Ariadne’s perspective, especially in the scenes with Lucius. It’s not easy to capture the voice of a four-year-old, but you’ve done it very well.

In fact, I quite like her as a character. The entire family is extremely well-done so far. Though I cannot help but wonder if there’s any significance to her name. Ariadne and the Minotaur? [/quote]
Yes. It was an intuitive rather than logical choice: no other name would stick, and I tried plenty of Celtic ones! But I kept seeing this image of Ariadne, bearing a torch in the dark, leading the way to the labyrinth and handing over the tools that would defeat the Minotaur.

I’m glad you like her because her personality and character have to carry the whole story.

[quote]Oh Remus! That was heartwrenching! The poor poor thing! You did a wonderful job capturing him. [/quote]
Well, we’re not supposed to believe that lycanthropy is pleasant, even if the main dangers can be controlled.

Re: Reviews of "Moons of Deceit"

[(Anonymous)]

[quote]Also loved how you were able to tie it in with the ‘lies can be necessary’ theme from the previous chapter. Different reasoning, of course, but equally powerful.[/quote]
Most of the chapters are in pairs, and most of them have parallel themes. But some of the parallels are quite weak, so don’t look too hard for what might not be there.

[quote]I love the OCs so far, and the nice little mentions of the more obscure canon characters. And of course, Malfoy-Black weddings *would* be the wedding of the century. [/quote]
In the Malfoy-Black opinion, of course.

I don’t like to use OCs in fanfiction, so I always find a canon player if possible. Even Ariadne is ultimately a canon character … you’ll probably pick it before I make it in-your-face obvious.

[quote]Nice to see more of Snape, and he’s very much as I imagined him. [/quote]
JKR called Snape “a gift of a character” and I agree. Once I’d put him in the MacDougal family, I found him cropping up all over the place.

[quote]I also like Ariadne’s ways of remembering names. Reminds me of my own! [/quote]
I’m not at all good at remembering names, so I made Ariadne a more courteous person than I am.

[quote]That may well have been one of the better starts of the beautiful MWPP friendship. If you’ve not had the chance to read it, I’d highly recommend Of Wolf and Wizard for another version. [/quote]
I’ve added it to my favourites list to read later. I’m always looking for good stories, but don’t always have time to sit down and read them.

[quote]Everyone seems very IC, and again, I loved the random references to obscure characters, i.e. Florence and Bertha. And poor poor Owen! But it made a lot of sense. [/quote]
There couldn’t have been a permanent fifth Marauder, could there now? Nor would MWPP have shunned the fifth person in their dormitory for no good reason. So Voldemort had to provide the reason. Owen was just a Lamb to the slaughter.

[quote]Hmm...very interesting subset of Seeing--Locospection. I like it, especially how she keeps trying to hide it, poor thing. I suspect it’s difficult not to let things slip out.

I do wonder how it’ll come into play later. [/quote]
You are correct, it will turn out to be a matter of some importance.

[quote]I continue to very much enjoy Ariadne as a character. She’s got a wonderfully clear narrative voice, and I love how all of her observations are coloured by her upbringing. It makes perfect sense. [/quote]
Thank you! I’m never tired of hearing that. Ariadne is very clear in my mind, but I sometimes wonder whether she’s equally clear to the reader.

[quote]Hmm...a very interesting side view of the Prank. Remus did take it very much in stride--more than I would ever have expected, really--but you explained his motivations well enough that I’m able to accept it. Also very much liked the emphasis on how much Sirius did not care about Snape. [/quote]
It sounds as if I didn’t write as well as I’d hoped. Remus was [I]not[/I] happy about the Prank. Not at all. That’s why I find it so difficult to accept that he woud have continued his moonlit capers after it happened. I really want to believe that he became more responsible after that episode. And I definitely think he felt very hurt and angry about Sirius.

However, I don’t see him speaking his mind to Sirius’s face. Remus goes along with his friends. He avoids distressing them if at all possible. He is so much afraid of losing friends that he would never dare tell Sirius how he really felt about the Prank. Perhaps he hoped James would do the dirty work for him.

Evidently I didn’t show enough of the internal conflict; several reviewers have inferred from his external behaviour that it simply didn’t bother him too much.

Re: Reviews of "Moons of Deceit"

[(Anonymous)]

[quote]Characterisation continues to be very well-done. James especially. I very much like the way you’ve written him. [/quote]
I haven’t thought very much about James. I’ve just carbon-copied him from canon, really. Maybe – unlike his three friends – he isn’t very complicated?

[quote]Oh dear...poor Veleta. [/quote]
And that was only the beginning of her troubles!

[quote]Great job placing the MacDougals into the neutral sector of wizarding families. Too many people take the black-and-white approach. Her parents’ reactions are entirely understandable, whilst being equally infuriating. [/quote]
Oh, they drove me up the wall! I wondered how I’d dared invent them! But, as you say, they just want to survive.

[quote]Amarillo Lestoat?? The Vampire’s Monologue? ::falls over:: That was brilliant! Great reference! [/quote]
Never hurts to browse the Lexicon for help with finding a suitable minor character …

[quote]Interesting take on how James became Head Boy. I definitely believe it had to do with the prank in sixth year, and I’d wondered how you would deal with it, given the way you dealt with the prank. Most versions show James growing up quite a bit in the interim, which you implied as well. [/quote]
It’s what I’d like to believe rather than what I seriously see written in canon. I don’t think JKR has will show us Remus resigning as prefect. But, as you say, I’m sure James grew up quite a lot. I can only hope that Sirius did too.

[quote]Also, nice touch with Dumbledore paying Remus for his work with the Order. [/quote]
I don’t like the thought that Dumbledore left Remus entirely to fend for himself, even though that seems to have happened eventually. There will be more about Dumbledore guiding Remus’s career directions later in the story.

[quote]Wow. That was wonderfully done. Wrenching--poor Wendy and Veleta! And poor Ariadne! You’ve really brought home the devastation of the First War in a new and unique way. [/quote]
I’m glad you didn’t think it was over-the-top. I don’t think anyone was immune to loss in those last few years.

[quote]And great way of working in the older teachers, especially Vablatsky and Kettleburn. [/quote]
It isn’t canon that Vablatsky taught at Hogwarts, only that a vacancy arose in the first half of 1980. But, once again, I’d rather use a canon character …

Have you any idea about Kettleburn’s first name? I haven’t!

[quote]Another fantastic chapter. Brilliant explanation for how Sirius and James could believe Remus to be the traitor, and I *loved* his little foray into self-sacrificing fantasy. It really does strike me as the sort of thing Remus would consider, then ultimately discard, only to later regret it after James and Lily die. [/quote]
Suspicion didn’t grow out of nothing. I believe Remus must have had some kind of secret from his friends … if they sensed that much, how were they to know that it wasn’t a guilty secret? In my version, he’s barely aware that it is a secret; he wants to be independent, his friends don’t get it, and he doesn’t get their not getting it …

[quote]His reactions to the Death Eater attack were completely realistic and IC, and not at all melodramatic. [/quote]
My beta helped me quite a lot with that one too. I really can’t imagine how it would feel to lose everyone in one strike; let’s say my creativity was stretched!

[quote]I’m probably starting to sound redundant by now, but again, you do an amazing job of bringing a reality to the war that very few writers have managed. Joseph Fenwick was particularly poignant. [/quote]
Not all the casualties of war are actually dead. My daughter keeps asking how Joe will manage in the workforce, or at times when his friends can’t be with him ... and the truth is, he [I]won’t[/I] manage very well.

Re: Reviews of "Moons of Deceit"

[(Anonymous)]

[quote]Ah, big chapter!

You’ve really made Peter a manipulator here, with his relation of ‘his version’ to Remus and Emmeline. While I don’t personally believe Peter was actually at Godric’s Hollow, your version works very well for the purposes of this story. [/quote]
There are lots of versions of people’s exact movements on that night; I hope JKR will tell us more about it eventually. I see him as waiting outside the house (not going indoors, as he claims), but going to investigate indoors after the house explodes and Voldy doesn’t re-emerge. And when he realises that Voldy has come off second-best, he Disapparates, cooks up his story, and contacts Dumbledore fast! Because it’s late at night, when most people are in bed, nobody notices that his cry for help arrives about half an hour later than it should have.
[quote]The conversation between Sirius and Remus on the motorbike was very well-done. Liked the touch of Dorcas Meadowes, but mostly because I’ve made her into a fairly major character. [/quote]
I’d like to read that. Dorcas was evidently a person of some consequence of Voldy felt the need to kill her personally. I’ve seen her here as being a few years older than Sirius and not taking him seriously as a lover. This challenges him to prove to her that he [I]is[/I] serious, and in due course finds himself more involved with her than he ever expected to be. But Voldy paid his respects to Miss Meadowes before Sirius had time to ask himself whether he was ready to settle down with her.

[quote]And this line:
[quote]“I’m not comforted,” said Sirius. “I doubt the Aurors will always be so careful about only using their illegal curses on people who happen to be guilty.” [/quote]
*So* much foreshadowing about that incredible miscarriage of justice that gets Sirius thrown into Azkaban. [/quote]
Do you know, I missed that! I was just trying to keep Sirius in character. My subconscious evidently saw something that I didn’t.

[quote] [quote]But I’ve jinxed my teaching post with a one-year limit. No future Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher will ever succeed at Hogwarts for longer than one year - you’ll see!” [/quote]
::cracks up:: Brilliant! [/quote]
I think JKR will enlighten us on this one, but not until Book VII. I’ve deliberately not probed Viridian’s exact motives or the exact nature of the jinx, because it would be almost certain to become AU. But I do think it quite likely that Vindictus Viridian did teach DADA at some stage, since he is known as “Professor”.

[quote]Loved the introduction to all the new teachers. So this brings us to the present day, so to speak. Very very impressed. [/quote]
Yes, we’re all caught up. But only one of the new teachers will really count. Ariadne won’t continue with DADA at NEWT level, and I didn’t have the energy, or the space, to flesh out Sinistra.

[quote]Poor poor Remus. I’ll say it again. [/quote]
There was a hint of pride in all this, however. Why didn’t he ask Dumbledore for help? Why didn’t Dumbledore offer assistance in view of services rendered?

[quote]Your use of Peter makes sense, though I still don’t believe he was quite that calculating...but that’s a personal opinion. [/quote]
I think he was originally frightened into joining the Death Eaters very much against his will. But in the end, the Rat was trapped. Once he had succumbed, and betrayed his friends, and it had all backfired, I think he just did what he had to do to save his own skin.

He knew that Sirius knew that he had been Secret Keeper, hence traitor, so he decided to eliminate Sirius. But it was probably a lucky random shot – he looked for Sirius with some vague idea that he must silence him, happened to find him in a place where there were impartial witnesses, and in a flash of inspiration recognised the way to make it look as if Sirius had murdered Peter (after which nobody would believe a word Sirius said).

Re: Reviews of "Moons of Deceit"

[(Anonymous)]

[quote]I very much enjoyed this story so far, and if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind terribly letting me know when a new chapter’s up? [/quote]
The remaining chapters are all available at the Sugar Quill.
http://www.sugarquill.net/index.php?action=profile&id=796.
The sequel is still with the beta-reader.

Thank you very much for all your input.

Regards,

Grace has Victory.