Reading in May 2009

[Draxinusom]

About 100 pages into the Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams, so far not too bad. Its my first forray into a Williams novel. A bit formulistic, a young boy is being mentored by a wise doctor, a king is dead and his sons hate each other, and one of the princes has a seemingly evil advisor. Another thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of words to say a few things. All in all though the story is rather enjoyable. It gets into a lot more detail than other standard fantasy writers which is nice.

It can be very slow going yes. I elaborated on that years ago in http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?p=55811#post55811

For most people it picks up considerably after about 150 pages in the book, for me it didn't until 2/3 of the book done. But hell it's worth working through the drought of it. Prepare to be unavailable for other things once it got you properly hooked.

 

[BrightStar]

About 100 pages into the Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams, so far not too bad. Its my first forray into a Williams novel. A bit formulistic, a young boy is being mentored by a wise doctor, a king is dead and his sons hate each other, and one of the princes has a seemingly evil advisor. Another thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of words to say a few things. All in all though the story is rather enjoyable. It gets into a lot more detail than other standard fantasy writers which is nice.

Ah, I tried to read The Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, series a couple of years back, but sadly never could bring myself to finish it. When I finally admitted defeat and gave up, even though I was up to the beginning of book three by then, I must confess that it was with a sense of regret.

In terms of writing description, Williams is an author I highly respect. I wish I had his talent. He never fails to really capture the atmsophere and throws the reader right into the middle of the action. But his problem, for me, was that he writes just a bit too much description. I think Williams is an extremely talented writer, but because he tends to want to describe everything down to the slightest detail, it started to get tedious for me.

I read his Otherland series, and found it became very tedious in places because of this excessive description. I also read War of the Flowers (I believe that's the title...?) and found it suffered the same problem. I manged to get through Otherland because the overal plot and characters interested me, and War of the Flowers because it was a standalone and (again) because I was interested to see where the plot was going. Memory, Sorrow, Thorn did interest me, too, but I'd struggled with book two; it took me three tries before I managed to finish it, and by then, when I started having the same problems with book three, I decided I needed to stop.

In my opinion, Williams is not a flawed writer, and the Dragonbone chair is a very enjoyable book. It sticks out as being my favorite of the series, not just because it was the one that I got through without struggling too much. It had a dark, "hero loses everything" type theme that I rather enjoyed, and the conflict was interesting. Though Simon (the main character, I believe?) started to get on my nerves occasionally - he was a bit too whiny sometimes.

I hope you enjoy the series more than I did though, my friend utterly loves it, and still hasn't forgiven me for giving up on it.

Edit: Oh, and to agree with what Draxinusom said; Dragonbone Chair did take a while to get going for me too. I don't remember at what point, but I think it was more like around the 250 page mark. I did become quite engrossed in it for a bit after that. It's just a shame my enjoyment of it didn't last - though I tried!

 

[Astra_]

For most people it picks up considerably after about 150 pages in the book, for me it didn't until 2/3 of the book done. But hell it's worth working through the drought of it. Prepare to be unavailable for other things once it got you properly hooked.

For m it picked up about 350p in the book. A bit more than 1/3 I believe.

 

[Apathy]

Instead of the Dragonbone Chair read Tad William's Shadowmarch. I found it to be a lot better than DBC.

 

[Aurian]

Finished Imager but with mixed reviews.... I thought the beginning started off strong, but the middle and ending just seemed to trickle off... The main character could come off as being unemotional and logical at times, but I am not sure if it is his personality or a flaw in the writing. He seems most unaffected emotionally at people trying to kill him. Some of the people he knows seem almost as blase - they will make a murmer of concern and then all is forgotten.

The magic system, almost like taking molecules out of the air and reforming them into concrete shapes is interesting but where are the limits? What stops these imagers from abusing this power other than abstract morality ("if you make too much gold out of thin air, it becomes worthless"), and the school of magic even seems to go against this rule with having its students mass-produce items and valuables. Magic is fine, but I would have liked to see some effect other than simply being tired afterwards that limits its use, otherwise it feels too.... easy.

Don`t think I will continue with the series.

 

[BrightStar]

Instead of the Dragonbone Chair read Tad William's Shadowmarch. I found it to be a lot better than DBC.

Really? That's quite interesting. I thought about reading Shadowmarch, but was put off after hearing that it's not as good as Dragonbone chair.

 

[Luke_B]

I'm still reading The Night Watch. I'd like to think the slow pace I'm setting is because I didn't have much time to read while I was overseas (I've also been struck badly by jet lag). But I'm not sure that the book has truly hooked me. I'm a bit over halfway and it all feels a bit disjointed and stilted, especially the character interaction and dialogue. Some of this might be due to a fault in the translation. I've also noticed a lot of errors and typos in my edition. I'm liking it, or wanting to like it, enough to persist but I think I'll have a break with something else before I move on with The Day Watch. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin.

 

[ObtusePunubiris]

Just finished Kushiel's Scion. I posted when I was about 150 pages in that my first impression was that it was not quite as good as the first trilogy, but still pretty good. I'll stand by that and I will definitely be continuing the series. Actually, I had planned to move right into Kushiel's Justice, but now I think I would like a short break from Terre d'Ange.

The next book on my list is A Sword From Red Ice, so I'll read that first. It's been a while since I read A Fortress of Grey Ice, so I hope I'll remember enough of the story to enjoy it.

 

[Siberian]

I've started reading Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik. I read the first trilogy a couple of years ago, and enjoyed all three of them, but mixed reviews stopped me from reading this one.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Thanks to the long 3-day weekend I could do a bit of leisure reading so I finished Crown of Shadows, which concludes The Coldfire Trilogy. As I mentioned before, the books got better and better. In general I loved it, despite a few minor problems in my opinion, such as:

Spoiler

I wasn't moved by Andrys Tarrant's story. I didn't care much about him. Even though he was supposed to be a playboy, he never seemed like one to me. I think the author tried to make him a central piece in the story, which, IMHO she failed a bit. It almost felt like a delicious meal you eat but there's something missing, something that you cannot put your finger on. So, I'm not sure what was really missing, but I thought his line of the story was weaker compared to the other stuff.

Whenever I end up on a parallel reading path with Gilgamesh, good things happen.

Hey Thanks Man! I still haven't received my copy, though... Please let me know what you think as I won't be able to start mine immediately... Hopefully next week or so...

So I picked up a relatively thinner book, one that I can finish quickly: Andrzej Sapkowski's Blood of Elves. I'm probably expecting too much from this book but we'll see. 50 pages in and so far it's been just OK. I haven't read a Tolkienesque book for a while so I hope I won't be disappointed. Anyone has read this one before?

 

[BrightStar]

I'm still reading Deborah Chester's The Sword. It's been a pretty slow, plodding book, but I'm enjoying it. Though I feel like I've been reading it forever. I just ordered book two in the series, though I must say that overall, I'm finding the series to be good, but not great. The writing is quite solid though, and I'm finding all of the characters introduced so far to be pretty interesting.

 

[Amaunette]

Really? That's quite interesting. I thought about reading Shadowmarch, but was put off after hearing that it's not as good as Dragonbone chair.

Shadowmarch has a lot more going on right from the beginning. In Dragonbone Chair, the action takes at least 300 or so pages to even start, and it's slow going all the way. I like both. It seems to me that the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is more traditional epic fantasy, but the Shadowmarch series has more action and weird stuff going on. They're just different.

 

[PeterWilliam]

Hey Thanks Man! I still haven't received my copy, though... Please let me know what you think as I won't be able to start mine immediately... Hopefully next week or so...

About 150p into The Fall of Ossard. The first 25-50 had me expecting the worst, and while there's plenty to criticize, it's evened out somewhat. I have, thus far, been unable to toss a book because I'm always wondering if the next 50 pages are going to be 'the key,' as it were. Will have to finish though before offering up any post mortem.

 

[BrightStar]

Shadowmarch has a lot more going on right from the beginning. In Dragonbone Chair, the action takes at least 300 or so pages to even start, and it's slow going all the way. I like both. It seems to me that the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is more traditional epic fantasy, but the Shadowmarch series has more action and weird stuff going on. They're just different.

Sounds interesting, though I'm assuming that it still suffers from the same "problem" of too much description, like Williams' other books? I don't know much about the storyline of Shadowmarch, but is it a very political/war-type theme?

 

[Amaunette]

Sounds interesting, though I'm assuming that it still suffers from the same "problem" of too much description, like Williams' other books? I don't know much about the storyline of Shadowmarch, but is it a very political/war-type theme?

It definitely is a political/war-type theme, both with terrestrial and faerie forces. There's almost equal interest in character development as well as a decent amount of attention placed on understanding the motivations and desires and history of the faerie folk, but the main plot development is war-themed. And it does have lots of description - not as much as MST, but it's definitely there. Descriptions of the faerie world especially can get a little monotonous. If you don't like description, you may not like Shadowmarch, but the quantity of descriptive prose is markedly less in Shadowmarch than MST.

 

[Tomau]

Finished The Painted Man by Brett. It didn't live up to the hype.

Started Empire in Black and Gold by Tchaikovsky.

 

[BrightStar]

I'm about 100 pages off of finishing Deborah Chester's The Sword.

I don't really know what to say about this one, I've ordered the next title in the series, but I think it's more because I can't really find anything negative to say about The Sword, and I don't like leaving a series uncompleted if I can help it.

I think the Sword's problem is that it's kinda forgetable. The characters are well written, but I don't think they're going to end up being very memorable for me. The world feels well developed, but I feel like I've read variations of it elsewhere. And the overall conflict seems to have been done before. Many times.

There's nothing really special that makes this one stand out from the rest.

At the moment, my biggest complaint about it is the introduction of a new main character, so close to the end of the book. I feel frustrated, because I don't want to invest time and effort in this new character. I'm happy enough with the others!

The author seems to have organized the different characters by splitting the book into three parts. This led me to some confusion at first, because the book didn't seem to be much about what the description on the back cover said it was. Things began to make more sense, and in part two, the narrative switches to focus on a different character. I liked part two the most. I am not enjoying part three so far (which switched to focus on a third new character, one that isn't even introduced until then!) although the character herself is as well written as the others. I'm just resenting having to get used to someone new, so late in the story.

I'm hoping I'll have finished The Sword by the end of today. It's going to take a few weeks (at least) for the next in the series to arrive, since it's being shipped from the USA. I'm not all that bothered about not being able to continue immediately though. In fact, I'm actually looking forwards to reading something else instead.

 

[Daddy Darth]

Good day everybody. Well it took me almost all of April and I just finished Gardens of the Moon last night. I thought the book was well written and the world is very detailed and developed. I loved so many of the characters especially Annomander Rake - I really wanted to know more about him, his people and Moon Spawn. The Magic is also well done and exciting. This book had so much going right in it but I found the ending a little fractured, too much coming together all at once. I will definitely read the next one in the series but not right away. But I am fairly confident that when I do I will be treated to a good writer who knows what he is doing.

And yes it took me bloody forever to get through this book. I think there was sleeping powder in it everytime I opened it at night.

Now last night I jumped right in to Carey's Bane Wreaker. I read the prologue and most of the first chapter. I am loving it!!! I got the LOTR vibe instantly. SO far I like Carey's writing - I feel like I could sit down and read the whole book right through in one go.

Cheers all.

 

[BrightStar]

Well, it seems I was mistaken about the last 100 pages of The Sword. Although a few chapters did feature a new character, the narrative then shifted back to one more familiar.

I think the book is okay, but as I said before, nothing too special. I became quite engrossed during the end, and there were some twists and such that I didn't quite see coming. I must admit to disliking how the author has arranged the introduction of her characters: I'm fairly certain that the one that was in briefly during the start of part three is going to be an important figure later in the book, and this makes me concerned that the story arc of this character isn't being introduced sooner.

Not sure what to read next. Will have to go and see what catches my attention on the to read pile.

 

[NickeeCoco]

Adamantine Palace

I am currently reading Stephen Deas' debut novel The Adamantine Palace. I had intended to buy Alan Campbell's God of Clocks, but I went for the cheaper option and bought a trade paper book instead of a hardcover book. I decided to give Deas a shot, putting my trust in Joe Abercrombie's endorsement on the cover. His endorsement, I'll admit, is what made me buy the book. Generally, I'm a little dubious of dragon stories. I read all of McCaffery's Dragon Riders of Pern books (Up until Freedom's Landing) when I was an early teen and haven't really gone back to the dragon thing since.

I will admit, that I'm still in the reading stage of this book, at page 129 of 369, but it's made enough of an impact that I have my feeling for it. It's good. It has enough ruthlessness in the rulers it follows, the colourful language and amusing (mis)adventures of the sell-swords Sollos and Kemir and it has tamed dragons. When I said tamed, I mean they're horrible creatures who would otherwise kill humans at their whim, but they've been drugged by alchemists so that royal humans can use them as beasts of burden. The drugging is an interesting little twist on the whole dragon thing.

Now, I have to agree with Hobbit in his review of this book that it does have fast T.V. -like clips, moving from scene to scene, character to character and like Abercrombie's comment on the cover it's a "fast, sharp, ruthless read". I don't mind the jumps from character to character, but I feel like it moves a little too fast at times. I wouldn't mind a little more detail and a little more depth in the characters. I know they want power, but I wouldn't mind to hear the motivation behind their quest for power.

Overall, good debut. I will look for further books by him.

P.S. Tsk tsk, Hobbit. You have a spoiler in your review. I'm at page 129 and you revealed something that hasn't been revealed in the book. I mean, I suspected, but it hasn't been revealed yet. Tsk. Tsk.