Reading in July 2012

[Contrarius]

Just finish Steel Remains. Good stuff..

I'm not a huge fan of his Kovacs books, but I've been loving his fantasies so far. Haven't read his non-Kovacs sf yet.

 

[Chrysippus]

Reading The Company of the Dead by David J. Kowalski. Pretty awesome, so far.

 

[Hobbit]

Reading The Company of the Dead by David J. Kowalski. Pretty awesome, so far.

I liked that one, too, Chrysippus! Good holiday-blockbuster-type reading. But SF rather than Fantasy?

Mark

 

[Loerwyn]

I've finally started a Joe Abercrombie book - The Blade Itself. Joe's style is a little unusual at first, but I think I'm getting used to it.

 

[Gkarlives]

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers. A lushly illustrated fantasy novel set in a city totally devoted to books where the whole economy and society revolve around them. Note of caution; however, while the illustrations would suggest a childrens book, some of the scenes are more graphic than I expected. The story seems to swing back and forth between young adult and hard core adult.

 

[suciul]

While I am almost done with Blood Song by Anthony Ryan - one of the best traditional fantasies I've read in a while and with the same narrative pull as Rothfuss though its subject is more traditional despite some similarities there too - I went fast through Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce and it was ok but not great.

Better than the "one trick which first time is cool but later is tiresome" Silent Land and well written for sure, but a sort of "neither fish nor fowl" book that never coheres and it is also close to the "one trick" thingy above though this time I can take that a few more times if well written (see The Uncertain Places by Lisa Goldstein for a recent book using the same trick as the Joyce book and which incidentally had more sparkle than this one but had other issues that annoyed me)

Overall I guess if you are a fan of the author or if you have not seen its "one trick storyline" (or are in love with it and can read it over and over) you may enjoy it more...

 

[Chrysippus]

I liked that one, too, Chrysippus! Good holiday-blockbuster-type reading. But SF rather than Fantasy?

Mark

I'm only about 50/60 pages in, and couldn't really decide. Sure, the time travel stuff is more SF, but the bit about William Stead's mysticism didn't seem very SF to me. Overall, it feels more steampunk than anything right now, and what little steampunk I've read has always fallen more on the fantasy side to me. Maybe I just don't categorize things well. Sorry

 

[Hobbit]

Overall, it feels more steampunk than anything right now, and what little steampunk I've read has always fallen more on the fantasy side to me. Maybe I just don't categorize things well. Sorry

Not a problem: there can be grey areas. For example, we often have similar debates about whether books such as Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series should be talked about in SF (spaceships blasters etc) or Fantasy (arcane magic, demonic possession etc).

But pleased you're enjoying it.

Mark

 

[Loerwyn]

I'd say that the fantasy elements generally override the science fiction elements in the majority of cases, steampunk included.

You can have non-fantastic steampunk (e.g. Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy) but you can't have non-sci-fi steampunk

 

[Chrysippus]

Not a problem: there can be grey areas. For example, we often have similar debates about whether books such as Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series should be talked about in SF (spaceships blasters etc) or Fantasy (arcane magic, demonic possession etc).

But pleased you're enjoying it.

Mark

On second thought, I am thinking it's more SF than fantasy. The alternate history elements seem to tilt the scales in that direction, and the mysticism I cited as evidence of its being fantasy is probably in keeping with the interest in spiritualism in late nineteenth/early twentieth century America. So yeah, it's probably more SF. My only defense is that I was tired when I posted because I was up so late reading!

 

[suciul]

I liked that one, too, Chrysippus! Good holiday-blockbuster-type reading. But SF rather than Fantasy?

Mark

Haven't heard of this (Kowalski - Company of the Dead) until now but will take a look asap as it sounds interesting; description sounds sfnal sure

Incidentally in the past few weeks I've read (and enjoyed quite a lot) a few more books that could be classified as fantasies - from Michael Cisco (finished Tyrant and started seriously Narrator and Celebrant), Zoran Zivkovic (Ghostwriter, Escher loops, Last Book) and Brendan Connell (Architect) though all are best classified under "weird" than genre fantasy per se

 

[Chrysippus]

Haven't heard of this (Kowalski - Company of the Dead) until now but will take a look asap as it sounds interesting; description sounds sfnal sure

I actually heard about it because somebody reviewed it on the front page. Good thing, because it wasn't in the SFF section of my local Barnes & Noble, but the regular literature section, so I probably wouldn't have found it otherwise.

 

[Jeff Salyards]

Very minor spoilers.

I just finished Scourge of the Betrayer. What a fantastic book. One complaint one can have about military fantasy (or military books in general) is that because the point of view is from well worn veterans in most cases it gives kind of a cheap view of human life. Well, put a naive narrator into that military fantasy world, and add on the effect of the Bloodsounder Flail and that worry just goes away.
...

For me, this is not only my early favorite to be the top debut of the year (though I'm not sure I'll actually be reading any more of the year's debuts yet), but the top book of the year. It was that good.

I think "wow" is the appropriate response here! Thanks so much for the detailed write-up--I'm absolutely thrilled you enjoyed the book so much.

To stay on topic, I'm going to pick up one of Daniel Abraham's new ones. That guy is terriffic, no matter which name he uses (though he's no Lark Mawrence).

 

[NickeeCoco]

Finished The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin. I didn't like it as much as her Inheritance Trilogy, but I thought she had an interesting premise. I also think that now that the groundwork and world building is done, this book paves the way for the second book.

Started The Hammer by K. J. Parker. So far it's exactly what I expected it to be. Slow moving and full of tidbits about smithing (is that even a verb?), hunting, etc, etc. I did find an inconsistency, though. It surprised me, because Parker's work tends to be very well executed. Gig is unable to get a book from the library, because his father is there. He spends a page and a half being upset that he can't go and read, unable to find a book outside of the library. Then, when he goes and visits his friend, he has a book in his pocket to give him. They were only a few pages apart, so I'm surprised that neither Parker nor the editor caught it.

 

[Kazz Wylde]

Blood Song is looking good, how many of y'all read it besides Liviu?

 

[suciul]

Blood Song is looking good, how many of y'all read it besides Liviu?

Someone above mentioned it recently and while I had a copy for sometime now I did not pay attention until now; finished it and it was excellent to the end - good stopping point though of course one wants more. The story is reasonably traditional but the author has narrative pull so you do not want to stop reading it.

 

[Loerwyn]

To stay on topic, I'm going to pick up one of Daniel Abraham's new ones. That guy is terriffic, no matter which name he uses (though he's no Lark Mawrence).

No, he's much better

The Dragon's Path is a good novel, I definitely recommend it.

 

[Rob B]

No, he's much better

Just an opinion...and it isn't exactly a balanced when comparing a writer with 2 novels published against a writer with close to a dozen novels published.

 

[Loerwyn]

Just an opinion...and it isn't exactly a balanced when comparing a writer with 2 novels published against a writer with close to a dozen novels published.

One could easily flip that around and say it's not balanced the other way around, Rob

 

[Danogzilla]

Finished Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged last night (was up to 4:15 AM finishing it). Good book. I want to finish up The First Law before I move on to Malazan (getting good and excited to start it), but I'm taking a breather and starting Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Tiger today.