Fantasy / Horror Reading in October 2015

[Contrarius]

And now I can't resist any longer -- on to The Aeronaut's Windlass!

 

[Hobbit]

And now I can't resist any longer -- on to The Aeronaut's Windlass!

As the book's 640 pages, Contrarius - how long is the audiobook?

 

[Contrarius]

As the book's 640 pages, Contrarius - how long is the audiobook?

Roughly 20 hours. Longer than some, but nothing startling.

Enjoying it so far. *Excellent* British narrator. I'm just a coupla hours in.

 

[Hobbit]

Hope you continue to enjoy.

Of course, whenever I read a book, in my head I get a British narrator. He's not bad.

 

[Contrarius]

Ha. You would.

I'm one of those American women who is an absolute sucker for any variety of British or British-related accent. London, Edinburgh, County Kerry, Johannesburg, Sidney, I don't care -- I wouldn't turn down any of em.

 

[Hobbit]

I'm one of those American women who is an absolute sucker for any variety of British or British-related accent. London, Edinburgh, County Kerry, Johannesburg, Sidney, I don't care -- I wouldn't turn down any of em

There's been quite a few studies that show that you are not the only one, Contrarius. There is a reason why recently in advertising and films often use British actors/voices for voiceovers, I understand - they get noticed. (Have you noticed how many villain parts in movies have British accents recently? I've been told that it is entirely deliberate.)

 

[Contrarius]

There's been quite a few studies that show that you are not the only one, Contrarius.

Face it -- you guys are just superior. And, after all, you invented the language.

 

[Namanari]

I feel obliged to point out County Kerry is in Ireland (the non-British part).

On radio stations over here whenever they are promoting something like broadband or alternative music they always have an American voice over... And if it's cars or engineering then it's a Swede or German.

---

Nearly finished Slow Apocalypse by John Varley.

It's enjoyable enough but as is always a slight risk with post-apocalypse / survival novels the survival processes of planning, hoarding, collecting etc start to push the characters and adventure plot to one side. So after a certain point Varley spends quite a few chapters with the characters more or less just subsisting and scouting rather than doing anything.

Varley has really emphasised the LA setting and to be honest I've gotten a bit bewildered by the geography that he describes. It's obviously important to him that he's plotted out how he thinks things would go down neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood, what motorways and routes out of the city would remain open etc. Perhaps if you were familliar with the city that would be of particular interest.

Broadly speaking the characters remain more plausible than most. I like how Varley turned around the wife of the protagonist, who initially 'takes to bed' under the pressure of the crisis but ends up rallying and turns out to be one of the more interesting characters.

There's always one lemming though, and it has turned out to be the teeange daughter, Addison, who is prepared to risk the family's safety at any opportunity in order to ensure the safety of her pet horse, Scout. Gunfight? Got to race out to make sure the horse is OK. Wildfire threatening to burn us all alive? We don't leave without arseing around for twenty minutes putting Scout in the horsebox.

It's fine though, because it's eminently believable, even if you do wish someone would just slap her and bundle her into the car.

Although, if horse steaks end up on the menu perhaps it will all turn out to have been worth it.

 

[Contrarius]

I feel obliged to point out County Kerry is in Ireland (the non-British part).

And Johannesburg is in South Africa, and Sidney is in Australia. I did say British or British **related**.

 

[Hobbit]

Face it -- you guys are just superior.

Oh, not really. I'm sure there are a few million people who would disagree with that!

Nearly finished Slow Apocalypse by John Varley.

Interesting, Namanari. Thanks for pointing it out. Varley's output of late has tended to be of the YA variety. I quite liked his Heinlein-esque SF Red Thunder series, though it's definitely not Heinlein's version of YA. This sounds like another updating of old tropes.

Whilst I can see why Addison is there, characterwise, I'm sure Heinlein would've not put up with such a character in his time and would've had something unpleasant happen to her - to be replaced with his much more adaptable, amenable, useful female - see Podkayne of Mars for example.

 

[Jon Collins]

My word

Currently reading Marc Turner's When The Heavens Fall, certainly happy with it so far.

After 25% I can't say I am enjoying it at all. I see what he's going for but it's just not my kind of story unfortunately. Fortunately my beta read came out far more enjoyable than I'd hoped.

Now onto the latest book in the Saxon Chronicles!

 

[Luke_B]

And Johannesburg is in South Africa, and Sidney is in Australia. I did say British or British **related**.

Sydney is in Australia. Not sure about Sidney

 

[Hobbit]

Sydney is in Australia. Not sure about Sidney

Twinned settlement; the lesser known of the two.

 

[Luke_B]

Twinned settlement; the lesser known of the two.

It's a similar situation to Mieville's The City and the City. In fact, I believe to sequel will be called The Sydney and the Sidney.

And personally I think Tasmanians have nicer accents.

Back on topic. I'm reading The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette De Bodard. Lovely stuff so far.

 

[Hobbit]

I'm reading The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette De Bodard. Lovely stuff so far.

You see, that's two of you that like the book.Rob B did as well.
I liked the world building, but was not a fan of the characterisation - falling angels (again) - been done before. But I suspect that this is another where I don't like and most other people do!

 

[Luke_B]

You see, that's two of you that like the book.Rob B did as well.
I liked the world building, but was not a fan of the characterisation - falling angels (again) - been done before. But I suspect that this is another where I don't like and most other people do!

But but but it's fallen angels mixing with entities from other mythologies, such as Jade Empire Immortals from Vietnam. And the writing is super beautiful and the post-apocalyptic fantasy Paris in ruins is dark and atmospheric and so so cool. It reads as pretty fresh to me. I've struggled with a lot of 2015 fantasy but this has really hooked me. Sneaking in a few pages whenever I can.

But I know where you're coming from. I had almost exactly the same reaction to Tad Williams' Bobby Dollar series, which I know you like.

 

[Namanari]

Cracked open Dust of Dreams last night, only to discover in the foreword that this 1200+ page behemoth is just the first half of what is essentially a single final Malazan novel (The Crippled God being part 2). Awesome! I'd assumed they were separate novels.

The absolutely epic proportions involved seem a fitting in to what is one of the heftiest series in fantasy.

I started my re-read at the beginning of the year, or thereabouts, and can't believe that the end is finally in sight. Although from Toll the Hounds onwards I've been in 'unread' territory. I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and Erikson has, if nothing else, really re-kindled my appreciation of fairly 'traditional' fantasy series after a few years of moving away from them in favour of horror and SF.

 

[Westy]

Finished the second book in John Hornor Jacobs' Incorruptible series, Foreign Devils.

Fisk and Shoe are back, this time they're on the hunt for Beleth, a Daemonologist engineer turned bad, whilst Fisk's new partner Livia and her entourage must make a diplomatic mission to Kithai to try to broker peace.

The novel follows these two storylines throughout, and both are as entertaining as each other - with daemonology, hell-fire shotguns, master swordsmen and the 15-foot tall vaettir, it's really a hybrid of many of the common tropes in fantasy, all set within a land that is part Rome and part Western, with a bit of Eastern influence thrown in.

There's no middle-book syndrome here; the book is well-paced and the story never gets bogged down. A very enjoyable read and if you liked The Incorruptibles, you'll like this one.

Next up: Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley.

 

[bard`s song]

Started The Briar King by Greg Keyes and I can already tell after some pages that I am going to really enjoy this series.
Seems to be quite in the middle between traditional Fantasy following the Tolkien school and the more recent darker and character driven stuff.

And it is a finished series! Hooray!

 

[Contrarius]

I'm almost halfway through The Aeronaut's Windlass now. It's fun, but not perfect. For instance, I can feel Butcher trying too hard to be arch at times, and Rowl is a little bit precious. And other minorish gripes. I love Grim (Grimm? I don't have the text) and Bayard -- I'm a sucker for age-of-sail stories -- and the character of Master Ferris (sp?) is great. OTOH, I'd love to slap Gwen a time or two.

Anyway, so far so good!

eta -- Oh, and btw -- the "warrior born" supposedly descend in part from lions, and supposedly have eyes with vertically slit pupils. Unfortunately for Butcher, lions actually have ROUND pupils. Arg.