2003 releases read

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Patricia McKillip, Ombria in Shadow (Paperback release)

A lovely new book by one of my favorite authors, who deserves more notice and more readers imo. Her writing style truly deserves the title high fantasy.

Deborah Chester, The Queens Gambit (Paperback)

Chester picks up the story of the Blade, the Sword, the Chalice and continues the story of Pheresa and her struggles for the throne. Whoever has read the prequels will likely give this book a try and it's alright. But it's a let down compared to the earlier books imo. Pheresa acts the notorious damsell in distress and the plotline is accordingly. Suspense having been the one big bonus of the earlier books this leads to boredom. She can do much better than this.
 
Just finished Ashok K. Banker's Prince of Ayodhya. Ended up being rather quick in pace but the pacing and style of the book is also a bit too detached. A failing of most books that rely heavily on epic cultural foundations. It seems the author struggled (and for the most part lost) to balance the accepted with his own spin and take on the matter. None of the characters are fully formed enough to truly connect with or even get a sense of them as characters. In many ways the book reminded of someone's detailed scene by scene description of a movie or play they had seen. No matter how well the narration or memory for detail; it still fails to truly engage the same way as seeing it unfold yourself.

Was it worth reading? Yes. Even only for a nice change of pace and a bit of cultural diversity. I would like to see Banker be a bit more creative and willing to take a risk with his own slant as opposed to trying to juggle the accpeted versions and write it as a novel. It ends up clumsy and invariably a few balls that fall to the ground end up lost and forgotten in the corner.
 
Just put down Tad Williams' The War of the Flowers. I am a bit ambivalent about this one. Perhaps because, while I like Williams very much, he never quite carries out the concept of his works to their full potential. On the other hand, he also seems to let the concept overpower his storytelling abilities. Williams tells a great tale. But it sometimes gets bogged down with the very world that Williams is so sxcited to share. "Otherworld" is perhaps the epitome of this failing.

Don't get me wrong. "Otherworld" is incredibly entertaining and a very good book. But it, as with this latest entry, just does not quite make the peak of fantasy for me.

That said, I must point out that The War of the Flowers is definitely worth reading and will rank in the upper eschelon of 2003 reading. However, it does not make the rank of top contenders. Nor is it the kind of tour de force that leaves me a bit overwhelmed on completion like Carey's "Kushiel's Legacy" or Keyes' The Briar King. Williams creates the type of story that seems to have a natural lull every now and again that just keeps the whole thing from being 'great'.

I think another part of my assessment, unfortunately, stems from also reading the first half of "Shadowmarch" online. This project seems so much more vivid and in many ways, it seems that it drew the creative juices of Mr. Williams a bit more strongly than War did at times (though I know that the writing was strictly in tandem).

There are several clever aspects to this latest offering of Williams. I think, though, that perhaps he might have tightened the story a bit if he had scrapped some of the almost continuous tossed salad effect that the concept of 'faerie' came to be. This was one reason I have found Cecilia Dart-Thornton so disappointing. Luckily for Mr. Williams, his talent is so much stronger.
 
Have completed Martha Wells' The Wizard Hunters. A nice read. Not great. But I think the book truly suffers from being such a blatant 'first in series'. Still Wells is a much better than average writer and I am looking forward to seeing how she takes this series. For the less impetuous and not so enslaved to instant gratification; you might want to wait and read the series as a whole.
 
Well I just raced through Seeds of Betrayal by David B. Coe. A rather tangental note, the cover is on upside down. rather disconcerting that it took me almost to the end to realize it (I take the jacket off when I read a book).

Quite good. Coe has improved drastically from the "Lon'Tobyn" series. Coe is second only to J.V. Jones in the mot improved author category. While I am rather ambivalent on "the Lon-Tobyn Chronicles", the "Winds of the Forelands" has proven to be solid well written and crafted fantasy. He is also one of those wonderful authors that manages to write at an abnormal rate and is rather dependable on putting out a book year.
 
I saw the paperback edition of "Rules of Ascension" this week and I immediately thought it might be something for me, for in-between the big league's reads.

But then I considered the (at times very) poor review for the Lon-Tobyn chronicle and figured I'd wait a bit. It does look more exciting though. John, what did you think of the first book? Could you describe the Qirsi? And the main character, Tavis, what sort of characters is he? I'm particularly interested in the Qirsi and their magical gifts....
 
I finally got around to reading Hobb's Golden Fool. Various reasons precluded me from getting to this one earlier, but the wait was worth it. This woman can write with the best of them, from simple descriptive phrases, to the unparallelled characterization she employs, few authors are her equal. Even though I knew a certain thing was going to happen in this installment of FitzChivalry's saga, the tension, and playing out were great. Hobb ties things together very well, but leaves enough out so my anticipation of the next installment incredible.

JohnH and Mitfh: I had been thinking of Coe's new saga for a while since the first book just released in paperback. Sounds interesting but the lukewarm response to his earlier series put me off. Perhaps I'll try it down the road.
 
Coe has improved tremendously. "The Lon-Tobyn Chronicles" were a bit plodding and pedestrian, if readable. "The Winds of the Forelands" has proven fast-paced, entertaining and, if slightly contrived, still lean and lacking too much of the frustration that can stem from the author doing literary gymnastics to get the characters in certain situations and then out again.

And now back to the regularly scheduled programing: I just finished Caitlin Sweet's Telling of Stars. A very, very different sort of book. Very lyrical and, though each author is unique, I would have to say there are remnants of McKillip and Kay with more than a dash of LeGuin. The book did not hold up in a linear fashion but the author still is an incredible writer. A scene towards the end is remarkably moving and poignant. Overall this book is definitely not for everyone. If you want action, fast paced plotting, intrigue and romance, look elsewhere. If you don't need pat resolution and like abstract visualization, then this book might just be for you.
 
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I'm currently reading book 1 of 'Winds of the Forelands' and I must agree with John H: Coe has indeed improved drastically.
I never finished his first LonTobyn-book, it just didn't grab my
interest as I hoped it would. I'm now almost 400 pages into 'Rules of Ascension' and it is far better than I expected.
It teaches you to always give an author a second chance...
Started Kate Elliots first 'Crown of Stars'-book as well (not a new release I know, just sue me;) )and finally getting into it. Took me some chapters though....
 
Well, I ended up having quite a bit of enforced reading time imposed upon me, today. Not that I am complaining. Luckily for me, I had a great way to spend it.

R. Scott Bakker has been touted as a new Steven Erikson or George R. R. Martin, neither impress me overmuch. Certainly nowhere near the heights of rapture even their less ardent fans claim to be taken by their work. Of course jacket blurbs are not the stuff of which great reading decisions are made of, for the most part. Still the appendices looked interesting and I always have a soft spot for authors that like to create geo-political histories within their works. So it was a great delight to find that Bakker far surpasses either to which he has been compared. His first novel The Darkness that Comes Before starts out slightly sluggish. It suffers from the new trend of eliptical plotting and obscure importance. However, Bakker quickly redeems himself and creates a wonderful panorama of action, intrigue and world-buidling that should grab attention. This is a very good author who knows how to weave severval sub-plots into one larger text.

It has been a long time since I started a series that I truly hope will be of the long rather than the short variety. The scope of "The Prince of Nothing" is certainly vast enough just after the first book to merit a lengthy exposition.

The unfortunate thing is that this book is only available in Canada at this time. It has been picked up for publishing in both the US and UK sometime in the near or nearer future (end of 2003 early 2004 is my guess -- will have to see in the next issue of Locus whether it is listed for forthcoming release).

I definitely recommend that you go ahead and pick up this book now, though. It will definitely rank near the top of my 'best' list.
While I have been lucky so far with this year's releases, this is probably the best debut work so far this year. Of course we are only half way in, but to beat this, someone will have almost have to produce a miracle.
 
Hmm. Seems like very few are indulging in the latest pleasures. Entering the sixth month and I doubt we have twice that many posters in this thread. Considering the advent of HPatOotP, this thread should explode. Should. Of course that assumes that people realize that they can post about books already mentioned by someone else. They do know that, don't they...don't they?

Anyhow.

Three new offerings at the altar of my obsession.

Sarah Ash's The Lord of Snow and Shadows, Chris Wooding's The Weavers of Saramyr and Chris Bunch's Dragomaster: Knighthood of the Dragon. None were brilliant. Wooding came the closest, but perhaps those segments that tottered over the void of truly intriguing storyline and plot, but never made the plument, made his work more disappointing than the other two. Well, Bunch did not disappoint.

He delivered exactly what I expected in this series. Bunch is a great papaerback author: pulpy, fast-paced and completely linear in the sparest of fashions. His work is reminescent of the old westerns my grandfather used to read. If a bit less black and white on issues. There is attempt at character angst and reflection. Bunch avoids making this turn out as goofy pretension (unlike a few other authors I shall refrain from mentioning), but using a very light touch in this area. Bunch's personal history is very apparent during the battle scenes in this work. Dragons can easily be interchanged with bombers over war-torn Germany during WWII or helicopters patroling the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam conflict. Readable and enjoyable. But no masterpiece is Knighthood of the Dragon

Readable is also how I would describe Ash's Lord of Snow and Shadows. But enjoyable? I did not hate the book -- I am even willing to give the woman a second try¹. But this book lacks a real sense that the author wants to envelope the reader in world, culture, society and atmosphere. Adn for me that is a big part of fantasy. Certainly in those works I consider good, let alone great. Ash fails in this in a big way. She developes parameters early on that suggest a half-way decent world building effort only to totally abandon it by the third chapter. The result is a story that rattles in on a large but completely empty stage. Quite disappointing. There was little to no effort placed in making this world seem real to the character let alone the reader. And I was a bit put off by the certain theme that seems to have once again become quite popular. A certain quasi-horror theme that stil pervades the fringes of fantasy fiction -- when mavins of horror decide to blur the lines -- Barker can do it, Straub and King can do it. Anne Rice used to be able to do it. Tanith Lee in the old days did it more to my taste. Sarah Ash fails miserably. The one good thing is that the woman actually can write -- she just needs a good story to write. She would make a bloody good editor for someone with a wonderful and vivid imagination to share.

Last is Wooding's The Weavers of Saramyr . As I stated earlier, this book teeters on quite good but never takes the plunge. Which is perhaps a bigger shame then the disappointment offered by Ash; she never really raises one's hopes.

Wooding has a nice world. But he rushed the plot. Did not let it develop at all. And forced his characters and his readers through a rather grueling if convoluted and than detached 'quest' journey. Totally unneeded. He really could have focused better on key elements that he did well and polich up some of the weak plot arcs and ended up with a very good book. Instead there was a sense of over-manipulative effort on the authors part to get certain plots to converge at a certain point without really using that convergance to good storytelling ro character developement use. Like Ash, Wooding fails to really flesh out his world. It would be a shame if a richly detailed and explored canvas gets tossed to the wayside in the seemingly popular anti-epic trend that has cropped up of late. That and the backlash against seemingly endless series seems to be interpreted as scant and barebones trilogies regardless of story development or world-building.

Oh well. All three were worth reading to some extent. I will definitely read the next in each series to see for hoped for improvement. And many might like all three making the, well not most, but something at least, of very little.

¹It should be served as a reminder that I am a hopeless completionist and fail to turn my back on series once started no matter how shamelessly pathetic they become. I have read two and half Goodkind books as testimony to my pervading sense of eternal optimism that continually asks ' they can't stay this bad, can they?"
 
Oh but they can, JohnH. They can and they did...
And even worse, I heard there is soon a new one from Badkind coming (shudder):eek:
 
Err, a bit of rhetorical sarcasm there, Pathir. I actually do know they got worse having read the 'chicken' scene in my reading group once after a couple of bottles of wine. Almost thrown out of the place we were meeting we got so loud in our hilairity.

In the Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip now joins it place next to the rest of her small jewels. I almost hesitate to rank her books, as each has its own charm. This book definitely flows easier than the previous book Ombria in Shadow, but I am not sure that this is necessarily a good thing. McKillip still wraps her prose up in an intricate and beguiling knot in places but nothing like Ombria or The Tower at Stony Wood. Still this book is pure McKillip.

On a sad note, while the cover is beautiful Kinuko Kraft, the quality of the paper is a bit below par this time. I know this is superficial, but part of the charm of the McKillip books is the presentation as well. I wish publishers would take a little effort to make their books pieces of art on the outside as well as within.

I truly hope that the listing for McKillip's next book Alphabet of Thorns is accurate for an early 2004 release. She has been able to produce a book a year, so I am guardedly optimistic.
 
I know it was rhetorical, John, just couldn't help myself:D
Just finished 'Rules of Ascension' and it was quite good, although it faltered a bit in the end. Still, I will be reading the second installment when it reaches the shops here...
Reading 'King's Dragon' now and after a rough start it's growing on me. After that I don't know. Maby the second Elliot 'Prince of Dogs'. Yet 'Fortress of Grey Ice' lies waiting, just as 'The One Kingdom', 'Sorcery Rising' and 'Shadow'. But it will probably be Carol Berg's last two books of the 'Rai Kirah'-trilogy who are next, since I just got my hands on book three and I liked her first one.

BTW - Does anyone know if 'The Briar King' by Keyes is already out here in Europe (The Netherlands). All the positive reviews I read about it made me itching to get a hand on the book, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the local bookshops.

And on another, in this thread slightly illegal note: Has anyone ever heard of a series of books by an author called Anthony Swithin. While digging through some dusty closets while moving I found his books, four in total, with some of my older stuff.
The series is called 'The perilous quest for Lyonesse' and the first book is called 'Princes of Sandastre'. They look quite good actually, but I remember dimly having read only a part of the first book, for whatever reason. Is there someone who remembers these titles?
 
Is there someone who remembers these titles?
Click to expand...

Have heard of them, and seen them about, but not read them properly, Pathir- sorry! :)

There were four in the series,

1. Princes of Sandastre;
2. The Lords of the Stoney Mountains;
3. The Winds of the Wastelands;
4. The Nine Gods of Safaddne.

Tried the first (I think) but found it heavy going and didn't get far with it. Can't remember much at all about it now except that it was set in an alternative version of the 15th century, originally published late 1980's early 1990's I think.


Hobbit
 
Just like me then, Hobbit. I obviously didn't get past the first book either... Probably no-one here who even remembers these books, let alone read them;)
Thanks for the input...
 
BTW - Does anyone know if 'The Briar King' by Keyes is already out here in Europe (The Netherlands).

Greetings fellow Lowlander ;)

No, the book hasn't been released yet, in fact I haven't even heard it was picked up for publishing here.

I'll probably wait till the second volume is released before I give this series a try.
 
I recently finished up a new offering from Prime Books. The Etched City is the first book for Aussie KJ Bishop. This is not a standard heroic fantasy full of orcs, trolls, and dragons. It is a study of two unlikely compatriots, a surgeon and a soldier, who find themselves once again in each other's company a few years after a failed coup against the reigning governmental authority. They have been separately hunted across the desert country, moving from failing town to nomad colony to trading outpost, while they General's men have searched for them.

The story enters with them finding each other, and their decision to escape the country in which they live. The only exit from their country, to the new country they seek, is across a wide expanse of desert on a railroad controlled by those they run from.

When they reach their new destination they each become ensconced in their work, separately with very little contact. However, as they try to escape their old life, they find it is very difficult to leave behind.

The soldier reminds one very much of the Judge from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. He is a fascinating character.

The Etched City is a surreal work of fiction. I was struck by the close similarity in writing style to two other authors I have recently discovered: China Mieville and Jeff Vandermeer. The depth of theme and characterization in this novel is more profound than in the previously named author's works however. Setting plays an important role in all three works. Like Ambergris and New Crobuzon, The Etched City becomes a character in itself, integral to the story.

This work is simply beautiful. I would encourage everyone to support a new talent in the field of fantasy literature. Support small press publishing too, as there are often wonderful authors working below the radar of big press.

KJ Bishop's website

Prime Books

KJ Bishop also has messageboards at Nightshade Books.
 
Well after an incrredibly long wait, I finally was able to dig into Laura Resnick's In Fire Forged: The White Dragon! And was it worth it! A wonderful read and a considerable improvement over the initial book in the series. And that is a tall order. Despite my not having read In Legend Born since it came out in hardcover so many years ago, I was able to catch up in no time. Resnick was able to ground the reader in familiarity without doing the tedious and repetitive flashback that basically can ruin a book in no time. Resnick's talent in doing this enabled me to be rather lazy and not going back and rereading the first book (something I was convinced I would and should do -- now I can do the re-read when the series is complete).

Resnick sticks to a small lead cast with a slightly larger supporting cast. Perhaps this also lends to this books appeal as the supporting cast is able to truly support the story and lend emotional center to the various plots. Resnick paces her plot well and in no time I was regretably closing the cover and thanking the stars that Resnick already had In Fire Forged: The Destroyer Goddess ready for a release this december. The blurb in the rear cover flap said that she is hard at work writing the next in the series. So resnick will be rather unique in the fantasy world as releasing three books in two years. Three rather substantial and original works with a bit heft to them.
 
Okay, I had to do my report at the university today and now I am very relaxed for it went smoothly. :) So, finally I will write about my 2003 releases readings . . .

Kuhsiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey: Well, I could not wait to get my hands on that book so I did not wait for the paperback but gave myself the hardcover as a present.
And I did not regret it at all!
I thought the second book - Kushiel's Chosen - had been well done, still I had feared that it could go down with the third one. But no! Instead this book was the fabulous, magnificent, great conclusion for this wonderful series that I could not have dreamt off but only wished for.
It is darker, yes, it still has a huge amount of sex - and especially sex that might offend someone - but the characterization, the story, the conclusion . . . breathtaking.
I think that it would not work on its own quite so well, but knowing Phédre through the first two books, this was so very very well done!
*sniff* Guess what, five out of five points.

Angelica - Sharon Shinn: Since reading Archangel, Sharon Shinn has ever been one of my favourite authors. Easy, light reading, nice characters, romance . . . I just loved Archangel, The Shapechanger's Wife and Summer at Castle Auburn.
Her other books were always nice to read as well.
This book now falls in the letter category: nice read, but nothing more. The story reminds me too much of older Samarian stories and thus its nothing new. And at some points I had the feeling the book lacked a good editing, because there were some inconsistencies during the story.
Nonetheless, again the Edori lifestyle was great - and the best about this book and all the other Samarian books: the way Shinn can write about music.
I myself can't sing and unfortunately never learned to play an instrument, nonetheless music is a very important part in my life. I hardly go without listening to music. I am in fact most productive while listening to music. And so I just love her way to describe beautiful music! It makes me feel like actually listening to great music. :)
No wonder that the first Lacuna Coil CD always reminds me of Archangel - I heard it all the time while reading. It just fit IMHO to music sung by angels. ;)
So, three out of five points.

So far, that's it with real new releases I read this year - usually I prefer paperback.

:)
 
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