Reading in April 2009

columbob said:
Not so old, Glokta's described as being in his mid-30's. He's a cripple, though, and almost toothless, so he must eat with a straw (so to speak). Maybe that's why we (I also first pictured him as an older man, late 40's or 50's) think he's an old coot.

He was a dashing officer not so very long ago, I think the war against the Gurkish ended 7 years before or so.
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Definitely prematurely aged. While no older than mid-thirties, his mentality and persona pull it off perfectly. With his pain as his closest companion, his days seem more clearly defined by the infirmity endured rather than the infirmity dispensed. Something about avoiding living with "mother" brought visions of Norman Bates to mind.
 
Hello everyone - I am thoroughly enjoying Gardens of the Moon. I am only about 170 pages in but the characters are amazing and the story is so easy to get immersed in. I feel like I was dropped off in the middle of something and am trying to find my way around. I read alot before bed and when I start getting dozey I try to fight it off and keep reading but with this book in that addled state I get lost and confused. I have no sense of where this story will go. With some of the other series you can kind of forecast a big apocalyptic show down. This - who knows. I love it.
 
I finished Beg for Mercy earlier today, which turned out to be pretty much as I expected - a quick and easy read that passed the time enjoyably enough. Nothing spectacular about it, really. There are other books in the series, but I wasn't all that thrilled with the first book, and by the sounds of it, later books decline in quality.

So, next on my list is The Born Queen. Based on various people's comments about this book, I am very apprehensive as to whether I am going to like it or not. Having read the previous three titles and find them to be reasonably enjoyable (certainly enough so for me to want to buy the next one in the series) I'm anxious that the final book may turn out to be a letdown.

But, we shall see.
 
I'm reading Drood, by Dan Simmons. I am only halfway through Terror on audio, but I notice a distinct similarity in style. I notice Simmons tends to wander a lot, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does become annoying when I just want to know what happened. So far it's a good book to read before bedtime, because after a half hour or so I'm pretty sleepy, but at the same time the language is lovely, so I'm enjoying the ride. I hate to complain about length, but I wish it were shorter. Besides all that, I have no pre-existing interest in the works of Charles Dickens, though I have read some. I think Simmons' books would work better for me if they were about historical periods or people that already interest me. Despite all that, it is a good book, I'm just worried I won't be able to finish it.
 
I picked up and just started Joshua Palmatier's The Skewed Throne, and so far it is pretty blah. I'll keep going for a little while, but if this doesn't get substantially better by 100 pages in, it's going on the reject pile.

So far it's a generic "gritty" street urchin tale that is already busting up my suspension of disbelief right and left with a laughably inaccurate portrayal of a 14-year-old girl who lives in a hole in the slums and wears clothes described as mostly "slime and dirt," never mind that in the very first scene of the story she has not one but two better-dressed corpses to steal clothes from.

I have to wonder if any of these authors bother actually going to a slum or even doing some basic research on how urban poor people get by. Hint: they don't do it by being isolated hole-dwelling loners dressed in slime, however "cool" that might seem to an author who doesn't know any better and can't be bothered to get basics right (or even, I don't know, imagine that maybe his protagonist would prefer to steal less-gross clothes off the dead people whose food she's already stealing). I feel like slum-dwellers are the new horses in terms of extremely basic worldbuilding facts that incompetents repeatedly get wrong.

Anyway. The writing is pretty average and highly repetitious, and it is a bad sign if I'm noticing a whole lot of repetition less than 50 pages in. The story is nominally in first-person but it reads like it really should have been third-person; lots of description of actions, very little of the thought process that is the real strength of a first-person story.

Based on these early bad signs I don't have a whole lot of faith that things are magically going to get better in the next few pages or that the plot will turn out to be a precision-crafted whirlwind of twists and turns. Like I said, I'll give it a while to improve, but so far this one's looking like a big old fail.
 
Ahhhh. I read Turn Coat by Jim Butcher and it most definitely lived up to my expectations. Lots of action, comedy, and conspiracies...I loved it. But now I am SO ******** SAD! Becuase now I will have to wait another year for a book that I will once again devour in a couple of hours....

Really great book though. Totally satisfied me.
 
I'm still reading The Born Queen at the moment. I just made my way through the prologue last night, so will be able to start on the book itself proper today.

I hate that it's so long since I last read the previous book. Character names are familiar, but I'm finding I can't remember what many of them are doing and why. :( It's a little confusing. I would have liked a summary of some sorts at the beginning of the book.
 
Bastard said:
Right now I'm reading The Great Hunt of Wheel of Time, might follow it up with one of these (don't know yet):
Dragon Reborn
The Name of the Wind
The Way of Shadows
Silverthorn
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Finished The Great Hunt and The Name of the Wind. Enjoyed The Great Hunt quite a bit, readying myself for the Dragon Reborn... but not yet. I thought it was a better read than the first novel though.

The Name of the Wind I liked. You could tell that the author was having fun writting this, or at least that's the impression that I got. But as the novel itself tells us, the story was merely laying the groundwork for the meat of it, so I have high expectations for the sequel which looks to be more exciting and have more action.

Started The Way of Shadows, the first couple of chapters haven't said much to me, but I have a feeling that it'll get better after the slow start.
 
I picked up Turn Coat by Jim Butcher yesterday and am currently about 2/3 of the way through. It's been great so far and defiantly worth the 20 bucks I had to cough up. Once I have this wrapped up, I'll either give deadhouse gates by Erikson another go (stopped halfway about 5 months ago) or begin Lamentation by Ken Scholes.
 
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Finished The Spirit Stone by Kerr this last weekend. I'm not aware of anyone who writes quite like Kerr. I've read some authors that tried and failed, but none can do what she does.

Currently, I'm about 100 pages into Natural Ordermage by Modesitt Jr.. The theme in his Recluce books is very repetitive, but the tales he tells are well done and keep me coming back.
 
The Skewed Throne continued to suck pretty hardcore for the next 20-odd pages, so I put it aside (to be resumed if I ever find myself feeling excessively masochistic... maybe) and bought Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man (as it is known here in the U.S.). Full price! In hardcover! Didn't even wait for the coupon!

...and oh man it is so worth it. I'm about 150 pages in and will post more detailed reactions later/in the Brett thread, but I am loving this book. Yes, it is straight-up traditional fantasy. No, it is not especially original in any respect. But Brett is one hell of a storyteller and he makes those old tired cliches get up and dance like it's their very first time around the block.

Anyway, more detailed breakdown can wait, I wanna read the rest of the book. Woo!
 
Finished The Blade Itself and marching on into Before They Are Hanged. Abercrombie's writing lives up to all of the positive commentary, and then some.
 
thrinidir said:
Infoquake by David Louis Edelman.
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I am interested in what you thought of this since I finished it not too long ago (my reaction - ok read, but I won`t pick up the sequels).


Finished Wings of Wrath. I flew through the book, but somehow it really feels like filler in between the first one and the finale, in the trilogy.
all that to discover that the witches and people beyond the Wrath may have been cruelly sacrificed, no the witches volunteered after all and people felt bad about the people trapped with the Souleaters!

I`m simplifying it a bit, but I guess I expected a bit more.... very readable and enjoyable, but the ending of the second book just felt.... meh.
 
I bought The Fires of Heaven and Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan earlier today. Seeing how I'm in the middle of The Great Hunt right now, I've got some reading for a while.
 
Do not read Sarah Pinborough's The Taken! It starts off pretty good and pretty quick; a characteristic I like in a book. However, the story falls prey to the usual bad reactions of characters exposed to some really scary stuff.

For example if a strange ghost-like child suddenly appears at the foot of your bed ,while your phones are dead, while its the middle of the night, and while your friends mom claims to have just seen a kid that has been dead for 40 years...well what does it take for you to run screaming from the house?

And to make matters worse when things get really bloody how many of us would pause to have sex with a person we just met? Come on!!! People are getting their guts ripped out and the main character (who really should have been running for her life) is instead looking for condoms.

This was the second book we read in our newly formed book club...we can only go up from here.
 
So finished the Accidental Sorcerer by K.E. Mills. Reading through the reviews and discussions here, I can't find myself able to not just agree with what most said about it.

It's not a bad book but neither is it something that had me enthralled or captivated. The story itself is nice but there are quite some things that would have made it better if it was left out or rather shortened. Sure, everyone in the palace wore a mask and played his or her own game but the constant bitching especially between Melissandre and Reg quickly turned from maybe character defining to a too long drawn out repeated word fight that could have been funny but wasn't. Considering large parts of the book (at least at first) were set up in a comedic way that's probably what it should have been but it worked out as just too long and could have been cut out or shortened massively.

The ending was also a bit of a let down, or to be more precise, the end fight if you want. The words which could have been cut out from the useless bantering could have been better spent here creating a more worthier finale between the four combatants, as after building up and depicting the villain quite well, he just fell too quickly when it came to it.

Afterwards the epilogue-part actually manages to pick up again and create a plausible, even interesting setting for further books in this environment. Were it not for the fact that I didn't find the world building all that interesting. In my mind, I pictured Ottoland as the city shown in the Golden Compass/Northern Lights Movie, just a bit more dull, lifeless and unexciting. New Ottoland is fairly nondescript and well, let's not talk about a desert all around it.

With a more interesting world I might be looking out for the sequel, but as it is I think I'll pass and try other series first before coming back to this world. Mind you, it's not a bad book at all, but drawing a bad analogy, this wasn't a fabulous dinner steak menu. It was a quick burger. While I don't want to eat steak every day, it wasn't the best burger as well. It was a meal that satisfied your immediate hunger and after eating it, you don't look back or dwell on it. Sometimes, that's exactly the perfect thing to eat. Other times, it just isn't enough.
 
So I'm about 250 pages into The Born Queen now, and really not enjoying it all that much. If it wasn't that it's book four (and the final book in the series, at that) then I'd probably not want to finish it. It's turning out to be a struggle, and there's nothing more depressing when reading than trying to get through something that's of poor quality --- especially when I know I have over twenty other books on my to read pile, many of which I'm certain will be far better and more fun to read than this.

I'm trying to read 100 pages a day, since I think I can just about manage to cope with that many without going too crazy. Not doing so well at reaching that quota today, but maybe I'll get a couple of hours in later (read about 40 pages so far today).
 
Picked up the new Dresden Files book Turn Coat yesterday and am about halfway through it. Can't seem to put it down. I will say that so far one of the best in the series. All the action, humor and craziness that is Harry is there. Morgan is the big character in this one and I hope we find out who is the traitor on the White Council. I just hate reading this fast. It will be another whole year till the next one. But at least the last Codex Alera book will be out in Nov. Just have to wait for that one.
 
I finished Samantha Henderson's "Heaven's Bones". I enjoyed the most of the novel, but I believe that will not appeal to every reader. I struggled for the first quarter not to put the novel aside and it's only after the first half that the things become interesting. It is a little rough and bumpy, but the novel has many interesting things.
 
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