Reading in April 2009

Started reading J.V. Jones' A Cavern of Black Ice, which I bought a while ago but hadn't gotten around to, and... I'm torn.

It's way too early in the book for me to be making any judgments about plot or character or any of that stuff, but the writing is an uneasy balance of darkly imaginative and totally unconvincing. The torture of the nameless man was interesting. Ash's dream was interesting. The early Raif scene, however, was replete with so many basic factual errors that it was throwing me out of the narrative every other sentence.

I'll give it a few more pages to see which way the balance tips. There is not a strong narrative thread in the early part -- just a lot of glimpses at things that may or may not turn out to become one -- so I'm not feeling enough of a pull to make me overlook the boatload of things Jones gets wrong yet. As I'm a very nitpicky reader, I suspect this book may well end up not working for me.
 
I finished The Anubis Gates yesterday. It was okay, but I wasn't 100% satisfied by it. I think I let the hype around the story overinflated my expectations.

Currently, I'm reading Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks. He may not be the most finessed author out there, but I've found The Night Angel Trilogy to be really fun books.
 
Finished up Natural Ordermage by Modesitt today. Solid installment in the Recluce series. Not as good as the early books, but better than the last few.

I had intended to read Barclay's Dawnthief next, but happened across a copy of the next Recluce book, Mage-Guard of Hamor, this afternoon and started it instead.
 
Flew through Alex Bell's Ninth Circle and enjoyed it very much. The writing was engaging and the mysteries kept me guessing often.

Very much recommended, especially if you are looking for good books told in the first person.
 
I'm about 100 pages from the end of The Born Queen now. The book has gotten more interesting as it's neared the end. I wouldn't say that I've been hooked by the conflict, and the characters still aren't gaining much interest from me, but as the end nears, a lot of unexpected things have happened and I like that. So, I'm reading with a little more enthusiasm than I was, but I must say that I'll still be glad to finish this one.
 
Just finished The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas last night. At around 3am, 2 hours later than I planned to sleep.

A quite fast paced book, containing two main alternating, somewhat loosly intertwined story lines that both keep you interested make it hard to put it down and stop reading. The action is kickstarted right in the first few pages with the murder of a Queen and is but one little move in the play of the intriguing and scheming game of the nobility. The speaker, a kind of arbitrator or ultimate ruler above all Kings of the assorted realms dwelling in the Adamantine Palace is about to name a successor and many of the major Kings and Queens with their assorted Princes and Princesses have long been scheming and pacting to ascertain their goals.

During that dangerous times, a perfect white dragon, a beautiful rarity meant as wedding gift from Queen Shazira to Prince Jehal and her escort gets attacked by an unknown band of dragon riders and the white dragon is lost. While search parties are looking for the invaluable dragon, only few know the true value or danger that the loss of that one dragon heralds.

Most heard critic of the book is its brevity, especially regarding the fact that there's a lot of characters we're introduced to, basically a lot of royal actors of one kind or another, some of which though are disposed of in the course of the political story line. I personally did not have a problem with the character development (or lack thereof due to the brevity) or the fact that there were quite many actors during the 370 or so pages. Action is fast paced and we learn a bit about some of them, with always enough unspoken to leave one wondering how far they are willing to go in pursuit of their goals.

More could have been written about the characters, undoubtly, but I rather found the world or its history more lacking in detailing than the characters. I feel that part of that has to be this way in order to keep up some of the mystery about the past or legends, but in other parts, there should have been some more background information pertaining to the region where the story line's playing out right now or about the world in general. After reading through it I still don't really know where all the proper realms really lie, how near the places of the story are or how big I have to imagine the Worldspine region, in relation to the other realms we touched upon.

Now this is a disappointment on a very high level. Essentially it means "But we would have wanted more". In a way, that's a compliment and speaks well for that which is there. So now I have to wait for the next book in the series, which as far as I know, hasn't gotten a name yet (the series), and I expect a little more background story and character development there. After all, the stage has now been set and the world is in a quite interesting position with political and racial unrest just about to happen. I am certainly going to keep an eye out for the next installment. The Adamantine Palace is a great, fast book and it has all the signs to turn into an awesome series.

Fun little quirk: I almost didn't pick this one up and put it on my mental ignore list. Because of its cover. I saw the book displayed quite prominently read the title and authors name, trying to remember it ("never heard of him") and just thought "Yeah what a cheesy way, just put a dragon on it and people are going to buy it. Not with me.". And I am a sucker for dragons. So I didn't even touch it or read the back. It wasn't until later I read about it here in this forum that I decided to give it a chance and I'm glad I did. But the cover picture, while fitting and beautiful (although I now claim that the dragon is wrongly colored) just instinctively felt way cheesy and put me off. Weird, as it's not a bad cover at all, it just doesn't work with me somehow.

Lastly, the dragons are quite interesting, but talking much about them quickly gets into deep spoiler territory, so I just refer to the the books main thread here: http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20927 for more and better reviews than I can write.
 
I've just begun reading Daniel Fox's Dragon in Chains for this months book club.
 
I just finished The Born Queen earlier today. It wasn't a very satisfying book, and I really felt quite lost by the amount of characters and their different storylines. It was too much for me to keep track of, especially since it's a long time since I read the previous books and so I'd forgotten many of the details I needed to keep track of.

I'm glad to have gotten the series finished and out of the way, but it's very forgetable and I won't worry much at the thought of selling it on now I'm done with it.
 
BrightStar said:
I just finished The Born Queen earlier today. It wasn't a very satisfying book, and I really felt quite lost by the amount of characters and their different storylines. It was too much for me to keep track of, especially since it's a long time since I read the previous books and so I'd forgotten many of the details I needed to keep track of.

I'm glad to have gotten the series finished and out of the way, but it's very forgetable and I won't worry much at the thought of selling it on now I'm done with it.
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I know what you mean. With the ending of it, I was really let down. The end to so many of the characters, considering what had transpired in the distant past, as well as the events within the time frame, was like a small vapor in a hurricane.
 
Dropped A Cavern of Black Ice. There were just too many mistakes and inconsistencies in the worldbuilding for me to overlook. I might go back to it later because there's some good stuff there too, but it's not working for me right now.
 
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As I wrote the last post it occurred to me that I'm an incredibly ungrateful reader. I complained about The Warded Man because the "herb lore" was straight out of a video game; now I'm complaining about A Cavern of Black Ice because the book nods at realism but gets it wrong (see also: grass doesn't really have sap; if it did have sap it wouldn't be in the plant in autumn-verging-on-winter with subzero temperatures looming near). I'm turning into That Guy who whines about the historical inaccuracies in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." Ugh.
 
Just finished Turn Coat by Jim Butcher and have to say they just keep getting better and better. This books seemed to me to be sort of a turning point in the series. I had read somewhere that Butcher was contracted to do sixteen books at least in this series. Since this was number eleven this idea seems about right. Harry is getting stronger and smarter it seems. There is still lots of action and plenty of humor in this one, and we are getting closer to seeing who and what is behind the "Black Council". All I can say is that Wile Coyote was always one of my faves and seems to be one of Harry's too:)
 
PeterWilliam said:
I know what you mean. With the ending of it, I was really let down. The end to so many of the characters, considering what had transpired in the distant past, as well as the events within the time frame, was like a small vapor in a hurricane.
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Maybe it was rushed? I'm not sure how much of my reaction to the ending is due to fault of the author, and how much of it was due to me simply not enjoying the majority of the book that much, and thus losing interest. But I did get the feeling that a LOT was happening, and sometimes I couldn't keep up with who was where and who was doing what and why. I felt confused.
 
Skimmed my way through Thomas Harlan's Oath of the Empire series. The premise was interesting, but it just lost me somewhere in the 2nd book. Maybe I'll go back to it in a few years and see if it grabs me then.

Now on to Michael Stackpole's Age of Discovery.
 
I finished The Babylonian Trilogy by S. Doubinsky

This is just a plain weird but mesmeric book made out of three independent but interconnected novellas all taking places in a modern but "fantastic" city named Babylon which is a mixture of Paris and some US metropolis

The Birth of Television According to Buddha is very episodic focusing on a bunch of characters and some dramatic happenings. At about 100 pages it packs the punch of a novel 3 times its size. This story mixes weirdness with the dramatic and it's just superb.

Yellow Bull which is the longest piece of trilogy at about 140 pages is focused on a high ranking policeman Georg Ratner and his hunt for a serial killer which is helped by prophetic dreams and some piece of old fashioned deduction; but of equal interest is Georg's personal life, while a journalist with a flair for the dramatic turned show host in this instance provides the main link with the previous story. This story is more conventional and in the tradition of "absurd fantastic" though it is as enjoyable and superb as the first one.

Gardens of Babylon is shorter and focuses on three characters, a "legal" assassin, a stripper and an underground writer. This story is the most conventional of all and while it uses the Babylon setting for minor weird details, it could be a regular "drugs, crime-lords and slums" story set in any modern city. For this reason I liked it somewhat less than the previous two, but the writing is still superb.

For me Mr. Doubinsky instantly became an author to follow based on this magnificent work
 
Cranky Hamster said:
Dropped A Cavern of Black Ice. There were just too many mistakes and inconsistencies in the worldbuilding for me to overlook. I might go back to it later because there's some good stuff there too, but it's not working for me right now.
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I seem to recall that I've read that book, and whilst it was a struggle to get through - especially the first half - overall, I found it to be a good book. I'm regretting that I didn't pick up the next book in the series. After it being so long since I read Cavern of Black Ice, I can't rememeber what happened in it well enough to be able to follow the plot of book two.

I'm taking a break from fantasy at the moment. The Born Queen was dissapointing and has somewhat put me off starting a new series for the time being. It seems such a waste of time and money for what I eventually ended up with. Since most of my to be read books are book one's, I've avoided commiting to anything.

So, for now I'm taking a break to recover from Born Queen and read something from a different genre. I think the short break will be good for me.
 
Hi all,

Still not much time to read these days, unfortunately... I'm reading the last pages of the second book of the Coldfire Trilogy: When True Night Falls. I really liked the first book but I think this one is definitely better. I found the story and the characters more captivating than the first book. I must say that I've really enjoyed it. I'm going to continue with the third book as soon as I finish this one.
 
Read John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which should probably go in the SF thread except that I think it's as much space fantasy as anything else (lots of handwaving and not much crunchy realism) and also I'm too lazy to go click over there.

It's a pretty great book. People compare it to Heinlein but I hated Heinlein and I like Scalzi a lot so this is, in my mind, much the superior work. It's fast, funny, adventurous and unexpectedly thought-provoking without being preachy. The thought-provoking bits come in short quick punches slipped into the story, so it's just like POW! and then the story keeps going without belaboring the point. Takes a lot of skill to pull that off, and I'm duly impressed. Will definitely be picking up the sequel and passing this one around.
 
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