Reading in April 2009

Me, I didn't have the strength to slog through all of Sword of Truth. I just skipped straight to Confessor, got it over with, and now live a happier life.

After a stretch in which I didn't read very much, [horrible, it was], I have started again and shall hopefully continue for a good while. And I have started in style: currently almost a quarter through R Scott Bakker's The Judging Eye.
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Website host
 
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I'm in Canakkale, Turkey, for ANZAC Day and I've brought The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. The writing, and the plotting in particular, is a little confused and the world is a little too nebulous for my tastes. But the messiness does help create something gritty and interesting so I am enjoying it. It's a very strange, trippy story but that might just be due to cultural perspectives. It might read pretty straight to an Eastern European. I've also heard the series gets better.
 
mjolnir said:
Me, I didn't have the strength to slog through all of Sword of Truth. I just skipped straight to Confessor, got it over with, and now live a happier life.
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How I wish I could do that. I just wouldn't feel like I'd be able to say I actually read the series if I just jumped to the end. Last night, I flicked ahead through the pages of Chainfire a bit, hoping things might get more interesting. Didn't look like it.
 
Read Natural Ordermage and Mage-Guard of Hamor by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Natural Ordermage was possibly his best book, while Mage-Guard of Hamor was mediocre and completely frustrating to read. THe Natural Ordermage book was one of Modesitt's best books, no doubt about that. The main character was FINALLY someone who was not some "hero-type" character, infact the main character is pissed about nearly everyone....and near the end the main guy is furious about everything he had been through. BUT THEN MODESITT HAD TO SCREW IT UP. He had a dark individual raging at everything that was done to him and then it was as if nothing happened to him. No rage, no real ambition. Nothing. The Mage-Guard of Hamor was nearly so similar to many of his other books that I felt angry, furious in fact. I was looking at a dark-kind of main character, and yet he decided to suddenly change the main guy into his totally generic brave, humble, loyal, military/officier-type, no flaws, no major mistakes, SUPER-strong-and-super-compete-at-everything individual. What the heck. I feel as if Modesitt is laughing at me. "Let me just pull out my cookie-cutter here...I cannot bear to look at this character with all of his non-heroic tendencies.".

What a disgrace.
 
I've got a review up for World's End by Mark Chadbourn. I really, really liked this one.

Now I'm reading Starfinder by John Marco, which is decent but lacks the level of cross-over of a lot of recent YA books.
 
Apathy said:
Read Natural Ordermage and Mage-Guard of Hamor by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Natural Ordermage was possibly his best book, while Mage-Guard of Hamor was mediocre and completely frustrating to read. THe Natural Ordermage book was one of Modesitt's best books, no doubt about that. The main character was FINALLY someone who was not some "hero-type" character, infact the main character is pissed about nearly everyone....and near the end the main guy is furious about everything he had been through. BUT THEN MODESITT HAD TO SCREW IT UP. He had a dark individual raging at everything that was done to him and then it was as if nothing happened to him. No rage, no real ambition. Nothing. The Mage-Guard of Hamor was nearly so similar to many of his other books that I felt angry, furious in fact. I was looking at a dark-kind of main character, and yet he decided to suddenly change the main guy into his totally generic brave, humble, loyal, military/officier-type, no flaws, no major mistakes, SUPER-strong-and-super-compete-at-everything individual. What the heck. I feel as if Modesitt is laughing at me. "Let me just pull out my cookie-cutter here...I cannot bear to look at this character with all of his non-heroic tendencies.".

What a disgrace.
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I think that change (which I did not find sudden at all) in the protagonist's behavior was sort of the point of the story. He had to get past that anger, and stop looking to the past and blaming others for his situation. These things were necessary in order for him to survive and succeed, and for his relationship with his love interest to work.

Now, that might not have been where you wanted the character development to go, but it's hardly a disgrace just because the author had other ideas.

Modesitt did not screw up anything in my estimation, and as I mentioned previously, this duology is the best Recluce story in some time.
 
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Luke_B said:
The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. The writing, and the plotting in particular, is a little confused and the world is a little too nebulous for my tastes. But the messiness does help create something gritty and interesting so I am enjoying it. It's a very strange, trippy story but that might just be due to cultural perspectives. It might read pretty straight to an Eastern European. I've also heard the series gets better.
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I read everything but the most newly-published book in this series. I think the first book is fairly representative of the rest of the series, except that the plots may get slightly more complicated. I have no interest in reading anything else after the first three books myself, but you may become more interested over time. I'd suggest finishing the first book at least. It's an interesting taste of Russian culture, in my opinion.

I myself am still technically reading Drood, but came across a hitch in my reading plans. I needed a book to take with me on an airplane flight, and since Drood is too unwieldy, I picked something off my shelf that I read awhile back - Fortress in the Eye of Time, by C J Cherryh. I am totally hooked, and I just have to read them all again. Plus, this is an opportunity to refresh my knowledge of the books so I can read the newer installment, Fortress of Ice. With my book club reading, and my renewed interest in the Fortress series, I may not get much further into Drood. Ironically, I also never managed to finish Terror, though I'm still technically listening to it on audio. Simmons deserves better than readers like me.
 
I picked up Midwinter by Matthew Sturges at the library the other day. Sounds interesting and getting ready to start it. Has anyone else read this and what did you think of it?
 
sic's mom said:
I picked up Midwinter by Matthew Sturges at the library the other day. Sounds interesting and getting ready to start it. Has anyone else read this and what did you think of it?
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I bailed on it halfway through. I bought it on the strength of the premise (a word design that is an amalgam of fae and "real world") and what sounded like quite a colorful cast of characters. But I just don't think that the writing was up to the task. The premise kind of demands someone with a lot of flair in both description and dialogue and I found the prose very workman-like and uninspired. At the halfway point I realized that I had no desire to find out what happened so I put it aside.
 
Obtuse said:
I think that change (which I did not find sudden at all) in the protagonist's behavior was sort of the point of the story. He had to get past that anger, and stop looking to the past and blaming others for his situation. These things were necessary in order for him to survive and succeed, and for his relationship with his love interest to work.

Now, that might not have been where you wanted the character development to go, but it's hardly a disgrace just because the author had other ideas.

Modesitt did not screw up anything in my estimation, and as I mentioned previously, this duology is the best Recluce story in some time.
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Well, what really makes me angry is that Modesitt seems to be a one-trick-pony. ALL his main characters are interchangeable(just exchange the loyalties and place of birth and you are good to go), and his plots are VERY similar as well. When I was reading Natural Ordermage I thought the author finally broke out of his mold...but no. What a pity.

It brings me no joy to read what amounts to the same book, over and over again.....
 
I just finished God's Demon by Wayne Barlow.

It was awesome! I can't recommend it highly enough. I had to fight the urge not to turn to the back of the book for the entire second half of the novel.

He is a visual artist primarily, so check out the sight for some great pictures.

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Is God's Demon a standalone novel? Or are there sequels in the work or something?
 
Amaunette said:
.....I picked something off my shelf that I read awhile back - Fortress in the Eye of Time, by C J Cherryh. I am totally hooked, and I just have to read them all again. Plus, this is an opportunity to refresh my knowledge of the books so I can read the newer installment, Fortress of Ice.
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I've finally gotten around to starting this for the second or third time (other books got in the way the first time or two) and I'm really enjoying it. I always like Cherryh, but some of her books are harder to take than others. This has to be some of the easiest-to-get-into Cherryh I've read and I'm liking everything about it.
 
BrightStar said:
How I wish I could do that. I just wouldn't feel like I'd be able to say I actually read the series if I just jumped to the end. Last night, I flicked ahead
through the pages of Chainfire a bit, hoping things might get more interesting. Didn't look like it.
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Oh, I make no claims to have read the whole thing. For me there came a point at which I acknowledged that I wasn't going to read the whole series and didn't really need to. It would not have been, [for me], reading time well-spent, so I just read for closure, [which, to be fair, says something about the power of Goodkind's basic storyline to grip, though I happen to be a sucker for closure personally and will generally seek it out.] I now leave the books to those who enjoy them and don't have the problems that I do about the way they present, ... well, more or less everything, -- except for when I occasionally say unkind things about them, which I know is wrong of me.

I'm deep in Bakker's The Judging Eye, and enjoying the experience thoroughly. Whether or not this is the "best" book in the cycle so far, it's certainly the one that focuses most directly on the elements of the story that I'm most interested in now that the build up is out of the way. [Not that said build up wasn't vital. After all, "what comes before determines what shall come after".] Some things in the text do trouble me, but I'm fairly sure this is largely intentional. Bakker's deeply flawed characters lack some of the likability of equally flawed characters written by other authors, it seems to me, though this is perhaps as it should be. They are fascinating, but there are few of them for whom I'd weep, -- not none, but very few. I'm still definitely grooving on their story, though, and am growing increasingly conscious of the fact that I'm over half way through. In a day or two it'll be over, and I shall be a desolate wreck for want of more Aspect Emperor. But all things shall pass.
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MarcelineDeLocke
 
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I finished KJ Anderson Edge of the World.

Very entertaining debut to the Terra Incognita series; if you are familiar with the author Seven Suns saga, you will recognize a lot of the same plot devices, character archetypes, and the same "no character" is safe from summary dispatch, heartbreak, dramatic change...

The story is complex with multiple POV's and is always clearly written and very enjoyable; also the book is a page turner and it ends at various stopping points in each of the multiple threads with the next book an asap book. Announced as a trilogy (thankfully), this one should avoid the repetition of the Seven Suns after 4-5 volumes when I kind of lost interest despite loving the first 3 books.

Highly recommended.
 
Barlowe is still working on a sequel to God's Demon. But the 1st book does stand alone.
 
My internet died yesterday, so I was forced to spend the entire day with little to do but read. Therefore, I managed to get through a sizeable amount of Chainfire. Now have only about 150 pages left.

Dare I admit that there have actually been parts of this book where I've felt a genuine sympathy for Richard's situation, and must praise Goodkind on at least achieving that much. The rest of the story may be a bit dull and tiresome, but I'm really liking Goodkind's writing of Richard's problem. I guess Goodkind at least has me actually wanting to reach the end for reasons other than just to get the whole thing over and done with-I'd like to see how this latest conflict resolves.

titangnome said:
I just finished God's Demon by Wayne Barlow.

It was awesome! I can't recommend it highly enough. I had to fight the urge not to turn to the back of the book for the entire second half of the novel.
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This is just the sort of thing I utterly cannot get enough of. God's Demon has been on my to-read list for a while now, but I wasn't able to find a copy. I pretty much had forgotten about it, but your mentioning it had me looking for it once again, and it seems now it's easily available. I have my copy ordered from Amazon already, though it won't be delivered until July - I'd love to read it sooner, but I would rather take advantage of the free delivery offer, so I had to stick my order with another book that isn't to be released until then.

Can't wait to read it though, just read the sample chapter that's available online, and it looks like it'll be a must read for me.
 
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