Reading in December 2011

I recently read and LOVED Ken Grimwood's Replay. Holy Cow! What a great book! It has sort of a Groundhog Day feel to it for the beginning stretch, but it really picks up near the middle, and pretty much floored me by the end.

I'll admit that I got completely sucked into the love story between Jeff and Pam, even brought a tear or three to my eye:o
Not that I'm some black hearted troll or anything, but love stories in books don't often strike me as all that real or genuine, but this one really punched me right in the feelings.

Not only was the love story super, but the book gave me a lot to think about, and challenged my views of the world. Which is pretty special.

Highly recommended.
 
Corporal Blues said:
I recently read and LOVED Ken Grimwood's Replay. Holy Cow! What a great book! It has sort of a Groundhog Day feel to it for the beginning stretch, but it really picks up near the middle, and pretty much floored me by the end.

I'll admit that I got completely sucked into the love story between Jeff and Pam, even brought a tear or three to my eye:o
Not that I'm some black hearted troll or anything, but love stories in books don't often strike me as all that real or genuine, but this one really punched me right in the feelings.

Not only was the love story super, but the book gave me a lot to think about, and challenged my views of the world. Which is pretty special.

Highly recommended.
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Yep, great book. You may want to review the book club discussion here
 
Rob B said:
Sure is one of my favorites. I think the first book is easier to get than the second, Blade of Tyshalle. I will be re-reading all three books before Caine's Law publishes in 2012.
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The third book is atrocious though. Not only it's subpar writing
it's plot resolution repeat the second
 
I finished Daemon Prism by Carol Berg and I posted some scattered thoughts on Goodreads which I will c/p it here:

"I will have a FBC rv probably around its Jan 4 publication date so again some points without (major) spoilers;

- Dante narrates for the major part of the story, but there are interludes from Anne that eventually grow in length and we even read Portier's thoughts once again and Ilario for the first time, so all the main series characters narrate at least a little

- the transitions are handled well though there is this tiny lack of smoothness as opposed to the one narrator earlier books

- the novel has a lot of magic, way too much in a way at least for me and the story becomes a very traditional one (long ago evil etc, etc) with a lot of stuff I've seen in countless novels to date, so again the originality of the first two books is somewhat lacking

- but the extraordinary characters, beautiful prose and superb ending more than make up for the above; I cannot emphasize how hard is to end series well and this does it pitch perfect imho

Overall a top 25 book for me and one that should satisfy the fans of the series to date, while being quite accessible to people who have not read the earlier two volumes (though of course i highly recommend them to do it) as the necessary back story is recounted, while here the action moves in very different places with generally very different secondary characters than in books 1/2"
 
Reading John Schultz's Seven Princes. New epic fantasy debut from Orbit. Still really early, so holding back a bit, but not inspired by it much at all.
 
I just finished up Carey's Kushiel's Chosen. All in all, I was pretty happy with it. I really enjoy all of the political aspects of her books, but they seem to be made up of two different things that don't reconcile really well. For the first half of the book it's all court intrigue, right up to the point that the main character finds out what she's been researching for the first half of the book. Then bad things happen that send her way off course and the rest of the book is her just trying to get back to civilization to let someone know the bad thing she figured out. I don't dislike this part of things, but I like the intrigue parts so much more that the other stuff just feels like it's in the way or there for padding or some such. All that aside, I pretty much devoured the book, so it definitely gets points for keeping me interested.

It's been two years since I read the first book in this trilogy. Hopefully I'll manage to get back to Phedre before the end of 2013....
 
Reading through F. Paul Wilson's The Tomb. Whilst I loved The Keep by the same author (so-so ending notwithstanding), I hadn't really read his other books. The Tomb seems to be taking its time to get going but there are still some good scenes in there and the author can write cliffhangers/tense moments better than most. Ill see how it progresses but looking good so far.
 
Half way through Sanderson's Well of Ascension, the second in the Mistborn series, and am taking a break to read The Night Circus.

Well of Ascension is good so far, though I never expected and don't think it will be as good as Mistborn. There are few new characters and not a lot of action has happened yet, which is in stark contrast to the first book which was action packed and made all the more interesting having Kelsier as one of the main characters, plus introducing the workings of Allomancy, the magic system. It probably suffers from middle-book-of-the-trilogy woes!

Only 50 pages into The Night Circus - good so far but a lot of hype to live up to...
 
suciul said:
I finished The Hedgewitch Queen by Lilith Saintcrow and after a slightly rocky start I liked it quite a lot - not yet at Kushiel levels for sure, but intriguing enough and with a great (cliffhanger) ending followed by a teaser from the second volume that left me wanting that asap.
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I just finished it, I got it after I read an excerpt (and $2.99 is a bargain these days). I think it's a very solid historical fantasy, even if it does come off as Kushiel-light at times. I did guess what the big secret was, so now I'm wondering if the next book is going to show that it wasn't as bad as it seems.
 
I randomly picked up Howl's Moving Castle the other day and I can't put it down. Should finish this weekend. Wonderful book.

Also finished Stardust by Neil Gaiman and it was amazing. Loved every bit of it, but I also consider the movie as one of my all-time faves.

I guess I'm going through a "read the book after having seen the movie" phase.
 
I'm still on my James Lee Burke kick. Now on Dave Robicheaux #5, A Stained White Radiance. I do love this guy, but I'm not terribly thrilled with some of his book titles. ;)
 
Just finished Stephen King's Bag of Bones. I'd put it as one of the best I've read by him, about on a par with Pet Semetary and The Shining.

Mike Noonan loses his wife and while she seems to have died of natural causes, he comes to believe it might have to do with his summer home, also known as Sara Laughs. His unraveling of the mystery surrounding her death is what powers the story-line, but it's the characters and their interactions, and the history of the community around his summer home that makes the novel addictive reading.


Randy M.
 
Seak said:
Also finished Stardust by Neil Gaiman and it was amazing. Loved every bit of it, but I also consider the movie as one of my all-time faves.
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If you don't mind me asking, did you have any plans to check out Stardust in it's original comic book/graphic novel format? I've always been a fan of the great illustrations in it by Charles Vess.
 
AmethystOrator said:
If you don't mind me asking, did you have any plans to check out Stardust in it's original comic book/graphic novel format? I've always been a fan of the great illustrations in it by Charles Vess.
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I do now. :) I've enjoyed it in every other medium.
 
Randy M. said:
Just finished Stephen King's Bag of Bones. I'd put it as one of the best I've read by him, about on a par with Pet Semetary and The Shining.
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It was the only Stephen King's book that I could not finish. I think I managed to read 1/2 of it and the book went to a charity shop. It was also 1 of only 6 books I gave up on :)
 
Randy M. said:
Just finished Stephen King's Bag of Bones. I'd put it as one of the best I've read by him, about on a par with Pet Semetary and The Shining.

Mike Noonan loses his wife and while she seems to have died of natural causes, he comes to believe it might have to do with his summer home, also known as Sara Laughs. His unraveling of the mystery surrounding her death is what powers the story-line, but it's the characters and their interactions, and the history of the community around his summer home that makes the novel addictive reading.


Randy M.
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I thought it was one of his better novels, too. I found it to be more focused and tight than a lot of his other stuff. Amazing that his next full novel was the poor Dreamcatcher. Debating whether or not I'll be watching the A&E adaptation of the novel starring Pierce Brosnan.
 
Just finished a reread of The Las Light of the Sun by Kay, which was even more wonderful the second time round. Now moving onto another reread of A Song for Arbonne. It's Kay-fest time.
 
Astra_ said:
It was the only Stephen King's book that I could not finish. I think I managed to read 1/2 of it and the book went to a charity shop. It was also 1 of only 6 books I gave up on :)
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King is so prolific and his audience so diverse that opinion can be greatly divided on the worth of individual titles. Rob mentions Dreamcatcher which I decided early on I wouldn't bother with unless I ran out of other reading -- Ha! -- just because opinion wasn't all that divided and the general consensus was that it just didn't measure up.

I can think of a few reasons for not liking BoB, it's references to other works are a bit self-conscious, it might have a scene or two that could have been pared or plucked, but on the whole I thought it was, as Rob said, focused and tight around a very affecting story.

Anyway, I seem to be on a ghost story roll: Just started Walter de la Mare's Ghost Stories. Stylistically, moving from BoB to these stories is a bit like segueing from a bob-sled race to snow shoeing -- there's a strong Henry Jamesian influence in de la Mare's prose, though it's nowhere near as slow as James can be.


Randy M.
 
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