Reading in Fantasy and Horror January 2015

[Erfael]

Next up is The Fade by Chris Wooding.

I really liked The Fade.

I had this to say in our Book Club discussion back in 2010:

I have to agree with everyone about the world building here. For me, it was the strongest aspect of the work. Increasingly, many people seem to be conflating world building with word count - the idea that to show a world, something new to us, one must spend hundreds and hundreds of pages. This book is so full of different ideas, creatures, cultures, and visions that it feels like it's much larger than it really is and some of the images will be with me for some time. If for no other reason, I look forward to rereading this one in years to come to revisit the visuals this book evokes.

 

[Hobbit]

And ditto: loved The Fade. Just watch those chapter numbers..... There's a review around here I did somewhere....

M.

 

[starman03]

Happy (very belated) new year to you all!

I read Chris Wooding's The Fade a couple of years ago and thought it was fantastic. As has been mentioned by Erfael, the world building was impressive and I would love to read more set in that world. Hobbit, I will admit to jumping chapters to see what happened!

A book I finished over the festive period was Karl Edward Wagner's The Book of Kane. This was the SF Gateway edition that included 'Reflections for the Winter of My Soul', 'Sing a Last Song of Valdese', 'Raven's Eyrie', Misericorde', and 'The Other One'. I absolutely loved this volume. The language was rich, evocative, powerful. The themes were thought-provoking, engaging. There were so many great scenes that Wagner conjured in these stories. His writing invoked that sense of 'epicness' that made me love fantasy in the first place. Even in short stories, I got a sense of history, time, and power of the fictional world. Oh, and Kane is a great character too

Time constraints have meant I've been flitting through a few different short story collections recently , but I've read some enjoyable stuff.

I've read the first two stories of Saladin Ahmed's Engraved on the Eye short fiction collection (currently available for free on Amazon UK btw). Very good and very impressed. Great ideas with lots of imagination and a fluent writing style. Throne of the Crescent Moon has intrigued me since it was first published but I'll definitely be getting it now.

Another anthology is Kameron Hurley's collection of short fiction, Brutal Women. A mixture of both fantasy and sci-fi. Again, some are better than others, but all have been thought-provoking. Hurley also has introductions at the beginning of each story which contextualises the piece and explains what she was trying to do. Her novels have been on my radar for a while but this has encouraged me to try and get to them soon.

 

[Erfael]

I'm making a slow start on Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, which has been hanging out on Mount TBR for some many years now. The first 100 pages are plenty entertaining. Not much more to say about it yet.

 

[Mithfânion]

Happy (very belated) new year to you all!

A book I finished over the festive period was Karl Edward Wagner's The Book of Kane. This was the SF Gateway edition that included 'Reflections for the Winter of My Soul', 'Sing a Last Song of Valdese', 'Raven's Eyrie', Misericorde', and 'The Other One'. I absolutely loved this volume. The language was rich, evocative, powerful. The themes were thought-provoking, engaging. There were so many great scenes that Wagner conjured in these stories. His writing invoked that sense of 'epicness' that made me love fantasy in the first place. Even in short stories, I got a sense of history, time, and power of the fictional world. Oh, and Kane is a great character too

Amazon is showing some superb looking illustrated editions coming out of the Kane novels, on August 1st.
All illustrated by different but high quality artists, like Tom Kidd.

Read Whispering Swarm by M. Moorcock and it was utterly meh - not that engaging after an intriguing start; the combination of autobiography and sfnalness didn't work for me - I would have much preferred a straight-out literary novel or even a semi-autobiography a la Knausgaard as the sfnal part was really bad and the literary part while good was not enough

I read an excerpt of this Moorcock book as well and found it very boring as well.
It's all well and good that "it's the first full length novel in over 10 years" but there was probably a reason for that.
That said, I was never a fan of his work.

 

[suciul]

Browsed Half the World by Joe Abercrombie and while Half a King was tolerable though far from what I expect from Joe A after so many awesome novels, this one lost my interest quickly; mostly the setting and characters I guess than the YA vibe, though that did not help either

Almost done with The Book of Speculation a debut from E. Swyler which has sffnal elements though it is the usual past/present action with strange happenings a long time ago having major consequences in the present, a mysterious book which may hold the key to those etc; with the hook being that women in his family tend to drown young on the same date in July, a librarian with a house on the verge of collapsing on the Long Island Sound tries to solve the mystery as his strange sister is coming back home, it is getting close to July (when their mother drowned years ago) and the book in cause may help; the past follows a traveling circus in the late 1700's, early 1800's America and some strange characters there which are of course his ancestors or related to them; quite a page turner and a very enjoyable book, though missing something to get to the level of the best such at least for me

 

[mdclanahan]

Last year, after being hounded for ages about having never read anything by Jim Butcher, I read the first two books in The Dresden Files. They were decently entertaining, but I didn't really get what the big deal was. Last night, I finished Grave Peril, the third book in the series. Wow! Hands down the best yet... by leaps and bounds. I'm definitely sold on the series now. I had actually received recommendations for skipping the first two books altogether, but I hate skipping part of a series. Ultimately, I'm glad I read them, but it's clear that Butcher hadn't really hit his stride until book three.

 

[Ryan Mueller]

Last year, after being hounded for ages about having never read anything by Jim Butcher, I read the first two books in The Dresden Files. They were decently entertaining, but I didn't really get what the big deal was. Last night, I finished Grave Peril, the third book in the series. Wow! Hands down the best yet... by leaps and bounds. I'm definitely sold on the series now. I had actually received recommendations for skipping the first two books altogether, but I hate skipping part of a series. Ultimately, I'm glad I read them, but it's clear that Butcher hadn't really hit his stride until book three.

I found something similar happened for me. I enjoyed the first two books, but starting at the third, they became amazing. I think I've read through ten now, and I think they keep getting better.

If you like secondary world fantasy with a lot of military action, you could also give Butcher's Codex Alera series a chance.

 

[mdclanahan]

If you like secondary world fantasy with a lot of military action, you could also give Butcher's Codex Alera series a chance.

I'm not a huge fan of military action, but I may still give Codex Alera a chance at some point, just because it's Jim Butcher. I'm a Butcher convert now.

 

[Seak]

Finished Legion: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson on audiobook and I was a bit disappointed. It was pretty boring and I wasn't impressed with the ending. I like the character and I like how Sanderson makes what would normally be considered a disability, schizophrenia, a superpower in essence. It's definitely readable like all Sanderson's work, but I was just bored. Luckily it's short so that makes up for it a bit.

Started The Gods Themselves by Asimov on audiobook. I know it's sf, but I'd have to go all the way over there to post.

Still going strong with Blood and Iron by Sprunk. I like it. It's straight-forward fantasy with good action.

 

[phil_geo]

Last night, I finished Grave Peril, the third book in the series. Wow! Hands down the best yet

I completely agree about how they keep getting better, and the next one, Summer Knight, is probably one of my all time favorites so you're in for a treat. Not a bad book in the series from now on for you.

 

[suciul]

Just got one of the highly anticipated fantasies of 2015, The Guns of the Dawn by A Tchaikovsky and I expect i will get to it soon, though I have been reading two non-sff novels that are very absorbing (newest translation from Estonian sensation Sofi Oksanen, When the Doves Disappeared and Masks by Fumiko Enchi) so it may take a day possibly; and of course I hope to get an earc of Skull Throne soon and that is another high priority novel...

 

[Corporal Blues]

I'm still working my way through Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. I'm moving through this novel much slower than I normally would, and I think it's because it is a very intense read and I can only handle it in small nibbles. I have about 80 pages left though, so I should finish up in the next day or so. Overall, I'm loving the book. Atkinson is a great writer, and the characters are full of life and feel like very real people.

Between this and another recent read, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August another book where death and multiple lives plays a central role, I think I'll need my next book to be something vastly different. Not sure what just yet though. I have Lynch, Wexler, and McClellan on my to-read pile beckoning me.

 

[Ryan Mueller]

Finished Rivers of London/Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovich. This was a good urban fantasy novel. Not my favorite, but it was entertaining.

 

[Ryan Mueller]

Now I've finished Fade to Black by Francis Knight. I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a world I've never seen before. It took me a while to like the protagonist, but the good pacing and interesting setting kept me going through that period.

 

[jackdaw]

Since last "report" I've read a few Stephen Deas books: The Thief Takers Apprentice, The Warlock's Shadow, The King's Assassin, The Adamantine Palace, and The King of the Crags. Good solid enjoyable reads all, shall be reading some more of his stuff in next few months.

Also read first couple of books in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence.

Enjoyed both...and agree with the guys here that told me that the second (titled "The Dark is Rising" !) is outstanding. The surprise for me, was that it was the details of ordinary family life between the fantastic elements that lifted the book way out of the good ordinary book category. It was the portrayal of Will's ordinary life that made me care what happened to him and his family when the bad things started... that's often the case, I suppose. More unusual was the exceptional skill the writer brought to making that description of "ordinary" family life so moving.

 

[suciul]

Finished Guns of the Dawn by A. Tchaikovsky and overall I would rate it as ok but not great the way the Kinden series was; like in the Aethernet serial novel Spiderlight to which this one compares in some ways, the author wants to turn the corresponding tropes (here "good English/Royalists/orderly, bad French/revolutionaries/disrupting society) upside down and while the smooth prose makes reading the novel painless, the lack of sophistication - basically the whole book is a one note show - and world building that doesn't quite bear close scrutiny (the whole conflict feels like a tinpot one between two little provinces and outside any external context, not to speak of the lack of any economic sense in the book), makes this a passable but also easily skippable novel with enough goodies (mainly the feisty main character) to avoid complete failure

 

[Erfael]

I'll try to come back with more on this later, but I've finished up Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies. The short review: The most fun book I have read in recent memory. Enjoyed every bit of it. It was a heist novel and a sailing (piracy) novel all in one, so what wasn't to like?

 

[Seak]

I'll try to come back with more on this later, but I've finished up Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies. The short review: The most fun book I have read in recent memory. Enjoyed every bit of it. It was a heist novel and a sailing (piracy) novel all in one, so what wasn't to like?

This is great to hear. I've been sitting on RSURS for a while now and I keep hearing such mixed reviews. I need to just read it already, I don't think there will be a problem.

 

[Slice of G]

Just finished World House: Restoration by Guy Adams, second book of his World House duology. Might not have enjoyed it as much as the first one but still found the story interesting and well-written. Some of the characters were a little corny while others I thought were great. Would describe the series as a time traveling horror story. Might need to read some more by Mr. Adams. Maybe his Heaven's Gate trilogy.

Up next is Corvus by Paul Kearney