Reading in February 2010

I think...
Yeah, I'mma do it. Gonna put the Dark Tower on hold (20 pages into it, if that) and read something else as I don't want to get frustrated with it by reading two-and-a-half books of the series in one swoop.
So, in about 10 minutes I think I'll start Elantris by Sanderson. I've been meaning to sit down and read it for quite some time but other books have stopped me. I know he's very highly rated in most fantasy circles so (argh, my spacebar on my less-than-two-month-old keyboard is squeaking) I suppose I should get it read so I can "forget" about it in the best way possible.
 
Darksbane said:
Just finished reading NK Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and I'm very impressed. So far it's easily my best read of 2010, and I probably enjoyed it more than anything I read in 2009 as well. I thought that it ended fantastically, and I can't wait to see where Jemisin brings the story in the next book. The writing style took me a little bit to get used to, but by the end of it, it really grew on me. Hopefully the next book lives up to the high bar this one set.

Lamentation by Ken Scholes is next, which should be a good one too, by everyone else's comments.
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Glad to hear you enjoyed Kingdoms, my pre-ordered book got lost. Hopefully BD can find it and send it out.

As for Lamentation, I just read it last month and really enjoyed it. I hope that you do as well. I am waiting for Canticle, the sequel, to go to PB before I buy it.
 
Reading Lyonesse by Vance. OK so far. It was written in the 80's(s) but he has an old style writing. Pre- new wave I would call it. I have read the first couple books of the Demon Princes which it turns out were written in the early sixties - pre new wave.
 
DurzoBlint said:
Glad to hear you enjoyed Kingdoms, my pre-ordered book got lost. Hopefully BD can find it and send it out.

As for Lamentation, I just read it last month and really enjoyed it. I hope that you do as well. I am waiting for Canticle, the sequel, to go to PB before I buy it.
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My book hasn't arrived yet if it helps any.
 
Finished Bound to Shadow by Keri Arthur and started Skinwalker by Faith Hunter.
 
finished Athyra by Steven Brust - for me it was not bellow the previous installments. I liked the change of scenery, the new POV and the linear plot.

Now I've started on The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell, the first in the Warlord chronicles. It's to early to have an opinion, but the Grail books, the Saxon books managed to capture my interest faster than this one. While not really a fantasy book, it has some references to Celtic mythology.
 
algernoninc said:
finished Athyra by Steven Brust - for me it was not bellow the previous installments. I liked the change of scenery, the new POV and the linear plot.

Now I've started on The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell, the first in the Warlord chronicles. It's to early to have an opinion, but the Grail books, the Saxon books managed to capture my interest faster than this one. While not really a fantasy book, it has some references to Celtic mythology.
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Myself finished Issola last night, and it was one of my favorites. Now reading Dzur and am already 2/3 done with it... another fun book in the Dragaera world.
 
Bastard said:
My book hasn't arrived yet if it helps any.
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It does but now that is two of us that are not enjoying reading what appears to be a great book. I have talked to BD and they said that they plan on receiving more from the publisher on 26 Feb. Only time will tell though.
 
DurzoBlint said:
It does but now that is two of us that are not enjoying reading what appears to be a great book. I have talked to BD and they said that they plan on receiving more from the publisher on 26 Feb. Only time will tell though.
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That's too bad. Hopefully when you guys do receive the book you enjoy it as much as I did.

Anyways, I got started on Lamentation and so far so good. But I've decided that I seem to like every fantasy book I read. In the last year there is only one fantasy book that I started but didn't finish, and that was The Darkness That Comes Before, and that wasn't because I didn't enjoy it, was more because I wasn't in the mood for that kind of story. I'll probably get back to it at some point. I think I can thank this site for that though, since people's suggestions here always seem solid.
 
DurzoBlint said:
It does but now that is two of us that are not enjoying reading what appears to be a great book. I have talked to BD and they said that they plan on receiving more from the publisher on 26 Feb. Only time will tell though.
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Well, it arrived today... so I'm good to go. Good luck waiting for it.
 
Finished Dzur by Brust. Overall I enjoyed it, but I was hoping for a lot more action and it had a bit of a cliffhanger ending that I didn't care for much. It was very effective in making me hungry though.

So, no I'm taking a break from Brust and decided to go ahead and read Salute the Dark by Tchaikovsky.
 
Well I finished GRR (Does he consider himself to be a lion?) Martin's last instalment last night...loved the last page which promised the next title was virtually done and would be out the next year. I bet he rues the day he wrote those words. I liked the book by the way...just hate all the characters being left in limbo.

To occupy myself until book five is released I've selected Seventh Son By Orson Scott Card as my next victim. I enjoyed his Ender's Game and have heard this series is good so looking forward to seeing how he is at fantasy. I've got a feeling I'll be reading a few more before I get to Martin's Dragons...
 
Gilgamesh said:
You should definitely pick more than a few books :D.
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No worries there...I have a few hundred dusty tomes clamoring for my attention on my shelves. I'm well equipped to weather Martin's drought. I wouldn't be surprised if I buy another 100 books before I fork out the cash for Dragons.
 
tyriseus said:
I liked the book by the way...just hate all the characters being left in limbo. <SNIP TO>

To occupy myself until book five is released I've selected Seventh Son By Orson Scott Card as my next victim.
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Just a word of warning that the Alvin Maker saga is another series that is not complete, and shows no signs of being complete. The most recent volume (#6, Crystal City) came out in 2003 and the supposed final volume, Master Alvin, is nowhere in sight. I stopped reading after the 5th book (Heartfire, 1998) but I understand that there may be *some* closure to things during Crystal City. But if you're put off by characters left in limbo, I'm just sayin' ....

Ken
 
Halfway through The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip. I read this one some fifteen years ago. I barely remembered it, so when I saw a trade paper version of it in the bargain bin for $4, I picked it up.

This book is delicious. It's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Appropriately, since the book deals with dreams, the prose itself is dreamy. When I'm reading it I feel like I'm floating between worlds. The prose is not always clear cut. There are a lot of metaphors to decipher, but I'm fine with that. Sometimes, I don't even bother to attempt deciphering them. I just take them at face value, which, I think, is how it's intended to be read.

What I really like about it is that it just provides you with the basic facts. There's a prince. There's a mage. There's a queen. That's that and that's all you need to know. You don't need to know how the magic system works. You don't need to know the mage hierarchy. The world of Atrix Wolfe is just how it is presented.

The story moves along at a quick pace and the characters are as likeable as they are mysterious. You never know exactly how a character is going to behave. They surprise you. I like that. Gorgeous read.

I'm enjoying it thoroughly.
 
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Well, I didn't last long from my Brust break. So I decided to leave Salute the Dark at home, which I will read while I'm there, and brought with me Jhegaala to work. So at the moment I'm reading two books.
 
After reading about 200 pages of Newton's Cannon I decided it just wasn't for me. The plot was certainly interesting, but for me, it was the characters that made this book fail. I just didn't care all that much for them, nor did I find them particularly interesting either.

I felt like reading something light and shorter than a two or three book series, so I'm reading Sharon Shinn's Summers at Castle Auburn at the moment. Although the plot didn't sound all that gripping based on the description, I picked it up having read (and very much enjoyed) other titles by this author. So far, I've not been dissapointed.
 
This afternoon I finished Breeding Ground by Sarah Pinborough and I must say that I enjoyed her brand of horror. We follow the trials of a small band of survivors in an end-of-the-world scenario as huge arachnids make it to the top of the food chain. The characters were well rounded and the plot was nicely executed. The ending leaves us with plenty of questions but that's probably just an incentive to grab the sequel (and this reader is sold). An author I'll be watching.
 
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