Reading in February 2010

bearcatmark said:
1. The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle
2. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson
3. The Lies of Lock Lamora. by Scott Lynch

Thoughts?
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I'd go with The Last Unicorn first as I thought it was just a fantastic book. The Lies of Locke Lamora is also very good. They're very different books, but it's hard to go wrong with either one.

I haven't read the Donaldson one.
 
I finished The Winter King and started this morning on Enemy of God in the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell - this series should appeal to all fans of gritty fantasy. Reading about King Arthur on wikipedia, it turns out there's very little evidence [none] about Arthur as a historical personage, so that's another reason for me to read it as an epic speculative fiction. The first volume started a bit slow, but turned into a rollercoaster in the second half, so I'm looking forward to the sequel.

In between I relaxed with another Vlad Taltos caper: Orca. I liked it, I thought the plot tried a little to hard to be clever, but the twists at the end were satisfying. I also tried to see the plot holes that Bastard told me about, but they read ok to me. I guess the confusion arises from using two first person POV's and the reader needs to pay more attention to who is the narrator. I saw some discrepancies in the middle of the book
Kiera seemed to know too much about the inner workings of the Empire's secret services, and Vlad/Kiera managed to fool the investigators too easily with their lies
but these turned out to key plot elements so I gave myself a congratulatory pat on the back.
 
I finished up The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. This one is getting lots of buzz and quite a few people are reading it right now. In my opinion it pretty easily lives up to the buzz and is a great debut.

Next up is The Conqueror's Shadow by Ari Marmell - it's more of a typical sword and sorcery book than I usually read.
 
Finished Paul Hoffman's The Left Hand of God a few days ago... Very disappointing, unfortunately...

I'm currently reading Blake Charlton's Spellwright. It started pretty good.

Then I have Guy Gavriel Kay's new book Under Heaven waiting for me. I just can't wait...
 
beniowa said:
I'd go with The Last Unicorn first as I thought it was just a fantastic book. The Lies of Locke Lamora is also very good. They're very different books, but it's hard to go wrong with either one.

I haven't read the Donaldson one.
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I've read the Donaldson and Beagle, but not ...Lies.... I'd also suggest The Last Unicorn. It's lovely, fluid and short. Once you finish it, then you could go on to the others. I'm one of those who loved Donaldson's first Covenant trilogy, but that was 25+ years ago; I'm not sure what I'd think of it now.

Randy M.
 
I was reading Toll the Hounds, and I've gotten to halfway through, but I just received "The Angel's Game" by Zafon, and decided I'd rather read that for a while.

Toll the Hounds is by far the worst Erikson's done. It's like he's trying to be extremely clever with some of his prose and characters in the Darujhistan chapters, which causes the whole narrative to fall flat on its face. Combine that with the fact that only one major event has happened in those chapters so far after about 300 pages dedicated to them, and its getting a bit tiresome.
The Tiste Andii chapters are much more interesting. Some of the viewpoints give the deepest look we've ever seen of the Tiste Andii and their history, as well as a much better view of the character of Anomander Rake. We don't get to figure out what his act to act motivations are, but we do learn his overall purpose in life.

As for "The Angel's Game", it's very dark and depressing for the first section of the book. It starts to lighten up a little bit afterwards, but the first 200 pages are a tough slog if you're not an "everything goes wrong" fan.
 
I'm readin The Left Hand Of God by Paul Hoffman, just at the bit where the redeemer has gone to meet Kitty the Hare in Memphis... I have to say I'm enjoying it so far, and haven't seen anything to merit some of the reviews it's gotten...
 
Need for Magic

I recently read an audio book version of this new social psychology/fantasy novel. It was absolutely captivating and fascinating.

"Need for Magic is a classic, high fantasy story. The arch-villain is not a dragon, wizard or overlord. The evil one is a charismatic woman who knows what people need. By masterfully playing to everyone's need for approval and their need to feel important, she inspires fanatic devotion and gains the throne of a large nation. Even those with great magical power or deadly skill with a sword have needs. As a result, they too are played like puppets by her deft hand.

Need for Magic is also an exploration of social psychology. Conformity, persuasion and obedience are powerful forces that few can resist. Cults, the Stanford Prison Experiment, Stanley Milgram's work, and the Stockholm Syndrome are examples of power more dangerous than any magic spell or dragon's fire."
http://www.knowyourneed.com/

I highly recommend it to anyone that wants a page-turner and a book that makes you think!
 
Gilgamesh said:
Finished Paul Hoffman's The Left Hand of God a few days ago... Very disappointing, unfortunately...

I'm currently reading Blake Charlton's Spellwright. It started pretty good.

Then I have Guy Gavriel Kay's new book Under Heaven waiting for me. I just can't wait...
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We need details! Why was Left Hand so disappointing?

I finished Blood and Obsidian - I enjoyed it very much and I liked having a fantasy novel set in a different world than the usual mock medieval setting - Aztecian gods and culture was fun and interesting. I hope the author does more...

Currently reading Pendragon's Banner by Helen Hollick. Another retelling of the King Author tale, this one in a more realistic vien as opposed to the fantastical one. It is kinda dragging at this point, however, so I am hoping it picks up soon...
 
The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

Aurian said:
We need details! Why was Left Hand so disappointing?
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Actually I'm trying to gather my thoughts for my review as well...

I thought that the author was trying to paint a mysterious character in Cale, the main protagonist however in most places he fails, it feels very... artificial.

Characters are shallow, not memorable...

The setting is very strange. Some of its details and inconsistencies spoiled the book for me: The currency is dollar. At one stage, two characters are sitting on a veranda in a hunting cabin, one opens another beer and pours it into the other's mug. Are those medieval six-packs? References to "Jesus of Nazareth", Saint Stephen of Hungary, Middle East, Ark of the Covenant or Jews of the Ghetto give the impression that it's medieval Europe however characters are eating fried potato strips (potato doesn't arrive to Europe until the end of 16th century and becomes popular enough only during the 18th century). Reference to Middle East imply that it's an underdeveloped place however, historically, Middle East was much more civilized than today's Western world at the time...

The culinary sections of the history are extremely boring.

The tone of the book is very juvenile at times. The main love story is developed very clumsily. No adult can take this seriously I think.

The book, in general, gives the impression that it's written for teenagers who are starting to learn to like books and fiction.

It was not all negative, though. I liked a few things in the book. The first half of the book was somehow enjoyable.

I liked the way Hoffman was using flashbacks in the middle of a section. He uses flashbacks with full dialogs that give more life to the story.

I really liked the main idea behind the book: A religious fundamentalist group, almost warrior monks. The author used good imagination around some of the religious concepts.

All in all, I was disappointed by this book that I was expecting to be much better. I'm going to develop these opinions in my review but this is how I felt in a nutshell.
 
I just finished reading 100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels. It's a kind of odd thing to put here I know, but it was really interesting. It contained some authors and works that you would never have thought of as fantasy. I've decided to read all the works it listed and review them on my blog. Admittedly it's going to take some time, but I think it will be fun. You can find a full review of the book on my blog: http://www.travelsthroughiest.blogspot.com.
 
At the moment I am reading 3 series at the same time.

1. I am rereading JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Last time was about 10 years ago. At the time I was 14 or so and I loved it, nowadays I appreciate the story on many more levels. This classic still impresses me. I am reading it as a dutch translation in a beautiful thick onmibus. Next time, 10 years from now probably, I will read it in english

2. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Halfway through book 3. Pullman tells a complex tale and I have no idea how it will continue (which is a good thing) but it also feels a bit patchy. The books have an odd assortment of ideas and I don't think they work well together to make a whole. Also, some of the characters sometimes act a bit unnatural considering the situation theyre in. But on the whole it is a very unique work and worth checking out.

3. Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & The Grey Mouser. Essential sword & sorcery. I'm still catching up on a century of fantasy writing. This is fun stuff! Not all tales have the same quality though.
 
Just finished reading Drood by Dan Simmons. I thought it was quite a good read, although it took me quite a while to into the story. I thought Dickens was great, especially because of his enthusiasm towards pretty much everything.
However, I couldn't quite get my head around all of Wilkie Collins' motivations, and I found myself disliking him more and more throughout the book. However, I got the feeling that this was one of Simmons' aims, one which he pulled off very well.
My main complaint was that some of the chapters throughout the book (I can't think of specifics off the top of my head) seemed to drag and not really go anywhere. Overall though, an enjoyable and interesting book, and I'll look to read more of Simmons' work in the future!

Now, I'm moving onto The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I've heard very good things about it here, and it sounds like the type of book that I will really enjoy!
 
Took me a while, but I finally finished Furies of Calderon. It was a decent book and I'll pick read the second book soon. One thing that I liked about the book was that the main plot line of the book was wrapped up by the end of the book. Since the series is five or six books I thought that the first book's main plot line would only be an introduction and the end would leave off with a giant cliffhanger. Sort of like some of Jordan's books. Is the rest of the series like this where there is a plot line for the current book that is finished while continuing the main plot line of the whole series?

Next up is the Sad Tale of the Bothers Grossbart or the Scar.
 
Yes I would say the central premise of each book is wrapped up at the end. The storyline continues, and there are arcs that go through the books. I also appreciated the lack of cliffhangers.

My reading - I'm still working my way through Mistborn, and I still really like it. I'll be reading the second one soon. I'm 63% through it on my Kindle, hehe. It's odd not having page numbers or any way to judge the "thickness" of the book.

Jeroen, I LOVE Fritz Leiber's sword & sorcery books! They are so much fun!
 
I'm about half way through Lamentation by Ken Scholes, and while I'm enjoying it, it is a bit of a disappointment so far. From the way some people were talking (one of my friends in particular thought this was the best book he's ever read) I was expecting to be blown away by the book, which I suppose could still happen in the second half. Even if it doesn't get better, I'll probably get Canticle. Might just wait for it to be released in paperback though.
 
Gilgamesh said:
Then I have Guy Gavriel Kay's new book Under Heaven waiting for me. I just can't wait...
Click to expand...

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! How on earth did I forget about this? oh, the joy! The excitement. Oh man. . . -rubs hands together-

EDIT: Right. I forgot about it 'cos it's not out yet. Damn you and your arcs. Damn you.
 
Talking of ARCs (sorry, Nickee!) I've finished MD Lachlan's WolfAngel (mentioned above) and quite enjoyed it. Impressive debut, much more than the Sam Sykes Tombs of the Undergarments which I couldn't get on with.

Mark
 
Talking of debuts, I'm on page 228 of David Gaider's "The Stolen Throne". Whether it's his years as a games writer or just natural talent, he's created a very vivid story with brilliant characters and it's helping me understand some characters/events in Dragon Age: Origins a lot more.
Even if you've not played the game (this book came out before the game did), it's still a very good read.
 
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