Reading in February 2011

A little while back I finished Abercrombie's The Heroes, which was very good. I had initially rated Best Served Cold very highly, but revised my opinion over time. I liked The Heroes a bit more.

Last night I finished Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch, which was also very good. Quite impressive for a debut novel. I looked up the sequel book and apparently it's coming out in only a month or two. I'm looking forward to reading more!

Next up will probably be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
 
I'm slowly but surely getting caught up with reading and reviewing. I posted my review of Antiphon by Ken Scholes and my review of The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie this week. I still have reviews to write for Dark Griffin by K.J. Taylor, The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, and Never Knew Another by J.M. McDermott.

I'm currently reading Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch.
 
Evil Agent said:
I'm just past the halfway point of Before They Are Hanged, and am enjoying it a lot. There has been some great character growth (and the plot is picking up too).
Click to expand...

I finished The Blade Itself last night and started Before They Are Hanged this morning.

The Blade Itself is a very good start to what seems to be a very interesting fantasy series. Immediately Abercrombie demonstrates a flair for writing action sequences that is among the best I have read. He immerses the reader into his world without an over-reliance on description... he does it through the actions of his characters and through gradually revealing parts of their story allowing us to understand how they have experienced his world. In fact though his writing of the many great action sequences in The Blade Itself are fun, to me it is the depth of his characters that stands out the most. The only fault I see in The Blade Itself is that it does not have a clear plot (which is often the case in these long fantasy series). The plot is basically the separate stories of a few characters and how they come together. By the end of the story we have an idea of the problems on the horizon in Abercrombie's world and a group has been formed, but to what ends we still do not know. All in all a really fun read and when combined with the rest of the series maybe even be a great read, but on its own it is missing the plotting to be great.
 
I finished Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K Hamilton a few days ago, I wouldn't say it was a masterpiece but it was enjoyable enough as far as the Meredith story line goes.

I have since started Beyond the Hanging Wall by Sara Douglass. This is a prequel, so to speak, for her DarkGlass Mountain Trilogy and is the story of Garth and Maximilian. I'm probably half was through and am really liking it!
 
I posted this in the Science Fiction forum, but considering how fantasy he is in nature, I thought I might as well report here as well, that I just finished Gene Wolfe's Home Fires. I got mixed feelings on the subject, but I've written a review, which is quoted in the link above. I don't wanna spam it here as well :)
 
Rob B said:
You're welcome! I thought I was the only person to have problems with the book as well. I'd seen very positive reviews from Liviu at FBC and John at Grasping for the Wind so I thought maybe I was just missing something.

Now that I think about it, his writing did seem to take a step back.
Click to expand...

As a fairly big fan of the Night Angel trilogy, I found The Black Prism lacking and while it was highly anticipated I have to say that I didn't like it either.

I just finished It's Superman and it was an interesting spin on his origins. The character of Lex Luthor was great but some Superman was not what I was use to and so I did not really care for it. Being a hobo and catching a train to see the world, breaking friends out of jail, and blowing up cars because of prejudices were just a bit too far off the mark for my enjoyment. It started out as a nice change and then spun way out into left field.
 
Last edited:
Last night I finished Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch, which was also very good. Quite impressive for a debut novel.
Click to expand...
Not quite, Ben. The other Ben has written a bit in the (old) Doctor Who world, including the script for the Sylvester McCoy episode Remembrance of the Daleks.

First Peter Grant story though. And according to my sources, selling very well.

Mark
 
Hobbit said:
Not quite, Ben. The other Ben has written a bit in the (old) Doctor Who world, including the script for the Sylvester McCoy episode Remembrance of the Daleks.

First Peter Grant story though. And according to my sources, selling very well.

Mark
Click to expand...
Heh. You're the second person to point that out to me. Television and tie-in novelization? Bah. :p Okay, so he's not new to writing, but is it his first major publication of his own material?
 
I recently plowed my way through the very awesome and exciting Legend by David Gemmell. Solid writing, great action, and memorable characters. My copy has a mulleted Druss on the cover, and which is great because that's exactly how I pictured him in my head anyway.

Not a lot in the way of fantasy elements in this novel, but sometimes little amounts of magic go a long way, and make it more interesting.

I didn't totally buy the love story between Rek and Virae, but that may just be a personal gripe.

This was my very first Gemmell read, and I definitely liked it.

Now in the midst of reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King. It has been a bit of a slog so far but it looks to be picking up.
 
Finished The Name of the Wind last night and WOW. Loved it. Yes, this was my first time through - where the heck have I been?

Also read Kraken recently. I don't know quite what to say here. I enjoyed it, I loved the imagination and the characters and can you call them races? I enjoyed very much as well. But, I still struggled to get through it. It was like the plot was just the background to all these cool things. Can't say I loved it, but I'll definitely be reading more Mieville.
 
Corporal Blues said:
I recently plowed my way through the very awesome and exciting Legend by David Gemmell. Solid writing, great action, and memorable characters. My copy has a mulleted Druss on the cover, and which is great because that's exactly how I pictured him in my head anyway.

Not a lot in the way of fantasy elements in this novel, but sometimes little amounts of magic go a long way, and make it more interesting.

I didn't totally buy the love story between Rek and Virae, but that may just be a personal gripe.

This was my very first Gemmell read, and I definitely liked it.

Now in the midst of reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King. It has been a bit of a slog so far but it looks to be picking up.
Click to expand...

I really enjoyed Legend, but I felt the same way about Rek and Virae, it was almost too fast to really work. I need to read more of him (Gemmell that is).
 
I managed to finish Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marques (one of my top 5 of the last 10 years, not fantasy though) . now I fell ready for some popcorn amusement and fast action, so I picked the first book in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher: Furies of Calderon.
I got burned out with Harry Dresden at Summer Knight, where I felt the book was all about the fireworks / special effects and very little in terms of content. I guess I'm in a better mood today, as I'm enjoying this new setting. Having rather low expectations also helps.

I'm also about halfway into The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia, and I enjoy this one better for it's originality, beautiful language and interesting mix of steampunk and gothic. I could see some similaritu with Michael Swanwick, but I'm not a specialist, I've only read The Iron Dragon Daughter.
 
Seak said:
I really enjoyed Legend, but I felt the same way about Rek and Virae, it was almost too fast to really work. I need to read more of him (Gemmell that is).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. It was definitely too rushed.
 
I finished Towers of Midnight last night - I really enjoyed it and near the end I could not put it down. The last book, all on its own, should be epic beyond anything I can imagine. There are a couple of fairly big puzzle pieces to be fit into place i.e. the Seanchan, the Black Tower.

Cant wait - get to work Brandon! Jordan's vision is almost complete, and as far as I know the ending was pretty much written by him. I could be wrong, but the posthumous collaboration has worked really well so far.

Cheers.
 
I'm also about halfway into The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia, and I enjoy this one better for it's originality, beautiful language and interesting mix of steampunk and gothic.

I too, enjoyed her originality and writing. I had first started with her story The Secret History of Moscow. And I will also pixk up her other book, The house of enchanted dreams.
 
Finished up Toll of the hounds and got started on Dust of Dreams over the weekend. 800 pages of meandering follwed by 150 pages of awesomeness in Tolls. Hopefully Dust & CG willl have less padding and more substance :P
 
I just finished Aliette de Bodard's Harbinger of the Storm (book two in the Obsidian & Blood series). I definitely prefer it a lot less to the first book. Book two was very political (too much so for my tastes, since I generally prefer books that aren't heavy on politics) and I really did struggle to keep track of the character names. I can't blame the author for that, since the names were in keeping with the world (and from what I read of her author's notes, she did make an effort to keep them as short as possible) but it was still a major hurdle for me --- one that I just couldn't get over.

Now I'm about to begin reading Devices and Desires (book one of the Engineer Trilogy by K. J. Parker). I seem to recall having heard a lot of good things about this author, so I've been looking forwards to giving it a try. (Though it's been sat on my to read pile for far too long!) It looks interesting, so I'm hoping I'm going to have an enjoyable time reading it.
 
I finished Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie last night and posted a few thoughts in the First Law thread. It definitely is one of my favorite series I have ever read.

I started a few pages into the unedited version of Stranger in a Strange Land for the Feburary SciFi discussion group. This will be my first time reading it and I am enjoying the setup so far.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsors


We try to keep the forum as free of ads as possible, please consider supporting SFFWorld on Patreon


Your ad here.

Latest posts

Back
Top