Reading in January 2011

[mjolnir]

Almost half-way through Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed and as I expected it continues excellent. I'm beginning to wonder quite when we're going to get to a detailed coverage of Prester John's first exposures to the people of his "kingdom", and there was just a summary of some of his early days there which while beautiful is hopefully not all we're going to get on that score. And the book's digression-heavy, but A: all the digressions expand on the culture, or the mindset, or the history, or the character [there's one narrator whose prone to self-reflection in particular], and B: they are all written in prose that shines like molten gold. So, while I kind of wish we got a tiny bit more "scene" in the traditional sense [and it's not as though there isn't a bunch already or anything], honestly I'm good.

Also almost exactly half through Towers of Midnight, and ... I dunno. The style's a little sketchy, I feel: Sanderson mentioned the other day on teh internetz that he's very aware of one stylistic difference between himself and Jordan, which is that he uses contractions while Jordan did not. Adopting Jordan's no contractions policy might have seemed too much like aping him, I realize, and cut too much into Sanderson's own style. But, well, I'm noticing. Not just that, all the little style wobbles. I'm noticing more than I did in The Gathering Storm, and I know it sounds petty but it does cramp my joy. Most of this, I think, is down to some writing that feels quite rushed. But then there are scenes that feel right on, [there was a Mat and Birgita scene recently that felt perfect.] And a couple really cool things have happened. Not huge things, but cool ones. Overall I'm really enjoying the book and appreciating its broader focus and a lot of its scenes [even if some are provoking a "really?" reaction]. I just think it's got a lot more cracks in it than The Gathering Storm, thus far.
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White Girls Cams

 

[Evil Agent]

Okay, I finally finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I think I started it at least six months ago or so, but kept putting it down.

It definitely got better in the second half, and by the end I was totally hooked. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. But I really think the first half was slower than it needed to be, and that it focused too much on Jezal, the least interesting/likeable character so far. I still don't know how everything will play out, so I don't know why Joe did what he did, but I think he could have trimmed about 50 or 60 pages out of the first half of the novel, and focused more on other characters, and it would have been that much stronger.

Looking forward to the next volume...

 

[NickeeCoco]

A hairy man having sex with an insect creature isn't something one would find in many of the classic Gothic novels.

I wasn't thinking classic. I was thinking modern. Also, he didn't have sex in that scene. He sat in silhouette at a table with his lover. The silhouette was pointed out to the reader. That very fact, that simple image, which has the capability of conveying so much even out of context, is what I considered Gothic.

At any rate, this book reminds me of an art film: cool to look at, but boring to watch. Hopefully it gets better.

 

[MattNY]

Okay, I finally finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I think I started it at least six months ago or so, but kept putting it down.

It definitely got better in the second half, and by the end I was totally hooked. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. But I really think the first half was slower than it needed to be, and that it focused too much on Jezal, the least interesting/likeable character so far. I still don't know how everything will play out, so I don't know why Joe did what he did, but I think he could have trimmed about 50 or 60 pages out of the first half of the novel, and focused more on other characters, and it would have been that much stronger.

Looking forward to the next volume...

While I agree that Jezal is the least interesting character in the first book, I do disagree that the pacing of the first half of the book was slow or unnecessarily padded. I thought it was a wonderful setup for the characters that are going to carry the rest of this story over the next two volumes.

Glad you enjoyed it enough to continue forward though. I believe I enjoyed book two even more, and cannot wait until I begin the third.

 

[tmilktoast]

I'm re-reading The Name of the Wind and am liking as much or better than the first read, which is reassuring to me. For some reason, as time passed, I became doubtful of its qualities and wondered if perhaps I was mistaken about it being an excellent book. I think his blog, and his obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, clouded my judgment. Silly, I know.

I recently finished Turn Coat (Dresden Files) after accidentally reading Changes first. It was a typical quick, entertaining Dresden Files read, but reading it out of order was annoying.

 

[Roland 85]

I'm re-reading The Name of the Wind and am liking as much or better than the first read, which is reassuring to me. For some reason, as time passed, I became doubtful of its qualities and wondered if perhaps I was mistaken about it being an excellent book. I think his blog, and his obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, clouded my judgment. Silly, I know.

Buffy is one of the greatest achievements of television ^_^

Just sayin..

 

[tmilktoast]

Buffy is one of the greatest achievements of television ^_^

Just sayin..

Overall I liked the show, and thought some episodes were the best thing ever on TV, but he seems to have a schoolboy's crush on it and Joss Whedon and it weirded me out a little. I have now recovered

 

[Roland 85]

Joss Whedon deserves all the schoolboy crushes he gets Ok, stopping the offtopicing now...

 

[Erfael]

On topic: Finished The Magicians for the book club discussion. Very interesting, more in the thread.

Off topic: I, a thirty-two-year-old straight male, have a schoolboy crush on Joss Whedon. I have loved everything he's done so far and have no reason to believe that will change with what he does in the future.

 

[Loerwyn]

Hit the 100 page mark of Empire in Black & Gold last night.

There was a fight scene that, in my opinion, was brilliantly written (I usually struggle with them on some level, but this one gave me pretty much no issues) and it's slowly starting to build up to bigger and bigger things. Yay!

 

[AmethystOrator]

It's been awhile since I last posted in this thread, but I've still been reading. I spent quite awhile getting through Robin Hobb's Mad Ship, Ship of Destiny, Fool's Errand, Golden Fool and Fool's Fate and had a lot of conflicting feelings on these books.

The world and many of the characters were quite well developed, and I appreciated that. Though they made some decisions that I very much didn't care for and there were times that the books seemed rather depressing. I felt that the third books in each series suffered, as they wrapped things up too quickly and neatly and there were conversations that I would have liked to have seen, or to have seen explored more. Other authors do this too of course, but compared to how fully the begginings and middles of each series were, then the endings seemed lacking by comparison. In some ways, these books are amongst the best that I have read in the medium so far (keeping in mind that there are still a LOT of books and series that I have yet to read) and so perhaps that is why their shortcomings are so disappointing to me. They were quite an interesting experience, and while at times I had to force myself to continue to read them, in the end I am glad that I made the effort to do so.

In the midst of reading those titles above, I continued on with Feist's RiftWar. Those books were Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon. Both were entertaining and a good contrast to Hobb's work. Nothing terribly deep here, but I kept in mind that they were written about 20 years ago, and the modest expectations that I began with were surpassed. I'm happy to have read these, and will continue on with Daughter of the Empire at some point in the next month or two.

The Warded Man has been in my "To Be Read" stack for some time, and seeing that a conversation here had begun, then I decided to read that yesterday. I had heard good things about this book, but was quite surprised at what it turned out to be. I had problems with it both little (I think that it was perhaps a mistake to use "Cutter" as the name of the family overrun by Corelings in the beginning of the book, and also "Cutter" as part of the name of Leesha's home town) to large (as soon as each "major" character was introduced then I immediately guessed how they would fit together by the end). I thought that the writing wasn't terribly great to begin with, and that it got worse as it went along. Finishing the last 70-80 pages of the book seemed like a chore more than anything else. This is the first series that I've read where I really don't think that I will continue on to the next book. What especially disappointed me was that I had heard that there was something original about the magic system and the way that Arlen uses it, but that didn't seem to be the case to me. It reminded me quite a bit of what Weis & Hickman did with one of the groups in their DeathGate series.

 

[AmethystOrator]

I think his blog, and his obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, clouded my judgment. Silly, I know.

I might be wrong, but I think that he came to Whedon with Firefly and that that show is either his favorite, or at least on the same level for him as BtVS, AtS, Dr. Horrible, etc. There's definitely more to Whedon than just Buffy.

 

[AmethystOrator]

Women over the centuries, it was their duty to produce heirs or kids to work on the farm.

I might agree with you, but it seemed that they extended that same mind set to the boys and men as well. When Arlen expressed reluctance with the arrangement that his father made for him to marry, then Jeph gave him the same sort of a talk as he might have gotten if the situation was reversed and he was a girl. That women in their area were scarce, and that he should be thankful to have the opportunity to have a wife and children. He rebelled against a few things, but I thought that one of them was that he didn't want to be locked into a future that he would have no choice in.

 

[NK]

It's been a bad month for me so far.

Finally gave up on Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Loved the first book but really struggled through the second- thought it picked up towards the end though. Only got about a quarter of the way through the third book and i found myself thinking that if all the main characters were killed on the next page it would not bother me at all! So I stopped reading. I felt like I was forcing myself to finish it just for the sake of finishing it.

Next i started Dawnthief by James Barclay. Got about 100 pages in before i put it down. It wasn't bad but it didn't grab me either. I might come back to it eventually. (I really hope so because I bought the whole trilogy - had heard good things about Barclay)

Next The Magicians Guild by Trudi Canavan. Fingers crossed I will want to finish this one!

 

[Westy]

Heroes Die.

So within the genres I normally prefer sci-fi, I also like horror and within fantasy I prefer stories that are weird or fanatastique, but usually least of all swords and magic.

But Heroes Die is such a great book! I'm nearly finished and haven't had such a fun read for a long time. Matthew Woodring Stover just keeps the flow going for over 500 pages; there's humour, action, an underlying love story and plenty of violence and gore. He's created some very memorable characters and his writing style is very easy to read.

Great book; recommended. (But what's with the cheesy cover though - seriously, I wouldn't pick this up if I saw it in a shop/library)!

**Edit: So it's not just me, there's a whole thread on it!**

http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9901

 

[DurzoBlint]

I received a copy of Runescape: Betrayal at Falador from the publisher last month and have sat down to read it, so far it isn't too bad. I have no background on the game so I don't know where it fits in the timeline. Seems a pretty standard fantasy mythos.

 

[3rdI]

Made a bookstore run yesterday and bought The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay and Kraken by China Mieville.

What a great year this is going to be. New Abercrombie, Rothfuss, Bakker and Hoffman.

 

[Hellions]

I finished Clan Daughter by Morgan Howell, second book in the Queen of Orcs trilogy. While I didn't exactly feel the same urgency to keep reading as with the first installment, it was still excellent. The author continues to amaze with his unveiling of the matriarchal orcish society. Competent characterizations and nice romantic subplots. I should read the conclusion fairly soon.

 

[kcf]

As I've said elsewhere, life has simply been kicking me in the balls repeatedly for a few months now. Hopefully it'll be back to a sense of normal soon. Anyway, I've had some decent amount of time for reading, but not for writing reviews. I'll slowly catch up (I hope).

Anyway, my review for Stonewielder by Ian C. Esslemont is up. I enjoyed it - it's a solid effort in the Malazn world, but a few flaws hold it back a bit.

I've read but not yet reviewed Antiphon by Ken Scholes, The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, and The Dark Griffin by K.J. Taylor. I'm not reading The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

 

[Zsinj]

Finished Glen Cook's original "Black Company Trilogy." It was pretty good, but didn't live up to the hype for me. It wasn't bad by any means. The last half/fourth of the third volume did kind of seem like a bad acid trip, though. I have the rest of the series in omnibus format, but I'm not in any hurry to finish them.
Right now I'm, rereading "Dune Messiah" by Frank Herbert, and I'm enjoying it more now that I know what to expect, less on action, more on religious & political intrigue, spirituality, mysticism, and philosophical leanings. The first time I read it and tried to read "Children of Dune", though, I though they were terrible, because I was not in the right mindset and expecting it to be like the first Dune novel. I think I'm gonna enjoy rereading the rest of Dune Messiah and finally finishing Children of Dune as well. (last time I read it, I only got 1/4 of the way through.) The 4th-6th books I think I'll wait to read later, as I believe they're stand alones set centuries if not millenia apart.