Reading in July 2012

[Westy]

Finished Walter Moers' The City of Dreaming Books - what a fantastic read! It centres around the protagonist, Optimus Yarnspinner, and his search for the anonymous author of the greatest piece of writing known.

What follows is an adventure through the lost continent of Zamonia - filled with a variety of strange creatures, unusually different types of books and weird landscapes. The author has a brilliant imagination, and combined with an obvious skill at writing as well as illustrations throughout, this is one of my favourite reads in the past couple of years.

Definitely recommended.

Also just saw on Amazon a sequel of sorts, The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, due out in November which I'll be looking forward to.

 

[Danogzilla]

Started Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin. I was very impressed with The Assassin's Apprentice and so far this book is a consistent follow-up.

I'm a little over half way through and this book is fantastic. Robin Hobb is very quickly moving up my favorite writer list. I have the third book ready to go in this trilogy, and started building the Liveship Traders trilogy in my TBRs.

 

[Chrysippus]

I'm a little over half way through and this book is fantastic. Robin Hobb is very quickly moving up my favorite writer list. I have the third book ready to go in this trilogy, and started building the Liveship Traders trilogy in my TBRs.

Those are great books. I had the privilege to meet her in Milwaukee a couple of years back, and she signed my copies of the books in The Farseer Trilogy. She was really nice. I remember she asked about my t-shirt (it was a t-shirt from The Aggrolites, a reggae band from L.A.). I still need to read The Tawny Man Trilogy.

 

[DragonReader]

Now reading Ashes of a Black Frost, book #3 of The Iron Elves by Chris Evans

 

[paulskemp]

Finished The Hammer and the Blade by Paul S. Kemp (Great book!) and read a short story by Terry Brooks called The Paladins of Shannara: Allanon's Quest

Rock on. Glad you enjoyed, Dragonreader. I certainly had a blast writing it.

For my part, reading THE WEIRD anthology, edited by the Vandermeers. It's enormous, but I'm about a third of the way through. Not a single miss for me among the stories so far (though some really resonated, and others were just good).

 

[JustaStaffer]

Really must try that one again, Jop. Read Robopocalypse and thought it was OK, but not great, and Amped I began to read not long afterwards. Seemed to be more of the same, and other books took priority.

As I said, must try it again...

Mark

I thought AMPED was terrible. I found Robopaclypse OK, as you did.

 

[Gkarlives]

Working on Delerium's Mistress by Tanith Lee. This is my first book by her.

 

[PeterWilliam]

Just finished Ruckley's Fall of Thanes and, as a result, his Godless World series. I was a very bitter ending. Though "evil" lost, what was left was sorrow, grief, destruction and a lot of hard work to re-establish something resembling civilization. Some of that ending did go a bit sideways for me, though. All in all, I'm hoping that Ruckley will be back out there writing again soon. I imagine that his development will provide great reads in the future.

Moving on to Jim Butcher and book one of Codex Alera - Furies of Calderon. I've never been motivated to pick up the Dresden books, so this will be my first experience of the author.

 

[MattNY]

Moving on to Jim Butcher and book one of Codex Alera - Furies of Calderon. I've never been motivated to pick up the Dresden books, so this will be my first experience of the author.

I am reading the series myself for the first time and I am through the first six books currently. I had read that the series really gets its legs around Book 4 or 5 and I have to agree. Considering how fast they read, it isn't quite as large a commitment as it sounds to truly give the series a shot to that point, so if you find any joy in them at all, I recommend going at least through Book 5.

I enjoyed the first several books well enough, so I am not saying they are bad. I just feel that the first few books are stepping stones to get the characters and background in place so Butcher could take the story where he wanted to. But as I said, I am still reading the series, so perhaps my thoughts will continue to change to.

 

[JamieB]

Just started Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis. Not sure what to think of it yet. The opening chapters were a bit disjointed, but the story seems to be settling down now that we are past the stage setting phase.

I really enjoyed Charles Stross’s Laundry novels and this was recommended as similar.

 

[Danogzilla]

Finished Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin last night. My esteem for her has shot up over the course of the two books I've read. After reading such a rich book I thought maybe a light book would be in order while my subconscious digested Hobb's book, so I started Scalzi's Redshirts, and put it down after the second chapter because it was terrible. Then I said what the heck, and started Assassin's Quest, the third book in the Farseer trilogy. I have very high hopes for both the Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies.

 

[mjolnir]

Hobb is boss, but I found when I was reading her a few years back that it was possible to overdose on her style rather badly. I read a whole trilogy together and while I enjoyed it, a lot, and considered her one of my absolute favourite authors at the time [and still think she's very very good], I've not felt the urge to go back to her work yet. A lot of emotion, explained at length, gets thrown at you in succession when you read Hobb; I suppose I just overloaded.

Finished Deborah Coates' Wide Open, a debut about a US army sergeant who sees ghosts and her journey back home to South Decota to face elemental magic on the prairie.

Coates' style is very immediate, clipped and flowing at the same time. Almost stream-of-consciousness, at least that's how it feels to me. It keeps us very close to the characters, but the book opens so sudden and we're introduced to so many relationships so quickly that this very intimate style almost ended up forming a wall for me at times and keeping me from fully engaging, which is too bad as it seems to be a style designed to very much get the reader down in the moment and Coates writes extremely well.

The protagonist is a really nice character. Well-balanced, sketched finely, which makes her slipperier as a personality -- since she's not got many broad traits -- but also makes her characterization very rewarding. The villains are ... less excellent. I found them quite stock, in fact, especially Big Bad, who is written with feeling but whose motivations feel very central casting to me.

Coates' use of magic, and twining that use of magic with the landscape, is really nice. There are some very atmospheric descriptions in here. It threatens to wobble a bit, however, when the book tries to explain and mechanize some parts of it. This becomes something of a problem later in the book. The plot in general -- which I free associate onto from magic, as magic is central to it -- burns real slow, which is fine in theory since the first bit of the book keeps itself plenty occupied with the emotional stakes. However, by the time the plot did come into focus -- and to be clear this is purely my reaction on a single reading --, I'd been so wound up by the atmospheric hints and such that I was expecting something slightly less straight-ahead than the book actually has in store. It's well-delivered; I'm just not sure it lives up to its buildup.

Good debut. Several largish problems, I thought, but Coates is a very, very promising writer, really good with atmosphere and a sense of the numinous and uncertain -- both in magic and in people.

 

[Rob B]

This morning, I started Blackwood Gwenda Bond's debut novel, and I think a launch title for new Angry Robot YA imprint STRANGE CHEMISTRY. Only a bit into it, but I've already found myself very drawn to the protagonist.

Finished this off last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. Strong, young female protagonist, great pacing and overall a solid start to what could be a very promising novel-writing career for Ms. Bond.

..and now, a day early, I'll be starting my little August of Abraham reading project wherein I'm going to read everything I have by Mr. Abraham that I've yet to read. I'm starting off with The Long Price Quartet and logically, that would be with A Shadow in Summer.