Reading in May 2009

[Gilgamesh]

Scar Night

I do wish I had a summary of what happened in Scar Night, but so far I'm managing to follow what's going on. At least my memory of it is coming back, even if its very slowly.

Usually, Wikipedia is an excellent way to remember old stories... In this case it's a bit slim but it may still help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scar_Night

 

[BrightStar]

Usually, Wikipedia is an excellent way to remember old stories... In this case it's a bit slim but it may still help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scar_Night

Yeah, it's quite brief. But it does remind me of a few details which I'd forgotten. I think once I've read the entire series, I'll probably want to go back and re-read it all at some point. Something tells me this will be a series that can be enjoyed just as much the second time it is read as it was the first.

There's just one thing, so far, that's dissapointing me about Iron Angel. And that is some rather notable grammatical errors. These are becoming a little too frequent, and a little too severe for me to be able to continue to allow them to pass without notice. So far, it's a great book, but I'm feeling that not much time was given to the editing/proof reading process.

 

[Aurian]

I'm continuing with Empire of Ivory, and the dryness of Novik's style is starting to get to me. I don't know why, it didn't happen before with the first three books.

I felt the same.... its like it somehow nose-dived in the fourth book, and the fifth book is worse. Despite all the action in the fifth book, it really just felt like it was just setting up a travel to the next stop on the world journey (I won`t spoil though).

 

[...]

Still reading the Dragonbone Chair, about 300 pages in and it really enjoyable. At first I thought the excessive description was a detraction, now I think that the description adds a lot to overall atmosphere of the story. Of course I'm a sucker for excessive description, I loved the Chosen. Secondly, the amounts of travel/walking are also enjoyable, I think Williams does a great job of world building. Third, I think that Williams is excellent at allowing the reader to really feel the emotions of the characters and draw the reader into the story. For example, when Simon was under the castle trying to find his way out of the dark I could really feel Simon's frustration and hopelessness.

 

[Winter]

I finished Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer after what seems like forever and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Going into it I did not expect to like it or even finish it, but it turned out to be very good and I can't wait to check out more from VanderMeer. Now I am switching between Jim Butcher's Storm Front and Edgar Allan Poe's short fiction.

 

[Dirty Hands]

I finished up The Wings of Wrath by C. S. Friedman, and the second book turned out to be just as enjoyable as the first. Unfortantly this series is a really good one, being just short of great. The world feels just a little hollow to me. This doesn't stop you from enjoying the story thought, so I'll probably go out and buy book three when it comes out.

Started The Mystic arts of erasing all signs of death by Charles Huston. A crime fiction about a guy who takes up a job for a murder/death scene clean up team. I'm only about 70 pages into the book, and I've already had to put it down twice. Now I've read a lot of violent and gruesome material in my time, but this was almost a little too much even for me. Luckily thought the dialogue's pretty good, so I'll continue with it and see how it goes.

 

[BrightStar]

I'm about 100 pages into Iron Angel now, and I must admit that a few things are starting to really bug me.

Firstly, as I mentioned already, the excessive amount of grammatical errors. I feel like I'm reading the book in edit mode.

The other issue I am having is that the characters are failing to to really hold my interest. I want to feel some sort of sympathy for both Rachel, and Dill, but can manage non for either of them right now. It's dissapointing.

I'm also struggling a little with the plot. It seems suddenly very convoluted.

Maybe I really should have waited to re-read Scar Night again, but I don't think that's the problem. Iron Angel, so far, just feels weaker.

However, the atmosphere is still fantastic. And I'm still utterly loving the world. Campbell has a fantastically dark imagination.

 

[ezchaos]

I just finished A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin. The story explores a London where a special urban magic exists in everything from rats, pigeons and bag ladies to the buildings, the Underground and beggars. And where there's magic, there are sorcerers, gods, fairys and other creatures to be found. It's a fresh and original addition to the urban fantasy sub genre and I look forward to (hopefully) the sequel.

 

[Seak]

Finished Grave Peril (Dresden files) today. I mentioned earlier that I was tired of the repetitions, but it was still a good read overall. I watched an interview of Butcher on Youtube one time and he said that his main goal was to get people to finish a book and want to read more. That's definitely the effect he's had on me. But, as I mentioned about the repetitions, I might give myself some more time between books so as not to ruin the story.

Next on my list is the Lies of Locke Lamora or Legend by Gemmell. I can't decide. Any recommendations?

 

[Daddy Darth]

I am just about to head off to start Chapter 10 of Bane Wreaker. This is a page turner. I have not been this thoroughly into a book since Martin's ASOIAF. There is a real undercurrent of sadness about it. I am enjoying a book from the "bad guy" point of view though really in this one it is hard to see either side as good or evil rather two forces that can not reconcile and seem to have no choice but to go to war. Awesome. Good night all.

 

[Hellions]

I has been a long while since I've enjoyed an urban fantasy book as much as I did T.A. Pratt's Blood Engines. The author sucked me in his action-packed sorcerers' power play. I found the world building quite colorful and the lead character Marla Mason, while unsympathetic, was all the more interesting for it.

No vampires or werewolves in this one and how original: an urban fantasy not told in the first person. Something to cheer for

 

[BrightStar]

I'm about two chapters away from the end of Iron Angel now.

Overall, I think I prefer Scar Night. There are a few issues I have with Iron Angel that almost leave me feeling as though I'm reading a draft copy.

I'll post more when I've actually finished the book, but for now, I'll just say that whilst it has its faults, I'm still loving Campbell's dark and wonderfully imagined world. It gives me the creeps, if nothing else.

 

[Amaunette]

Next on my list is the Lies of Locke Lamora or Legend by Gemmell. I can't decide. Any recommendations?

I haven't read Legend, but Lies of Locke Lamora is an excellent book. Go with that one and you won't be disappointed. Beware - Lies has graphic violence and murder of a sort rarely described of outside of horror novels.

 

[BrightStar]

Just finished reading Iron Angel. Posted my opinions of it up in the Alan Campbell topic:

I cannot fault Iron Angel for its dark and disturbing world. This, I'm glad to say, is as good as Scar Night's. The vivid descriptions certainly gave me the creeps and a shiver on more than one occasion.

Unfortunately, I struggled to really be able to relate to any of the characters. I can't help feeling that many of them were just plot devices; intended purely as a means to give the reader a viewpoint from which to see a certain event as it happened.

A very notable problem for me was the sheer amount of grammatical errors I found whilst reading. Some of them were pretty terrible, and I can't imagine how an editor could have missed them. I can only conclude that it almost feels like Iron Angel wasn't edited at all: in fact, oftentimes, I felt like I was reading a draft version.

Chapters seemed really hap-hazard. There is no consistancy to their length. Some are over 50 pages long, others less than five. This annoyed me a bit, but could have been forgiven if the story itself hadn't felt as equally disjointed.

Another issue I had with Iron Angel was that it felt very poorly paced. Far too much happened, and I ended up reading the last 200 pages feeling quite overwhelmed and struggling to keep up. Somewhere along the way, the author seems to have thrown me completely from his story: I have no idea who I want to win the conflict, or why they should win. There were too many characters by the end, introduced too quickly and too close to each other. I struggled to keep track of who was who, and who was on who's side.

I'd never have thought myself driven to have to add this to the list of "complaints" against Iron Angel, but another problem I found was that the violance, gore and evil was far too overdone. After a while, I got fed up of it. One of the reasons why I was first so impressed by Alan Campbell's descriptive abilities was because of how extreme and nasty the things and ideas he populated his world with were. But, now I feel as though I've read one too many descriptions of tortured souls, swords bleeding and poisons devouring flesh. In the end, I began to need a break from the evil and nastiness. Why would I want this world saved when there seems nothing good about it to save?

I'll read the third book because I think there are some great ideas amongst there, it's just not terribly well executed. Which is a huge, huge shame. A few more revisions, perhaps, and a better editor might have left me singing this one's praises with little to complain about.

I am now about to start R Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before. Not entirely sure whether this is going to be my kinda thing (worried there might be too much description, or the plot too political for my tastes) but I've read some things about it which have caught my interest, so I'm eager to give it a go and see what I think.

 

[Criselle]

I finnished A Clash of Kings recently and just got A Storm of Swords (yes!) and I am waiting for state testing to get finnished so I can read it.

I only recently started to read George R. R. Martin, and I can see why so many people like it. I can't wait to find out what happens next in the series!

 

[BrightStar]

Made a small start on The Darkness that Comes Before earlier, though haven't read enough to be able to form an opinion as yet. (I only read the first prologue, and a few pages of the second prologue).

I am immediately discouraged by the presence of a prologue (or, in this case, multiple prologues) as I've always had a bit of a pet peeve against them.

But, I'll try not to be too judgemental and stick it out a bit. The writing seems pretty good so far, which is a promising sign.

 

[...]

Made a small start on The Darkness that Comes Before earlier, though haven't read enough to be able to form an opinion as yet. (I only read the first prologue, and a few pages of the second prologue).

I am immediately discouraged by the presence of a prologue (or, in this case, multiple prologues) as I've always had a bit of a pet peeve against them.

But, I'll try not to be too judgemental and stick it out a bit. The writing seems pretty good so far, which is a promising sign.

Just a heads up, if you were a little put off by the bleakness of Iron Angel, then you might want to read something different than the Darkness that Comes Before. Its not a happy book, and some of the scenes are ones of the most brutal and graphic(violence and sex) you will ever read. However, if you can get past the graphic nature of the book the story and writing will amaze you. Bakker, imho, is right up there with Martin, Erikson, and Abercrombie for talent.

Also, after I read Scar Night and Iron Angel I too didn't really care about the characters, the only thing that held my attention was the world itself.

 

[BrightStar]

Just a heads up, if you were a little put off by the bleakness of Iron Angel, then you might want to read something different than the Darkness that Comes Before.

What put me off wasn't so much the bleakness itself, but more the sheer amount of it. I felt that because there was so many malformed and disfigured things crammed into the world of Iron Angel, everything began to sort of blur together.

The reason why it didn't work for me in Iron Angel, I think, is because the author's pacing didn't work into any opportunities to allow things to slow down. There was always, always something new and nasty showing up.

In the end, sadly, Iron Angel just read like a horror story (somewhat reminder me of the Hellraiser movies, actually). There didn't seem like enough plot or character development to fill an entire book, so the author crammed it with nastiness instead to fill the space.

Also, after I read Scar Night and Iron Angel I too didn't really care about the characters, the only thing that held my attention was the world itself.

Yeah, it's a shame. I felt the same way.

I've finished the prologue of The Darkness that Comes Before last night, although so far, I haven't been particularly gripped by anything about the story or its world. It still seems vaguely promising though, so I'm going to read on.

 

[PeterWilliam]

Finished The Fall of Ossard this afternoon. It's a story with tons of promise, but sorely in need of an utter hard-ass for an editor. Seriously, span was used as a substitute for spun repeatedly. Throughout the story, a character would often reply with Thankyou - no space. There were other instances I don't immediately recall in which the language provided a most inconvenient speed bump to utterly derail the reader's rhythm.

The first 75p or so of the story were tough, the middle part...meh, but the last 125p or so were very good. The story displays a metaphysical cast similar in effect to Erikson's, a main character, single POV reminiscient of Paksenarrion and an initial story priming readers for the exposition of a vast and massive world in future installments.

With some better editing keeping the author accountable, I would be interested in picking up future offerings from Colin Taber.

I'll be onto Barclay's Raven series soon, but first I'm going to do something I've not done for 20 years. I'm going to read some science fiction. I received some great recommendations over on that side of the forums and have decided to start with Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy.

 

[Julian]

I'm afraid to say that I found The Chosen to be a slow and tedious read, which unfortunately only gets worse as the series goes on. I barely managed to find the energy to get through the second book, (The Standing Dead) and decided that it wasn't worth my effort to read the third. A major dissapointment for me, unfortunately.

The third?

The THIRD??

It's there, finished, polished off - I can read it?

Yes, it is / I can:

The Third God

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Third-God-S...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242018307&sr=8-1

I have little idea how anyone could ever consider this series a "slow and tedious read" (awkward and literary and quite gothically "grandiose" , yes, but hardly "tedious"), but who cares. The new volume's out, finally!