Reading in May 2009

[Apathy]

How does one go about getting an ARC?

 

[Aurian]

I`d love to know too..... but I did just pick up Santa Olivia from the local libary, so it must be out now...

 

[...]

How does one go about getting an ARC?

Ebay, I found an ARC of Wrath of a Mad God two months before the book was in the stores. Since the book sucked I was happy that I didn't have to pay for the hard cover. If you mean getting ARC's without having to pay for them, then I'm assuming you have to be a reviewer or work at a corporate office of a book store.

 

[Trinuviel]

How does one go about getting an ARC?

I do reviews for a website and their admins have been really good at getting me ARCs. Alternately, I you have a blog where you write about genre fiction you can contact the publishers marketing department and request Advance Review Copies.

 

[Cranky Hamster]

I finished The Third Sign by Gregory Wilson (tbp June 09)

Maybe it's just the low-res miniature versions I've seen, but the cover for this made me think it was self-pubbed for a while. Evidently I was mistaken, but this confirms my previous suspicion that it's about on the same level.

Behold, my judge-a-book-by-its-cover biases in full swing.

 

[LordScorch]

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

The last Day of Sacrotes by Plato

 

[...]

A few weeks ago I finished the Dragon Bone Chair and I was impressed by it. It took a few hundred pages to get into the story but Williams world building and description really impressed me. The plot seems fairly generic(coming of age story) but I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

I also read Imager which was basically the same story as any Recluse novel but on a different world. Pardon the pun but as of right now in the story Imager is very black and white. Imager's world seems a bit more interesting than Recluse too. Maybe because its new.

Just started a Magic of Twilight and so far its a page turner. The first few chapters were confusing but the appendix helped a lot.

 

[Astra_]

request Advance Review Copies.

/off-topic mode on
Doesn't ARC stand for Advance Reader Copy?
/off-topic mode off

 

[Kazz Wylde]

/off-topic mode on
Doesn't ARC stand for Advance Reader Copy?
/off-topic mode off

Yes it does.

 

[Toma]

A wonderful, wonderful collection of stories. Beagle's best.

Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel is a lovely, sad, happy story told through the eyes of a ten year old boy. One day, as he's sitting in the studio watching his Uncle Chaim paint, an angel arrives and informs Chaim that she's to be his muse and he will from that day on paint only her.

What follows is a harrowing tale as Chaim becomes obsessed, drawing further and further away from the world until only the angel matters.

If blackness is the absence of light, then those were the blackest eyes I'll ever see, because there was no light in those eyes, and no smallest possibility of light ever. You couldn't call them sad: sad at least knows what joy is, and grieves at being exiled from joy. However old he really was, those eyes were a thousand years past sad.

We Never Talk About My Brother, the story which this collection takes its name from, feels very short and seems to be over before it really begins.

The brother in question is sort of the angel of death. If he says someone died, they die. But not right at that moment, they are already dead, a week ago. It's an interesting premise, but I thought it could have been a bit longer.

He kind of whispered, "You got run over." Hadn't been as close as I was, I'd never have heard him.

"You got run over." Like that - like it had already happened, you see? Exactly - like he was reading the news. You got it.

Okay. Now. This is what's important. This is where you're going to start wondering whether you should have maybe sat just a little closer to the door. See, what happened to Donnie, didn't happen then - it had already happened a week before.

The Tale of Junko and Sayuri is a very sad story of a young man that falls in love with a shape-shifter. A tale of how they both come to know their true nature.

Not even for the sake of at last learning my own being, my own soul. That can go undiscovered forever, and welcome, and I will remain Sayuri, your wife, no more and no less. And I will tend three graves, and pray at the shrine, and live as I can with what I have done. That is how it will be.

King Pelles the Sure is a short almost-fairytale of a king that rules a kingdom that has never known anything other than peace and prosperity. King Pelles, however, wants to be remembered for glory in battle and all that. However, he'd much rather it be a short, manageable war.

"Well, if that is what a war is, so be it. Consider our choices, Vizier, and make your recommendation." He added then, rather quickly, "But do arrange for a gracious war, if you possibly can. Something... something a little tidy. With songs in it, you know."

The Last and Only,
Or,
Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French

A neat story of, well, Mr. Moscowitz turning French. Slowly, over the course of years, he becomes more and more French, until he can no longer even speak english and he and his wife finally move to France. But he can't be happy there, either, for he finds that he is the only true Frenchman alive.

Mr. Moscowitz smiled, almost wistfully, and the President grew afraid. He had a sudden vision of Mr. Moscowitz banishing him and every other soul in France with a single word, a single gesture; and in that moment's vision it seemed to him that they all went away like clouds, leaving Mr. Moscowitz to dance by himself in cobwebbed Paris on Bastille day.

Spook

Another one of Beagle's Joe Farrell stories. Farrell moves into a new house with Julie, only to find out that it's haunted and the ghost thinks he's the one who killed him.

Obviously, the only solution is a duel to the death. The weapons? Bad poetry.

Plop, flop
Plop

The Stickball Witch is a truly wonderful story about Beagle playing stickball when he was eleven. One of the best short stories I've read by him.

Stewie Hauser - always the second guy to do or say anything, said he double-dared me. So there it was. You couldn't walk away from a double-dare, even from a dumbshit like Stewie. I mean, you could, but the rest of your life wouldn't ever be worth living after that. I knew that then. Not believed. Knew.

The Unicorn Tapestries

A nice series of poems based on the unicorn tapestries. Not amazing, but nice.


Chandail is a story set in Beagle's Innkeeper's Song universe. I didn't care much for that book, but I am constantly surprised at how he manages to tell some of his best stories in that world.

This is a story told by one of the characters in that novel, of her encounter with a mysterious, torturous sea creature. It's a great story.

Depending on where you drink and with whom, you can hear that the First Chandail fashioned a world before this one of ours: gloriously beautiful, by all accounts, but crafted all of water, which was no problem until the Second Chandail made the sun. More wondrous yet, that must have been for a while, what with the new, new light bending and shattering so dazzlingly through those endless droplets - a rainbow creation, surely. Except, of course, that it melted away, by and by, and sank back into empty dark until the world we know came to be.

 

[beniowa]

I finished Twelve by Jasper Kent. The premise of vampires hired to fight the French during Napoloen's invasion of Russia sounds intriguing, however it failed to work for me. Mainly because I couldn't get past the fact that the author failed to convey the historical setting. The book could have been set in the present time and it wouldn't have made any difference.

Next up is Jaqueline Carey's latest, Santa Olivia.

 

[suciul]

I finished two more KJ Parker novels.

Colours in Steel (Fencer 1)

Unbelievably good; the tale of the Loredan family unfolds slowly with twists and turns galore; similar in style and prefiguring the Engineer series in content to some extent.

Not for everyone with its dry humor and matter of fact tone, the antithesis of pathos in sff, this novel solidifies the place of KJ Parker as my top fantasy author for now.

Memory (Scavenger 3)

Just an astounding conclusion to this series which has a chance of becoming my top finished fantasy series of all time. I am re-reading the books since that is a must once all the cards are on the table; everything takes quite a different complexion once you actually know the mystery of the "memoryless" hero.

 

[Kazz Wylde]

Wow, That's high praise, Liviu.
Where would one start on KJ's books? Which trilogy should go first?

 

[ChrisW]

I'd say read them in the order they were published. Fencer,Scavenger then Engineer. You will know from the first book if you enjoy her style as it doesn't change.

 

[suciul]

I'd say read them in the order they were published. Fencer,Scavenger then Engineer. You will know from the first book if you enjoy her style as it doesn't change.

Completely agreed here - though by chance (Engineer was the one readily available in stores and Scavenger the one to buy as e, while for Fencer I had to wait up to 2 weeks for the books to come in from various places I got them) I read Engineer first and Scavenger second and just finished Fencer 1, though I am now re-reading Scavenger since once you know what's what, most everything gets quite a different complexion - innocuous phrases that seemed just normal at the time, have a completely different meaning...

Also Fencer and Engineer are closer in themes, while Scavenger is different, but the style is the same and I agree it takes a bit to get used to, but it's addictive

 

[Astra_]

The trilogies are unrelated to each other, correct?

(If yes, then why it is important to read them in the order they were published?)

 

[Kazz Wylde]

Alright, Thanks for that, Liviu & ChrisW. I'd been looking at Parker's work for awhile, but may have to bump them up!

 

[suciul]

The trilogies are unrelated to each other, correct?

(If yes, then why it is important to read them in the order they were published?)

They are unrelated but they show the evolution of KJ Parker as an author and I agree that were I to have had a choice I would have started with Fencer which is the easiest to get into her style;

I started with the standalone The Company (I still remember my assessment of "first and last KJ Parker I will read" which I find very amusing now - but it took a while for that book to "settle" for me and realize that actually I loved the style but it was sort of unexpected and I faced "cognitive dissonance" hence that snarky line)

 

[Kazz Wylde]

Who would you say KJ Parker is most similar to? What books or authors?

 

[ChrisW]

None. She's pretty unique imo, certainly in the fantasy genre.