Reading in November 2008

Hobbit

Hobbit

Cat Wrangler and Reader
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This is where you tell us what you're reading in Fantasy this month. Good or bad, please let us know what you thought.

Over to the Book Clubs....

The Fantasy Book Club discussion is on a recent book publication: Acacia by David Anthony Durham.

Reminder about the SF Book Club: they decided to look at three books over three months (October to December 2008) with a common theme. (Can you guess what it is from the books chosen?)

These are:

Iain (M) Banks's Excession (HERE)
Greg Bear's Eon (HERE) and
Arthur C Clarke's Rendevous with Rama (HERE)

There will be a cross-thread discussion opened later in November (HERE) to allow a discussion of the key ideas and themes.

Join in if you can.


Mark / Hobbit
 
I am 2/3 into In the Ruins by Kate Elliott, book 6 of the Crown of Stars series.
Enjoyable reading but... too much of religious gibberish 6/10
When I finish, I will star book 7.
 
Just finished R. Scott Bakker's The Judging Eye, and it's everything fans could hope for!

Hard to put down, and that's a fact!!! :D

Patrick
 
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

Fourth time, and it's never been better. :)
 
Finished Every Last Drop last night, and now I am sad, for I am out of Joe Pitt books.

This is a bummer of a book to be stuck on, too, because it feels like half a story: all setup and suspense for what promises to be a big explosion down the line, with only a partial resolution. The previous novels were more or less self-contained. Still, "aaieee I must know what happens!!" is a pretty good reaction from a reader as jaded as I am. I haven't felt this antsy since the cliffhanger at the end of AFFC, and happily Huston seems to be pretty regular about getting his books out on time, so the dangling resolution shouldn't be as frustrating.
 
Just finished Gardens of the Moon. Trying to decide whether to jump right into the next book. I missed what happened to the spcific author forums.??
 
Almost finished with Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself.
Already have the 2nd and 3rd waiting.

This is a book that going in I WANTED to like. At first I was interested then I realized my dislike for reading a particular character pov (Cpt. Luthar) and wishing the story would jump back to Logen.

when they all started to converge this problem went away.

enjoying it pretty well, but I'm due for a change of pace after I read these.
 
Currently finishing up J.V. Jones' Book of Words trilogy. It's so-so. Then moving onto Elantris, and psyched for it. I also just got a huge shipment of Dave Duncan books (15) to go through.
 
Presently reading The Fade by Chris Wooding. I liked his Weavers of Saramyr trilogy with its Asian flavour, and this time the stand-alone book takes place in a world where people all live underground. Its written in a first-person perspective which I usually dislike, so a book has to be good enough to overcome that aversion to appeal to me.

This one is appealing. Its quite fun and interesting to read, and I am interested in the plot and the characters.
 
i started the month with Patricia McKillip "In the Forest of Serre" - and it's quite good so far. Lyrical and elegant, it has a personal appeal that I need after to much gritty stuff [I read K J Parker and Richard Morgan before]. One of the countries in this book is called Dacia, but it has no relation with the 1st century kingdom that occupied present Romanian territory.
 
Read Caine Black Knife by Matthew Woodring Stover the other day.

Caine = pimpin'.

Although, like the most recent Jim Butcher book, this left a lot of loose ends floating around. I cannot say I am satisfied, but it was a very enjoyable read. I can only hope it does not take another 5-6 years to release the next one. I can just feel how he is going to #$@# everything up in the next one (if there is going to be a next one). So I will cross my fingers every now and then hoping for a sequel.
 
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Huh, guess I get to post again. Read Dhampir and Thief of Lives by Barb Hendee and J.C. Hendee.

These two books surprised me a bit. After the Sookie Stackhouse book(which I was disappointed with overall), these were well-paced, enjoyable reads. The authors switched the viewpoint from character to character within the story, and they did it well in my opinion. I was able to feel empathy for the other characters besides the main protagonists.

These are pretty darn good books, and I fully intend to get a hold of the rest of the series and read them. These are the kind of books I like. Violence, character interaction, a little comedy here and there, and a good pace. Oddly enough I feel there is a lot of "elbow room" in this series, which interests me alot. There are hints of other lands, and previous conflicts which can definetely be used later.
 
I've been hoping somebody would give a nice contextual sum up (either in the negative or the positive) for the Noble Dead series Apathy. Thanks, HobNob for you.
 
I *still* haven't been able to finish Breaking Dawn, and I've been reading it for a month. I've lost steam! It's so long, but that's not the problem. 4-7 of Harry Potter were long, too; and I read each of those in a day.

Seems that Breaking Dawn could've (should've) been about 1/3 (at least) shorter. I'm 200 pages from the end, and it's JUST getting exciting!! But I've lost so much momentum.

I truly enjoyed the first three, but something when awry with this one.

Now I'm about to start Dead Until Dark - Charlene Harris
 
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Rob B said:
I've been hoping somebody would give a nice contextual sum up (either in the negative or the positive) for the Noble Dead series Apathy.
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FWIW, I found Dhampir to be pretty mediocre. It reads like a slightly better-than-average RPG tie-in novel. The rules of the world are pretty much lifted wholesale from the Forgotten Realms: you have vampires, liches, and assorted undead interacting with the standard demihuman races in a quasi-medieval setting. There are half-elves and magical animal companions and all the characters slot nicely into roleplaying classes (warrior, rogue, mage, etc. -- if I recall correctly, they're even called by those terms in the novel). Much of the action takes place in ye olde generic tavern-based town. However, since it's not an official RPG tie-in product, all the serial numbers have been filed off and not much put in to replace them, so the world feels kind of vague and ill-defined beyond that town.

The writing is not awful but it's not great either. Character development, prose and plotting are, again, what you'd expect from a better-than-average RPG tie-in. There are plot points where you can just about see the dice rolling behind the scenes (lock picking attempts, diplomacy checks, uh... my RPG knowledge is failing me here, but that sort of thing), and a few random things that don't really make sense for the characters or world but would be perfectly logical if you were designing the story as an adventure and needed to give the party thief something to do.

I don't know how the series progresses because I only read the first book, but at least as far as Dhampir is concerned, my opinion is pretty lukewarm. I never got interested in the characters (they weren't annoying or horribly implausible either, just not that interesting), never felt any suspense about what would happen to them (the story plays out exactly as expected, with no surprises whatsoever), and never felt any compulsion to follow the story beyond that first book. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be "generic."
 
Speaking of RPG novels! I started reading Obsidian Ridge, a Forgotten Realms tie-in by Jess LeBow, and boy howdy is it a howler. The very first chapter carries out the promise of the front cover: unintentional hilarity on every page. If Ed Wood wrote fantasy fiction, I expect he would produce something like this.

It is awesomely terrible and I do not recommend it for anything other than squashing cockroaches. I don't know how long it's going to take me to finish this book, but I will continue to read it a few pages at a time, between other books, so that I might better appreciate the quality of those novels.
 
I have read the first five Noble Dead books. I thought the first two were the best out of the batch. I found them to be entertaining reading, but nothing ground-breaking. I have liked all of the books, but the relationship between the main characters started to wear on me a little with all of their little petty feelings and arguments. Started to feel like a Robert Jordan book to me, in the way his boys and girls all interacted with each other and everyone was always so "wool-headed".

Reading Last Argument of Kings; about 1/3 of the way through. I enjoyed the first two books a lot and so far with the third. I would definitely recommend the series to anyone wanting to start something new in fantasy.
 
Finished today In the Ruins by Kate Elliott (Crown of Stars series book 6)

Quiet good read. 4 out of 5. Would be 5/5 if not for repetitive
His voice was hoarse, but then, he always sounded like that
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and religious gibberish.

Started the last volume in the series.
 
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