Reading in October 2009

[BrightStar]

Or cover it with brown paper and tape....

I've been thinking about doing something just like that.

It's a shame there's something of a recurring theme with the designs of those front covers, and as my boyfriend pointed out earlier today, this is actually something of a trend in many fantasy romance novels as well, it seems.

And I'm still trying to figure out why none of these book covers show the guys without much of a head!

Unfortunately though, as for the book itself, it's starting to feel like a bit of a letdown, so maybe I won't be buying the rest of the series afterall. It was entertaining at first, but now...

Well, there's some decidedly laughably poor dialogue; notably, numerous attempts to add a bit of sexual tension between the characters that just comes accross as stupid and immature.

The characters, (who seemed interesting to begin with) have failed to really grow beyond the first impressions of them: the main male character (I forgot his name), for example, is protective, uncivilized, jealous, grouchy, etc, etc. And his other brothers barely manage enough of a personality between the seven of them! None of the characters seem to have particularly strong, or deep motivations for doing anything. The woman, Kelly, for example, has suddenly become ridiculously obsessed with cleaning and knitting!!

And I'm wondering why on earth the author thinks I'd want to read a book in which the main conflict is basically all about doing chores/house work: with the guys stubbornly refusing to be "untamed" and determined to remain as uncivilized as ever, whilst the woman yells and screams, stamps her feet, calls them names and even practically twists one of their arms in an effort to persuade them otherwise...

The plot itself, which started our promising, has basically devolved into an excuse for the male lead to lust after the female character, the temptation made all the more difficult for him because of a prophesized doom that should befall him if he should fall in love with her. Meanwhile, there's a bit of rivalry amongst the brothers and plenty of excuses for the male lead's jealousy to be stirred.

It's all very cliche, and I have to say that I'm feeling very dissapointed. After being majorly let down by the Tairen Soul series, which went from a story with strong (and loveable) characters, wonderful conflict, and excellent worldbuilding to something that was dull, tedious, and predictable, I'd sort of decided that romantic fantasy wasn't for me --- I want something more intelligent, bah!

 

[suciul]

I finished two excellent novels, both 2010 releases, though one, City of Ruin/Mark Newton is June and I have only a final draft copy so I will not say more than it goes all-out gonzo and it's one of the most outlandishly inventive novels I've read in a long time; more and a review closer to pub date. Though of course it's way too early, it made a claim at the best fantasy of 2010 for me...


The other one is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin and for this one I wrote a mini-review on Goodreads which will be expanded into a full review closer to pub date:

"Superb debut and after a great beginning and a good but slower next hundred pages, it raised its energy and quality higher in the second half and turned into one of the best debuts I read in 2009 as well as one of the best fantasies read in 09 also.

Self contained and with a great ending, it will be followed by another novel in the same setting of which an excerpt is presented as bonus material together with an author interview at the end of the book.

The blurb while accurate is misleading since the novel is quite original and complex, as well as written in a superb style. The Creator Gods and their immortal progeny are characters, though at the start of the novel only the God of Light and Order is all powerful with the God of Night and Chaos imprisoned in mortal flesh and under the command of the Arameri family (descendants of a priestess of Bright Itempas that helped him win the Gods' War against his siblings); the younger female God of Creation Enefa is presumed dead with only an essence of her distilled in a powerful but deadly (for humans) artifact that insures the Arameri supremacy at great personal cost.

The current Arameri lord Dekarta is dying so he needs to name a successor since his one daughter Kinneth renounced her inheritance and became the queen of an impoverished Northern backward nation. He has two twin nephews, cruel Scimina and decadent Relad and he calls up Yeine the daughter of Kinneth (just deceased so Yeine became the queen of Darr) to have a trio of competing successors, one to emerge victorious. Or so we are led to believe, but things are more complicated as you'll find out by reading the novel....

Very original and highly recommended, the next Hundred Thousand Kingdoms book became a highly awaited one"

 

[NickeeCoco]

Hahaha. That cover killed me. I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be caught dead reading something with that kind of cover. I read a lot on the bus. . . No way.

 

[Simon F]

i am taking the plunge - after 15 odd years and too many beers to remember it all i am starting from the begining........The Eye of the World by Mr Jordan

 

[LeStat]

My ultimate reading spree

Maria V. Sneider - Poison study - 4,4/5 - very good
Stephen Hunt - The court of air - 4,6/5 - almost great
Alan Campbell - Iron Angel - 4,5/5 - almost great
V. Brett - Painted man - 4,4/5 - very good
Abercrombie Best Served Cold - 4,7/5 -great with minor flaws
Robin Hobb - Royal Assaisn - 3,3/5 - overrated
I.C.Esselmot - Retur of the grimison guard - 3,5/5 - confusing but just have to see what happens...

Thousandfold thought - in progress
Shards of honor(Vorkosigan)- in progress
Felix Gilman - The Thunderer - in progress

 

[BrightStar]

Hahaha. That cover killed me. I'm sorry, but I wouldn't be caught dead reading something with that kind of cover. I read a lot on the bus. . . No way.

There's certainly no way I'd be caught reading that thing in a public place! It's embaressing enough worrying what family might think of me if they caught me with it! If I were going to read that book in a public place, I'd definitely have to take the suggestion made previously in this topic and cover it with brown paper or something!!

Still, having had a reasonably enjoyable start, I'm really not enjoying the book so much anymore. There's far too much attention being given to cleaning at the moment: not exactly the sort of thing I want to be reading about.

i am taking the plunge - after 15 odd years and too many beers to remember it all i am starting from the begining........The Eye of the World by Mr Jordan

Good luck! I decided to take the plunge myself a few years back, but have to admit that I was horribly, horribly dissapointed. I did enjoy the prologue, and had great hopes for the series based off of that, but unfortunately for me, I just could not face anything more than the first 50 pages.

 

[Cranky Hamster]

The other one is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin and for this one I wrote a mini-review on Goodreads which will be expanded into a full review closer to pub date:

"Superb debut and after a great beginning and a good but slower next hundred pages, it raised its energy and quality higher in the second half and turned into one of the best debuts I read in 2009 as well as one of the best fantasies read in 09 also.

Cool, this is good to hear. I'm really looking forward to this book.

For my part I've started Retribution Falls. News of its Firefly fanfic-ness was definitely not exaggerated.

Nonetheless it's a lot of fun and I'm enjoying the read so far. It hearkens back to an older style of fantasy that emphasized the swashbuckling over anything else, and in places the worldbuilding seems almost intentionally thin (like when a theater extra wiggles a cardboard tree on purpose to say "yeah it's all artifice, but it's fun artifice, isn't it?"), but these aren't complaints so much as me just trying to explain what kind of book it is and isn't. Fun, yes. Heavy, no.

Anyway my first buy from Book Depository is, thus far, very much a good one.

 

[PeterWilliam]

Very original and highly recommended, the next Hundred Thousand Kingdoms book became a highly awaited one"

This is the review I was waiting for. *PW goes into buy mode*

 

[PeterWilliam]

I know what I need! An omnibus!! Reading Severian of the Guild and getting my first ever Gene Wolfe on, baby! Now life's good.

Ok, had to shelf Wolfe for the moment. I received first ever publisher's edition of a book to review for the blog. I must have been one of those places blitzed in the marketing campaign for John Brown's Servant of a Dark God.

I'm ~150p in and, for the debut of a previously unknown author, I'm pleasantly surprised. Some tried and true elements (i.e. coming-of-age story, racial oppression, theological confrontations and old mythical creatures come-to-life) that are working fairly well, with the occasional odd angle/hook thrown in to derail the reader's natural intuitiveness. However, that's only 150p. Let's see what's up when I finish.

 

[Astra_]

I've been thinking about doing something just like that.

It's a shame there's something of a recurring theme with the designs of those front covers, and as my boyfriend pointed out earlier today, this is actually something of a trend in many fantasy romance novels as well, it seems.

Oh my, I completely misunderstood you. I didn't know you are female. Then I don't see any problem you are reading a book with this cover. I thought you are a man...

 

[PeterWilliam]

I thought you are a man...

*running to bathroom before I 'liquidate' myself*

 

[Bastard]

Einhorn is a man?!

 

[BrightStar]

Oh my, I completely misunderstood you. I didn't know you are female. Then I don't see any problem you are reading a book with this cover. I thought you are a man...

*laughs* Well, that explains a lot!! Nope, I'm definitely female. Even still, that sort of cover does bug me a great deal! And the book's still pretty blagh - I'll have finished it by tomorrow or the next day though, so at least I won't have to put up with it for much longer. I'd better start deciding what to read next.

...maybe I should just get the last Sword of Truth book out of the way.

 

[Bastard]

*laughs* Well, that explains a lot!! Nope, I'm definitely female. Even still, that sort of cover does bug me a great deal! And the book's still pretty blagh - I'll have finished it by tomorrow or the next day though, so at least I won't have to put up with it for much longer. I'd better start deciding what to read next.

...maybe I should just get the last Sword of Truth book out of the way.

I thought the first half of the last book was very entertaining... after that, not so much, but at least you finish it up.

 

[BrightStar]

I thought the first half of the last book was very entertaining... after that, not so much, but at least you finish it up.

I assume you're talking about Sword of Truth here? I'm just hoping for a quick and easy end. Fortunately, I'm at least going to allow myself to skim past the particularly long, rambling parts. Hopefully it won't take me too long to finish.

Still gotta finish up my current read first though. I might well have done with that today, since I'm about 6 chapters off of the end.

 

[Bastard]

I assume you're talking about Sword of Truth here? I'm just hoping for a quick and easy end. Fortunately, I'm at least going to allow myself to skim past the particularly long, rambling parts. Hopefully it won't take me too long to finish.

Still gotta finish up my current read first though. I might well have done with that today, since I'm about 6 chapters off of the end.

Yep. And that's pretty much what I did, though I enjoyed the series overall, skipping those rambling parts were a must.

 

[BrightStar]

Yep. And that's pretty much what I did, though I enjoyed the series overall, skipping those rambling parts were a must.

I've always adopted an opinion that if I'm going to start skimmng through a book, then I might as well not bother to read it at all. So, for the longest time I slogged through every single page of Sword of Truth-and hated almost every minute of it. Then I decided that since I was really not enjoying the series (yet felt strangely compelled to finish it) I might as well make an exception and skip some of the duller moments. I think I enjoyed it a bit more since then. And even though I skipped pages and pages, I never once felt like I'd missed something "important".

 

[Bastard]

I've always adopted an opinion that if I'm going to start skimmng through a book, then I might as well not bother to read it at all. So, for the longest time I slogged through every single page of Sword of Truth-and hated almost every minute of it. Then I decided that since I was really not enjoying the series (yet felt strangely compelled to finish it) I might as well make an exception and skip some of the duller moments. I think I enjoyed it a bit more since then. And even though I skipped pages and pages, I never once felt like I'd missed something "important".

Well, there's skimming and then there's SKIMMING. In all, I don't do it so overtly, just a couple of paragraphs here and there where I pretty much know what the author is going to say, mainly because he has done it a 100 times already throughout the series.

But whatever gets you through... lol.

 

[Randy M.]

Over the weekend finished reading a selection of H. P. Lovecraft stories or Halloween: "The Music of Erich Zann"; "The Call of Cthulhu"; "The Colour Out of Space"; "The Shadow Out of Time." As usual, I enjoyed them. Though I admit I think TCoC and TSOoT could have used an editor, HPL's imagination still arouses enough awe in me that I'm willing to forgive the sometimes repetitious narration and the unnecessary adjectives.

Next up, I think, Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree.


Randy M.