What you are reading and why?

Michigan said:
Beach read is exactly what Child is. They are fun, fast paced and exciting. They also all follow the same formula and have absolutely zero character depth.
Click to expand...

I'm enjoying it, though I certainly agree the characters are sketched to types rather than drawn as individuals. I suspect this could become a serious flaw as the series continues, especially if you like female characters to be more than damsels in distress.

Another thought crossed my mind concerning this thread: I recently read The Dying Earth by Jack Vance and a novel by M. John Harrison (The Course of the Heart, a truly excellent work) as preparation to read some more recent writers. I did the same awhile back with reading Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. It seems that many recent fantasists, especially non-U.S. writers, have been using the works of these writers to build on, and I wanted to see for myself why that was.


Randy M.
 
Rob B said:
Stop! You are making me blush.

Since you mentioned Stover, I'm reading Blade of Tyshalle right now for the 2nd time (Kollberg is on sick twisted SOB) in preparation for Caine Black Knife, which I have. It is staring at me, pointing saying c'mon sh!theel! Read me, get on with it!
Click to expand...

And Caine Black Knife is right :) Just get into it and it will suck in and you won't want to put it down - and you do not need the other two since this one is independent to a large extent, starts a new thread in Caine's adventures as well as completing how Hari got to be Caine :)
 
Ahh Suciul... you're in White Plains? I'm in that area every weekend, driving around Yonkers, Dobbs or White Plains. I go there every weekend for some coffee and to see friends.

Cool place.
 
Rob B said:
Since you mentioned Stover, I'm reading Blade of Tyshalle right now for the 2nd time (Kollberg is on sick twisted SOB) in preparation for Caine Black Knife, which I have. It is staring at me, pointing saying c'mon sh!theel! Read me, get on with it!
Click to expand...

Stop! You are making me jealous. I just found out it's getting publicly released in Oct. I can't believe I'm going to have to wait 2 more months for something I'm probably going to read in one long day and night. I'll be calling in sick to work on Oct 15.
 
suciul said:
And Caine Black Knife is right :) Just get into it and it will suck in and you won't want to put it down - and you do not need the other two since this one is independent to a large extent, starts a new thread in Caine's adventures as well as completing how Hari got to be Caine :)
Click to expand...
I know I didn't/don't need to re-read the first to Caine novels, but crap, why not? I realized how much I've forgotten of the details, especially of Orbek.

When I do get to Caine Black Knife at some point tomorrow (Hi fk1523!) since I'm nearly finished with Blade of Tyshalle, I'll likely focus my reading solely on CBK as I usually read two books at a time. New Stover, especially new Caine gets my undivided reading attention.
 
I don't know about anybody else, but after a long session reading about Caine, I find myself consistently dropping the F-bomb, executing kung fu moves inches away from my brother's face and saying "That would have ripped your face off!", and generally being a complete a-hole. War Caine!
 
Reading Donaldson's Gap-series and just finished Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness", which I have enjoyed very much.

Waiting for Yiddish Policemen's Union, so if anyone have any non-spoilerific thing to say about that one or Chabon in general i'd appreciate it. :)

After that I plan to read Perdido Street Station. If I like that, what more should I read of his work?
 
Bengoshi-San said:
Ahh Suciul... you're in White Plains? I'm in that area every weekend, driving around Yonkers, Dobbs or White Plains. I go there every weekend for some coffee and to see friends.

Cool place.
Click to expand...

A bit off topic but I agree that the "new" White Plains with the Trump Tower, big hotels, shiny City Center is a very cool place and just 30 minutes from Grand Central by train and maybe 45' to Manhattan by car - I live in a suburb of White Plains, about 5 minutes from Downtown - the only negative is that Borders closed in February, though the big BN at City Center and 2-3 smaller ones within 10 miles make up for it, while for Borders - which I like more because they give me nice coupons every week with free membership - you have to drive 15 minutes more to Mt. Kisco in N. Westchester or Scarsdale in S. Westchester

Regarding books - after the once in a decade Anathem - Caine Black Knife is and most likely will remain my top fantasy of 08, but overall I doubt Anathem will be topped by any book I will read for a long time - Void 2 may surprise me, though Void 1 while excellent, was short of wow-wow - I am still in a Neal Stephenson mood, so I am finishing The Confusion and then the 2nd take on the Ten Thousand this year after the excellent Kearney, The Lost Army by GM Manfredi of Last Legion fame, while I want to fit Lord Tophet and Alchemy of Stone, as well as Turtledove Ice Age fantasy series #2, Breath of God somewhere...
 
I'm reading Shadowbridge. I'm reading it because I'm trying to figure out what's getting published and why, and what might be hot in the future. It's an okay read so far. The world is pretty interesting.
 
Right now I am taking a break from fantasy. I have to every once in a while and it makes me love it more in the end. I am reading Wilbur Smith's Egyptian series. Although I am getting ready to start the third book, Warlock. Maybe closer to fantasy than I thought.
 
Randy M. said:
I'm enjoying it, though I certainly agree the characters are sketched to types rather than drawn as individuals. I suspect this could become a serious flaw as the series continues, especially if you like female characters to be more than damsels in distress.
Click to expand...

The books are stand alones, so no real need to change anything. Even when the girls are more then damsels in distress it doesn't really make a difference, they are still just characters doing stuff instead of characters with personality or depth, that goes for all the characters though, not just the girls.
 
Luonas said:
Reading Donaldson's Gap-series and just finished Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness", which I have enjoyed very much.

Waiting for Yiddish Policemen's Union, so if anyone have any non-spoilerific thing to say about that one or Chabon in general i'd appreciate it. :)

After that I plan to read Perdido Street Station. If I like that, what more should I read of his work?
Click to expand...


The Scar is the obvious follow up to Perdido Street Station, after that Iron Council, though I haven't read it yet, still waiting on it getting a mass market release here in the US. Unfortunately Mieville doesn't seem to be an especially prolific writer.

Hope you enjoy The Gap, I liked it better then Covenant.
 
Michigan said:
The Scar is the obvious follow up to Perdido Street Station, after that Iron Council, though I haven't read it yet, still waiting on it getting a mass market release here in the US. Unfortunately Mieville doesn't seem to be an especially prolific writer.

Hope you enjoy The Gap, I liked it better then Covenant.
Click to expand...

Mm, the Scar I have heard of, so that sounds like a good place to go then. :)

Yeah, me to, so far so good, even if I was a little bit disappointed with nr 2. The real story was very good tho and there is some nice build-up overall so far.
 
I'll be done with Terry Pratchett's Going Postal on my evening commute home.


Which means during lunch time today I will run to a Borders and pick up something.

Any must-read recommendations?
 
Just bought Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I am juiced for this one. He is easily one of my favorite authors of all time, regardless of genre.
 
Kissing frogs . . . .

Right now, I'm reading William Kotzwinkle's novel The Exile. I'm reading it because several sources that I consider reasonably reputable evaluated Kotzwinkle as an author of quality, and this seemed as good a place as any to start with him (I also have his Fata Morgana on my to-read shelf).

I am still trying, after over half a century of heavy reading in speculative fiction, to identify all the authors of quality, which necessarily--despite qualified recommendations--means kissing a lot of frogs. So far, I may say, Kotzwinkle seems the real deal, but let's finish at least one whole book before coming to even tentative conclusions.

After the current book, I have Mike Jeffries' "Elundium" series stacked up. I have read the first couple, but so long ago now that I want to re-start from the beginning. They struck me as pretty good: an exaggerated mythic quality, but soundly conceived and written.

(My identification efforts to date can be seen at the "Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works" site.)
 
More on the "why"

On another board, I posted a thread asking people to recommend a good book that nobody else they knew had ever read -- undiscovered treasures.

I went out and bought (and read) three of the recommendations:

Elleander Morning -- time travel/alternate history by Jerry Yulsman (Hitler was assassinated and WWII never happened)

The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant -- character studies of tenants in NYC apartment houses and the guy who collected rents for the landlord

Freaks Amour by Tom DeHaven -- SF about the aftermath of an explosion that caused human mutations

All three books were excellent, and I would never have discovered them on my own.

The only negative about reading books that almost nobody else has read is that there's no one to talk about them with.
 
Well, then . . . .

AuntiePam said:
On another board, I posted a thread asking people to recommend a good book that nobody else they knew had ever read -- undiscovered treasures. . . .
Click to expand...

If that's what you're looking for, consider these list sources:

I suspect you will recognize very few of the titles (each of which is held by least least somebody to be a pretty good book) on most of those lists.
 
Twilight by William Gay.

Atmospheric with a heavy concentration of fate hovering over the story and characters.

I read Gay's story collection, I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down (think that title is right, or pretty close), and thoroughly enjoyed it. He's a Southern writer and I think someone more knowledgable might find some parallels with Cormac McCarthy. In a way his storytelling reminds me of Faulkner, with it's slightly larger-than-life characters encroaching on the mythic.


Randy M.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Sponsors


We try to keep the forum as free of ads as possible, please consider supporting SFFWorld on Patreon


Your ad here.

Latest posts

Back
Top