Finished Oathbringer by Sanderson last night. The Sanderson Cascade ending strikes once again.
That done I'm going back to making my way through the entirety of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series in preparation for the latest book, The Brightest Fell, which came out in September but it had been a while since I'd read any that I wanted to start from the beginning to refresh myself.
'Ninja Hands Of Death' by Ashida Kim.
I taught him everything he knows, you know.
I finished the John Adams biography I was reading (excellent), and have started on the penultimate volume of the Wheel of Time series, Towers of Midnight. In my old age, I have begun to question if epic fantasy always needs to be of such epic length, but I am determined to finish this series (27 years after beginning it, of course).
I'm now about halfway through Dinner at Deviant's Palace, by Tim Powers. It's set in post-apocalyptic southern California, and follows a "redeemer," a professional hunter who tracks down and reprograms people who have been taken by a messianic cult, whose leaders have weird powers. It's pretty good, but I think I prefer his later stuff better (most of which is longer, and thus has room to explore the alternate/secret history setting more, and is more polished in general).
Breezed through Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues and started on John Bellairs' The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull. I plan to read that and whatever of his other YA I found at the used book shop, then re-read James Ellroy's Lloyd Hopkins trilogy.
Oh, wow! John Bellairs’ YA fiction! That takes me back. I fell in love with it when I was still a little-ish girl [mumble mumble] years ago, after the Edward Gorey covers caught my eye and encouraged me to give him a try. I should see what I still have on my shelf when I get back home for the hols next month.
Most recently I just finished Emma Donoghue’s Life Mask, a gleefully gossipy historical novel about Anne Damer, the English sculptor. I read a bunch of Gothic novels in high school, so I have a vague soft spot for the very end of the 18th century, but since I was mainly interested in the ludicrous genre fiction popular at the time, Donoghue really brings home how small a world (not to say claustrophobic and basically inbred) English high society was, and that people that to me are pretty much just names that I’ve come across in passing probably actually all knew each other.
Next on my list for fun, after an interruption sometime in the summer, is the last bit of Malory’s take on the Arthurian cycle. Not the best, I know, but I’ve never gotten around to trying to get a sense of any version closer to the whole thing, from claiming Excalibur to the fall of Camelot, so Malory seemed like as good a place to start as any.
For work, Brian Copenhaver’s translation of the Hermetica. I’ve just got through the introduction, which doesn’t really have many surprises (I’m an aspiring classicist, so its survey of Hellenistic Egypt feels really basic), but the actual primary sources should be fun when I get into them tomorrow.
About two-thirds of the way through Kropotkin, a couple of short chapters after the September Massacres.
Multiple commie periodicals, some, like my old group's newspaper, which can be read whole in about fifteen minutes; others, like La Principessa's group's quarterly, or the Internationalist Group's theoretical journal, which weigh in at about 100 pages a pop and I should start entering them into the 5th sentence on page 55 thread.
Other than that, re-read The Tempest.
End of the year-wise, I have, yet again, been assigned to Sugar Candy Mountain for the holiday season, but this year I am responsible for sorting the flow instead of loading a trailer, and thus far, have found it much less rewarding, reading-on-the-clockwise.
:(
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Finished Oathbringer by Sanderson last night. The Sanderson Cascade ending strikes once again.
That done I'm going back to making my way through the entirety of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series in preparation for the latest book, The Brightest Fell, which came out in September but it had been a while since I'd read any that I wanted to start from the beginning to refresh myself.
Well don't tease like that.
Was Oathbringer good?|
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I have fallen behind on my usually timely and orderly reporting here because of quite an exeggerated workload these past few weeks, combined with a terrible incident of the the abyss swallowing whole a detailed review I wrote.
So, blitz addition!
I have finished reading three books, and am currently reading two new ones - them being Bloodline (Book #10 of Repairman Jack, by F. Paul Wilson) and "The History Of Tomorrow", a nonfiction attempting to predict the 21st century by taking a bird's eye view of human society throughout history.
quick thoughts on the books I finished:
Emperor Of Thorns - flawed but still greatly enjoyable and clever, and a fitting end to the Broken Empire trilogy.
Providence Of Fire - the second book in the chronicles of the Unhewen Throne is certainly better than the first in basically every way, but still doesn't really break out from the crowed. At least now I'm engaged enough in the story to feel some tension about what happens next, and I'm genuinely not sure who's the good guy and who's the bad guy anymore. Also, the narrator for the audiobook is really good.
The Shadow Throne - I am in it for the long haul with Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns series and really enjoying it. This one was fun, fast paced, clever, and inherently charming. Really looking forward to picking up book 3 in a couple of months.
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The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. Seriously. Both of the recent game designer postings from Paizo and Wizards had a bullet point about familiarity with it. It's pretty slow going, but even if neither of those applications go anywhere (Paizo didn't, Wizards is TBA), studying it will help the next time around--and on any freelancing I do in the meantime.
My wife and I have joked that it reading it just before bed might help with my insomnia. ;)
Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere
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In the last 2-3 months, I took part in a book reading club-course in my University class. Theme was nordic crime literature, and we read 10 novels by authors from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Danmark, Iceland and Russia. Names in the brackets are if there is no officila translation name, or at least that I did not found one.
- Isä, Poika & Paha Henki (Father, Son and the Evil Ghost) by Matti Rönkä:
- Thirst by Jo Nesbo:
- Murtumispiste (Breaking Point) by Arttu Tuominen.
- Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell.
- The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler.
- Irina Tietää Liikaa (Irina Knows Too Much) by Alexandra Marinina.
- Petturi (Traitor) by Katarina Wennstam.
- Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indriðason.
- Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg.
- My First Murder by Leena Lehtolainen.
It was a fun project, and since I have never really read crime novels before, it was enlightening. Nesbo and Wennstam are definitely writers that I will read more in the future. Now, back to basics with Iain M. Banks...
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Scandinavians sure are fascinated with crime. It's honestly hard to find good Swedish authors for other genres of fiction, and reading Men Who Hate Women (written by A Man With Some Misogyny Of His Own) turned me off Swedish crime so bad that I've stuck to translations and nonfiction since. But Petturi definitely sounds interesting.
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Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere
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I must admit, at the point when I was starting to read the Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow the fatigue from nordic noir started to lay heavy on me. That's why I wont continue straight on with the crime novels, but instead go back to SF and fantasy. I have Weir's Martian and Bank's Use of Weapons up next, and after that finnish fantasy novel Käärmetanssija (Snake Dancer).
I got from Worldcon a book of Finnish weird (scifi/fantasy/horror) anthology and one horror anthology called This Leg Is Not Mine which focuses on body horror. It'll be interesting to read, as I have not read Finnish SF/Horror literature before, at least not something that is made with adults in mind.
But I do recommend Wennstam's book. I'm not sure if it is translated yet to English though.
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So, I finished reading Copenhaver’s translation of the Hermetica a while ago. Pretty Gnostic, and so not really my cup of tea, but it wasn’t as relentlessly dualistic as one might fear, and there are a few things about the deification/divinization of humans that’re relevant to stuff going on in other texts I’m working on, so I’ll have to come back to it eventually before jumping into Nock and Festugière’s edition of the texts in the original language.
Malory was also fun, and likewise at some point in the future I can now move on to more interesting things in Arthuriana in addition to ancient Mediterranean religions. Malory has confirmed my dislike of Lancelot, as I expected, but I think he would be horrified by how much I enjoyed cheering on various faeries, witches, damsels who can take care of themselves, TYVM, and on one occasion – to my satisfaction, at least – vampires.
I’ll be a bit busy over the next few days getting stuff done before going home for the holidays, so I’m not sure what’s next on my reading list that’s not for work. Maybe a bit of Irigaray, or, on a lighter note, The Roaring Girl? We’ll see.
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Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere
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But I do recommend Wennstam's book. I'm not sure if it is translated yet to English though.I think I just need to find the Swedish version. I was referring to Swedish translations of works in other languages (right now I'm chugging through Iliaden, for example).
That is the newest one, the Traitor is in swedish Svikaren, right here.
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I read Smilla's Sense of Snow when it first came out, and I kicked myself for not picturing Bjork while doing so.
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I gave up on reading Corum by Michael Moorcock. I just couldn't get into it. I got about 70 pages in, but that took like 3 or 4 weeks.
Now I'm reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. I'm pretty sure one of the main characters is an off-brand froghemoth!!! :-D That quotes The Poet.
I just finished The Inquisitor’s Tale, by Adam Gidwitz. A bit serious in its themes for a kid’s book, but enough juvenile humor for a typical middle-grade reader (there’s a farting dragon! That sets people on fire with its farts!)
Zeugma: The Girl Who Drank the Moon has a Perfectly Tiny Dragon that hiccups fire!
If you preferred Prof. Challenger to Sherlock, you may also want to give Brigadier Etienne Gerard a try.
In other news, after having Kropotkin out for over a month, I turned it back in, mostly because after traveling with me to work for said month, it developed a pretty nasty tear on the spine. Only got up to the chapter on "The Anarchists" and was in the middle of a nice tribute to Marat, Robespierre and Danton, but I guess it's on the internet, too.
While I was there I also picked up a copy of Peyton Place after Orson Welles-inspired random googling led me to this profile of a hard-living, hard-drinking, working-class New Hampshire author:
"Fifty years ago, the novel Peyton Place shocked America with its tale of secrets, sex, and hypocrisy in a small New Hampshire town, becoming one of the best-selling dirty books ever, a hit movie, and TV's first prime-time soap. It brought fame and misfortune to Grace Metalious, the bawdy, rebellious housewife who wrote it, and outraged the citizens of Gilmanton—"the real Peyton Place." With a Metalious biopic in production, the author charts the tumultuous celebrity, emotional flameout, and sordid death, at 39, of an unlikely cultural trailblazer."
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Apparently, someone dumped the whole Harry Potter series into a predictive text bot and came up with:
Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash
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A novelisation of the early '80s film 'The Sword and the Sorcerer', done by Norman Winski. An utterly, utterly wonderful cliche-ridden Conan ripoff of a book, full of terrible writing, rather disturbing sexey bits, unlikely combat scenes and a triple-bladed spring-loaded shooty sword. It's my new favourite, and is possibly even better than 'Whom The Gods Must Slay' by Ivor Jorgensen, even if there aren't any murderous bishops in it.
Also, if anyone can decode the phrase 'The liquid swish of her saucy buttocks', please let me know. Does that mean that her bum has been replaced by catering size tubs of tomato ketchup, or what?
Like "her opaque nose" (The Eye of Argon), "the liquid swish of her saucy buttocks" is a phrase that requires a deep knowledge of the discourse in question.
To be fair, though, most noses are opaque (mine certainly is). Buttocks can be saucy, certainly, and a good thing too, but unless something is very, very wrong, they cannot generally be described as 'liquid'.
The swish liquid, as opposed to rigid or jerky, like a dancing robot.
Also, a liquid can be swished, like mouthwash.
Sigh...
Nothing I've read recently has had any disturbing sexy bits.
Buttocks can be saucy, certainly, and a good thing too, but unless something is very, very wrong, they cannot generally be described as 'liquid'.
I wouldn't regard it as very, very wrong if only I had more liquid assets...
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It's the end of 2017, a year that saw the most drastic bunch of changes and my (admittedly short) life so far - I finished officer training and got a new posting as the head of a software development team, started my master's degree in computer science and moved in with my girlfriend in Jerusalem.
Certainly a time of change for me, but one thing remains a constant - my reading!
As I've done for the past few years, I'd like to use this thread to share a public summation of this year's books. As always, it would be fun to hear how others would sum their year :)
category 1: how much did I read?
Number of Books read: 22
number of pages read: about 9.6k
average length of book 435
shortest book: The Forever War (278)
longest book: Absolution Gap (756)
category 2: diversity
number of different authors I've read: 17
number of authors I've tried for the first time: 6
genre distribution: 1 non fiction, 15 fantasy, 3 science fiction, 3 other (fiction)
category 3: top 5 books of the year:
5) Touch, by Blaire North: Not quite as incredible as First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, but still fantastic - great and highly original idea, excellent writing to back it up. What held the book back was that the introspective, flashback filled style is not a good fit for the story, essentially a thriller.
4) History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari: A thought provoking examination of how human society came to rule the earth by managing to follow imagined entities (such as "God" or "France" or, more recently, "Google") in great numbers for a shared purpose. Very engaging and makes interesting claims about the 21st century and where it might be headed.
3)The Forever War, by Joe Haldman: Another classic that I found to earn the spot. Even if you can feel its age (it would tell you all about homolife) it makes for a strongly emotional read, and combines SF speculation (the realities of a galactic war against another civilization, where you have to plan hundreds of year in advance because relativistic speeds are weird) and social commentary about the dreadful folly of war and the absurd machinations of military bureaucracy.
2)Ace Of Skulls\Small Favor by Chris Wooding\Jim Butcher: Two delightful entries in series I love. Ace Of Skulls concluded the Tales Of The Ketty Jay in style, and Small Favor was crazy fun despite being more action-oriented than any previous Dresden Files, going a little too strongly in that direction for me.
1) King Of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence: Damn that was good. Using a brilliant structure that allowed it to keep suspension up even during its meandering bits (as Jorg is prone to meander - be it in dreams, thoughts or over land), it was action packed, emotionally impactful and a ton of fun. Lawrence is extremely clever in his writing, filling his pages with turns of phrase the tickle the brain. Jorg is at his height here, one of the most fascinating characters I ever read.
Bottom 5 books of the year:
I'll be more brief here as I do not wish to hammer on any book - especially since I read few books this year that I did not enjoy at all. Some are just badly written or have serious flaws, some just weren't interesting. "Neverwhere" and "The Emperor's Blades" for example were very bland fantasy books. Emerald Storm and Nyphron Rising - the continuation of the Riyria Revelations series - show that the author hasn't really grown as an author from the first couple. "Absolution Gap" was lacking for most of its length (despite some very cool and weird ideas) and had an atrocious ending.
Well, that's it. An average year in reading, I must say - a lot of the stuff I read felt just OK. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my choices in 2018!
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Imprudent by Gail Carriger
Liberation by Ian Tregillis
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
Conspiracy of Ravens by Lila Bowen
The Diabolic by S.J. Kinkaid
Bound by Blood and Sand by Becky Allen
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
Sword Coast Adventurers Guid
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
X by Sue Grafton
The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding
The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence
The Perdition Score by Richard Kadry
Kill Society by Richard Kadry
Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein
Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw
Tomb of Annihilation
Corum by Michael Moorcock (I only got through 70 pages of it)
Xanathar's Guide to Everything
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Which I chose mostly because it's short and can be hidden in my pocket at work.
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Do Audiobooks count?
Because I've been on a John Scalzi binge for the past 3 weeks.
I'm listening to REDSHIRTS now and am enjoying it.
Previously I've absorbed both OLD MAN'S WAR and THE GHOST BRIGADES also by John Scalzi.
Prior to that it was READY PLAYER ONE (I really didnt care for it)
Before that it was UNDERGROUND AIRLINES by Ben Winters.
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I think I read fewer and fewer books every year. Among other things, I'm years past, in age, when both of my parents got reading glasses.
Every now and then, I accidentally get a large-print book from the library and I'm like "wow, this is awesome! I don't have to squint!"
I know, I know, I need to go to the doctor.
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Most recently, a book of Chinese poems (in translation) by Li Bai and Du Fu, which was absolutely excellent - the poems themselves were lovely, and the background notes and mini-essays were fascinating. I must try to find more of this stuff. (Also, it mentioned a book on Chinese 'knight-errants', or wandering swordsmen who went around righting wrongs, etc., which I'd like a go at)
And 'A Darkness at Sethanon' by Raymond E. Fiest, which was lots of tropey fun.
And a biography of Emiliano Zapata, by some anarchist.
Most recently, a book of Chinese poems (in translation) by Li Bai and Du Fu, which was absolutely excellent - the poems themselves were lovely, and the background notes and mini-essays were fascinating. I must try to find more of this stuff. (Also, it mentioned a book on Chinese 'knight-errants', or wandering swordsmen who went around righting wrongs, etc., which I'd like a go at)
Who did the translation? I love both of their work, but sadly don't have time to learn to read them in the original. Chip-jack learning can't come soon enough...
Most recently, a book of Chinese poems (in translation) by Li Bai and Du Fu, which was absolutely excellent - the poems themselves were lovely, and the background notes and mini-essays were fascinating. I must try to find more of this stuff. (Also, it mentioned a book on Chinese 'knight-errants', or wandering swordsmen who went around righting wrongs, etc., which I'd like a go at)Who did the translation? I love both of their work, but sadly don't have time to learn to read them in the original. Chip-jack learning can't come soon enough...
I'll have a look whem I get home - it was an old Penguin Classic and the translator was a British academic, but I can't remember their name, and Goodreads is no help...
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Books I read for a second time:4
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Scar by China Mieville
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive Book 1)
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive Book 2)
New books I finished: 22
Crusader Road by Michael A. Stackpole (Pathfinder Tales)
Reign of Stars by Tim Pratt (Pathfinder Tales)
Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
The Dark Lady by Mike Resnick
Walpurgis III by Mike Resnick
The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 1)
Avempartha by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 2)
Nyphron Rising by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 3)
The Emerald Storm by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 4)
Wintertide by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 5)
Percepliquis by Michael J. Sullivan (Riyria Revelations Book 6)
The Face in the Frost by John Bel Airs
The Glasshouse by Charles Stross
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns Book 1)
Changeling by Roger Zelazny
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu (The Dandelion Dynasty Book 2)
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (The Laundry Files Book 1)
The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross (The Laundry Files Book 2)
The Burrowers Beneath by Brian Lumley
Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive novella)
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (The Stormlight Archive Book 3)
Books I started but failed to finish: 4
The Dimension Next Door edited by Martin H.Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes (short fiction anthology)
Madwand by Roger Zelazny
Donnerjack by Roger Zelazny
The Transition of Titus Crowe by Brian Lumley
Thanks to everyone in this thread for sharing their reading experiences. I've sought out many of the fantasy and sci-fi books I've read in the last several years because they were mentioned in this thread.
Peyton Place and Eric Foner's Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy.
I just started THE WAY OF KINGS by BRANDON SANDERSON and I'm already bored and getting WHEEL OF TIME vibes from this and not the early on in the series good vibes.
It only cost me one Audible credit but I'm on chapter 9 of what might be a 76 chapter slog. I hope this gets better because I have a tendency to want to see things through till the end...