I have enjoyed We Are Legion (We Are Bob). All three of the books in the series are very enjoyable. The audio books are also very good too.
Last month, on this thread, I talked a lot about the book I was reading at the time, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Now I'm reading the sequel, Streets of Laredo.
One major difference between the two novels is that Lonesome Dove (which I'll call LD from now on) goes on for a long time introducing characters before getting around to the plot, whereas Streets of Laredo (or SoL) starts right off the bat telling the reader who the main bad guy is, and making clear that the plot is about stopping him.
Other than that, though, SoL reads much like LD. The book has the same careless writing (or editing) style, with equally annoying poor grammar. SoL is filled with repetitive dialog and descriptions, making me wonder if McMurtry was being paid by the word. Like LD, SoL focuses a lot on boring, minor characters. And SoL goes off on a tangent, providing another bad guy, not affiliated with the first, making the hero take a detour.
And I didn't care about that second villain at all. As with LD, I tired of SoL and quit about halfway through it before I picked it up again. What sent me crawling back to SoL was simply that I was curious about what was going to happen to ONE character, Brookshire.
But now... I don't know if just one character is enough to keep me reading, especially with all the tangents focusing on minor characters who are nowhere near him. I don't even care about the characters who seemed somewhat interesting in LD, such as Call and Lorena.
Well, maybe it will get better soon...
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Dragon's Code by Gigi McCaffrey.
Anne's daughter has taken up the mantel after 5 years.
The story is set during the events just before and during White Dragon.
Piemer from Dragondrums is the main character and picks up his story shortly after the book ended.
She does make reference to and expands on some of the events from White Dragon.
A little slow at times, but all in all a good read.
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Finished reading Soonish (by Zach and Kelly Weinersmith), and took a second plunge into the miasmic depths known as The Malazan Book of the Fallen series - about a qurater of the way through Deadhouse Gates currently.
The format is great - for each field, the book discusses where things currently are, several groups and initiatives that are pushing the limits in promising ways, the technical challenges that need to be overcome, how a succesful implementation might change the world for the better, and the new risks these changes might create. The research is wide and deep yet the presentation is absurdly easy to follow, with a lot of slightly unhinged yet intuitive metaphores (not least of which are the tomato pipe launcher or the nighlist donut).
Most of the humor was nice, though sometimes repetitive - which is one thing we wouldn't have to worry about after the robot uprising of 2027, since all humor would be eradicated by the steel overlords - and if you didn't get that last part, just open any random page of Soonish and see where the joke came from. For fans of SMBC comics this is a slight disappointment, though there are still a lot of smatterings of wit throughout the book that made me chuckle.
Soonish was a great read, and it is a book that is nice to have around since you can always just pick it up and read one of the bite sized chapters. If the subject matter sounds at all interesting to you, you'd probably get a lot of it!
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Finished reading Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen #2, Steven Erikson). Next up is a refreshing hop back to old favorite Brandon Sanderson with the latest published Mistborn novel - The Bands of Mourning.
First, I can see why people react so strongly to this book. It is huge, thick with theme and plot and worldbuilding, and in some respects incredibly ambitious.
However, if this is the epitome of what Malazan is, than I am sad to report that I am left feeling a little disappointed.
I'll start with the good. Erikson's writing has improved dramatically since Gardens of the Moon (A book that I found mildly readable, but would never have read the sequal to if I didn't know the series to be so praised). It is most obvious with the few characters who carried over from that book, who suddenly feel that much more alive and convincing.
During the read I researched Erikson a bit an became aware that he is an archeologist. This made sense to me, as unlike other gigantic fantasy epics such as the Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire, the worldbuilding in Malazan appears to be heavily focused on the very distant past. If you asked me to describe the conquest of the Seven Cities by the Malazan empire I'd be at a loss. Ask me to descirbe Jaghut culture, though, and I could write pages. This grants a unique and refreshing flavor to the story.
Of the various plotlines in Deadhouse Gates, the Chain of Dogs was by far the most impactful. The suffering and heroism of Coltaine, Duiker and the thousands with them is of frankly legendary proportions, and the way they so slowly lost everything while fighting on was undeniably epic and tragic.
Felisin's story was also compelling, and I think her character is the most unique in the book. There are some interludes of weird cosmic stuff in there that really don't make any sense yet, but I assume this is a case where the payoff comes later down the line.
I also enjoyed most of the stuff Kalam was up to, and his fighting scenes are awesome.
Now, while the book does earn all the praise I just gave it, there are issues. Foremost is with characterization, and specifically - motivation. I honestly just don't know what motivates almost anyone in the story. Many of the characters go through such intense danger and sacrifice so much, and I simply couldn't figure out why. For some it is loyalty to an empire we've never actually seen yet, that has never proved its worth to the reader. What is it about Malazan that inspires the likes of Coltaine, Kalam and Fiddler to be willing to give everything? They never express real patriotism, their mind never wanders to their beloved homes, and some of them are revealed to have never really been impressed by the leadership of either the previous emperor and the current one - so what is it? The book never addresses this, never gives me this anchor to hold on to through the brutality it presents.
There are further problems. It often felt to me like characters experienced feelings on more of a philosophical level than a truly human one, with basically everyone from the most common soldier, through 15 years old Felisin, to barbarian horsemen going about talking like a philosophy major trying to impress his head of faculty. A character would witness something horrific, and instead of raw emotion we'd get three paragraphs of anguished pontificating. This truly reduced the impact of even the most shocking parts of the book, and created some distance between me and the characters.
Finally, there are the structural problems. The book is massive, and this creates the usual disorders that epic fantasy suffers from. Some characters get completely lost in the mix (What role, exactly, did Crokus play in the story?), large sections of the book were little more than setup for further novels with many subplots that had nothing approaching even temporary resolution, and the even major plot threads just sort of sizzled at the end because the author went out of pagecount.
Bottom line? Deadhouse Gates is a massive improvement on Gardens of the Moon, and I intend to continue on with the series. However, at the moment, I can't place the series near the top works in modern fantays. While it has some unique character and never lacks in ambition, to my tastes it cannot hold a candle to works by George Martin, Joe Abercrombie, Robin Hobb or Jim Butcher, who are my current favorites.
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Finished a couple a books the past week!
First was Brandon Sanderson's "The Bands of Mourning" (Mistborn #6), and second was Prince of Fools (Red Queen's War #1) by Mark Lawrence. Am now reading Two Serpents Rise (Craft Sequence #2, sort of, by Max Gladstone).
However, the structure and writing are just not what I've seen in his prior work. I think Bands Of Mourning and the final of Reckoners series show this most prominently - they have huge, world altering events and ideas that simply come off as rushed and lack they impact they really aught to have had.
I'm still having fun, but am growing tired of reading second tier Sanderson. Guess I'll have to dive into Stormligh Archive at some point, though I am hesitent to do so before at least book 4 is out, and this would take two years at the very least...
My only regret is that, while Jalan is a well written character, he's not nearly as challenging as Jorg (PoV for Broken Empire). His shtick - that he's a spoiled, self centered coward with some potential, who ends up being the hero by solving one problem while running away from another - is well explored by the halfway point of the novel, and not really developed in a meaningful way. Jorg, on the other hand, that bastard kept shocking me from the first page of book one to the last page of book three. Jalan even embraces his own shalowness and acknowledges it. While this is an interesting kink, it is also true - he is shallow, and that causes the book to fall short of achieving the thought provoking nature of Prince of Thorns.
For the hesitant Mark Lawrence fan - you'll love this book. For those yet to try him - if the grimdark nature of Prince Of Thorns doesn't attract you, this is a fine place to check the author out.
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Another year has gone by with blazing speed, and I want to take the chance for another summary of my year in reading (powered by Goodreads).
2018 had some good and some bad for me, ant in the bottom line it resulted in reading less than I usually do - only got around to 19 books this time.
Some boring stats:
# of books - 19
# of pages - 9468
# new authors I tried - 7
Longest book of the year - Last Mortal Bond by Brian Stavely
Now for the juicier part - top 5, bottom 3 and surprise of the year. All mini reviews are spoiler free.
Top 5 (places 5-2 in no particular order)
2) Arm Of The Sphinx, by Josiah Bencroft - The second book in a series that is a beautifully written fantasy version of the Big Dumb Objec trope from science fiction. Arm of the sphinx is different from its predecessor, perhaps a bit less unique as the plot becomes about bigger stakes than the refreshingly small story of a man an woman seperated by the torrential, gravitational pull of a tower that seems to stand at the center of the world. It does deliever heaps of delicious weirdness and dangerous misadventures though, and I can't wait to read the next one.
3) Deadhouse Gates - I'm still not sold on Malazan Book of the Fallen being this masterpiece epic fantasy to end all epic fantasies. I think Erikson's writing and characterization just can't hold a candle to Geroge R. R. Martin's ASoIaF, and while the world and story in it are different and interesting, they lack the powerful and immediate resonance that Wheel of Time was brimming with. However, certain parts of this book were very powerful, and the sheer scope of it warrants a nod from me. If nothing else, this book is impressive.
2) Turn Coat - Man, the Dresden Files is just such an amazing series. I think that Harry has taken the role of the arcthypical Hero for me - a relentless force of good, chosen and choosing to fight and suffer for others. All while cracking a stupid pun based joke at some world ending archdemon, of course. The emotional and powerful bonds between the characters in this serious harps on my heart and I laugh, fear and cry with them. This book in particular help up to expectations, though it was a bit too heavy on fighting scenes for me and I would have appreciated some more subtle stuff. Some long established characters get to prove themselves for the first time here, and the payoff is incredible.
Even though each of the previous four books has been truly fantastic, one book just towered over the rest this year.
1) Perdido Street Station - holy crap. Such a buzzing and bursting imagination I haven't seen in a long time - quite possibly ever. This book has so much going on that at times it feels more like a treasure trove than a collection of pages. Every time the reader thinks he's gotten the hang of this world, some new crazyness or intriguing mystery would pop up, prance around a bit, showing off - than retreat to allow two others to take its place. It's a long read and it isn't easy, but is so very rewarding. An appluadable work of genuis.
I've read many other very good books this year - Prince of Fools, Stormwarden, Soonish, Maskerade, Heroes Die - but these five stood out in particular.
As mathematics dictate, there are also a bottom three. I'll be quicker about these ones:
2) Bands of Mourning - this is not Brandon Sanderson in his full power, this is Brandon Sanderson taking a vacation from his main series to relax a bit... and it shows.
3) Last Mortal Bond - This is the last in an entire series that left me feeling somewhat dead inside over just how... mundane they were. They had all the ingredients for a good epic fantasy, but the spark wasn't there to light the cookfire and the meal was served cold and unseasoned.
Surprise of the year: The Fifth Harmonic. Never heard of this book before, don't really connect with its central theme of native american spirituality (the mother-nature-is-your-mother stuff where modern medicine is bad and so is asking questions). However, I discovered it counts as part of the continuity of the Repairman/Adversary cycle of that author, so I decided to give it a shot. It is a bite sized story that I finished in about two and a half days and really rather enjoyed.
Anyway, this was my year. I've already started another Goodreads reading challenge of 22 books for 2019.
Here's to another good year of reading to everyone who still frequents the echoing halls of this forum. Cheers!
'The Devil's Elixirs' by E.A. Hoffman, which is a ridiculously overblown German Gothic novel of the 1830s, or thereabouts.
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1) Perdido Street Station - holy crap. Such a buzzing and bursting imagination I haven't seen in a long time - quite possibly ever. This book has so much going on that at times it feels more like a treasure trove than a collection of pages. Every time the reader thinks he's gotten the hang of this world, some new crazyness or intriguing mystery would pop up, prance around a bit, showing off - than retreat to allow two others to take its place. It's a long read and it isn't easy, but is so very rewarding. An appluadable work of genuis.I'veonly read PSS and "The Scar", but both convinced me that Mieville is brilliant at world building and flavor text, passable at plots and s*~$ at characters. If he did nothing but write a campaign setting, I would be happy. I just can't work up any enthusiasm about any of his dull characters. (yes, I know someone has collected his stuff for a setting, and it was cool)
Of his books that I read, Embassytown had the best characters. Although, I don't think I'm quite capable of forgiving him for having the initials of the name of the PoV in a book about language be A.B.C >_<
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I received the following books as Christmas gifts, and am working my way through them:
* Sacred Band, by Joseph D Carriker Jr. (finished): A young gay super investigating missing gay youth requests help from an older hero who retired during a scandal that led to a crackdown on costumed vigilantes. Other supers (most of them LGBT) help them, leading to the formation of a new superhero team, the Sacred Band. A fascinating and insightful look at LGBT issues thru a genre lens, and a pretty darn smart supers story in its own right.
* The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World, by Adrienne Mayor (reading): A scholarly look at the real-world cultures that inspired the Amazon myths.
* The Art of the Brick: A Life in LEGO, by Nathan Sawaya (reading): A cool coffee table book by and about a world-famous LEGO sculptor.
* Six of Swords: Adventures in the World of Aldea, Green Ronin Publishing (not yet started): An adventure anthology for the AGE edition of Blue Rose.
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Finished Two Serpents Rise (Craft #2 by Max Gladstone). As is my habit, after a 3 book break I am back on to the "main" series I'm reading now, that being the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Following the ultimate reading order from the Malazan forums, next up are three novellas about a pair of necromancers with complicated names which I can't be bothered to look up.
I like how the book presents a very complex morality, showing the costs and the benefits of multiple conflicting world orders. The only thing I feel is a slight miss is that Quachel religeon is never really explored beyond the question of human sacrifice - as someone who has had his share of debates with theists, I know there are whole universes of lore and philosophy behind a religeon, and a deeper exploration of this would have been an interesting challenge to the main character.
Recently, I watched an episode of a TV show that gave me a romantic view of the Prohibition era, with its speakeasies and bootlegging gangsters. It made me want to read a novel on the subject. I tried a couple, getting most of the way through them but not finding one good enough to make me want to finish it. (I have a short attention span these days.) But eventually, I DID find one good enough to make me read it in its entirety - Come Hell or Highball by Maia Chance - and now I'm more than halfway through the first sequel, Teetotaled.
This ought to be a minor point, but I think it's amusing. Those of you who have been on this thread for a few years may remember how I raved on this thread about the Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse for years, as I read those books again and again. Well, for those of you who know the Jeeves stories, Come Hell or Highball may seem suspiciously familiar.
Consider: The main character, Lola, is a spoiled, upper-class woman. Hibbers, Lola's British butler, leaves Lola to work for Lola's friends, the Arbunkles. Lola gets hired to steal a film reel from the Arbunkles' house. At the Arbunkles' country estate which mimics an English baronial hall, Lola asks Hibbers to get the film reel. He gets a lead on it but in the end, it's up to Lola to retrieve the thing. Also, Lola is helped by her cook who regards thrilling dime novels as a good source of inspiration for thinking up solutions to problems; sometimes those ideas work out well. In general, the cook seems smarter and more level-headed than Lola.
At one point (on page 42) Lola even says "Are we caught inside a P.G. Wodehouse novelette?" Admittedly, I'm taking that quote out of context; Lola was only making fun of someone's choice of words. But I'm sure the author meant that as a joking hint.
But like I said, all that is a minor point. The main point is that the book gave me what I wanted: a speakeasy and bootlegging gangsters. When the heroine uncovers the main bad guy's plot, it's something that's very much a sign of the 1920s. (Obviously, I can't be more specific without giving away the most major of spoilers; these books are mystery novels.)
Now I'm more than halfway through the second book. I've been finding it disappointing. We get only the occasional mention of signs of the times and they don't seem integral to the plot. I mean to say that someone could probably rewrite the story - or the portion of it I've read so far, anyway - to fit in some later era. Maybe the ending will have some essential 1920s element - as the ending to the first book did - but I don't know if I want to read that far to find out.
* Sacred Band, by Joseph D Carriker Jr. (finished): A young gay super investigating missing gay youth requests help from an older hero who retired during a scandal that led to a crackdown on costumed vigilantes. Other supers (most of them LGBT) help them, leading to the formation of a new superhero team, the Sacred Band. A fascinating and insightful look at LGBT issues thru a genre lens, and a pretty darn smart supers story in its own right.
My review of Sacred Band is up on my blog.
I'm on book two of James Islington's "Licanius Triology" If you ever wondered how Doctor Who might look as a fantasy series, it's kind of like that.
Okay, as someone who never read Islington, I'll admit to a... SLIGHT curiosity. In what way does this Licanius trilogy resemble Doctor Who?
Just finished "The song the Owl God Sang" that collection was interesting and informative.
I'm just finishing up the last of Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" novels. They're classified as juveniles (sort of like Young Adult literature before YA was a thing), full of derring-do and archetypical characters. I've enjoyed them; because they are science fiction, Asimov put in enough science-y exposition to float a battleship. If you don't take them too seriously, they are a lot of fun.
Okay, as someone who never read Islington, I'll admit to a... SLIGHT curiosity. In what way does this Licanius trilogy resemble Doctor Who?
Whelp, you have an ancient race of beings that use time travel a lot...
you also have a guy that might be villain but could be the hero. And you get companions that might be more useful than the main character.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Re-reading the Galactic Milieu trilogy by Julian May. On Magnificat now.
'Swords and Swordsmen', by mike loades.
I meant to post this list of everything I read in 2018 a few weeks ago. In fact, I rushed through the last book on this list to make sure I finished it before midnight on NYE, just so I could include it.
Books I read again in 2018
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Books I abandoned in 2018
The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. I still intend to get back to this one one day.
Books I read (for the first time) in 2018
The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns Book 2)
The Price of Valor by Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns Book 3)
The Coming of the Terrans by Leigh Brackett
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Earth's Last Citadel by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Doomstalker by Glen Cook (Darkwar Book 1)
Warlock by Glen Cook (Darkwar Book 2)
Ceremony by Glen Cook (Darkwar Book 3)
Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Issola (Vlad Taltos book 9 by Steven Brust)
Viscera by Gabrielle Squalia
Death's Heretic A Pathfinder Tales Novel by James L. Sutter
League of Dragons by Naomi Novik (Temeraire Book 9)
City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
The Drowning City (The Necromancer Chronicles Book 1) by Amanda Downum
The Bone Palace (The Necromancer Chronicles Book 2) by Amanda Downum
The Kingdom of Dust (The Necromancer Chronicles Book 3) by Amanda Downum
Brokedown Palace by Steven Brust
The Guns of Empire by Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns Book 4)
Port of Shadows by Glen Cook, (A Novel of the Black Company)
Infernal Battalion by Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns Book 5)
With so many series on this list, I hesitate to have a top 5 because all the individual books blend together into one long tale with their ups and downs. That said, the Shadow Campaigns and the Darkwar series were both entertaining, and the Vlad Taltos novels have been fun for me so far.
However, I can say that in my personal opinion, the worst book on this list was Port of Shadows by Glen Cook. I finished it only because of nostalgia for the rest of the Black Company books, but it was far beyond my worst expectations of how bad an author returning to a series after a long absence could be. The common complaints of everyone acting out of character, of continuity-muddling interquel storytelling and rampant misogyny are all true in my estimation, and make it a thoroughly unpleasant read.
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Swarm (Star Force Series Book 1) by B. V. Larson
Good read. About an alien invasion that turned out to be a helpful invasion (even though many deaths occurred) against a second invasion.
Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (1-4) (Star Force Universe Book 1) by Aer-ki Jyr
Totally different from the other Star Force Series.
Turns out humans were dinosaur's slaves until 160,000 years ago.
Now humans are gearing up just in case the come back.
Follows students at a new-fangled training school to combat them.
Started reading books 5-8. Book 5 was about their final days of training and the final exam. Books 6&7 (which is as far as I have read) took a turn that I am unsure about.
The modern day humans have started taking it and have becomes obsessed with it and exercise because that is the only way they will be able to combat the dinosaurs when they come back.
It is also supposed to stop aging if they continue taking it and exercising, enabling them to live thousands of years.
They are so obsessed that they look down on everyone who does not exercise.
Started re-reading Ringworld and plan on reading all 4 books at once. Only read the first 2 previously.
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I've had quite a tumultuous couple of weeks in reading: they began by reading The Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach (Malazan novellas) - and finding out that the chronological reading order recommended by the Malazan forum actually requires that I get two seperate collections (the first two stories of the first collection and the first story of the second collection should all be read before Memory of Ice). When I looked up the second collection in the Kindle store I noticed the price was quite outrageous - 25$ (!!) for 300 pages worth of 0s and 1s. I logged off Amazon with some disgust and within five minutes bought a physical copy from book depository for less than half the price, with free shipment. I'm not usually a price-aware customer when it comes to book, but I'm not in favor of daylight theft either.
To pass the time and for a change of pace, I got Merchanter's Luck (Alliance-Union #2) by C.J Cherryh, which I'm currently reading and fininding much more to my liking that I expected - a book that defied every expectation I had of it and is the better for it.
Meanwhile, on the audio front, I finished listening to Dracula (Bram Stoker) and started on The Atrocity Archive (Charles Stross).
However, there is a core of ingenuity to enjoy in this story. For an audiance unprepared for it, the mere concept of a vampire is probably quite shocking and absorbing. There's a lot going on with what the count Dracula is, the powers that he has, and his goals. I'm actually somewhat surprised at how different vampires are in this novel to their evolved forms today. A lot of stuff - like control over wolves and bats, shapeshifting into mist and hairy palms (yeah, really) - was dropped at the wayside.
I began listening to the book on a trip to transylvania, and find that the first section that actually happens there is the best in the story, and conveys the spirit of the place rather well. After the action shifts to London I found it to be less intriguing, and only the character of Van Hellsing provided some entertainment.
I would not really recommend reading this book to anyone but the most diehard completionist or historically curious fantasy readers
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Finished Merchanter's Luck (Alliance-Union #2 by C.J Cherryh), and, for some reason neglecting to consider the lingering pain from the still open wounds his previous books left me with, started on Best Served Cold (First Law #4, sort of).
This book was sohrt (perhaps a bit too short, as the ending felt rushed) but pakced in more touching and complex emotion than some five thousand long pages series I've read. It was more of a direct sequal to Downbelow Station than I thought it would be, and while it was nice to see some favorite from that book popping up again and doing their thing, they at some stages took the show away from the new guys.
Anyway, this was seriously impressive, touching and enjoyable. Big thumbs up!
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I'm in the middle of the memoir, Vacationland: True Stories From Angry Beaches by John Hodgman.
I recently finished The Annihiliation Score by Charles Stross, and Crooked by Richard Pett.
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I've now read all three Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas that happen between Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice and the Malazan series, so after this dip of the toes my next encounter with this series would be a deep dive.
In general I flat out refuse to believe that the man who wrote these novellas is the same one who created Gardens of the Moon. These have such a unique voice - not the best writing I've ever encountered, but this is an artist doing his thing, in a very deliberate fashion.
These stories are messed up, in a way that I can't quite pin down as good or bad (which I'm sure is part of the intention). There's some humor that borders on Discworld levels of absurdity, but often with such a sick and almost offensive twist that I'm left not knowing what to do with it. For example, where comical stories usually have that one unlucky character who keeps getting hit on the head by falling objects or whatever, one of these stories has a guy who keeps losing sensory organs - in an escalatingly outlandish series of events.
The stories should be bleak and intense and stomach churning... except that they aren't. The characters inhebiting these tales seem to have accepted that their reality is horrible - they seem to accept their tragic and grotesque fates with such a fatalistic, affable cheer that it becomes easy to smile along with them as more and more obscene tragedies strike. At one point a woman reminisces about how her father died "in combat", losing a lifelong struggle with a family of squirrels over a patch of shore where he collected clams to be sold. This is what the lives of the people here are - miserable and prone to pointless ends.
The structual problems I learned to expect from the author are all here. Each novella is way too busy, featuring a dozen ideas all clamoring for your attention and most of them not going anywhere at all. There isn't really even much of a story to any of them, in the beginning-conflict-middle-resolution-end style that we all know and love. Motivation for some characters is slim or nonexistent, and the titular characaters in particular seem to sort of drift on without purpose. They really don't even feature much at any point in this story collection named after them.
Anyway, this was a weird yet enjoyable experience. I have no idea how it relates to anything else in the Malazan universe, if at all, but any fan should check them out.
I am approaching the end of a 2-1/2 month long Isaac Asmiov kick I have been on. In that time, I have read the full Lucky Starr series, Robot Dreams, Fantastic Voyage, The Early Asimov Vols. I and II, and one of his books of non-fiction science essays (of which he wrote many).
I've noticed he's not the biggest on in-depth characterization, but his faith in science, and mankind's ability to use that knowledge for the right things, is unbounded. Sometime I miss that kind of attitude from Golden Age SF.
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I've noticed he's not the biggest on in-depth characterization, but his faith in science, and mankind's ability to use that knowledge for the right things, is unbounded. Sometime I miss that kind of attitude from Golden Age SF.
Optimistic futurism is basically porn to me, in the sense that it is exciting on a visecral level and like 70% of my internet use is for consuming content related to it. Do you have any recommendation for a great, well written and interesting optimistic SF?
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Finished listening to The Atrocity Archives (Laundry Files #1) on audio and went on to Children of Time by Adrian Tachikovski.
The world is interesting and I was left hungry for more, as the idea of lovecraftian beings who can be accessed as information leaks from other universes is wicked cool, but the story itself was utterly forgetable, except for one moment of cosmic horror near the end which scracthed just the right itch for me.
At least at this point (the very beginning), The Laundry Files does not appear to be a masterpiece of a series, but it is hitting just enough right notes for me to give it another shot.
'Agents of Empire' by Noel Malcolm, a history of an Albanian/Venetian family in the 1500s, which is very good.
'QHE! The Prophets of Evil', by W W, which was awful, but not awful enough.
'The Alchemist In The Shadows' by Pierre Prevel, which I loved, given that it was basically fantasyated Dumas. One of the characters had a rapier carved from a single dragon's tooth - I particularly liked that.
I'm currently rereading Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books. I've finished Shards of Honor and Barrayar, and am now in The Warrior's Apprentice.
(It's certainly a lot more fun than the hot mess of a Kickstarter RPG book that I've been trying to slog my way through for the past month or so...)
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Finished the brutal and brutalizing "Best Served Cold" by Joe Abercrombie, and decided to have a lovely little vacation in australia with Sir Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent to chill down a bit.
This is what the book was to me - purified, distilled, bittersweet Abercrombie. The result is so concentrated it may almost be overwhelming, but certainly a world class extract of the essence of this author.
This book is good. best-of-all-times levels of good, for what it does. At times it felt like watching a 25 hours long Tarantino movie. The characters are so distinct and interesting, the action so crunching and hard hitting, the writing style so refined, the pacing immaculate, the themes so coherent, that I was left with a strong feeling of awe after a book which I enjoyed greatly, quite literally without a page I found slow or dull or badly written.
This book is also not for everyone. It is at times crude, gut wrenching, depressing and extremely violent. If any of these things is too off putting, considert skipping it.
I also wish the book stood on its own just a little bit more - mostly it can be read as a standalone, but some parts will not make sense to anyone who hasn't read the first law trilogy, and they end up playing a big enough role in the plot that someone who started here might bt perplexed.
Also, this is the seventh Abercrombie book that I've read and by this point I figured out his forumula and was able to see most of the plot coming, including most of the twists. Still, Abercrombie does everything so masterfully that my enjoyment was not harmed at all by this.
Best Served Cold is a masterpiece. If this isn't regarded as a classic in a couple of decades I don't know what will.
'The Unforsaken Hiero' by Sterling E. Lanier, which was smashing. Also, 'Tales Of The Marvellous And News Of The Strange: A Medieval Arab Fantasy Collection' - pretty good, and quite a few of the stories could be converted into quests with very little effort. And if that were not enough, I now know what to do if someone tries to turn me into a mule using magic porridge, which is surely a comfort.
Currently reading Clifford Simak's City; I'm about 50 pages in. I'm kinda gratified to know that dogs have apparently inherited the Earth, we didn't deserve them in the first place.
'Defiance: The Bielski Partisans' by Nechama Tec.
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Staggered past the finish line with Memory of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen #3, by Steven Erikson). Due to an upcoming trip to Vienna, I decided to prepare myself by reading something set there - and found The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers. I've been meaning to check out something by the author anyway, so this gave me a good opening to do so.
Malazan is just not a good series.
It has bad writing, a bad structure, a general clumsiness which is hard to accept after reading sleek and beautiful books such as The Tower of Babel series or something as coherently and genuinely exciting and emotional such as the Dresden Files. I don't understand why it is so vaunted among genre fans.
However, epic fantasy *is* addicting, and I found myself once again flipping through 950 pages of overstuffed Fantasy in a feverish pace, and losing some precious sleep over it too. Gods, ancient civilizations, undead armies, soul stealing swords... I can just gobble this kind of fast food up.
While these books have philosophical themes, they come at the expanse of actual relatable human emotion. The biggest flaw of the series has always been to me that we can barely understand what motivates the characters (who often end up sacrificing damn near everything for some cause or another) into action. When glimpses of motivation are actually provided, they tend to be high-brow concepts that lack the simple human connection that would really make the reader care. Who, exactly, is Whiskyjack? What does he care about? Why is he a soldier? Why does he care about the Malazan Empire? the book simply never addresses any of these issues, and so it is hard to truly feel a connection to him. He, like all the other characters, ends up being just another little engine that propels The Plot forward.
This book is not very good. It has some stronger moments, a surprising sense of humor, and better cohesion than the previous two in the series, but that's as high as my praise gets. This series does not belong in the echelon of the best of fantasy, and while at least for now I'll keep reading it, I'm never recommending it to a friend.