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April Reads


Garett Hornwood

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I finished Get in the Game yesterday and enjoyed it. Even through it was labeled as self-help/business book on the cover, it was more of a mini-autobiography of Cal Ripken Jr.



I began Assassin's Quest yesterday night, while I know one character that survives at the end of the book I don't know who else will join that character among the living so looking forward to seeing how the trilogy ends.



Year-long readings update:



The Bible: I finished Ezra on the 2nd and finished Nehemiah today. I'm going to read all of Esther tomorrow then plan out how I'm going to cover the Book of Job this next week.



The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: I'm through Act III Scene II of Romeo and Juliet, I have to say that the humor is better than I remember but then again my memories are blackened by my general dislike of this play in high school.


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I've developed a little backlog of books because I didn't have time to post for a while:



In my ongoing attempt to read more older sf by women I finished Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country and Joanna Russ' The Female Man. I'd heard some things about Tepper being a somewhat didactic writer, but maybe that comes later in her career, because I found The Gate to Women's Country quite measured and nuanced. At first it seemed kind of caricatured and broad in its separation of men and women, but as the book went on I started to realize that there was actually a lot going on in terms of the book very subtly highlighting the ways in which the society it depicts is profoundly harmful. Its not a stylistically ambitious book prose-wise but it unpacks real good, and has some solid characters at its center. The Female Man I found intensely frustrating, not in its content / the didactic views it propounds -- which I consider quite useful -- but in its presentation, which is at many points so nonlinear and fragmentary that it feels like the book is actively anti-plot. There's an "all / most is revealed" scene about four fifths through that helped me get more of a grip on the events -- I don't need a conventionally-presented plot; all I ask is a ledge to cling to while trying to make meaning. Its surprising how much the book leaves up to its reader when it seems so didactic on the surface. Whether or not I decide that I "like it," and I think it'll take a while to figure that out, I'm extremely glad I read it, and its sticking with me. Have now moved onto Joan Slonczewski's A Door Into Ocean, which has some wobbly writing and a case of compound word fever, but is deeply compelling.



Scott Lynch is a goddamn literary narcotics peddler. I was trying to hold off finishing The Republic of Thieves until the sequel was confirmed to be forthcoming sooner than later, but doing so required continued will saves, and one day I woke up from a haze of literary consumption to find myself finished the book. I had missed these characters very much, and was glad to see them again, and think the major addition to the cast works extremely well. There's a criticism I've seen a number of people have leveled at the book that the plot of the present-day storyline doesn't end up mattering much, and I can see where this is coming from, but I thought it worked well as the mechanical narrative underpinnings for a character piece. Its a very different type of book than its predecessors, one that explores the characters much more extensively, a considered, thoughtful book that still moves along with the vigour, inventiveness and sense of fun of Lynch's earlier work. I'm very much looking forward to the next one.



I also recently finished V. E. Schwab's Vicious, which is about people who acquire the powers of superheroes and then turn out to be varying degrees of psychopathic. The book is about people with comicbook powers, but keeps itself pretty restrained, pacing itself like and using the signifiers of a thriller rather than a Marvel movie. Its got a small cast, and everybody gets pretty solid characterization, but the book's focused on Victor and Eli, two genius-level college boys [at the beginning -- the book flashes back and forth between university and their revenge-crazed present selves] investigating the possibility of extraordinary abilities in humans who are both profoundly broken. In this sense, the novel feels like its interested in casting a somewhat critical eye over the construction of the exceptionally intelligent male figure who often stands at the center of these stories. Its pretty successful much of the time, exposing its characters' deep flaws pretty mercilessly while also highlighting any glimmers of good that survive within them. Unfortunately, and this is kind of a spoiler but I'll keep it vague, I personally think the book runs into a plot problem that sometimes pops up in the comics its playing dark riffs on where a female character gets sacrificed or "fridged" to advance the arc of a male character or illustrate something about his psyche; Vicious is a smart enough book that I'm certain this is intended as commentary rather than perpetuation but I'm not sure it quite works. This trap aside, though, the book is fun and a little disturbing and I found it deeply satisfying, while remaining unsure if its going quite as far to unpick the tropes of its field as it seems to think it is.


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Picked up The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. It's set in modern Australia, which is new for me, and I found it a bit hard to picture at first. It wasn't clear from the start where it was set, so the mix of language - such as saying "chips" for crisps, but saying "Mum" instead of "Mom" - was a bit confusing. But once I sorted that out, it was fine - I find Australia very interesting.

The actual plot is good - it seems to be a popular theme at the moment to have a few characters who are going through certain traumatic events, and then their paths all cross somehow. This seems to be done well in this book, and I'm keen to keep reading, and find out all the secrets! :laugh:

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Royal Exile by Fiona McIntosh was the worst fantasy book I've read by her. I saw all of the twists a mile away and I felt the violence and brutality was more of a shock factor rather than a plot point.
I'm about 1/4 through the second book in the series, Tyrant's Blood and this one is already much a better read. Feeling a little relieved as I greatly enjoyed her other series.

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I finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I thought it was good, but could maybe have been better, in terms of the story it felt a lot like a Tim Powers book but I'd say Powers at his best does this sort of story better. The overall story was good, but I think the pacing was maybe a bit too slow - the middle of the book spends a long time on the undertakers or in Lakeside which are both fairly peripheral to the main plot even if the subplots may serve a thematic purpose. Shadow spends a lot of the book being fairly passive and only really starts to use his initiative near the end of the book which I think makes sense in terms of his character development but he's not really the most compelling character to read about. I think the short interludes showing various Gods arriving in America probably had the best writing in the book, I also liked the Monarch of the Glen short story that was included at the end of the edition I read.



Now I'm reading Rachel Bach's Fortune's Pawn, I felt like reading something a bit more fast-paced and this seems good for that. It's a fun read so far, it reminds me a bit of both Firefly and Tales of the Ketty Jay although so far I wouldn't rank it as good as either of them.

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Looking through my e-reader for books I need to clear out and found "The Black Gods War" (but only the novella version) by Moses Siregar. I'm now trying to remember whether I enjoyed the free excerpts enough to buy the full novel. Probably have to read through again to find out


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So far this month.



Moon Called by Patricia Briggs - Kinda silly but a bit fun, I have been doing a lot of UF for audiobooks because their (typically) shorter length make them easier to finish before the due date. Holy infodump though, every conversations was an 'as you know.....' type thing.



Shadowplay by Laura Lam - Not quite as good as Pantomime, but a good middle book that didn't lag as bad as some.



Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding- It was what I hoped for, which is a whole lot of fun. Worth the wait.



Jingo by Pratchett - Better than I remembered though I see why it at times grinded in its attempt to be politically clever. Mostly it was just another Vimes book, enjoyable but not deep.



Currently reading Astra by Naomi Foyle but it may be my first DNF of the year. Maybe I just have lost interest in dystopias, they all require a certain portion of my brain to be turned off to buy their premise. Still, if I got through Divergent all the way I should be able to finish this. Maybe.


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Jingo by Pratchett - Better than I remembered though I see why it at times grinded in its attempt to be politically clever. Mostly it was just another Vimes book, enjoyable but not deep.

The thing that always strikes me about Jingo is how much it reads like a post-9/11 moral fable for a book published in 1997.

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Finished The Husband's Secret, which was really enjoyable. The secret was somewhat obvious imho, but I still really liked it. Read the sample chapters of her other book, What Alice Forgot, and it seems really good too, so it's on the wishlist.

Started The Quick by Lauren Owen. So far so good, definitely seems like my kind of novel.

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I finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I thought it was good, but could maybe have been better, in terms of the story it felt a lot like a Tim Powers book but I'd say Powers at his best does this sort of story better. The overall story was good, but I think the pacing was maybe a bit too slow - the middle of the book spends a long time on the undertakers or in Lakeside which are both fairly peripheral to the main plot even if the subplots may serve a thematic purpose. Shadow spends a lot of the book being fairly passive and only really starts to use his initiative near the end of the book which I think makes sense in terms of his character development but he's not really the most compelling character to read about. I think the short interludes showing various Gods arriving in America probably had the best writing in the book, I also liked the Monarch of the Glen short story that was included at the end of the edition I read.

I agree wholeheartedly. I really wanted to like "American Gods," but the protagonist (I guess) Shadow, is really such a boring fellow, that I couldn't get caught up in it. I could appreciate the theme and structure, but the whole left me a bit cold. I guess it's a fine line to walk when writing such a book about the mythical - you don't want it to just flip over into comic book land, but still attempt to make it modern.

I'd say a firm A for effort, B- for execution.

I'm deep into the first new book I've read so far. "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn (author of "Gone Girl".) So far (half-way through) I'm fascinated and repelled.

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Having given up on Raziel's Shadow, I'm now about halfway through Blood Song, by Anthony Ryan. This is much better, although I'm far more interested in the Vaelin Al Sorna we meet in the prologue than Vaelin the almost-too-perfect-teenager. I'm reminded quite a bit of Robin Hobb's Second Son books, but Ryan's protagonist is much less annoying. And the young warrior monks are totally badass. Very promising.


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After I finish The Shadow Rising I'll attempt to read another "epic": The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

This is another 520k monstrosity (without additional content). I'm going to read it in the Italian translation, but I've seen that the English one is actually very good. Also 1770 pages.

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Approaching the end of Anthony Ryan's Blood Song. Holy shit, this book is good, despite the version I'm reading (published by Orbit) being riddled with typos and missing words. I wonder if the self-published version was as shoddy. #copyeditorfail



ETA: It appears that the self-published book was also blighted by these typos. You'd think Orbit would have sprung for a copy editor. Kinda makes a mockery of the notion that traditional publishers are always going to deliver higher quality product.


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Finished Bakker - A Thousandfold Thought last night. Really enjoyed the re-read of Prince of Nothing series as a whole.



Going to start on Frank Herberts - Dune or finish the Walter J Williams - Dread Empires Fall series, just not sure which at the moment. I remember enjoying Praxis because I found the space battles interesting (non relativistic) and wanted to find out more about the Shaa, so I might finish the series before I start Dune.



Actually done more reading than I thought I would so far this month - so much easier since getting a kindle HD though. Still dont know how some of you guys manage 10 books a month or something, crazy!


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Almost half-way through Chang Rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea, which is about a girl who leaves a semi-dystopian future resource farm settlement in what is now Baltimore -- inhabited largely by Chinese immigrants -- and strikes out into the surrounding "counties." The book's got an interesting, very talky voice, because its narrated by the collective voice of a group of people in the future Baltimore [or "B-More"] community -- context suggests it is not the whole town, but its definitely not a single voice. As a result the book is low on dialogue in many sections, and there's a lot of speculating what people are thinking rather than knowing for sure, as well as much graceful infodumping about the societal workings of Lee's future. Said future, in which "charter" communities run on rampant capitalism and when you can't pay for the privilege of living there anymore they exile you forever, while settlements like B-More condemn their citizens to a regimented life producing goods for the charters, is grim enough to be scary, and unsensational enough to be scary all over again. Not a very plotty or compulsively readable book, and once I put it down I can leave it alone for long stretches, but consistently interesting and unnerving. Languid, contemplative [usually -- usually -- in a good way], occasionally horrific Walking Dead without the zombies. Will probably take me a while to finish.


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