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October Reading Thread 2014 - Boo!


RedEyedGhost

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I finished Geek Sublime, finally. Kind of had to force myself to finish. It started out quite interesting and then took a random detour through ancient Indian poetry that kind of lost me. Overall I am puzzled about what he was trying to say or why he wrote the book.



I am trying to branch out from reading SFF all the time, so I spent some time trying to find a non-genre book to read. And none of them sounded any good! I finally decided on Gone Girl. I've heard good things and the movie trailers were intriguing. The only reason I had put it off, actually, is because I get SUPER SCARED when I read mysteries or thrillers. Seriously, I had to stop reading them in HS because I realized they were most of the reason I was scared of the dark. But dammit, I am a grown-ass adult and I should be able to handle a bit of thrill and suspense!


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I finished Geek Sublime, finally. Kind of had to force myself to finish. It started out quite interesting and then took a random detour through ancient Indian poetry that kind of lost me. Overall I am puzzled about what he was trying to say or why he wrote the book.

I am trying to branch out from reading SFF all the time, so I spent some time trying to find a non-genre book to read. And none of them sounded any good! I finally decided on Gone Girl. I've heard good things and the movie trailers were intriguing. The only reason I had put it off, actually, is because I get SUPER SCARED when I read mysteries or thrillers. Seriously, I had to stop reading them in HS because I realized they were most of the reason I was scared of the dark. But dammit, I am a grown-ass adult and I should be able to handle a bit of thrill and suspense!

I'm a huge wimp, but I didn't find Gone Girl scary in the slightest. More, whaaaaaaat?! :lol:

I started Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood last night. I adore her writing style.

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I'm about half way through the first book of Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World. First 100 pages or so were tough going as was a bit too 'stock fantasy' for me but over the last week or so I've become utterly addicted. Love the characters and the world. It will probably take me a good year to get through the whole series though!


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I'm a huge wimp, but I didn't find Gone Girl scary in the slightest. More, whaaaaaaat?! :lol:

That's good to hear. I always see it marketed as a thriller, which is a big Stay Away flag for me. It's quite interesting so far, I'm starting to get curious!

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Ah, Zadie Smith's On Beauty. It's one of the very small number of books in the last few years that I have gotten a substantial distance into and then bailed on. Not because I didn't find it to be a well-put together piece of prose fiction, interesting and thoughtful in many ways, but simply because of where I was at in my own travels through university; its portraits of English departments and academic work were depressing me and so I stopped. Not the book's fault, and in fact a testament to its power.



Finished Trudy Cannivan's Thief's Magic, the first book in her new epic fantasy trilogy Millennium's Rule. Enjoyable secondary world fantasy, with some interesting worldbuilding surrounding how magic works, but nothing super demanding or off-the-wall in terms of imagined social structures or geography or characters. It's fun to read and flows well, with a measured pace that still allows for exciting scenes, but feels like it's not really cutting loose -- it's not action-packed or pacey enough to soar as a fantasy thriller, but the characters, while pleasant enough, also don't feel psychologically complex enough to make it a wholly successful character-driven piece, while the worldbuilding isn't vivid enough to make it wholly arresting as a "fantasy of ideas." Maybe the most notable thing about the book for me was that I don't think I've read another book in quite a while that was this relentlessly uncompromisingly up-front about being the first in a series. Keeping things vague, there are two strands of story in Thief's Magic, and the book's absolute refusal to be rushed in bringing them together is amazing



-- they still have not converged by the end of this first novel, like not at all, to the extent that the characters in each strand are unaware of each other's existence.



Each strand gets its own chapter numbers. It's like two novels bound together, interspersed but not intertwined. They certainly take place in the same universe and I am curious about how they come together, but this first novel in Cannivan's new series is relying heavily on readers being intrigued enough to follow the trail Thief's Magic lays down into later installments when that trail, though interesting, is really pretty minimal. This is apparently the first in a trilogy, so there's a lot of room needing to be left open for sequels to reveal more about the universe absolutely. However, this first book hints at a wondrous universe, but shows us only the very barest hint of what that universe can do and the kinds of stories it can be used to tell, and it doesn't feel to me like this tiny hint constitutes a whole third of a satisfying story. I'll probably read the sequel to this because Cannivan's gradually building a universe with huge potential here and I genuinely am engaged to a degree, but if for whatever reason the second book was in any way difficult for me to get I'm honestly not sure how motivated I'd be to seek it out based on this first installment.



I am now about a third of the way through Anthony Ryan's Tower Lord. I thought Blood Song was a wonderfully-paced, narratively propulsive story that was also a dudebro fantasy checklist, a compelling book but one with very little merit beyond its appealing pace and sweet action. So I went into Tower Lord ready to enjoy the same punchy narrative drive, but also ready to point and laugh at the series' continuing presentation of epic fantasy bro culture as the height of wish-fulfillment wonderfulness and grind my teeth at its lurches into overt sexism. Thus far, however, Tower Lord is not the book I expected. Ryan's expanded the roster of point-of-view characters beyond Vaelin, the boy wonder the first novel presented to us as the Most Interesting Man in the World. I agree with some other comments I've seen that this lessens the narrative drive that was one of Blood Song's major virtues, and I am not yet totally sold on at least one of the new povs, but I think the book gains more than it loses here. I find Vaelin much less insufferable now that he's presented as one important cast member among several rather than as the-one-dude-who-will-save-us-all, and the other povs are at least beginning to make some attempt at turning the series' world into an epic fantasy landscape that's genuinely interesting -- I'm still undecided on whether this attempt is succeeding. Ryan has also gone and discovered the secret that you can have more than three major roles for women in a story without the world exploding, and while I'd say the results are mixed so far I genuinely do mean "mixed," meaning "partially positive," and the book can do naught but improve on Blood Song here. One of the two women who take up pov duties in Tower Lord also appears in Blood Song, for instance, and allowing us inside her head and giving us access to the political work she's doing makes her a more fully-realized character by leaps and bounds. And the action, when it shows up, is still wicked. I'm still undecided on how the whole show is coming together and I still have reservations, but I'm enjoying Tower Lord noticeably more than I expected to so far.


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Finished both 'The Prince of Nothing' by Bakker and 'Night' by Elie Wiesel over the last week. Night was particularly difficult, though I finished the book in one sitting. Only picked it up after it kept popping up in one of the other threads.



Not sure about Prince of Nothing though, I mean, it's okay but it was slightly disappointing.


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I'm about half way through the first book of Wheel of Time, The Eye of the World. First 100 pages or so were tough going as was a bit too 'stock fantasy' for me but over the last week or so I've become utterly addicted. Love the characters and the world. It will probably take me a good year to get through the whole series though!

It took me roughly a year, more like 14 months in total, to get through the series. However I didn't read straight through, I read something different in-between each WoT book so I didn't get burned out. Also if you plan to read the prequel, New Spring, I suggest reading it after Book 5 The Fires of Heaven. Good luck in your reading.

--

Alright it's been almost two weeks since my last post. I finished The Ugly Renaissance yesterday, I probably should have finished it earlier this week since I was on vacation but to be honest this book while informative, was written in a dull tone and prose that made me want to sleep which isn't good when you're at home wanting to do stuff while on vacation.

I've started rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time since high school, 15+ years ago.

Year-long reading update:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: I finished The Winter's Tale on the 12th and thought I had read two plays in one. At the beginning of Act IV, the play takes a 90-degree turn that just makes you go "wha?" A week later on the 19th, I finished reading Cymbeline which I thought was a fairly nice romance play with three well-do story arcs that come together nicely in Act V. I finished The Tempest on Wednesday and really enjoyed it, I'd like to see it performed on stage, not an adaptation, so see how the magic is managed. I'm currently on my very last Shakespearean piece Henry VIII, I'm already through Act II and I hope to read an Act a day to complete this read-through on Monday.

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Once in a while I'll download a Kindle freebie, when the plot sounds interesting. Those are hit and miss. Some are good, some are ok, some are spectacularly bad. I decided to read a few of the ones I'd downloaded months ago.



Pushing up daisies, by Rosemary Harris. It was Ok, a gardener/detective novel. No groundbreaking plot or dialogue, but not overly infuriating either.



Steel Lily, by Megan Curd. Bad, bad, bad. Made even worse by the fact that I had high hopes about it, it being all about a steampunk/dystopian setting. I guess both of those can be done really bad, throw in some bad dialogue and an infuriating female leading character, and you have a bad mix.



Nothing Save the Bones inside her, Clayton Lindemouth. This one was good, really good. Brutal and creepy and not for those with weak stomachs at times. Slow start but picking up and holding your attention throughout. I had one issue with the main characters persistence to 'listen to the voice of God who will guide her in all steps and deliver her' but it didn't come off as preaching, so that was ok.



Time to read something different. Half a King by Joe Abercrombie.


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Finished Gone Girl last night. Total mindfuck. Some things I saw coming (I wasn't spoiled, but given the way people talked about it I still had some ideas), some were totally out of the blue. I know a lot of people hated the ending, but I liked it. I mean it was frustrating and I hated it, but I liked it! Also, I did get scared one night when I was reading it and was barely able to go to sleep. So that should tell you my insanely low tolerance for suspense in a novel!



Doing a book club on Monday so I am going to re-read A Wrinkle in Time this weekend. Excited for that, such a great book!


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Finished Gone Girl last night. Total mindfuck. Some things I saw coming (I wasn't spoiled, but given the way people talked about it I still had some ideas), some were totally out of the blue. I know a lot of people hated the ending, but I liked it. I mean it was frustrating and I hated it, but I liked it! Also, I did get scared one night when I was reading it and was barely able to go to sleep. So that should tell you my insanely low tolerance for suspense in a novel!

Doing a book club on Monday so I am going to re-read A Wrinkle in Time this weekend. Excited for that, such a great book!

Aw, I feel bad now! I'm such a wimp, I figure that if something doesn't scare me, everyone else will be fine with it. Glad you enjoyed it though. Will you watch the film? I saw it earlier this month, and liked it.

Started A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale, which is set to come out early next year. This is just my kind of book. Early 1900's, mystery, intrigue. Gives a tidbit of the end of the story and goes back in time, which is a style I especially love. I just had an "aha!" moment, as I believe I've worked out what Harry's "mental illness" is.

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Aw, I feel bad now! I'm such a wimp, I figure that if something doesn't scare me, everyone else will be fine with it. Glad you enjoyed it though. Will you watch the film? I saw it earlier this month, and liked it.

Ha, no, don't feel bad at all! I am glad I read it and it wasn't nearly as bad as I was worried. It was definitely on the manageable level!

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I finished Fool's Errand today morning. I usually dislike the long scenes of chasing and tracking, and at least half of this novel was one long description of a chase after somebody, but nevertheless, I loved it. Maybe not as much as Liveships, but definitely more than Assassin. It was nice to read about the old characters again, and to meet the new ones. Especially Dutiful, he is a good character with plenty of room for development in the next books.


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About 200 pages into Paul Kearney's the Monarchies of God and I'm loving it. I was fortunate enough to find both copies of the omnibus editions (all 5 books collected into 2 volumes) at Half Price Books a while back. Unfortunately, one of my dogs has recently developed a taste for books and mangled the first 50 pages or so of the first book (after I read those pages though, so I've got that going for me). So while I can still read it, I'm going to need to get a replacement before too long as I think I'll be returning to this series down the road at some point.


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