mashiara Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 New month, new thread. You know the drill, post about what you are reading and planning to read, say a bit about it, what you liked, what you didn't like. I know I've gotten great recommendations from these threads over the years, keep them coming! I'll start the month with Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Still reading 1177 BC. I tend to read nonfic more slowly, so it could be a while. Very interesting so far, though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wolves Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 I started Winter's Tale I'm not so excited about it but I'll give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morticia Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 I'm still reading the Armageddon Rag, and I'm afraid to say it's a bit of a drag.(unintentional rhyme)Not one of GRRM's strongest works IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seasick Shrimp Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Picked up Still Alice at the library, and it's a good read so far, incredibly sad and touching story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Great and Mighty Poo Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Rereading Steve Erikson's Gardens of the Moon; just trying to catch some things I might have missed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hello World Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Just finished Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. It’s more fantasy than Sci-fi. I can’t say that I enjoyed it - it’s very dated - but it did have some nice imagery. Thinking about rereading The Postman Always Rings Twice before I finally start Hobb’s Farseer trilogy with AP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peadar Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Still reading 1177 BC. I tend to read nonfic more slowly, so it could be a while. Very interesting so far, though! I really like the sound of this! But for the moment, I'm reading Rustication by Charles Palliser. Too early to say if I'll like it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo498 Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 (Finished "Men at Arms" (in German) and I am still not sure whether I had read this years ago or not... I seem to be getting old...)Started Gladstone's "Three parts dead" yesterday; so far well written and "different" although I have not yet formed a very strong opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Just finished Hothouse by Brian Aldiss. It’s more fantasy than Sci-fi. I can’t say that I enjoyed it - it’s very dated - but it did have some nice imagery. heh. the intelligent fungi is the best part. it's got a fatal conceptual default, insofar as the narrative refers to day and night. uh, duh? anyway, i read this text as partaking of the post-apocalyptic, with all of the attendant defects of that subgenre. am currently wrapping up a couple JG ballard post-apocalyptics, incidentally (high rise, crystal world). after that, omensetter's luck. w00t! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinevere Seaworth Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 I'm just about finished Limits of Power by Elizabeth Moon. A very good series so far.Up next is the concluding volume of the Paladin's Legacy series, Crown of Renewal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maester Llama Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Okay, this is technically not something I read in February, but I forgot to write about this book in the previous thread, so, Karen Miller's The Falcon Throne: To reiterate the shit I -- and a couple others amongst us -- talked in the previous thread, my reaction to the excerpts I've read of some of Miller's earlier books was to put it mildly not positive. [i felt a particular antipathy for the few pages of Empress I read for some reason, something about the ostentatious grimness, but I didn't much dig The Innocent Mage either.] So I didn't go into The Falcon Throne with high expectations, but I figured it was time I gave Miller's work a fair shot. And you know what? I enjoyed The Falcon Throne. Would I recommend it, though? Do I think it's actually good? That's a whole different question. The Falcon Throne -- and the Tarnished Crown series it begins, for this is very much an opening volume -- is playing in a sandbox that's very crowded these days: grim, low-magic, faux-medieval fantasy, fantasy that strives for a degree of "this is what it would, like, really have been like in feudal times, man" vericimilitude. I'm no historian so I've got no idea how good a job Miller does, but in its spirit at least I think the book's strong here: Every interaction between a noble and a peasant is fraught with tension and potential violence / exploitation and I got a clear sense of how ground down the common people in this world find themselves and how little recourse they have; the medicine is foul and inexact; noble women are overtly bought and sold in marriage with no input as to their fate; the [rare] fights are brutal and muddy -- unless they involve one of a few assholes who seem to be the series' shit disturbers in chief who hack through foes like it ain't no thing. Sometimes the themes are hammered home a bit, but the mood and the tone are really clear and mostly uncompromising. Unfortunately, to reinforce this faux-medieval full immersion vibe Millermakes some dialogue choices that I guess are meant to evoke the period but that I found often fell flat. These range from awkward archaisms / faux-archaisms -- "clap tongue, you cockshite pizzle!" -- that I found sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, to ridiculous peasant dialect -- "baint bin' doin' nuthin'" -- that never works, offends me on behalf of people who don't exist, and is the worst. I wish I could say this dialect is used rarely but unfortunately this isn't the case; it is absent for long stretches, but the scenes following common folk characters in which it does appear are lengthy and significant. Seems a petty complaint at first, I know, but will annoy the shit out of you if you hate bad dialect. The Falcon Throne also takes place in a hugely sexist society and contains very few women who aren't very much circumscribed by their situations, except for one who's pretty evil and portrayed using the old and tired evil seductress tropes. The book does lean into the ways women are exploited in their marriages in one of its major subplots, a subplot that yields several scenes that feel very deliberately and productively confrontational, Miller transforms the stereotypical figure of the jolly innkeep into an intimidating woman not to be messed with, and one other character is pretty clearly being set up for a more active role in future. The book definitely has things to say about women's lot in its faux-medieval Europe, but I'm still not quite clear on what those things actually are, beyond confronting the reader with the problems. Anger is productive, absolutely, and The Falcon Throne does that well and I don't want to knock that. But I'm not convinced it's bringing much that's new to the gender-in-fantasy conversation, and most of what it is doing it's doing with characters who are kind of peripheral to the very dude-heavy tale. Book's a bit of a misery parade, it has to be said, full of people who do terrible things. The arc is downward, but as long as that's something you're okay with it makes for a solid sad opening act to a fantasy story -- basically this is the "how everybody misunderstood each other and everything went to shit" part of a story, except it's not a part, it's the whole thing, at least until the next book happens. There are, to my mind, a few really well-done flawed characters in here, the kind who do things that really truly are unforgivable but still have some redeeming qualities that feel genuine. [some of the names are bad though. There's a very important character named Lord Humbert and I can't take him seriously -- he's one of the better characters and often quite compelling, but he's supposed to be all intimidating and shit and his name's Lord Humbert.] However, there are also a few characters who are just absolute shitbags, and the structure of this first book requires that they spend much of the story doing quite well for themselves. The whole thing is a festering stew of marital problems and teenage angst [oh, that's another problem: I fucking hate the teenagers in this] and daddy issues, mostly daddy issues, very operatic. Not new, but well-executed, albeit with large flaws. If you like faux-medieval political opera epic fantasy and don't mind the world-building being not so much The Falcon Throne might be for you: it's a big, generous helping of epic fantasy that makes a point of the constant collision of the personal with the political and includes plenty of dirty dealings and corrupt schemes. Reservedly recommended if you like this sort of thing. Have started Schafer's The Whitefire Crossing and Priest's Maplecroft now. Both are very compelling so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterbound Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Reading the Harry Connolly 'Way' novels (you guys should read these.. good epic fantasy) http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Into-Chaos-Great-ebook/dp/B00R0G480U/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0TV0NKA8BXB5Z902065K Also, on a lark, bought 'White Trash Zombie'. Good UF fantasy. Pleasantly surprised. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_12?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=white+trash+zombie&sprefix=white+trash+%2Cdigital-text%2C195 Just finished the Daniel Polansky 'Low Town' books. More great reads:http://www.amazon.com/Low-Town-novel-Daniel-Polansky-ebook/dp/B004CFAZWW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1422816852&sr=1-1&keywords=low+town Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjornbert Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Started The Gollen and the Djinii. Extremly well written so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 *snip*Thanks for that review. I picked up The Falcon Throne last September when I was browsing Waterstones, not sure why as I had never read anything by Miller before. I made a few half-hearted attempts to read it then set it aside because uni started and haven't picked it up since. It's still sitting on my bookshelf but I've been reluctant to go back to it as its a pretty hefty book and I wasn't sure it would be worth the time to read it. Your review has convinced me to give it another shot though. Going to add it to the to read list...probably put it next, to save buying anything new for a while. Finished up Fat is a Feminist Issue on Saturday, which was interesting to read. Slotting a non-fiction in after quite a lot of fiction seems to work quite well with my reading pattern so I think I'll try and do that again this month; read a few fiction books and one non-fiction. Today I started A Man Rides Through by Steven Donaldson. This is going to be another slow read I think, as I have a busy few weeks coming up, but I'd like to get the story finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satin fetch me a cock! Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Just finished all the Farseer books by Robin Hobb. It was my SECOND fantasy read, ASOIAF being the 1st. In my opinion, It was just as addicting as ASOIAF. I bought Wheel of Time and the First Law Trilogy on iBooks but can't get into it like GRRM and Hobb. Do you guys have any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Just finished all the Farseer books by Robin Hobb. It was my SECOND fantasy read, ASOIAF being the 1st. In my opinion, It was just as addicting as ASOIAF. I bought Wheel of Time and the First Law Trilogy on iBooks but can't get into it like GRRM and Hobb. Do you guys have any suggestions?First Law picks up towards the middle of book 1, imo. I found the first book a little difficult to get into aswell, but enjoyed the trilogy once I got into it. Haven't read WoT.Check the rec threads at the top of the subforum. The standard recs are usually Joe Abercrombie, Daniel Abraham, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss(well, sometimes) and Mark Lawrence, at least off the top of my head anyway. Some shout outs for the Malazan books and Bakker are pretty common too. When people are being serious that is. Otherwise recs are more likely to be Stanek and suchlike.ETA: may as well point out that Robin Hobb has 14 books set in the Six Duchies "world" to date. Farseer, Liveships, Tawny Man, Rain Wild Chronicles and Fitz and the Fool(ongoing). Farseer, Tawny Man and F&F all follow Fitz, and the other two are kind of related to and have tie ins to each other. Read them all though, if you want my opinion, and in the order i listed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedEyedGhost Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Just finished all the Farseer books by Robin Hobb. It was my SECOND fantasy read, ASOIAF being the 1st. In my opinion, It was just as addicting as ASOIAF. I bought Wheel of Time and the First Law Trilogy on iBooks but can't get into it like GRRM and Hobb. Do you guys have any suggestions? What did you like about Farseer and ASoIaF specifically? What types of non-fantasy books do you like? But, yeah, you should probably read Liveship Traders and Tawny Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garett Hornwood Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Continuing Brave New World from the end of last month, approximately 56% of the way through. Right now, I'm sorta feeling "meh" about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satin fetch me a cock! Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 What did you like about Farseer and ASoIaF specifically? What types of non-fantasy books do you like? But, yeah, you should probably read Liveship Traders and Tawny Man.I LOVED both of them!! Honestly, all I ever read was Autobiography books and a couple of History. I didn't read a lot before ASOIAF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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