October Reads

[mashiara]

You know, I typed the title without thinking and then I realized it said August Reads. Yes, it IS that hot here still.

A couple of days ago I finally managed to finish The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I won't say I didn't enjoy parts of it and it ended up on a strong note but man, did this thing drag on for ever! I enjoy Sanderson's writing normally but this book felt endless and parts of it were incredibly irritating, doubly so because there were no explanations for certain behaviors/customs. I kept waiting for things to become more clear by the end of the book and I'm sure they might be explained somewhere along the course of the next 9 volumes (that's what I read, right? A 10book series? Am I getting too old for this, am I losing patience with endless sagas?) All in all, a mediocre book with some very strong scenes now and then. I'm not saying I won't read the second one eventually but it's not going to be high on my priority list.

I also made quick work of Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub. I decent enough read with a weak ending and some very interesting passages. I loved it because I know of an actual LL and she arranged for me to get a copy of the book signed by the author. My very first autographed book! :)

Today I've read the first 5 pages of Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Hoping to read more of it later today and tomorrow.

What about you, what are you guys reading?

[UndergroundMan]

Having trouble getting through the early parts of "Game of Kings", the first book in the Lymond Chronicles. I'm about a quarter of the way through, but there are a lot of characters that seem really similar at this point, and I can't even count how many random castles Lymond has broken into so far. But people say it gets better, so I'll stick with it.

I'm also in the middle of the tenth Dresden Files book, which is moving much faster. I can't wait to sit down and finish reading it sometime today or tomorrow. After that I might move right on into "Turncoat". I'm a little obsessed with Dresden right now, and hope to finish all of them just in time for the release date of "Cold Days".

[deleted01]

I've just finished my reread of ASOS part 1, and I started Fevre Dream last night. So far so good!

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I went to a wine festival this weekend and did not get much reading done. I'm almost finished Mary:Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George. Mary sure got the short end of the stick history wise. It probably didn't help that one of her contemporaries was Queen Elizabeth I. I'm glad I got to know Queen Mary and her story was interesting (until her 18 years of being an English prisoner), but I just couldn't get into the emotional side of the story which for me really makes historical ficton really memorable.

I read Brandon Sanderson's Legion. It was an interesting premise and I liked it.

I'm about 2/3 way through A Death in the Travelling City by Nathalie Mallet. It is the third book of her Prince Amir series and another fantasy based murder mystery.

[Crown]

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is currently laying next to my bed. Great book, really. After that one I'll be reading The Lord of the Flies, 1984 and The Lord of the Rings-trilogy. Also for school: The Importance of Being Earnest and Frankenstein.

[polekat]

The Magicians

The Magician King

I loved them both.

Right now I'm reading Winter Ghosts. It's coming across as rather simplistic, although the writing is pretty.

[Lordwalker28]

Right now I'm finishing up Scourge of the Betrayer and Prince of Thorns. I plan to try House of Leaves when I finish those two.

[Datepalm]

I'm stuck at about half way through Faith, by John Love - it's way too underdeveloped and smarmy. There's not enough there at the moment for more than a story, idea and character wise, and instead it's a rather tedious, tepid book in which things the same sort of things happen again and again in a really slow, overdescribed way - I guess it's supposed to be tense, but it just comes off as a bit constipated. I imagine i'll finish it eventually, but there will be skimming involved.

Nearly done with Adam Robert's Jack Glass, which i've liked.

[dornish prince]

started on the fractal prince because it dropped on my kindle last week. too early to tell but i was very impressed by the quantum thief so my hopes are high. i'm at the very end of leviathan wakes and it was an extremely nice read. i know that he teamed up with ty on this one, but daniel abraham is swiftly becoming one of my favorite authors. i'd read toilet bowl installation intstructions written by him at this point, sight unseen. let's see...i'm about half way through the black lung captain by that wooding guy and i'm having a lot of fun. i'm saddened by the fact that he is only writing four books...these are an absolute blast. i think that leaves quicksilver by neal stephenson. slow going, at this point, but i don't really mind. i feel like i'm taking my time to really absorb this one. it feels really dense but i'm having a good time.

after leviathan wakes is completed, i'll probably start something new. i've started several new series this year and just moved on to others without picking up the next in sequence so i may do that. black lung captain is the only one in recent memory that is the continuation of a series. its just that my to read pile is so huge and i feel like i'll never catch up ;) maybe the next in the long price quartet or caliban's war or something. who am i kidding...i'm never gonna catch up

[red roggo]

Just finished The Heike Story by Eiji Yoshikawa about 1100's medieval Japan. Parts of the story did not flow smoothly from one characters pov to the next. I thought that the translation may have been the cause, but it seems that the story was edited and several story lines were shortened or omited altogether. I liked it but i would liked to have the whole stort Next up: The First Samurai The Life & Times of the Warrior Rebel Taira Masakaso by Karl Friday. Famous Japanese Swordsman of the Two Courts Period by William de Lange. The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Compinies &The World They Shaped by Anthony Sampson

[pig]

My bedtime book is The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin. Good thus far. Very deliberate and a good deal more 'literary' than most of the Science Fiction I've been reading lately. Her style reminds me a lot of AE Van Vogt for some reason.

My take everywhere book is Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard. Not sure what to make of it just yet. Only about 50 pages into it.

[SkynJay]

Having trouble getting more than ten minutes to read, which was killing my run through a damn good book(Palimpsest, which now goes back to library). So ill start month with Caiphus Cain and try the othet when i can take a lunch break again.

[Tyrion Lannister]

I saw The Scar by China Mieville recommended elsewhere on the forum and looked into that before discovering that Mieville's Perdido Street Station is set in the same world and occurs first, so I started with that instead. So far, so good. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm already fascinated by both the setting and the characters.

[peterbound]

Fire Essentials by Delmar

[peterbound]

Caiphus Cain and try the othet when i can take a lunch break again.

You love to bait me

[UndergroundMan]

I saw The Scar by China Mieville recommended elsewhere on the forum and looked into that before discovering that Mieville's Perdido Street Station is set in the same world and occurs first, so I started with that instead. So far, so good. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm already fascinated by both the setting and the characters.

Those two books were the best recommendations I ever received from this board. Love them. And "Iron Council" is nearly as good.

[Garett Hornwood]

I'll be continuing on A Crown of Swords so far I'm around 45% of the way through all ready and I've been reading it less than a week. I've admitted before on this board that I'm a slow reader and do the most I can with the usual 90 minutes I have the time to use, however I'm averaging 64 pages instead of the 40 or so in previous WoT books I've read so far this year. Not that I mind, it just interesting.

After ACoS, I'll read The Story of the Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole. This is a reprint of a 1886 published book with a more "modern" introduction to wet my history degree appetite.

Then by the end of the month I'll probably start The Path of Daggers to continue my read through of WoT. I'm really surprised about how far I've already gotten in the series so far this year.

I have a week of vacation this month so I could get more read than I'm predicting for the month, all depends on how my cousin and I decide to celebrate our birthdays.

[Procrastimancer]

I finished Prisoner of Heaven last night. The book is lean and mean, a scrawny sibling to the thicker novels that preceded it. There is a turn in Zafon's style here, an economy of words that pares down the heavy melodrama and stylish prose until we are left with a short novel that doesn't suffer the pacing issues of the first two. My only real issue with the book is that almost everything that happens could have probably fit just as comfortably in a couple short stories or novella. Instead we get a novel that brings together some strands from the last two novels, prepares us for the next, and wraps up the antagonist arc in quick, anti-climatic fashion so we can get on with things. This leaves the novel feeling like the letter in The Shadow of the Wind... it is necessary to move the plot along, but probably not the best method for doing so. The Prisoner of Heaven is a good book, Zafon hooks you in with ease, but it feels incomplete and perhaps a little too slight because of it. I was asked if it was as good as or better than the preceding two and I can't answer that without going back and reading them. I have a feeling that because this novel is largely set up, the strength of it and how favorably people end up looking upon it will be determined by the next novel.

[beniowa]

Dazed Bastard, that's pretty much my feelings about Prisoner of Heaven as well. The book is good, but it's more to get you to the next one than to stand on it's own.

I myself just finished King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. The Broken Empire books seem like the kind of thing that should appeal to me except that they don't at all. I managed to finish this book, but I struggled with it as I just didn't care about what happened. I doubt I'll finish the series.

About to start Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds next.

[Inigima]

Finally got back to my books, finished off Chandler's The Lady In The Lake. Wouldn't have taken so long except I didn't read much for weeks. I think I'm a bit over halfway through the next book, though, so hopefully I'm back in the swing of things.