January Reads: Setting the Tone for 2016!

[TheRevanchist]

Started the Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK. My God, it is Tigana-like good. His prose is probably the best I have seen from fantasy authors.

[Darth Richard II]

Started the Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK. My God, it is Tigana-like good. His prose is probably the best I have seen from fantasy authors.

somewhere in the world datepalm is screaming right now

[HexMachina]

Read K J Parker's The Last Witness today. A nice quick read at I wasn't sold on at first but by the end I loved it and was sad that I was having to finish. Certainly made me want to pick up more stuff by the author.

[Lyanna Stark]

Started the Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK. My God, it is Tigana-like good. His prose is probably the best I have seen from fantasy authors.

Heh, well I loved the Lions of Al-Rassan. It has its flaws, but they are ultimately very livable and the end result is really, really nice.

On my reading front, got hardbacks for Christmas, as you do. Finished Ivanhoe but am slacking on the review since I think it will be 4+ pages. *sigh*

Almost finished Den långa medeltiden: de nordiska länderna historia från folkvandringstid till reformation (The long middle ages: the Scandinavian countries' history from the migration period to the Protestant Reformation) by Fredrik Charpentier Lundqvist, which has proven to be very interesting, albeit a bit too brief. It's quite unique since it covers a large area, from Iceland and Greenland in the west to the Scandinavian settlements in the north of the British isles to Finland in the east. The main focuses are Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden though, and it gets into far more than which king sat on the throne, focusing more on change and forward momentum, and how that differed in various parts of the area. Fascinating, especially how varied and bumpy the ride was to get Scandinavia wholly Christian, and not only "yes we go to church and self-identify as Christian", but for the people to actually accept the minutae of church teachings, like no family fueds, no collective quilt (if someone in a clan committed a crime, the entire family/clan was deemed responsible), no relationships that were not enshrined in a marriage contract, etc. Not to mention that the bishops themselves were pretty good at political feuding, open feuding and outright warfare, when they felt like it.

Another thing I LOVED is how the book debunked all this "vikings and medieval people all wore brown and grey clothing". No, they didn't. (Just like all Romans weren't made out of white marble. ) The vikings also combed themselves and had, compared to what went on in later centuries, a better personal hygiene with fairly regular baths.

Got two more non-fiction books lined up. One on archaeology and one on local history during the 17th century. Hardbacks tho, makes it somewhat difficult to read on the train.

 

EDIT: Oh I learnt yesterday that there has been a complete rework and a new translation of the old Icelandic Sagas.  available in Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish or Swedish (since they are simultaneously translated). You can order them all in hardback from Reykjavik for like €260. I was sorely tempted. :/

 

 

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I have read a few book since I last posted.

I tore through Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey.  I just love the world and characters.

I then read Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku.  I am a scientist my myself, but my field, geology, tends to look into the past rather than the future.  I found it interesting how far we are from nanotechnology and creating true artificial intelligence and how close we are to medical breakthroughs such as cloning organs for organ replacements and putting a colony on the moon.

Now reading Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey.

[Corvinus85]

Finished 2015 with the Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles - excellent, excellent trilogy.

Started 2016 with the novelization of The Force Awakens. 

Now I'm back to Bernard Cornwell, continuing my read of the Saxon Tales - 4th book Sword Song.

On another note, since I don't want to start a new thread, I am completely dissatisfied with Goodreads. I am not a regular user; every time I log in I have to reset my password because I forget it. But yesterday I logged in with the intention of really organizing my books, what I've read and plan to read. I started by removing the few books I had in still reading area, and I got annoyed at the message box that kept popping up every time. I clicked on it to not appear again, and then I was unable to remove any book from any list. 

I'll have to figure out my own system of keeping track, and planning ahead.

[HexMachina]

Finished 2015 with the Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles - excellent, excellent trilogy.

Started 2016 with the novelization of The Force Awakens. 

Now I'm back to Bernard Cornwell, continuing my read of the Saxon Tales - 4th book Sword Song.

On another note, since I don't want to start a new thread, I am completely dissatisfied with Goodreads. I am not a regular user; every time I log in I have to reset my password because I forget it. But yesterday I logged in with the intention of really organizing my books, what I've read and plan to read. I started by removing the few books I had in still reading area, and I got annoyed at the message box that kept popping up every time. I clicked on it to not appear again, and then I was unable to remove any book from any list. 

I'll have to figure out my own system of keeping track, and planning ahead.

Me too! Great way to finish the year  

I'm also tempted by Sword Song (which, coincidentally, is appearing in the ad bar down the side of this website because I was looking at it on Kobo earlier) but I want to try and clear some of the books I have bought but not read before I get anything new. Currently reading Ursula Le Guin's Wizards of Earthsea.

As for Goodreads, I confess I don't really use it nearly as much as I ought to, I generally just give a star rating when I finish a book to keep track of what I have/haven't read for my reading challenge. But I do find that the mobile app is much more accessible than the website is.

[Corvinus85]

As for Goodreads, I confess I don't really use it nearly as much as I ought to, I generally just give a star rating when I finish a book to keep track of what I have/haven't read for my reading challenge. But I do find that the mobile app is much more accessible than the website is.

Just installed the app on my Samsung. I don't even see a way to remove books from a list. smh

[Darth Richard II]

Goodreads, in a technical sense, has gone to shit in the last year.

[Spockydog]

I hate that site. Like Helena, I just use it now to keep track of what I've read.

 

[l2 0 5 5]

What do you mean? Sethanon id book THREE AND THERE ARE ONLY THREE DAMMIT.

I bought Apprentice and Master separately. Those two plus SIlverthorn, and then Sethanon equal 4. I think....

[Darth Richard II]

I'm being sarcastic, because the series goes to poop real fast. Also Magician was published as one book in hardcover/

[mashiara]

I finished Black Swan Green by David Mitchell and really loved it. At first I kept getting frustrated because each chapter seemed to be incomplete, leaving me hanging, but it grew on me, and in the end there were answers to a lot of the questions I had. Lovely book, really. I can't say I've read anything of his that I haven't loved.

I'm about to start reading Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart.

[Deedles]

I am reading "we need new names" by Violet Bulawayo. It's very evocative and interesting so far. The beginning is set in a Zimbabwean shantytown. I'm enjoying it.

 

I'm anxious to finish though as I have City of BIades lined up on my kindle ready to go.

[Peadar]

I'm anxious to finish though as I have City of BIades lined up on my kindle ready to go.

I have already started City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett. I like the start and am looking forward to the rest.

[williamjm]

I have already started City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett. I like the start and am looking forward to the rest.

I bought that today (along with David Mitchell's Slade House), so I'll read it once I've finished Station Eleven, which I'm really enjoying so far.

[Maester Llama]

I'm a little over a third through Brad Beaulieu's new epic fantasy Twelve Kings in Sharakhai. I'm starting to really dig it. It took a little while to spin up and start distinguishing itself, particularly since the plot and characters didn't seem quite as flashy and over-the-top as the setting and setup might suggest, but it quickly started to clarify that this was the point: a more nuanced, intricate drama of character and culture set against the backdrop of a wicked cool eyeball kick kind of epic fantasy world [with, most notably thus far, sandships!] that feels like it actually functions while you're not looking at it. It's one of the subset of epic fantasies I'm starting to find are my happy place where the lead characters -- while still having notable flaws -- have some clear moral center, but the world they're navigating is a very ambiguous place with little in the way of clear good and evil, or rather [in the case of Twelve Kings in particular] clear evil, but a number of complicating factors. Slightly more clunk in the writing than I might have expected in a book that's been crafted as thoroughly as this one otherwise feels like it has, but overall I'm really intrigued and impressed by this so far and I'm stoked to see where it goes.

[First of My Name]

I finished Star Wars: Lost Stars, which was surprisingly good. Great, even. It proves that there's room in SW for complex, morally ambiguous stories, and well-executed ones that. Very well-realized main characters too, and the pages flew by as I watched them hurt each other and themselves while just trying to do the right thing. For some reason it's classified as YA, but it's far more mature than a lot of SW novels targeted at adults.

Now I've begun rereading Ender's Game, because it's been a long time and I felt like it.

 

Started the Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK. My God, it is Tigana-like good. His prose is probably the best I have seen from fantasy authors.

I want to read LoAR too, glad to hear it's as good as Tigana.

[Astromech]

Heroes Die was a fine read. 

I loved the parallels between Earth and Overworld. Caine was a complete badass, but a surprisingly believable badass.

I'm going to read Altered Carbon next.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Just finished The Library at Mount Char. It was pleasingly fucked up, but

the last few pages were total bullshit.