February 2016 Reads

[red snow]

6 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Speaking of Cicero, I finally got around to reading Harris' Imperium, and not only was it the best damn thing ever, but when I went to buy book 2 I found a pristine hardcover copy of it used and book 3 had just come out and was on sale! Yay!

I may have to try combining history and fiction and give this a go. I'm a big fan of TV history shows so I'll probably be a sucker for novels in the genre too.

6 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Finished my re-read of A Shadow in Summer, on to A Betrayal in Winter.

But in all honesty, I didn't like the first book, as much as I tried to. My opinion of it has not improved since I read it a couple of years ago, but this time I'm trusting people who say that the sequels are better. And thanks to reading The Expanse, I am more familiar with Abraham's writing abilities. It has a good premise, and I liked the beginning and end, but much of the middle, especially the last third was a real slog. The prose is good, but I didn't much care for any character.

 

Hidden Content

 

It's definitely a series where the final two books cloud the judgement of the whole thing. I wasn't blown away by book 2 until the end of it. I think it's more that the story wasn't my cup of tea but the concept was fascinating enough to keep me going wrt the first two books. That and the characters are well written even if they don't do much.

The Dagger and the Coin is more of a traditional fantasy and grips the reader much earlier. It's a great series but I probably still love the long price more overall. It might change of Abraham ends that series as well as he did TLP.

[TheRevanchist]

8 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Finished my re-read of A Shadow in Summer, on to A Betrayal in Winter.

But in all honesty, I didn't like the first book, as much as I tried to. My opinion of it has not improved since I read it a couple of years ago, but this time I'm trusting people who say that the sequels are better. And thanks to reading The Expanse, I am more familiar with Abraham's writing abilities. It has a good premise, and I liked the beginning and end, but much of the middle, especially the last third was a real slog. The prose is good, but I didn't much care for any character.

 

Hidden Content

 

 

Spoiler

 

Gals wouldn't dare to send an assassin. The only way for the plan to succeed was if they somehow manage the poet to go crazy, or feel bad for something that he did, and so release the adam. Because if they just went and kill him (which was easy to do), then there are another dozen adams there who could wipe their continent from the face of the earth. In fact, a simple adam would be sufficient to completely destroy Gals.

He didn't had protection mostly because it was unthinkable for someone to kill a poet. They were pretty much saints in that world, and their entire society was depended on them. In fact, killing a poet was the ultimate crime, much worse than killing the ruler of the city. Add to that, the poet was slightly crazy and drunk most of the time, and so I guess he wasn't very cooperative on getting bodyguarded. 

 

 

[Corvinus85]

3 hours ago, TheRevanchist said:

 

Hidden Content

 

I call that very contrived. Sure there are more andats, and sure there's the possibility that the Khaiem could unite, despite their economic rivalries, to destroy the Galts if they felt threatened, but it seemed that the Galt plot in Saraykhet was an experiment to see if they could destroy all the andats in a similar manner. Well, why not just send assassins in each city?

Since I've only read the first book so far, I am basing all this speculation on how the world was painted in one book. So I don't know the number and variety of andats, but it looked like they were in decline. And each andat it suited to a very specific task only. Seedless could ruin the Galts by killing their crops and a whole generation of babies, but he could do nothing if a Galt army showed up outside the city to burn it to the ground.

I suppose one can look at it as a sort of cold war situation between the Galts and the Khaiem, with each side having weapons capable of obliterating the other. Anyway, I am curious enough to continue reading. 

[Bjornbert]

Finished The House of Shattered Wings. Good book, excellent world building but the rest is just ok. Had a very moviesque feel to me.

Starting City of Blades probably

[Astromech]

18 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Finished my re-read of A Shadow in Summer, on to A Betrayal in Winter.

But in all honesty, I didn't like the first book, as much as I tried to. My opinion of it has not improved since I read it a couple of years ago, but this time I'm trusting people who say that the sequels are better. And thanks to reading The Expanse, I am more familiar with Abraham's writing abilities. It has a good premise, and I liked the beginning and end, but much of the middle, especially the last third was a real slog. The prose is good, but I didn't much care for any character.

 

Hidden Content

 

As red snow stated above, it's a series that is really dependent on each part to make a whole. More so than other series. I think of it as a work in 4 acts. Each successive act builds upon and improves the others until you have a fantastic story and resolution at the end. The best ending of any series I've read. 

@ Revanchist  I love your Freudian Wheel of Time slip in your spoiler

12 hours ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

Now I want to read Tigana.

As stated above, I loved it. It's typical GGK with flowery prose, melodrama and one or two wtf scenes. I love GGK, but would never binge on him. I need a break in between his novels. The Sarantine Mosaic is still my favorite of the GGK novels I've read, but I've loved everything I've read by him so far.

[HexMachina]

57 minutes ago, Bearbert said:

Finished The House of Shattered Wings. Good book, excellent world building but the rest is just ok. Had a very moviesque feel to me.

Starting City of Blades probably

Yep, same here, thought the world building was great but the story only average. I'll definitely read the sequel though. And if you enjoyed the World Building like me, you should try the short fiction in that world too. There is one novella, which I think I paid £0.99 for, and three(?) short stories available on Aliette de Boddard website.

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Corvinus said:

 

Hidden Content

 

I think the 'cold war' metaphor is pretty apt, although in this case it's a bit different because only one side actually have the WMDs. Your objections are brought up fairly often, I think maybe Abraham needed to explain a bit more in the first book how dangerous the right andat could be to the Galts. In the later books you'll meet Stone-Made-Soft who could cause the entire Galtish continent to instantly melt into the sea with a single thought from his poet, I think it's understandable that the Galts are nervous about provoking a civilisation with that kind of power. If they wanted to try assassinating poets then they'd really need to do it simultaneously, which is difficult to co-ordinate when they're spread across a continent.

[Puntificator]

43 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

And if you enjoyed the World Building like me, you should try the short fiction in that world too. There is one novella, which I think I paid £0.99 for, and three(?) short stories available on Aliette de Boddard website.

In addition to a novella, Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship for the price you mentioned (it's also $0.99 in the US), and the collection of short stories, In Morningstar's Shadow (which you can get for free on her website or from Amazon), there is also Against the Encroaching Darkness in Grimdark Magazine Issue #5, and The Death of Aiguillon in A Fantasy Medley 3 (edited by Yanni Kuznia).  

[Ghjhero]

I got a $15 Barnes and Nobles gift card for my birthday and I was hoping someone could recommend a stand alone book that wouldn't have to drag me into an entire series?

[Ghjhero]

Whoops

[Ghjhero]

Sorry

[Ghjhero]

This is embarrassing

[Ghjhero]

My sincere apologies

[Ghjhero]

I blame bad wifi connection

[Spockydog]

59 minutes ago, Ghjhero said:

I got a $15 Barnes and Nobles gift card for my birthday and I was hoping someone could recommend a stand alone book that wouldn't have to drag me into an entire series?

Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs. Atmospheric southern gothic cosmic horror thingy. Totally awesome, but not one for the faint of heart.

 

[Ghjhero]

Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs. Atmospheric southern gothic cosmic horror thingy. Totally awesome, but not one for the faint of heart.

 

Interesting, so a sci fi type of horror?

[Spockydog]

8 minutes ago, Ghjhero said:

Interesting, so a sci fi type of horror?

I wouldn't call it that. Here's the blurb.

Quote

Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin’ John Hastur. The mysterious blues man’s dark, driving music–broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station–is said to make living men insane and dead men rise.

Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur’s trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.

But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he’ll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell...

In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

 

[TheRevanchist]

9 hours ago, Corvinus said:

 

Hidden Content

 

I cannot response on this without going on spoilers. However, pretty much every andat can at least completely destroy Galts.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Just finished City of Blades. A very different book than City of Stairs, but still completely worthwhile. It's a much sadder book, both in plot and overall theme. 

[Nicomo Cosca]

On 3 de febrero de 2016 at 4:41 PM, First of My Name said:

I hate to say it, but you might want to lower your expectations. I love The Stand but I won't deny the climax sucks. (The rest is great though, even if you've already left the best part behind you.

SPOILERS FOR THE STAND

So far of what I read of book 2 its building up pretty strongly on the foundation laid on the first part. The Mother Abragail plot line has so far kept my attention and I like what Stephen King is doing with regards of establishing her as a characters and as a 'meeting point' for the various other characters. Even though I have only read only one *big*' chapter of her I'm already digging the whole scenario.

The dark man threat is getting more menazing with each passing chapter. I've felt the classic King-horror element being played up with this character which I find myself really enjoying.

But given that I read two responses on this thread of aparently how anticlimatic the whole ending is I'm going to lower my expectations very dramatically. (I feel like King won't even bother explaining what are the forces behind the Dark Man and Mother Abrigail, but I'm kind of expecing that given that he never really explains anything regarding the supernatural, which is absolutely fine by me).

Love all the characters btw! ASoIaF-ish in that every time I have to leave a set of characters for a while it makes me kind of mad given how much I like them!