May 2016 reads

[Gormenghast]

But I can understand that, because Forge of Darkness is actually objectively more distinct from the others. It's entirely plausible there are readers who even loved Malazan main series but didn't like this new one.

For me, I like the writing. Forge of Darkness is written more solidly and way better than the rest. That's amazing for me. I like the characters, I liked the Azathanai, I liked the young sisters, Arathan. It's just the absolute greatest. Page by page, line by line, it's good in ways that the other books don't even come close.

For the record:

1. Forge of Darkness
2. House of Chains
3. The Bonehunters
4. Memories of Ice
5. Deadhouse Gates
6. Midnight Tides
7. Gardens of the Moon

[RedEyedGhost]

13 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

My personal rankings:

1. Memories of Ice
2. Midnight Tides
3. Deadhouse Gates
4. Gardens of the Moon
5. The Bonehunters
6. House of Chains
7. Reaper's Gale

I do intend to get around to finishing the series (I'm bloody-minded like that), but after being burnt by Reaper's Gale, I'm leaving it a bit before Toll the Hounds.

Pretty similar ranking to mine, except I would flip flop MT and HoC.  Karsa was about the only thing I liked about the last several books I read.  I do not intend to read past RG.  Although, I might read the Karsa Orlong trilogy whenever it comes out.

[Starkess]

I finished The First Rider's Call, the second in Kristen Britain's Green Rider series. I quite enjoyed it. It was definitely an improvement over the first book. Torn on whether I want to go straight to the next book or pick up something different. I tend to like to stay in a story once I've started it, but I think this is also a long series and someone on facebook informed me it's unfinished. Blah. I figured since it was from the 90s I was safe from Unfinished Series Syndrome.

[Darth Richard II]

Kristen Britain writes sloooooow. I think there's a book every 5 years or so.

I didn't think it was from the 90s either, I thought it was early 2000s. Of course I could just look that up.

*loading*

Wow 1998. But yeah I except ASOIAF to be finished before that one.

[Astromech]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 2:09 PM, williamjm said:

I'm about halfway through at the moment, the first few chapters took a little while to get going as Kay introduced the large cast of characters but after that it's been really good.

Do you know what the real world equivalent of Senjai is? Dubrava=Dubrovnik and Seressa=Venice were fairly obvious, but I don't know enough about Croatian history/geography to identify the other city.

It could just be based on the southern Balkans. I thought Montenegro based upon the basics of Senjan. I have yet to read the novel, but Senjan reminds me of Cetinje, the former royal city of Montenegro. Being caught in the middle of two regional powers sounded a bit like Montenegro's relationship with Venice and the Ottoman Empire as well. However, it may just be generically based on the Balkans in general.

[Lily Valley]

I just finished K. Eason's Enemy.  It's one of the freebie releases on kindle this month.  I really enjoyed it.  The first 20 pages are a little difficult to get through as the POV shifts rapidly between a pretty complex set of characters.  The prose has a stream of consciousness feel that also takes some time to get used to.  The characters are rich and fully developed adults, the world-building is really nicely flushed out and the magic rules are complex and consistent.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's book 1 of a series, but it had a great self-contained story ark.  

 

[End of Disc One]

House of Chains is great.  But yeah, no reason to read it if you didn't like the first 3 books.  Just stop now.

[Iskaral Pust]

I just finished Necessary Evil, the conclusion of Tregillis' Milkweed trilogy of a SF/F alternate history of WW2 and the Cold War, driven by a pre-cog trying to manipulate outcomes to avoid the end of the world.  While I enjoyed the trilogy overall, the final volume was unfortunately dreary. It's a pity to end a good series on a relatively low note.  Combined with my slog through BotNS, I feel like my last 2-3 months of reading has been drudge work and I'm reading a lot less because of it.  

[Gormenghast]

So... I was checking the Man Booker International, reading straight from Amazon preview since this "book" barely qualifies as a novel, at 51k words. So you can essentially finish it in a couple of hours and read the majority of it through that preview. It has the longest list of cover blurbs in history, I guess that's because being so short it feels like free money for minimal work.

I'm 20 pages in, and that's like >10% of the book. Quality of writing is just one notch BELOW Fifty Shades of Grey.

Quote

 

"Before my wife turned vegetarian, I’d always thought of her as completely unremarkable in every way."

"the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis"

"The only respect in which my wife was at all unusual was that she didn't like wearing a bra."

"Her voice as it sounded over the phone, always somehow more distinct than in person, never failed to send me into a state of sexual arousal"

"Well, I was in a dream, and I was standing on my head … leaves were growing from my body, and roots were sprouting from my hands … so I dug down into the earth. On and on … I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch so I spread my legs; I spread them wide … "

"Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay."

 "She was standing, motionless, in front of the fridge. The potential options all filled me with fear."

 

Is this real? Maybe it's a joke I'm not getting, but I encourage everyone to take a read at the Amazon preview.

[Darth Richard II]

Hey man, that last one is no joke. Zuul is scary as fuck.

[ljkeane]

I recently finished Naomi Novik's Uprooted which was pretty good. It's a definite step up from her Napoleonic dragons series which I lost interest in after a few books.

Before that I read Lois McMaster Bujold's Cryoburn which I'd been putting off reading because it was the last of her books left I hadn't read but with Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen coming out I decided to read it. It's a decent read although not the best of the Vorkosigan Saga books, it does make me miss the earlier Admiral Naismith books were Miles liked to blow stuff up a bit more a little but she doesn't seem inclined to write that sort of story anymore. Now I've got the same problem as to whether to read the latest book or save it for a while.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

On ‎14‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 1:09 PM, williamjm said:

I'm about halfway through at the moment, the first few chapters took a little while to get going as Kay introduced the large cast of characters but after that it's been really good.

Do you know what the real world equivalent of Senjai is? Dubrava=Dubrovnik and Seressa=Venice were fairly obvious, but I don't know enough about Croatian history/geography to identify the other city.

Sorry for not responding sooner!  I thought Senjan was Split.  The island where the Serresini were blockading was Hrak which I took to be Hvar.  He also mentions that the island has notable vinyards which Hvar is famous for (I did sample and it was fantastic!). However, Split and Dubrovnik are not that far apart (~ 3.5 hours by car) and the Kay's map suggests much more of a distance.  Some other poster mentioned it represented a place in Montenegro which I have not been to.

[Darth Richard II]

Also, honestly, that writing is like 4 or 5 steps ABOVE Fifty Shades, which I assume you have never read, you lucky sod.

[Starkess]

I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I had jury duty, so I was able to just sit and read all day so I finished it in basically one day. It was good, although I had issues with the pacing (long middle section where nothing happens--at one point I figured it was getting close to wrapping up and realized I was only like 35% in, so yeah, there was a lot that felt pretty pointless) but it was still interesting. Kinda crazy that shit was only 50 years ago. Depressing. Although it was treated with a pretty light hand here, so the book felt entertaining more than bleak. 

Trying to finish some books I've had laying around for a while. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. According to Goodreads I started this last June, so I really need to make some progress! I think I'm about 2/3.

On 5/15/2016 at 9:24 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Kristen Britain writes sloooooow. I think there's a book every 5 years or so.

I didn't think it was from the 90s either, I thought it was early 2000s. Of course I could just look that up.

*loading*

Wow 1998. But yeah I except ASOIAF to be finished before that one.

*long suffering sigh*

yay...

[Gorn]

16 hours ago, Guinevere Seaworth said:

Sorry for not responding sooner!  I thought Senjan was Split.  The island where the Serresini were blockading was Hrak which I took to be Hvar.  He also mentions that the island has notable vinyards which Hvar is famous for (I did sample and it was fantastic!). However, Split and Dubrovnik are not that far apart (~ 3.5 hours by car) and the Kay's map suggests much more of a distance.  Some other poster mentioned it represented a place in Montenegro which I have not been to.

My guess, mostly based on the name, is Senj.

[Maia]

 

On 14.5.2016 at 4:53 PM, Maester Llama said:

I thought Hartman's Serafina was chrome-plated gold awesome -- fine from the beginning and quickly building an increasingly absorbing world and emotional landscape,

Yep, Rachel Hartman's "Serafina" was good. Maybe not to the superlative degree you describe, for me, but good indeed. Also, manages to gracefully and appealingly navigate the issues and themes that tend to annoy and irritate me in most contemporary urban fantasy, which is a huge plus. Might be a refreshing change of pace for people who also got tired of it?  Here is to hoping that the sequel that came out last year holds up. I have heard suspiciously little about it...

BTW, it is funny how certain worldbuilding ideas propagate in the genre - like spire-cities towering high over dangerous/poisoned  planet (earth?) surface in Butcher and Fran Wilde's novels last year, Red caste being the underdog with a ruling metallic caste  in Pierce Brown's trilogy and in Aveyard's series, and now, it turns out, silver blood as a distinguishing characteristic in both Hartman's and Aveyard's novels.  Is it borrowing or just some ideas being in the air?

 

On 14.5.2016 at 8:00 PM, Guinevere Seaworth said:

 

I did not like Red Rising by Pierce Brown. It was too bleak, brutal and violent for my tastes.  However, the concept was interesting and the character of Darrow was complex enough that I'm willing to read the next book.  I just hope it is more of a political maneuvering rather than war and violence novel. 

In this, alas, you are bound to be disappointed. It is all action and  Darrow's boundless charisma as a military leader, as well as his superhuman prowess as a fighter, all the way. Also, the Reds gradually becoming/being revealed as the bestest at everything. Now, mind, I liked it well enough for the first 2 books of the trilogy, but it did become pretty old by the third, particularly since it had been one of the crucial - and, for me, the most attractive, points from the beginning that changes to the better couldn't be achieved by military action alone. It doesn't help that Brown's attempts to show "heroes on both sides" and allegedly surprising turn-abouts remain rather clumsy and unconvincing. All in all I was disappointed - I expected more and for the first 2 volumes, for all their flaws, it seemed like it would become more, but the final installment was a let-down. OK to borrow from a library, if you have nothing better lined up, but nothing more. IMHO, YMMV. Yea, apparently there is going to be a sequel trilogy, but fool me once...

[Seasick Shrimp]

Between my university studies and me working on my first own novel, my brain space has been fairly occupied for the last months, and seeing as how I'm already from the beginning  a slow reader, I only manage to squeeze in a couple of pages a day (can't wait for summer!). Anyway, what I've been reading ever since I got it as a christmas present, is Anna Karenina. I'm about five hundred pages in, and I can't help but wonder; is there any Russian authors who can write anything that does not move in a snail's pace? Because so far my dabbling with the Russian classics has led me to 1. Dostojevskiy and his Crime and Punishment, which had an interesting story poorly executed, as well as The idiot (which I didn't even had the strength to finish), and 2. Tolstoy and his Anna Karenina, which is much worse than Crime and punishment. It just bores me to death, and even though it has some great quotes every now and then, and some really beautifully written passages once in a while, that's just not enough for me. Also, for some reason, I haven't managed to connect emotionally with not one of Dostojevskijs or Tolstojs characters. So... That's what I'm reading for the moment! 

[Guinevere Seaworth]

9 hours ago, Gorn said:

My guess, mostly based on the name, is Senj.

Thank you kind sir!  That does explain things.

[beniowa]

Read both Children of Earth and Sky and The Wolf in the Attic.  Both were great, great reads.  Neither work will be my favorite by either author, but they'll certainly be way up there. 

Now reading Seveneves. 

[Jo498]

I admittedly also got stuck in the middle of Anna Karenina (mainly because of the sentimental Kitty/Levin sideplot) but I have read Crime & Punishment at least twice and did not find it boring or particularly slow at all.

"The gambler" is considerably shorter and might be the most accessible by Dostoevsky. There are several novellas/short stories by Tolstoy (e.g. Master and Servant, The Death of Ivan Ilich and a few more).