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May 2016 reads


First of My Name

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Finished off Midnight Sun (I liked it, but it could have done with a hundred or so fewer pages), and have also finished Behold the Man, by Michael Moorcock. The latter is enjoyable for its audacious trolling of Christianity (not organised religion, the actual basis of Christianity itself).

Next up is Breakfast in the Ruins, by Michael Moorcock (the sequel).

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Finished Cronin's City of Mirrors, which started strong but became frayed-- then just kind wore apart. Very disappointing conclusion of that trilogy. For me. 

Currently enjoying Jesse Bullington/Alex Marshall's A Blade of Black Steel which is quite amusing and fun so far.

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I absolutely loved Milorad Pavic's, Dictionary of the Khazars. I'll be keeping my copy so I can reread it in various orders as it's a lexicon novel. I'm also interested in discovering the references I missed in each of the three books( Jewish, Muslim and Christian) and appendices. I'm not convinced the two editions (male and female) differ enough to make as much of an impression on the reader as marketing would want you to believe.

I now want to read more of Pavic's work, but will move on Robert Jackson Bennett's The Troupe which has been on my TBR list for a while.

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6 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

hah,i too just started A Blade of Black Steel and am at chapter 3. :)

Nice, nice. We can compare notes. This series needs more hugs.

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1 hour ago, Astromech said:

but will move on Robert Jackson Bennett's The Troupe which has been on my TBR list for a while.

I really enjoyed that one, and I should definitely read more of his books...  I need more damn time.

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On 2016-05-30 at 5:16 PM, polishgenius said:

I've tried to get into The Silver Metal Lover a couple of times, but I'm finding the main character way too silly. Does she get better?

She is extremely silly in the beginning. Which is, as Mashiara pointed out, the point. More or less. :)

The relationship between Jane and her mother is fascinating, and plays out almost obliquely to the main story line, although in some ways it *is* the story line.

 

@mashiara I am so glad you liked it! It's an emotionally hard hitting novel, I think. Simple and at first glance almost unsophisticated, yet it won't let go, and you keep thinking about it. About 2/3rds through I almost got to a point where I did not want to continue reading, since it was the same feeling as being on a rollercoaster and you go up up up, but you know, at some point, things must come down.

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I read The Wolf in the Attic today. Erm, is that it? From the hype I was definitely expecting more. More precisely, while what is there is fantastically written it's almost prologue, not a full story. And while the official page-count is 320 pages or so, it definitely didn't feel like that (I read it in e-book so I can't really tell how long it is before I get to the end), it took me an hour and a half. Given that this is the second time this year I've paid standard full-ebook price for something that took me that little time, I'm a little pissed off. Given the glowingness of the reviews, I'm half-wondering if my copy had something missing, but since it went from the final chapter to the acknowledgements, I doubt it.

 

My big problem, in short, is that

while it was obvious from the start that the not-really-Romani had killed her father, the transition of the other side from villain to apparently unabashed good guy was far too quick and not sold at all. And honestly I was not at all impressed that he set up all this moral complication and some sympathy for a group who have a lot of irl prejudice against them, and then just went NOPE SON and ended the story with them as villains - giving the doll back was kind of a hint at alleviating that but it wasn't really enough.




Shame. I was really enjoying it till it stopped.

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Finished 'The Republic of Thieves', the third book in Gentlemen's Bastards series. I think that like 'Red Seas Under Red Skies' it is significantly weaker than 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' but still I quite enjoyed it.

The ending was very nice and thought provoking, leaving you want more. And we already know the topic of the next book.

Mixed feelings about Sabetha. Quite similar to Denna in 'Kingskiller Chronicles'. At times you like her, but at times, you feel about the protagonist who is in love (and suffering) for such a bitch. Mostly, liked her though.

I quite enjoyed the interlude story. It isn't as good as in the first book (when it was absolutely fantastic), but still good enough and better than in the second book.

Now, waiting for the fourth book.

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6 hours ago, TheRevanchist said:

Mixed feelings about Sabetha. Quite similar to Denna in 'Kingskiller Chronicles'. At times you like her, but at times, you feel about the protagonist who is in love (and suffering) for such a bitch. Mostly, liked her though.

I'd say Sabetha is a much better character than Denna in that Lynch is much more explicit than Rothfuss in making it clear that our protagonist has an unhealthy fixation.

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You guys know it's June, right?  Use the + quote feature to move the conversation to the new thread, that way this one doesn't get locked, and thereby preventing anybody else from quoting from this thread in the future.

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