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August 2016 Reads


Garett Hornwood

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Just now, SeanF said:

 

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I felt much the same way about Molly. Some fans seem to hate her, for some reason I can't fathom.

 

Jealousy, obviously. Fitz is a real catch :P 

more seriously, i guess they dont like the romantic side of things in the novel, for which she is largely responsible

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1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I'd stop reading hobb now then if that's the stuff you don't like. 

I might stop after this book or, depending how it goes, finish the first trilogy. I am somewhat curious how it continues and the last third or so of the first book was very good. But the first quarter of this one feels like standing on brakes and in addition to a new bloody bonding animal and Dickensian teenage romance (which is cool in Victorian novels but feels stale and clicheed here) I don't think the writing is all that good. E.g. Hobb tends to highlight things that are quite obvious at the first time, frequently doubling or even tripling: show (Kettricken is unhappy/Verity is stressed out/the old King forgetful) and tell (reflection by Fitz), tell another time (Fitz talks with some other person about it).

I also find the whole setting less plausible as we learn more (or actually not much more) about Buckkeep etc. In many respects the realm seems too small and not sufficiently organized for an otherwise quite advanced and complex high/late medieval society. I can understand that an author does not want to introduce Martin-like myriads of secondary characters. And for the boy Fitz this was no problem because he would not have encountered them. But now Verity has to directly supervise or attend to rather menial things himself, he does not seem to have any capable staff, council, advisors, senior clerks whatever to help and the whole country seems so disorganized that for months Forged ones could be roaming the countryside without soldiers, militia whatever doing anything about it.

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Finished Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover for the third time and loved it once again. It seems it means something different to me each time I read it, which matches one of the books messages really well ('what anything means depends on who you are when you look at it'). It's not a perfect book, but it might damn well be my favorite one of all. The writing, characters, plot and Stover's philosophical musings are what my dreams are made of.

Now continuing my reread of A Game of Thrones for a few days until I go on vacation, I'll start something else then.

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5 hours ago, SeanF said:

OTOH, I'm really enjoying Fool's Assassin, book one in her latest trilogy.

I'm to planning to wait on those until next year until I can binge them. I'm enjoying waiting on unpublished books less and less with each passing year.

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Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold was a cute read.

I'm glad I gave Daniel Abraham a second chance after fizzing out with the first book in the Long Price Quartet.  I'm loving The Dragon's Path so far.  Definitely plan to continue with the series.

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Just finished Half a World by Joe Abercrombie.  I enjoyed it but I see how it is YA because of the romance angle.  I could have done without that but I see why he put it in there to humanize Thorn a little more.

I tried to re-read the First Law trilogy a few months ago and just couldn't bring myself to do it since it was so dark.  Not a great comparison but sort of like watching Shindler's list again.  Once is enough.  So it's nice to see that Abercrombie can do some lighter stuff.

 

On 8/2/2016 at 3:07 PM, YellowDogJen said:

I just finished Outlaw by K. Eason.

Blown away.

I got Enemy as a Kindle First, and I thought, I guess, how good can it be? I started reading it when I was out of books that had cost me $$ (that I thought were the "good" books) and got ready to read some tripe.

I am so stupid. These books are waaaaaaay awesome. Read them! You will love them!

 

Same thing happened to me (got Enemy as a Kindle first then paid money for Outlaw because I enjoyed it so much).  

Definitely recommended even if you have to pay the books are pretty cheap for kindle books so not much to lose.  If anyone needs more persuading there are some additional posts about this series on the July/June/May reads threads.

Interestingly, I think she (K Eason) is published by Amazon's captive publishing arm.

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23 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Eh, I hate to shit on your parade(no I do, despite what some people here will tell you) but the next expanse was pushed back to November.

I know. That's close enough that by the time I finish 5 books it won't be far off. :)

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49 minutes ago, Starkess said:

I know. That's close enough that by the time I finish 5 books it won't be far off. :)

Oh good. I know a lot of people that had no idea it was delayed til the June release date came and they got no book.

Also the way book 5 ends, yeah thats probably a good idea. :P

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11 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

You...don't like Hobb's writing? o.O

I need to be alone.

I don't think it's bad but it is not particularly great either. The feature I mentioned if pervasive (at least in the second book) and I do not think such is good writing. Of course a first person narrative will have reflections of the protagonist and will have quite a bit of telling instead of showing. But those passages I have in mind really seem to be telling the reader fairly obvious stuff twice or more just in case he could have missed in the first place.

I concede that telepathy with snarky wolf cubs might be a question of personal taste (yes, I don't like dogs, I don't really like any domestic animals) but in contrast to how comparably subtle the Wit is handled in the first book, I find this MUCH weaker in the second (at about 30% through). In the first book she really tries to convey that animals do NOT think and talk like humans but manages to describe the more primeval impressions/emotions experienced through the Wit quite well. Now the wolf basically "talks" like a laconic and snarky human. Totally lame.

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10 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 

I concede that telepathy with snarky wolf cubs might be a question of personal taste (yes, I don't like dogs, I don't really like any domestic animals) but in contrast to how comparably subtle the Wit is handled in the first book, I find this MUCH weaker in the second (at about 30% through). In the first book she really tries to convey that animals do NOT think and talk like humans but manages to describe the more primeval impressions/emotions experienced through the Wit quite well. Now the wolf basically "talks" like a laconic and snarky human. Totally lame.

You have no soul ;)

I finished James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy. I enjoyed all of the novels, but unlike his LA Quartet, which slowly improved from novel to novel (in general; White Jazz was def a step down from LA Confidential, though I enjoyed it) I felt the Underworld USA trilogy peaked with American Tabloid, the first novel. I would put American Tabloid on par with LA Confidential as Ellroy's best. Basically American Tabloid > The Cold Six Thousand > Blood's a Rover. The trilogy was highly enjoyable, if dark and gruesome. Ellroy really upped the violence in this trilogy.  He also nailed the 60s zeitgeist. Looking forward to Perfidia and the second LA series, but on to something else first  for a change of pace.

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Read King Rat by China Melville, loved it. His prose is pretty great, the world felt unique but not too out there like some of his other stuff - pretty much like a darker, more primal and nastier version of American Gods.

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4 hours ago, Talleyrand said:

Read King Rat by China Melville, loved it. His prose is pretty great, the world felt unique but not too out there like some of his other stuff - pretty much like a darker, more primal and nastier version of American Gods.

 

I finished this recently as well and I also got an American Gods vibe.  It could be just because of a certain character.  Pretty good book.

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Hobb: I'm not criticizing but I agree with Jo that the writing is good but not stellar, there's no special world building, the wolf voice is implausibly like a sarcastic teenager (not a big deal), and overall the central appeal of her books is over-wrought emo tragedy, which just doesn't appeal to me that much.  (Just like the movie Beaches doesn't appeal that much).  But I know lots of people like them a lot. 

I just read Midair, a Kindle First book that is definitely not my typical genre but was pretty good.  Since I've been feeling stuck in a rut with SF/F, it was a good change.  The premise is a self-pitying emo girl just finished high school is on her way to Paris with friends and intends to commit suicide there.  As her older self is narrating this and alluding to some other tragedy on that trip, we know to expect something else.  If you can accept that teenagers are self-absorbed and self-pitying without being particularly self-aware, then it's a decent modern coming-of-age story.  Combined with the Taken movies, you'd wonder why any high school girls are allowed to visit Paris alone. 

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Just finishing off Grisha number 2. Tepid, forced romantic situations, jolly princes playacting. Just dire. Deciding whether to read #3 or not because it just arrived at the library for me. Number 1 had just enough going for it to catch my interest (special snowflake discovers how special she is and falls under the spell of dark, compelling, mysterious and feared man. My standards are not high) but number two is just trudging around plotwise. Very middle book, very dull.

I think I'm going to treat myself to some Claire North, Mike Carey, or finally putup/shutup about reading War and Peace.

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14 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Hobb: I'm not criticizing but I agree with Jo that the writing is good but not stellar, there's no special world building, the wolf voice is implausibly like a sarcastic teenager (not a big deal), and overall the central appeal of her books is over-wrought emo tragedy, which just doesn't appeal to me that much.

I think it is better than that in the good bits. As I said, the Wit was handled well in the first book. But it almost completely loses its "magic" by being made explicit with that wolf cub. The warging bits were not my favorites in ASoIaF either but they are generally far better than those ridiculous "dialogues" with the bloody wolf.

And I usually don't care that much about an implausible world/society etc. But it seems somewhat lazy not even to try some halfway realistic governmental structures. As far as we told the government of the six duchies consists of a king-in-waiting, an old king on the brink of dotage and a secret spymaster (+ apprentice). (For all we are told, the younger son Regal does not contribute much.) No general, no admiral, no high priest (there is talk of gods but no details about the organized religion), no chancellor, counselors, head clerks, treasurers. There are guilds (including one of puppeteers!) mentioned but there is no guild master of the shipwrights who could relieve Verity from personally overseeing shipbuilding etc.? We are told how important Chivalry was and how well he handled his tasks. But he must have had some staff as well? Where are they? His most important (only mentioned!) companion was a stable-master, not even a cavalry lieutenant? Sorry, but the 8th century Anglo-Saxons or Vikings had more administrative structures than that and the Six duchies seem more like high/late middle ages in other respects.

The best thing in the second book so far is the Fool and maybe it now (still at about 30%) it slowly gets going. But I really hate the wolf and the soppy Molly stuff. And I even like Dickens... ;)

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Finished Necessary Evil. It definitely addressed many of my concerns from earlier in the series, and I think on the whole it was the best of the Triptych (though The Coldest War had the better ending).

 

While it was nice to have Gretel more as a character and less as a plot device, I'm still genuinely puzzled about her murder of Will. I get that she's mad, but it felt a bit out of nowhere.

Also, the Twins get mangled into the same place by the Eidolons because they have the same blood - shouldn't the same have happened to the Elder and Younger Marsh?

Next up is Stormrider, by David Gemmell.

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20 hours ago, brunhilda said:

Just finishing off Grisha number 2. Tepid, forced romantic situations, jolly princes playacting. Just dire. Deciding whether to read #3 or not because it just arrived at the library for me. Number 1 had just enough going for it to catch my interest (special snowflake discovers how special she is and falls under the spell of dark, compelling, mysterious and feared man. My standards are not high) but number two is just trudging around plotwise. Very middle book, very dull.

Book 3 was no better.  But Six of Crows, the first of the follow up series in the same world was pretty entertaining.

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Finished my re-read of Leviathan Wakes. Hadn't realized it had been over 3 years since I first read. Even with watching the show, I had forgotten a lot. Great book. It was my favorite of the first three, largely due to Miller who is just a fantastic character. Next up I'll be re-reading Caliban's War.

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