September 2016 Reads

[mushroomshirt]

1 hour ago, aceluby said:

Just finished Warrior Prophet and am moving on to The Thousandfold Thought.  Everything about this series is just gripping me.

I've been thinking about trying Bakker for a while now but have been a little scared.  I've heard it's a real commitment.  But then again I've heard that about ASOIAF too and I'm very happy I started reading that one.  Sounds like you took the plunge recently.  Was it difficult to get going?  I've heard about incomprehensible names of places and characters.

[aceluby]

Just now, mushroomshirt said:

I've been thinking about trying Bakker for a while now but have been a little scared.  I've heard it's a real commitment.  But then again I've heard that about ASOIAF too and I'm very happy I started reading that one.  Sounds like you took the plunge recently.  Was it difficult to get going?  I've heard about incomprehensible names of places and characters.

Well.... that does happen.  But there's a nice map in the back as well as a pronunciation guide.  All of the chapters are named after places, so it's just about figuring out where they are on the map.  If you keep reference it's not hard to follow.  I feel like I took it slow to really know where the places being talked about were located, but it made following the politics and undertones much easier to follow.  Definitely recommend it.

[Jo498]

I have only read the first 2.5 books of Bakker's but most confusing is the beginning of the first one because it has two "prologues" and then again action starts with different personnel and one is at a loss for quite a while how these strains are going to get together. Apart from that it is fairly straightforward narratively and there are fewer main characters than in GoT. The geography is not confusing (less than the first mapless First Law books).

[ljkeane]

Speaking of reading Kate Elliott the other day I was wondering when her next book would be coming out and after checking Amazon it turns out the answer was a few weeks ago. I just finished Poisoned Blade and like most of her books it was excellent. She really is very good at depicting the interactions between different cultures in her books and the well drawn characters and political backstabbing don't hurt either.

Before that I read Blake Charlton's Spellwright which unfortunately I didn't particularly like. He seems overly impressed with coming up with a magic system using spell to mean both magic spell and spell a word correctly at the same and it all feels like an overwrought way of making the hero being dyslexic a big deal. I'm not against authors using their own experiences to inform their stories and a character having to overcome those challenges is potentially interesting but introducing it into the story in a slightly more subtle way might have been better. 

[KiDisaster]

Continuing my Abercrombie re-read, I'm on to Best Served Cold now. It was my probably my least favorite of the three standalone novels, which is odd since I love Kill Bill & heist films so much (I know there's no 'heist' going on but it definitely shares some elements with the genre). 

One nice surprise is that the Steven Pacey version of the audiobook is available in the US now. There was some weird licensing issue before so you could only get the Pacey versions of Best Served Cold & The Heroes in Europe (or if you were willing to pirate it I suppose) and those of us in the US had to make do with the Michael Page version. I like Page, he does a fantastic job with the Gentleman Bastards books, but Pacey's performances of Abercrombie's work rank among the best I've ever heard from any audiobook. 

Really looking forward to jumping back into The Heroes after this. That was my favorite of the novels. 

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Loved The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham!  Can't wait to get The Spider's War from the library.

Now reading The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian.

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Speaking of reading Kate Elliott the other day I was wondering when her next book would be coming out and after checking Amazon it turns out the answer was a few weeks ago. I just finished Poisoned Blade and like most of her books it was excellent. She really is very good at depicting the interactions between different cultures in her books and the well drawn characters and political backstabbing don't hurt either.

Before that I read Blake Charlton's Spellwright which unfortunately I didn't particularly like. He seems overly impressed with coming up with a magic system using spell to mean both magic spell and spell a word correctly at the same and it all feels like an overwrought way of making the hero being dyslexic a big deal. I'm not against authors using their own experiences to inform their stories and a character having to overcome those challenges is potentially interesting but introducing it into the story in a slightly more subtle way might have been better. 

I'm reading The Poisoned Blade now. Not quite as good as the first but I only say that cause I read the first in one sitting, and I didn't do that with this.

I remember I liked the first Charlton book enough but the second one was dull. The third finally came out and my OCD says I must finish it.

 

[C Rutherford]

Finally got to In the Shadow of the Gods by Rachel Dunne.  A bit of a mixed bag in the end.  The first half moves pretty fast but it drags in the second and spends too much time as a set-up.  And the various viewpoint characters felt like she was lathering, rinsing and repeating that didn't work when she also had jumps in time that just felt at odds with the step by step style. 

Still I never felt tempted to set it aside and start something else.  So while it slowed it did not completely frustrate so that says something I guess.  I definitely will read the next one.  I was trying to think in terms of "if you liked __________; you might like this".  Maybe Jennifer Fallon but more along the lines of Second Sons than the odd balance of looming death and twee in some of her other works (her deities can be way too precious).

Hopefully the next book will be a little tighter and build quicker now we have this set up out of the way.

I'm torn between The Forgetting Moon by Brian Durfee and revised The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington.  The latter didn't take hold when I read the first chapter but it does have a sequel out in less time than the former.  I also have both Andy Livingstone's 'Hero' books and haven't read back to back books in a series in awhile and have heard decent things about those.  So...

[HexMachina]

2 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Continuing my Abercrombie re-read, I'm on to Best Served Cold now. It was my probably my least favorite of the three standalone novels, which is odd since I love Kill Bill & heist films so much (I know there's no 'heist' going on but it definitely shares some elements with the genre). 

One nice surprise is that the Steven Pacey version of the audiobook is available in the US now. There was some weird licensing issue before so you could only get the Pacey versions of Best Served Cold & The Heroes in Europe (or if you were willing to pirate it I suppose) and those of us in the US had to make do with the Michael Page version. I like Page, he does a fantastic job with the Gentleman Bastards books, but Pacey's performances of Abercrombie's work rank among the best I've ever heard from any audiobook. 

Really looking forward to jumping back into The Heroes after this. That was my favorite of the novels. 

I love Best Served Cold, though I've not yet read all the other Standalones. The characters impressed me more than the First Law trilogy and I thoroughly enjoyed the twists that made the typical revenge tale that bit more interesting. 

Steven Pacey is incredible on the audiobook. He has such a great range of voices for the different characters. I think his Morveer was my favourite from BSC.

[KiDisaster]

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I love Best Served Cold, though I've not yet read all the other Standalones. The characters impressed me more than the First Law trilogy and I thoroughly enjoyed the twists that made the typical revenge tale that bit more interesting. 

Steven Pacey is incredible on the audiobook. He has such a great range of voices for the different characters. I think his Morveer was my favourite from BSC.

Yeah his Morveer is great. It's nice to hear it differently than the first time. I didn't much like Page's version of Nicomo Cosca, it was very theatrical and like...faux-posh. I can't think of how else to describe it and I can't seem to find any samples of the Michael Page version anymore. Pacey's seedy, weasely version of Cosca is so much better.

[Garett Hornwood]

Finished The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba last Friday, great read.

I'm over halfway through The Fifth Elephant as part of my read through of Discworld, enjoying another Watch adventure though the Colon-Nobby subplot looks like it might be something that brings down the book's quality rather than enhancing it.

[The Wolves]

Reading The Maltese Falcon it's a crime noir which I really like so I'm enjoying it. 

[Starkess]

On 9/5/2016 at 9:22 AM, Durckad said:

I just finished Abaddon's Gate last night and, as with Caliban's War, I thought it was a bit of a step down from the prior books. Whereas I really liked Caliban's War quite a bit for the most part (aside from one POV section), Abaddon's Gate I merely 'liked.' I think the major difference between them comes down to the fact that the new POV's weren't as interesting or fun to read as Bobbie's or Avasarala's or even Miller's. I did like Anna, Bull was... okay, good for moving the plot forwards but not terribly interesting, and Melba was interesting though I'm not sure I enjoyed reading her chapters all that much. And, of course, Holden is typical Holden.

  Hide contents

I did like the reveals about the proto-molecule and the general sciencey weirdness regarding the station and the slow zone and I thought the book was best when it focused on that, especially the scenes dealing with the massive deceleration and how much shit gets wrecked as a result of it. But the end doesn't deal much with that and ultimately devolves into humans shooting at each other. Which is fine because action and explosions are fun, but this almost felt as if it came out of nowhere. Not only was there very little build up to the coup but Ashford's decent into complete insanity just felt tacked on. He was also the least compelling 'villain' in any of the books so far. At least Mao and Nguyen from CW had fairly logical motivations, Ashford just went crazy because the plot required him to do so. 

So, a good book, but I really hope Cibola Burn is a bit better. I really don't want each book to be a step down from the one prior.

I started on Justin Cronin's The Passage. It's been sitting on my Kindle for a couple of years now so I think it's time to finally read it.

That sounds like pretty much exactly how I feel about The Expanse. Unfortunately, I found Cibola Burn to be the weakest in the series. I mean, still good, but a step down. I'm still excited to go on to Nemesis Games.

[Darth Richard II]

Heh, I actually think I like each expanse book better than the previous, but I've found its one if those series where opinions on which one is better varies widely.

[HexMachina]

9 hours ago, KiDisaster said:

Yeah his Morveer is great. It's nice to hear it differently than the first time. I didn't much like Page's version of Nicomo Cosca, it was very theatrical and like...faux-posh. I can't think of how else to describe it and I can't seem to find any samples of the Michael Page version anymore. Pacey's seedy, weasely version of Cosca is so much better.

He also narrates the short story collection and has a brief interview alongside Joe at the end. Joe also narrates one of the stories too, I found it very enjoyable. I don't listen to many audiobooks but I really got into these

[David Selig]

I finished Kij Johnson's new novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe. It was excellent. It takes place in Lovecraft's Dreamlands but the main character is a 55 year old woman and it's quite explicitly feminist. Also the prose is much better than Lovecraft's (at least IMO, I've never been particularly impressed by Lovecraft's style). The climax is particularly strong, but the whole novella is well worth the read. 

[beniowa]

I finished The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe and Lord of the Darkwood, both of which were quite good.

Now reading Wild Cards 23: High Stakes. 

[Argonath Diver]

I'm about halfway through my second read of Words of Radiance. I wince fairly often at the mish-mash of modern and 'fantasy' styled dialogue, and plenty of the inner monologues have me rolling my eyes. That said, enough the-plot-thickens sort of things are happening that make me expect the third novel will be fun to read, as well. Sanderson sure is talented at intriguing ideas - I particularly enjoy this series' exploration of the crustacean-dominant fauna and rocky flora, and haven't tired yet of the journal page illustrations. Perhaps that's due to Dinotopia being a dear part of my childhood. Nice pictures and cool big bugs can't keep me interested for an entire multi-million-word epic to be published over most of my middle years, so I do hope the over-arching plot stays intriguing.

After that, I'm going to dive into something China Mieville-written, to be decided next week.

[Durckad]

23 hours ago, Starkess said:

That sounds like pretty much exactly how I feel about The Expanse. Unfortunately, I found Cibola Burn to be the weakest in the series. I mean, still good, but a step down. I'm still excited to go on to Nemesis Games.

I've read similar elsewhere. Then again, I vaguely recall hearing from some other folks that Abaddon's Gate was the best book in the series and I clearly disagree with that. Maybe I'll end up liking Cibola Burn more than the popular consensus. 

23 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Heh, I actually think I like each expanse book better than the previous, but I've found its one if those series where opinions on which one is better varies widely.

Given time, I might have to revise my opinion on Caliban's War. The more I think on it, the more I like it. I think, at the time, it had to contend with my lofty expectations after Leviathan Wakes and very little survives the hype-train.

[RedEyedGhost]

Nemesis Games > Caliban's War > Leviathan Wakes > Abaddon's Gate > Cibola Burn