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August Reading 2017


RedEyedGhost

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I finished Lord of Chaos. This one slows down a lot, but I knew Dumai's Wells was coming so it felt a bit like the calm before the storm. Damn DW gets me every time, Rand in the box and the Asha'man using their power and Rand being so dumb about Taim...

Started A Crown of Swords but not really in a rush to finish it, except for the fact that for some reason the library only has the first 6 books as ebooks so now I've had to switch to hard copies, and I am moving sorta soon. I own the last 4 books myself, so I just need to get through ACOS, Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, and Crossroads of Twilight before then--aka the very best part of the series! /s

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On 8/10/2017 at 9:34 PM, Starkess said:

I'm the opposite. I feel like I waited for the whole series for it to be as good as LW again. Probably because I rather dislike Holden and Miller is my favorite. :) Book 5 got there.

I am not a fan of Holden either.  When I reviewed Abaddon's Gate I said he could die off for all I care. =) 

But the second book adds Bobbie and Avarasala!  And as I am currently rereading it I am remembering how much more I liked them.

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I finished "Jingo" a few days ago. It was good, but not among the best discworld (somewhat too preachy and predictable).

Earlier (probably mostly in June) I read my first non-SoIaF by George Martin: Tuf Voyaging, a volume of loosely connected novellas/short stories. This was pretty good; the first story is really good, the rest is a mixed bag and I had to take a break because the protagonists very quickly develops from likeable underdog to insufferably righteous after he has acquired great powers (this is even acknowledged in the last story but most of the time we apparently are so sympathize with his righteousness because his clients/opponents are so very stupid).

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Finished Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, a historical fiction that was rec'd in one of these threads.  Set in New York in 1746, the prose and dialogue is as stylized as you would expect, plus carries an enjoyable cadence & rhythm throughout.  It's more of a literary fiction than plot-driven, and the protagonist's mysterious agenda is far too easy to guess, but I enjoyed it and would recommend.  It definitely suffers from the protagonist sharing too many of our modern sensibilities, but that's often the case in historic fiction. 

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David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing. I love Fischer's work. He never loses sight of narrative even with the inclusion of so much detail about the subject. Besides Fischer's strengths as a writer of history, I appreciate his inclusion of appendices and a historiography of the Delaware crossing and Battle of Trenton. The historiography was very interesting.

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I just finished THE SCAR by China Mieville.   Really loved it, interesting premise, city made of ships and boats, the main character not a real likeable person (great character tho).  About three quarters of the way through I leaned that Perdido Street Station was the first book of this world, although The Scar is not a sequel.  So PSS is on the reading stack.   Now have read three of Mieville's books, The City and The City and Kraken.  So far, The Scar is the one I like the best.

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25 minutes ago, House Balstroko said:

Almost done with American Gods. I can't wait to check out the show. Without going into spoilers, how much of the novel does the first season cover and how faithful of an adaptation is it?

1. Covers around the first third of the book.

2. Very faithful. The roles of some characters are expanded and work quite well.

Had some issues with the pacing of the show but that should be alot more palatable if you binge watch.

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I read @TrackerNeil and Daniel Ravipinto's third book, The Ruling Mask, which I thought was another entertaining book in the series. I like the way the backstory and world-building (or city-building since it almost entirely takes place inside a single city) get progressively more complex as the series progresses and Duchess finds out more about the place she lives in. To begin with I was struggling slightly to remember who some of the supporting cast were since it's been a while since I read The Fall of Ventaris but I managed to figure it out.

Now I'm about halfway through Yoon Ha Lee's The Raven Stratagem, which seems similar in quality to Ninefox Gambit. It does have a different feel to it due to not being told from Kel Cherris' perspective, it is interesting to see events from a different point-of-view. There's some good intrigue here where there are clearly significant differences between how things appear to the point-of-view characters and what's really going on.

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On 8/15/2017 at 5:24 AM, Isis said:

Is this about recruiting or something else?

Both about recruiting (of both students and professors) by American and foreign intelligence and about everything else under the sun that both sides do when it involves academia.

On 8/15/2017 at 8:13 AM, Peadar said:

They're watching this thread to see who responds :uhoh:

It seems you know too much...

===

I was on vacation this last week, completed Monstrous Regiment on Monday and thought it was really good though certain "surprises" weren't really surprising by the time they happened in the book because you figured they'd happen.  I enjoyed it, but now I realize I've only got 10 books left in the Discworld series to go.

For the rest of my vacation I started catching up on one of my exclusive "home" read Leaves of Grass: First and "Death-Bed" Editions by Walt Whitman, primarily the First Edition.

Heading back to work tomorrow and I'll be starting a reread of the "ancient alien" classic The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin.

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17 hours ago, Garett Hornwood said:

 

I was on vacation this last week, completed Monstrous Regiment on Monday and thought it was really good though certain "surprises" weren't really surprising by the time they happened in the book because you figured they'd happen.  I enjoyed it, but now I realize I've only got 10 books left in the Discworld series to go.

 

Sadly you are about to watch the quality drop fairly dramaticly.  Going Postal is fun and the Aching books are mostly strong but there isnt another Small Gods or Night Watch to grab and there are a couple that should have never been released (Unseen Academicals).

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6 hours ago, SkynJay said:

Sadly you are about to watch the quality drop fairly dramaticly.  Going Postal is fun and the Aching books are mostly strong but there isnt another Small Gods or Night Watch to grab and there are a couple that should have never been released (Unseen Academicals).

Yeah, I knew it was coming.  I didn't know if Monstrous Regiment was the start or not, but except with Aching I'm nervous about what I'll be picking up from the shelf.

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I finished The Unholy Consult, which I thought was a return to form for Bakker after the fairly lackluster The Great Ordeal.

Spoiler

It was, however, rather disappointing as a conclusion to the series. TTT provided an altogether more satisfying ending from both a plot and character perspective.

Next on the reading list is either The Shipping News or Exit West.

On ‎19‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 11:54 PM, Nasty LongRider said:

I just finished THE SCAR by China Mieville.   Really loved it, interesting premise, city made of ships and boats, the main character not a real likeable person (great character tho).  About three quarters of the way through I leaned that Perdido Street Station was the first book of this world, although The Scar is not a sequel.  So PSS is on the reading stack.   Now have read three of Mieville's books, The City and The City and Kraken.  So far, The Scar is the one I like the best.

Yeah I think The Scar is easily his best novel. I've tried most of his other works but have never enjoyed them as much, although I would rank PSS at #2.

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I read Exit West for my book club and it was kind of irritating. Possibly it was meant to be like that?

I have just read The Refrigerator Monologues (also for my book club) and am currenly enjoying Francis Spufford's Golden Hill.

Actually I am looking for a little help with my book club discussion (I picked the book this month). I thought there might be some on here already. Is it worth me starting a thread? Have enough people here read The Refrigerator Monologues to join in? I am interested in the parallels between the original stories and the apparent parody versions. I get some of them but my knowledge of comics isn't super in depth...

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Finished A Crown of Swords. As slow as I remembered! Started The Path of Daggers. I always hate the prologues, but should be better going once I get into it. I don't like to stop in the middle of a series so I'm on this train for a while yet!

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3 hours ago, Starkess said:

Finished A Crown of Swords. As slow as I remembered! Started The Path of Daggers. I always hate the prologues, but should be better going once I get into it. I don't like to stop in the middle of a series so I'm on this train for a while yet!

The prologues in the middle WoT books are extremely irritating, and they go on for so long!

On the other hand the climaxes are usually incredible. 

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I am re-reading (listening to) Assassin's Apprentice.  I have read it twice yet never moved on in the series.  I have decided to finally get on with it.  A third of the way in and I am remembering almost nothing except that the references to the red ships are sparking a memory but I can't remember their significance.  So I guess its been a while since my last read through.

I am about 3/4 done with Old Man's War, my first Scalzi.  I have followed him on twitter and enjoyed his website but never taken the time to read him.  The book is enjoyable, and he can be outright funny at times, but it sure feels a lot like starship troopers.  Not sure if it is going to spark a desire to move on to Ghost Brigades or not.

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I finished Yoon Ha Lee's Raven Stratagem. I thought it was good, although perhaps I preferred Ninefox Gambit a bit, I found the mystery of trying to work out what was actually motivating the characters to be more compelling in the first book, whereas in the second we know a lot more about their motivations and it's more a question of trying to discern their strategy. I liked the Shuos Mikodez chapters, it was never really obvious what he was going to do next, but I think everything he did made sense from his perspective. It's definitely a unique setting and I like that way that even though the world it is set in is a horrifying dystopia and almost all the characters are responsible for doing terrible things that it is still possible to sympathise with them and the story does have some lighter moments.

Next up I think I'll read Lois McMaster Bujold's new Penric story.

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On 8/21/2017 at 4:06 AM, Paxter said:

 

  Hide contents

Next on the reading list is either The Shipping News or Exit West.

Yeah I think The Scar is easily his best novel. I've tried most of his other works but have never enjoyed them as much, although I would rank PSS at #2.

I read The Shipping News a while back.   Thought it was an odd little story, but likable. 

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This month I've finished two of my most anticipated books of this year - Infernal Machines by John Hornor Jacobs and Blackthorne by Stina Liecht.  Both were excellent.  The former was the final book in a trilogy that's kind of a mash up of fantasy, horror, and alternate history and it wrapped things up quite nicely without putting a ribbon on everything.  Very underrated series (and author).  The latter is the second book in a series of who knows how many books, probably three, but only Liecht knows at this point.  We get three new POVs and I really enjoyed all of them, even more so than one of the original POVs (Ilta), they're all very different from the originals as well.  A quick perusal of her twitter makes it seem progress on her next book is coming along nicely, although I'm unsure of whether or not it is the next book in this series because she loves to retweet.  Damn do I ever hate reading authors' twitters.  

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