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December 2017: Better Late Than Never


williamjm

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Finished The Crusades  by Thomas Asbridge, a non-fiction history from 1090 to 1291.  A very well written history and a good read.  

Now, after that, I’m definitely ready for a novel with some characterization, uncertainty and an unknown world to explore, so I picked up Fell Sword by Miles Cameron, #2 in the Red Knight/Traitor Son cycle. 

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On Thursday I finished Thud!, while it was good you could tell that the quality of Pratchett's writing was off from his best.

I began reading Wintersmith on Thursday to continue my read through the Discworld series and catching up on my schedule to finish the series sometime in mid-2018.

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Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained. 1950s West Texas drought and a rancher's dogged perseverance in face of the mounting setbacks caused by it. Charlie Flagg is a great character. I can see why The Western Writers of America voted Kelton the greatest western writer of all time.

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I finished up Bernard Cornwell's Fools and Mortals. It's not his usual fare but it's clearly based on a subject he's pretty enthusiastic about. It's interesting to see him trying something different but Shakespeare and the birth of modern theatre isn't a subject I'm that enthusiastic about myself so I only found it an ok read.

I'm not sure what I'll read next, maybe The Prisoner of Limnos or I'll get back to trying to finish Tai-Pan.

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Yesterday I finished Wintersmith, enjoying it very much.

I started Atlantis: The Eighth Continent by Charles Berlitz yesterday.  This is just a short book which basically makes claims that scientific discoveries are beginning to prove that Atlantis existed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was published in the mid-80s, I expect to find that the author has no idea what the author is talking about scientifically.  I bought this book from a used book store probably in the late 90s or early 00s and it's just been sitting on my shelf since, so I'm going to read it and then probably sell it off.

It's getting to the end of the year and I'm just looking for short books on my shelf to either read or reread through the 31st.

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I finished Ian Esslemont's Deadhouse Landing. I enjoyed it, although I think I probably slightly preferred Dancer's Lament - maybe because the story was slightly less familiar in that one. It's unusually concise for a Malazan novel at less than 400 pages but still managed to pack quite a lot in and despite knowing how things were going to unfold in the long run it was still interesting to see the details of how they occurred.

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Finished out the Old Man's War series with The Human Division and The End of All Things. I skimmed through Zoe's Tale but couldn't really get through it because it takes place in parallel with the plot of The Last Colony (but told through a different character's perspective). After The Last Colony, I was more interested with seeing how the future events unfolded.

Picked up A Deepness in the Sky since my library had it. Will be reading it before A Fire Upon the Deep as a consequence but looking forward to it.

On 12/11/2017 at 11:18 PM, Teng Ai Hui said:

Last month, I read books 3 & 4 in the Heartstrikers series by Rachel Aaron (aka Rachel Bach). 

This month, I finished Old Man's War.  Now, I am reading the sequel, The Ghost Brigades.

Has anyone read anything by John Scalzi outside of his OMW series?  If so, what did you think of it?

I've read Fuzzy Nation and Redshirts. Redshirts won the Hugo, which while entertaining, I found surprising. They're both similar to the Old Man's War series in terms of being short novels, lots of wit and humor, easy prose and fast reads. Neither of them are space operas or has the same scope or as large a cast of characters as the OMW series. I find the original Old Man's War novel to be the best Scalzi novel of all of them.

Ultimately, I find Scalzi to be a great author when I want sci-fi that's entertainingly quick and easy and not massive, complex and technologically/culturally dense .  

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13 minutes ago, House Balstroko said:

I’m finishing of The Great Ordeal and then I’ll be jumping on to The Unholy Consult. How do you people read 500 + page novels in a day? It usually takes me at least a week to go through one.

 

 

Well, me, personally, I don't sub vocalize. Took me a long time to figure out that's why I read fast though.

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I'm about a third of the way into Steph Swainston's Fair Rebel. I've always enjoyed her Fourlands books, so it's good to see a new instalment, even if I'm sometimes struggling slightly to remember the details of what happened before since it's probably been about a decade since I read the preceding book (not counting the prequel she did in between).

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I've been really enjoying Ward, the sequel to Worm. It's very slow paced so far, which is fine by me.

I'm also reading Tana French's the Secret Place, the most Irish book I've read in ages.

Twig is taking its toll on me - it really is a book that benefits from spacing out your read as much as possible.

I stopped mid-series for the Witcher books. Will continue once I finish more of the books up above. I'm enjoying them, but I feel like I might be running out of patience for them.

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Finished Atlantis: The Eighth Continent yesterday, it was what it was.  More useful for various archaeological and monumental structures than the author's theory on Atlantis in the mid-Atlantic.

I started Ancient Mysteries by Rupert Furneaux, this is more what scientists have figured out about various ruins and locations, both well known and those not celebrated.  So far it's an interesting read. 

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Finished reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban  by JK Rowling. It is more of a reread but with all the illustrations I am including it as a new read. Love the illustrations and this is one of my favourite HP books. Can't wait to see the others illustrated. 

All I need to finish my challenge is 3 more books. I can possibly finish 1 more but I dont think I can finish 2. 
I am currently reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, a big colloction of Winnie the Pooh and Metro Winds  by Isoblle Carmody. The last 2 I might be able to finish on the weekend, but I have work too so who knows. 

I would just like to finish my goal for once :( 

 

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I'm almost done with my It reread and it's still one of my favorite books. I figured I'd reread it before watching the new adaptation. Although I'm still bummed that it apparently doesn't have a certain scene. :( I'll try to read another book before year end. Either Matter or The Reality Dysfunction

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Have been doing some reading over break. I read Caraval by Stephanie Garber which was a rather charming YA fantasy romance/adventure story. I enjoyed the writing despite its bent towards purpleness and it was fun and twisty and I was onboard with the main pairing. On the flip side of that, I read The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi. This is also a YA fantasy romance story, somewhat like a retelling of Hades/Persephone with an Indian setting. This one I did not enjoy very much. The writing was too silly and overwrought, the main pairing was pretty meh, and I felt like the author just didn't deliver on what should have been an excellent premise.

I also read Crosstalk by Connie Willis, a modern day sci-fi romance. Honestly I swear I didn't set out to read so many romances, I was just picking non-series stuff that was available from the library! Anyway, this one is not YA (although it basically could be, it's a very chaste romance), and I enjoyed it a lot. It was a bit silly in places but it was a lot of fun and I did enjoy the main couple here.

I have another library book, Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, ready to go. I am celebrating Christmas with my family this weekend and I anticipate getting an Amazon giftcard, so then I can buy a couple ones I've been wanting to get my hands on.

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Mary Beard's, SPQR. Engaging overview of Ancient Rome from the beginnings up to Caracalla's mass granting of Roman citizenship in 212 CE. Nice refresher on historical events. The strongest parts are those dealing with social aspects of the Roman Empire.

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