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December Reads -almost time for the Holidays!


mashiara

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MST has gotten a lot better - about 30% through the first book. Still not something I'd pick out for myself. Also read New Cthulhu, which was a collection of Lovecraft inspired relatively recent stories. It was good enough but nothing about it really blew me away. What I mostly appreciated was being able to get into reading something short without a huge commitment of time and attention.

I read MST this year and here's something I learned:

Once Simon's out of the Hayholt things really start clicking in the story. Once he returns to the Hayholt via the ruins of Asu'a it slows down some before a awesome climax. For some reason when Williams writes Simon in the Hayholt everything slows.

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Ok, finally finished Mage's Blood, and it turned out to be pretty good. Rough start, and I really disliked one of the PoV's (not the character itself,but everything about the story arc). Still need to think on it but for now I will call it Bakker Lite. A TON of real world similarities, which at first bugged me but eventually I just went with it. Decent detail and real nice build up, but lacking the visual punch Bakker gives.



Grabbed a Le Guin book from the library, but a bit unsure about it now. Anyone read Gifts? Not that it matters, it is so short I will be halfway through it before I check the thread again.


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Grabbed a Le Guin book from the library, but a bit unsure about it now. Anyone read Gifts? Not that it matters, it is so short I will be halfway through it before I check the thread again.

It's good, but not really one of Le Guin's best. Of course, even a minor Le Guin work is better than most everything out there IMO.

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Finished American Gods the other day. It doesn't really do anything new or different, but it's by Neil Gaiman so of course it's well written. I enjoyed it quite a bit and will check out the sequel later.



Read GRRM's "The Princess and the Queen" this morning, but I haven't decided if I'll read the rest of Dangerous Women or if I'll pick up one of two story collections: Peter Watt's Beyond the Rift or Yoon Ha Lee's Conservation of Shadows.



My next novel read will be The Ides of April, the first book in Lindsey Davis' new historical mystery series.


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I finished The Fall of Ventaris, the second book by boarder TrackerNeil and Daniel Ravipinto. I thought it was a very entertaining read, and did a good job of expanding the world (the bits exploring the city's three religious cults were particularly good, as were the ventures into the underground tunnels) and adding some interesting supporting characters. Duchess' ever-increasing number of plots all going on simultaneously was fun, although some of the plans she came up with did seem a bit over-ambitious and in a couple of cases the resolutions to the plots seemed slightly too easy. I'm curious how many books are planned in the series?



I'm now reading Brandon Sanderson's first Mistborn book, The Final Empire. I think it's reasonably good so far, although the ideas are perhaps better than the writing, which feels a bit simplistic at times. The characters are likeable and the world-building original, but they both often feel a bit lacking in depth.


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A few days ago I finished Stephen King's Dr Sleep. It was a really good read but if someone is looking for a direct sequel to The Shining they'd be disappointed. Besides, King is a different man now than when he wrote the Shining, it shows. One thing that bothered me, the villains in this book just didn't feel scary enough, I expected better.



I also finished Jim Butcher's Cold Days. It was Ok. I'm not a huge fan of the Dresden series and I'm only reading them because my brother buys them. I can say it was an improvement compared to the previous one, which I thought was pretty bad.



I'm now starting The Goldfinch by Donna Tart. I have the big hardcover version so I was waiting for the holidays to read it. Not sure I can finish it before the end of the year, but we'll see.


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Wonderful seasonal reading. Some talk of it here, if you're interested.

This year's terrific seasonal read for me was Hild by Nicola Griffith.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

After days of indecision, I decided to read The Dying of the Light next. There's no chance in hell I will finish it this year, though.

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Just finished Dangerous Women. As an anthology I can't give it more than three stars as it's so patchy.

I've been buying lots of ebooks these past few days. Just need to settle on one of them to attempt to complete my reading goal for 2013. Might try The Maze Runner. Anyone read this? Supposed to be similar to The Hunger Games. There is a film out next Autumn.

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I've completed The Kobayashi Maru, The Hobbit, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone within the last 12 days.



I'll be reading a book, Adventism in America: A History, during my lunch hour tomorrow but it's just a filler to keep from being bored and will be an "on-and-off" read throughout the next year until it's finished. The reason for this is that it's a collection of essays by various Adventist historians on different periods/eras of the Adventist experience since the 1830s to the mid 1980s (when the book was originally published), it's mostly personal interest and not something I need to finish ASAP.



On the 31st, I'll be purchasing A Memory of Light which I'll begin the next day.


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