Maester Llama Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 I remember MS&T very fondly and it is my intention to read it again, and "mooncalf" hurts even me. Finished S. M. Wheeler's fairy tale Sea Change, about a merchant lord's cursed daughter who befriends a kraken as a child and then sets out to rescue him when he gets captured and sold to a circus. I found it pleasingly disorienting, though I can see why its gotten -- so far as I can tell -- some mixed responses: It lives by fairy tale logic, but its a really grim, earthy fairy tale, with lots of ripping-open of people and terrible sacrifices and few happy endings. The prose backs this up, because its fluid and poetical and lovely some of the time, but then it'll throw in some reference to grime or blood or bodily function, very unvarnished and direct, to -- it feels like deliberately -- unbalance the sense of this as any kind of ethereal tale. The characters, too, feel like they're occupying a kind of in-between space, but I think this might be deliberate and an interesting narrative choice. They're characterized, absolutely, but they're also acting out their roles in a fairy story, so they have very firm guiding principles and identifying traits. The story seasaws back and forth between emphasizing the characters' archetypal roles / traits and characterizing them more fully, insisting every time the reader starts getting comfortable with the fairy tale box a character occupies upon the fact that there is an irreducibly complex, unstereotypable human behind the archetype, even if we don't see this complexity all the time. The focus is on bodies, and the things they do / have done to them, and on growing up as a process of having things taken away from you, and, it seems to me, of learning to not mitigate that taking away but to at least direct how and why it is done. Unfortunately, I found the writing got really really murky occasionally when describing physical action in a scene, to a point at which I became confused about who was where and how they'd gotten there in moments with a lot of physical business in them. A spikey, troubling book, but one I'm very glad I read and another little-sung gem from last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Read books 1 and 2 of Sandersons first trilogy and taking a break before reading book 3. They were ok but nothing special. Currently reading The Strange Affair of Springheeled Jack, book 1 of Burton & Swinburne, a steampunk novel in an alternate Victorian Lindon. Enjoying it so far, the main character is Captain Sir Robert Burton, who was a real person and worth checking on wiki. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reposado Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 ive been going through some of elmore leonards lesser known stuff. the most recent was "raylan" this was absolutely terrible in every way. it sounded so much like someone trying in vain to stay with the times in 2012 but at the same time clearly lost touch at least a half decade earlier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3CityApache Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 I'm savouring the reread of The Baroque Cycle and I take my time doing so. It's just such an unbelievably complex book. I could read it forever. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
False Alarm Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Finished S. M. Wheeler's fairy tale Sea Change... had thought a bit about reading this one last year. your impressions are good info, thx for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 I finished Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation (wow, I haven't finished any fiction in ages) and through it was a bit of a mixed bag. I can see what he was going for, but he never quite got there, imo. It didn't do much for me as horror or being tense or the mystery (it just seemed silly) and by the time it came to a more interesting human point (it's only 150 pages, too) rather than just a few people wandering through a not particularly fascinating "weird" environment, I felt like I was reading a very long Scooby Doo episode stripped of the humor, whimsy and plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AncalagonTheBlack Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Just bought the ebook of Son of the Morning (Banners of Blood #1) by Mark Alder.Thank god for ebooks,otherwise i would have to carry around the 800 page paperbook. :D I really liked his previous series ,the Wolfsangel Cycle (wriiten under the pen name M.D. Lachlan) in which he dealt with vikings/norse myth with a dash of horror. This new series is an epic/historical fantasy set during the Hundred Years' War . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 I finished Rachel Bach's Fortune's Pawn. It was a fun book, and it got more interesting as it went on, there were some intriguing mysteries set up for later books in the series. The ending felt a bit abrupt, it's not a book that really stands on its own since very little is resolved, but I'll probably pick up the sequel soon. Next I'm reading Descent by Ken MacLeod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deleted01 Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Finished Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. It was.. not great. It started off alright, though a bit tedious at times, but it went off on weird tangents, and became quite annoying. Some parts weren't too bad, but others were pretty frustrating. The characters were quite annoying too, and the plot predictable. A shame, because I really enjoyed Fingersmith, and her other books weren't too bad either.Downloaded Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain on Kindle, so may give that a go next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 Just bought the ebook of Son of the Morning (Banners of Blood #1) by Mark Alder.Thank god for ebooks,otherwise i would have to carry around the 800 page paperbook. :D I really liked his previous series ,the Wolfsangel Cycle (wriiten under the pen name M.D. Lachlan) in which he dealt with vikings/norse myth with a dash of horror. This new series is an epic/historical fantasy set during the Hundred Years' War . Started this today. Good stuff, although I'm finding the prose a little awkward in places. I like what he's doing with with regards to the backstory of Ithekter, Lucifer et al. I wasn't aware of Wolfsangel, but I like the sound of it and will add it to my to be read pile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starkess Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I picked up Theodore Rex at a bookshop the other day, started it last night. Annoying to be reading a paperback (I managed to spill pasta sauce on like the second page and it won't stay open to the page I'm reading and blah blah I love my Kindle). So far it is interesting, but I have always been fascinated by presidential history, so this one probably wasn't going to disappoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferrum Aeternum Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 Finished House of Chains the other day and figured it was a good time for the break that everyone seems to need when reading Malazan. So after perusing this thread I started Blood Song last night. Really digging it through the first 100 pages or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowDogJen Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I finished Red Rising, and started Sand by Hugh Howey. Red Rising has a political message exploring caste systems in a society on colonized Mars. The castes have designated colors, with red the color of the lowest "slave" caste. The story follows Darrow, a red who is altered to infiltrate the highest level of "The Society" - the Golds (who are the ruling class). Red Rising started strong and kept me turning pages, but sadly became a more violent version of Hogwarts and there was a WTF? moment close to the end that threw me right out of the story. 3 stars. Sand is starting off pretty strong as well - it's a post-apocalyptic story where Earth is seemingly covered with sand. Sand divers dig deep for relics from the previous civilization and society is chaotic and desperate. I liked Wool alright so I hope I enjoy this one as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinevere Seaworth Posted April 18, 2014 Share Posted April 18, 2014 I'm a sucker for heists and thieves in fantasy settings, and as a result I liked Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling. The only drawback is that the main protagonist is a 16 year old boy. I'm getting mighty sick of reading teenaged protagonists! Still I plan on reading the next book.Now reading The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deleted01 Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 Started reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It's so weird, but fascinating. A good find, picked it up in a charity shop a few months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinevere Seaworth Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 I found The Great Gatsby a decent but a depressing novel. I was somehow expecting more for a great American classic. Now reading a non-fiction novel, Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution by Nick Lane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candre Posted April 19, 2014 Share Posted April 19, 2014 That last month my personal demons (neurological disorders) seriously effed me up. Got some time reading books though: Dust by Hugh Howey: Not a spectacular ending, but well done. I am looking forward to more novels in this universe. Molvania by Rob Stich: I am part Hungarian and really laughed lots about this mock style travel guide about a fictional central/eastern european country. Deutschland von Sinnen (literally Germany loosing its senses) by a guy called Akif Pirincci. I also laughed pretty hard while reading this. It´s the German-Turkish Version of an Ann Coulter book. You cannot take the content serouisly, but sure as hell be amused. Pirincci also has a way more interesting writing style than Coulter, he actually swears in every third sentence and talks about fucking, while condemning basically everything leftist and central. I also read some comics/graphic novels: Civil War and House of M of the Marvel universe: Both of full of ideas and extremly interesting world-building, but way too short to fulfill their potential. I am thinikg about reading some companion stuff. New Avengers Breakout also of the Marvel universe and Why I hate Saturn by Kyle Bakker, both can be described in one word: Meh... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 Finished Julian by Gore Vidal. Great novel. Not sure what's next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 Finished Julian by Gore Vidal. Great novel. Not sure what's next. The Iron King? :pETA: finished Iron King, going to wait until summer to read the remainder of the series. Will probably take a break from reading until my exams are out of the way in June now. Well, maybe just one or two books :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 The Iron King? :p :)I actually think I'm gonna give it a go here soon. Bargain priced at 2$ on my e-reader! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.