February 2015 Reads

[Hello World]

ABOUT TIME!!

PS: Ashara is Septon Meribald.

Thanks, Lyanna! (You might wanna spoiler that, though.) Do you have any recommendation as to what I should read before I start my next asoiaf re-read? Now that I’ve read both GRRM and Stanek I feel like there aren’t any good books left out there.

[Lyanna Stark]

Thanks, Lyanna! (You might wanna spoiler that, though.) Do you have any recommendation as to what I should read before I start my next asoiaf re-read? Now that I’ve read both GRRM and Stanek I feel like there aren’t any good books left out there.

I'm glad you asked, because I have just the thing for you.

[Mexal]

I finished Providence of Fire today and I don't really know what I think. For most of the book, I enjoyed it and I was caught up in the story but my biggest issue was that I hated more or less every decision that was made by the main characters and kept wishing they would be relegated to the background or ignored. Some of the revelations were interesting though.

[Hello World]

I'm glad you asked, because I have just the thing for you.

Thanks. Can’t believe I just got my hands on that Ishuäl chapter,

Prologue

Ten Years Earlier…

“Specimen twelve you have not been cooperating,” the head scientist said with anger. He knew the specimen had a name but he refused to use it because then it would make the creature appear more human, instead of the animal that he was.

Zen looked at the evil male with hate. “Why should I cooperate?”

“Your life can be hard or it can be less hard. Either way you will participate in the breeding experiments.”

“No.”

The scientist, instead of getting angrier, simply smiled at Zen. “You seem protective of the girls, especially the younger ones. It is too bad that I plan to initiate the breeding earlier than scheduled with them.”

“You can’t do that! The younger girls are not able to conceive yet!” Zen tried to go after the scientist but the neck restraint they put on him jerked him back.

“Easy. Don’t hurt yourself,” the female doctor next to the scientist told Zen. She looked at her boss. “Is this necessary?”

“He will participate or die,” the male scientist said uncaring.

“Leave the girls alone!” Zen yelled out. He glared at the male and female hating them with everything he had.

“Are you going to offer me something else?” the male asked.

Zen stopped struggling to eye the male. What could Zen do to keep the young ones safe? The only thing he had to offer was himself. It was a small price to pay. He sighed with resignation.

“What do you want?” Zen asked.

“I want your full cooperation in the breeding experiments,” the male scientist told him.

“I will not breed with the young girls.” Zen shook his head.

“Right. Here’s the deal, I’ll keep the younger girls out of the breeding experiments until they are older and able to conceive. You will breed with the more mature girls.”

“I will not force them to share sex with me and the drugs you try to use to get our compliance, does not affect me.”

“That’s true. Not sure why the drugs don’t work on your specific species mix. But it does work on the girls. The drug will make them beg to be fucked whether they want it or not.”

“Don’t! Using the drugs on them is the same as forcing them!” Zen pulled at the collar on him. He glanced briefly at the female doctor. She was always watching him.

The scientist smirked, “I guess you better learn how to convince the women they want to have sex with you then.”

[Night's_King]

On Providence of Fire again:

I agree that Adares storyline felt a little forced. The whole time I didn't understand if she did the things she did out of vengeance, for power or just out of idiocy. Well, I didn't understand it now, either.

I really liked that Gwenna got a POV. Valyns POV was the one I liked the least. Not, that I found it bad. I just didn't really liked it. My favourite storyline is Kaden's. I always like the mythology-heavy storylines most, when I read SFF.

So, for POV's: Kaden > Gwenna > Adare > Valyn.

I really can't wait to see what happens when Kaden and Adare meet. Just like I can't wait to see Daenerys find out about Aegon (fake or not).

Now going for some non-fiction: The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge.

[Mexal]

On Providence of Fire again:

I agree that Adares storyline felt a little forced. The whole time I didn't understand if she did the things she did out of vengeance, for power or just out of idiocy. Well, I didn't understand it now, either.

I really liked that Gwenna got a POV. Valyns POV was the one I liked the least. Not, that I found it bad. I just didn't really liked it. My favourite storyline is Kaden's. I always like the mythology-heavy storylines most, when I read SFF.

So, for POV's: Kaden > Gwenna > Adare > Valyn.

I really can't wait to see what happens when Kaden and Adare meet. Just like I can't wait to see Daenerys find out about Aegon (fake or not).

Now going for some non-fiction: The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge.

I liked Kaden's storyline the most as well and Valyn's the least. My issue with Valyn's is that he never listened. He was blinded by vengeance for a father he barely knew without understanding the greater context of the fight he was in. He ignored all opportunities to listen to reason and for that I wish he died and never showed up again. It just didn't make sense to me.

To me, the most interesting characters were Triste, Keil, Gwenna, Annick, The Flea, Tan, Tan'is, The First Speaker at the end. Basically, everyone that wasn't a Malkeenan. I wanted them all to die and the rest of the book to focus on the other characters

[williamjm]

Going to add that to my "to-read" list. I love the alternative Nazi history theories (who doesn't?) and TMitHC didn't sour me enough to completely go off books in that vein.

Thanks!

I liked Making History as well, it's a relatively light read compared to TMITHC but still has an interesting take on the eternal question of whether you should kill Hitler if you had a time machine. For something a bit grimmer I thought Robert Harris' Fatherland had maybe the most convincing portrayal of a triumphant Nazi Germany, it is a decent thriller/detective novel as well although it's an unusual mystery in the sense that the reader will inevitably realise what the end result of the main character's investigation will be a long time before he does.

I thought The Man In The High Castle was an interesting read, although I think I remember the concept and setting much better than any of the characters and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the ending.

[Garett Hornwood]

Finished Brave New World last night, it wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. The World State and the society were interesting constructions, however the story and the characters were just not that memorable.

I've begun reading Eric, looking forward to seeing what's going to happen in this Discworld book.

[Poète Lauréat]

Really enjoying ''Why everyone should be a feminist''. Very insightful on how women are being discriminated.

[Jo498]

Fatherland is probably the best of the "serious" Nazi AH books I know. Admittedly, I do not remember all details of the Dick, but as usual he has some ideas I find brilliant (the fake antique thing), even if the whole does not hang together seamlessly.

Interesting about Making history is also one of the intermediate twists

in one alternative timeline the US society (not conquered but in a Cold war with the victorious Nazis) is in the late 20th century stuck in a somewhat nazified 50s "family values" mindset with racial segregation, gay people in danger of being sent into jail etc.

[KiDisaster]

Finished my Gentleman Bastards re-read and now I've started on A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. It's loosely based on the true story of the Shower Posse gang, or so it seems so far. Starting with the attempted murder of Bob Marley at his home just before the peace concert in '76 and going right up through the '90s apparently.

It's pretty damn good so far, though I have to wonder how much trouble non-Jamaicans would have with it since most of the chapters are written in patois (it's simplified patois but still). Based on the reviews and awards it's gotten from a bunch of different places I suppose not too much. Still, there's a lot of slang in it you may have to Google as you're going through.

It's also packed to the brim with sexism and homophobia but that's true to life of Jamaica in the 70s and well, Jamaica today if we're being honest. Doesn't pull any punches either. The very first Bam Bam (one of the PoV characters) chapter lets you know in brutal detail exactly what you're getting yourself into regarding the content. It's hard to stomach.

Anyway, not too far in but so far I'm liking it.

[First of My Name]

I started Siegfried: A Black Idyll for school. It centers around a premise I find quite interesting: the main character, a writer, wishes to know what Hitler had been like in real life and builds a fictional situation (Hitler having a son called Siegfried), and applies what is known of the man to that situation. A what-if story inside a what-if story. I'm curious how Hitler will be portrayed in his alternative family life.

Also till reading Royal Assassin.

[Maester Llama]

Okay I lied: While I did get through some more Whitefire, which continues to delight me, I ended up spending a lot of yesterday finishing Staveley's The Emperor's Blades. So clearly it compelled me -- I haven't read anything this fast in quite a while. I like some things about it quite a bit. I liked how grueling the physical struggles were -- though on the other hand this does occasionally come off as a bit much. The world has some cool elements, especially the hawks, and the mythology seems rich and engaging enough to support a strong series, even if a lot of it initially feels like piling names on top of other names; it starts to get its feet under it by late in the book. As a couple people seem to be saying about Providence of Fire I'm not totally sold on the main characters, the imperial sibblings themselves, but some of the side characters I found fairly engaging, though unfortunately Staveley seems to think that part of putting together a hard-core fantasy involves making sure that most of the people in the world are gargantuan assholes, particularly if they're authority figures.

I found the plot compelling, thought it had good momentum. However, it did sometimes feel like the story's gears were showing. Things happen or do not happen at certain moments in order to direct the plot, of course, but I found that several times this turning of the mechanism got a little transparent -- I'll talk about one of these moments that I objected to for representational reasons in spoilers at the end, but one other that bugged me was the withholding of information, which seems to me to be done almost entirely for pacing reasons and mostly serves to make a couple of authority figures look like massive abusive dicks. I hope Adair's plot gets better. Lots better.

For a book full of commandos who ride on giant fucking hawks and monks who use double spears and emotionless monsters from before the dawn of timeTM ... well, ... I mean, ... it's all a bit dour isn't it? Where's my fun at? Staveley can bring the fun, absolutely, and at times he does, but I found a lot of the book a bit drear, because while the world as it starts getting sketched in here seems cool and both enjoyably and problematically metal most of the plot seems to consist of shitty things happening, and the dick to non-dick ratio among the characters is not super great.

Enjoyably solid epic fantasy, I thought. Will read sequel from library. That being said, while I'm looking forward to it, I simultaneously get the sense that if it turns out I don't have time I won't actually be that bothered.

I've been chewing over the question of why one of the major mid-book events bothers me so much:

Okay, so Valin's shortterm plot and longterm arc are very significantly effected by his best friend and almost love interest Ha Lin dying in a horrible way. Having finished the book, I can entirely see why Staveley needs Ha Lin to die in order to move Valin in the direction he wants him to go. From a structural perspective I think I get it. However, Ha Lin's death is one of the neatest illustrations of the women-in-refridgerators trope I have seen in a while, and so, while I think I understand its dramatic purpose, I'm still not convinced that whatever it allows Staveley to do with Valin's plot is worth reiterating such a shitty tradition. I am not convinced of this for two reasons:

1: I'll reserve judgment on this until I get to read Providence of Fire, but so far Valin seems to be headed down a fairly standard angstie angry vengeance-driven I-walk-in-the-shadows-and-only-the-screams-of-my-enemies-give-me-joy-and-what-am-I-becoming arc of the kind a lot of young men go through in this kind of dark action fantasy, and I'm not sure this plot is thus far showing itself to be in any way worth scratching a major secondary character in such a tropey way.

2: Ha Lin is actually developed a bit in the first half of the book. She's not super well-defined as a character, but her frustrations and struggles and angers are beginning to be mapped out -- she is certainly more interesting to me than Valin, though granted that bar is not high; I like his plotline because I'm addicted to team-building pop fiction and because it has fucking wicked giant hawks in it, but I don't especially like *him*. Her relationship to Valin is also beginning to be sketched in, and it's not bad; we get a sense of a very strong, sometimes unspoken, supportive bond. Except, oops: As soon as Ha Lin dies, while her character development may still be very nice and so on, its dramatic purpose shifts, I think: The development work put into the character of Ha Lin ceases to be about the character of Ha Lin and becomes about Valin, and the groundwork done on establishing their relationship is no longer about evoking a strong two-hander bond for the reader, but instead gets transformed into fuel for Valin's manpain. And so, I think, by offing Ha Lin in the way that it does, the book accidentally twists itself around to a point where it's endorsing some of the default assumptions about the significance and personhood of men and women that I think it's trying to combat in the uncomfortable sexism-among-the-ketril plotline, a point where a woman character dies not as some conclusion of her own arc, but in order to drive a man's story.

So I'm conscious that my objections here might be taken as making the eternal mistake of wanting the book to be something it is not, but, while I see how Staveley's decision here serves the book dramatically / structurally, absolutely, I'm really not at all convinced that it serves the book thematically.

[benpeek]

I liked Making History as well, it's a relatively light read compared to TMITHC but still has an interesting take on the eternal question of whether you should kill Hitler if you had a time machine. For something a bit grimmer I thought Robert Harris' Fatherland had maybe the most convincing portrayal of a triumphant Nazi Germany, it is a decent thriller/detective novel as well although it's an unusual mystery in the sense that the reader will inevitably realise what the end result of the main character's investigation will be a long time before he does.

I thought The Man In The High Castle was an interesting read, although I think I remember the concept and setting much better than any of the characters and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about the ending.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Philip K. Dick. You'll have that experience again.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

1: I'll reserve judgment on this until I get to read Providence of Fire, but so far Valin seems to be headed down a fairly standard angstie angry vengeance-driven I-walk-in-the-shadows-and-only-the-screams-of-my-enemies-give-me-joy-and-what-am-I-becoming arc of the kind a lot of young men go through in this kind of dark action fantasy, and I'm not sure this plot is thus far showing itself to be in any way worth scratching a major secondary character in such a tropey way.

.

Valyn's angsty/emo revenge plot continues in book 2.As i mentioned earlier,he is the supposed leader of his wing/unit ,yet he keeps behaving like a muppet :P

[Leofric]

Just started Riding the Unicorn by Paul Kearney. A little different set up than his other books, at least at the beginning anyway.

Have The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell and Providence of Fire by Brian Staveley waiting on deck.

[aceluby]

Received the World of Ice & Fire for my birthday! So I've started that along w/ my other two books which I plan to read while on my trip to Mexico.

[Teng Ai Hui]

Really enjoying "Why everyone should be a feminist". Very insightful on how women are being discriminated.

Can you be more specific please? Who is the author? Are you maybe referring to "We Should All Be Feminists" by C.N. Adichie?

[morticia]

Finished reading The Armageddon Rag. I really wanted to like it but I just couldn't get into it. At the end of the book I felt like the entire 'armageddon' side to the story had no meat to it and left me thinking 'what was the point?' And the whole '60's revival' thing came across as a bunch of washed up codgers being generally gross and deluded. I guess I was expecting so much more from it due to it being by GRRM, but I'm sad to say it is far from the standard of his usual quality.

Now I'm starting to read the second book of the Obernwetyn Chronicles: The Farseekers by Isobelle Carmody.

[deleted01]

Sticking with the witch theme, I read The Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt. I watched a documentary on the Pendle Hill trials, and found the story very interesting. This novel gives the story a bit more life.

Also read The Sacrifice by Kathleen Benner Duble, a very short, teen book based on the witches of Andover. Another book written by a descendant of those she writes about, which I find fascinating.

While I'm suffering with a chest infection, I'll keep attacking the TRP. Will write my full review of Koomson's new novel when I'm a bit better.