February 2016 Reads

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, matt b said:

Really? I actually found Long Sun (and Short Sun as well) to be relatively straightforward. By Gene Wolfe standards, anyway.

Really. I still have no idea what the fuck Long SUn was actually about or half of what was going on in that one, but I  haven't reread that one yet, maybe it all snaps into place on the second re read.

[williamjm]

I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's short story collection "Feast and Famine". I've read a dozen of his novels but not any of his short work before. All but one of his books that I've read have been Epic Fantasy but there's more of a mix here from hard-SF to satirical comedy to horror. Overall it's a decent collection. I thought the highlights were the Lovecraftian mystery of "The Dissipation Club", which featured a memorable reveal at the end, "Feast and Famine" which had an interesting take on the idea of alien life and because I like his Apt series a lot, "The Sun in the Morning". "2144 and All That", a time travel story a bit too dependent on exposition was probably the only story which didn't really work for me.

Next up is Tim Powers' new novel "Medusa's Web". New Powers books don't come out often enough so I'm looking forward to it.

[Astromech]

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's, The Shadow of the Wind. Interesting, gothic mystery set during the first half of the 20th C. in Barcelona. It took a good 100 pages for the story to start moving, but really took off after that. A bit depressing in many parts, but an intriguing central story/mystery. Not without its flaws, but entertaining.

[Contrarius+]

On 2/23/2016 at 8:28 PM, Darth Richard II said:

I should really get to the second book then. The first one was just such an emotional kick int he crotch. Almost like Robin Hobb doing scifi.

I thought I'd post my GR review from last year's reading of Children of God, just to be obnoxious while encouraging you to read it.

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After reading this, I think I have to bring both this and The Sparrow up to around 5 stars. Russell just carried all of her themes through so flawlessly and relentlessly that it's hard to do anything less.

These two really are one story, and should be read together. Only with the second book did I really come to appreciate all the themes Russell is juggling and developing at the same time. It's really much more than the question of evil -- she's exploring unintended consequences, moral relativity, moral perception, individual salvation, the idea of God working in mysterious ways, all sorts of things and all at the same time. It's rather like digging into the structure of a complex fugue and seeing the themes being gradually developed in each of the disparate voices.

The two books taken together are pretty darned brilliant. Russell manages to explore several religious and political themes with only a little preaching and without making anyone a really Bad Guy, and her canvas encompasses three species while maintaining an intensely personal focus. Good stuff.

I did have some quibbles -- like,

Spoiler

they traveled to a different planet and didn't even take IV kits with them? Like, when a human is allergic to the new planet, they don't even have an isolation suit he can wear on-planet? Like, this obligate carnivore species has never figured out how to hunt other prey with, ya know, weapons?? (Okay, that one was a more major complaint.)

So it wasn't perfect, but it was damned good. Still about 4.7 stars, so I'm going with 5.

And I loved this line in particular: he "found room in the crowded necropolis of his heart." That's a line to stick with a person.

[Darth Richard II]

Oh I have it sitting here on the pile. It's just a giant pile. Although I got it under 500 last year!

[Maester Llama]

Finished Kate Elliott's first young adult fantasy novel, Court of Fives. I've tried Elliott's stuff a couple times before and, despite her type of epic fantasy rich in imagined cultures and the exploration of social dynamics being very much my thing on paper, both King's Dragon and Spirit Gate have worked for me only half-decently well and have struck me as somewhat clunky in execution. Court of Fives was different. This is great stuff. The plot blends sociopolitical and family drama together wonderfully, and is very well-paced. The setting -- a nation where local culture and religion has been repressed by colonization by a since-fragmented empire -- provides a fertile backdrop and hints at greater depth, and its intricacies are deployed strategically so they benefit the story rather than slow it down. With the exception of one major supporting character who I found gratingly one-note early on [she smooths out later], the cast is engaging: The young leads are very likable but burdened each with their individual unexamined biases which trip them up at crucial moments, their adult allies are intriguingly murky [the protagonist's father is a particularly rich figure, a deeply flawed person who can never quite be dismissed as "evil"], and the villains are delightfully whole-hog rat bastards. The Fives, the athletic contest the protagonist excels at, weaves its way through the culture and the themes of the text very smoothly, and plays a wonderful double role in the two-stage climax. And there are tombs. I dig it. One of the best young adult fantasies from last year that I've read, in a strong year for this niche. In its thematic furniture [particularly the interest in looking at colonization through the lens of secondary world fantasy] this reminds me of a less action-heavy, more overtly contemplative take on the concerns that Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes also takes a swing at.

 

And today I've just finished Aliette De Bodard's post-apocalyptic Parisian urban fantasy of crumbling finery and angelic politics The House of Shattered Wings, on which I am torn. The book's atmosphere is strong, with lots of grand decay and melancholy, bitter compromises and treachery, feelings of loss and the winding down of the world. And the book is on fire when it focuses on the ways Paris and Europe -- even in the act of collapsing / post-collapse -- have continued to colonize other parts of the world, on what happens when those other lands and power structures are able to impose themselves on the empire's heart [an interest De Bodard's book shares with Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown], and on the major Vietnamese character's longing for home. Some of the overall conceits, particularly the exploration of a universe in which fallen angels fall to Earth rather than into Hell, and the blending of mythologies, are great stuff. The characters are strong. On the other hand, the plot, while it is in theory a very fine one, I think, can get pretty opaque at times, as can character motivations -- several vital pieces of information on why characters do some pretty crucial things seem to await a sequel, unless I missed something. I never got any kind of grip on one central character's arc at all, except insofar as it was used to motivate other people's. There are a couple pretty good-sized leaps in logic; the other way to look at this last objection is that the magic in this universe tends toward the numinous rather than the Sandersonian / systemizable, which will probably bother other people somewhat more than it bothers me. Finally, and this is again very much a problem or not depending on your taste / mood, our protagonists spend a lot of this novel getting absolute circles run around them and being sad about various things, and though when their motivations and emotional states were clear to me I was very down with this, I found that slightly too often those states of mind were muddy enough that the whole thing began to feel like a bit of an indistinct, mopey, blobby trudge. The atmosphere, the concepts, and the times when the whole thing is clicking together [which, to reiterate, are imo quite frequent] mean that I'd still give this a pretty vigourous recommend if you dig moody, gothy urban fantasy, but that recommendation's qualified: approach with caution.

 

Every time I see conversations about Wolfe and New Sun a part of me wishes I could join in, and that I found Wolfe to be an author whose stuff I wanted to explore enough to start to "get it," but I'm coming to accept that I am broken on this point. It takes all kinds to make a world and on this matter I am one of the weird ones.

[Muwhahaha]

Finished Anubis Gates.  I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this.  This was just a damn lot of fun.  Great book but I wouldn't describe it so much as alternate history just time-travel set in a fantastical England.  Also, the Sparrow is continueing on nicely.  Poseidon's Wake is sort of letting me down, though.  I don't care for any of the characters.  Also just started Full Fathom Five.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Anubis Gates is one of my favorite books of all time. I'm glad to see others enjoying it as well.

[Jo498]

54 minutes ago, Muwhahaha said:

Finished Anubis Gates.  I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this.  This was just a damn lot of fun.  Great book but I wouldn't describe it so much as alternate history just time-travel set in a fantastical England.

I completely agree. It's an extremely well done extraordinarily entertaining wild ride and for me more convincing than many later/other books with similar themes and tropes.

[Inkdaub]

13 hours ago, Astromech said:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's, The Shadow of the Wind. Interesting, gothic mystery set during the first half of the 20th C. in Barcelona. It took a good 100 pages for the story to start moving, but really took off after that. A bit depressing in many parts, but an intriguing central story/mystery. Not without its flaws, but entertaining.

This is one of my favorite books.  Top ten all time I would say.  I remember the first time I read it I sat on the floor in my apartment reading and at about page 200 I realized I was really, really liking this book.

I also love Powers' Anubis Gates, which it looks like some people are reading in the thread currently.  The problem is it's the first Powers book I read and everything after feels a little lacking.  I still read and enjoy Powers work, though.

[Richard Writhen]

Started Guardians of the West. Still working The Neverending Story and The Handmaid's Tale.

 

 

Gonna look into Anubis Gates. Sounds very interesting.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I thought The Magician's Land was a really good concluding volume.  I loved how the characters evolved and changed over the course of the novel.  Very human and realistic.

Now reading Animal Farm by George Orwell.

[maarsen]

I just finished Connie Willis' 'To Say Nothing Of The Dog' and found it to an absolutely delightful read. I went so far as to download 3 Men in a Boat.

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold Sunday morning, and enjoyed it immensely.  Unlike most Vorkosigan books, this one has very little conflict.  I've seen it described as "fan service" in a derogatory way, but after 16 novels and 6 novellas over a 30 year period, I'm okay with a little fan service.  It was great seeing what the Vorkosigans were up to again, three years later.

 

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 3:17 PM, beniowa said:

I finished The Labyrinth of Flame, which was very good.  It was a great capstone to the trilogy.  Schafer certainly created enough of a world there's room for more books so I hope she'll write more in the future. 

This is what I reading now.  I'm only a whopping 13% in because of life getting in the way of my reading time, but so far it's just as good as the first two.  WRT to the 1st person/3rd person narrative split

Spoiler

I've always thought it was a little curious, but here in the third book, I think it's crazy how well she has portrayed Kiran's constantly shifting personality in the 3rd person style.  So that makes me wonder if she underestimated her ability and was worried she wouldn't be able to pull it off if she told his part of the story from a 1st person POV or if she just did that to set the two narratives apart (I think this is probably the reason).

. Off the top of my head the only other book I can think of that does this is Sleepless by Charlie Huston (when's that guy coming out with a new book?).

[Andorion]

Finished Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Fun read, bit irritating at times, predictable ending. 

[beniowa]

16 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

This is what I reading now.  I'm only a whopping 13% in because of life getting in the way of my reading time, but so far it's just as good as the first two.  WRT to the 1st person/3rd person narrative split

Hidden Content

. Off the top of my head the only other book I can think of that does this is Sleepless by Charlie Huston (when's that guy coming out with a new book?).

You're in for a heck of a ride.

Speaking of which, I finished The Rising, also a heck of a ride.  Like a few said in the dedicated Alchemy Wars thread, some parts were straining credibility a bit by the end, but it was quite good.  Still don't find it as compelling as Milkweed, but there's still one book left to go in this series. 

I somehow got my copy The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar three weeks before the release date so I'm jumping into that next.

[Peadar]

I really enjoyed Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Tiger and the Wolf. Now reading The Grimm Future, edited by Erin Underwood. Should be fun.

[Jo498]

Finished Lyonesse II: The green pearl. Slightly disappointing, after a very entertaining beginning. Especially because some people apparently find this better than the first one. I tend to disagree.

It's far more straightforward than Lyonesse I and feels shorter (despite having roughly the same length) and there is a lot of good stuff (and I still like the general style better than most more recent fantasy) in there. But some important developments occur too quickly and seem too easily achieved

Spoiler

Aillas' victories in Ulfland, the victory over the ridiculous Visbhume and supposedly Tamurello

And the mixture of somewhat realistic warfare and ultra-high-fairy-tale-style magic seems even more jarring than in the first one. The whole section in a "parallel world" feels very over-the-top cartoonish (like a parodistic excurse) and out of place with the rest. The Shimrod-Melancthe romance seems underdeveloped, despite taking quite a bit of screentime.

[Starkess]

I finished my first book for February (ugh, I hate being busy!), and it was for a company book club. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero. I did not particularly enjoy it, lots of eyerolling involved in that. I mean the second chapter was basically "you have to have faith in God even if you don't want to call it God" (the author preferred the grating term "Source Energy") and yeah, no thanks. The rest of the book club seemed to like it though.

I am reading a pre-published manuscript for a fellow writer from a different board, which is taking up all of my free reading time right now. Hopefully will finish that soon and get back to Ancillary Justice.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished Kushiel's Avatar (and thus the Phedre Trilogy). Avatar was definitely a colossal improvement from Chosen - I loved the darkness. I still stand by my assessment of the series as being highly uneven.