December Reading Thread

[Astra]

400 pages into Iron Council. It took a while, somewhere in the first 100 pages say, for me to get hooked but this book is confirming for me that it is a great pleasure to read stuff by Mieville. Maybe it's because he's a Londoner... but I find myself so in tune with the dialogue and the descriptions, the language generally. Nevermind - I'm enjoying the book so far.

Does Mieville have any finished series?

[kcf]

I got a couple of books read while with the in-laws for the holidays. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers (review) - a very solid book. Old Man's War by John Scalzi (review at FBS) - a fun read.

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

I'm reading Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. It's gorgeously written and more accessible than I expected it to be. It generally feels more like magical realism than fantasy, but I think many fantasy readers (especially those who like the New Weird writers) would enjoy its imaginative portrait of a mythical early 20:th century New York.

[Yrael]

An account of the fall of the Roman Republic concentrating on the last few decades and told as a narrative history. My reading on Rome had extended as far as Asterix before this and so I was fascinated by the story as the lives of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, Cicero and many others were unveiled. Instantly accessible and riveting I thought it was a very good read. I never felt lost in the multiple storylines or overwhelmed by the facts just drawn in and thoroughly entertained as well as educated. It has even made me consider watching Rome after I passed on that after the first three episodes.

I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Axterix and Obelix!! It's probably the best French comic strip ever made: substantially biased and racist? but great nonetheless. I'm glad I've found a fan on the board. As to Rome [the series], all I've watched is a fan vid on Youtube but I'm suscribing to HBO just to see season 2 even though I have not seen season 1 yet. I hope it'll be worth it. ETA: and that I'll understand what is going on.

Yrael: just skip over the pointless descriptions of the sithi homeland, its the only way you'll make it through. It was a good book overall, but it dragged near the end.

I'm finally on To Green Angel Tower, and so far i love it. I love the series as a whole, but it certainly has its weak points. The three books combined could use a good 200 page reduction.

I actually enjoyed the pointless descriptions in The Dragonbone Chair. It was one of the reasons I liked it. But they're fun no more. I plan on finishing it though.

[Isis]

Does Mieville have any finished series?

Well, I've actually only read two of his novels (the 2nd and the 4th to be published) but so far as I know the books aren't a series, just stand-alone novels (with different characters) that share the same setting.

Someone here must have read them all? Could anyone comment on the reading order/connections between the books? Because personally I would say you could pick up and read any of them.

[Multaniette]

King Rat is definitely a standalone, unconnected to his Bas Lag novels (and is basically an alt-London story in the tradition of Gaiman's Neverwhere, Simon R. Green's Nightside saga and MacLeod's The Light Ages). The Scar, Perdido Street Station and Iron Council take place in the same world. Iron Council is pretty much a standalone as well, while The Scar can be considered a loose sequel to Perdido Street Station.

Finished Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed. A very entertaining and thought provoking read. 9.5/10

My last read of 2006 was Banana Yoshimoto's short story collection Lizard. The title story was amazing, and so was pretty much every other story. My favourite was probably Newlywed. Even though I was reading a translation, Yoshimoto has a very natural writing style with an almost vocal quality.

8/10

Edit: Isis, I can completely empathize with your Iron Council reading experience. I just love the prose and imagery in that book.

[Astra]

King Rat is definitely a standalone, unconnected to his Bas Lag novels (and is basically an alt-London story in the tradition of Gaiman's Neverwhere, Simon R. Green's Nightside saga and MacLeod's The Light Ages). The Scar, Perdido Street Station and Iron Council take place in the same world. Iron Council is pretty much a standalone as well, while The Scar can be considered a loose sequel to Perdido Street Station.

Edit: Isis, I can completely empathize with your Iron Council reading experience. I just love the prose and imagery in that book.

Thanks a lot.

[Kel]

I am reading World War Z by Max Brooks (in honor of Den naturally) - pretty interesting.

[Agulla]

In the last weeks I've read:

Punktown. Third Eye, by Jeffrey Thomas. This time Jeffrey Thomas decided that he could share his city with some more writers. The results vary in quality but never fail to surprise. It’s an interesting companion to other books about Punktown and it gives a taste of what other writers are producing.

The Nightmare Factory, by Thomas Ligotti. It's not an easy read, in fact it has taken me all autumn to read this anthology of horror tales, but now that I've finished I can say that it was worth the effort. Thomas Ligotti writes a most strange kind of horror stories where the real protagonist is the landscape, no matter if it's a ruined factory, a decaying city, an abandoned asylum or a ghost town in the middle of nowhere. When you read his stories you know that the characters are your unwilling guides to the horrors that reality conceals. Autumn is the best moment to read Ligotti.

Players Note: The Nightmare Factory increases Cthulhu Mythos knowledge a 10% but costs -1d8 of sanity. Read at your own risk.

Crossover, by Joel Shepherd. I enjoyed this one but still have to decide how much. In some moments I felt that the story lacked something, maybe it was the conversations between characters, maybe it was some action scenes that were too confusing, while others were really well crafted. In general I liked this novel, though.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Absolutely brilliant, scary, chilling and moving tale of survival and hope (or lack of hope). I couldn't stop reading this story about a father and his son that try to survive in a world destroyed by what seems to be a nuclear war. The road they travel leads to many places, it leads to the next house to scavenge in search of food, it leads them to dangers in form of marauding cannibal bands, it leads to some place where they believe (or want to believe) that some chance of survival exist for them, but it could lead to nowhere too because the road never ends. But they go on, they are the "good" guys after all, they "carry the fire" as the father tells his son. Read this one if you haven't read it yet.