Bellis Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Ysabel is on the list... although i have a sneaking suspicion i may end up agreeing with Tom Wagner... sounds a bit YA celtic standard issue from the jacket summary. Well, I'll try to keep an open mind, since GGK can be a stellar prosist. Latest batch: The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai. Man Booker prize winner, heavily hyped. I was ultimately disappointed. It's a story of Indians in the diaspora and in India, on the imho fascinating and important topic of globalization and identity and hybrid cultures. Trouble is, I didn't really feel like it had anything new or interesting to say on these topics, and the characters were mostly low-dimensional. Better than Jhumpa Lahiri, perhaps, but Desai just didn't pull me in with both characters and story in the way or level of Roy, Rushdie or Rohinton Mistry. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishigiro. What an excellent book. Somewhere in the background are SF horrors. It's better not to dwell on that, or even read any spoilers about it, and instead let the novel take you through this beautiful, simple and deeply personal coming-of-age story of three friends. Loved the recurring themes of possession and donation. This is probably one of the more important and unquely crafted SF "dystopia warning" style stories I have ever read, and should be required reading besides Huxley and Clarke in an intro SF class, if only because the stylistic take is so very different than we usually see with genre authors. Voice of the Fire - Alan Moore. A collection of thematically related stories all set in different times of history and pre-history, in the same middle English landscape. Not all the stories work, the last is essentially nothing more than self-indulgent editorializing by the author. However, they are fascinating, especially in that they are all first author pieces, each written with a unique voice and writing style. The Chess Garden - Brooks Hansen. A story within story (with deeper layers at times) of a 19th century doctor/philosopher who travels to South Africa in his final years. From there, he sends letters to his wife and friends in America detailing his adventures in an imaginary land. The letters read like similar allegorical cross-over fables like Narnia or Alice in Wonderland. I found some enjoyable while others too whimsical or mystical for my tastes. These letters are interspersed with an omniscient narrator's biography of the doctor, passages which are sometimes interesting and, I gather, supposed to provide context for the philosophical messages in the letters. However, these biography sections are also quite dry and ramble on for much longer than is strictly necessary. Don't get me wrong - this is an intriguing and unique book, and not a difficult read, but I think it could have been strengthened by some judicious editing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Just started Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. Damn! this book is absolutely incredible! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herbie of High Heart Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I thought I'd try some Kate Elliott, King's Dragon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I thought I'd try some Kate Elliott, King's Dragon. I bought recently all 7 books. Now I wonder whether I misspent my money or not... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yrael Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I'm about to start Coraline by Neil Gaiman. The cover says it's "scary". We'll see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaceBannon42 Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I'm about to start Coraline by Neil Gaiman. The cover says it's "scary". We'll see... Well scary is relative, as its a children's book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mauvka Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I'm reading through GRRM's A Song for Lya collection. "Dark, dark were the tunnels," and "Hero" were ones I liked especially so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dornish prince Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 i am finally, because of the board, reading the lies of locke lamora. i'm also reading 1984(again) and knife of dreams (finally) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaceBannon42 Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Fahrenheit 451 kinda sucked, btw I'm TOTALLY psyched about LoLL - I've read the inside cover and first page and can't wait to get home and get the kids to bed so I can read! If you don't absolutely love this book, I'll be suprised, Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klegane the Kinhater Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Fahrenheit 451 kinda sucked, btw You didn't like it? Thats a shame I remember it being ok. Reading Beowulf - The Seamus Heaney translation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. X Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Finished up Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land, my departure from SF/F. I was rather underwhelmed by it. Now I'm re-reading A Game of Thrones and loving it, naturally. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. Beautiful, both in form and content, and highly informative. I've never actually read those, but I've spent a lot of time drooling over them in bookstores. Any real nerd is pleased by well-presented information, no matter what it's about. QFT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annelise Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 One of Ser Scot's succession threads inspired me to reread Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative trilogy. Currently reading David Donald's Lincoln. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herbie of High Heart Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I bought recently all 7 books. Now I wonder whether I misspent my money or not... Sorry to hear that. I checked out a copy from the local library. I rarely buy new. A recent exception was buying from Clarkesworld a signed copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora because of the rave reviews of Stego and others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I bought recently all 7 books. Now I wonder whether I misspent my money or not... You bought all 7 before reading Book 1? Surely that was asking for trouble? Personally, I thought the series was okay. Much better at the start than by the beginning of Book 5 (which is where I got up to), but still readable with some solid characters and ideas. I still plan on getting Books 6 and 7 this year and reading all of them back-to-back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaerien Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Just to give a differing opinion, Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series is one of my pet loves. I enjoyed the heck out of the first five books and I have the sixth and seventh in my bookcase now - I just need to find time to reread the first five so I can get through the second two as well! I found it difficult to get into the first book, but my mother got me to stick with it, and I quickly became the third fan in our household. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I just finished reading Bonadea by the Finnish-Swedish writer Irmelin Sandman Lilius, (part one of a sequence of fantasy novels about the small imaginary Finnish town Tulavall), which was a nice read, and - four years after I started it - Exodus from the Long Sun, which (and I say this as a card carrying Gene Wolfe fan) sucked ass. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. I recently read a couple his of articles on Microsoft Powerpoint and they made him off as a bit of a nutter. Is his other stuff less frothing at the mouth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stubby Posted January 15, 2007 Share Posted January 15, 2007 I have just finished The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie. I posted some comments over in the thread dedicated to the book itself. It was top stuff. Next up is Vellum by Hal Duncan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted January 15, 2007 Share Posted January 15, 2007 Simultaneously reading: Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel. This is a re-read for me -- I love Sobel's work on the Planets and Longitude,, and GL is an intriguing look at Galileo's life through his correspondence with his cloistered eldest daughter, Maria Celeste. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Found this at the used book store (where we got $60 in credit from a load of books we sold when we moved last summer) along with Infoquake (ARC; Edelman), Legend (Gemmel) and The Alien Shore (Friedman). Figured it was about damned time that I start in on Hobb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinDonner Posted January 15, 2007 Share Posted January 15, 2007 Finally started in on Altered Carbon - it's very good so far, though the reading's going slowly at the moment. Not the fault of the book so much as the fact that my 6.30am start currently feels like the middle of the fucking night, and I do a lot more sleeping on the train than I do reading... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynon Posted January 15, 2007 Share Posted January 15, 2007 I have just finished Legacies by Modesitt and though it wasn't anything special, I bought books 2 in the corean chronicles, Darknesses and will read it shortly. At the moment I have read half of The Lies of Locke Lamore and I think it's a great read. The characters aren't all that interesting compared to other fantasy characters, but the story and dialogue is very entertaining and I really like the setting. Also, the way he jumps forward and backward in time between chapters works quite well, at times extremely well. The names of places and characters are really good, I prefer characters named "Thiefmaker" rather than names that looks like they are the result of a generator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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