Second Quarter 2020 reading

[dog-days]

The Mouse series sounds fun - never heard of them before. And I think I might try the Curse of Chalion once I break free of my Diana Wynne Jones obsession. (I've now read Eight Days of Luke, Deep Secret, The Merlin Conspiracy, Hexwood, Witch Week, The Lives of Christopher Chant, Conrad's Fate and The Pinhoe Egg in addition to the others mentioned in my earlier post). 

I've also read a short children's book by Manon Steffan Ros called Pluen (meaning "feather") set on Anglesey. With a few Welsh-language authors, you have the slight feeling that they wouldn't be able to get published if they were writing in English. Or at least, that they'd only be read by genre-devotees. Ros isn't like that - she writes in a clear, honest way and is able to draw you into the story and characters. Even though the story itself isn't hugely original - though its modernity shows through in the way it explicitly includes Alzheimer's Disease - I appreciated the control, pacing and restraint. That said, I did feel that the end didn't satisfactorily explain things. Hywel is presented as a sympathetic character...

Spoiler

...but if that's the case, why didn't he ever try and find his sister? He ended up living quite near her. Even though she'd moved, it wouldn't have been hard to find her in the small villages and towns of Gwynedd. You'd just go and ask in the local pub. 

 

[stonebender]

I'm reading Donaldson's The War Within.  Very good so far, more of a classic Donaldson epic compared to the first volume, which was breezier and novella-like compared to his prior series (not to say I didn't enjoy that one was well, though).

Hopefully the third books comes out.  On his site Donaldson said sales for the first two books have been "ruinous" so far.  Seems a few of my old favorites have hit some roadblocks recently.  One reason I haven't been reading as much the past few years.    

[williamjm]

18 hours ago, IlyaP said:

I see also that @Werthead has a review of The Curse of Chalion on his blog. 

https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2020/04/wertzone-classics-curse-of-chalion-by.html

"The Curse of Chalion (*****) is a compelling, richly-detailed fantasy novel with superb, multifaceted characters and a strong sense of direction and purpose. It may just be Bujold's finest novel to date, in an exceptional career."

Well that's some impressive praise! Will definitely make it a point to pick this up next time I'm in the city! 

It is an excellent book.

I haven't read The Hallowed Hunt yet but everything else set in that world has been good.

10 hours ago, dog-days said:

The Mouse series sounds fun - never heard of them before.

I remember watching the films of The Mouse that Roared and The Mouse on the Moon on TV when I was a child, although I didn't know they were based on books.

[ljkeane]

I just read The Physicians of Vilnoc too and it was excellent as always with the Penric series.

At the moment I'm reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir which is incredibly over the top but fun so far.

[Zuzu Bolin]

On 5/7/2020 at 2:20 PM, VigoTheCarpathian said:

 

This Storm by Ellroy.  I had a period where I really loved all of this guys books and writing style and still will , so this is kind of a legacy read - second book in a trilogy seems less exciting and to be retreading a lot of the tropes and ground he’s covered in past LA books, the characters you already sort of know their arc.

 

I was a massive fan of his work back in the 90s/00s but what I didn't get about his predecessor to The Storm was Beth Short's appearance as the Dudster's daughter.  I can't even remember Dudley appearing in the Black Dahlia.

[Zorral]

Reading, finally, the Mirror and the Light, Hillary Mantel's final Thomas Cromwell novel.

Also a biography -- Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (2019) by Catherine Hanley, Yale University Press.

Yet another medieval European woman who ruled, exercised power and authority through her own agency. This one was Henry II’s mother, and throughout a lifetime of waging war by all means against her brother Stephen, got her son his English crown and Anglo-Norman lands – out of which he created the Angevin Empire.

Plantagenet Henry I, dying without a full blood male legitimate heir, bequeathed the English crown to Matilda, his full blood, legitimate daughter.  Stephen, a half brother and his mother, also Matilda, and his wife, also Matilda, objected.*  The consequence was decades of misery and havoc of every kind for England, as the power went back and forth, depending, it seems on who had the most effective mercenary army at the moment. These years are called variously; at the time the people said, “When Christ and his Saints Slept, while later historians/scholars labeled them “The Years of Anarchy.”  Sharon Kay Penman wrote a novel about this, leading into her Plantagenet – Eleanor of Aquitaine series.

For those who don’t know, Matilda’s first husband, to whom she was married when 8 years old and sent to him for education before consumation at age 12, was yet another Henry, Henry V of the German Empire (this was when it was still just called “the empire”, not the "Holy Roman Empire”) the impressive reach of the core of Charlemagne’s empire. Though Henry V and Matida had no children, the 16-year-old empress was left in authority over the northern Italian domains when Henry V went back to Germany to put the electors back in order.

~~~~~~~~~

* Contributing greatly to the difficulty for USians to get good handles on European history -- everybody has the same 5 names for centuries!

[ljkeane]

I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth. I thought it was just going to be stupid fun, which it is to a degree, but there's more to it than that. Good book.

Next up I'm reading The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan.

[Ormond]

16 hours ago, Zorral said:

 

Plantagenet Henry I, dying without a full blood male legitimate heir, bequeathed the English crown to Matilda, his full blood, legitimate daughter.  Stephen, a half brother and his mother, also Matilda, and his wife, also Matilda, objected.*  The consequence was decades of misery and havoc of every kind for England, as the power went back and forth, depending, it seems on who had the most effective mercenary army at the moment. These years are called variously; at the time the people said, “When Christ and his Saints Slept, while later historians/scholars labeled them “The Years of Anarchy.”  Sharon Kay Penman wrote a novel about this, leading into her Plantagenet – Eleanor of Aquitaine series.

 

This is very different from anything I have ever read before. According to everything I can find, Stephen was NOT Matilda's half-brother. He was her first cousin. His mother Adela was the sister of Henry I. If Stephen was Matilda's half-brother, that would therefore also make him the child of brother-sister incest. What evidence is there for Stephen being Matilda's half-brother instead of first cousin that would contradict all the other sources?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stephen_king.shtml

http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/normans_4.htm

https://www.royal.uk/stephen-and-matilda

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

In an eccentric mood, I've been reading late nineteenth/early twentieth century weirdos. Specifically, the then-current Atlantis texts (Donnelly and Scott-Elliot). I must say, it is absolutely adorable how much effort they go to, so far as trying to back-up their theories.

(They don't know about Continental Drift. Their solution to similar species appearing across different continents? Land bridges! Specifically... Atlantis and Lemuria. Bonus points that Donnelly is less racist than you'd expect from a pseudo-historical nutter writing in 1882. Scott-Elliot is a Theosophist, and has some icky racist stuff).

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Ormond said:

This is very different from anything I have ever read before. According to everything I can find, Stephen was NOT Matilda's half-brother. He was her first cousin. His mother Adela was the sister of Henry I. If Stephen was Matilda's half-brother, that would therefore also make him the child of brother-sister incest. What evidence is there for Stephen being Matilda's half-brother instead of first cousin that would contradict all the other sources?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stephen_king.shtml

http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/normans_4.htm

https://www.royal.uk/stephen-and-matilda

 

You're right about Stephen.  I'd forgotten my facts, and haven't gotten to him yet in the book.  Many apologies, but thank you for doing the fact checking and correction!

[IlyaP]

Page 814 of 903 of The Dragonbone Chair.

Almost there.

Hunkering down and finishing this today, if I can. 

(The group just found Saint Skendi's Abbey, totally covered in snow.)

[Starkess]

I finished Red Queen and it was just as bad as I feared. Actually maybe worse. Would not recommend to anyone, will not be continuing the series, and I am saddened by the number of rave reviews for this trash book.

Started listening to Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory. I've read some of her other books and enjoyed them, and so far this one seems to be much the same. Pleasant and easy and interesting, a pretty good combination for my running audiobook.

[IlyaP]

Finished The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. Fuck me that ending was gloriously downbeat in its abject destructiveness. (Listen to the score for Season 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones when reading - it's a good sonic match). 

I get the feeling that I know how this is all going to play down, but now I'm totally curious. Onward to Book 2 of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn - Stone of Farewell! 

[Wilbur]

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

Finished The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. Fuck me that ending was gloriously downbeat in its abject destructiveness. (Listen to the score for Season 1 and 2 of Game of Thrones when reading - it's a good sonic match). 

I get the feeling that I know how this is all going to play down, but now I'm totally curious. Onward to Book 2 of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn - Stone of Farewell! 

So help me out in preparation for reading Williams.  For some random reason, I have never read any of his books, so I have them lined up for this summer.  Anything you would tell a first-time reader?

[Darth Richard II]

1 minute ago, Wilbur said:

So help me out in preparation for reading Williams.  For some random reason, I have never read any of his books, so I have them lined up for this summer.  Anything you would tell a first-time reader?

They are sloooooow burns. 

[IlyaP]

27 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

So help me out in preparation for reading Williams.  For some random reason, I have never read any of his books, so I have them lined up for this summer.  Anything you would tell a first-time reader?

What @Darth Richard II said: the first book is a slow, slow burn - mainly for the first 200 pages. (It's intentional, to make readers care about Simon's world, to make the stakes meaningful ultimately for them.)

So prepare for that Shire-like intro to the whole damn world and just a ridiculous amount of world-building. 

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

So help me out in preparation for reading Williams.  For some random reason, I have never read any of his books, so I have them lined up for this summer.  Anything you would tell a first-time reader?

In addition to the slooow pacing, I'd also suggest that they're an enormous influence on A Song of Ice and Fire. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is a 1980s deconstruction of Tolkienian Epic Fantasy - it's rather tame by 2020 standards, but it's there.

[dog-days]

I finished Curse of Chalion yesterday, reading it in about 1.5 days, and I'm midway through the first of the Penric books. I'm glad this thread brought Chalion to my attention - it was a really good, absorbing read. The balanced nature of death magic seemed particularly original and clever. Also, it was nice spending time in the fantastic equivalent of Spain. Hot summers and orange trees... 

[IlyaP]

48 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

In addition to the slooow pacing, I'd also suggest that they're an enormous influence on A Song of Ice and Fire. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is a 1980s deconstruction of Tolkienian Epic Fantasy - it's rather tame by 2020 standards, but it's there.

Completely agree. 

From a 2020 historic perspective, it feels its age and is very much of its era. It's still important to the history of epic fantasy, however - at least in part as @The Marquis de Leech pointed out - due to its influence on GRRM (whose cultural influence and importance cannot be understated).

[Wilbur]

Thank you all for helping me set my expectations.

Do I need to have any special reading order instructions?