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Second Quarter 2020 reading


williamjm

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On 5/23/2020 at 3:24 PM, dog-days said:

Just read the eighth and for now the last Penric and Desdemona book. Fun, oddly comforting reading despite all the people dying from plague.

By what format were you able to read this?  The only way I can find to read it is via Amazon and their despicable Kindle Cloud Reader, which I don't want to do.

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3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

By what format were you able to read this?  The only way I can find to read it is via Amazon and their despicable Kindle Cloud Reader, which I don't want to do.

Kindle, I'm afraid. :( I normally prefer paper books by a mile, but the instant and cheap nature of reading on my Kindle Fire has won out during lockdown. 

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9 hours ago, dog-days said:

Kindle, I'm afraid. :( I normally prefer paper books by a mile, but the instant and cheap nature of reading on my Kindle Fire has won out during lockdown. 

OK, thank you.

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14 hours ago, Wilbur said:

By what format were you able to read this?  The only way I can find to read it is via Amazon and their despicable Kindle Cloud Reader, which I don't want to do.

I did read the Kindle version but I think it is available on other e-book formats as well.

If you want a physical book there have usually been (pricey) limited edition hardcovers then eventually there's a paperback collection of several novellas but I think it's taken a couple of years for the collections to come out.

I've started reading Alix Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January. It seems good so far, parts of the premise (specifically the hidden 'doors') are reminding me of another book published last year, Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea, but I suspect the plot will be moving in a different direction.

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On 5/23/2020 at 4:44 AM, IlyaP said:

I've been told the [incomplete] Kharkanas trilogy is a very different beast from the main Malazan books. Apparently the tone is decidedly different, more serious, more somber? They're the only Erikson books I've not read. 

Re: Williams' books - the new trilogy he's writing - what's the impetus for doing so?

 

More serious, more sombre, less life. Much more philosophical posturing, at the cost of pace. 

I've read both Kharkanas books, but I am decidedly unsure if I would finish the trilogy if Erikson does. 

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Just finished Malina Lo's Ash, which was a great story but the prose and dialog couldn't pull me in, and it overall felt rushed. Definitely a debut novel, not sure I'll try any of her later books. It did put me in the fairy tale mood so I think I'm going to dive into Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver next.

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I finished up Christian Cameron's The Great King (2014), the fourth of his Long War historical novels covering the second Greek-Persian war from the point of view of Arimnestos of Plataea.  A recommendation from early in this thread started me on these books, and I have found them to be tremendously enjoyable.  I like historical fiction of the Greek periods, and this is in the top rank of that sort of book.  Probably the only books that are clearly superior at this epoch are things like Mary Renault or Harry Turtledove writing as H.N. Turteltaub and his Hellenic Traders books.

Because of the nature of war, I also find this to be strongly reminiscent of The Hammer and the Cross by Tom Shippey and Harry Harrison.  Strong historical roots supporting an interesting story arc of a protagonist that acts in a manner correct for the period.  Thanks again for pointing me in this direction.  And it the stories are clear and point at specific historical events, the lack of which made Gene Wolfe's Soldier books harder to like than they needed to be.

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Night Shift Dragons as expected was good fun. I also finished up Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy with The Queen of Nothing which felt a bit rushed to be honest. Looking it up apparently both of the last two books in the series came out in 2019 so perhaps she did rush it to get two books out in one year for some reason.

At the moment I'm reading Mark Lawrence's Red Sister. I didn't particularly like Prince of Thorns but I did enjoy his Impossible Times series so I'm giving some of his other stuff a try. It's ok so far.

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Currently, I'm 40% into Network Effect by Martha Wells.  It's always fun to experience another Murderbot adventure.  There's also an added bonus in that a great supporting character has finally returned.

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I keep hearing great things about the Murderbot series. I'll have to make time for it before lockdown ends. 

Finished Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt. Which means I've now read all of the Five Gods books, I think. I enjoyed both - really appreciated having a middle-aged female protagonist in the former. And it was really satisfying to watch Ista go from being so beaten-down and infantilised at the start

Spoiler

to having a career of sorts, being free to choose her own path, and being confident in herself at the end.  

The pacing of The Hallowed Hunt was rather slower, but I found myself really liking a couple of the supporting cast - Oswin and Hallana. And it was interesting to read it as background to the first two Penric and Desdemona stories. 

Both books came to great atmospheric climaxes - I zoomed through the last quarter of each one way too fast. 

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Been rereading Liveship Traders and by uncanny coincidence just finished the second book this weekend, in which 

Spoiler

Riots break out in Bingtown followed by a prolonged period of burning and looting. Uncomfortable timing to be reading that at the moment

 

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I finished Clive Barker's Abarat: Absolute Midnight yesterday. I really enjoyed it. As one would expect from Clive Barker, it is a lot "darker" than most young adult literature, but it's not quite a "horror" novel in the same way many of his adult books are -- which is good for me, as I don't care much for "horror" since I tend to be disgusted rather than scared by many of the "horrific" scenes in the horror genre. 

The heroine of the Abarat books, Candy Quackenbush, is very resourceful and likeable. Near the end of this one she does get involved in a teenage romance which develops too quickly for my taste, but that's a very minor subplot. The main plot about the evil Empress trying to take over the Abaratian world was extremely inventive and absorbing for me. I recommend this to anyone who likes young adult literature and can deal with the "children's fantasy" trope of having a world made of islands where each island is stuck at a particular hour on the clock (8 am, midnight, 4 pm, etc.)

Of course we also do have something of a GRRM/Rothfuss/Lynch problem with this series. Absolute Midnight is Book 3 in what is now projected to be a five book series. Book 1 came out in 2002, Book 2 in 2004, and Book 3 in 2011, and Book 4 is not out yet. Barker's fans can blame that on the fact that he illustrates the books as well as writes them, and these illustrations are paintings he's done. (The pictures are often more "horrific" to me than the writing.) There are well over 100 illustrations in Book 3, and many people seem to think finishing the pictures is slower for Barker than the writing is. Be that as it may, it's now been nine years since Book 3 with no indication that Book 4 is right around the corner, and some fans speculating Books 4 and 5 will never be published. :)

Despite that problem, I do still recommend the first 3 books.

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I finished Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January. It had a bit of a slow start but I enjoyed the latter stages a lot. I think perhaps one reason for the slow start is that it's a story about a protagonist who starts off with very little knowledge of what is going on around her or opportunity to do anything about it. I think it makes sense in terms of the character arc to start off this way but having the lead character mostly passively reacting to events for the first part of the novel doesn't help the pacing. Another issue is the book-within-a-book whose chapters are scattered through the novel, it does provide some vital background detail but the fictional author is an academic and their writing does feel a bit dry which makes sense for the character but is again not helpful for the pacing. Fortunately things pick up later on, particularly once January leaves her home and I thought this is where the story became a lot more compelling. One thing the early part of the book does well is slowly introducing various hints about how there's a lot more going than initially meets the eye. The 'Doors' that the title refers to aren't necessarily an original concept in fantasy, portal fantasy is almost a subgenre in its own right, but this book does interesting things with them, particularly in exploring the importance of change and new ideas.

January is a likeable protagonist, and there are some memorable supporting characters including both her allies and antagonists. I think the most interesting character might be her guardian Mr Locke who for most of the novel is a fairly ambiguous character where it is difficult to tell what his true intentions and motivations are.

Overall, I thought that after a relatively slow start this turned into an entertaining story and I thought it was particularly impressive for a debut novel.

Next up I think I'll read Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, which sounds intriguing from what I've heard about it.

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I recently finished E.C. Tubb's second Dumarest Saga novel, Derai (1968), via audiobook.  Once again, this is an excellent Space Opera from the Golden Age, but written by an author ten or twenty years after the end of that period of SciFi.  Well paced, well written, having zero important things to say about life other than "watch out, you can't fight The Man, even in space."

Excellent escapist literature, and the overall story arc of Earl Dumarest and his quest to locate his home world, the mythical Earth, and the galactic forces who oppose him, is now firmly set in motion.  I shall continue to add these books to my weekly biking-hiking ipod.

Interestingly, I see that it was optioned for a ten-episode TV series: Linky  But I don't see that this ever actually happened.  The John Carter of Mars curse must surely strike down all such TV or movie efforts.

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I finished Kellanved's Reach this morning, and I think that it is the final book of Ian C. Esslemont's prequel trilogy.  Although it also had a fairly large cast of characters, like Deadhouse Landing, it felt more story-driven and less like name-checking.  I felt that Deadhouse Landing had too many characters, and some of their check-ins felt a bit rote, but Kellanved's Reach seemed to tell a tale that had more purpose and plot, so I would say it is almost as good as Dancer's Lament.

The ending of the novel seemed a bit abrupt, almost like there should be another book or two in order to actually describe the path to ascendancy and the Night of Knives.  I also thought that the story of the T'Lan Imass was truncated, which was a failing of ICE's earlier books.  Characters that seem to need more story include Gregar, Haraj, the Bloorian and Grisian characters, and the Moranth.  Also, we never hear how Dorian becomes Cotillion.  Several characters just seemed to need more story in order to give them some reason for being, thus I guess he left me wanting more.

So in summary, for me the three books ICE wrote in the Path to Ascendancy are superior to his six Books of the Malazan Empire on many fronts - better style, more clarity, actual storylines, characters the reader can care about or empathize with, etc.  On the textual evidence, ICE is becoming a more accomplished writer, and I enjoyed these three books and the story they told.

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