Third Quarter 2020 Reading is a Joy

[Zorral]

Andrew Lang, editor of the multi-volume Fairy Tale series, labeled in colors, is the subject of a piece by Michael Dirda in the (pay wall) WaPo. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/more-than-a-century-later-the-wonderful-work-of-andrew-lang-holds-up-remarkably-well/2020/08/12/4bff860e-dc07-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html

Why have I never thought of Lang, the person, and his life before, when I grew up with the fairy tale volumes, reading them over and over, in order!  Great Grand Mom had them all from her days as a teacher. She brought all the books they used in her classes at Teachers College on how and what to teach in English and history classes; she bought a lot of books for her country school kids as a library for that one-room school house that had none). 

He had a close friendship with Haggard. He read King Solomon's Mines in ms. and got it published. Haggard dedicated She to Lang -- Lang wrote a good natured parody of She, titled He. Additional jump starts to writing careersfor which he was responsible were those of Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson.  He championed Mark Twain in Britain, and so very much more.

He seems a great guy with whom to have hung out and whom to have as a friend.

His advice to would be writers can be found full text online. Worth reading today too:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2566/2566-h/2566-h.htm

So can his "Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody" -- in which Catherine Moreland of Northhanger Abbey meets Jane Eyre:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1991

or 

http://www.fullbooks.com/Old-Friends--Essays-in-Epistolary-Parody1.html

In "Reading is a Joy" -- these are joyeous reads.

[Sir Thursday]

On 8/12/2020 at 1:45 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Farseer all day every day and three times on Tuesdays thank you very much. Everyone else's opinions are irrelevant.

 

My slightly unpopular opinion is that the Witches series is the best of the Discworld stuff. By unpopular I don't mean people necessarily dislike that series, it's just far more common to find, the Watch is most popular. I also include the Tiffany Aching books in that series too, for obvious reasons. I think Wintersmith is my favourite Tiffany Aching book

I've seen it said that Guards Guards! is quite masculine and tends to be recommended by men as a starting point for Discworld, but that women are more likely to recommend the Witches. I've not really tested that hypothesis out, but it doesn't seem completely insane to me.

ST

[Eric Cartman]

On 8/12/2020 at 5:53 AM, Jodan said:

But I really want to start a 'proper' series, Discworld is more loose so it's good to dip in and out of with no need to read the next soon after so you don't forget the story as they're mostly self contained. I'm stuck between Wheel Of Time and Farseer (plus the follow on trilogies). I've scoured Reddit and previous threads here for opinion and looking for an updated view. With WOT it's more a case is it worth reading/trying Eye Of The World before the Amazon series begins?

I don't want to read both at the same time as I like to read other stuff and not be flipping between WOT/Farseer/Discworld for god knows how long with no time for anything else. So the question is what do I buy when I go to pick up Dune? Assassins Apprentice or Eye Of The World?

I can recommend a couple of good series that aren't mainstream for you to consider. 

Paternus Trilogy by Dyrk Ashton - A fast and really novel take on mythology based fantasy. It really has all the world's mythology all in one book. Really a fun read. 

Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron - Another fun read about a thief who wants to be best in world. Different kind of magic system and really well written and enjoyable. 

On sci-fi, try Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Not the epic of Dune, but really cool read about a security bot which calls itself Murderbot but loves to watch TV shows. Well structured plaot, likeable characters and overall nice read. 

As a standalone, I can recommend Lord of Light by Roger Zelanzy. A superbly crafted sci-fi set in Hindu mythology.  

[polishgenius]

On 8/12/2020 at 2:45 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

My slightly unpopular opinion is that the Witches series is the best of the Discworld stuff. By unpopular I don't mean people necessarily dislike that series, it's just far more common to find, the Watch is most popular. I also include the Tiffany Aching books in that series too, for obvious reasons. I think Wintersmith is my favourite Tiffany Aching book

Hat Full of Sky is my second-favourite Discworld overall, after Night Watch.

I think there might be something to the notion that women like the Witches while men like Vimes- Granny Weatherwax is my favourite character now but she wouldn't have been if you asked me a few years ago.

City Watch is still my favourite series though. One of the reasons I'd usually recommend it to start over Witches is that it's more consistent and is so from the start - Guards Guards and Men at Arms are a bit samey but both still very good and then you've got the Feet of Clay, Jingo, Fifth Elephant and Night Watch run, whereas even if you skip Equal Rites which is just an oddity within the series, I don't think Wyrd Sisters is particularly strong, Witches Abroad is excellent but (despite some excellent thoughts on religion and a cracking ending in Carpe Jugullum) I don't love Lords and Ladies or Maskerade, though Carpe Jugullum is really good. It's Tiffany where that series really hit its stride for me.

 

Same goes for Death, actually. I don't really like Mort very much at all, plus Death just isn't really the character he evolved into later. Reaper Man is excellent and my personal start, but then Soul Music is kinda eh for me too. Hogfather and  Thief of Time are the business though.

Though where I really usually recommend to start is 'pick what takes your fancy between book 8- Guards! Guards! and 20 - Hogfather, I think that's the sweet spot between Pratchett finding his feet and things getting a bit involved to catch everything if you read it standalone even though they technically are. And even if I have my personal quibbles with one book or another it's all relative and it's hard to go wrong in that stretch.


I gotta massively disagree with the person who said Discworld got weaker after Jingo though. For me by far the strongest stretch of the series is from Feet of Clay (19, two before Jingo) through to Going Postal at 33. The only weaker ones in that run for me are The Last Hero and Amazing Maurice, which are kinda throwaway but still fun (and great art on Last Hero) and most of my favourites are in that stretch.


Man I love Discworld. One of the foundational series of my teenage reading years alongside the Culture and Malazan (both of which came slightly later). Glad I didn't start with the start though- the first two books are weak coz they're just trying to be a fantasy Hitchhiker's Guide, quite openly really, and that kind of style was not Pterry's strength.

On 8/12/2020 at 1:58 PM, Plessiez said:

The last few published books are definitely worse, for whatever reason.  Unseen Academicals and Snuff are both pretty bad, sadly.  (And Raising Steam is a lot worse than that -- it's the only Discworld book I genuinely regret reading.)

Snuff is bizarre because whereas his books are usually concerned with current issues, Snuff is an impassioned takedown of the slave trade- and not indentured servitude in general such as still happens around the world but slave-trade style, 'these people aren't real people' chattel slavery in particular, and because it also does what Pratchett usually doesn't and makes racism analogies that have direct real-world comparisons, it does slightly run into the trouble that fantasy racism analogies often do, which is that when it leaves aside the analogy and goes back to the fantasy, it walks straight into unfortunate implications (to whit, when bouncing between the fantasy-genre-relevant 'rehabilitation of the reputation of goblins' plot and real world slavery comparisons it accidentally implies that reparations to, and non-punishment of, slave owners was okay because slave traders didn't know they were dealing with people, which is obviously quite a dangerous implication to make).

Unseen Academicals is bad because Pratchett simply didn't understand football culture in the slightest and his attempts to really get a lock on it never came close.

 

[Starkess]

I'm a woman and I love the City Watch subseries and recommend it as a good place to start for Discworld. The witches are okay but nothing special to me, and I don't think I've read all their books. Personally, I started my own (incomplete) Discworld adventures with The Colour of Magic because I usually strongly prefer publication order, and I loved it. That was a long time ago though.

[Jo498]

I have read maybe half of discworld (over a span of about 25 years) but last times a read and re-read a bunch I was positively surprised by some of the very early ones. One simply has to grant that they are different. Especially the first two (but maybe most of the first ca. 10) are mostly parodies of fantasy tropes, basically Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy with fantasy instead of SciFi. As such they are very entertaining and quite good (and I think the totally crazy first two are in some respects better than e.g. Wyrd sisters that is more ambitious with its Shakespeare parodies). This feels different nowadays with 30 later, often more serious books and fantasy having become far more mainstream (and more diverse) than in the 1980s. The first bunch I read with ca. 20 around 1992 in German translation (often a bit of a problem because many puns are almost impossible to translate) were a blast. They felt utterly novel and fresh.

So I think one can/should start at the beginning but I am not disagreeing that going for the city watch and start with Guards!Guards! is also a good option.

[Plessiez]

On 8/13/2020 at 10:08 PM, polishgenius said:

I gotta massively disagree with the person who said Discworld got weaker after Jingo though. For me by far the strongest stretch of the series is from Feet of Clay (19, two before Jingo) through to Going Postal at 33. The only weaker ones in that run for me are The Last Hero and Amazing Maurice, which are kinda throwaway but still fun (and great art on Last Hero) and most of my favourites are in that stretch.

I'm not sure if I've always thought this, but these days I definitely think the strongest stretch is from Reaper Man (11) up to and including Hogfather (20), a run that includes the two best Witches books, the best Rincewind book, two of the three best City Watch books, the two best Death books and, in Small Gods, the best book of the series overall.  (Okay, it also includes Soul Music, but I didn't say it was perfect...)

Is it a coincidence that these are exactly the books in the series that I happened to first read in my early teens?  Well, probably not.

But other than simple nostalgia, one reason I think I like the later books a bit less is that so many of them are continuations of long-running sub-series at that point.  I don't think long-running character growth is really one of Pratchett's strengths: secondary characters tend to learn some sort of lesson or change some aspect of their behaviour in the first book they're introduced in, and then just stay static over later books.  I also don't really find later-series versions of Vimes or Granny Weatherwax (or other long-running characters like Vetinari) to be as interesting as they are earlier in the series.

(Spoilers for the City Watch books up to The Fifth Elephant Thud!.)

Spoiler

The Vimes of Guards! Guards! has a completely different back story to the Vimes of later books, of course.  And although the Patrician appears as early as Sourcery, it takes Pratchett a while to figure out a version of the character that really works.    But by Men At Arms I think Pratchett had more or less settled on the versions of the characters that he'd stick with for the rest of the series.

But the Vimes (and Vetinari) of Men At Arms have more human flaws than they're allowed in later books.  Captain Vimes has a strong moral sense, sure, but he's still fallible and needs to be talked out of shooting somebody while he's under the influence of the gonne;  by The Fifth Elephant Commander Vimes has such supernatural self-control that it terrifies an ancient spirit of vengeance.   And the Patrician of Men At Arms is intelligent, but he can make mistakes: he sometimes misjudges how people will react to his attempts to influence them, he can be surprised by an assassination attempt.  By Jingo these things feel impossible because the character has become so defined by being utterly hypercompetent.

So while the later books in the series are still funny, they just don't seem to have any real stakes.  The alternate universe scenes with the Dis-organiser in Jingo ("Things to do today: build barricades .... rally survivors. Things to do today: die") are surprisingly effective, but at the same time it becomes impossible to believe that anything seriously bad will happen to the Watch in anything but an alternate universe.

A minor point, but are the Tiffany Aching books really part of the Witches subseries?  Admittedly I've not read the last couple, but my impression was that the relationship between those books and the 'main' Witches books was more like the relationship between the Watch books and the various later Ankh-Morpork based books like The Truth or Going Postal.  

On 8/13/2020 at 10:08 PM, polishgenius said:

Man I love Discworld. One of the foundational series of my teenage reading years alongside the Culture and Malazan (both of which came slightly later). Glad I didn't start with the start though- the first two books are weak coz they're just trying to be a fantasy Hitchhiker's Guide, quite openly really, and that kind of style was not Pterry's strength

Yeah, the first couple of Discworld books feel a lot closer to Pratchett's pre-Discworld SF novels than what the series ultimately turns into, only working with pastiches of Robert E. Howard or Anne McCaffery or Fritz Leiber instead of parodies of Asmiov and Niven. (Of those early books, I have a bit of a soft spot for The Dark Side of the Sun, even though I'd concede that objectively its not very good.)  I'm not sure how much of that is Pratchett finding a style that played to his strengths and how much is due to him just becoming a better writer in general as the series progressed.

I think Equal Rites is the first really good Discworld book, but I'm not sure I'd suggest anybody start with it because it's really not much like anything that comes after it, and there's not an obvious next book to read.  Publication order suggests Mort, which I think we share opinions on, and going straight to the 'next' Witches book from that feels a bit jarring (since the Granny Weatherwax of Wyrd Sisters might as well be a different person with the same name, and there really isn't much in common between the two books beyond that).

But yeah, growing up these books (and the early Culture books, actually) really meant a lot to me, too.  Still don't think I've ever read anything like them (though I've read a few things that tried).  When I say the later books aren't as good, I'm really only speaking relatively to the peak I think the series hit slightly earlier.   I wouldn't want discourage anybody from reading anything up to Going Postal at all.  (It's only with the last few books that I think the quality really starts to go down.)

[polishgenius]

10 hours ago, Plessiez said:

But other than simple nostalgia, one reason I think I like the later books a bit less is that so many of them are continuations of long-running sub-series at that point.  I don't think long-running character growth is really one of Pratchett's strengths: secondary characters tend to learn some sort of lesson or change some aspect of their behaviour in the first book they're introduced in, and then just stay static over later books.  I also don't really find later-series versions of Vimes or Granny Weatherwax (or other long-running characters like Vetinari) to be as interesting as they are earlier in the series.

(Spoilers for the City Watch books up to The Fifth Elephant.)

  Reveal hidden contents

The Vimes of Guards! Guards! has a completely different back story to the Vimes of later books, of course.  And although the Patrician appears as early as Sourcery, it takes Pratchett a while to figure out a version of the character that really works.    But by Men At Arms I think Pratchett had more or less settled on the versions of the characters that he'd stick with for the rest of the series.

But the Vimes (and Vetinari) of Men At Arms have more human flaws than they're allowed in later books.  Captain Vimes has a strong moral sense, sure, but he's still fallible and needs to be talked out of shooting somebody while he's under the influence of the gonne;  by The Fifth Elephant Commander Vimes has such supernatural self-control that it terrifies an ancient spirit of vengeance.   And the Patrician of Men At Arms is intelligent, but he can make mistakes: he sometimes misjudges how people will react to his attempts to influence them, he can be surprised by an assassination attempt.  By Jingo these things feel impossible because the character has become so defined by being utterly hypercompetent.

So while the later books in the series are still funny, they just don't seem to have any real stakes.  The alternate universe scenes with the Dis-organiser in Jingo ("Things to do today: build barricades .... rally survivors. Things to do today: die") are surprisingly effective, but at the same time it becomes impossible to believe that anything seriously bad will happen to the Watch in anything but an alternate universe.

A minor point, but are the Tiffany Aching books really part of the Witches subseries?  Admittedly I've not read the last couple, but my impression was that the relationship between those books and the 'main' Witches books was more like the relationship between the Watch books and the various later Ankh-Morpork based books like The Truth or Going Postal.  

 

There's something to what you say about the character changes (by TV tropes terms a slight flanderisation), though you've misremembered, Fifth Elephant was the first of the two Vimes Uberwald book, the one you're thinking of is Thud!. Which I do agree was a dropoff. Even in Night Watch, though he's a bit more polished than in earlier books, he's still fighting with his more violent instincts throughout, and in Fifth Elephant he gets manipulated like no-one's business.

 

I think that slight (and I do think it is slight till the very later books, which we agree on) issue is countered by the overall depth and richness in the overall plots, which I think came on in leaps in the stretch I prefer. I've also got the inkling of a thought that while the characters might be a bit more smoothed off and archetypal than earlier that I prefer the relationships between them in the later stretch, though I've never really analysed that thought (since I just had it now) and it might not be entirely fair.


And I'd say the Tiffany books are definitely Witches books - the Watch only get passing cameos in The Truth and Going Postal etc, Granny gets a cameo at the end of Wee Free Men but she's key in Hat Full of Sky and her and Nanny are a strong presence in most of the later books too.

It's also worth noting that for all the disappointment of his later adult books, the Tiff books didn't drop off to anywhere near the same extent and The Shepherd's Crown is a genuinely fitting book to have been his last.

[hauberk]

I'm back to Wild Cards after a break of a couple of years.  I recently picked up the America arc - Mississippi Roll, Low Chicago and Texas Hold'Em.  So far, I'm only about 2/3 through Mississippi Roll, but  I'm reminded, with each new book, of what a joy it is for me to revisit this world.  I continue to miss a lot of the older characters (Turtle and Mod Man most of all), but anytime Billy Ray shows up, I know I'm in for a treat. 

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 8/13/2020 at 11:08 PM, polishgenius said:

The only weaker ones in that run for me are The Last Hero and Amazing Maurice, which are kinda throwaway but still fun (and great art on Last Hero) and most of my favourites are in that stretch.

The Last Hero is an odd one for me too. The art is great and I think so is the story, but it is a lot more condensed than other Discworld books, probably so as not to give the illustrator too much work given the density of art in that book. In particular, the beginning almost feels rushed. We learn what Cohen is up to in only a couple of sentences, then a few main characters are drummed together and they start working on the right solution immediately. Leonard da Quirm gives the Patrician a shopping list of materials and dragons, and in the next scene the Kite is fully built. The whole book feels like it fast-forwards to where the climax of a Discworld book would usually be, then spends its entire running time on that. Again, though, awesome art. The story is cool too. It's one of the few that actually explore the lower elements of the Discworld. There are times when you wonder what the turtle and elephants are there for, other than to set the tone of the setting at the start of each book.

The weakest Discworld book overall for me (so far - still only halfway through Wintersmith since I'm saving the latter half for a lengthy train journey tomorrow) is one similar to The Last Hero, namely Eric (or FaustEric if you want to be technical). This one was also illustrated, but I was dumb and got the regular paperback version, which is short as a pamphlet compared to the full-length books around it and both begins and ends rather awkwardly with a very short middle. That being said, it has its strong points too, like the great descriptions of Hell. I also like that it exists, because that gives me a very easy pick for my least favourite Discworld novel, a question that would have been substantially harder to answer otherwise. Counting The Colour of Magic would be a cheap move (I think I would rank it below Eric if I did) as Pratchett had yet to find his style by then, and it really shows. It's like counting the playing cards that as the worst Nintendo franchise. 

I also agree with the general sentiment that the characters tend to "solidify" a little too much into their most virtuous selves after a few books. Vimes being moral to a fault, Carrot also being moral to a fault while also being a really nice guy, Vetinari being clever to the point that he treats his assassination attempts as a riddle for others to solve, Granny Weatherwax being an unbendable badass, and so on. I don't really let it affect my enjoyment of the books, though. The stories are still great and the setting is awesome. 

If I were to categorize the Tiffany Aching books, I'd place them in the same basket as Equal Rites. They are Witch books all right, but not a "Witches of Lancre" books. Granny and Nanny are definitely side characters, if they show up at all. They are all about a character learning the basics of witchcraft and facing her own issues, even though the more experienced witches do feature. Although, again, I'm not too sold on the "Tiffany being stalked by a supernatural being" plot as that's a main story in all three of her first books. But there are two Tiffany books left to read (well, two and a half), so she may end up doing something else eventually. 

Oh, and even though I already declared the Witches series (series plural, as per the paragraph above) my favourite, the Watch series still deserves credit for one thing: It shows how the city of Ankh-Morpork changes over time. It's a very mono-cultural fantasy city in the first few books, then eventually more dwarfs and trolls settle there, and there's a gradual technological development as well. We see Ankh-Morpork grow as a society, instead of being the same all throughout the series. That wouldn't have been a bad thing in itself (Lancre stays the same, after all), but it's nice to see an example of societal and technological progress in a fantasy series.

[Plessiez]

13 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Fifth Elephant was the first of the two Vimes Uberwald book, the one you're thinking of is Thud!.

Oh, yes, you're right.  (Just to be safe I've edited the spoiler warning in my last post to identify the right book.)

13 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

It's a very mono-cultural fantasy city in the first few books, then eventually more dwarfs and trolls settle there, and there's a gradual technological development as well. We see Ankh-Morpork grow as a society, instead of being the same all throughout the series. That wouldn't have been a bad thing in itself (Lancre stays the same, after all), but it's nice to see an example of societal and technological progress in a fantasy series.

Yes, this is a nice aspect of the later books.

[Jo498]

I actually don't think that this is clearly a good thing. If I want to read Dickens or Hugo or some more recent book with social or societal themes, I'll do this. But I don't really want Pseudo-Dickens 19th century London with dwarfs and wizards and Pratchettian humour (which makes it far less tragic than real 19th century London or Paris were and are as such reflected in the best of Dickens or Hugo) and while I don't deny that Pratchett often manages a pretty successful fusion of these aspects, I am not really convinced by some of the more ambitious books like "Night Watch".

[Ormond]

Last night I finished The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. Many of the descriptions were evocative and the plot was interesting enough that I probably will read the sequel some day to find out what happened to the title character, a young woman who at the start of the tale is amnesiac, cannot speak, and has a horribly deformed face. (At the very end of the story part of that is fixed, but I won't spoil it by saying what part.) 

The fantasy world Dart-Thornton created for the story is heavily influenced by Irish and Scottish myth and legend. Some of the ways she works the legends into the tale are very interesting. There is a faux-Irish family the main character becomes involved with where all of the members are characterized quite well. And I appreciated the difference in this being a Southern Hemisphere world, where the cold climates are to the South and the hot ones to the North.

However, I did have a lot of problems with the story. The different ethnic groups are described as everyone in them having the same hair color -- red, brown, blond, or black -- which annoyed me. Dart-Thornton is also way too fond of searching out obscure vocabulary -- this book is the first fantasy novel in years (since I was reading Stephen Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) where I have had to look up multiple words in the dictionary, and I am not someone with a small vocabulary. During one about 30 page stretch I had to look up peplum, farrago, carlin, souvenance, cotehardie, liripipe, tippet, escritoire, thaumatrope, gallipot, and garrulity. Maybe those are everyday words in Australia, where the author is from, but I somehow doubt it. To make things more confusing, she invents words for unique objects in her fantasy world and uses them in such a way that at first I thought they were other very obscure English words that just hadn't made it into my unabridged dictionary -- such as "taltry", a special head covering people have to wear in this world to protect them from magical psychic storms. Finally, about 3/4 of the way through the story a love interest is introduced for the main character, and this man is presented as being so completely perfect in terms of looks, personality, and skills that it's ridiculous. So I can't give the book more than a B- at most. 

[mushroomshirt]

On 8/12/2020 at 2:53 AM, Jodan said:

After a few failed attempts, Terry Pratchett and Discworld finally clicked with Guards! Guards! end of last year and I'm working my way through Discworld slowly, read one then a few other books and back to Discworld. Hogfather was the last in April and it was a bit of a slog for me. I'll get to Jingo before the year is out and carry on with The Watch novels.

I haven't read a ton of Pratchett (I haven't read 'Guards! Guards! Guards').  But the Night Watch is really good, funny like all Pratchett novels, but really poignant and philosophical too.  Since Discworld is jut a loose series I didn't feel like I was missing anything not having read the other Watch novels.

[Nicomo Cosca]

I've been struggling with book 7 of Malazan for the last 2 months at this point lol It's weird because I really liked the first three books and loved books four through six even more, but for some reason this one just isn't clicking with me. I'm tired of the story and I WANT to know how it plays out but omg why is it so loong. Just finished part 2 and IDK if I'm going to continue.

On the plus side I have read and enjoyed Anna Karenina and John Crow's Devil and both books have been fantastic. I think Abercrombie fans could really enjoy JCD because of how brutal and raw it is. And it has great characters! Just be aware that it does have a bit of magical realism if you're not into that. Either way it's short and it makes for a nice weekend read. I find it to be a weird mixture of García Marquez, Abercrombie, Tarantino and religious extremism. 

Anna Karenina broke me. 

[williamjm]

29 minutes ago, Nicomo Cosca said:

I've been struggling with book 7 of Malazan for the last 2 months at this point lol It's weird because I really liked the first three books and loved books four through six even more, but for some reason this one just isn't clicking with me. I'm tired of the story and I WANT to know how it plays out but omg why is it so loong. Just finished part 2 and IDK if I'm going to continue.

I think Reaper's Gale was about where I started to lose my enthusiasm for the series. Not that there isn't good stuff in the last few books because there is, however it felt like it took increasing numbers of pages to get to the good parts.

[Caligula_K3]

6 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I think Reaper's Gale was about where I started to lose my enthusiasm for the series. Not that there isn't good stuff in the last few books because there is, however it felt like it took increasing numbers of pages to get to the good parts.

Agreed. I like Reaper's Gale fine - if I remember, I probably like it more than Bonehunters or House of Chains, maybe because I enjoy the Letheri/Edur characters and setting more than the others. But this book is really where the bloat problem starts getting out of control - and this problem turns Toll the Hounds and especially Dust of Dreams into bad books. And the first half of Crippled God isn't great either... If you're really not feeling it, @Nicomo Cosca Reaper's Gale might be a good place to stop, though I'd say it's at least worth getting to the climax, which wraps up many plotlines.

Thanks for the recommendation of John Crow's Devil- will look into that.

Since we're talking about Erikson, he posted this rant about how people who don't think he's good at characterization are bad readers. When will authors learn...

https://m.facebook.com/steveneriksonofficial/posts/1646644495487844?__tn__=K-R

 

 

 

[Nicomo Cosca]

45 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Agreed. I like Reaper's Gale fine - if I remember, I probably like it more than Bonehunters or House of Chains, maybe because I enjoy the Letheri/Edur characters and setting more than the others. But this book is really where the bloat problem starts getting out of control - and this problem turns Toll the Hounds and especially Dust of Dreams into bad books. And the first half of Crippled God isn't great either... If you're really not feeling it, @Nicomo Cosca Reaper's Gale might be a good place to stop, though I'd say it's at least worth getting to the climax, which wraps up many plotlines.

Thanks for the recommendation of John Crow's Devil- will look into that.

Since we're talking about Erikson, he posted this rant about how people who don't think he's good at characterization are bad readers. When will authors learn...

https://m.facebook.com/steveneriksonofficial/posts/1646644495487844?__tn__=K-R

 

 

 

The weird thing is that I also enjoyed the Letheras/Edur storyline in book 5. If I were to pick a favorite book of the six it would probably be that one. I was even excited when I started this one! I looked at the map and the character list and saw how many places and characters of book 5 and 6 were going to crossover and I was pumped! The impression I'm getting is that the amount of story to cover after book 6 was probably for two more books and I'm reading the stretched out version (it reminds me of The Hobbit Trilogy). This storyline has potential for greatness but it just isn't there for me.

I was even enjoying the amount of navel-gazing in the previous books lol

That facebook post was very frustrating to read. I find his characters to be perfectly fine and they work for the story and thats it, but I don't think they are anywhere near the greatest character I've read. They are diverse and unique (which I appreciate) but I don't think they are deep or multilayered. That doesn't mean I wasn't invested in them though. I was invested in them in the same way I'm invested for any characters in any blockbuster which I think its fine.

 

And I would love to hear if you enjoy John Crow's Devil! Marlon James seems like a great author and I'll be reading more of his books in the next few weeks. He is even writing a fantasy trilogy right now, the first book being Black Leopard, Red Wolf. But I haven't read that one yet  

[williamjm]

I finished David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue. Overall I liked it, although I wouldn't put it up there with Mitchell's very best books and I think it does have some weaknesses. I think the biggest issue is the pacing, if we were to use a metaphor from the 60s music scene setting of the book then I think this is more of a sometimes self-indulgent double LP rather than a snappy 3 minute single. It seems to take a very long time introducing the characters and the setting and although there are some dramatic moments throughout the story I think most of the plot seems to happen towards the end of the novel, and it is a fairly long novel. When it does get to them I thought the plot was compelling, although some key moments such as the conclusion of the 'Knock Knock' plotline felt a bit rushed.

What I did like were the characters, something Mitchell has always been good at and I think the book does a good job of both developing their characters and also showing how the relationship builds up between the four band members (and their manager) and how such contrasting characters can work well together. Jasper de Zoet gets what is probably the most interesting plotline and I think is also the most interesting character, someone struggling to understand a world he often finds baffling while also trying to deal with a literal voice in his head. I also like the tie-in to The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet which is one of my favourite books of the past few years, even if the inclusion of some fantasy elements into what is otherwise a fairly mundane story might confuse people who hadn't read Mitchell's previous books. I thought Elf was the most immediately likeable of the characters and her plotline may not have stakes as high as Jasper's but she still gets a number of good scenes through the book. One thing Mitchell often does well is portrayals of characters who have serious flaws where he doesn't shy away from those flaws but still regards the characters with some sympathy and show that there is some possibility for them to become better, I think Dean Moss is the best example here, he probably has the most typical rock star story of the members of the band and while he does keep making terrible decisions he does have enough redeeming moments to make him interesting to read about.

The book is also filled with cameos, from a mixture of real-world figures from the late 60s musical scene and a few characters from previous Mitchell books. In another book this might not have worked but the impression is gives of everyone in Soho or the Californian music scene knowing each other does feel like something that might have been in a rock biography, so having the characters randomly bumping into David Bowie in the street makes sense in this context.

At one point a character mentions the quote that 'writing about music is like dancing about architecture', and there is something slightly lacking that no matter how much we read about Utopia Avenue's music that we can't hear any of it, but the book is probably doing something right when the reader is left wishing that they could hear the music being described in the book.

[RedEyedGhost]

9 hours ago, williamjm said:

9 hours ago, Nicomo Cosca said:

I've been struggling with book 7 of Malazan for the last 2 months at this point lol It's weird because I really liked the first three books and loved books four through six even more, but for some reason this one just isn't clicking with me. I'm tired of the story and I WANT to know how it plays out but omg why is it so loong. Just finished part 2 and IDK if I'm going to continue.

I think Reaper's Gale was about where I started to lose my enthusiasm for the series. Not that there isn't good stuff in the last few books because there is, however it felt like it took increasing numbers of pages to get to the good parts.

Reaper's Gale is where I dropped the series.  I bought the next book, but never got around to reading it because RG was such a slog.  Although, I really didn't care for the Lether and Edur, and book 5 was the low point of the series for me.