Jump to content

Third Quarter 2020 Reading is a Joy


Peadar

Recommended Posts

Yes, well I was talking to someone who did not know the ending, though it would be easy to check, and centuries later! Yes, it could have been more generous to the Boleyns. The usual stuff about Anne portrays her as a sex mad villain, though. I believe she was a reform minded person who experienced more enlightened ways in France and came back to England. It would have been madness to sleep around on Henry once she had been selected by him, but flirting chastely was a whole game of chivalry. At least the books show that the charges were invented and why. I’m pretty sure that Anne was not a witch!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd recently read Diarmond MacCulloch's biography of Thomas Cromwell while waiting for Mantel's third volume back Before it was published in March.  I was struck all the way through the biography at how much Mantel got into her books, and got so right, but so much shorter.  It was just when it finally came out and got to be sort of available here, the pandemic was in full fire where I live, and I couldn't put my mind to it.  I'm calmer now, in this fairly short interregnum between us going from the hottest of the hottest of death and cases -- curfew and lock down and all, which every city and state should have done and then we wouldn't be dealing with what we're dealing with now  -- to the lowest, to it all rolling back up again due to the idiocies of so many.  So I want to enjoy this one like I did the other Mantel Cromwell books -- and the other of her books I've read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Yes, well I was talking to someone who did not know the ending, though it would be easy to check, and centuries later! Yes, it could have been more generous to the Boleyns. The usual stuff about Anne portrays her as a sex mad villain, though. I believe she was a reform minded person who experienced more enlightened ways in France and came back to England. It would have been madness to sleep around on Henry once she had been selected by him, but flirting chastely was a whole game of chivalry. At least the books show that the charges were invented and why. I’m pretty sure that Anne was not a witch!

Modern authors like Philippa Gregory haven't really done Anne any favours have they? Hilary Mantel is at least a brilliant writer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

I'd recently read Diarmond MacCulloch's biography of Thomas Cromwell while waiting for Mantel's third volume back Before it was published in March.  I was struck all the way through the biography at how much Mantel got into her books, and got so right, but so much shorter.  It was just when it finally came out and got to be sort of available here, the pandemic was in full fire where I live, and I couldn't put my mind to it.  I'm calmer now, in this fairly short interregnum between us going from the hottest of the hottest of death and cases -- curfew and lock down and all, which every city and state should have done and then we wouldn't be dealing with what we're dealing with now  -- to the lowest, to it all rolling back up again due to the idiocies of so many.  So I want to enjoy this one like I did the other Mantel Cromwell books -- and the other of her books I've read.

I have the biography on my kindle as well - another big book to look forward to when my brain fog clears a bit! I'm in Australia and my city doesn't have any active cases at the moment but it's been a tough year (bushfires, my mum passing away, mobility issues, Covid restrictions and family in hotspots).  I'm still much more fortunate than so many people. I hope you and Hooded Crow continue to keep safe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished 88 Names by Matt Ruff.  It felt very akin to Ready Player One.  (Both have a near-future Earth setting, and most of the plot occurs in a VR game system.)

Next, I'm planning to try a novella (116 pages is a novella, right?) by Faith Hunter titled Junkyard Cats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

I hope you and Hooded Crow continue to keep safe.

Thank you!  It's already scary times with lovecraftian evil destroying everything it can, but even scarier times are coming, and soon.  I'm trying to prepare mentally for that, but I don't think one really can.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I started but dropped Edinburgh Twilight by Carole Lawrence, a detective mystery set in Victorian Edinburgh.  I felt in the mood for a cosy mystery, and it started well with the right atmosphere and capturing the setting, but it fell away quickly.  The author over-writes, stuffing adjectives and adverbs into every single sentence; it was sophomoric.  On top of that the characterization felt affected, with the crusty senior policeman patriotically quoting Burns at the main character in their every encounter, who in turn quoted back English poets to (supposedly) win the exchange each time.  And the plot looked pretty thin too.

Next I started, but also dropped, Black Wolves by Kate Elliott, the first of a fantasy trilogy set in something like medieval Central Asia.  I wanted to like it but the world building, characterization and plot all felt conventional and banal, and the prose was nothing special either.  Not a terrible book, but not one that makes any strong impression.  Does it get better?

Disappointed after two bad books, I went back for another cosy mystery in The Quartet Murders by J.R. Ellis, the second in his series of current day police mysteries set in Yorkshire.  Once again, this is a paean to Yorkshire — the first focused on potholing in Yorkshire caves, this one dwelt more on the industrial history of wool mills scattered around Yorkshire’s hilly landscape — with a tone that emphasizes stepping back from the grime and bustle of big cities.  An enjoyable enough read even if the predictable denouement relied on some far-fetched melodrama.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Next I started, but also dropped, Black Wolves by Kate Elliott, the first of a fantasy trilogy set in something like medieval Central Asia.  I wanted to like it but the world building, characterization and plot all felt conventional and banal, and the prose was nothing special either.  Not a terrible book, but not one that makes any strong impression.  Does it get better?

I liked it but the series was dropped by her publisher so there aren’t going to be any more books. There’s probably not much point going back to it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just finished Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques. This was the 13th book in his "Redwall" series published, but is actually the first in terms of the chronology of his invented world. It's the second Redwall book I've read. 

Redwall is often considered a children's series because it's an "animal fantasy", with the characters being anthropomorphized (bipedal, clothes-wearing and fire-using) mammals of many different species native to the British Isles. But it seems at least "young adult" to me because it is actually fairly violent, with Lord Brocktree focused on wars and battles with many non-villain characters killed in these. I think if the same characters were written as human instead of as badgers, squirrels, and hares that the tale might be considered too violent for small children.

I also think the language is definitely above elementary school level. Many of the different species have their own dialects. The mole dialect is the most different from regular English, though I didn't find it quite as annoying here as I did in the first Redwall book I read. 

I found the story to be well-written, with a good bit of comic relief and some interesting characters. I do feel a bit queasy about Redwall presenting some species as being always on the "good" side and other on the "bad" side in his tales -- hares, badgers, moles, shrews, squirrels, otters, and hedgehogs are "good" while wildcats, rats, weasels, stoats, and foxes are "bad". (Most of the Redwall books seem to focus on heroic mice, but in Lord Brocktree mice are barely mentioned.) But the "good" characters aren't presented as "perfect", and have complex family and friend relationships. which helps (though the "bad" ones don't get many redeeming qualities).  I'm not sure if I will ever want to read any more of Redwall myself, but the book was well-written enough that I'd recommend it to anyone who can deal with animal characters in a "young adult" fantasy world. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mum used to work in a primary school in Liverpool, and said Brian Jacques was a lovely man when he came to do readings/Q&As with the kids. She brought me back a couple of signed books, though at that point I was probably rather older than the publisher's recommended reading age! I can't help but feel a sort of irrational inherited pride in his work, as the child of Liverpool parents, for a Liverpool boy that made good. 

It's ages and ages since I've read any Redwall, but I remember having the impression that the stories got darker as they went on. I remember Luke The Warrior, Outcast of Redwall, and The Long Patrol in particular having some fairly mature stuff in them. 

About 99% of the time the good and the bad are divided along species lines, but there is one story in which a good rat shows up who used to be a pirate. He builds a boat for the children to play in on the abbey pond. Can't remember which book in the series it was though. 

The books are also worth reading just for descriptions of the food. I think the Redwall series may be to blame for awakening the latent foodie instincts in me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too loved the Redwall series when I was younger! Can't remember how old I was, though, and I often (like many of us, I presume) read far ahead of my age category anyway.

I finished The Martian Chronicles. I'm glad I read it, although I found the quality to be uneven between the stories. It was certainly thought provoking and an interesting look at the psyche of the time when it was written (1940s America).

I also finished Nemesis Games. I still have issues with the setup and pacing of this book. It starts out without an obvious direction, given that things tied up rather nicely at the end of book 4, and the book (and crew) meander about in what feel like pointless side quests. And then all of the sudden something happens and now everything is happening (with a hefty dose of coincidences involved). After the out-there stuff of Cibola Burn, this book has basically no alien weirdness, which I think it's missing. And I am less fond of Naomi's storyline than many. <spoiler>This is entirely a personal thing, I'm just not that interested in parent-child stories. I have a good but not close relationship with my own parents and no desire for kids of my own, and so it just kind of bores me. I do appreciate the way the storyline unfolds without making Naomi sacrifice herself for her kid and learning how to overcome her own abuse.</spoiler> I know I sound a bit negative about this, I actually do really enjoy it, I just know a lot of people love this book in particular in the series and that's not at all for me. If I recall, I enjoyed Babylon's Ashes more, so I'm looking forward to reading that, but I may hold off for a little while to lessen the gap before Book 9.

I started listening to Heartless today, a YA novel about the Queen of Hearts before she's an evil villain in Alice in Wonderland. It's okay so far. I'm not a big fan of this narrator (who I realized after I started this one also narrated the Caraval books that I so disliked), which is disappointing, but the story is kind of fun if predictable so far. I like the little Wonderland asides and references. I'll keep on with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/5/2020 at 1:49 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

I went back for another cosy mystery in The Quartet Murders by J.R. Ellis, the second in his series of current day police mysteries set in Yorkshire.  Once again, this is a paean to Yorkshire — the first focused on potholing in Yorkshire caves, this one dwelt more on the industrial history of wool mills scattered around Yorkshire’s hilly landscape — with a tone that emphasizes stepping back from the grime and bustle of big cities.  An enjoyable enough read even if the predictable denouement relied on some far-fetched melodrama.

This is good to hear.  I've seen these around on amazon and been mildly interested in them as I've been to most of the locations on the covers but the large amount of 5 star reviews has put me off.  I've tried some of these well reviewed free on amazon series (but not seen anywhere else but amazon) and found them to be to mediocre at best.  Sounds like its more of a mildly okay series with interesting locations which can be enjoyable when you need a lighter read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished @Derfel Cadarn's Lord of the Hunt. I liked the Victorian Glasgow urban fantasy setting of the first book and this one expanded it to include a plotline in the Scottish Highlands which I thought brought some interesting new aspects to the story. The plot gets more complex as we learn more about the different factions in the 'Sooty Feathers' society with the antagonists often being more focused on their own power struggles than on dealing with the heroes of the story, who are themselves a bit divided in terms of their motivations. I thought the plot twist at the very end of the previous book about a particular characters had brought an intriguing subplot to the story and we got quite a lot more character development for them in this book. I did enjoy reading it and I'm looking forward to the concluding novel in the trilogy.

I'm now most of the way through Martha Wells' Network Effect. I thought the previous four novellas in the Murderbot series was very entertaining and I'm enjoying the first novel about the character as well. It's not doing anything radically different to the previous stories and there's still a lot of focus on the title character but the increased page count does give some opportunity for the supporting cast to get a bit more character development.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I finished @Derfel Cadarn's Lord of the Hunt. I liked the Victorian Glasgow urban fantasy setting of the first book and this one expanded it to include a plotline in the Scottish Highlands which I thought brought some interesting new aspects to the story. The plot gets more complex as we learn more about the different factions in the 'Sooty Feathers' society with the antagonists often being more focused on their own power struggles than on dealing with the heroes of the story, who are themselves a bit divided in terms of their motivations. I thought the plot twist at the very end of the previous book about a particular characters had brought an intriguing subplot to the story and we got quite a lot more character development for them in this book. I did enjoy reading it and I'm looking forward to the concluding novel in the trilogy.

Thanks for the review, glad you liked it :)

It’s actually going to be a quartet, not a trilogy. Each book is deliberately set in a different season of the year (Resurrection Men in spring, Lord of the Hunt in summer).

The Highland area, Loch Aline, is real but I heavily fictionalised its people and history.  
Dunkellen House and estate to the south of Glasgow are real, albeit are really Pollok House and estate, renamed and with a fictional family and history. Kaleshaws village is really Pollokshaws.

Pollok House is now owned by the National Trust Scotland and can be visited. I live near it and based the exterior, interiors, and grounds of Dunkellen House on Pollok House’s current layout. 

The Drovers Inn near Loch Lomond that Hunt and Foley visit early on is real, an early 18tj century inn still in operation. I’ve stayed there a few times, very old and atmospheric. 

Book 3’s working title is Lucifer & Son.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/3/2020 at 10:11 AM, Gorn said:

Finished the first book of the Lyonesse trilogy, Suldrun's Garden. It was a very, very good book, and I agree with a previous opinion on this thread that it was unlike anything else that was published in the same period. The closest analogy that I can make would be "adult-oriented Grimm fairy tale". I've started The Green Pearl, and its style is much closer to the "standard" fantasy format.

I'd say that the beginning with the (pre-)story of the eponymous Green Pearl is one of the most fairy-tale-like sections of all three books. But the middle is more standard fantasy and the last section is really strange/crazy although some of the Dying Earth stories have a similar vibe. If all three books were on the level of "Suldrun's Garden" it would probably be my favorite fantasy ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My last two books: Raven Stratagem  by Yoon Ha Lee (book 2 of Machinery of Empires trilogy) and The Testaments by Atwood.

I enjoyed both of them but am having trouble seeing the hype. Raven Strategem was at least less confusing than Ninefox Gambit in terms of how the world works, but the plot was pretty directionless and I have a hard time visualizing what's happening in battle scenes and getting invested in the characters. This may be a me problem, since I know others love the trilogy, and it's definitely doing some cool things; but I just find my eyes glazing over very often when reading this trilogy. I'll still read the third book once I'm done with the new Abercrombie.

The Testaments is (in part) very well written and I especially enjoyed the Aunt Lydia sections. I also appreciate that it's going for a more positive tone than the original Handmaid's Tale. But it really weirdly devolves into a kind of YA fantasy at the end, and I found one of the three central characters and her plotline completely unconvincing. Overall a good read, but definitely far from Atwood at her best- I can't believe this co-won the Booker Prize.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/4/2020 at 8:28 PM, Zorral said:

Going to re-read, i.e. savor, Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and Light.  The pandemic was looming, or was even here, anyway my anxiety levels were too high to enjoy the book my first time around.

This is a book I'd have read by now if things were closer to normal.

I think The Mirror and the Light had been out for a week or two before the pandemic really hit Scotland, but I'd been too busy with work to pick it up initially.  And afterwards, by the time I'd settled into some sort of routine, it just felt like a book whose subject matter was going to be much too grim for me to enjoy given everything else happening.

Been a big fan of Mantel's fiction ever since I read A Place of Greater Safety and had been looking forward to this one a lot, but cheerful escapism they are not.  And knowing (roughly) what events this book would be covering ... yeah, still not sure I'm ready to face that. 

That said, I managed to finish Edward Whittemore's Jerusalem Poker this month, and I don't think either The Light Brigade or Semoisis, both of which I read over the summer, can really be called cheerful.  But I've definitely felt that since March I've been avoiding certain kinds of fiction and will probably keep doing so for a while.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since the last time I posted I've finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Doors of Eden. It was reasonably good. The premise of the story was pretty cool but I think there were a few too many pov characters so it was jumping around quite a lot and I found it bit difficult to get into it. It wasn't bad but probably not my favourite of his books.

Since then I've read The Boy on the Bridge by Mike Carey. Again it wasn't bad but I found it a little difficult to get into. I didn't realise it was a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts before I started reading it (spoilers for both books):

Spoiler

It was a little hard to get emotionally invested in the fate of the characters with the whole human race getting wiped out at the end of The Girl with All the Gifts. Actually it turns out there is a bit of a positive ending.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/7/2020 at 6:47 PM, williamjm said:

I finished @Derfel Cadarn's Lord of the Hunt. I liked the Victorian Glasgow urban fantasy setting of the first book and this one expanded it to include a plotline in the Scottish Highlands which I thought brought some interesting new aspects to the story. The plot gets more complex as we learn more about the different factions in the 'Sooty Feathers' society with the antagonists often being more focused on their own power struggles than on dealing with the heroes of the story, who are themselves a bit divided in terms of their motivations. I thought the plot twist at the very end of the previous book about a particular characters had brought an intriguing subplot to the story and we got quite a lot more character development for them in this book. I did enjoy reading it and I'm looking forward to the concluding novel in the trilogy.

I'm now most of the way through Martha Wells' Network Effect. I thought the previous four novellas in the Murderbot series was very entertaining and I'm enjoying the first novel about the character as well. It's not doing anything radically different to the previous stories and there's still a lot of focus on the title character but the increased page count does give some opportunity for the supporting cast to get a bit more character development.

@williamjm

Forgot to ask, out if curiosity, how do you feel Lord of the Hunt compared with Resurrection Men?  It’s hard for me to ‘judge’, being the author.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...