November Reading Thread

[Peadar]

Peadar

That sounds like a very interesting book.

Oh yes, Calibander. It's portrays a very female view of idealised love that I couldn't quite believe, but the writer's descriptive power is incredible. There's a scene set at a disco where the narrator imagines she is being seduced that is amazingly beautiful. I haven't been able to get it out of my head ever since.

[Deornoth]

I've just finished reading 'Patrimony', the latest installment in Alan Dean Foster's 'Pip and Flinx' saga. To say that I didn't enjoy this book would be an understatement bordering on an outright lie. Apparently the author thinks that his readers need to be told every single little thing that goes on in a character's head. I don't need this and I don't think most other readers do either. 220 pages of this (and using five big words when one little word would do nicely) just made me want to curl up in a little ball and wait for it all to stop. One for the fans only, my full review is Here.

I'm now starting on 'The Ivory and the Horn', a collection of short stories by Charles de Lint, things are looking much better already.

[bossfan2000]

I just finished A Malady of Magicks by Craig Shaw Gardner (review). I had read this series back in the 1980s, and its pretty much just as good this time around. Lots of funny scenes and dialogue, and in my opinion, one of the highest laugh ratios of any of those comic fantasies from 20 years ago. Recommended if you want a quick read and a good laugh.

I tried reading A Shadow in Summer, but 50 pages in, i just couldnt get into it. I think its probably well-written, but it just isnt connecting with me at the moment. So, I'm back to Sanctuary or A Cavern of Black Ice.

[Bellis]

I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which was quite a sweet story.

Also read The Master and the Margarita by Bulgakov. It was strange, and cute, and more types of strange.

Just now, I devoured Woolf's To the Lighthouse. ZOMG!! Genius.

[RedEyedGhost]

Finished The Innocent Mage by Karen Miller, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I bought the concluding volume (The Awakened Mage) after reading about 150 pages, because I'd heard this one ends in a pretty big cliffhanger. And man am I glad I did! Huge cliffhanger - to the point that it feels like they just chopped one book into two at the midpoint. I've got a couple other quibbles, but nothing major: there is a lot of bickering between the characters which gets a little tedious and excessive IMO, my only other complaint is damn did Asher's country accent get old after awhile. Very enjoyable book, and I'll be starting The Awakened Mage straight away.

8.5/10

Edit: typo, should've been 7.5/10

[Amras]

I just finished Gene Wolfe's "The Wizard Knight", and I loved more than you can believe. I have every faith that it will become one of those books that every fantasy reader *has* to have read in order to truly know the genre, just like LotR is today. Read my review of it here.

[Fastia]

So far this month:

I finished The Amber Spyglass, the last book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. The series was good, but nothing exceptional. It had a lot of potential since the ideas were really interesting, but I put the last book down feeling like the series should have been so much better than it actually was.

After that, I read Making Money by Terry Pratchett. It was neither as good as a lot of the older Discworld books nor as funny, but that's been the case for the last few books in the series. I still thought it was as good as any of these last few books.

Now I'm about a quarter of the way through Lords of Rainbow by Vera Nazarian. I'm not sure what to think so far. The prose is very nicely done, but sometimes the author spends too many pages just describing the world. All the characters seem intriguing, but there have been a lot of characters introduced very briefly, which makes it hard to keep track of them all. I assume that will all make more sense in the end, since I still have most of the book left to read, though. The world seems very unique and interesting so far, and I am interested in seeing what she does with it.

[pat5150]

I've given up on Gregory Frost's forthcoming Shadowbridge. Though I was bored throughout, I gave the book a fair chance to suck me in, but that never materialized.

It's too bad, for the novel appeared to be interesting. But in the end, I found it as forgettable as anything I've read in recent memory...

Patrick

[Peadar]

I've given up on Gregory Frost's forthcoming Shadowbridge. Though I was bored throughout, I gave the book a fair chance to suck me in, but that never materialized.

It's too bad, for the novel appeared to be interesting. But in the end, I found it as forgettable as anything I've read in recent memory...

Patrick

I love the cover and was wondering what it's about -- a medieval fantasy? Would MJH like it?

[Xray the Enforcer]

Reading Winterbirth.

[Talyn]

Inspired by Graeme's review here I went and found the first two books in this series by Karen Traviss; Hard Contact and Triple Zero. I found them to be really good and enjoyed them a lot. They are good books and you don't have to like the movies to like these books.

[Larry.]

I finished/read 8 over the past 24 hours or so (yes, I read faster than Harriet Klausner on occasion - deal ):

The Italian original and the English and Serbian translations of Italo Calvino's most excellent If on a winter's night a traveler. I had already read it before in English, but since I now had editions in those two other languages, I began re-reading the story back in August and didn't finish until now (so that's three done a lot slower than you'd think at first glance)

Mario Vargas Llosa, Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto - Vargas Llosa does softcore literary porn. Quite well, actually. Very sensual novel, as might be expected by the subject matter.

Alan deNiro, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead - short story collection published in 2006 by Small Beer Press (Gavin Grant and Kelly Link's press, for those who want to know why I mentioned the press here). Good collection, could have seen this making this year's WFA shortlist for Best Collection, but not as good as 4 out the 5 that I reviewed last month.

Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies (Limited Edition) - While I'll write a fuller review Sunday or Monday, right now, this was just a disappointing, rather bloated book when compared to the first book in the series.

Thomas á Kempis, The Imitation of Christ - began this some time ago, finished it this evening.

Italo Calvino, Difficult Loves - some of his earliest short fiction (from the 1940s and early 1950s). Can see elements of what made him so highly regarded later, but this is a very early work and some of the stories don't work as well as the others.

Also passed #300 (#303 to be the next to be completed) in books read so far this year. Might have an outside shot at averaging a book a day if I am out on my "vacation" for another week or two as I expect to be before working again. And as for #303, it's the full, hardcover edition of Maus by Art Spiegelman. Damn it's moving and I had to read lots of first-person accounts of the Holocaust when I was finishing up my MA in German Cultural/Religious History of the 20th century.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Started Monette's Melusine, and the first two pages hooked me good. I <3

[Deornoth]

Inspired by Graeme's review here I went and found the first two books in this series by Karen Traviss; Hard Contact and Triple Zero. I found them to be really good and enjoyed them a lot. They are good books and you don't have to like the movies to like these books.

I'm planning on getting these at some point, if you enjoyed them then I reckon you'll like true colours as well

Just finished reading 'The Ivory and the Horn' (Charles de Lint), an urban fantasy collection of short stories set in the fictional city of Newford. What an amazing book this turned out to be, I'm pretty good at the whole 'suspension of disbelief' thing but it's never been as easy to do so as it was with this book. I don't think a book has left me feeling so sad yet elated at the same time, I highly recommend that you find yourself a copy and have a read! My full review is Here.

I'm now roughly halfway through Karl Schroeder's 'Queen of Candesce', a kind of steam-punky sci-fi affair which is looking promising so far...

[Mr. X]

Inspired by fanboy moments at World Fantasy, I reread Expiration Date by Tim Powers.

Now I'm starting into The Shadow of the Torturer, book one of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun.

[Deornoth]

I've heard Tim Powers is supposed to be really good and I've just seen a copy of 'On Stranger Tides' for sale in my local charity shop. Is it worth picking up a copy?

[WhiteQueen]

I am reading "Absurdistan" by Gary Shteyngart, just because I liked the "Russian Debutante's Handbook" so much. It's not as good as "The Debutante" -- even more farcical and flippant, but entertaining enough for me to read on the way to and pro work -- for about 40 minutes a day. I am also reading "Enemies, A Love Story" by Isaac Bashevis Singer, because a friend of mine is working on producing it as a play in a small theatre, and I promised I would read and give him my $0.02. Bashevis Singer is a Nobel prize winner, has an interesting style, is funny and easy to read, plus there is a Paul Mazursky's movie out there which I am looking forward to watching with Anjelica Huston and Lena Olin. First, I have to finish my reading though. The next on my list is Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos -- just because the holiday season have already started and I need to be thinking happy thoughts and read about love and romance and some tear-jerking won't hurt either. I think they purchased the rights to the novel as well and are planning to make it into a movie.

[IheartTesla]

Foucault's Pendulum is proving to be a bit ponderous for me, so I'm taking a break from it by reading "lighter" fare. Namely, Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell. Apparently it follows some of the standard tropes he has in all his books (its my first Gemmell), but as an epic retelling of the Trojan War it is fairly decent so far.

Although I'm not sure about the completion of the series since he was halfway through the third book before passing away.

[Ser Barry]

I've heard Tim Powers is supposed to be really good and I've just seen a copy of 'On Stranger Tides' for sale in my local charity shop. Is it worth picking up a copy?

Yes. I think it has some flaws but it is a lot of fun.

[Bellis]

After a confused couple minutes of figuring out the latest name change (waves at Barry)... I start my next entry.

Over the weekend, I read through Shadows of the Sun, a collection of interviews of Gene Wolfe and essays on writing. I highly recommend this volume for those Wolfe fans looking for further insights and witticisms, though he is firmly in the camp of letting the reader interpret for him/herself. But I did get some good tips for my nanowrimo novel. In addition, I read Devil in a Forest, one of Wolfe's early standalones. I have no idea why this novella was marketed as young adult. I found it quite slow and confusing, and not as gripping as his later work.

Up next, continuing re-reading Book of the Short Sun and polishing off the last volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.