November Reading Thread

[RedEyedGhost]

...and Asher still has that stupid accent in the second book? Hell.

Miller tones it down a bit, but yeah it's still there.

[diabloblanco18]

Joy. I was actually hoping that the cardboard cutout secretary would shortly give up on trying to derail Asher's career, and instead work on scrubbing the cultural reek of "peasant" off of him. But then, I was also expecting him to jump to the conclusion that Gar was only appointing Asher to a high-and-mighty position like that because the two were sleeping together. Would have been funny. No such luck, though.

[Patrick Mallister]

Just finished Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, which I found excellent. Not to much flashy razzle dazzle magic, but still true to the genre. Glad to see a new face emerge with such quality work. Speaking of new quality writers I am currently about half way into The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch which has me dreaming about becoming a Gentleman Bastard. On deck is Naomi Novak's fourth installment in the Temraire series, Empire of Ivory. The previous three books have been a terrific blend of history and fantasy so I have high hopes for this one. After that who knows until the Holidays when I get R. Scott Bakker's first three books of The Prince of Nothing, Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, and Goodkind's Confessor, yeah yeah yeah, I know the guys a toolbag, but I'm kinda pot committed at this point.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Finished Mistborn: The Final Empire. Not feeling the love; IMO, Elantris was a superior novel. M:TFE simply broke my suspension of disbelief, over and over. The first chapter (er, prologue?) was great. It was also the best part of the novel, which isn't a good thing. I don't buy a bunch of thieving crews going, "sure, we'll overthrow the Dark Lord of the Sith. Why not?" The politicking was unconvincing, and didn't display much care or thought. The army was handled poorly. The characters often behaved in ways which felt forced, in order to advance the plot. The worldbuilding was decent, but he didn't follow through; the world he constructed didn't produce the sort of characters it would and should have produced.

And yet, I still kinda liked it in spite of myself. I'll probably pick up the sequel when it's in paperback.

[Isis]

I'm beginning to get the impression that I'm the only person who didn't have to read any Steinbeck at school. I gave Of Mice and Men a try and I liked it a lot, bit like Hemmingway but less dry. I'm really into slim volumes atm though.

Still failing at actually finishing books - the only other one I've completed lately is Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade. This seemed to drag a little toward the end and could have done with a trim up to help the pacing, something I wouldn't say about the first book. I won't give up on the series, I'm just hoping for better from the third volume.

I have around 20 pages left of Helprin's Winter's Tale: a book that's so rewarding you don't even want to finish it. That's my excuse anyhow.

[Talyn]

I just finished reading Excession by Iain M. Banks and I enjoyed reading it as much as the first book. I know that I am reading them out of order but I don't really care. It makes me realize that the quality of some of the books that I have read lately have been lacking.

[saint777]

Finished:

Berserk Volume 1: Dark, violent, bloody, awesome. I have seen the anime so I'm looking forward to what was cut out. So far all of volume 1 wasn't in the anime which is disappointing. We've got Guts going crazy on an undead army and a snake demon. I like that Guts tries to save a little girl and fails miserably. Actually he fails to save anyone in the book except a little elf companion who is a constant pain in the ass for him.

The Lightning Thief: Not a bad YA fantasy. A half-god youth goes on a quest to Los Angeles(Underworld) to get back Zeus's lightning bolt which was stolen from Mount Olympus. Along with his companions he fights or out tricks a bunch of greek monsters(giants, Medusa, Cerberus etc..). I liked the clashing of greek myth with modern day events, people and places. Mount Olympus is on top of the Empire State building, George Washington was a half-god like Hercules, and the Los Angeles earthquakes are caused by Hades getting really pissed off. Fun, fast read.

Reading:

Reaper's Gale: Only around 100 pages left to read.

The Name of the Wind: Around 100 pages in.

The Lies of Locke Lamora: Getting back into this after stopping 100 pages in due to lack of interest.

[Calibandar]

I'm really struggling with The Dragonbone Chair by Williams. I know it's a slow starter, but I'm now 300 pages in and it still isn't happening. I can deal with long epics, but I do need to be engaged. I don't think that is too much to ask of an author. After Shadowmarch this is another disappointment.

I will persevere though, because this is a classic. It already became a little more interesting when Simon joined up with Binabik, now perhaps some of those Sithi as well and we may have something resembling a riveting story.

To illustrate how often I put it down, in the meantime I received and read the first chapters of King'sNeedful Things, Follet'sPillars of the Earth and Lehane's Shutter Island respectively, and all three were off to a better start than the Williams offering.

[Peadar]

I'm really struggling with The Dragonbone Chair by Williams. I know it's a slow starter, but I'm now 300 pages in and it still isn't happening. I can deal with long epics, but I do need to be engaged. I don't think that is too much to ask of an author.

I remember enjoying this series, but it did take a lot of commitment to get into it. Good luck!

[Nobelpoke]

Currently reading Halo: Contact Harvest.

So far this book is made of pure awesome.

[Isis]

I will persevere though, because this is a classic.

I really don't think you'll be missing out on anything if you don't finish it. And I'm not sure that it ever becomes riveting.

[Amras]

I just finished a very sci-fi novel from a Norwegian author who writes under the name Christopher F-B Grøndahl. Since I very much doubt many of you will go through the trouble of reading a review of it over at my blog, I'm instead posting the whole thing here as well

"104" by Christopher F-B Grøndahl

The speculative fiction genre is doing better and better for every year. It’s not an uncommon sight to see a science fiction novel going high on the bestseller-lists, but have you ever seen (or heard of) a Norwegian science fiction novel making it big world-wide? No, of course you haven’t, and the explanation is as obvious as it’s self-explanatory. But what it doesn’t take in to count is the fact that such a novel might be worthy of success abroad (and domestically). “104″ is a great example of what I’m talking about.

“104″ was published in 2006 and is, sadly, only available in Norwegian. I hadn’t heard of it before Terje pointed it out for me, and I suddenly became acutely aware of how few Norwegian novels I’ve read this year. This had to be amended, so I decided to give Grøndahl a shot.

The story is one that fits this blogs name very well. A slight apocalypse has occurred in the sense that the Sun suddenly started dying long before her time. The rapidly expanding star made the Earth inhabitable for humans, and all the nations with funs enough started evacuating to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, which was now suited for human life due to rising temperature. But everyone knew that this was only a temporary solution; if Human life was going to keep on existing we’d have to flee to a new solar system.

The building of a massive spaceship began. When it was finished it would hold a half million people and travel at one tenth of the speed of light, thus making the trip to Tau Ceti a little over a hundred years in length. But Europa held more than a half million inhabitants, so a number of conditions were set for how would get the chance to take part in our last hope.

Our main character is a man named Ben. He and his small daughter Helene grew up in the countryside of Europa, but the spaceship was nearing completion and to be on it they had to move to the moon’s capitol. The first two-thirds of the story is told in a retrospective-manner, so we’re always aware of the fact that Ben made it onto the ship. But we’re also very much aware of the fact that something went terribly wrong on the way…

Grøndahl’s prose and dialog is very simple, yet surprisingly effective. It didn’t take him more than a couple of pages of this 232 pages short book to capture my interest and gain sympathy for Ben and his daughter. The human conflicts and doubts were also very nicely handled, so there’s no doubt about the author’s skills. “104″ is also a very profound book that takes into account current events like global warming and religion in a way that intrigues and makes you wonder, and it also takes a stab at more existential questions, which is just the way I like my science fiction to be.

This is a very strong story that kept my interest all the way through it, even though it’s very depressing and all too realistic for comfort towards the end. It could maybe have been paced a little better in the middle parts, which I felt dragged the book down and maybe weren’t always entirely necessary, but on the whole there isn’t really much to point a finger at. Some would perhaps argue that the ending is too open, but I don’t think so at all. Grøndahl made it quite obvious from the start that it wasn’t that kind of tale that’s meant to tell you where the characters ended up, but rather how they would get there. And that he did.

I would very much recommend this book to anyone looking for science fiction with depth. It’s a shame that “104″ won’t find a wider audience than little Norway, because this book would hold its own against works from bigger and foreign sci-fi authors without any trouble. 7,5 /10.

Hopefully this will go a long way in persuading everyone here to learn Norwegian. I mean, how else are you going to read good sci-fi?

[Lawrence]

It was some time ago that I posted in this thread, so let me go through some of the jewels that I have been reading so far in November. I read Paul S. Kemp's Midnight's Mask which was a good conclusion to the Erevis Cale trilogy, and was - although the books are not mind blowing works of literature - very enjoyable. Overall the trilogy can be described best as plain ol' fun sword & sorcery, not too pretentious novels but entertaining stuff throughout the 900 pages spanning three books. If you come to point where you (momentarily) are tired of those heavy tomes of 600+ pages, I would heartily recommend you picking up this lighter stuff.

Next up was Tobias S. Buckell's Ragamuffin, sequel to Crystal Rain (which was quite a fun, science fiction adventure book). This novel was craftly written by all means, still very solid characterization but the pacing unfortunately was a bit awkward in the latter parts of the book. Added to that to a somewhat pointless story line, that seemed to be a precious waste of time. In the end, it still stood as a work but I feel that it lost some potential with these drawbacks..

Right now I am about 240 pages into the 550 pages of Red Seas Under Red Skies (finaaaally!!) and so far as good. Wickedly funny stuff going on, Lynch piqued my curiosity with his take on the pirate theme. I guess I would have liked to be a Gentleman Bastard as well. Sad thing the Republic of Thieves is not being published next year..Oh well, 'nuff other goodies on my shelf.

[Werthead]

Sad thing the Republic of Thieves is not being published next year...

WTF?

(checks Amazon)

Erm, did you meant not being published until next year?

(recovers from crushing disappointment)

Still reading Dreamsongs and closing in on the ending (just about to start The Skin Trade). Two new ARCs arrived from Gollancz this week and both look great:

Swiftly by Adam Roberts

A sequel to Gulliver's Travels, with the British Empire having conquered Lilliput and launched a pre-emptive genocidal war against the Brobdingnagians. However, some of the giants have survived and teamed up with the pesky French! Curses!

The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

One of Gollancz's big new debut authors for 2008, this is the first in a trilogy about the disappearance of a huge warship which threatens war between two neighbouring superpowers. The novel then flashes back to what happened on the ship.

[Wade1066]

Africa's Armies: From Honor to Infamy.

Unfortunately the book is turning out to be ridiculous. But on the cover there's a cute little chick carrying an assault rifle -- yummy.

[Arbor Gold]

The Lost Painting :the Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr.

I havent read a "nonfiction novel" in quite a while, and I'm really digging this one. It is very well-written, takes place in Rome (yippee!), and is about my favorite artist.

[Peadar]

Swiftly by Adam Roberts

A sequel to Gulliver's Travels, with the British Empire having conquered Lilliput and launched a pre-emptive genocidal war against the Brobdingnagians. However, some of the giants have survived and teamed up with the pesky French! Curses!

I cannot wait to read that book. 1) I love Adam Roberts 2) I read a short story of his based on the same idea and it was a total blast. Absolutely brilliant.

[Lawrence]

WTF?

(checks Amazon)

Erm, did you meant not being published until next year?

(recovers from crushing disappointment)

Oh carp, sorry for the misunderstanding. Somehow (don't ask me why) I was under the impression that Scott Lynch's third was delayed, but I must have confused it with some other novels not being published out next year.. In fact, I was totally wrong because it seems (now I've checked the amazon entry) that there's two works by Lynch being published next year. Hurray!

(goes back to hiding behind his extraordinary beautiful hardcover edition of RSURS)

[Calibandar]

Wert

Two new ARCs arrived from Gollancz this week and both look great:

Swiftly by Adam Roberts

A sequel to Gulliver's Travels, with the British Empire having conquered Lilliput and launched a pre-emptive genocidal war against the Brobdingnagians. However, some of the giants have survived and teamed up with the pesky French! Curses!

The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick

One of Gollancz's big new debut authors for 2008, this is the first in a trilogy about the disappearance of a huge warship which threatens war between two neighbouring superpowers. The novel then flashes back to what happened on the ship.

Man I hope you get to these fast, both of them are high on my anticipated buys list for next year. The novel Swiftly is indeed a novel that started with a short story which Roberts published in the Night Shade release that was also called Swiftly.

Wert, what size are these books? The pagecounts on the Orionbooks websites often make no sense.

Lawrence/Wert

Scott himself commented on this this week. He expects the US edition of Republic of Thieves to come out in the Fall. The UK edition has no release date. The book has not been finished yet.

[Lawrence]

Lawrence/Wert

Scott himself commented on this this week. He expects the US edition of Republic of Thieves to come out in the Fall. The UK edition has no release date. The book has not been finished yet.

That last sentence makes me cringe when reading it, let's hope for the best. Any word about the The Bastards and the Knives release as well? It is on schedule?

As for the UK release date, seems like it is listed on amazon.co.uk for 1 Jun 2008 and I could not find any release dates for the US edition of RoT .. Confusing stuff.