January Reads

[Gigei]

I don't think you can go wrong with either series.

I got both of them lol now they are on my 'to read' list. Seems people here like Erikson so I am going to give it a try after I finish "Red Seas Under Red Skies." I'll write more on the thread about the Gentleman Bastards.

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

Consider Phlebas is easily one of the most entertaining science fiction novels I've ever read. It is IMO comparable to ASoIaF in many ways.

He isn't an ideas writer in the same way as Clarke or Asimov (thank god), but instead he goes for space opera style sense of wonder and character studies. And there really is a awful lot of sense of wonder here; especially the sequence on the orbital (from the raid on the cruiser, to the escape from the GSV) is filled with a thousand shades of awesome. The finale is also extremely exciting and it is the only novel that had kept me up to six in the morning because I just couldn't put it down.

Comparing it to James Bond is perhaps not entirely wrong, but in the hands of one of the sf genre's best writers, that is feature and not a bug.

[MinDonner]

Consider Phlebas is probably my least favourite of Banks's SF books, but if you didn't like it, you're probably not going to like his others, either. Diff'rent strokes etc.

I'm also on The Thousandfold Thought now, having had the unChristmassy urge to see some righteous Gnosis being unleashed. Not sure if it'll manage to be as good as Book 2, but it's not bad so far.

Also on for Jan:

Soon I Will Be Invincible - some bloke (sounded funny)

Jack of Ravens - Mark Chadbourn (random bookshop purchase)

Hunter's Moon - David Devereux (met him, nice bloke, will give his book a go)

Long Way Round - Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman (apparently it has more arguments in than the TV series did)

[Happy Ent]

I'm also on The Thousandfold Thought now, having had the unChristmassy urge to see some righteous Gnosis being unleashed.

That's the spirit! Your wish will be granted—there is some righteous Gnosis-unleashing in TTT that left at least me with a huge grin on my face. The Library scene in WP doesn't hold a candle to that.

(I'm mixing metaphors, of course. The Gnosis out of principle doesn't hold candles to anything; because that would be a weak, anagogic concept, being an analogy. Something the Scarlet Spires might do. The Gnosis holds pure geometries of light or parabolas of energy or Bramfoodle's Theorem of intersecting hyperplanes of oomph or something like that to other things.)

There's righteous Water-unleashing as well.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Just finished Hammered by Elizabeth Bear, and have just started Cavern of Black Ice by JV Jones.

[Lawrence]

Just finished reading Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish (reviewed here on FBS). In a nutshell, I did enjoy reading The Last Wish ; it was a very good introduction to his other works, which will be published by Gollancz in the UK from 2008 onwards. The novel also had some interesting takes on various fantasy clichés. Puzzling how these clichés differed from the usual archetype was quite the enjoyable thing to do when reading this novel I found. Because the writer did succeed into bringing something new to the table, the stories generally had a breath of fresh air to them, a breath of originality. That did make the novel both fun and challenging to read.

My own minor complaints were that setting was not entirely original (although the Slavic mythological elements left me wanting for more) and the translation had some occasional hiccups as well, but not nearly enough to disturb the suspension of disbelief.

Now I am reading Richard Morgan's Black Man - wonderful stuff!

[Vethnar]

Consider Phlebas is probably my least favourite of Banks's SF books, but if you didn't like it, you're probably not going to like his others, either.

I'm not so sure. Consider Phlebas is one of the worst books I have read in the last few years. It alternated between boring and annoying, and seemed to contain little more than pointless and ridiculously over-the-top action sequences (like the escape from the GSV) interspersed with long episodes which (as far as I could tell) did nothing to advance the plot (including one of the silliest cannibal scenes I have seen in any piece of fiction).

On the other hand, I rather liked The Player of Games, Use of Weapons and Excession.

My own January reads: I just finished reading The Book of the New Sun and The Urth of the New Sun for the first time, and enjoyed them tremendously. The Book of the Long Sun is next on my list.

[Guest]

That's the spirit! Your wish will be granted—there is some righteous Gnosis-unleashing in TTT that left at least me with a huge grin on my face. The Library scene in WP doesn't hold a candle to that.

(I'm mixing metaphors, of course. The Gnosis out of principle doesn't hold candles to anything; because that would be a weak, anagogic concept, being an analogy. Something the Scarlet Spires might do. The Gnosis holds pure geometries of light or parabolas of energy or Bramfoodle's Theorem of intersecting hyperplanes of oomph or something like that to other things.)

There's righteous Water-unleashing as well.

As I think Galactus put it once, the anagogic schools summon something that creates a fire. The Gnosis summons the essence of burning itself. Gotta love it. That Bakker is a bad man.

Just started the Book of the New Sun by Wolfe. Only 20 pages in but I think it's up my alley.

[Ser Warpechowski]

I'm not so sure. Consider Phlebas is one of the worst books I have read in the last few years. It alternated between boring and annoying, and seemed to contain little more than pointless and ridiculously over-the-top action sequences (like the escape from the GSV) interspersed with long episodes which (as far as I could tell) did nothing to advance the plot (including one of the silliest cannibal scenes I have seen in any piece of fiction).

Yeah. Its not that diferent from Goodkind´s work.

[mashiara]

I just checked out from the library 'Byzantium' by Stephen Lawhead. That's going to be my next read. Unfortunately it's translated in greek so I hope they've done a decent job.

[Plessiez]

Consider Phlebas is easily one of the most entertaining science fiction novels I've ever read. [...] The finale is also extremely exciting and it is the only novel that had kept me up to six in the morning because I just couldn't put it down.

Consider Phlebas is neither my favourite nor my least favourite of Banks' work - it doesn't really come close to Use of Weapons, The Player of Games or Feersum Endjinn, in my book, and yet it's certainly better than the dreadful-beyond-words Excession or the merely very dull The Algebraist (and while less polished, it has much more substance than the bulk of Banks' more recent non-genre work, which has been pretty disappointing for years).

I agree that the finale is perhaps the strongest part of the book; however, given Ser W's criticisms so far I rather doubted he was going to enjoy it:

SPOILER: Consider Phlebas, the end

First Horza discovers that his old lover on Schar's World, who he's been dreading-and-yet-eagerly-awaiting meeting again for much of the book, has been murdered by his supposed 'allies', the Idirans.

Then his current love interest is killed, shortly after telling him that she's pregnant with his child.

Then his mission fails, as spectacularly and as completely as possible.

Shortly afterwards, he dies.

Most of the rest of the characters in the book also die, either before or shortly after Horza.

The Idirans go on to be utterly defeated, their entire civilisation is effectively destroyed (though objective observers would probably agree this was no bad thing), and the war ends with the Culture Horza devoted his life to opposing stronger and more militant in its beliefs than ever.

... but not before, in the course of the conflict, Horza's entire species is made extinct.

If you hadn't guessed already, this is not a happy book .

I've also finished Looking for Jake, which leads me first to observe that "The Tain" is really, really good and second to wonder if anybody knows anything about Mieville's current project(s) - in particular, is there any truth in the rumour that he's working on a novel called Kraken? Or is that just Amazon up to their usual tricks?

[beniowa]

I finished The River Horses by Allen Steele a couple days ago. The novella is touted as a story of exploration like the original Coyote novel, however, there is very little actual exploration involved. Part of the charm of the first book is that it combined the experiences of a brand new world with the changes in the people exploring it. While the short story certainly has plenty of the latter is has very little of the former. Even character-wise, it doesn’t add anything new the story then was already known. It’s a well-written story, albeit a disappointing one. Full review here.

Going to try and catch up on some of the new releases from last year I didn't get around to. Gonna start with Black Man/Thirteen, then probably Pirate Freedom or The Secret History of Moscow.

[Korax]

Am about 100 pages or so into Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell at the moment and really enjoying it - her sense of humour appeals to me and has made me laugh out loud several times. Next up is Lanark, by Alisdair Gray, which has been lurking around on my "must read" list for years so I've decided it's time to finally get round to it. Other things sitting on my shelves that I'll get onto soon are Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, and Richard Graves' Count Belisarius. At some stage I'll also read at least one more volume of Anthony Powell's 12 book sequence A Dance To The Music Of Time (2 down so far) and get on to the second two volumes of the Book Of The New Sun. I'd also like to read a bit more Tim Powers, having liked The Anubis Gates and read so many recommendations here; Perdido Street Station is another thing on my list too. Always good to get a bit of crime reading in somewhere too, and I read about a Swedish series based around a detective called Martin Beck which is supposed to be very good so will try to pick up one of those at some stage.

[Serious Callers Only]

Read the axis trilogy by Sarah Douglass. A pretty standard dark lord fantasy. Some nice turns of phrase that if more skillfully and often displayed would make it more appealing (including the very last sentence). However this doesn't save the story of being woefully derivative and somewhat ridiculous. I actually disengaged enough during reading this to think that this story could be described as the "ode of a Mary to his Sue". That entertained me for five minutes.

Then i read New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear, a superior vampire story told as a series of connected smallish tales. The story isn't completed-there is no closure-, and that pisses me off a little but its pretty good for a piece of alternative history victoriana.

[Ser Warpechowski]

Consider Phlebas is neither my favourite nor my least favourite of Banks' work - it doesn't really come close to Use of Weapons, The Player of Games or Feersum Endjinn, in my book, and yet it's certainly better than the dreadful-beyond-words Excession or the merely very dull The Algebraist (and while less polished, it has much more substance than the bulk of Banks' more recent non-genre work, which has been pretty disappointing for years).

I agree that the finale is perhaps the strongest part of the book; however, given Ser W's criticisms so far I rather doubted he was going to enjoy it:

SPOILER: Consider Phlebas, the end

First Horza discovers that his old lover on Schar's World, who he's been dreading-and-yet-eagerly-awaiting meeting again for much of the book, has been murdered by his supposed 'allies', the Idirans.

Then his current love interest is killed, shortly after telling him that she's pregnant with his child.

Then his mission fails, as spectacularly and as completely as possible.

Shortly afterwards, he dies.

Most of the rest of the characters in the book also die, either before or shortly after Horza.

The Idirans go on to be utterly defeated, their entire civilisation is effectively destroyed (though objective observers would probably agree this was no bad thing), and the war ends with the Culture Horza devoted his life to opposing stronger and more militant in its beliefs than ever.

... but not before, in the course of the conflict, Horza's entire species is made extinct.

If you hadn't guessed already, this is not a happy book .

I've also finished Looking for Jake, which leads me first to observe that "The Tain" is really, really good and second to wonder if anybody knows anything about Mieville's current project(s) - in particular, is there any truth in the rumour that he's working on a novel called Kraken? Or is that just Amazon up to their usual tricks?

SPOILER: Phlebas

Actually the only thing that kept me reading it was because I wanted to know how the Culture was going to win. I knew it would happen, but I wanted to know why. Im also glad that fool died.

[Gigei]

Ok, I am stuck with Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, I just can't seem to get into the story and I'm 1/4 into it. I've picked up the book around 10 times and couldn't finish it at all. Bah dropping that book (it's starting to seeem suspiciously overhyped to me) and going to read one of my other books. I think I'm the only one here who doesn't like the Gentlemen Bastards.

[Bellis]

Ok, I am stuck with Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch, I just can't seem to get into the story and I'm 1/4 into it. I've picked up the book around 10 times and couldn't finish it at all. Bah dropping that book (it's starting to seeem suspiciously overhyped to me) and going to read one of my other books. I think I'm the only one here who doesn't like the Gentlemen Bastards.

No, I think there are a few of us who thought RSURS was a huge step down. I had a hard time getting through it too, took me several days, which is long considering I read LoLL in one sitting.

I'm not terribly pumped about the next book either, and am considering recommending LoLL as a standalone, at least until the series is completed.

[Lord of Oop North]

On January 3rd I embarked upon an epic re-read of The Lord of the Rings.

After that, I must choose between The Children of Hurin, The Book of the New Sun, or going out and buying McCollough's Anthony and Cleopatra.

[Lorgakor]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here though I have been lurking for a long time. I just finished book five of the Winds of the Forelands by David B. Coe, called Weavers of War. It was a great series, I highly recommend it.

Right now I'm reading (don't laugh!) Confessor by the Yeard. I had to finish it, even though it is mighty painful. I must say I think this is the worst one yet, I quite enjoyed the beginning of the series, the rest I have stuck with just because I hate not finishing something. This one is just hard to read, with whole pages of explanations of crap.

After that I think I may start either Dreamsongs or Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin, both recent purchases. I also have some Brandon Sanderson books to read, I wanted to check him out as he is going to be finishing Wheel of Time.

[Ser Mosh]

After that I think I may start either Dreamsongs or Fevre Dream by Robert Jordan

I'm not sure if I should correct this or not. You would just be that much more blown away by these books if you had Jordan-level expectations.

Then again it was probably just a typo, so let me just say welcome to the board from another lurker/occasional poster.