April '08 Reading Thread

[ThRiNiDiR]

[font="Century Gothic"][size=4][b][color="#006400"]Hal Duncan - Die! Vampire! Die![/color][/b][/size]

I've read a terrific novella about a vampire, that dedicates his eternity to science and the questions like - how much of the vampires head you can cut off before he dies and how much carbon must a blade contain to kill a vampire? Die! Vampire! Die! is available for free on Hal Duncan's blog. Read my review [url="http://sf-fantasy-books.blogspot.com/2008/04/hal-duncan-die-vampire-die-novella.html"]HERE[/url].

[quote]The idea for the story is quite trite and absurd at the same time. Duncan’s tale leans heavily on the common vampire mythos, but it is reshaped ingeniously to suit the needs of the story – Duncan plays with different superstitions about vampires that have been (over)used within the horror and urban fantasy genre. It would be safe to say that Duncan mocks the creatures themselves as well as the (current) fascination with vampires in genre literature. But this is irrelevant to the fact that the story is intelligent, funny and it stands on its own merit.[/quote][/font]

[etcetera]

I finished Sarah Hall’s [i]Daughters of the North [/i]and was underwhelmed by it. In fact, I’m scratching my head how it won the Tiptree or got on the Arthur C. Clarke nomination list. Must have satisfied their political hotbutton de jeur list. The author falls victim to one of the common pitfalls of using a first person narrator – too much telling (often in an all too brief summation) without showing us much of anything. I also thought the plot and character development were painfully, obviously, too forced. By the end, I was just glad to be done with it. This one will be relegated to my discard pile.

[Peadar]

[quote name='etcetera' post='1333203' date='Apr 29 2008, 06.30']I finished Sarah Hall’s [i]Daughters of the North [/i]and was underwhelmed by it. In fact, I’m scratching my head how it won the Tiptree or got on the Arthur C. Clarke nomination list. Must have satisfied their political hotbutton de jeur list. The author falls victim to one of the common pitfalls of using a first person narrator – too much telling (often in an all too brief summation) without showing us much of anything. I also thought the plot and character development were painfully, obviously, too forced. By the end, I was just glad to be done with it. This one will be relegated to my discard pile.[/quote]

Btw, in Europe, this book is titled "The Carhullan Army". [/interjection]

[Werthead]

Finished Dave Gorman's [i]America Unchained[/i]. Very funny, but a bit lightweight. Going back to Kate Elliott's [i]Shadow Gate[/i], which I've nearly finished.

Probably Paul Kearney's [i]This Forsaken Earth[/i] will be up next.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I started to read [b] The Yiddish Policemen's Unio[/b] today, it seems to be alternative history so far.
Edit: before realizing that I was rather confused that it was nominated for the Hugo.

[RedEyedGhost]

[quote name='Maid of Tarth' post='1331052' date='Apr 27 2008, 01.05']Have you read "The Prestige"? I loved the film and was wondering whether the novel was worth a look.....[/quote]


[quote name='beniowa' post='1331126' date='Apr 27 2008, 05.58']Yes I've read the book and it's definitely worth it. Most of the book is written in the form of journals (they portrayed this somewhat in the movie) but there's a present day subplot which adds a bit more to the story. It's a fantastic book. :D[/quote]

Ben's got the right of it. The movie was great, but it pales in comparison to the book. Fantastic book, and different enough that they really are two different stories. I can't recommend it enough if you enjoyed the movie.

[quote name='Isis' post='1332302' date='Apr 28 2008, 12.29'][i]Requiem[/i] - Graham Joyce: truly mediocre[/quote]

While it's my least favorite Joyce book, I wouldn't describe it as mediocre. I'd rate it a bit better than average/mediocre. I've read both [u]The Tooth Fairy[/u] and [u]The Facts of Life[/u], and I would call both of these "brilliant" - [u]Requiem[/u] - not so much.

Stego - oth - loves [u]Requiem[/u], and his rec is why I made it my third Joyce read. So opinions can definitely vary - Stego's opinion is highly regarded on the board, but I don't think this book is for everybody.

[quote name='Bellis' post='1332365' date='Apr 28 2008, 13.13']Isis, I liked [b]Requiem[/b] fine but I also didn't rush out to buy more of Joyce ;)[/quote]

What else have you read by Joyce? I would assume [u]The Tooth Fairy[/u] (because that's where most start). I would [i]strongly[/i] recommend [u]The Facts of Life[/u], this was such a moving book. This is what I wrote after I finished that one

[quote name='My mini-review']Wow. I am very disappointed that I waited eight months after reading The Tooth Fairy to pick up another novel by Joyce. While not as spectacular as The Tooth Fairy, The Facts of Life was nothing short of amazing itself. I think it's impossible to describe it in a word, but in three I would call it strange, charming, and beautiful. The dialog is outstanding to the point that you feel like you're in the room with the characters.

If you haven't read a book by Graham Joyce do yourself a favor and buy one of his books this weekend.

I will not be waiting another eight months before I read him again.[/quote]

I have three more Joyce books, on my shelves, waiting to be read. I'm excited about all three to the point that I don't know which I'll read next, but I think the next one will be read in my next 4-5 books.

[quote name='Triskele' post='1334439' date='Apr 29 2008, 16.46']Just finished Gene Wolfe' [i]Book of the New Sun[/i]. Finally got to that copy of [i]The Blade Itself[/i] I'd had sitting around. I know, I'm a little late.[/quote]

Better late than never! :thumbsup:

[Elliott]

I just read Dave Duncan's "The Reluctant Swordsman" and "The Coming of Wisdom." Both books were surprisingly excellent. I'm set to read the last book in the series this weekend.

Before that, I read "The Name of the Wind." That one was also a real winner.

I guess I've been getting lucky with my recent book selections.

[Lord of Oop North]

I just finished [i]No Country for Old Men[/i], [i]The Forever War[/i], and [i]A Canticle for Leibowitz[/i]. The latter two were re-reads, but all were as excellent as I expected. Currently, I am reading [i]American Gods[/i] for the first time! After that I will move into a re-read of Gene Wolfe's [i]Book of the New Sun[/i], which was inspired by the recent Gene Wolfe thread. I'm thinking of following that by reading [i]Urth of the New Sun[/i] and the [i]Book of the Long Sun[/i].

[Dumas]

Xenophon's [i]Anabasis[/i] on my flight back to the States. Forgot to mention that in my last post.

Rereading the Federalist Papers for no reason. The guys who wrote this were one set of cynical bastards, judging by the first few papers about how necessary the Union was to American prosperity.

[RedEyedGhost]

Since I didn't want to create one super lone post...

Yesterday I finished Greg Keyes's [b][u]The Born Queen[/u][/b] - the concluding volume of the [i]The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone[/i]. I really like where Keyes took us with this one. It has man twists and turns - some expected and others definitely not (but not dues ex machina). The ending has echoes of Tolkien, but not in plot, or style, or that it is ridiculously long, but in the tone and that it is so bittersweet. The amount of magic ramps up another level again, and explains the world and why humans are there and why it is similar to our world - very cool stuff here.

This book (and series) are very readable - which some people on the board don't like, but I think most appreciate. The series has also been called Martin-lite, and there are some reasons that make this an apt description: it is written in the 3rd person limited multiple POV style, there are many character deaths, the level of magic increases with every book, it's a medieval setting, and [i]some[/i] of the characters are gray (much more so here in the final book). For fans of Martin that have not checked this series out yet, let stress to you that the "-lite" is a very important modifier. TKoTaB is not as good as ASoIaF, but I still enjoyed it as a whole. I've made it known on the board that I'm not the biggest fan of more "standard" or "clichéd" or "'80's" fantasy (you know this if you've opened a Karen Miller thread, because her first series is my very definition of clichéd fantasty), yet I would place TKoTaB in this category and I don't care. Why don't I care? Because I think Keyes does a fantastic job, there is plenty original ideas in the text, and he just does this type of fantasy better than most writers.

Lots of rambling - and I had knee surgery earlier today, so [i]I am medicated right now[/i] - let me get down to the nitty-gritty: if you like Martin I would recommend TKoTaB (there's a good chance you will like it a lot), and if you like more standard epic-fantasy I would [i]highly[/i] recommend this series (there's an [i]extremely high[/i] chance you will like it a lot).

[b]8/10[/b]


Yesterday I also started (finally) Catherynne M Valente's [u]The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden[u]. I'm about 20% through, and this book is simply enchanting. Like the characters in the book, I can't help but be sucked into the progression of stories. Unfortunately, I didn't get to read near as much as would have liked today :sleep: :drunk:

[Larry.]

I finished quite a few books recently (link to the month's reads [url="http://juandahlmann.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/2008-reads-151-200-march-27-april-29/"]here[/url]) and am currently alternating between a few books, including Scott Bakker's [i]Neuropath[/i], a re-read from 2006 for me, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón's [i]El juego del Ángel[/i], which is quite promising. Those who read/enjoyed [i]The Shadow of the Wind[/i] will enjoy this one quite a bit. I'll have a review up on the 13th, the book's release date in the US.

[Isis]

[quote name='Bellis' post='1332365' date='Apr 28 2008, 20.13']Isis, I liked [b]Requiem[/b] fine but I also didn't rush out to buy more of Joyce ;)[/quote]I expected more both from Joyce and from the subject matter. At least I'd read [i]The Tooth Fairy[/i] and [i]Smoking Poppy[/i] already, so this isn't going to put me off reading anything else by him. I guess I mean it was mediocre in comparison to the other stuff I've read by him.

I'm about 100 pages from finishing [i]Passage[/i] by Connie Willis. After a s-l-o-w start it finally got going after 200 pages. I almost gave up in the beginning as it was reading like Mills & Boon, but once the action started it became almost gripping. I'll reserve final judgment until I'm done though...

[Lawrence]

Finished [b]Slaughterhouse Five[/b] by Kurt Vonnegut couple of minutes ago; didn't really get the thing that gives this book the classic status. To me it felt more like a repeated exercise in the bizarre, the book was literally as "unstuck" in time as the character Billy Pilgrim was. Due the loose handling of the narrative structure, the novel had a very jumpy and sketchy feel to it. The meta-fiction bits were interesting though and it was great how Vonnegut blurred the various elements in the latter stages of the book.

Now I am going to jump into Duane Swierczynski's [b]The Wheelman[/b], which arrived yesterday. I hope this is going to be as great as I anticipated it would be.

[Muttering Bill]

I've abandoned [i]Heart-Shaped Box[/i]. The writing just wasn't clicking for me. He wasn't able to make it as atmospheric as, I feel, it should have been. It's standard ghost story fare; not really bringing anything new to the table. It was seriously putting me to sleep every time I tried to read it (which has only happened to me with a couple of other books). I got to around page 190. I may come back to finish it someday, but probably not.

I've now reading Mark J Ferrari's [i]The Book of Joby[/i]. I've barely started it (have done the Prologue and two pages of Chapter One) but I can already tell that this is going to be something special.

[Deornoth]

Just finished reading Greg Keyes' 'The Born Queen', the conclusion to his 'Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone' series. While it had everything in it that I enjoyed in his other books it sometimes came across that he'd written five books and then remembered it was a four book series... It felt like he was trying to jam lots of information in but no explanation although it could all make a lot more sense with a re-read of the series. Still good fun to read though, my full review is over [url="http://www.graemesfantasybookreview.com"]Here[/url].
I'm now well into 'The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume 2'...

[pat5150]

Just finished Jeff Somers' entertaining [i]The Digital Plague[/i].

If you're looking for a balls to the wall, non-stop action, cyberpunk/noir science fiction adventure with dark humor and a high body count, look no further. Somers' [i]The Digital Plague[/i] should definitely scratch that itch! ;)

Check the blog for the full review.

Cheers,

Patrick

[saint777]

[quote name='Lawrence' post='1335157' date='Apr 30 2008, 06.04']Now I am going to jump into Duane Swierczynski's [b]The Wheelman[/b], which arrived yesterday. I hope this is going to be as great as I anticipated it would be.[/quote]

Loved this book. Furious paced and intense. If you like [b]The Wheelman[/b] be sure to track down [b]The Blonde[/b] by the same author. Duane has another book coming out soon but forgot the name. One of my favorite new authors.

I finished [b]Red Seas Under Red Skies[/b] and liked it better than [b]TLOLL[/b]. Better paced and written with not as much filler even though [b]RSURS[/b] is a longer book than [b]TLOLL[/b].

About 200 pages into [b]Before They are Hanged[/b] and find the focus on the three storylines(Bayaz, Glokta, Dogman and West) make for a much smoother and fast paced ride.

[beniowa]

[i][url="http://thedecklededge.blogspot.com/2008/04/sharp-teeth.html"]Sharp Teeth[/url][/i] by Toby Barlow. A pretty good book about werewolves and other forces struggling for control of LA. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to read the verse but I had no trouble at all.

Next I think I'll finally get around to [i]Shadow and Claw[/i], the first omnibus in the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

[Lawrence]

[quote name='saint777' post='1336185' date='Apr 30 2008, 23.18']Loved this book. Furious paced and intense. If you like [b]The Wheelman[/b] be sure to track down [b]The Blonde[/b] by the same author. Duane has another book coming out soon but forgot the name. One of my favorite new authors.[/quote]
I know, I bought a copy of [b]The Blonde[/b] at the same time I purchased a copy of [b]The Wheelman[/b]. So it is lined up to be read after I finished the current effort. His [b]Severance Package[/b] (St. Martin's Minotaur) is available in hardcover on May 27th.

Enjoying [b]The Wheelman[/b] (120 pages so far) very much, furious paced and intense like you said. Good shit; something fans of say a Charlie Huston ought to check out!

[Mr. X]

Currently reading [i]Things Will Never Be the Same[/i], a collection of Howard Waldrop's short fiction.