August 2008 Reads, Near-reads, and Aborted Reads

[Werthead]

I was in town yesterday and realised I had been remiss in picking up the Richard Morgan back-catalogue. I'd been putting off reading the three Morgans I hadn't because once I'd read them, I'd have no more Morgan to read (until his next book came out). Then I realised I was being lame, so picked up [b][i]Broken Angels[/i][/b].

Spectacular start, stronger than [i]Altered Carbon[/i] in fact. Interested to see how it turns out.

Might try out Scalzi in the near future. Since he gets nominated for the Hugo every year and Morgan doesn't, he must be better than Morgan, right? :unsure:

[Larry.]

I'm in the midst of reading acclaimed Spanish SF/Fantasy writer Javier Negrete's UPC-winning [i]Buscador de Sombras[/i]. Very good style and the story is interesting. I strongly believe if his works were translated into English, he might find a steady readership, since the themes would hold up well in translation, plus the short, direct style would be easier to render in English. Although quite different in style, he seems to have a growing readership in Spain and France similar to that Sapkowski had before his works finally were translated into English.

[RedEyedGhost]

[quote name='Ratatoskr' post='1472424' date='Aug 7 2008, 23.38']Thanks for the tip! I'll put it in my September order from amazon. Sounds cool![/quote]

My pleasure. Enjoy it!

[quote name='RedEyedGhost' post='1471031' date='Aug 6 2008, 20.23']I finished up [u]An Autumn War[/u] today and it was great! My favorite of his books so far. I'll add some more thoughts in a couple of days, after I get some distance from reading it.[/quote]

I hate quoting myself, but it's high time that I responded. Since finishing the book I went to Daniel Abraham's reading session at Worldcon, and he is (for lack of a more eloquent term) a fucking cool dude.

[b][u]An Autumn War[/u][/b] may just be my favorite book of the year. I enjoyed everything about this book - that may sound like hyperbole, but it is not. The plotting, the prose, the character development - everything is top notch. This is the forth book of [i]The Long Price Quartet[/i] and it picks up with our cast of characters 14 years after [u]A Betrayal in Winter[/u]. We're also introduced to a fantastic new character - Balasar Gice - a general in the Galt army. Although Gice is the antagonist it is easy to see where he is coming from, and he is an extremely sympathetic character. Gice's goal? Destroy the andat, and make sure the cities of the Khaiem never control another one.

With the fantastic wave of new fantasy authors - including the likes of Lynch, Abercrombie, and Sanderson - I think Abraham may out shine them all, and it's very unfortunate that he doesn't get more pub. Each book he writes is much better than the last. This book was so well constructed that I'm a little worried about where he an go from here. Next to GRRM I think that Abraham may write the most interesting and in depth characters. The only complaint I've had about the series is that it is very low on physical action (lots of political action though), and the was rectified in this book.

I eagerly await the concluding volume, his upcoming urban fantasy [u]Unclean Spirits: Book One of the Black Sun's Daughter[/u] under the name M.L.N. Hanover, and everything else that he has in the works. This booked sealed it - I am a Daniel Abraham fanboy.

[b]10/10[/b]

I'm working on Andrew Davidson's [u]The Gargoyle[/u] and it's very good so far, but I've had limited time to read because I've been very busy at work and that makes me very tired at home :thumbsdown:

[duchess of malfi]

I hear the thing about lack of time, busynes at work, and tiredness. :(

I am struggling to find the time to finish Abraham's [i]An Autumn War[/i] even though I am loving it. He has such as cool unique world and magic system, and such well written and well developed characters. :)

[beniowa]

I agree with the praise of [i][b]An Autumn War[/b][/i]. It was very good.

I just finished [i][b]Broken Angels[/b][/i] by Richard Morgan. Like Wert said, it started off stronger than [i]Altered Carbon[/i] but ultimately I felt the whole book feel flat. Others have complained that Morgan does the same things over and over and after reading three books I can certainly see their point. With [i]Broken Angels[/i] I think he tried to do something different with the Martian plotline yet I felt he didn't really succeed. Towards the end I trouble caring about anything that happened. I'll probably read the third Kovacs book eventually.

I'm now reading [i][b]The Blonde[/b][/i] by Duane Swierczynski.

[Greyweather]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1483094' date='Aug 16 2008, 20.41']Might try out Scalzi in the near future. Since he gets nominated for the Hugo every year and Morgan doesn't, he must be better than Morgan, right? :unsure:[/quote]
Actually Scalzi's 2007 Hugo nomination was for his blog, not for any of his books.
Putting that aside, I'd say no. Scalzi's books are fun but they aren't on Morgan's level.

Award nominations aren't everything. R. Scott Bakker for example, has never been nominated for any major award.

[Black Wizard]

Just finished [i]The Blade Itself[/i] by Joe Abercrombie. I liked it but didn't think it's as brilliant as some make it out to be.

I also read [i]Into a Dark Realm[/i] by Raymond E Feist and am currently reading Simon Scarrow's first book, the name of which I can't remember or be bothered to find out. Something about an eagle.

[beniowa]

Regarding Scalzi versus Morgan, they have very different writing styles so it's hard to compare them. It depends on what you're looking for. Morgan does a gritty, crime-noir type story while Scalzi goes for lighter half-comedy half-satire. Personally I think Scalzi's work is better written or at least I [i]enjoy[/i] him more than I do Morgan. With Morgan, it seems he has some of the same problems as Erikson. I had to struggle to finish Broken Angels because I had trouble caring about what was happening.

[Astra]

Finished a bunch of books.

[i][b]Child of Flame[/b][/i] ([u]Crown of Stars 4[/u]) by [b]Kate Elliott[/b].
One of the best in the series so far, but I am now more than 2/3 through book 5 and it is even better. Looks like the writer matured while writing the series.

[i][b]Farnham’s Freehold[/b][/i] by [b]Robert A. Heinlein
[/b]Not bad.


[i][b]Fahrenheit 451[/b][/i] by [b]Ray Bradbury[/b]
Some of the ideas are brilliant. A few glimpses of [i]future[/i] which is now are so true that I cannot imagine how someone could predict it so many year ago ([u]it applies to Heinlein's book as well[/u]).

[williamjm]

[quote name='Black Wizard' post='1483373' date='Aug 17 2008, 17.22']Just finished [i]The Blade Itself[/i] by Joe Abercrombie. I liked it but didn't think it's as brilliant as some make it out to be.[/quote]

The later books in the trilogy seem generally more likely to be described as brilliant than the first book, I think the books got steadily better as the series went on.

[kcf]

[quote name='Greyweather' post='1483358' date='Aug 17 2008, 08.56']Actually Scalzi's 2007 Hugo nomination was for his blog, not for any of his books.[/quote]

I believe he was nominated for both fan writer and Best Novel. This year he won the Best Fan Writer award and missed Best Novel by only 7 or so votes.

[gyrehead]

[i]The Temporal Void[/i] by Peter F. Hamilton

I'm still parsing this one. I didn't like it. I didn't dislike like. I might have to make a point of re-reading this one because even though I sloughed through it I just never got into it at all. And I'm willing to say it was me and not necessarily the book. It wasn't all that long ago I read the first one in this new series and yet I found myself not really engaging the way I do with a sequel. Just did not care. So maybe when it is colder and I have time to really avoid any distractions.

[i]The Whiskey Rebels[/i] by David Liss.

Engaging and a quick but clever read. Not his best in my opinion, but still rather good. Particularly as the time period worked against it for me.

[Mexal]

I just finished [i]Green River Rising[/i] by Tom Willocks. It was a pretty entertaining read. I wouldn't suggest reading it for anything more than that though.

I started [i]One Hundred Years of Solitude[/i] by Gabriel Garcia Marquez last night. No impressions as of yet.

I bought Michael Chabon's[i] The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay[/i] so that will be my next book when I finish with Marquez.

[Greyweather]

[quote name='kcf' post='1483843' date='Aug 17 2008, 22.47']I believe he was nominated for both fan writer and Best Novel.[/quote]
2007 nominees for best novel Hugo Award:
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
Glasshouse by Charles Stross
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Blindsight by Peter Watts

I don't know the numbers for the 07 nominating votes, so for all I know the only reason he didn't make the cutoff was because the votes were split between his two eligible novels.

[quote]This year he won the Best Fan Writer award and missed Best Novel by only 7 or so votes.[/quote]
Cool. I do like Scalzi, I just like Morgan more.

So as to not knock this tread completely OT, here's what I'm reading right now.
The Best of Robert E. Howard: Volume 1 - Crimson Shadows
The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock

[Zach H]

Also reading [i]One Hundred Years of Solitude[/i] by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm really appreciating the book thus far, which eschews a lot of dialogue for a more constant storytelling style full of surrealist happenings that don't upstage or blur some very telling meditations on love and war.

[Dark Wolf]

The vacation is pretty much over, they always are :)
It was a very good time, also a lazy one and because of this I took some light reads with me on vacation. Also "The Name of the Wind" was hard to carry with me and has a format that wasn't suited for airplane, buses or beach. So I read "School's Out" by Scott Andrews, "Meat" by Joseph D'Lacey and "30 Days of Night" by Tim Lebbon.
I started this week-end Patrick Rothfuss' novel and I like it so far.
For a day now I started my work, but still I managed to write one review for the books I read on holiday and I already posted on my blog, [url="http://darkwolfsfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/schools-out-by-scott-andrews.html"]Scott Andrews' "School's Out"[/url]. It's not a difficult read, it is plain simple and fun, just for vacation time.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Finished [i]The Born Queen [/i]by Greg Keyes. I felt this book was rushed and alot of plotlines were hastly concluded. Despite that, it was a good series overall, and I really enjoyed reading the chapters that involved Anne Dare. It was one of the more realistic portrayals of a princess to queen character I've read. I also liked Aspar's, Muriele's and Cazio's chapters. Neil's, Leoff's and Stephen's characters I thought were way better in the first three books. I didn't like the development of Stephen in [i]The Born Queen[/i].
Kudos to Graeme (aka Deornoth) for introducing me this series!
Starting the [i]The Sindbad Voyage[/i] by Tim Severin today. Looking forward to reading some non-fiction about Arab sailing/sailors in the 8th century.

[bossfan2000]

I started 2 books this weekend, and put both of them down about 200 pages into them. The books were [b]Stormwarden [/b]by Janny Wurts (didnt like the sudden appearance of a space ship coming out of the earth to swallow one of the characters). [b]The Divine Talisman[/b] was more of the same stuff as The Crimson Sword. Just didnt care about anything happening in the book. More details [url="http://fantasybookreviewer.blogspot.com/2008/08/two-more-books-i-couldnt-finish.html"]here[/url].

After abandoning 2 books, I need something I know I will enjoy. Hence i started [b]The Last Argument of Kings[/b]. Good decision, as 200 pages into it, i have zero desire to read anything else.

[Bellis]

[b]One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest[/b], as part of catching up on the canon. Very good.

[b]The Domesday Book[/b] by Connie Willis, into the wee hours of last night. Time-travelling academics. The "now" sections are a bit slow, but the medieval sections are quite good, and seem well-researched (at least compared to Ken Follett). No flinching from realism; this one's got a long body count.

[Atreides]

I read half of the Dave Barry book which consists of his year-in-reviews for the past decade. Finding that book definitely made a three-hour stopover in Denver airport worth it. I also read the first Artemis Fowl book.

I'll probably read The Thousandfold thought once I find it, as well as the second and possibly more Artemis Fowl books. And Deathly Hollows, when it comes out in paperback. Harry Potter isn't worth $30 to me.