September 2008 Reads

[Gormenghast]

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1522549' date='Sep 18 2008, 06.30']Both? :P All I know is that I'll probably not bother finishing Erikson's book until the weekend; I have other reads/reviews to write tomorrow and Friday.[/quote]
Chances of a review?

I'm curious to read your review of a "fantasy" book for once ;p

[Mexal]

I just finished The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearny. I wasn't all that impressed. It was a quick book to read and parts of it were really good but I felt like nothing happened during the first 200 pages other than marching and I felt the ending...

SPOILER: Ending

I saw no need for Jason to die. It was highly predictable with Rictus saying every 3 minutes for him to continue with the army, come have a drink, ect. It served no purpose other than try to give us an emotional punch to end the book but it failed since it was so damn predictable. I would have liked one person to at least be happy. It somewhat ruined whatever enjoyment I gained from the book.

I don't mind main character deaths. I just hate main character deaths doesn't further the story in any way.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I finished J.V Jones' [i]A Man Betrayed[/i], the second book in The Book of Words trilogy. It was OK. The plot was good (if a bit cliched), but the main characters are cut out of cardboard and the humour supplied by Grift and Bodger is tiresome. The only character I really like is Lord Maybor. I like typical cliched fantasy if there are characters I care about and has good humour throughout. This is borderline for me. Still, I am curious to see where this story goes and will start the final book of the trilogy, [i]Master and Fool[/i].

[Larry.]

[quote name='Gormenghast' post='1522780' date='Sep 18 2008, 07.14']Chances of a review?

I'm curious to read your review of a "fantasy" book for once ;p[/quote]

50/50 - I'm going to attempt to finish (after a 3 month delay) a "professional" review of Le Guin's [i]Lavinia[/i] (that review will be over 6K words long) first this weekend and then I'll see. If not this weekend, then likely the middle of October, since next week is very busy and the week after I have to start getting things ready for my brother's wedding.

[Bellis]

[b]Complicity[/b] by Iain Banks - a fun potboiler mystery but not as deep as it wishes. Excessively violent though I guess that's the point.

[b]To Say Nothing of the Dog[/b] - Connie Willis. Another time-travel book, this time in Victorian England and much more lighthearted than Doomsday Book, though perhaps excessively wrought. But everything works out for the best and everyone pairs up at the end a la an Oscar Wilde play.

[b]Children of Gebalawi[/b] - Naguib Mafouz (aka Children of the Alley). This starts of as a fairly straightforward and almost dull re-telling of the stories of Adam, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, as characters in a middle eastern slum. It gets very slightly subversive as it goes on, and the last chapter, which brings the story to the post-prophetic age, packs a punch that I understand got the author into a bit of trouble with the local religious authorities. No, it's not the Satanic Verses, it scoffs at the very notion and besides, it preceded it by a number of decades. If you're a junkie of religion like me you'll appreciate it. Anyone read his Cairo Trilogy?

[Isis]

Finished Max Brooks's [i]Zombie Survival Guide[/i]. Still not sure whether I prefer WWZ or this, they're both fantastic books.

Currently reading [i]MMR and Autism: What parents need to know[/i] by Michael Fitzpatrick (a GP in East London) and enjoying it immensely. The MMR vs. triple vaccine debacle is one of my infectious disease obsessions. This is written by a bloke who gave both his sons the MMR vaccine, then one of them turned out to be autistic. He examines other health scares (including thalidomide, the pertussis vaccine/brain damage cases, vCJD) and the poltical climate when they occurred. I'm only 1/3 in so I'm sure I'm going to be even more entertained by the time I'm finished. It's even tempting me to consider studying health policy.

[beniowa]

Yesterday I finished the first [i][b]Wild Cards[/b][/i] book. I was a little surprised that it was a good bit darker than Inside Straight, the only other Wild Cards I've read, but then that makes sense considering it deals with the release of the virus as well as several other important events in the last 50 years including the Red Scare and the counterculture protests of Vietnam. It was also more of an anthology than a mosaic novel yet the stories worked together pretty well. I definitely plan to read as many of the Wild Cards book I can get a hold of. 8/10.

I need a break from science fiction and fantasy so I think I'm going to read [i][b]The Shadow of the Wind[/b][/i] next. I've heard a ton of good stuff about this book.

[Mexal]

[quote name='beniowa' post='1523305' date='Sep 18 2008, 13.28']I need a break from science fiction and fantasy so I think I'm going to read [i][b]The Shadow of the Wind[/b][/i] next. I've heard a ton of good stuff about this book.[/quote]

I look forward to hearing your opinion on the book. It's probably my favorite book period.

[Muttering Bill]

Finished [i]Last Argument of Kings[/i], about time too. I felt that it dragged a bit. Some of the directions he took with the characters were a little annoying until I realized where he was going with it. I didn't find the big seige quite as dazzling as some others have expressed. And, yet again, he has left me thinking "what was the point of all this?" But then, I guess that was the point. If only for the sheer nerve of what he did, I'd say it was worth reading. All told, it was pretty good.

Going to take another atempt at sci-fi and start [i]Anathem [/i]next.

[Werthead]

[quote name='Guinevere Seaworth' post='1522951' date='Sep 18 2008, 15.01']I finished J.V Jones' [i]A Man Betrayed[/i], the second book in The Book of Words trilogy. It was OK. The plot was good (if a bit cliched), but the main characters are cut out of cardboard and the humour supplied by Grift and Bodger is tiresome. The only character I really like is Lord Maybor. I like typical cliched fantasy if there are characters I care about and has good humour throughout. This is borderline for me. Still, I am curious to see where this story goes and will start the final book of the trilogy, [i]Master and Fool[/i].[/quote]

I quite liked Tavalisk in the trilogy, for all that he sat on the sidelines and just watched events from 500 miles away. His sense of humour and total lack of morals or ethics was vaguely interesting. When I was 17. I should really reread this at some point.

Hang in there, as the [b]Sword of Shadows[/b] sequel series is much, much better. [b]Book of Words[/b] operates on the Feist/Brooks level, whilst [b]Sword of Shadows[/b] is more on the GRRM tier IMO.

[sparky]

[quote name='Muttering Bill' post='1523340' date='Sep 18 2008, 13.53']Going to take another atempt at sci-fi and start [i]Anathem [/i]next.[/quote]

It's annoying when people insist on calling Stephenson sci-fi. It's doubly annoying when he's lumped into the sci-fi/fantasy section of the bookstore. Stephenson hasn't written anything remotely sci-fi since [i]before[/i] Cryptonomicon. He is, simply, the best 'big canvas' novelist going right now. And he ain't genre.

Sorry. Pet peeve of mine.

[Isis]

I wouldn't call Stephenson scifi either (if I was only allowed one label!). But I'm struggling with the non-genre part.

[mashiara]

[quote name='beniowa' post='1523305' date='Sep 18 2008, 20.28']I need a break from science fiction and fantasy so I think I'm going to read [i][b]The Shadow of the Wind[/b][/i] next. I've heard a ton of good stuff about this book.[/quote]

I think you're going to love this book. Best one I've read in a long time.

[gyrehead]

[quote name='sparky' post='1523610' date='Sep 18 2008, 17.15']It's annoying when people insist on calling Stephenson sci-fi. It's doubly annoying when he's lumped into the sci-fi/fantasy section of the bookstore. Stephenson hasn't written anything remotely sci-fi since [i]before[/i] Cryptonomicon. He is, simply, the best 'big canvas' novelist going right now. And he ain't genre.

Sorry. Pet peeve of mine.[/quote]


Well Anathem is science fiction by my take and pretty much everyone else's (Stephenson seems to even think so in his Locus interview). Hope that doesn't irk you even more. Though really anyone wanting to keep Stephenson in the sci fi area isn't going to get a quibble from me. I just don't really care how people qualify books by genre. Probably because I think in the end it does not matter. Is Stephenson eleveated or disparaged being called Sci fi? I guess only if you ascribe to the notion sci fi is somehow less than being terms general fiction. All fiction is speculative fiction when it comes down to it. Let a label define something too much and then expand that to a rule that you expect others to adopt and respect and I think you lose the notion of what reading is for the individual. But that's just me. Maybe that is my peeve. Among so many others.

Just finished Carwyn and Fahnestock's [i]Queen of Oblivion[/i]. Very by the numbers fantasy that shows promise in the cracks but really is rougher than a published work should be in my opinion. I'm still wondering how these two got a hardcover three book deal. There is a simplicity that seems heavyhanded adn bit too convenient just at moments that call for depth and complexity. I found that it read more like a franchise shared world's entry in how the action takes place and the stage of action is explored. Though that might have been a desperate attempt to keep a flat bland world viable for susequent series.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

[quote name='sparky' post='1523610' date='Sep 18 2008, 23.15']It's annoying when people insist on calling Stephenson sci-fi. It's doubly annoying when he's lumped into the sci-fi/fantasy section of the bookstore. Stephenson hasn't written anything remotely sci-fi since [i]before[/i] Cryptonomicon. He is, simply, the best 'big canvas' novelist going right now. And he ain't genre.

Sorry. Pet peeve of mine.[/quote]
Well, Anathem is set on another planet and features non-human civilization (well, at least non-Earth human, Arbreans are human enough for all intents and purposes, and, yes, it is rationalized). If this book is not science fiction, what is?

[Isis]

[quote name='gyrehead' post='1524147' date='Sep 19 2008, 07.24']Is Stephenson eleveated or disparaged being called Sci fi? I guess only if you ascribe to the notion sci fi is somehow less than being terms general fiction. All fiction is speculative fiction when it comes down to it. Let a label define something too much and then expand that to a rule that you expect others to adopt and respect and I think you lose the notion of what reading is for the individual. But that's just me. Maybe that is my peeve. Among so many others.[/quote] :agree:

[Peadar]

[quote name='Bastard of Godsgrace' post='1524151' date='Sep 19 2008, 08.09']Well, Anathem is set on another planet and features non-human civilization (well, at least non-Earth human, Arbreans are human enough for all intents and purposes, and, yes, it is rationalized). If this book is not science fiction, what is?[/quote]

I agree. I'm half-way through it right now. It is definitely Science Fiction. In fact, anybody who wants to ignore this fact, will have their faces rubbed in it again and again as they read.

[sparky]

Everyone's Stephenson points are well-taken. I have not read the new one, but imho, just because it's set on an alternate world does not necessarily automatically earn it a sci-fi label.

That aside, Cryptonomicon and the Boroque Cycle (combined, representing over a decade of Stephenson's career) do not belong in and should not be relegated to the sci-fi/fantasy section of a bookstore. They are historical/contemporary fiction and deserve as wide a readership as possible.

[Peadar]

[quote name='sparky' post='1524274' date='Sep 19 2008, 12.53']Everyone's Stephenson points are well-taken. I have not read the new one, but imho, just because it's set on an alternate world does not necessarily automatically earn it a sci-fi label.[/quote]

No, in some cases, it would be fantasy instead, but other than fantasy, being set on another world always means a book is science fiction. However, if you belong to that group of people who think that if a book is clever, intellectual and sophisticated then it can't be SF, well, we'll never agree :fence:


[quote]That aside, Cryptonomicon and the Boroque Cycle (combined, representing over a decade of Stephenson's career) do not belong in and should not be relegated to the sci-fi/fantasy section of a bookstore. They are historical/contemporary fiction and deserve as wide a readership as possible.[/quote]

Once again, I object to the use of the word 'relegated'. However, yes, those books don't belong in the SF section, not because they are brilliant, but because they are not SF.

[sparky]

[quote name='Peadar' post='1524292' date='Sep 19 2008, 08.21']No, in some cases, it would be fantasy instead, but other than fantasy, being set on another world always means a book is science fiction. However, if you belong to that group of people who think that if a book is clever, intellectual and sophisticated then it can't be SF, well, we'll never agree :fence:[/quote]

Have you read anything like David Mitchell's [i]Cloud Atlas[/i]? Was that sci-fi? Could go either way - as could a lot of books, actually.

[quote name='Peadar' post='1524292' date='Sep 19 2008, 08.21']Once again, I object to the use of the word 'relegated'. However, yes, those books don't belong in the SF section, not because they are brilliant, but because they are not SF.[/quote]

I just mean 'relegated' in terms of sales. If your book is in the sci-fi/fantasy section, it simply will not sell as well as it otherwise could. No?