October 2008 Reads

[Gormenghast]

[quote name='duchess of malfi' post='1553953' date='Oct 13 2008, 17.40']Enjoy MOI - it's my second favorite after DG, and it's back when Erikson bothered with things like tight plots and trying to have his characters be characters rather than high powered gaming charicatures. :rolleyes:

After the hundreds of pages of boring navel gazing in MT and the awful ending of TBH, I have not been able to bring myself to read any more of this author. :(

And after the brilliance of DH and MOI, that is heartbreaking for me. :([/quote]
Fact is that I risk to like more the navel gazing than the memorable scenes.

For both GotM and DG I thought the ending were a bit disappointing. GotM felt too rushed and the writing less interesting, with too much shit thrown in just for the spectacular effect (I found the scene between the demon and Anomander gratuitous and some expectations that were built through the book gone forgotten).

For DG something similar. I liked the whole Duiker/Coltaine story line, but the end part of Filddler at Tremorlor and Kalam and the Claw was poor. Written poorly, with fight scenes where one was the exact copy of the previous (I really had enough of blurring swords, rats and boars). It's like if suddenly Erikson wanted to give pay off for those readers who only want silly fight scenes and action. At least for the great majority of the book all the battles were justified and necessary to the plot. The end felt again gratuitous and as if I suddenly was writing a different book.

Then there's also an issue with deus ex machina. What annoys me is that they aren't used to resolve dead ends. They are just unexcused and necessary, and the book would have worked smoothly even without them.

There's this part in MoI, for example, where Toc awakens near Morn and start to walk around till he stumble right onto Tool. Now, what are the chances that you walk around a dusty plain and happen to stumble right on it? It's fortuitous and feels forced. A pointless detail, sure, but it's annoying because Erikson could do entirely without these. There are many.

But then, that prologue alone in the second book was some of the best written piece I've read in fantasy. With plenty of experimentation and splendidly executed. Most of the book is on the same thread and I loved it.

I like to follow Erikson's tangents, I like when he totally loses the aim, I like the philosophizing, the witty or convoluted exchanges or the awful humor. There's something I love in Erikson as a writer that is unconnected from the setting or genre. So the parts where he is overambitious, pretentious or lacks focus risk to be the parts I like more.

[Nous]

I just finished Neal Stephenson's [i]Baroque Cycle[/i]. Suffice to say, it is the best thing I've read that was published after the fifties. It made me neglect work and sleep; I have a tendency to be ensnared by books, but this is the first time I accidentally stayed awake for a whole night.

Ser Scot,
[quote]I'm starting Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. I'm about 100 pages into it and still trying to piece together where he's taking this story. It seems more historical fiction than actual genre fiction. The only even slightly supernatural character is Enoch Root.[/quote]
The story is going [i]all over the place[/i], with very different things bound together by common theme. It [i]is[/i] more historical fiction than genre fiction, or more accurately, it is historical fiction with the attitude of science fiction. There are some fantastical elements, but they are far from essential, and only gain prominence in the last book.

[Dumas]

Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile by Ursula Le Guin
Thud, Men at Arms, bits of Going Postal and Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Going through Suetonius's Twelve Caesars again

Giving Shakespeare a try, starting with the comedies. Gotten through Twelfth Night; Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming Of The Shrew so far. They're funnier if I've had a few drinks, which I suspect was the natural state of the original audience since beer was a staple drink until relatively recently. Bit of an unfair advantage for someone writing comedy.

[john]

Recently read [i]The End of Mr Y[/i] by Scarlett Thomas and [i]Brasyl[/i] by Ian MacDonald in quick succession and was surprised to discover they both have the same basic premise.

SPOILER: premise

Thought=matter, we create our own reality etc etc

Brasyl is a smarter, cooler book but Mr Y deals with this in a much more interesting way.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Nous,

Oh, I don't dislike it ([u]Quicksilver[/u]). It's very well written and I'm enjoying the Daniel Waterhouse story. However, it is making me feel Mathmatically declined once again. I need to invest in a "college math" class.

[Myshkin]

[quote name='Muttering Bill' post='1553748' date='Oct 13 2008, 04.06']I finished [i]Dune [/i]a few days ago. It was mostly very good. I thought that he gave away too much of the plot too early with all of the quotes that head off each chapter. It wasn't really a big deal though because I knew the basic story anyway.

After that, I tried [i]Thunderer[/i]. It may be a great book, as Myshkin insists, but it had a terrible start. I struggled through the first 12 pages (which took me around 45 minutes) before I had to give up. So it's going back on the pile, and I'll try it again some other time.

Now reading [i]Starship Troopers[/i], which I should finish later today.[/quote]
You blew it buddy! You disappoint me! Go pick it back up right now. Right now!!!

Seriously though, I think everybody found the beginning slow, but it really picks up once the Thunderer is launched.

[quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1554151' date='Oct 13 2008, 10.54']Why am I not surprised that you enjoyed Saramago? ;) He's one of my favorite writers now. I wonder how bad the movie adaptation of [i]Blindness[/i] will be...[/quote]
I've heard that the adaptation is pretty faithful.

[RedEyedGhost]

[quote name='Muttering Bill' post='1553748' date='Oct 13 2008, 05.06']After that, I tried [i]Thunderer[/i]. It may be a great book, as Myshkin insists, but it had a terrible start. I struggled through the first 12 pages (which took me around 45 minutes) before I had to give up. So it's going back on the pile, and I'll try it again some other time.[/quote]

I struggled with the first chapter, too. Chapter Two was much, much more interesting and engaging.

I had out of town guests in this weekend, and I've been busy at work so I've only read about 75 pages of [u]Thunderer[/u] but I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

[Bellis]

Stenbeck's [b]East of Eden[/b], which left me wondering why I would ever bother reading anything written in my lifetime. Excellent, as is the movie which I also saw recently. Though quite different. But James Dean was hot. And Lee in the book is kick-ass.

[beniowa]

Earlier this evening I finished [b][i]Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded[/i][/b] by John Scalzi. Like I noted previously, this is a collection of entries from blog over the past ten years. So if you like Scalzi's books and maybe even read his blog, then you'll like this.

For my next book, I'm going to try [i][b]Toll the Hounds[/b][/i]. I've become a little disenchanted with Erikson but I want to continue with the series if I can.

[Larry.]

I'm going to try and finish re-reading Jeffrey Ford's [i]Memoranda[/i] and [i]The Beyond[/i] tonight, before beginning Stover's [i]Caine Black Knife[/i] after it arrives sometime tomorrow afternoon. Then after that book, I'll be reading Kelly Link's [i]Pretty Monsters[/i] and Brian Francis Slattery's [i]Liberation[/i] on Wednesday, with maybe a few other books thrown into the mix as well. I love having a week off! :D

[Muttering Bill]

Finished [i]Starship Troopers[/i]. A little thin on detail, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I'm now reading [i]Whitechapel Gods[/i]. Interesting enough so far.

And, since Myshkin, and now REG, are both insisting that [i]Thunderer [/i]will get much better soon, then I'll give it another shot next week, once I've finished WG.

[mashiara]

I recently finished [i]American Gods[/i] by Neil Gaiman. It was an immensly enjoyable read, hilarious and disturbing at the same time. The characters were well-crafted and intriguing, the tale gripping. If I were to read another book by him, which one would you recommend? I've already read Good Omens that he and Pratchett did together.

I also read the books [i]Η Φλώρια των νερών[/i] and [i]Το άλας της Γης[/i] by Ismene Kapantae. They were both placed in the late Byzantine years and were supposed to be historical novels that gave you an idea of how major events were experienced through normal people's lives. They were OK, I guess, not exactly what I had hoped for. Easy reads.

Last on my list of recent reads is [i]The Notebook [/i]by Nicholas Sparks. Now, I haven't seen the movie and I picked up the book at a used bookstore while back in the States (and I found it annoying that some overly romantic soul had marked all the passages that she thought they were poignant). It was a good enough story but nothing really special. Well written I guess, very romantic, very lyrical, with a "love conquers all" message. Llet's just say it did not rock my world.

I think for my next book I'm going to read [i]Winterbirth[/i] by Brian Ruckley.

[ambyr]

[quote name='mashiara' post='1554963' date='Oct 14 2008, 09.46']I recently finished [i]American Gods[/i] by Neil Gaiman. It was an immensly enjoyable read, hilarious and disturbing at the same time. The characters were well-crafted and intriguing, the tale gripping. If I were to read another book by him, which one would you recommend? I've already read Good Omens that he and Pratchett did together.[/quote]

My vote would be for [i]Neverwhere[/i].

[i]Anansi Boys[/i], the "sequel" to [i]American Gods[/i], was good, but I don't think it quite lived up to its predecessor.

[Deornoth]

I've just finished reading Neal Asher's 'Prador Moon', the tale of the beginning of the human Polity's war against the Prador, a race of giant carnivorous space crabs! I'm going to say that again because it just sounds so cool...

Giant carnivorous space crabs!

'Prador Moon' is a quick and fun read that's full of action and things blowing up (mostly giant sentient crabs that have had explosives stuck to their backs...). There's plenty going on but this does come at the expense of the human characters having a chance to fully develop. My full review is over [url="http://www.graemesfantasybookreview.com"]Here[/url].
I'm done with giant carnivorous space crabs for the moment, now it's onto zombies with Jonathan Maberry's 'Patient Zero'...

[Joanna vander Poele]

Inexplicably enough, [i]The Way of Shadows[/i] by Brett Weeks was in at Chapters yesterday, and somehow [i]The Return of the Crimson Guard[/i] wasn't. So I decided, fuck it, I love assassins, hopefully it would defy Pat's review and make me a gooshy fangirl of yet [i]another[/i] killer.

Alas, I am 1/3s through it and Pat's review is starting to prove... pretty... damn... accurate... shit...

Firstly, a lot of the dialogue is totally anachronistic, either that or the setting's not been well-established enough to identify that this takes a bit farther on in time. And anachronistic, slangy dialogue (unless it's, say, [i]Vlad Taltos[/i]) totally jars me out of a story. And oh, this story has a lot of it.

There is a vaguely juvenile edge to the book, yeah, a lot of that resulting from awkward/childish sentence structure, which could have been erased by a watchful editor. Alas, I am forever left to hysterically giggle/WTF at a segment where Durzo Blint is beating the crap out of the main character, Azoth/Kylar, and it's described as "artlessly pounding that yielding child flesh"... oh man, how did that get ever out of the first draft stage?

I have other pickles with this book: a) the awful names b) the occasional info-dumping c) 200 pages in, and I think I'm finally beginning to see the squiggle of a plot... d) the constant EMO (although why I expected anything different, I dunno) and e) Azoth giving a crowd the middle finger. It's just as dumb in context.

My main expectations came for this book after reading the author's blurb on amazon.com and thinking, hey, what a witty guy his book must be as good. Sadly, :thumbsdown: Also, I have books like [i]The Blade Itself, Tigana[/i] and [i]Acacia[/i] lining up to be read (amongst other things) so I'm sure that heightened my irritation too...

[Larry.]

[quote name='Joanna Nox' post='1555040' date='Oct 14 2008, 09.48']"artlessly pounding that yielding child flesh"... oh man, how did that get ever out of the first draft stage?[/quote]

Sounds almost like NAMBLA/S&M porn to me :P

[duchess of malfi]

Finished up [i]Zoe's Tale[/i] by John Scalzi. It was a parallel novel to [i]The Last Colony[/i] as written through the POV of a teenaged girl, and it cleared up a couple of plot points from TLC. :)

Now in the middle of Tobias Buckell's [i]Sly Mongoose[/i] and loving it. A weird and terrifying plague has set itself loose on a human world made of cloud cities floating in the atmosphere of an uninhabitable planet. :) So far it is very good. :) And as always, I love the Afro-Carribean accents. :)

I have this week off from work, so I am getting in some quality reading time. :)

Also up this week:
[i]Last Argument of Kings[/i] by Joe Abercrombie
[i]The Graveyard Book[/i] by Neil Gaiman
[i]The Bell at Sealey Head[/i] by Patricia McKillip
[i]Chalice[/i] by Robin McKinley
[i]An Evil Guest[/i] by Gene Wolfe
a couple of historical fiction nvoels, one about the Norman Conquest and one about Lady Jane Grey. :)

I do not know if I will have time to read them all, especially with the fall colors and spending as much side outdoors as I can. But I will have a great time trying. :lol:

[kcf]

I finished up [i]Heroes Die [/i]by Matthew Woodring Stover last week and finally got [url="http://nethspace.blogspot.com/2008/10/heroes-die-by-matthew-woodring-stover.html"]a review up[/url]. It's a very good book and lives up to the hype that's built over the years.

I'm now reading [i]Tender Morsels [/i]by Margo Lanagan.

[Cuchulain]

I just finished Esslemont's [i]Night of Knives[/i]. There's room for improvement, but I still found it enjoyable. My next read would be either [i]Return of the Crimson Guard[/i] or the [i]Bauchelain[/i] and [i]Korbal Broach[/i] novellas, but I might put these on hold as I have to read Pat Barker's [i]Regeneration[/i] for college by next week.

[Tears of Lys]

I'm on my [b]third[/b]-time reading the Prince of Nothing series. I get more and more out of this the more I read it. :thumbsup: