May 2009

[gyrehead]

Got a huge pile of arcs of Tor's late summer early fall release. Including Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring. Which I read. Which I loved. Which is my favorite book this year in genre. And that is all I'm saying because July is not that far off.

Now after a wonderful interruption, I'm going back to Peter Straub's extended version of A Dark Matter, The Skylark.

Then I hope to tackle Kate Elliott's Traitor's Gate.

[Myshkin]

Got a huge pile of arcs of Tor's late summer early fall release. Including Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring. Which I read. Which I loved. Which is my favorite book this year in genre. And that is all I'm saying because July is not that far off.

You bastard!

[williamjm]

3/4ths through Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. I must admit I am a little underwhelmed, although I do like some of the things he has created (like the General... Supercrazybig System ships and the talking drones/shuttles, even if they are a bit twee). I will probably pick up the next few novels to see if my interest picks up

I was a bit disappointed in Consider Phlebas as well, although I did think the last bit of the book was the most entertaining part of it. The Player of Games and Use of Weapons are much better books, particularly the latter which I'd say was a contender for the best Science Fiction book I've ever read.

I just finished The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan. I thought it was really good and it hooked me pretty early. However, I felt there could have been so much more to this story and I wonder if he's planning on doing a sequel which will flesh out some elements that he left completely ambiguous.

The sequel The Dark Commands is out next year.

I'm nearing the end of the Stars My Destination. A good book, but after hearing all the hype, I'm underwhelmed. The pacing is nice, Bester is good with characters, but I just haven't been truly driven to read the story besides from my natural tendency to finish a book I start.

I can't help but feel that Bester is ripping off the Count of Monte Cristo heavy-handedly.

It is basically The Count of Monte Cristo In Space. It was an interesting and reasonably entertaining book, but I wouldn't say it was a great one and for most of the book it was too episodic to really be compelling, I didn't really care much what was going to happen next or whether Foyle would succeed in his quest. It did get more interesting near the end, though.

[RedEyedGhost]

You bastard!

Agreed!

I am so ready to read this book. And what I want to know: is it as good as An Autumn War or even better?

[Bellis]

Gyrehead :box:

Coincidentally, I just re-read A Shadow in Summer earlier this evening. I wanted to refresh my memory of the early character interactions and plot after recently reading the (mostly standalone) sequels. I'm beginning to think that the first book is the best, in terms of originality and sophistication of the plotting.

I also read A Mercy by Toni Morrison earlier this week. It was short sweet well-written, but ultimately I didn't really learn anything new or find it life-changing.

I'm working my way through GRRM's Dreamsongs. Some of these stories are quite good, and quite haunting to read late at night! So far, "A Song for Lya" is the one that is sticking with me the most, but I'm only a quarter through the anthology.

[BookWyrm]

It is basically The Count of Monte Cristo In Space. It was an interesting and reasonably entertaining book, but I wouldn't say it was a great one and for most of the book it was too episodic to really be compelling, I didn't really care much what was going to happen next or whether Foyle would succeed in his quest. It did get more interesting near the end, though.

Having read a bit more of it, I'm coming to think that Bester wanted to make it obvious all along that the Count of Monte Cristo was a hugely influential book (meaning that I mistook his take on the Monte Cristo story for heavy-handed copying).

[DJDonegal]

This month I have so far read:

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Marly & Me by John Grogan

At A Loss For Words by Diane Schoemperlen

My friends says they have book for me to read next, but I don't know what it is or what it's about.

[ThRiNiDiR]

Still tackling "Infoquake" by David Louis Edelman; he does a great job at stirring up an interest for themes that are totally alien to me (think corporations, business, how to make and sell the product). I'll post a review in the next couple of weeks.

[Trinuviel]

Got a huge pile of arcs of Tor's late summer early fall release. Including Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring. Which I read. Which I loved. Which is my favorite book this year in genre. And that is all I'm saying because July is not that far off.

I'm turning green with envy :D

I'm still slogging through Nights of Viljamur - for some reason I just can't get into it. I will, however, soldier on - I owe Mark a throrough review. Also, the ARC is so riddled with spelling errors and typos that I get a wee bit annoyed. I'm hoping that they have fixed this for the final edition.

[Deornoth]

Finished reading Tim Lebbon's 'Fallen', a book of voyages, and voyagers, that's driven by a sense of the unknown (just beyond the horizon) but suffers from occasional slow pacing and a pivotal plot moment that demands a character act... well... out of character. I thought so anyway. My full review is over Here. Absolutely no idea what to read next...

[polishgenius]

I read Fallen the other day, I agree with the assessment of the quest plot, it was well done.

I wasn't too fond of the end though. Not sure why.

As for the out-of-character:

SPOILER: Fallen

I reckoned it was the drugs what done it. He defo fancied her, it was just that the drugs pushed him over the edge emotionally when she went a-shagging. What I didn't like was the fact that despite having a PoV from Nomi she only hinted at the disease in her thoughts.

Anyway, about to start the second book in The Deepgate Codex. Which I bought in a 3for2 along with the aforementioned Fallen. Although I might instead read Provided You Don't Kiss Me, a journalist's recollections of his relationship with Brian Clough.

[Shield]

I've just finished The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas. This was an unexpected pleasure. I say unexpected as my favourite genre of books is Speculative Fiction and this seemed pretty mainstream on first glance. Basically, a research student finds a rare book that enables her to access what the writer readers to as the troposphere, which seems to function as a type of collective memory or maybe even the place where existence began. The blurb says, with Mr Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself swept into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time travel. This is a useless blurb, and captures not one whit of the essence of this book. Thankfully I bought the book from the Internet as if I had read a blurb like that in a book shop, it would have put me right off. The book is probably mainly about thought. Thought in all its manifestations. If you like philosophy and science along with some pretty decent story telling, this is the book for you. Oh and the title is a kind of a pun, which I almost missed.

[BookWyrm]

I just finished Alfred Bester's the Stars My Destination, and I really enjoyed it towards the end. It was closed with a performance verging on perfection. The overall rating I would give... is a "good verging on great", but no better than that.

[mashiara]

I finished a SF and Fantasy anthology called Eclipse One, edited by Jonathan Strahan. I really liked 2-3 of the stories but the rest was disappointing.

I also read Lying on the couch by Irvin Yalom. It was interesting but not as much as his previous book I read. It was a fascinating look into psychotherapy and the way therapists should or shouldn't handle themselves.

Last, I read The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. Meh.

I'm about to start The Fade by Chris Wooding.

[Astra]

Finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie and started Before They are Hanged.

I don't see what all the hype around the book was about. I enjoyed reading it and the fact that I started to read book II immediately after the book I, instead of taking a break and reading at least one stand alone says a lot, but it is not outstanding. It is not brilliant, fantastic. It is just quite good :)

One serious flaw, is a missing map. I think I have seen somewhere on Joe's blog or his website that he doesn't like maps and thinks it is unnecessary but I disagree and thanks to a The First Law's fan Scubamarco, who created 2 wonderful maps, I can enjoy the books a lot more.

[IheartTesla]

I am about halfway through Hunter S Thompson's The Great Shark Hunt. Boy, does he hate Richard Nixon :P

But its a great read - I was particularly fascinated by his take on racial politics at the time. East LA and the Chicanos, Black Panthers, Latin America during the time at Kennedy.... all good stuff.

[Cuchulain]

Finished Matthew Stover's Heroes Die today. I felt that the story dragged a bit at the start, but picked up after about a hundred pages and went from strength to strength from there on. I especially enjoyed the Scott Lynch-like plotting and subsequent finale. The violence did surprise me a bit, though. I was expecting standard fantasy violence, but instead I got some of the most brutal stuff I've ever read. Needless to say, I loved the book and am eager to start Blade of Tyshalle. Unfortunately, as my final exams are coming up, I've got to do some other reading first.

Oh yeah, I think Heroes Die is long overdue for a reissue with new cover art. If I didn't know about Stover's work, I wouldn't consider buying a book with such a cover.

[BookWyrm]

I'm reading Byock's version of the Saga of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga). It has a surprisingly modern-feel to it, thanks to Byock, and he does a good job of keeping the story alive for the modern reader. That said, most of the parts without Sigurd (coincidentally, which is most of the saga) really are a struggle for me to read. Recommended, if only because of the Sigurd sequences.

Next, the Silmarillion.

[Mad Knight]

Now that I'm out of college for the summer I'm looking forward to catching up on some reading. I just picked up The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes and Across the Face of the World by Russell Fitzpatrick, even though the latter looks and sounds a lot like The Eye of the World.

[Deornoth]

Finished reading Christie Golden's 'Arthas: Rise of the Lich King' (World of Warcraft tie-in). If you're a Warcraft fan then I reckon you'll love it but all I found was an incredibly whiny main character and a bunch of others whose only purpose seemed to be to show their names in the right places (it must be a Warcraft book, it's got.... in it!) It wasn't a bad read as such but it definitely needed to do a lot more to make up for the fact that everyone knows how the book ends... My full review is over Here. I'm now polishing off Karen Traviss' 'No Prisoners' (Clone Wars tie-in) and working my way through Richard Williams' 'Reiksguard'...