November 2009

[Tears of Lys]

I finally broke down and am leaving Martin, Abercrombie, and Bakker for some Neil Gaiman. Specifically, "American Gods." I've never read any of his work before. Wish me luck.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I found The Last Pope by Luis Miguel Rocha boring, and ended up skimming pages to finish the book. I'm hoping Tom Standage's The Edible History of Humanity will be much more entertaining. I really enjoyed his A History of the World in Six Glasses.

[Astra]

I finally broke down and am leaving Martin, Abercrombie, and Bakker for some Neil Gaiman. Specifically, "American Gods." I've never read any of his work before. Wish me luck.

All the best luck to you.

I hated the book :smoking:

[Ratatoskr]

I finally broke down and am leaving Martin, Abercrombie, and Bakker for some Neil Gaiman. Specifically, "American Gods." I've never read any of his work before. Wish me luck.

Yeah, good luck from me too. I thought it was OK, but kinda overrated.

I'm 250 pages into "Return of the Crimson Guard". It's like all things Malazan: Deeply flawed, yet utterly cool. I'm enjoying it despite its shortcomings.

Before that I read Hobb's "Assassin's apprentice". I liked it well enough, but not quite as much as many others seem to. I'll probably read the sequel at some point, but not right away.

[Deornoth]

Finished reading Pierre Pevel's 'The Cardinal's Blades', where Cardinal Richelieu and his men must fight to stop a Spanish dragon cult wreaking havoc in France. This is an English translation and I wondered if something was lost in the process, too much description weighs the book down at times and the pacing is a little choppy. Once you get past this though, 'The Cardinal's Blades' is a thoroughly entertaining read and one that I had a lot of fun with. My full review is over Here. I'm now reading Tobias Buckell's 'The Cole Protocol' ('Halo' tie-in)...

[Tears of Lys]

All the best luck to you.

I hated the book :smoking:

Oh, dear. I hope it's like Bakker's PoN series - some people hate it, others love it. If it's like that, at least I have a 50/50 chance.

[kcf]

It's been a while since I've posted in one of these threads. I of course finsihed up The Gathering Storm by Jordan and Sanderson (review) which I though was really well done. I also read Fast Ships, Black Sails edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (review) - I wasn't really impressed with this anthology. I enjoyed only a couple of the stories.

Now I'm reading The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham, which I'm enjoying more than I did Acacia.

[pat5150]

Just finished Robin Hobb's The Dragon Keeper. Good stuff, but the original novel being split into two volumes means that this one is just one big introduction, with all the juicy stuff reserved for Dragon Haven.

Check the blog for the full review. :)

Patrick

[Bellis]

OK, so An Instance of the Fingerpost was quite nice. Even brilliant. I was raising my eyebrows a bit at some of the events in the last section, but it was all done so elegantly I just had to go with it. Thanks to all for the recs.

I was also up last night finishing off Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis/Lilith's Brood trilogy. The first novel, Dawn is a compelling first contact story, full of page turning suspense. The next two novels I felt were not as interesting, just, well, disturbing. Weird alien sex. As for the ideas, I wasn't sure whether Butler was going with a slavery allegory, or eugenics, or just modenization. It was that same uncomfortable feeling I had in Childhood's End. But something about it also felt a bit old school, like the Oankali were some sort of Star Trek alien. But more creepy than thought provoking.

ETA: Also, am I the only one who couldn't quite understand what the author meant by "heirarchical"

[Myshkin]

Just finished Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and really enjoyed it. This one is faster paced (and shorter) than the first two in the series, but is also less self-contained. But it does a great job of expanding the world and setting up future conflict.

I've just finished the very funny and clever Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut. Love the author's unique style to the point that I want to check out his other novels. Which would you recommend ? (I've read Galápagos and Slaughterhouse 5)

Everything he wrote is brilliant, but you should definitely go with Cat's Cradle next.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Bellis - actually, I think it's mostly colonisation that she's going after in those later two books, from that perspective. Obviously there's a lot on gender identity, and different expressions of sexuality, and family, but I think that for the most part, she's writing as "the colonised" rather than "the intrepid explorer", and seeing what effects that has on perspectives.

Huh. I just realised I probably explained that badly, since the protagonists are *not* the colonised in the later two books. Still, the bulk of the story is told in sympathy with the humans, and there's a certain amount of "accepting the new way of things" that the two "hybrids" -- and both Oankali and human societies -- have to figure out.

[Werthead]

Not quite sure what to read next. Going to give Discworld a rest for a bit (and the next one up is Interesting Times, which I really don't like very much) so I think my next read will be either the gargantuam The Passage by Justin Cronin or A Dream of Wessex by the always-brilliant Christopher Priest. Probably Wessex as it's a hell of a lot shorter.

[Bellis]

Bellis - actually, I think it's mostly colonisation that she's going after in those later two books, from that perspective. Obviously there's a lot on gender identity, and different expressions of sexuality, and family, but I think that for the most part, she's writing as "the colonised" rather than "the intrepid explorer", and seeing what effects that has on perspectives.

Huh. I just realised I probably explained that badly, since the protagonists are *not* the colonised in the later two books. Still, the bulk of the story is told in sympathy with the humans, and there's a certain amount of "accepting the new way of things" that the two "hybrids" -- and both Oankali and human societies -- have to figure out.

yeah, I guess that's what i meant to say by "modernization" - the sense of a superior advanced society trying to tell a stubborn backward society to just "get with it". I found it especially sad, coming from my background as a biologist:

SPOILER: Imago

The isolated fertile village was trying to breed a new race of humans through conventional breeding, which might have eventually worked after thousands of years, but then the Oankali came in and were like, "you guys are just stupid, just do it our advanced GMO way". And it works, but you think, at what cost? Sure the constructs (and Lilith, mostly) are happy, but that's because they're oversexed (insert creepiness about free will versus manipulated emotions)

[mashiara]

I finally broke down and am leaving Martin, Abercrombie, and Bakker for some Neil Gaiman. Specifically, "American Gods." I've never read any of his work before. Wish me luck.

Oh, dear. I hope it's like Bakker's PoN series - some people hate it, others love it. If it's like that, at least I have a 50/50 chance.

Hey, I liked it! I hope you enjoy it. :)

I read Daughters of Crete by Suzanne Selfors and I found it indifferent. Not very well written and I thought her version on Theseus' myth and the destruction of the Minoan civilization was pretty meh.

Last night I finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I enjoyed this book a lot even though I felt like it was dragging at places. The way the story was presented through letters and old documents made it look more authentic and made it more appealling to my inner geek. You could tell she had done extensive research on her topic and it was fascinating to read about Vlad the Impaler -the man and the legend- and to see how many cultures in the area were affected by him. It was also cool to see a "vampire story" where you had to deal with the old-fashioned scary ones, not the modern ones that ooze sexuality and are likely to seduce you rather than bite you.

A little observation that had nothing to do with the story. I checked this book out of the library and as I'm sure I've said before our libraries here don't buy their own copies of books but rather rely on people donating the ones they don't want anymore (that's why it's so hard to find something that I'd really love to read there). The purists on this board would cringe at the sight but I'm always intrigued by the marks the original owners have left on the book, I'm always looking for signs to see what they liked or not about it. This time I was totally baffled though, the one who donated it had marked, underlined and circled totally random passages, individual words, page numbers. I was trying to go all meta and figure out what the hell she was thinking, it was kind of distracting. Anybody else do that, or am I the only one?

Later today I'm hoping to start East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I haven't read any Steinbeck in more than a decade, I'm curious to see how I'll react to this.

[Xalinor]

I recently finished Steven Erikson's House of Chains. I'm now far enough into the series to understand what's going on. Definitely my favorite Malazan novel, thus far.

I've just started Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon, the first book in his Codex Alera series. Although the writing isn't particularly great, it's still a decent read. However, the plot is lifeless and dull and has been used a thousand times.

I'm also working on two more novels, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (the King of Run-On Sentences, but still very good) and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (boring, ridiculous, and full of Objectivist nonsense).

[aidan]

I've just started Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon, the first book in his Codex Alera series. Although the writing isn't particularly great, it's still a decent read. However, the plot is lifeless and dull and has been used a thousand times.

The writing's mediocre and the plot sucks? But it's a decent read? What gives?

[Isis]

Oh, dear. I hope it's like Bakker's PoN series - some people hate it, others love it. If it's like that, at least I have a 50/50 chance

Nah, it's nowhere near as polarising as Bakker. I think Gaiman is a fine storyteller, but American Gods is not his best work. It's enjoyable but not outstanding. Try his short stories if you don't get on with AG.

[Martin Silenus]

I thought [American Gods] was OK, but kinda overrated.

Overrated? Neil Gaiman? Surely not.

I'm almost done with his Smoke and Mirrors, a real grab bag of scraps, drabbles, poems and stories. The quality bits, like the technosatanist daydream "Cold Colors," make it worthwhile. You'll get what you expect from Gaiman, such as modernized fables, some of which Anne Sexton already covered in better fashion. His intro is full of boring minutiae re: how he was moved to tears by the beauty of Lisa Snellings' porcelain mantelpiece doodads, so he phoned his editor about the commercial possibilities. Inspiring stuff.

I also finished Stephen King's It this month (the last 700 of 1100 pages). Bellis already covered It. There's a special little squick for those who slog thru the first two reams. The infamous scene. :bawl:

I'll have to take a break from Michael Moorcock, after The Dreamthief's Daughter (Elric versus the Nazis!) and The Skrayling Tree (which must've hit the deadline at lightspeed because the last 30 pages spin the whole shebang into the toilet. It started out well too, what a pity).

Elric is the Brett Favre of heroic fantasy. And his fantasy football's name is Stormbringer.

[Xalinor]

The writing's mediocre and the plot sucks? But it's a decent read? What gives?

The plot has no substance. But it's readable. Certainly better than Tairy.

[Tears of Lys]

Nah, it's nowhere near as polarising as Bakker. I think Gaiman is a fine storyteller, but American Gods is not his best work. It's enjoyable but not outstanding. Try his short stories if you don't get on with AG.

I was going by the fact it won a Hugo and a Bram Stoker award, plus the complimentary statements on the book's back cover. Not a sure way to judge things, but I'm hopeful.

so far Mashiara gives it a thumbs up. That's promising! Haven't started it yet. I'm rereading Heretics of Dune. I'm having a hard time leaving my old favorites.