January 2010 Reads

[Budgie]

I finished Kushiel’s Mercy – Jacqueline Carey it was an ok book. Currently I am reading this day all Gods die – Stephen Donaldson I am enjoying this a lot.

On the tbr pile I have Iron Council – China Mieville & Silver mage Katharine Kerr.

[Seak]

I finished The Last Wish by Sapkowski the other day and I just wasn't very impressed. It was just kind of awkward to say the least. The dialogue was weird and things weren't very believable within the story.

Full review here

[Ratatoskr]

I just finished Holdstock's Mythago Wood, which I found thoroughly enjoyable. Next up is Bujold's Shards of Honor. My very first Bujold. I'm excited. Though, truth be told, I don't have much time to read ATM, because every spare minute I have is used up watching Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray. Got the Box set for Christmas. Rocks. Big time.

[Tas]

Not strictly January, but end of December to now:

• Re-read Watership Down. I lost my original book years ago, and had recently purchased it for my ten year old daughter. Yay Hazel-rah!
• Summer Knight, Book 4 of the Dresden Files. Enjoyable and quick. I needed it after struggling through and finally finishing
• Cryptonomicon. Whew. I liked it, I really did, but it was a tough slog for me, as I'm math and techno challenged. I learned a lot about WWII, codes, Turing, computers, the Philippines...
• Un Lun Dun by Mieville. Purchased for my kid. Well done!
• Under the Dome. Xmas present. Like all King novels, read like a freight train. Finished in 3 days (I'm on break). I got a kick outta the Dick Cheney analogy (jumped up tinpot dictator). Lotsa action, but weak characterization for a novel of this length.

Reading Brothers Grossbart atm. Craaaazy so far. I like it.:thumbsup:

Coming up:

• The Scar by Mieville
• No Dominion by Charlie Huston

I'm impressed that you finished as many books as you already have with Cryptonomicon in the mix. I have not read the book, but I am reading Quicksilver right now and while it is an amazing book (so far), it is also taking many hours to read, because of the number of terms I have to look up and some of the sentences I have to reread to get the analogies Stephenson is making.

With Quicksilver taking up most of my reading time this month, I think I will only be able to get in 2 - 3 other books, these are what I have planned (stepping out of SFF this month with a 2 of the choices):

- A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham

- Black Order by James Rollins

- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

[Seak]

- A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham

- Black Order by James Rollins

- The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

I just started A Shadow in Summer too and I'm really liking it so far. The world is really different; Abraham's imagination is impressive.

[DJDonegal]

I'm reading "How The Irish Saved Civilization".

I think I know how it ends.

[Autologic]

Just finished "Guerillas", about the psychological makeup of guerilla fighters in Palestine, the Western Sahara, Burma, El Salvador, and Afghanistan. It's pretty good. I guess the quote "hang together or hang separately" applies. For many people in the book, the "revolution" is a job, an identity and a way of life; comradeship becomes more powerful then family ties. It's like crossing the Rubicon; at some point you can't lead a normal life again. In such a symbolically-charged environment even washing dishes in a barracks sink becomes a revolutionary act, giving you a sense of identity the authorities want to deny you. The book also explains how guerillas interact with their enemies: The Palestinians know the names and faces of the Israelis who oppress them (sometimes they even work for them), but they can't do anything more then throw rocks, while the Western Saharans have another dilemma: they have guns but no homeland. The enemy is in another country, THEIR country, while they are in exile. This has led to a kind of fantasy world where the Saharans have built all the trappings of a normal society, including camps, ministries, and schools, while referring to their 20 year exodus as "temporary", pending the successful outcome of the revolution. The Karen (Burmese) insurgency is a pretty simple ethnic war, while in El Salvador it's words and ideas that kill, and in Afghanistan ideology and fundamentalism provide a thin gloss to a culture that's always been warlike (the book was completed in '92 and updated in 2004). These days the only conflict that's still raging is the Afghan one, this time with international troops to shoot at. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in civil wars and insurrections. History is often forced to generalize, presenting warriors, victims, and villains as a giant blob, so it's always interesting when somebody peels back the curtains to show the individual side, while still explaining how the herd mentality affects things.

[WhiteHaven]

Finally, I finished Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb.

Well, as a lot of people said the ending sucked.

I mean, I am a sucker for a happy ending. But 16 years passed and still nothing changed between Molly and Fitz? I'm not buying it. Not for a second. However, it was worth the time.

I'll sure pick up her other books, sometime.

Next on the agenda:

Shogun by James Clavell

[Seak]

Finished Agyar by Steven Brust. I definitely enjoyed it and it was a pretty quick read; only 254 pages long. It's good if you need a break from long series and want something completely self-contained. It's hard to say much on this book without ruining it.

Full Review Here

[Renasko]

Finished Holdstock's Mythago Wood, finishing up Daryl Gregory's Pandemonium, beginning to properly get into Daniel Abraham's Shadow in Summer, and have a non-fiction book called Hermit by Peter France and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez to read.

[beniowa]

Last night I finished The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel, which was a romping good time. Loved the politics and intrigue 17th Century Paris as well as Pevel's twist on dragons. Characterization was also very well-done with all the characters, notably Richelieu, being nuanced and complex. The only major complaint I had was that I thought the chapters were too short. The rapid-fire chapters made the book feel like a movie, but it took me a little while to get used it.

Now I'm reading Kitty's House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn.

[YellowDogJen]

I'm impressed that you finished as many books as you already have with Cryptonomicon in the mix. I have not read the book, but I am reading Quicksilver right now and while it is an amazing book (so far), it is also taking many hours to read, because of the number of terms I have to look up and some of the sentences I have to reread to get the analogies Stephenson is making...

Oh, man, sorry...I did not read Cryptonomicon in that short period of time; I finished it. It took me several weeks to read it (as you say, I looked up a lot of things I didn't understand or history I was unfamiliar with). I did read the others, as I was on vacation.

[Zap]

I've been reading Catch-22 and so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm still wondering whether to read The Thorn Birds next or something else.

[williamjm]

I finished Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer, I thought it was good and the quality of the writing was impressively high for a debut novel (it was his debut, wasn't it?). The idea of the andats seemed very original and it was quite refreshing to have a fantasy novel that is largely about the characters and intrigue with only very occasional action in the form of violence or magic.

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished Canticle by Ken Scholes awhile back, and I'm a bit conflicted about this one. While it did improve in certain aspects, I felt that it wasn't quite as good in other areas. I liked how well Scholes moved the story forward, piquing my interest as to where the story will go next, Winter's storyline very entertaining, Petronus' was quite compelling and overall the prose is very competent. Some things I didn't like are the fact that the MarySue/GaryStu-ness of Jin Li Tam and Rudolfo was a little over the top, Neb's storyline was extremely predictable, and the Watcher tease at the end was just cruel.

Overall it's an intriguing new fantasy series, and I can't wait to see where the story takes us.

8/10

Today I finished Nicholas Pekearo's The Wolfman, which is an urban fantasy about a Vietnam vet that blacked during the war, and woke up naked with his squad and the Vietcong that were ambushing them all dead. Our tale picks up in a small town in Nowheresville USA, 1993. Marley has been living here for the past three years after he struck up an unlikely friendship with one of the town detectives, having spent the last twenty years running from his past he feels like he's finally found a home. But then a serial killer happens to come across his neck of the woods and shatters the life he's built.

It's a quick, fun read, but it's also flawed. The main plot line is extremely clichéd, Marley doesn't veer too far from cliché either, the ending was predictable, Pekearo relies heavily on flashbacks, and there's just not enough werewolf destructiveness (the story's told in first person and Marley doesn't have control in his wolf form nor does he remember anything more then bits of information at a time). I do think this would have been the start to an exciting series, and it's too bad that Pekearo never got to write more.

6/10

ETA: I forgot to mention that Gary Gibson's Stealing Light is up next, and I'm really looking forward to this one with all the love that the second book was getting around the blogosphere last year. I've had it on my shelf for over a year and a half, and I'm glad that I can finally get into it.

[polishgenius]

I'm currently reading The Left Hand of God, by Paul Hoffman, the first of this year's hyped debuts- it's decent so far but there's an oddity about it, like Hoffman wasn't really sure what book he wanted to write when he was doing it and ended up between about five stools.

That was more or less an impulse buy, so once I've done that I'll crack back on with Butcher's Furies of Calderon, which I finally got some traction in.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I finished my re-read of Juxtapostition by Piers Anthony. It is such a great little trilogy, and I had fun visiting it again. The one thing that really struck me was that there was no teens or kids at all (except for a character in the last book), but they were all adults and the main character was the same age as me (35). I found that refreshing!

Up next is Out of Phaze by Piers Anthony. I have not read the next four books that continue the Apprentice Adept series. I'm a bit skeptical about these since my experience is that when authors "return" to a series at a much later date, they are never as good as the originals and sometimes can qualify as disasters. :unsure:

[mashiara]

Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel. Really charming book, beatutifully written and full of food pr0n. A pleasure to read.

Silence Among the Weapons, John Arden. Disappointed with this one. I picked it up because I figured I could enjoy yet another historical novel about the Roman Empire but I did not expect it to suck that much. It was downright ridiculous at times.

The New Life, Orhan Pamuk. This book grew on me. I didn't like it as much I did the other books of his I've read but it was interesting in many ways. Another lyrical read but kind of depressing. At the same time it offered lots of insight to life in Turkey.

Not quite sure what I'm reading next but I'm thinking it will probably be The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

[Cuchulain]

I've decided to finally start Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before and see what all the fuss is about.

[Bellis]

Finished Julie Philips' excellent James Tiptree Jr biography. The second half provided a fascinating view of the 1970s American sci-fi community through Tiptree's letters where s/he flirts with Ursula K Le Guin and Joanna Russ and attempts to pass as a manly man to the likes to Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg. Totally awesome that Tiptree was invited to be the "male" perspective on a sci-fi and feminism panel and was kicked off for being too chauvinist!

Over the holidays, my dad threw my way an obscure 100 yr old philosophical inspirational tale - The Book of Mirdad by Mikhail Naimy. Luckily, it was much closer in quality to the Gibran's The Prophet than Coehlo's The Alchemist, and therefore, not too bad.

John Milton's Paradise Lost, which is lovely as expected, and unexpectedly, has some pretty kick-ass battle scenes. And Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (tr. David Wright), which is just kick-ass all around. If you're considering reading one classic this year, my suggestion would be Chaucer.