January 2010 Reads

[williamjm]

I finished The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld. Westerfeld doesn't really do anything new, but the story is well written and quite entertaining. I knew it was the first book of a duology, but I was still surprised that it ended so abruptly.

When I read it the whole story was a single novel, I'm not sure if that was Westerfeld's intention but if it wasn't written as a duology then that would explain why it doesn't have a proper ending to the first book.

[mashiara]

I finally finished Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann. I don't know what to say about this book. I mean, I got it, it can be read on at least two levels, it's about a man making a deal with the Devil and it's also about the rise of Nazism in Germany. It was -for me- a huge struggle to get through it. Maybe if I knew more about music composition and its structure I wouldn't have such a hard time with so many pages but as it was I had to push myself to keep going. There were interesting passages, there were philosophical/theological matters that were interesting but as a whole, this just didn't do anything for me.

Next up is Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

[Autologic]

Read Fevre Dream by George RRRRRR Martin in one day. Starts slow and stays slow, but damn good. Martin's characterization (desires, motivations, speech patterns) are superb. Of course it helps that there are only four characters worth a damn, but it just adds to the intensity of it all. His prose never becomes distracting. For once I have nothing to bitch about. I'll try harder next time.

[Ser Barry]

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Novel setting, clever look at where we might be heading, well written, interesting characters and decent plot. Ticks all the boxes, thank you very much. Good book.

[RedEyedGhost]

No I haven't read it. If it is getting significantly better reviews than Stealing Light then that might be a good sign, since I did think SL was intermittently good but failed to really reach its full potential.

I did a search in my RSS reader and came up with these reviews. I've got it setup to only keep the articles for one month, and it came out 5 months ago so most of them have been deleted. Here's what I could easily find:

It was NextRead's #6 book last year

6) Nova War by Gary Gibson

Gary Gibson is one of this years finds for me and along with someone later in the list has reminded me what I’ve been missing in science fiction. This continues straight from Stealing Light but manages to immediately to expand the scope of the story and it’s characters. Nova War only cements the fact that Gibson has a devious imagination, a sense of bigger picture and a more twists than a corkscrew.

and here's the review (I didn't read the whole thing for fear of spoilers)

And Nova War only cements the fact that Gibson has a devious imagination, a sense of bigger picture and a more twists than a corkscrew.

King of the Nerds said:

Nova War is a thrilling addition to the Shoal sequence and a definite improvement over the already-stellar Stealing Light. Despite the lack of an official US release I highly highly recommend fans of space opera to hit up Book Depository and Amazon.co.uk (according this news post ebooks are available via panmacmillan.com) and give the series a try. Gibson, ends Nova War with rather frustrating hints at what is to come in the next volume, Empire of Light (release date unknown), that leave me wishing I had the book right now. Nova War is definitely on my list of favorite reads of 2009 and I look forward to Mr. Gibson’s future work.

But it seems like he enjoyed Stealing Light more than you.

Walker of Worlds graded Nova War a little bit higher than Stealing Light and said:

Stealing Light

At the end of the day, I was mightily impressed with what Gary has done here. The change in his style and ability from Angel Stations is noticeable and very promising. This is a very enjoyable read and at times it was a real page turner. Perhaps a downside is the fact that the novel plays out pretty much as expected with no real surprises, just revelations that add to the experience and general feeling of the novel. I'll be adding Gary to my buy on publication list now and eagerley look forward to the continuation of this story.

Overall rating: 8/10

Nova War

Nova War is a great example of intelligent and thoughtful space opera that delivers a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining read. As the second book in a series it builds very successfully on the foundation laid in Stealing Light and also gives plenty to carry through to the next book (which I just can't wait for!). For an enthralling widescreen space opera with characters and aliens that are both interesting and engrossing this is the books to read. Very highly recommended.

Overall rating: 9/10

And Liviu at Fantasy Book Critic liked them both quite a bit (#13 on her year end review), but they like almost everything at FBC so you have to take their reviews with a grain of salt). She has a "comprehensive review of both" with much more emphasis on Stealing Light, but does say this about Nova War:

In Nova War the big picture intrudes big time and the novel is a true wide-screen space opera with many characters, multiple threads and panoramic action. While Dakota plays a very important role, her "screen time" is considerably lower than the 90% or so from the first book, while Julian, Trader, Hugo Moss and several Bandati characters get a lot of page count. There are new alien races, new secrets, lots of starships and the body count raises considerably. The inventiveness and sense of wonder are raised a notch and the novel is a page turner you do not want to put down.

[palin99999]

Finished:

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington - 5.5/10

Be Amazing by Mental Floss - 8/10

Starting:

Sleepless by Charlie Huston

[Bellis]

Finished:

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington - 5.5/10

Would you care to elaborate? Just because there's a number of us who've read this book and reviewed it in a last few months, and our opinions have been all over the place (I think mine was a 7), so i'm interested in who your's in particular is so low.

[palin99999]

Would you care to elaborate? Just because there's a number of us who've read this book and reviewed it in a last few months, and our opinions have been all over the place (I think mine was a 7), so i'm interested in who your's in particular is so low.

I was unsure of what my final rating would be because I generally liked a lot of plot points in the book, but the prose and dialogue never had a good rhythm for me and never fully engaged me, which ultimately lowered my opinion.

[ser marauder]

Finished Already Dead and No Dominion, books one and two in the Joe Pitt series, by Charlie Huston. I am starting the 3rd book in the series, Half the Blood in Brooklyn. I am loving this take on vampires.

[siemprepe]

Finished The name of the rose last night and liked it very much. Immediately after I watched the movie base don the book to see if it is the same but found that a lot has been changed to make it more open and accessible to the public. Also I thought that the movie missed a lot of important things to be able to follow the story.

Probably going to read The gathering storm next.

Unfortunately it's very busy at work and I am not reading as much as I want to.

[beniowa]

When I read it the whole story was a single novel, I'm not sure if that was Westerfeld's intention but if it wasn't written as a duology then that would explain why it doesn't have a proper ending to the first book.

A single novel broken up certainly makes a bit of sense. The Killing of Worlds does feel like it's part of the first rather than a separate book.

[Mexal]

I finished The Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton and I can't say that the 2nd half was that much better than the first. It's an ok book but the prose and the character motivations just didn't work for me. I think the other issue I had was the lack of explanation behind the cultist technology. I like the concept but the fact that he hardly spent any time other than saying "turned dial, purple light goes out and book, shield" really upset me as there was so much potential to go into how each ancient technology worked, how they were discovered, how people learned how to use them, how the power struggle between orders developed, ect ect ect. Just so much that could have been done there that wasn't :(

That being said, it was his first book and it does have a lot of potential so will probably read the second when it comes out. Plus he has a good sense of humor :)

I also read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and really enjoyed it. Not much more to be really said there...just very entertaining and exactly what I was looking for at the time of reading.

Finally, I read The Hedge Knight...the version in Dreamsongs that wasn't the graphic novel. I loved it. I wish there were more stories just like that. And it was very nice to be back in the Seven Kingdoms world that I know and love. Not sure if I can read any of the other stories as I'm not a graphic novel fan. I hope to find them in novella form if they exist.

[Ratatoskr]

Finally, I read The Hedge Knight...the version in Dreamsongs that wasn't the graphic novel. I loved it. I wish there were more stories just like that. And it was very nice to be back in the Seven Kingdoms world that I know and love. Not sure if I can read any of the other stories as I'm not a graphic novel fan. I hope to find them in novella form if they exist.

"The Sworn Sword" is contained herein:

http://www.amazon.com/Legends-II-Dragon-Sword-King/dp/034547578X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263828220&sr=8-2

[kcf]

I finsihed up Sleepless by Charlie Huston - this books is great - depressing, but great. And it's a bit different from other books of his. I can see it making a number of best of type lists. (full review).

I'm now reading the new Erikson novella, Crack'd Pot Trail.

[BookWyrm]

Still reading that Calvino book plus a bunch of others. I don't know how enjoyable I'd find Calvino if his books were long, but most of the fun seems to come from dissecting the text which I'm not always in the mood to do. That said, I'm pretty surprised at how multi-layered the Castle of Crossed Destinies is, the stories truly do intersect, as the title suggests.

I'm also making another effort to reread Le Morte d'Arthur. This must be one of my favorite books ever.

I've started Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Trilogy and am starting to see what all the fuss was about. Agincourt kind of sucked but this seems to be well written, with multi-dimensional characters.

I've started and stopped Steven Brust's Brokedown Palace. The writing failed to impress and the narration got annoying.

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

I've finished one book I started last year, The Briar King by Greg Keyes, and have also listened to HP Lovecraft's short stories (or some of them, at least).

I'm currently reading A Cavern of Black Ice, by JV Jones, and I'll be starting El juego del ángel (the Swedish translation, though) within days, now, or hours.

Other than that, I'm having a hard time chosing between Abercrombie's Best Served Cold and Mieville's The Scar. Hm.

[AprilFool]

Read Stealing Light by Gary Gibson this weekend. I thought it was pretty good. I like how the story is developing, and the Shoal are an interesting race. There are some interesting ethical/moral questions being raised about human nature and our pursuit of technology here (that I think must be deveopled even more in Nova War).

Currently I have jumped into Jonathan Green's Pax Britannia series. A few chapters into Unnaural Selection and so far a fun story. A mix of many elements here.

[Deornoth]

Finished reading Seamus Cooper's 'The Mall of Cthulhu', where a coffee making slacker stands in the way of an evil plot to raise Cthulhu in the middle of a shopping mall in Providence. 'Mall of Cthulhu' suffers in that it tries to be too many things for a book that's only 235 pages long. It's a lot of fun though and one that I'd recommend to those who like their gods with lots of tentacles! My full review is over Here. I'm now finally finishing off 'Muse & Reverie'...

[Niphredil]

I spent the last two days with a bad cold and cough mostly in bed and re-reading Robin McKinley's Hero and the Crown over and over again. It's held up extremely well (YA book or no), considering it was a decade since I last read it. I've come to a better appreciation of the second part instead of just viewing it as an aberration. Her prose in this book is a delight for me to read and for once I was wishing for more detail and backstory, and even a direct sequel, but I know that's not how she operates. Books like this which make me think about them for so long and turn things over in my head hours after I've finished it are my favorites. I don't know why I'm this way- the plot is not eye-boggling or world-changing in any way, but I can't seem to help myself. Will definitely get this out in the future for more rereads.

Now I turn back to Storm of Swords which I read a chapter of everyday before I go to sleep. I have to control myself, or else I'll be staying up reading at 4 am, but it's getting harder the farther and farther I get into the book!

[Bellis]

I spent the last two days with a bad cold and cough

halfway across the world, i'm also hacking away.

Some classics:

Virgil's Aeneid, which I quickly realized, is a pastiche of a 3000 year old style (namely Homer) written 1000 years later as political propoganda for a 2000 year old audience. So it feels a little.... dated. Camilla is kick ass though.

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, as preparation for Goethe's Faust further down the stack. Shakespeare's the better Elizabethan playwright, of course, but Marlowe has his moments.

Some 20th century:

Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. Somehow Silverberg manages to portray middle-aged male ennui with the adroitness of a Roth or Coetzee. After this and Book of Skulls, I'm beginning to wonder whether Silverberg is one of last century's most underrated litfic writers.

Jericho Mosaic by Edward Whittemore. A more straight-up historical fiction set through the 20th century Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Few if any alternate historical or supernatural elements. I found myself not liking this melancholy EW and missing the author of the playful Sinai Tapestry.