August 2010 reads

[Guinevere Seaworth]

You know the drill...

I'm savouring Under Heaven by G.G Kay. I'm glad he has returned back to his form that I enjoy so much. This will probably be the best fantasy book I've read this year.

Up next is Tim Severin's Viking trilogy and Ami McKay's The Birth House.

[Bellis]

The last book I read in July was Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. This is a lyrical, original tale of post-apocalyptic Sudan. The setting is original, brilliant, and deeply relevant and affecting. The story itself is told in the style of a legend, or a gospel, and as such realism and character development are sacrificed for myth. The whole thing has a dreamlike quality. It's not an easy read, and is flawed, but is so important and seminal that I've got to respect it anyway.

I'm now cleansing my palate with the Cordelia's Honor duology by Lois McMaster Bujold.

[fitheach]

I'm thinking about buying Gormenghast, what's the opinion with this trilogy?

Still reading China Mieville's Kraken. Will then move on to Dan Simmons Hyperion and Iain M. Banks Excession.

That's my August so far...

[peterbound]

I'm halfway into Changes right now

Got the first three Pern books lined up for me and my son

And i'm going to finish the last two books on The Braided Path by Wooding.

[kuroishi]

I'm thinking about buying Gormenghast, what's the opinion with this trilogy?

I've only read the first two so far, but I loved them both. They are wonderful books ; funny, beautiful and poetic.

I've just finished Ikebukuro West Gate Park by Ira Ishida (which I'd borrowed from a friend two years ago :blushing:).

I really liked it, it depicts without any compromise a poor, modern and urban Tokyo while telling the story of very interesting characters and giving us some nice mystery stories. (it's been adapted into a very bad manga series, which is a very watered-down version of the book).

I also read Under Heaven. Not my favorite GGK book by a long shot, but I think I liked it better than LLOTS or Ysabelle, mainly thanks to the last 100 pages or so, which felt very "classic Kay".

I should soon be starting to read Best Served Cold.

[Isis]

I'm thinking about buying Gormenghast, what's the opinion with this trilogy?

It fucking rules*. After that read Mr Pye - it's exquisite.

*There have been threads on Peake I think and he pops up in the monthly reading threads now and then so you should find him on a forum search.

[Roland_85]

Halfway through Dragonfly Falling and so far I'm loving it.

[henderson]

Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. I checked out all four books from my library. The story was interesting and the characters were believable, but I think the only reason I finished the quartet due to the fact that I was able to read them over a three week span.

I think I will be more interested in his new series DAGGER & COIN.

[WhiteHaven]

I finished The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham yesterday.

Since the ending was nothing like I expected I'd give it a 9/10 if I had a blog or something. People, go read the series. It's better than most of the shit out there, I promise you that.

I'll start The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan right now.

Let's see how I'll like the series.

[RedEyedGhost]

To finish up July I read a few books deep into their respective series, first was Jim Butcher's Death Masks, the 5th book in The Dresden Files. It's pretty much a standard Dresden book, fast paced and interesting throughout. It's amazing what Butcher is building with his ever expanding mythology, and I love the way characters come and go from book to book.

8/10

I then breezed through Bernard Cornwell's The Burning Land which is book 5 of The Saxon Tales. Once again it's pretty standard for this series; lots of action and a little bit of history. This book covers a time near the end of Alfred's life, and details the battles of Farnham and Benfleet. My only complaint is that it ends pretty much in the middle of the story that was being set up the entire novel. I can't wait for the next one (unfortunately there's nothing about the next book on the net, yet).

8/10

I'm now about a quarter of the way through Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (or Tiger! Tiger! as it was originally known). It's quite good, and holds up amazingly well for Sci-fi written in 1957.

[RedEyedGhost]

Ah, but I said I liked The Limits of Enchantment best before I read Memoirs of a Master Forger or The Facts of Life. Actually, even though I really enjoyed the experience of reading The Facts of Life I think I prefer the other two as stories. Smoking Poppy was okay, but I didn't think too much of Requiem. Still, all of these books are better than much of the stuff out there.

You weren't the only one who really enjoyed The Limits of Enchantment (not that I can remember who else listed it at the top, but I'm pretty sure there were at least two others), and that's the thing I love about Joyce - his novels speak to everybody in different ways. I think Stego even lists Requiem as his favorite (or second to The Tooth Fairy), and while I liked it, I didn't think it was nearly as good as The Tooth Fairy, The Facts of Life, or Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney.

[Starkess]

Still working through Harry Potter re-read. Only on book 2 right now, but I expect to tear through number 4 on this underway, as soon as I pass my oral board and can stop studying!

[Starkess]

Double post.

[BookWyrm]

I'm thinking about buying Gormenghast, what's the opinion with this trilogy?

Peake's excellent! I'm reading Titus Groan atm and it's not a series one will forget.

It's a bit slow in pace, but that's not much of a problem because it remains entertaining one way or another. Peake can be very funny in unexpected places.

I also started Elizabeth Chadwick's The Greatest Knight. It's very fast-paced. I'm really enjoying the tourney scenes and battles. The court intrigue is done well, but nothing close to Martin's hand. Overall it's a pretty entertaining read about a man I've been interested in for a long time.

[Bellis]

You weren't the only one who really enjoyed The Limits of Enchantment (not that I can remember who else listed it at the top, but I'm pretty sure there were at least two others), and that's the thing I love about Joyce - his novels speak to everybody in different ways. I think Stego even lists Requiem as his favorite (or second to The Tooth Fairy), and while I liked it, I didn't think it was nearly as good as The Tooth Fairy, The Facts of Life, or Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney.

Me! My favorites are The Limits of Enchantment and Requiem. I liked Smoking Poppy a lot too. Contrarily, I didn't care for Memoirs of a Master Forger or The Tooth Fairy, and I haven't read The Facts of Life. I think his settings and characters are so variant that it's all a matter of what speaks to you personally.

ETA: Any time wasted on considering whether or not to read Gormenghast is time that could be spent reading Gormenghast. Trust me, you'll agree with this statement later.

[murphy]

Peake's excellent! I'm reading Titus Groan atm and it's not a series one will forget.

It's a bit slow in pace, but that's not much of a problem because it remains entertaining one way or another. Peake can be very funny in unexpected places.

I also started Elizabeth Chadwick's The Greatest Knight. It's very fast-paced. I'm really enjoying the tourney scenes and battles. The court intrigue is done well, but nothing close to Martin's hand. Overall it's a pretty entertaining read about a man I've been interested in for a long time.

When I read that, I kept thinking Sharon Kay Penman would have done a better, more interesting story. William Marshall comes up in her The Devil's Brood.

[Larry.]

I decided that I'm going to review some Serbian literature this month on my blog, so after I finished Goran Petrović's The Lucky Hand Shop (actually not available in English, but that's the translation of the Serbian title that I read in both Serbian and Spanish), I started re-reading Zoran Živković's Hidden Camera (English, Spanish, Serbian editions) and Ivo Andrić's The Bridge on the Drina (English, Serbian). Yes, getting a bit serious about learning Serbian as my sixth language and it helps that people like Živković are so kind as to supply me with editions in the original tongue so I can practice using parallel text readings.

Am also reading a few of the Gollancz Fantasy and SF Masterworks series for this month. Almost done with David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, which is a delightfully weird fiction :D Will probably also read George R. Stewart's Earth Abides and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for review purposes as well this month.

[unJon]

Just finished Nick Harkaway's Gone Away World based on recs from this board. It was excellent. Go read it now. As I said in the other thread, it had flavors of Vonnegut, Stephenson (first chapter of Snow Crash) and Catch-22. Plus ninjas.

Next up will be one of Hunger Games, Tai Pan or Dream of Scipio.

[Bellis]

Will probably also read George R. Stewart's Earth Abides and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for review purposes as well this month.

Larry, while you're going through Earth Abides, can you watch out for whether or where it ever states in the text that the main female character is African-American? I never caught this when I was reading the novel, but I subsequently read many reviews referring to it, and I'm wondering whether it was explicit in the text (and I just skipped that sentence) or merely a movie adaptation flourish.

[Analu]

Am about halfway thru "The Religion" by Tim Willocks, and it's a cracking good read so far. At the rate I'm going, I should finish it sometime next week, which is really fast for me. I haven't enjoyed a book this much in ages, and I don't think a prologue for a book has hooked me as quickly as this one did since Cornwell's Warlord trilogy, which I read years ago. The main character seems a little Gary Stu-ish to me, but it's not a big issue for me like it sometimes can be (re. The Dragon Tattoo books, the Jack Reacher books).

In any case, I bought this book months ago for like $5, when B&N was trying to get rid of all its hardcovers, and wish I had started it sooner. Am interested in finding other books by this Willocks guy. I like his writing style a lot.

Also read Neverwhere by Gaiman a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed it. I'm now motivated to read more than just sports handicapping and boxing books, which is pretty much all I've read this year.