February 2011 - Reading Thread

[Durckad]

Finished All Quiet On the Western Front. Well, that was depressing. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a book about WWI wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, but it just seemed like the very last part of the book was just bad shit happening right on the heels of other bad shit.

Oh well, onto other stuff, namely The Secret History of MI6 by Keith Jeffrey. It's kinda dry so far, but interesting.

[Anubiel]

I'm reading Rivers of London

by Ben Aaronovitch. So far I like it, it's fun and uncomplicated, a bit like an English version of the Dresden files.

[Lord Toblerone]

Well that's done. I finished Lord Sunday - which for those who don't know, is the final part of Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series. It's an alright enough series. There's some good ideas there, allusions to the Bible and Christianity fairly prominently throughout ( especially in this last one), but without religiosity. Aimed at roughly 10-13 year olds though, but I had to finish it once I'd started.

Gonna go on now to Good Omens.

[RedEyedGhost]

I finished up Vicious Grace by MLN Hanover earlier today, and it's my favorite in the series so far. It was very tightly written and I really like the way the mythology of the world is continually expanding (like The Dresden Files). Some of the ending was a bit predictable, but other bits I never saw coming. Very good stuff.

Yesterday I finished M.L.N. Hanover's Vicious Grace, the third book in the Black Sun's Daughter series. A little light on plot, it had a decent bit of character development and it didn't end the way I had expected.

I really liked that he actually did break up Aubrey and Jayné - good to see that he's not just sticking with the status quo. I'm sure we'll see Aubrey again eventually, but I hope it's a few books down the road (I think it's planned as a 10 book series). I'm looking forward to seeing what goes on with Jayné and Ex all by themselves in London.

The scene with Jayné burying David was great.

I'm glad that Jayné has finally figured out what the readers have expected since the first book, and that we've finally learned a little bit more about The Black Sun.

Up next is Peter V. Brett's novella Brayan’s Gold, and after that Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I finished Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman. It was original, especially the fact that it was written in the early '90's. Being a geologist, I admired the research that she put into regarding earthquakes and plate tectonics. The biggest issue I had was that I couldn't really connect with the characters and the books had some horror aspects which I'm not a fan of. Despite the issues, I'm interested enough to read When True Night Falls next.

[beniowa]

I finished up Vicious Grace by MLN Hanover earlier today, and it's my favorite in the series so far. It was very tightly written and I really like the way the mythology of the world is continually expanding (like The Dresden Files). Some of the ending was a bit predictable, but other bits I never saw coming. Very good stuff.

I really liked that he actually did break up Aubrey and Jayné - good to see that he's not just sticking with the status quo. I'm sure we'll see Aubrey again eventually, but I hope it's a few books down the road (I think it's planned as a 10 book series). I'm looking forward to seeing what goes on with Jayné and Ex all by themselves in London.

The scene with Jayné burying David was great.

I'm glad that Jayné has finally figured out what the readers have expected since the first book, and that we've finally learned a little bit more about The Black Sun.

Ditto. I'm glad he's still willing to take risks like he did in Long Price. The fourth book ought to be pretty interesting!

[williamjm]

I finished Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes (although I haven't read the short story added at the back of the Waterstone's edition of the book yet). It was very entertaining, as usual, I'd rank it similar in quality to his previous books.

I'll probably go to the bookshop tomorrow and pick up Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Sea Watch to read next.

[Gormenghast]

Starting "Before They Are Hanged", as soon I finish "The Tyranny of the Night".

Received the pretty paperback today and it's three years since I read "The Blade Itself", and not because I didn't like it.

[Dr Adder]

been borrowing my little bro's (he's 12) Gary Stu/Percy Jackson and the Olympians books and having a good laugh about some of the ludicrous plot contrivances in them, and the Stu's nasty habit of judging others by who their godly parent is.

Just finished reading the Book of Jhereg and The Book of Taltos and absolutely loved them. going to get more in the series.

currently reading Fortress in the Eye of Time by CJ Cherryh, standard fantasy fare but still pretty engaging.

[TheEvilKing]

Finished The Heroes which was of course excellent. Now onto The Hammer by K.J. Parker.

[Happy Ent]

Finished Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel (eng., Everything I possess I Carry With Me). Outstanding. A bit like The Road, but not as cheerful. Also, the prose is better. Interesting to read ambitious German that does not use its rich syntax a lot, but relies on very strong, often self-made, nouns.

[Scion of Valyria]

Finished Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel (eng., Everything I possess I Carry With Me). Outstanding. A bit like The Road, but not as cheerful.

:stunned:

Finally finished the bio of Cleopatra by...Stacy Schiff I think. Meh. Too much "there's no way we can ever know this" and vague guesses. I know that can't be avoided, circumstances considered. But it just seemed shoddy.

Next up on the list is Matterhorn or The Coldest Winter (on the Korean War).

[mashiara]

The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas. This book came to my attention last year when it came close to being a contender for the Booker prize and I've been wanting to read it ever since. Its premise was interesting and it had great potential but if feels as if it failed to be all that it could, somehow. Some of the characters felt incomplete and it could have focused on developing fewer plot lines and doing a better job with it.

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, Helen Fielding. This character wasn't even close to Bridget Jones, which I remember to have enjoyed back in the day. This book? Not really worth it, not even for the laughs.

Desirable Daughters, Bharati Mukherjee. I found this book fascinating as it was focusing on both the customs and society of India in the past and the modern Indian woman trying to deal with reality in the US. I liked it more for its richness in color and description than for the actual mystery the plot revolved around.

Les Violons Du Roi, Jean Diwo. This is a historical novel focusing on the major violin creators (Amati and Stradivarius, mostly) and the art, no, the passion of creating a musical instrument. I remember growing up that I was a bit fascinated with violins and this book was interesting to read at first but I quickly got bored with it.

I'm going to start Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell next. It's been sitting there for months now and somehow I managed to forget all about it, but now its time has come.

[Mjolnir]

Still hacking my way through Chang-Ray Lee's The Surrendered on audio and having a quite slow time of it. It's subjects are more than worthy ones and its got me very interested in how the Korean War effected the diaspora and those who fought in it, but [and maybe this is just because I'm a simple genre fiction reader at heart] it commits many of the sins genre readers often clump all litfic together as being guilty of: It never uses one word when it can use three, and delights in describing people's intimate psychs in a very detached but detailed way such that it's hard to really get invested in them as characters [though sometimes the essential horror of what's going on does certainly shine through.] The plot isn't really a plot so much as it is an intertwined record of nasty things happening to a select group of people at three different times through the 20th century. And it tends to get on to some introspective subject and mindwank a bunch, which plays hell with the pace and creates a lulling pattern: storyline moves forward a few paragraphs, mindwank, repeat. Also listened through some bits of David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet on audio again, just for the pleasure of doing so; I've actually got some quite large problems with the book, but it's subject and setting is fascinating and I just can't argue with how its written, and it can be quite relaxing to read something by someone who feels as though they're in complete command of the writing they are using.

In my gradual readthrough of LMB's Vorkosigan series I finished Cetaganda, which I enjoyed as a fun and interesting ride providing more insight into an interesting culture in the Vorkosigan universe even though it is very much not on the level of The Vor Game as a novel. I think I'll take RobM's advice and read Barrayar now, before going further with the Miles storyline.

Finished the last couple stories in China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh, which deals with small people winning small victories in a world firmly under the control of a monumental governmental entity. [On the subject of said governmental entity, the book manages to both criticize a communist system and point up how wonderful it is/could be if/when it worked/works.] Fascinating book.

Most recently: How To Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe by Charles Yu: brilliant, brilliant book about timetravel and self-discovery and the inability to fix mistakes made and how those mistakes contribute to identity and other things of that nature that teeters on the edge of using science-fiction as a mechanism for literary wankery but doesn't fall over and comes off [to me at least] as heart-felt and genuinely effecting rather than artifical. It's also not a massive treatise: it says what it wants to and then finishes up. Very glad I read it.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett: Another slightly more message-based ya book from Pratchett ala Nation [though not to the same degree], perhaps a bit heavy-handed at times. But the messages are fine ones [anti-hatred, anti-prejudice, learn not to be a moron, etc], and delivered in Pratchett's brilliant witty way. Tiffany Aching's a great and very relaxingly competent character to watch do her work, and the book balances gentle humour with trips to some quite dark places [domestic abuse etc] dealt with very intelligently. Loved it.

Reading Reynolds' Terminal World now.

[Returned]

Hey guys, couldn't see any threads about it but could anyone tell me if The Warded Man is worth a read?

[Bellis]

Fight Club and Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. I think I would have liked Fight Club better if I hadn't already been so familiar with the movie - I couldn't stop myself from picking out scenes. I didn't much care for Choke - a bit too obscene without much of a story behind it. I much preferred Rant, and my favorite I've read of him is probably still Survivor.

[murphy]

Hey guys, couldn't see any threads about it but could anyone tell me if The Warded Man is worth a read?

Check out this thread. There are other links within the thread to help you. Myself, I liked it. By the way, it's The Painted Man in the UK and Warded Man in the US.

Now 100 pages into Daniel Suaraz's Daemon and hanging on the edge of my seat.

[RedEyedGhost]

Read Peter V. Brett's Brayan's Gold the other day. It was a very fun story, that gives us another look at Arlen mid book 1. I would have preferred book 3, but I'll take what I can get.

Read a little bit of Childhood's End, but I haven't had much time to read the past two days so I haven't made it that far. My copy of The Heroes showed up yesterday, so that is up next.

Hey guys, couldn't see any threads about it but could anyone tell me if The Warded Man is worth a read?

I think this is the thread murphy meant to link.

I really enjoyed it. It's not a perfect book by any means, but I had an extremely hard time putting it down.

[murphy]

Read Peter V. Brett's Brayan's Gold the other day. It was a very fun story, that gives us another look at Arlen mid book 1. I would have preferred book 3, but I'll take what I can get.

Read a little bit of Childhood's End, but I haven't had much time to read the past two days so I haven't made it that far. My copy of The Heroes showed up yesterday, so that is up next.

I think this is the thread murphy meant to link.

I really enjoyed it. It's not a perfect book by any means, but I had an extremely hard time putting it down.

Ooopsy. :blushing:

[Gormenghast]

Finally finished The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook. The first in a recent series of four.

Review here.

I was wondering why this last series doesn't seem to have many readers but I guess I answered that myself in my review: it's so good no one can read it ;)