September 2011 Reading Thread

[Grack21]

I haven't had time to read this week since I'm back at college full time for the first time in forever, but I'm almost done with The White Luck Warrior. Good stuff. After that I'm going to dive into my paperback pile. Try John Marco's other series, Bronze Knight or what not. Enjoyed Tyrants and Kings quite a bit, but I heard the follow up isn't so good. We;ll see I guess.

[Contrarius]

I finished The Atrocity Archives. It was fun -- sort of Dilbert and Stephen Hawking's love child take on HP Lovecraft.

I find that I'm still on that British kick that I can't seem to escape this year. Now, once again instead of starting one of those "high class" books I've been intending to read, I just started Anansi Boys. Gotta say, so far I like the tone of the book much more than I did American Gods.

[SkynJay]

I'm a about 2/3 through Paul Kearney's Monarchies of God series, and I'll be curious to hear some boarder feedback when I'm done (hopefully by next Sunday).

Mostly really liking it but with a few major criticisms. I want to discuss w/ Werthead specifically, who gave it a great review on Amazon.

I bought the first omnibus, so ill be intrested in this feedback as well.

[Sylphic]

Very late to the party, but I'm about 100 pages into A Shadow in Summer (Daniel Abraham, Long Price Quartet #1) after seeing it highly recommended here and elsewhere. Loving it so far, and if what I've heard about this being the slowest of the series is true - good things must await further down the line. The whole poses thing is a bit baffling at times, but I absolutely love the Andat concept.

[Little Valkyrie]

I'm trying to read Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed, but every other (small) page I hit a metaphor that's fancy and poetic and striking but then makes no actual sense when I try to parse it, and I get annoyed.

[Datepalm]

Finally finished The Apex Book of World SF this morning, which was, overall, mostly OK but not really mindblowing. (Also, very...unforeign feeling. The story by a Chinese author maybe being virtually the lone exception. )

Also finished Romanitas (Sophia McDougall) which despite being a bit bad in a few aspects (the plot particularly is based almost entirely on good luck, coincidence and unexplained and apparently unique magic powers,) I still really, really liked and will definitely read the rest of the trilogy. The Roman Empire in the Present bit is neat, but it's mostly background, with the occasional chilling image like mechanical crucifixion.

The main strength of the book is characterization and a total, unabashed willingness of the story to just stop and tell us how everyone feels. The problem is that its tends to be rather digressiony, right in the middle of the action on occasion. On the other hand, it's also what the book is, well, really about, and I mostly thought the psyches of this mostly very damaged collection of people were fairly compelling and genuinely human - messes of contradictory, self aware emotions and motivations that often seemed profoundly realistic in ways most books (including the very good ones) don't really manage to hit. It may well be a different cups of tea sort of book though.

Anathem is now annoying and interesting me in roughly equal measure, which is kind of annoying in itself.

[pat5150]

Just finished Jasper Kent's The Third Section. More of a transition book compared to the previous two volumes, but very good nonetheless.

Check out the blog for the full review. . . :)

Patrick

[Procrastimancer]

It took me a little while to get into Ready Player One because nostalgic references do not automatically make me interested in a book, but my interest was finally piqued when Joust made an appearance. I sped through half of the book yesterday and was really enjoying it, but the book has fallen into another lull and try as I might, I still can't force myself to give a damn about the narrator's everyday life. Here's hoping it picks back up soon so I can go on enjoying it.

[oneeye]

I just finished Unincorporated Woman, loving this near future scifi, though major cliffhanger ending grr.

[williamjm]

I finished Ben Aaronvitch's Moon Over Soho. I really enjoyed Rivers of London, the first book in this series, and I thought Moon Over Soho was almost as good although the plot does take a while to really get going. The pacing is a little bit slow to begin with as Peter Grant starts to investigate two different sets of separate supernatural murders but it picks up pace in the second-half of the book and has a fast-moving climax. Both the mysteries are reasonably interesting, although the background history of Inspector Nightingale and the Folly is probably the most intriguing bit again, with a bit more revealed in addition to what we learned in Rivers of London. I think Aaronovitch possibly needs to work a little bit harder on his plot twists, since this is the second book in a row where I've spotted it some time before any of the characters figured things out. Grant's narration was entertaining again, mixing a fair amount of humour with some deft exposition about policing, magic and London, and he continues to be a believable character even when he is doing something very foolish. Some of the supporting cast are good characters, although some others struggle to develop any characterisation beyond a couple of quirks. Overall, it was an entertaining read and I'm looking forward to the third book in the series (which seems to be out early next year).

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Really enjoying Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Near future Sci-fi with a serious penchant for all things 80's. Good stuff, Maynard. Check it out.

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/book-review-ready-player-one-20110810/

[Procrastimancer]

So, I had some trouble getting into the book and staying interested through the lulls that revolved around the narrator's everyday life, but Ready Player One was a damn good book. I flew through most of it yesterday and since I had trouble putting it down, ended up finishing the other half today. Definitely recommend it... even if you aren't too familiar with the 80s.

[Nutwood]

Just finished "The Old Man and The Wasteland" by Nick Cole, his self-published first effort.

It was ranked pretty high on the Kindle sci-fi list and it was just 99 cents. It got great reviews so I grabbed it and loved it. I simply cannot point out a single weakness in any aspect of this novella.

The storytelliing vibe is very nice. It's in part an homage to Hemmingway's "Old Man and The Sea". To me it reads a bit like Jack London, and there is a bit of a nod to Cormac McCarthy as well.

It's post-apocalyptic adventure with a great hero, and the story is tightly woven, with dashes of POV change that really work -- without being heavy-handed. Dashes of nostalgia, existentialism, pragmatism, and savagery paint the full picture of humanity in swift, sure strokes.

It's a quick read, 148 pages in the print version and a nice neat package by the time you are done.

http://amzn.to/nwgTIS

[Durckad]

I finished Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf, which was awesome, and now I'm back to Miewille's The Iron Council. I only have a hundred or so pages left, so I should finish soon barring any unforeseen developments.

After that? I'll either plunge back into Boneshaker or I'll start up A Betrayal In Winter.

[Starkess]

Picked up a couple books to work on, including the first Mistborn book, the first Malazan book, and a book about the Navy called Assumed the Watch. Moored as Before. Think that is the one I will start on first.

(Still re-reading Sophie's World, but I am reading it with my bf and he reads slow, so I need something else to work on!!)

[Eponine]

Finished Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco. To be fair, I probably didn't read it at a good time for reading atmospheric weird almost-horror. I was enthusiastic and easily distracted, and I'm positive I would have a different impression (albeit probably a more pretentious one) if I'd read it at a time when things were quieter or I was more melancholic. Still, it was overall very good, although there were definitely ups and downs within that. I was really pulled into the first story, Purity, immediately - it was a free chapter on Kindle and after reading it, I moved the book up to the top of the stack, bypassing things that had been on there for months. However, the Quine corporation stories didn't really resonate with me, although I can see how they would to someone who felt trapped in a meaningless corporate job. I'm slavering to get out of the house and deal with annoying coworkers again. I liked the story from In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land that was the first thing I read of Ligotti's in the New Weird anthology even more this time.

Been too busy with classes and work to read much - still plugging away at Lovecraft since I feel an obligation now to finish - doing a lot of scanning but don't feel like I'm missing much - over half the stories can be summarized as old, odd Miskatonic family becomes reclusive, everyone avoids their land, but monstrous, twisted, maybe phosphorescent shapes can be seen about their property at times. The author becomes connected to the family through a younger son or concerned family friend, and his study of occult books and furtive visits to the family farm reveal to him that the family has long been involved in dark arts. After he witnesses an unspeakable scene, the shapes are revealed to be either an inbred and devolved line of the family or some other effect of trying to summon Yog Sothoth et.al. The end.

Started book 2 of KJ Parker's Fencer Trilogy, but haven't really gotten pulled in yet.

[Guest]

I'm reading AA Attanasio's Wyvern.

I'm absolutely floored by how good it is. A knock-your-socks-off badass pirate/sorcerer/headhunting story set in Borneo in the 1600's. Attanasio is a deep thinker and his writing is infused with philosophy, metaphysics, and spirituality, and here he deploys tribal magic with great skill. The book has classical overtones of Tarzan and Pocahantas but it's so much more than that. Apparently others agree; it's got a 5 star rating on Amazon and a 4.13 on Goodreads.

Would like to start a thread for the author if one hasn't been made already. I thoroughly enjoyed his other books as well, especially Last Legends of Earth.

He's so talented and so underrated!

[Tammy]

Picked up a couple books to work on, including the first Mistborn book, the first Malazan book, and a book about the Navy called Assumed the Watch. Moored as Before. Think that is the one I will start on first.

(Still re-reading Sophie's World, but I am reading it with my bf and he reads slow, so I need something else to work on!!)

I absolutely loved the first Mistborn book. He's a little wordy and gets really repetitive by the third book, but the first one was really good.

[RedEyedGhost]

Dandelion Wine is one of my favorite books. I need to do a reread.

I finished it today, and loved it. I never expected such a wide range of emotions to be evoked from a single book; especially the depths at which those emotions reached in such a short novel. I still think I enjoyed Something Wicked This Way Comes a little more, but Bradbury is a genius and I really need to read more of his work. I was born 50 years after the year in which this book was set, but it evoked a strong sense of nostalgia for my small town upbringing, and I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if I was a city boy.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I've finally finished The King of the Crags by Stephen Deas. I thought this was a structurally better novel than The Adamantine Palace. For some reason I've been struggling to read his novels which is strange as it has fantasy elements I like: dragons, machiavellian politics, and believable morally grey characters. I think I have not been in the right mood to really enjoy the series.

Still, I'm a completionist and will tackle The Order of Scales by the same author next.

I also read The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat. Even though this is a children's book it is still a delightful read. Recommended if you have/adore pets, especially dogs.