September 2011 Reading Thread

[kcf]

I finished up The Sacred Band by David Anthony Durham - it's a satsisfying conclusion to the Acacia trilogy. (review)

I'm now reading The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley, which is turning out to be very good.

[jdiddyesquire]

So I finished Night Circus over the weekend. Wow. Here's a review.

Starting Debris by JoAnn Anderton from Angry Robot. Interesting so far. Yet another 1st person narrator debut novel this year... seems like a bit of a theme, no?

[beniowa]

I finished off KJ Parker's Engineer trilogy recently. It was pretty good and the last book was surprisingly short. I do wish though that Parker would give some of her characters even somewhat healthy relationships.

I also read a self-published novel, Zaftan Entrepreneurs by Hank Quense. It has fantasy races (elves, dwarves, etc) on a planet that's invaded by aliens. The book bills itself as a comic adventure with political satire and for the most part it works. I did have a little trouble getting into it though and I think Quense needs to add a bit more humor to it.

After that I read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and liked it a bit more than Thousand Autumns. I couldn't figure out if we're meant to take the future storylines as fixed or not. Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter. Quite well written.

Now reading Dead Iron by Devon Monk, a new steampunk western with werwolves.

[Starkess]

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.

Oh good! I am excited to get to it. I feel like it's been forever since I've started a new series!

[RedEyedGhost]

I've started Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World, and I'm having a hard time getting into it. It reads like the narrator wrote the story down while jacked up on dangerous amounts of cocaine, and while that's always interesting to watch in movies it's not the easiest thing to read. Hopefully I'll get acclimated to it within the next couple of days.

To avoid reading it though, I've been reading some of The Walking Dead. I breezed through issues 37-48, and holy shit was that intense. And I'm about done with the block of 49-60, which has a very interesting change of pace.

[Mark Lawrence]

I'm reading Scar Night by Alan Campbell. Good so far - though I'm not entirely clear what is hanging from what :)

[Datepalm]

I finshed Sarah Micklem's Firethorn very quickly, a sort of commoners view point fantasy. Very well written and uncompromising of it's premise, which I admire, though i'm curious to see how it will go from here.

I'm some way through Gary Gibson's Final Days, Gene Wolfe's Home Fires and Leona WIsokers Secrets of the Sands. All are ok, but none are really holding my interest for more than short streches, so i'm mostly plowing on through Anathem (it finally picked up a bit, but I still think it's a bit condescending. I'll reserve judgment for now.) and Tonyt Judt's enormous Postwar - History of Europe instead.

[Bellis]

Finished Armadale by Wilkie Collins. This book took me several weeks of slogging. It was not as compelling or well-paced as The Woman in White, The Moonstone or No Name. A mess of identities and prpphecy and psychology. And yet, the character of Lydia Gwilt, the femme fatale, pulls you in and you find yourself cheering for her to have a happy ending, to be redeemed, despite of it all. Collins really does the best anti-heroes, and Martin's fans of Jaime and Theon should really give him a try.

Now I'm reading Tom Jones by Henry Fielding on my Kindle. It's very baroque and slow so far.

[Maester Joergensen]

Finished "Antwerp" by Bolanos on the bus today. I guess I kind of liked it, but is was more because of the prose than the plot, because after finishing it I am not really sure what it was about. I could tell you about some of the themes in the book, but I really read it more like a collection of poems than a novel. There wasn´t really a story that i could discern, and it didn´t always seem like a lot of the sentences really made sense. Some of the time I was enjoying the prose, or finding some ideas that really resonated, but I must admit that I also got some enjoyment from the unintentional random homour of really strange sentences or whole chapters that didn´t made sense. i guess I am just a barbarian, when I couldn´t fully comprehend this "High literature".

I also understand that his other books ar less disjointed and has more of a comprehensible story.

I am now reading Ben Aaronowitch´s Rivers of London. I am finding it really meh so far, even though paranormal investigation is a genre I normally enjoy. Will keep reading and see if it gets better

[Larry.]

Finishing up the third volume of Javier Marías' Tu rostro mañana (and will be reading the English translations later as part of a future project). Lovely prose and some captivating scenes. Excellent in so many ways.

[wolverine]

Drudging my way through Musashi. About 700 pages in and sick of it. Can't wait to finish so I can start Lyonesse.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Finished The Order of the Scales. It was OK. I never got engaged at all to the entire trilogy. It was just not for me.

Up next is Tides of War by Stephen Pressfield. I really liked his Gates of Fire.

[williamjm]

I finished Iain Banks' Transition a couple of days ago and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book. The premise is intriguing (although it's far from the first book to use it), it's a fast-paced read with quite a few memorable scenes along the way and a decent ending, but I'd say it falls short of Banks' best work. One problem is that the premise of travelling between many worlds means that none of the settings used are really explored in any depth and aside from the scenes set in Venice most of the settings used are a bit bland - for example, although the Concern's home world of Calbafraques plays an important role in the story we never find out much about it. A related issue is that most of the characters are either frustratingly enigmatic, or alternatively shallow caricatures. Much of the story is told from Temudjin Oh's perspective, but I don't think there was ever a satisfactory explanation for why he had decided to become a world-hopping assassin in the first place. A lot of the story is also told from the perspective of irritating hedge fund trader Adrian, but he doesn't seem to have much place in the overall narrative and the greed-is-bad theme is a bit trite. Despite the weaknesses it is still a fairly good book but I feel it could have been better.

[Starkess]

Finished Assumed the Watch. Moored as Before. It was cathartic. :) Almost wish I could send a copy to my ex-h and say "See?! I'm not the only one who was severely emotionally affected by being a SWO!!" But I also kind of thought the guy was a melodramatic whiny ass.

Think I am going to start The Final Empire next.

[Teng Ai Hui]

I recently finished License to Pawn, and I finally finished ADWD. Now, I have moved onto Planet of the Apes.

[wolverine]

Finished The Order of the Scales. It was OK. I never got engaged at all to the entire trilogy. It was just not for me.

Up next is Tides of War by Stephen Pressfield. I really liked his Gates of Fire.

That reminds me...I should get some more Pressfield to read. Gates of Fire was pretty sweet.

[VarysTheSpider]

Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein (unedited version)

This one has the honour of being the first audio book I ever read (from audible.com as part of a special offer). I've got nothing against what this book is really about, challenging the conventions of morality, sexuality, religion, and the like, through the eyes of a stranger in a very strange land who knows that "thou art god" - that's all good, and part of what science fiction should be about. Unfortunately it conforms to just as many prejudices of its day as it challenges, which makes it hard not to laugh at. And there are far, far too many repetitive conversations that go on for fucking ages. Keep it brief, show don't tell. And please shut up, Jubal, I'm sick of hearing your voice. :angry:

Currently reading The Defence of the Realm: An Authorised History of MI5 - Christopher Andrew

Been sitting on my book shelf for a while now and wasn't in a huge hurry to begin a 1,000 page history of a government department... but about 100 pages in now and enjoying it. The early chapters deal with the setting up of British intelligence in the early 20th century before and during the first world war, its early growth from a department of about 6 people (including the caretaker) who spend most of their time chasing their imagination as German spy-mania gripped the country, but the phantoms start to become real, the department grows, war kicks off, and shit gets serious. Author seems to have a respect for the work of the agency combined with a sense of humour about their failures. I'll probably dip in and out of it over the next couple of months.

[Peadar]

I enjoyed The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan.

[TheEvilKing]

Started Un Lun Dun by China Mieville recently, about 70 pages into it. I don't normally read YA so this is a refreshing change of pace.

[Nearly Headless Ned]

Wolfsangel by MD Lachman. Pretty good. Quite well written and very atmospheric.

Stranger Things Happen.Kelly Link. One of my favourite writers at the moment. Surreal, very funny and often quite sad. This is her first collection and to a degree it shows as there's as not much in the way of structure as is in her last collection 'Pretty Monsters.' Its also,however,part of her appeal.

The Apocalypic Beauty Pagent from "Shoe and Marriage" is perhaps the funniest tale in the book, passages like 'Miss Alabama has built her own nuclear device. She has a list of demands.' Or 'Miss Alaska raises the dead. This will later prove to have serious reprercussions,' all emphasise what a shame it is that she's barely written anything in the last few years.