December to Dismember: Books we're offing this month

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Courtney Schafer's The Whitefire Crossing is the best debut author I've read so far this year (Hulick's Among Thieves is right behind). Great stuff! I'll be picking up The Tainted City as soon as it comes out.

Next up is Dewey by Vicki Myron. I'm a sucker for cat stories, especially the ones that involve rescued cats. So shoot me...

[Larry.]

Alternating between several books: José Saramago's O Homem Duplicado, Umberto Eco's L'isola del giorno prima/The Island of the Day Before, the fourth volume of Proust in English (and will start the fifth in French later today or tomorrow), The Harlem Renaissance: Four Novels from the 1930s, Geoff Ryman's Paradise Tales, Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 (will finish this morning), J.M. McDermott's Women and Monsters, Petrarch's Il Canzoniere di Petrarca, Theodore Roethke's Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems, and Caitlín Kiernan's Two Worlds and In Between. I hope to finish all of these by Sunday, as most have fewer than 200 pages remaining to be read.

[Just a peasant]

I snuck in The Last Good Knight by Connie Jasperson. Definitely medieval fantasy. Story about a knight, Julian Lackland, and this company of mercenaries. Lots of swashbuckling and bi sex all over the place. It was a fan okay read.

[SkynJay]

Deathless has some incredibly strong parts and some not so much, so I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

Ok full thoughts here. In a nutshell, loved it when finished. At times I truly thought I had missed something completely, or lost my mind, only to have the story revealed by different means the the standard. I typically read things with quicker pacing, but really didn't mind on this one because it was such a unique and beautiful story.

[Little Valkyrie]

Ok full thoughts here. In a nutshell, loved it when finished. At times I truly thought I had missed something completely, or lost my mind, only to have the story revealed by different means the the standard. I typically read things with quicker pacing, but really didn't mind on this one because it was such a unique and beautiful story.

Thanks for your review. I had a lot more problems, but I'll try to balance out with what I liked. MattD, of course, got there first, so I'll link to his three-part review http://www.linguafantastika.com/2011/06/catherynne-m-valente-deathless-part-2/

On language, I'm always torn with Valente. Sometimes it's really great, and I did pick up on all the deliberate fairy-tale echoes, in the repetitions and the like. But I always, without fail, find her to be an over-writer. She packs similies and metaphors and figurative language into almost every sentence, sometimes well-chosen and striking, and sometimes striking but then falling apart when parsed. [There's one single little mention in Habitation where I can't for the life of me figure out whether it's a pretentious mistake on her part or an indication that things have gone differently in the world. It's driving me a little bit crazy.] It gives all of her writing a similar cast, a bit beyond just 'style'. I think it's far more damning in Habitation of the Blessed, where what should be a four-voices narrative ends up with all the narrators sounding very similar; i.e., like Cat Valente in her confessional mode. In Deathless, it shows more in the narrator...I wonder who or what the narrator is.

I disliked the part in Yaichka intensely. In general, the question of "who is to rule" never meshed with the urgent real-life politics of the events that end up forming a rather isolated backdrop--despite the intense evocation of the Siege of Leningrad. This was disappointing because many of the parallels were initially quite delightful; Commissar Yaga, the modern day dragon, the collectivized house-elves. But where it all ends up is a bit of a muddle.

I can't say I was expecting all of the D/s.

In my own reading, I got through Elspeth Cooper's Songs of the Earth. Mediocre in the classical sense of the word. And come on, 'St. Ioan' and the End of Days, religion with a wafer and wine ritual? Let's get imaginative, secondary-world writers.

[EdricBaratheon]

On the list at the moment that is near completion are:

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseni

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (For Sixth Form)

Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy - John Le Carre (One chapter away now)

Quite a mix on that list, yet all of those are nearly finished, then it will be time to begin devising a reading list for 2012, which will be so, so, so much fun!!!!!! Can't wait!

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I liked Dewey by Vicki Myron. There were funny parts and there were boring parts as well.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is up next.

[Peadar]

I enjoyed Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Farlander by Col Buchanan has started strongly. Fingers crossed for this one.

[SkynJay]

I am about halfway through Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott. So far I am really enjoying this one. Completely unique cultures being set up. The characters are kind of cookie cutter so far, but the author still has half the book(and two sequels) to change my mind on that.

[Black Wizard]

In September I started reading a book called Living Souls by Dmitry Bykov, but I had to put it aside because the university semester started. I didn't managed to get through very much of it by mid-September and I only came back to it a few days ago so I'm probably not even a quarter of the way through the book. It has at least gotten a bit better than it was in September; the first few chapters were pretty poor.

It's translated into English from Russian and is set in Russia a few decades in the future when Russia is in the midst of a civil war (between who I am uncertain). In general I am still trying to work out what the hell is going on because the story is somewhat bizarre.

[Grack21]

Finished Cook's Starfishers. Weird one, even for Cook.

Now finally starting The Price of Spring, I;ve been putting it off because I don't want it to end. *sniff*

[Bellis]

The Night Circus was entirely enchanting and delightful. Also a good example of writing compelling male and female characters in a nominally patriarchal setting, without being overtly preachy about gender issues. And what more, a touching love story. Maybe I was just in the right mood for that. If you like Chris Priest, or Borges, or Jonathan Strange or even Moulin Rouge, you need to pick up this book toute de suite. In fact, i'm just not going to read any more fiction in 2011 so i can have the memory of this amazing novel linger til the new year. Easily one of my favorites of the year!

[beniowa]

I read Aces Abroad, the fourth Wild Cards book. It was nice to see how the Wild Card virus had affected other countries around the world. A few of the individual shorts were weak, but the overall story was good especially GRRM's stuff. Looking forward to the fifth book.

Also read Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett so now I'm finally caught up on all the Discworld books through Small Gods.

Then I read Seed by Rob Ziegler. It was pretty decent, but the world building and characterization needed to be fleshed out a bit. It would have been a stronger book if things had been explained a little more. As another bio-genetic dystopian from Night Shade, it feels like a lesser version of The Windup Girl.

Finally, I read The Folded World by Catherynne Valente. The second Prestor John book started off well, but turned into a bit of slog. Part of that may just be that life was a little hectic due to Christmas and therefore partially my fault. Still, Valente has always been bigger on prose than plot and there is very little plot here. I don't think she really has enough for a trilogy.

Planning to start The Night Circus next.

[SkynJay]

Spirit Gate by Kate Elliot is finished, and was friggen awesome. Will continue on this series for sure.

Received for the holiday Black Lung Captain, and God's War. AND a Kindle. So I will burn through those two, then I will probably spend the gift card on the next two books from Elliot.

[murphy]

Reading Downbelow Station by C J Cherryh. Haven't read anything from her. I have actually been putting this off for a while. To early to tell, but it seems to be well written and I liked the opening chapter. I will probably try some of her other stuff from The Alliance-Union universe.

I'd suggest The Faded Sun Trilogy which is now out in omnibus form, or the Chanur books starting with The Pride of Chanur.

As for me, I'm working my way through a reread of Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo rising series. I'm now on To Lie with LIons.

[nickg]

I'd suggest The Faded Sun Trilogy which is now out in omnibus form, or the Chanur books starting with The Pride of Chanur.

As for me, I'm working my way through a reread of Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo rising series.   I'm now on To Lie with LIons.

Awesome. I'm definitely going to read some more from her. The Faded Sun omnibus is only 8.99 so thanks for the red.

[mashiara]

Finally finished Lionheart by Sharon Key Penman. It was slow going for me but I really enjoyed it. I love historical fiction to begin with and that one was really well written. I'm looking forward to reading the next one.

I also finished The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan. I'm not sure how I felt about this one. At first I thought it was a really interesting take on werewolves and liked the main character a lot, then I started getting tired of the plot and its "twists". The ending seemed very predictable to me. I certainly didn't hate the book, it was a quick and gritty read. I wouldn't call it a great book either, the writing was certainly far from exceptional.

I'm hoping to get started on The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood soon. Who knows, I might even finish it before the end of the year!

[Maia]

I'd suggest The Faded Sun Trilogy which is now out in omnibus form, or the Chanur books starting with The Pride of Chanur.

Personally, while I love Cherryh, I can't stand The Faded Sun aka a shoddy take on Lawrence of Arabia in space.

The Chanur series is, OTOH, great, and also highlights Cherryh's greatest strength, which tends to come up depressingly rare in sf - namely, ability to write interesting and well, convincingly alien aliens.

My absolute favorite of her's is the Cyteen trilogy, that is published as an omnibus nowadays. IMHO, it is her most compelling work and criminally underrated. It has it all - really interesting sf ideas, well thought-through world-building, great characters, compelling plot _and_ is very well-written to boot.

Merchanter's Luck is a rip-roaring space adventure tale that centers on the merchanters' day-to-day struggles and provides a nice counterpoint to the Downbelow Station that mainly provides stationer PoVs and response to great events, IIRC (have to re-read, really, I don't remember it that well).

[murphy]

Personally, while I love Cherryh, I can't stand The Faded Sun aka a shoddy take on Lawrence of Arabia in space.

The Chanur series is, OTOH, great, and also highlights Cherryh's greatest strength, which tends to come up depressingly rare in sf - namely, ability to write interesting and well, convincingly alien aliens.

My absolute favorite of her's is the Cyteen trilogy, that is published as an omnibus nowadays. IMHO, it is her most compelling work and criminally underrated. It has it all - really interesting sf ideas, well thought-through world-building, great characters, compelling plot _and_ is very well-written to boot.

Merchanter's Luck is a rip-roaring space adventure tale that centers on the merchanters' day-to-day adventures and provides a nice counterpoint to the Downbelow Station that mainly provides stationer PoVs and response to great events, IIRC (have to re-read, really, I don't remember it that well).

When I first bought Cyteen, it was one huge hardcover book (which I still have although it is falling apart). I think it was the first SF book I was able to buy in hardcover, excepting the SFBC editions.

I'm sorry, but I don't see the Lawrence of Arabia likeness in the Faded Sun books. It's probably just a matter of personal taste. I know people rave about her Morgaine books, but I just can't get into them.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson was a pretty good yarn.

For Christmas I got a $10 e-book store gift certificate for Christmas and used that to get The Borgia Betrayal by Sara Poole. I quite liked Poison, the first book in the series.