Return of the Book Thread

[Phildo]

It better end neatly after over 3,000 pages of text.  I do agree with Samwise, by the way.

[apocrypha]

Has anyone read Polity Agent by Neal Asher? I'm 130 pages in and have no idea wtf's going on.

[Yoru]

I thought the Baroque Cycle ended really nicely.  It helped that he took about 300 pages to slowly tie up all the story threads.

I agree that it ended nicely, but the middle thousand pages or so were interminable.

[Xilren's Twin]

Just a few random books ive recently read I have not seen mentioned in the thread.

By Schism Rent Asunder by David Weber.  Second book in the series following Off Armageddon Reef.  This book really comes across as a stage setting book, but not a ton happens action wise.

Welcome to the Jungle a graphic novel written by Jim Butcher.  It's a dresden storyline from before the book series begins, and it's pretty cheap so if you like Harry and comics it's worth looking at while we wait for Turn Coat.

Cast in Fury the fourth book in Michelle Sagara's (West)  Chronicles of Elantra series.  I like her stuff from the Sun Sword series to these, but it's very different writing style than the sun sword; these are basically modern language usage in her fantasy setting.

None of the above are terribly deep, but entertaining enough reads.

[Salamok]

I thought the Baroque Cycle ended really nicely.  It helped that he took about 300 pages to slowly tie up all the story threads.

I always get the feeling he just gets tired of the story and wants to move on to another book.  Unfortunately his solution more often than not seems to be to hastily crank out a short chapter as a wrap up and publish it. 

I think of him as sort of a 90% done type of guy.  He is driven to work his ass off up until about 90%, at about this time HE figures out how the story is going to end, once that happens finishing the story is no longer of interest to him.

As for the Baroque Cycle, even a 90% guy will occasionally finish a project.  Maybe having that much invested in it was enough to drive him to finish it properly.

[HaemishM]

Finished reading For Whom the Bell Tolls. Always love me some Hemmingway.

Starting reading Montfiore's Young Stalin, which is a great book for someone interested in Big Joe.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally finished Hyperion. Really interesting book that went a totally different direction than I assumed after the first few chapters. Not a big fan of the ending, however.

[Abagadro]

Dan Simmons is another guy with ending problems. His recent Ilium/Olympos books (which I really liked, but again, ending probs) are a good example.

[Johny Cee]

Dan Simmons is another guy with ending problems. His recent Ilium/Olympos books (which I really liked, but again, ending probs) are a good example.

The Terror,  minus the last 150 pages,  was one of the best books I read last year.  God damn Simmons fucked that book up.

I think that he did end Song of Kali really well though.

[shiznitz]

Finally slogged through all of the Terry Brooks "origin of shanarra" books (ends with Gypsy Morph.) I wouldn't recommend them to anyone but they were readable although I have to admit I started skimming large chunks of them.  I have two hours a day on a commuter train so anything that kills the time evenly remotely will suffice.

Thank you to whomever mentioned Market Forces by Richard Morgan. Now I am on to Anathem.

I believe I learned about The Gap series from this thread. I loved it. Hating characters so much you cannot put the book down is quite an authorial achievement.

[justdave]

just thought it was a bit abrupt and weak.  not necessarily bad, but weaker than the rest of th book

To be fair, the three books really should just be one bigass book. The third one handled that a bit better, I think.

Currently re-reading Diaspora by Greg Egan, one of my annual-re-reads. One of the best, most poignant endings in a book, ever, IMO.

[FatuousTwat]

I believe I learned about The Gap series from this thread. I loved it. Hating characters so much you cannot put the book down is quite an authorial achievement.

Stephen R. Donaldson is good at making hateful characters. Read the Thomas Covenant books, or Mordants Need.

Also, I couldn't even finish the second set of Shanarra books. Don't understand how you could actually read all of them?

[Margalis]

Finally finished Hyperion. Really interesting book that went a totally different direction than I assumed after the first few chapters. Not a big fan of the ending, however.

Don't read the sequels then. Or maybe do? IMO they get progressively worse. I honestly don't remember what the ending to Hyperion was but I remember liking it, the later books try to explain more but end up getting clunky.

A lot of writers have problems in that they introduce very cool and elaborate premises but can't explain or unwind them properly. Stephen King is another great example of this, so many of his books rely on Deus ex Machina because he writes himself into a corner.

Don't read the new book about Pixar. Dry as uh...drywall.

[WayAbvPar]

Re:Hyperion ending-

[Johny Cee]

Re:Hyperion ending-

Read the next one.  I think the first two Hyperion books work well.  The last two are pretty meh,  set a reasonable amount of time after the first two, and start by reversing a good portion of the conclusion of the originals.


Just finished Toll the Hounds.  Fuck me Erickson needs a new editor.  They're letting him get away with 800 pages of whiny pseudo-philosphy before a big bang conclusion.

[FatuousTwat]

Isn't that the way every epic fantasy author gets after about book 3?

Edit: Talking about the Erikson book.

[Samwise]

The Hyperion "series" is one book in two parts.  You can't read one without the other.  Same goes for the Endymion books and Ilium/Olympos.  The ending of the first book in each case is just the middle of the story, so don't expect any sort of closure there.

[Johny Cee]

Isn't that the way every epic fantasy author gets after about book 3?

Edit: Talking about the Erikson book.

Off the top of my head:

Cook is always good, if you like his style.
Brust's books are always pretty solid.
Jordan's first 6 or so were excellent.
Erickson's first 6 were top notch.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Bakker's next book will be pretty good.


If you try to tell the same story over more than four or five books it tends to be a mess, though, I agree.  I think Erickson really fell down on his last one,  but I give him alot of credit:  He has a tightly wound overarching story,  and his last book was just mediocre.

[FatuousTwat]

I shouldn't have said book 3, but I'm just sick of authors dragging out the story well past when it should be over. It ruined Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth for me, I'm just hoping that it doesn't do it again with the Malazan books.

[Grimwell]

Just finished the first Covenant book. It will be the last one I read. I now understand the complaints people have about Jordan's Rand Al'Thor... Covenant is a whiny emo douchebag that I do not care to invest more time even in skimming.

I've moved on to a collection of steampunk stories instead.

[Johny Cee]

I shouldn't have said book 3, but I'm just sick of authors dragging out the story well past when it should be over. It ruined Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth for me, I'm just hoping that it doesn't do it again with the Malazan books.

I don't think that will be a problem.  The Malazan books overall arc has been pretty well plotted,  and developed, throughout the series and Erickson has been up front that he had the thing tightly plotted.

I'm just pretty disappointed by the storytelling.  He tried to go literary, and it all sounded....  terrible.  Literally 400 pages could have been cut down to 100 and he would have had a tightly plotted book.  Erickson is pretty much a magpie writer, stealing what he likes from authors he admires.

This was his Donaldson book.


As I said, I enjoy the books but I do get a laugh at how much is blatantly lifted, both characters and tone.  To steal a phrase from Andrew Wheeler (I think), he writes meta-fantasy fiction.  You get the most enjoyment out of it if you can identify where he's borrowing from or what author's style he's playing as a foil.

Karsa - Howard's Conan
Bridgeburners, any grunt infantry - Cook's Black Company, but much less amoral and conflicted
Ganoes Paran - Archetypal fantasy epic hero
Most of the assassin types - Feels very Brust to me
Whiny character with superpower - Feels like Donaldson, but I've read very little of him.

The early books did have an interesting theme of modernity (Malazans) vs. traditional hierarchies vs. barbarism,  but that has been mostly dropped.


I've been especially disappointed in the hefty sidetrip into dormroom economic-political philosphy with a side of how great hunter-gatherer civilization is.

[Johny Cee]

Eep.  Does no one read anymore?

- Picked up The Wages of Destruction,  about the economy of Nazi Germany by an economic historian.  So far, fairly interesting.

- I've seen Matthew Stover's "Caine" books recommended in other places for years.  Caine Black Knife is out now,  and was a very entertaining read.  It's the latest,  but still approachable if you haven't followed the series.  This is my first Caine book and had a good time with it.

Basically,  the setup is that you have a dystopian future Earth with all the overpopulation and rigid class system and economic exploitation that entails combined with an alternate fantasy universe with magic and all that.  Lower class entertainers (called Actors) are trained up and inserted into the fantasy universe and have their experiences recorded and sold on Earth.

Great action.  Very reminiscent of Richard Morgan type action, including the massively cunning and amoral lead.

- There are a bunch of Cook omnibuses out now.  The Dread Empire prequals,  with intro by Steven Erickson.  Collections of the first 6 or 7 Black Company books.  A new collection of the Dread Empire short stories,  which only seems to be available online and I'm eyeing.

Cook has been popping up on alot of "collectibillity" lists recently, as well, if you folks have some of the harder to find books.  She is the Darkness can go for over $100 in hardcover,  and up to $50 in paperback.  Supposedly most of his lesser '80s books are going for decent dough as well.

- Have a book on the history of gambling that I'm going to pick away at after Wages.

- Some funnish Warhammer 40K stuff.


So, anyone else read anything decent?

[Hindenburg]

Eisernhorn omnibus. Average.
Ciaphas Cain omnibus. Average.
First Gotrek and Felix omnibus. Kinda good.
Soul Drinkers omnibus. Shit.
Atlas Shrugged. Insanely good, until you hit page 800 and Dagny starts going "Oh Galt, plow me vigorously."

[Johny Cee]

Eisernhorn omnibus. Average.
Ciaphas Cain omnibus. Average.
First Gotrek and Felix omnibus. Kinda good.
Soul Drinkers omnibus. Shit.
Atlas Shrugged. Insanely good, until you hit page 800 and Dagny starts going "Oh Galt, plow me vigorously."

Heh.

I rather liked the Eisenhorn one.
Gotrek and Felix I find to be pure entertainment.  Basically,  they're always winning the battle but still losing the war.
Soul Drinkers was shitty.
Never read the Ciaphas Cain one.

[Margalis]

Been reading mostly nonfiction. I'll summarize:

Book on Pixar that just came out, called "Pixar: Blah blah blah." Boring, even for a computer graphics nerd like myself.

Book on Sergio Leone, called maybe "The Films of Sergio Leone." Good, but I would have like more analysis of the films themselves as well as the techniques and less straight biography. Some good interviews.

"Adventures in the Screen Trade" by William Goldman, famous book, good breezy read.

[FatuousTwat]

Uhhh... I read a few books since my last post, lets see if I can remember them.

Oh I read the first Felix Castor book, was ok.
I'm half done with Toll the Hounds.
A couple of SciFi anthologies... I think that is about it.

[Sky]

Fallout 3 and guitar are taking up most of the time I have to read. I'm still working through KJ Parker's Engineer Trilogy, it's still interesting halfway through the second book.

Our local B&N had a book fair to support our library and it was the biggest book fair they've ever had by half. We went and bought a bunch of stuff, I got the third in the trilogy I'm reading and also a couple Robert Howard books, a compilation of the first 15 Conan stories and a compilation of his horror genre stories.

Otherwise I'm mostly reading stuff about Arts&Crafts and Craftsman period interiors. Originally I just wanted some ideas for the trim work I need to do in the living room, but now I'm getting into the spirit of things, learning about finishes and wood selections. Fun stuff. Also pretty interesting since the movement in the US started in the local area.

[WayAbvPar]

I am doing some very heavy reading with Men With Balls: The Professional Athlete's Handbook by Drew Magary (Big Daddy Drew of Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin fame). God it is funny. Totally lowbrow, non-PC, and completely hilarious.

[Rasix]

Eep.  Does no one read anymore?

I've been bad.  Got a PS3, Fallout 3, Fable 2, WOLK, etc. 

I've tried some Glen Cook.  Dread Empire and Tyranny of the Night.  I just can't get into either of them.  I know it was hard for me to get into The Black Company series and I didn't care a great deal for The Dragon Never Sleeps.  I think I may just not like Glen Cook that much.  I really slog through his books.  They take me for-goddamned-ever to read.

Tried the second book in the Vlad Taltos series since I bought the 1-3 collection. Still don't like it   

Reading World War Z right now when I can find the time to read.  I like this a lot.  I think my wife would appreciate me finishing this book so I stop telling her about the interesting political and humanitarian situations you'd encounter during a wold wide zombiepocalypse.

[JWIV]

After I finished Anathem, I'm holding off on buying any more books until after Christmas lest I incur the wrath of present givers.   But really, I've also just been too damn busy to really dedicate a few hours to a good book. 

[Draegan]

With a bunch of stuff on my plate my reading time has slooooowed down but I've been purposely setting about an hour at night to read.  I'm still on Reaper's Gale after 2-3 months.  Ugh.  Just getting to some good points so I can move onto Toll of the Hounds.

Books on the horizon:
Neruomancer and the Covenant stuff.  The Covenant stuff piqued my interest from one of the nerd fights in the MMO section.

[HaemishM]

Got finished with For Whom The Bell Tolls. Great book, and makes me realize I need to read more Hemingway.

Got Young Stalin from the library. Fuck's sake, this book is interesting. It makes me want to read this guy's Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar.

[Viin]

I hate it when I accidentally browse away from this window while typing out a reply. Sigh.

I started reading Friedman's Free to Choose, but only the first 100 pages are interesting. There he talks about the history of the Fed and Wall Street and various economic events that happened during the early years of the USA. Then he goes on to tell us everything that is wrong with our society. Since when does an economics guy know anything about families and education? Well, any more than the average joe?

Shelved that and picked up Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb, which has been pretty good if sometimes slow and wordy (some paragraphs are over a page long!).

[Johny Cee]

Uhhh... I read a few books since my last post, lets see if I can remember them.

Oh I read the first Felix Castor book, was ok.
I'm half done with Toll the Hounds.
A couple of SciFi anthologies... I think that is about it.

I was not a fan of the first Felix Castor book,  and then the end kind of redeemed it for me.  Definitely the next two books are better.


I did finish off Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" books.  It's another series that really gets better with each subsequent book.  The only reason I stuck with it through the whole thing was the buzz on the guy.

The Blade Itself was poor, I felt.  Awful Renfaire setting, whiny
Before They Are Hanged was a neat twist on the quest story, and Glokta's POV was very good.
Last Argument of Kings was very good.  Lots of nice twists.

[Nebu]

Almost finished reading The Killer Angels after seeing a comment from Abagadro on it in another thread.  If you have any interest in the Civil War, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.