Return of the Book Thread

[HaemishM]

I tried to read book 2 of the Covenant Chronicles. Made it as far as the truck driver picking up Thomas Dumbfuck on his trip to piss off the other set of locals for no good reason other than he can, where he's picked up by the truck driver who hates him without knowing him and I just couldn't do it. He fucks with the TRUCK DRIVER. He's a thoroughly unlikeable character, what's more I don't care about what happens to him ever.

So I ditched that and started on the Gap series. Yes, I seriously must be a literary masochist. I made it through the entire first novella (Gap into Rape apparently) and have started on the second book. Fuck, does he ever create one fucking character that you could ever give a shit about? EVER? I made it past the total and utter rape of Morn Hyland the first time, then she willingly allows herself to get raped again less than 100 pages into the second book. I only have one question before I ditch this thing too. Does the gap ever become an integral part of the story? As in not just a MacGuffin to get Morn to go ape shit when he hits hi-g's? Are there aliens or something fucking interesting about the gap, or is it just the name of the place where Capt. Rape Sparrow plies his piratical trade?

He's not a bad writer, which is the worst part about it. He's not a Piers Anthony, where I want to stab the writer on style alone. But his characters just make me homicidal with idiocy.

[Reg]

If you couldn't put up with Covenant you never stood a chance with Morn and Angus.  Have you tried Mordant's Need?  It's only a little rapey and there are characters in it that you don't completely hate immediately.

[HaemishM]

I'm thinking if "a little rapey" is the best description you can come up with, I should probably just fuck right off then.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I'm thinking there are some deep, deep issues with the author around that topic. 

[bhodi]

The gap series gets better as you go along. The first two books are pretty weak, IMHO. Unlike covenant, everyone gets theirs in the end, and you do end up liking some of the characters since they don't remain static through the series. They do change and by the end you find yourself not hating every single person. Fortunately, the rape only lasts through the first two books, really. Someone told him to fucking stop already. The series gets steadily better as he finds more interesting ways to fuck with his characters.

And no, gap sickness doesn't really come up again, except in the fact that morn now has this huge issue with high g.

[Rishathra]

The gap series gets better as you go along. The first two books are pretty weak, IMHO. Unlike covenant, everyone gets theirs in the end, and you do end up liking some of the characters since they don't remain static through the series. They do change and by the end you find yourself not hating every single person. Fortunately, the rape only lasts through the first two books, really. Someone told him to fucking stop already. The series gets steadily better as he finds more interesting ways to fuck with his characters.

And no, gap sickness doesn't really come up again, except in the fact that morn now has this huge issue with high g.

This.  The rapey bits are really only in the first book and a little into the second.  The universe in general is still a pretty stark place, but not in the disturbing Rapey McRaperson sense.  Hell, even Angus becomes somewhat sympathetic by the end.

[Ironwood]

And there are aliens.  Holy fuck are there aliens.

Which, actually, you should have got to by the second book.

[HaemishM]

Ok, so Ironwood answered my question. Aliens or at least SOMETHING about the Gap other than it being something someone mentions casually and forgets about before they rape the shit out of someone. That's enough to at least let me know I should finish book 2.

[Ironwood]

The Amnion are actually scary as shit Aliens.

Either that or a metaphorical device through which Donaldson explores the themes of human betrayal, loss and rejection.

But mostly scary aliens.

With 1 eye.

Or more.

Scary.

[Reg]

I think I'm going to have to re-read the Gap books again. I've re-read all of Covenant fairly recently in honour of the new series but it's been a long, long time since I got to watch Morn being tormented the way she so richly deserves.

[Morfiend]

Mostly wanted to link this short story by Charles Stross:  http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=story&id=61\

I tried to read Halting State by him, but I couldnt get past the fact it was written in 2nd person. I was reading it, and I was like "wait, I am a girl... I am a lesbian... humm.."

[FatuousTwat]

Anyone have suggestions on sci-fi anthologies? I've read most of Dezois' and Strahan's recent stuff, I can't seem to find 1 million A.D. or Galactic Empires, unfortunately. Feel free to mention anything by them though.

[Margalis]

I like yearly anthologies of all kinds, though my knowledge of sci-fi short stories ends in the mid-80s.

Also the complete short stories of Cordwainer Smith.

[Morat20]

It was the Land itself and all of the characters other than

I think that was sort of the point. The Land itself was everything Covenant wasn't. Healthy. Moral. Firm. Loving. Alive.

And he'd show up there and infect it. First with the rape of Lena, then infected whats-her-face -- the daughter of that rape -- in book two or three, causing the breaking of the Law of the Dead, which FURTHER kills the land.

Everytime he comes back, he finds his presence has sickened everything even more. Which is why he's such a giant douche, because his existance in the Land is basically torture -- he's surrounded by everything he wants (to the point where all his ilness and pain is gone) -- health, love, vitality -- and not only can he not keep it, he knows he's killing it just by being there.

He's an infection. Every bit of the Covenant books is how he fucked up paradise, how each and every mistake he made fucked it up worse. When he finally gives in and tries to fix things, he finds out later the fixes made it worse. Which is pretty much what Foul told him in the first place. Covenant's mere existance was a death to beauty, health, and love.

It's fucking depressing, is what it is. The only bright side is Mhoram, and that's because Mhoram is specifically Covenent's opposite. (The whole place has a Yin/Yang thing going anyways). He's hope to despair, basically. He's the balance to the shit-gasm that is Covenant.

Anyways, they fucking say that right up top with that stupid prophecy. Covenent's paradox. Being an infectious, disease-causing, Land-killing rapist kill-joy is all that saves anything. And his sacrifices are rewarded with the clear and certain knowledge that it will always get worse for him and for the Land. Of course, that was the same reason that whats-his-face (Lord Kevin?) had blown the fucking world up in the first place.

[Ironwood]

I like you.  You can come around and fuck my sister.

[Reg]

Nicely said Morat. I wish I'd been able to put it as well as that.

[Ironwood]

The opposite is also true though.  The Land is deadly to Covenant by its very existence.  He knows to be seduced by it is to die.

And it takes him a long time to figure out that there's nothing he can do about it.

[Morat20]

The opposite is also true though.  The Land is deadly to Covenant by its very existence.  He knows to be seduced by it is to die.

And it takes him a long time to figure out that there's nothing he can do about it.

The whole thing that's really balls about it is that God explicitly sends him there. It's kinda a fucked up choice by God. It's like "Oh, whiny about being a fucking leper? I can make it worse, asshole". And then he does.

Really, Covenant is a loathesome character. His actions range from repugnant to simply jackass rudeness, and is only redeeming quality is that even though he's pretty sure it's all a fucking hallucination or clearly "Not His Problem", he can't quite throw up his hands and say "Fuck it". He's rather bitter about the whole thing. Frankly, it's why Mhoram likes him. Everyone else either hates him or gives him the standard Jesus-pass of "The Messiah/Savior is exempt from normal social rules because He/She is the Messiah or because He/She is the only one that can save our asses".

Mhoram's the only one who really gets, when he finally realizes the price for power, that Covenant is basically being asked to risk his sanity and life for the sake of a hallucination, and isn't capable of saying no.

More on subject -- I'm really liking Charles Stross. I'm just disliking my local bookstores odd inability to carry half his work, and I'm too lazy to order it. Just finished the Atrocity Archives. Light, but fun.

[Margalis]

I picked up Harlan Ellison's Watching from the library, entertaning stuff. It's a collection of his critiques of films. The only downside is that the first quarter of the book deals with things way before my time.

[Margalis]

I also want to mention that I'm pretty out of touch with modern horror, fantasy and sf. At the library I saw a new anthology, The Best Fantasy and Horror of 2008. Leafing through it was depressing. It had a large section devoted to the current state of the genres, which broke them down into inumerable sub-genres. Urban Fantasy, Modern Fantasy, Medievel Fantasy...I don't remember the exact breakdowns but there had to be a dozen different categories.

To me that seems like the opposite of creative, to create all the slots and then slot everything into one.

[Simond]

David Eddings has died.

Despite his success, Eddings was known for his humble nature. "His huge worldwide success and fame did not change Dave at all," said his long-term publisher at HarperCollins, Jane Johnson, herself a fantasy author. "He was unfailingly self-effacing on the subject of his success, once saying: 'I'm never going to be in danger of getting a Nobel prize for literature, I'm a storyteller, not a prophet. I'm just interested in a good story'."

Eddings was always delighted, he said, to hear that he'd turned non-readers into readers. "I look upon this as perhaps my purpose in life," he said in 1997. "I am here to teach a generation or two how to read. After they've finished with me and I don't challenge them any more, they can move on to somebody important like Homer or Milton."

I liked his books. They were pulp fantasy, but well-written pulp fantasy.

[apocrypha]

I finished The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy the other night, and it was absolutely incredible. Is anyone interested in a micro-review or should I not bother (it's not SF or fantasy)?

[Quinton]

It's return of the book thread, not return of the sci-fi/fantasy only book thread.... go for it!

Also, I'm looking forward to Revenge of the Book Thread, Night of the Book Thread, and Bride of the Book Thread...

[lamaros]

I almost hate that book, so I'm going to urge for less discussion of it. But others might enjoy.

I decided that I could spoil myself with some light reading after finishing a run of assessment just recently, so I read the Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan in the last couple of days as my brother had it lying about the house. It was diverting and sometimes amusing, but also pretty poorly written and horribly generic and almost nothing happens despite it being over 1500 pages worth of novel, so I'm not going to recommend it.

So I moved on and I'm currently reading 'The Way of Shadows' by Brent Weeks. Quite a slow start but things are now getting a little bit more interesting and I'm enjoying it. I'd probably recommend it, but I'm not sure as yet, only 450 pages in... the best thing in it is that stuff happens! It's a novel that has more than one plot point! It isn't stretched out for 500 pages and then left with a cliff-hanger, things happen in nearly every chapter and you want to read more because reading it is fun, not because you have to find out what happens next to make reading that far have any point at all. Weeks does a bit of the Hamilton "too many character views for one novel" but without Hamilton's ability to make us care about most of them, which can be frustrating, but it's not that bad overall. Most importantly it has a bit of the political shenanigans and twists that I most enjoy in my fantasy.

[Triforcer]

RIP Mr. Eddings.  I devoured his stuff in high school, and its nice to hear he was a good guy as well, not a creepy deviant like so many scifi/fantasy writers. 

[Mosesandstick]

I finished The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy the other night, and it was absolutely incredible. Is anyone interested in a micro-review or should I not bother (it's not SF or fantasy)?

Go for it! I found the book an interesting read though somewhat slowwwwwwwwww at points.

[apocrypha]

OK, cool, long as there's some interest 

So, The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. First off it's very hard to discuss the plot without ruining it completely, so apologies for vagueness. That said, it's a story of a middle-class, Anglophile family in India and how 3 generations of family history intertwine with some of the social and political history of India itself. The crux of the story is a forbidden love, precipitated by those two histories and turned into tragedy by the (mostly) unwritten laws of who can love who and when. The love is forbidden because of both the caste system and the class system (in as much as they're separate but related things) and the tragedy drags into it the innocent lives of the children of the family, who are the main story tellers in the book. If you're of that kind of inclination you can also read from it some pretty damning indictments of the Stalinist CP that held power in India for a long time and how it trampled al over the lives of ordinary people.

The two main children in it, Estha and Rahel, are non-identical twins with a strong, almost psychic connection. Roy tells the story in a completely non-linear fashion, with events unfolding both backwards from the present day and forwards from 3 generations ago at the same time. The odd effect of this is that you effectively know the outcome of the story from the start, so while the story is both tiny and dense the power of it is in the telling and in the way that the characters are changed by it as it unfolds in their lives. And while the end of the book is chronologically the middle of the story, and you know what's going to happen, it's still incredibly powerful and moving. In fact I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry (which I do easily at books btw) - more from the sheer passion and raw emotional release of the final chapter than because of the actual events.

Because it's told mostly through the eyes of the children, who are Indian but from a very Anglophilic familiy, it does often mix English with Malayalam (one of Southern Indian languages) which I found somewhat confusing at first, but once I'd got used to it I found that combined with her lush and almost mystical language used to describe the area in which they lived (a house on the edge of an old plantation in Kerala) it steeped the story in authenticity - this isn't an abstract story about things that could happen to anyone anywhere, but a story from a real place and time. Of course never having been to nor lived in India I have no idea just how authentic it really is, but it certainly felt like it to me.

Personally I didn't find it slow at all - but a lot of the book is about slowly and deliberately peeling away the layers of history surrounding the story and I can see how that could be frustrating. For me it added to the drama and impact, much like the careful pacing of, for instance, a film like No Country For Old Men. But yes, this isn't a book where a lot actually happens, except in the heads of the characters.

I absolutely loved it, was deeply moved by it and fully intend to read it again, very soon. And er, sorry for this being less micro than I intended 

[Xilren's Twin]

Couple of items i wanted to pass along.  Found a book by Ian C Esslemont called Night of Knives in the Steve Erikson section.  Apparently this guy is the co-creator of the Malazan Empire world design with Erikson, and this is the first book he has written in that same world.  Erikson wrote the introduction to the book detailing this, even makes it a point to say "this is NOT fan fiction".  At any rate, it doesnt explain why Erikson has witten thousands upon thousands of pages in this world, and yet this guy just now manages to bring us one slim (~250 pages) book, but at the same time, more Malazan has to be a good thing.  Apparently Esslemont is going to be focused on the backstory/history prior to Erikson's books, and this one is about the night the Emporer and Dancer attempt to gain the Throne of Shadows.  Enjoyed it, but want more (it literally only covers 1 nights span with some flashbacks).

The other book is a collection of 4 novellas called Mean Streets.  Jim butcher writes a Harry Dresden story, Simon Green gives us a John Taylor story, and Kat Richardson and Thomas Sniegoski give us storys of their characters whom I am not familiar with.  At any rate, Buthcer's story is part of what SHOULD have been in Turn Coat, because it's about Michael and his life after being shot in Small Favor.  It's only about 70 pages, but it at least told me some things i wished he had addressed in the novel, where Michael isnt mentioned at all.

[Arrrgh]

Esslemont's second book, Return of the Crimson Guard, is bigger and better than Night of Knives, but still not as good as Erikson.

[Ingmar]

Just finished The Briar King by Gregory Keyes - it wasn't awful. I'd describe it as something like low-rent George Martin with more magic and less plot. It wasn't Really Good Stuff like Martin, but it was readable.

The sex scenes are just as terrible. 

[Stewie]

I recently read this
I don't know if this has been brought up recently but I went through it in 1 sitting and thought it was awesome.

[Sky]

I'm still working on Hamilton's first saga, on the last book now. Enjoyable, though it can get silly at times.

Mostly reading non-fic, carpentry stuff or guitar tabs.

[Khaldun]

Just finished The Briar King by Gregory Keyes - it wasn't awful. I'd describe it as something like low-rent George Martin with more magic and less plot. It wasn't Really Good Stuff like Martin, but it was readable.

The sex scenes are just as terrible. 

Series gets much, much worse. And I like Keyes, mind you. His first two books were really quite nice. Last book in the series is frankly awful.

[ghost]

A couple of suggestions for you bookish types:

1.  Paul McCauley's Confluence trilogy-  not world shaking, but interesting nonetheless.  A bit similar to the Shadow/Claw/Sword/Citadel by Gene Wolf, but probably a little more readable. 
2.  Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold-  I like her writing style.  Good stories here, not at all like the Vorkosigan series (which are still pretty good).
3.  Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood and Lavondyss-  very strange books but ones in which I definitely finished up feeling quite bad for some of the characters, so strong emotions bring "good book" label.  Can't say too much without giving the plot away.
4.  Imajica by Clive Barker-  I'm not sure why this book leaves such a strong impression on me because I hate most of Barker's other stuff, but this one is truly excellent.  Continually leaves me thinking when I finish it (which I just did for the fifth time).

Back later after more reads

[Hawkbit]

I was just talking up Imajica to a buddy at work yesterday.  He really dislikes Barker's horror and I told him the 'horror' side of it is near non-existant, but it will make you question the world you live in.  It's almost as if it's too imaginative to be simply a story.  Rather, Barker has been there before.  IRL.