f13.net

We have a couple of old book threads going,  but with summer releases almost upon us I thought we could use a new thread.  I'm personally opposed to zombie threads.

The big two release coming up in the next month:

7/15, Harry Potter -- 

I've read the books.  I enjoy the books.  Are they worth all the hype?  Well, if it's something that gets kids and the plebes reading I'm all for it.

The Harry series has grown and changed with the relative ages of the protagonists.  The last book (Order of the Pheonix) has Harry finally showing that young teens angst.  Voldemort is on the move,  and the series should be setting up for a climax the next book.

I'd recommend a preorder if you want to get a copy sometime before next year....

8/1, A Feast for Crows --

George RR Martin finally hits us with his next in the "Song of Fire and Ice" series.  Advanced rumors make this an interesting outing.  Martin killed off a couple of the prime movers in the last book,  and we are told we'll have chapters in the POV of a couple of the more villainous characters.

Out now:

Glen Cook --

A new series, first book is Tyranny of the Night.  Basically, take 13th or 14th century Europe and the Middle East,  add a hefty dose of malign night-time spirits and magic,  and the threat of glaciers moving in around the edges to crush civilazation. 

The major theme is the same as many of his other military books.  Individual morality subsumed by a greater cause.  All three major religions, thinly veiled, are here.  This may be a cause for some peoples uneasiness,  when you have proto-Christians duking it out with proto-Moslems,  both sides using and getting used by the pseudo-Jews.

Same ambivalence about villains.  One or two characters seem to be pretty firmly in the "evil" camp early on,  but in the latter pages you see other sides to them.

Also,  he has a Garret book just released.

Jim Butcher, Dead Beat --

The first hardcover book in Butcher's continuing "Harry Dresden" series.  Basically, it's an alternative history modern world,  where magic and the supernatural exist on the fringes and none of the normal people seem to notice.

Harry Dresden is a wizard PI (the first and only).  He's continually poor, harassed,  not taken seriously (to the point a Jerry Springer knockoff talk show invites him to a show), and distrusted by the White Council he belongs to.  He's a geekish loser, with a fair dollop of magic thrown in.  He is not a cool guy.

One of my favorite scenes from the first book sets this out well.  After being assaulted by a goon for a sample of his hair,  which would be used in some nasty ritual, he goes looking for the goon's boss.  The boss, the head of Chicago organized crime, is set up in a Maffia owned restaurant.  Harry blows the doors off the front of the restaurant,  walks in, and orders the diners to leave before sitting down with said mob boss.  Mob boss' cronies are shitting bricks,  and the whole time Harry is in cowboy boots, old T-shirt, and fucking sweat pants.  Yeah....

It's a good series, and well deserves it's bump to hardcover.  Very informed by the Whedon school of wisecracks.  There are vampires and assorted other supernatural menaces, but it avoids the pitfalls that Hamilton has shown us in recent years.  In other words:  monsters are monsters,  not stylish Eurofags that all have an attraction to certain author's ego surrogate...

R. Scott Bakker, "The Prince of Nothing" series --

Two books out in this so far.  The latest, The Warrior Prophet, released this spring.  This is Dune meets The First Crusade, with seasoning of dark supernatural menace around the edges.  Great books.

The first, The Darkness that Comes Before, is now out in trade paperback.

Howard, Conan --

As mention in the comics section,  trade paperback collections of the original Conan stories are being released at a regular interval.  So far, two collections are out, along with two collections of Howard's other character Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn.

It looks like the next installment of the Conan stories is due on 11/1/05.

Alright, enough for now.  Just picked up a bag of books,  and looks like some Heinlein stuff is seeing wide reprint.  Going to check out Glory Road,  and go through my other recent purchases to see what I have.

Reading Tyranny of the Night now, I'm about half way through it and am enjoying it very much.  He introduces a lot of characters and concepts early so you have to work a little bit for the first few chapters but it rapidly settles into a comfortable place where Cook can do what he does best, have his heros and villains be morally ambiguous and be involved in schemes where no one knows everything thats going on.  The humor is there, though nothing has made me laugh like the Goblin - One Eye Stuff from the black company series but all the clever sarcasm is still great.  I'll chime in with more when I finish it up.

Just finished that the other day.  Good read if you liked the others in the series.  Get to learn more about bob the skull, the cursed coin, the white council, and why polka will never die...

Xilren

John Ringo and David Weber, We Few, Book 4 of the March to ... series

Just started this, but already it seems better than the previous books.  Good military SF that hasn't yet fallen into the previous 'train locals with medieval tech and explain it to the readers' shtick, and the military-coup-by-good-buys angle is one that hasn't seen a lot of use recently.  Bonus points for the title too: classical military refrences for teh win!!!.  If you read the rest of the series or like Weber and Ringo, pick this up.  Elsewise you might want to pass.

David Weber, Shadow of Saganami, First book in a new Honor spin-off

I hate Honor Harrington with a passion.  She's two dimensional and unreal, and often crosses the line in my mind from being a strong female character to being a mediocre male character with breasts.  That said the space battles are some of the best I've read, in that he explains how things work in such a way that the good guys win because they are smart and exploit the situation, not because the plot says they have to win.   As such this represents a large leap in the right direction in my mind, by drawing new characters and missions from the existing Honor universe that are far more human, ditching most of the poltical rambling, with the same great space battles.  Highly recommended both for its own merits and to send Weber a message.

They're all fantastic books. Chamber of Secrets was a tad boring, but 3-5 kicked all sorts of ass.  These books get me in trouble though as when they come out I'm useless until I finish them.  Good thing then that they take only a couple days even at over a thousand pages.

I think Harry will be a bit more at peace with himself in this one.  He let out a LOT of anger in 5.   Well, being a teen and the wizarding equivalent of Jesus would do that to a kid.  Not to mention his prospective girlfriend had her boyfriend DIE in front of him and he got to kick off his year with a secret trial and near expulsion/imprisonment.   Of course, now he's going to have to get over Sirius's death.. but lets hope he's a bit less angry because the kid's life aint going to get any easier.

Order of the Phoenix, while probably being my favorite of the series to read, had a rather iffy plot.  The whole prophecies thing was kind of stupid and pointless IMO. Lets hope this one strives for something a bit more meaningful.


I'm not quite sure if I want to feel empathy for Cersei.  I really hate that bitch and didn't much like feeling sympathy for the Kingslayer in book 3.   Still, I'm greatly looking forward to this one.   BIG FUCKING SPOILER HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THEM, I'M NOT GOING TO SHRINK IT, DEAL: Robb's death and the manner of it really unnerved me.  Walder Frey and his fucking "heh"ing during the carnage and them sewing Grey Wind's head to his corpse... I haven't felt that that emotionally pummeled by a book event since reading Susan's death in Book 4 of the Dark Tower.

I'm re-reading the series in preparation.  Easy to do with a quasi-dead home computer and a kicked WoW habit.  It's still every bit as amazing and the subtle foreshadowing and knowledge of future events really helps you appreciate some of the minutia in the book.  Re-reading book one and the only character I don't really care for is Catelyn and Sansa.  I can't remember now if I ever get to liking Sansa.  Stupid bitch, I just caught it this time that she's the one that tipped off the Lanister's to her dad's intentions.


I'm going to have to check out more of his work.  I just finished his first Black Company trilogy.  I liked them all, but I really felt the first book was far stronger than the other 2.



Sound interesting, I'll have to check it out.  I swear, there's just too damn much to read out there for a sci-fi fan.  Reading binges set me back further than video games at times.

Alright, glanced through my bookshelf:

Dan Simmons,  Hyperion and Endymion books --

I'm about half way to the end of The Rise of Endymion.

Overall,  I liked the two Hyperion books (Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion).  

Hyperion is a retelling of the Canturbury Tales, set in a distant and quite stagnant future.  A group of seven pilgrims is put together to journey to a place called the Time Tombs,  which move backward in time and will soon open.  The Hegemony,  humankind's governance structure, has predictions from the AI Core (autonomous artificial intelligences,  with it's own motivations) that this will be a momentous even, possibly presaging the end of humanity.

Add to this Ousters,  mutated humanity living on the outskirts of travelled space,  and plenty of plots and it makes an interesting book.

Mostly, Hyperion deals with the pilgrims and their travel to the Time Tombs, during which they each take turns telling their stories about why, out of billions of people, they have been chosen to make the pilgrimage.  It sets up for The Fall of Hyperion which finishes up the story.

VERY interesting characters.  The plot can be a little labyrinth,  with some holes.  There's also quite a bit about poetry and the godhead.

Endymion and The Rise of Endymion are follow up novels set about 270 years later,  with some of the same characters.  So far,  it really feels like retreading ground.

One thing Simmons is doing is setting up an alternate religion in the second two books,  which unfortunately always seems to be done exceedingly poorly.  It always comes out as wishy-washy crap that repeats flaws in design that most actual religions have had to deal with for centuries,  and usually these flaws are glaring and obvious.

The characters are quite well-rounded,  and interesting,  so overall it's not a total waste.
 

Shadows Linger is probably my all around favorite.  You really have to think a bit to find another character that progresses as much as Marron Shed in even the best classic literature, having Asa around to compare and contrast too was simply genious, add in Ravens complete moral collapse and I seriously think it's his strongest book.

Edit:  Sorry for screwing up the nesting, was in a hurry and didn't check to see if I had it right.

Haven't read the third yet, but I would agree that Shadows Linger was stronger than the first. Croaker's narrative style took some getting used to in the first book; in Shadows Linger, there was the perspective from Marron Shed to break up the narrative and add some humanity to the telling (Croaker's stuff is pretty dry). I was rather /meh about the first, but really enjoyed number 2 (I bought the 2nd in desperation; I needed something quick to read and had heard good things about the series from you good folks).

Fucker, I just finished book 3 of the Dark Tower. Didnt know the spoiler applied to DT series also.


I have been egerly awating book 4 of A Song of Fire and Ice. I'm not sure how I feel about the two books happening simultaniously. As far as Harry Potter goes, I recently read all of them, when I was short of cash for books and my girlfriend had the series. They defenetly get better as they go.

I am currently trying to start "Tyranny of the Night" but there is SO much information in the first 50 pages, I feel like I should reread it 3 times to try and pick it all up. I liked the Black Company.

I looked at Dead Beat in the bookstore, and couldnt decided if it would be good or crap, maybe Ill give it a go now that I know its not total shit.

I really really liked the R. Scott Baker "Prince of Nothing" series. There where a few parts that kind of dragged, I think it was about 3/4ths of the way through both books. But other than about 30 pages from both, they are a really good read.

Like I said above, I am also trying to read the Dark Tower series, which while pretty good, can be a bit rough at times.

I didn't mean Susanah Dean if that's who you think.  Susan Delgaldo is who I mean.  Anyhow, my apologies,  but hasn't it been completely obvious that she died horribly anytime he's mentioned her in books 1-3?  Knowing this going in doesn't change the effect of the book one bit, in fact, it just makes the emotional impact that much more severe.

And yah, the Dark Tower series can be a bit rough.  I blazed through 3 and 6, but 2, 4 and 5 took a while for me to wade through.  The stories just tend to bog down at times or take a turn for the uninteresting.   Still haven't read 7 yet, I might hold off until it hits paperback.  I really hate buying hard cover.

I really liked Goblet of Fire and Prisoner of Azkabahn.  My complaint is more of a "why the hell did these take off???" then anything else.  I wish some other authors could get this kind of reception.  (Cook, Brust, Bujold (though I hear she's tied for most Hugo nominations with Heinlein, so she's gotten some recognition), etc)

If you don't mind a simplistic storytelling structure,  try Gaiman's "Stardust" and (I think, only read a few chapters) "Coraline".  

Gaiman uses sort of a fable-ish story-telling structure,  but "Stardust" is excellent.  A simple English youth from the boonies, who may be a changeling,  is infatuated with beautiful local girl.  She sets him an impossible task:  Retrieve the falling star they saw while he confesses his admiration to her.  In setting out,  he stumbles into a very Gaiman alternative universe,  where the star is now a pretty girl.  Adventure ensues,  lessons are learned,  overall very bittersweet.

I read the first few chapters of "Coraline" in some Best of compilation,  but haven't seen the damn thing since.  I think it might be stuck in the young adult section,  which I haven't had the guts to check yet.


I like "Song of Fire & Ice" but....

For a series that's supposed to be gritty, some realisim, there's alot of "villains being villainous" just for the sake of it.  I mean, some shit just makes no fucking sense whatsoever.  You have people fucking people over just to do it, and not necessarily advancing the plot or their own aims any.

Part of problem may be I've read too much Cook,  where there tend to be no villains.  Just self-interested schemers swirling around in clouds of their own moral ambiguity.

That being said,  I really like the Tyrion character.  He can jump between hero and villain,  and is just a messed up bit of pshychological work.  Jon Snow is decent,  and I do like Sansa.

Her older sister needs to die.  Badly.  And Bran can be meh.

Robb & his mother needed to go, I think.

Speaking of Cook:

Hey Murgos,  what's your impression of Grade Drocker in "Tyranny"?  Hate to ask more without knowing how far along you are.

Sorry for poor attribution in quotes,  but my brain froze up trying to figure out how that was nested.

Shadows Linger is one of my favorites in the series.  Marron Shed and his redemption is such a great sub-plot,  and it has more meaning since he essentially shows the way for the Company.

Raven.......

Raven is Cook's best example of something I tried to enunciate earlier.  (Shouldn't be any spoilers)

One of Cook's ongoing themes is how,  when you subjugate your personal code of morality to a Cause or Greater Good,  you can lose sight of ALL morality.  Everything Raven does,  he does for Darling who is their great hope against the Lady's Empire.  One action leads to another, and he's performing ever more despicable acts.  Sure,  it advances Darling's goal,  but at some point the outside observer questions if the goal is worth the price paid.

Raven is also the negative example for the Company.  The Company has very little in the way of morals/ethics,  but the continuing grind of carrying out the Lady's will is wearing them down. 

Raven shows them what lies down that path,  while Marron Shed reveals another.  Even if the cost of redemption is death.

Tyranny of the Night has a load of shit to get through in the beginning.  Shit as in,  the pure information conveyed is huge.  I'm farily well up on my Crusade and late Middle Ages history and religion,  which helped.  You get your bearings eventually,  and then you can enjoy the story.

The viewpoint shifts are kind of interesting.  I grew to like the viking-guys (Skogar the Bastard and company?  gah, can't remember) viewpoint.  They just come of as crude killing machines with low opinions of everyone.

Dead Beat is about 7 books into the series.  TRUST ME, START AT THE BEGINNING if you decide to pick it up.  The character growth and background plots advance through the series,  and most of the characters are still dealing with the aftereffects from a few books back.  I believe book 1 is Storm Front. 

You'll know it by the blurb from Cook on the front of the cover.  (Butcher plugs some of his influences in the afterword of Dead Beat, including Cook, Leiber, etc)

Butcher also has a hardcover fantasy series going right now.  Book two is due out in a month or so.  The first, Furies of Calderaan, or something similar was alright but I can't recommend picking it up at a hardcover price.

"The Prince of Nothing" series can sometimes fall into a trap.  Sometimes pages feel like filler inbetween the "Fuck?? what! omg!" amazing sections.  The Warrior Prophet has the additional problem of setting up alot of threads to be finished near the end of the book,  which may be a bit too much waiting for the payoff.

I'm not sure that there's many 'villans just to be villanous' other than the Greyjoys... and even there they have some plausible reason.  Hm, maybe Cersei, but I expect we'll get to see some of her viewpoint in the upcoming 2 books.   She's just too off the rocker to be anything other than 'psycho hose beast' right now and needs some humanization. Although, I agree wit Rasix, I just don't want to feel empathy for her.  I would like to see more than just 'look I'm a raving loony whore!"

Sansa *is* the older sister (who does, indeed, need to go.)  You're thinking of Arya, who I'm pretty sure is well on the way to becoming one of the assassins mentioned tangentionaly earlier in the series.  The Faceless I think they called them. The preview chapter Martin had on his website about a year and a half ago was what really lead me to that decision, though.

Bran's the pivotal 'magic dude' character, so I don't expect him to die soon.  Jon Snow, while a favorite and the apparent hero of the series right now is probably also due to die horribly, just because he's getting so likeable. 

One thing about the series, though.  I've got a very bad feeling he's headed down the "Jordan Road."   There's a shitload going on, and it's only getting more complex.  On top of that we haven't even seen more than hints of the whole "coming of Winter" storyline.  Maybe it'll mix-in with the political intrigue and Daenerys coming back to the mainland.  However, with the mess that things currently are, I couldn't see that happening and allowing any kind of non 'humanity dies, the end' conclusion that has any real validity.

I don't know about that, I don't see too many villians just twirling their mustaches in the series.  Everyone seems to have a reason for the absolutely horrid things they tend to do.  The only one who's motives seem completely nebulous would be Littlefinger and even then it's easy to rationalize the horrible things he's set in motion due to the occurences of his past (plus, I think he's just really beginning).  The second read through you tend to pick up little nuances clue you in to happenings in the future.  Often far, far in the future.

The villians that seem to be hardest to pin down are those opperating in the northern lands but there's just a massive power vaccuum there. The Starks, basically the force in the north, are completely wiped out.  Everyone's scrambling and thus you get assmasters like Roose Bolton switching allegiences at a whim.  At least there hasn't been anything completely bewildering like Tully's killing Starks or all of the sudden Bran going nutty and forming some sort of Master Blaster unit with Hodor (can't remember if he's still alive) and murdering infants.

Of course, some people are just evil shits, but that's just life.  Gregor was just a shining example of a 8' tall sociopath :)

Cook does evil well. He made me like the Lady. But he does do absolute evil: no one wanted the Dominator to come back.  I doubt you'd see a scale of grey with him. 


Tyrion is just Tyrion. He IS a good guy just with complete devotion to a family that has a very wide sliding scale for morality and justice.  Not sure if you meant Ayra as the sister you like as Sansa is the older. 

I like Jon a lot, I just hope if he goes down it's something a tad more valorous than his brother. But, he seems like a (if not THE) focal point of the story.  Bran's story just isn't interesting yet.  I hope it pans out to something other than a cripples' journey of self discovery.

As for Robb's story, I think it could have gone interesting if it went further but the doing's with the Freys needed to be resolved.   Still, his was one of the least interesting threads of the tale.

It can go down Jordan Road if shit keeps happening. The second I get a chapter devoted to a magic item in the shape of a Lion or to Sansa tugging her braid and calling Petyr muleheaded, Martin's head will roll.

Edit: To clarify, I can live with the series appearing to go-on forever as long as I'm entertained.  Jordan stopped amusing around book 6.  The opening of book 7 just murdered the series for me.

Blah...

Thanks folks.  I did butcher some of the character names.

Yah, I like Arya.  As much because she seems to run into the more interesting minor characters.  Her sword trainer in the first book,  the assassin later on, etc.  Sansa is a huge pain in the ass who speciallizes in fucking up so badly that she gets a fair amount of likeable characters killed.

I realize Bran has big things in store for him,  but as a character he just isn't that interesting.  Maybe if his entourage got padded out with a couple people with a personality....

Oh hell yeah. Felt that way since I read it when I was a kid.

The one where they sidetrack to take advantage of an opportunity to take out the Limper kicked some ass, too. Great series. He really set up the Limper as the bad guy you kinda feel sorry for.

One thing I think that will save Martin from going down jordans road is that all of his books go somewhere. Plot advancement occurs things happen main characters die. In jordans book it has become stagnant the last couple were thousand pages of nothing occuring. The wheel of time has ground to a halt because jordan is afraid of losing his money hat. Heheh if Martin turned his series that big I am not sure any of the characters could survive it.

Martins biggest problem is he has so many ideas and plots he wants to work in and move people along that he is overly prolific and given his way the books would be monolithic. Still it seems like he unlike jordan has a good editor to keep him in check book wise.

Kaid

I'll have to give this new Cook book a try.  I came late to the "Black Company" books and really enjoyed his style.  In fact, my only complaint would be that his books are too short.

GRRM of course does not have that problem.  But if you're a fan of the "Ice and Fire" series and didn't already know about it, check out the graphic novel treatment his "Hedge Knight" short story.  It can also be found in comic book form as a series of installments but this collects them all together.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097640110X/qid=1119379735/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8874210-6506345?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

While the events in Hedge Knight preceed those of the series (by like 100 years?) they do offer some insight into the mysterious Targaryens (sp?) which apply well towards the continued enjoyment of the whole ASOIAF milleu.

Martin already has gone Jordan to some degree. Originally the books were supposed to be a trilogy, no? I'm a fan of economical writing, I don't think you need thousands of pages to tell a compelling story. For god's sake at least produce sets of books that work as a whole but also as smaller sets.

I read the first book in the Martin series and realized at the end that the cool first chapter (with the ice creature or whatever it was) had ZERO relation to the rest of the book. It was just "hey, here's a cool encounter, maybe I'll get around to explaining it in book 7 or something."

I find in a lot of things all these cool ideas build up and the end result has to be a letdown. In many ways the premise is inversely proportional to the eventual outcome - the cooler and more elaborate the premise, the more dissapointing things will end up as things are forgotten, ignored, end up not making sense, and generally deflate.

It's quite possible to write a series of books where each book is wrapped up in a nice little bow to some degree. The end of the first Martin book was just "OMG CAN YOU WAIT FOR BOOK TWO!!!!?!!???" It was well written and I enjoyed it but I'd like my cliffhangers to happen more in weekly TV series and less in books that come out half a decade apart.

Edit: I might pick up all the books when the entire series is done - in 2017 or so.

Shouldn't that be in green text (IE sarcasm, IE I'm being a jerk and questioning your reading comprehension skills. The encounter is pretty much explained in that book and further in book 2 and onwards. It seems pretty clear to ME what happened.. but /shrug) ? I guess there's money in Cliff Notes for this series afterall. 

Isn't the plan anyhow to have the series wrapped up by book 7 (pre-split)?  Doesn't seem feasible as of yet.  A lot of people seem to need to come of age before the real significant events are going to occur.  He's only 57, so perhaps we'll see an end before he croaks.   

Edit: Upon further re-reading, why the fuck do they bother with Sansa? God, Rickon's story would be more interesting.

Oops, I didn't realize that was really a spoiler. Actually I was kidding about book 7, I made that up - is it really supposed to be 7 books now? I swear it was a trilogy at one point.

There was some talk awhile back that the fourth book would occur twenty years later the word was though that too much stuff happened that he wanted to view in better detail so a new book got inserted in between and now with the new book being split into two thats been pushed back again.  So whatever he had planned for book 4 is now book 6!  Which means there is probably no way he is going to get wrapped up in 7.

As long as I enjoy the stories I don't mind, but seriously, being consice and leaving some things to speculation and imagination are actually desirable things to try for.

Oh yeah, a very nice pair of books I always forget to mention in these threads are The Initiate Brother and the Gatherer of Clouds by Sean Russell.  Basically a political military tale set in a japanesse themed world.  Would still consider them fantasy but the most "magic" in them is the martial arts and related skills of the monks in the book, one of which is a central character.  Good stuff.

Xilren

My major complaint with Jordan is NOTHING HAPPENS.  He's started recycling his villains in some goofy resurrection side plot.  That, and the bizarre relationships thing....  most of his main characters seem to be angling for harems or something.  I have no problem with a long series of books if you have fun reading them and you have some actual plot going on.

Martin has shit happening.  All the time.  Killing off characters left and right.  He DOES foreshadow a bit too much by dishing out a scene,  than not following up on it for a few thousand pages.  I'm still not sure what the deal is with Stannis' daughter,  who gets introduced in book 2 and poof, gone.  (I have the feeling this is supposed to be another plot like Bran's).

I think my other problem is the pointless scheming (what I called "villains being villainous" earlier).  Honestly,  how come no one has at least TRIED to take out the eunuch or Littlefinger?  Those bitches need killing.  Now.

Martin gets bonus points for killing off interesting or plot important characters too.  Book 3 really winnowed the Stark line down.

For another long series of books done right:

Bujold and her Miles Vorkosigan books -- 

Space opera.  GREAT characters, pretty good plots.  Right now,  Bujold is my favorite female fantasy/sci fi author.  I think the series stands at 8 or 10 books now,  counting the couple of prequels following Miles mother (who is an amazing character).  Miles has aged,  messed up, been a hero, gone through alot of hell, and finally married.

Bujold's fantasy books are pretty neat as well.  Spirituality in a fantasy setting done fairly well and in an interesting manner.

Alright, how about some trashy/fun reading recommendations?

I went through the Archer Mayor "Joe Gunther" mystery series.  Not bad,  and one book is a good night's reading.  Basically,  a Vermont detective involved in some usually bizarre cases.  Nothing groundbreaking.

Gemmell --  Most of his stuff I'd rate as well-written hack fantasy.  Some stand out books ("Druss the Legend" and "Waylander" are fun) that are alot of fun.

King's Warhammer novels,  the "Slayer" series --  This is pure throwback to pulp fantasy,  in a very mean Warhammer universe.  Let the mind go, and enjoy.

O'Brian's "Aubrey & Maturin" books --  About 22 of em.  Napoleonic era British navy.  VERY well done sailing/technical stuff.  I rate this down to fun reading because I just found it too repetitive after a while.  That, and I'm still disgruntled about skipping one book in the lousy series and having that be the book he kills off a couple of characters.

I assume.  Because all of a sudden they're gone and someone is trying to get married again.....  Not bitter much.  Really.

She seems pretty universally reviled.  Sansa Stark, the Jar Jar Binks of "Song of Fire and Ice."

Maybe she'll do something 'important' like turn over all the North lands to the Lannisters in some brilliant move to show how responsible she is, and not a fuckup after all.


Now that I've read what Murgos posted about some later book happening 20 years later, I can see that happening.  Thinking about overarching plots, I'm realizing that things are headed in a direction where a nice leap-forward would be plausible.  That also would be in line with what I read was one of the inspirations for the books, the 100 years war.

It would be nice if Martin spaced out some of the shit that's happening.  It's not making much sense that everyone keeps at the whole butchery thing non-stop.  One of these sides should have settled down to consolidate gains by now.

Especially since,  until cannon,  it was pretty easy to shut things down by going to ground in your fortifications.  Not much anyone could do to get you out besides starvation or treachery.

I am worried about breaking up the next book.  If one has everything on the main continent,  and the other book has all the outlying characters,  it would seem to concentrate most of the better characters into one book.

Of course,  this might have been why Martin put Arya and Tyrion on boats off the mainland.

Noone's taken out the Spider because he is useful.  While he is a scheming, backstabbing bastard, he's a scheming backstabbing bastard that can get info on your enemies - and most of the protagonists in Westeros are desperate/angry enough to deal with him because they think need his info.  Also I imagine a fair bit of pride - why should I be scared of a fat, effeminite half man?

Noone took out Littlefinger because for a long time he was considered Mostly Harmless.  He was this lord from a poxy land out the back of nowhere who had a hopeless crush on whats-her-name Stark, Ned's wife.  While he just moped around he was no harm - especially when he was shown to be a damn good Master of Coin.  It wasn't until everything went pearshaped that he's shown he is a dangerous bastard, and he's been scheming for years to get what is due to him (in his mind).  I'm not quite sure what he wants to do with Sansa, although since she looks a lot like her mother, I got a pretty good idea he's gonna be jumping in the sack with her before too long.

I'm now digging into Endymion myself, and loving it.  Odd, because I consider Hyperion to be one of the great scifi novels of our time and I'd never read any of the sequels.

I'm on a rereading kick at the moment ...

Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll, with a long, long subtitle, is a fantastic and well-researched account of the history of the Arabian peninsula from the early 20th century up to September 10th, 2001.  Great stuff.

The first two Artemis Fowl books.  These are billed as children's books, and often pitched as Harry Potter-ish.  The only similarity is that they juxtapose a secret, magical world with the modern one with a child as the main character.  Young Mr. Fowl is a very wealthy child who is also an evil, actively criminal genius.  Think Stewie from Family Guy as a prepubescent, battling it out with fairies.  I love these books.

Jurassic Park.  I read this book quite a while before the movie.  It's one of Crichton's better books.  Don't let the sucky sequels scare you off.

Invasion by Robin Cook.  I really hate this book.  I have no idea why I reread it.  I was bored over a weekend and felt the need to harm my brain, I guess.  God, Robin Cook is a horrible writer.

Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour.  One of my alltime favorites.  It's not a western, despite its author.  A native Sioux who's also a test pilot for the Navy crashlands in Russia during the Cold War.  A game of cat and mouse ensues between our intrepid hero and a Yakut (native Siberian) who's in the Soviet military.

King Rat by China Mieville.  This book is even better the second time around.  I want to have Mieville's manbabies.  Everything I've read by him is good.

Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, the first and, sadly, the best Wheel of Time book.  So, I tried an experiment.  I reread this book pretending it was just one book, not a series.  When I was done, I put it down, and that was it.  You know what?  That works.  It's quite a good standalone novel.  Damn Jordan to hell for ruining it.

One new book I hadn't read before ...

Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card.  A modern-ish retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.  It's pretty good, though I have one criticism of this and Card's other books:  it's too short.  It really needed about 30 pages or so at the end to flesh out the story.  As it is, it ended too abruptly.  Fantastic book nonetheless.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson was absolutely brilliant. I picked up the recommendation from this thread.

Fast Food Nation is an interesting non-fiction book. I have grown pretty weary about "woe is me" attacks on industries like fast food, but I have learned some really interesting stuff in this book. The chapters on chemical flavors used in all of our processed foods was particularly illuminating.

I also read some China Mieville thanks to the earlier thread. Need more!

Catch-22 is oldie, but an absolutely hilarious, timeless, absurd war book.

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is a great realistic end of the world book.

The Stand by Stephen King.  I'm not sure if anyone hasn't read this book. I'm usually not a King fan, and his stories can be a little simplistic and tawdry, but this was an awesome read.

Oh, and any post wouldn't be complete without a Robert Jordan dig, so I'm going to tug at my braid and hit submit.

Especially when you have flies in your eyes.

If you want end of the world epic type books, my favorite by far is Swan Song by Robert McCammon (who is, by the way, the most criminally underappreciated horror/suspense writer out there)

While I enjoyed that and have read a few other of his books, the ending of Swan Song didn't do much for me and overall it was very similar in many ways to the Stand.

Oh yea, my traditional pimping of Michelle West's Sun Sword series of books that no one else I know has seem to read.  Try the first one, it a very different take on typical fantasy world that I enjoyed quite a bit.

Xilren

Has Bujold come out with a Miles book since Diplomatic Immunity?

Nope,  that was the last one.

She started cranking out the Chalion books.

Though the Chalion series hasn't caught me yet like Miles did, mainly because I'm not inclined towards any theology, they have had some of her best lines yet.

Speaking of which, didn't the third book, Hallowed Hunt, just hit stores?