Return of the Book Thread

[murdoc]

The only fantasy I've ever read are the first four or five Sword of Truth books. I'm sick of reading them though. Can someone recommend a one-shot fantasy novel to me? Everything in this thread so far seems to be part of a series and I'm not looking for a commitment. I just need blood, guts, and a solid story.

'Legend' by David Gemmel.  Its got blood, guts, magic, and a fucking big siege/battle, and finishes within 300-odd pages.  Great read.

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm sold!

Starting reading Book 1 of Jack Whyte's telling of the Arthurian legend, Skystone. I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, but I read his take on Lancelot and loved it, so figured I should read his 7 book series on Arthur.

[Abagadro]

Johny Cee,

Thanks for pushing me to pick back up The Golden Age and finally push through that first part into the meat of the story.  Great book. As a former probate lawyer, the scene with the Curia judges made me laugh out loud. I'm onto the second one now.

EDIT: Oh, and Banks has a new Culture novel coming out in late February. Just spied it on amazon and preordered it.

[Johny Cee]

The only fantasy I've ever read are the first four or five Sword of Truth books. I'm sick of reading them though. Can someone recommend a one-shot fantasy novel to me? Everything in this thread so far seems to be part of a series and I'm not looking for a commitment. I just need blood, guts, and a solid story.

'Legend' by David Gemmel.  Its got blood, guts, magic, and a fucking big siege/battle, and finishes within 300-odd pages.  Great read.

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm sold!

Starting reading Book 1 of Jack Whyte's telling of the Arthurian legend, Skystone. I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, but I read his take on Lancelot and loved it, so figured I should read his 7 book series on Arthur.

Most of Gemmel's "Drenai" books are fun one shots.  Legend is probably the best of the batch,  probably followed by Waylander.  Not a whole lot is carried between books except for timeline setting.  The timeline seems to jump all around.

I think Waylander is the only book that has a sequal.

Gemmel is pretty solid fun reading, without heading into fantasy cliche land.

[stu]

I put Legend on request at my college's library today. The darn thing is at one of the other campuses. Thanks for the recommendation!

I might cave in and order it used from Amazon.

[pants]

You should be able to find Legend pretty easily 2nd hand - it was published in 1984 so there should be plenty of copies out there.

I might see if I can dig up a copy m'self, haven't read it for a few years.

[Ironwood]

Finished that new Covenant book.  As predicted, total shite.

Part one should be called 'Linden Avery the Collosally Stupid' and part two should be called 'Linden Avery can't manage without a Man'.

I love Donaldson, but he's Cunted this series and, what's more, I find he's got another TWO books of this pap coming out.  Jesus Christ.

He also has to STOP putting his own hatred of women into his books.  His new Giant Characters consist of 10 Women Giants who hold a male giant prisoner and manacle and truss him up for his own safety while beating him around.

Donaldson :  Between the Women and the Rape, The Man Has Issues.

[Hoax]

Slowly working through Crazy Cock by Henry Miller, pretty damn interesting to read his early stuff its more like a manuscript then a novel at times and the content is all over the damn place.

I've got like $50 in old gift cards for Borders/Walden/B&N, thinking of catching up w/ the Mechwarrior/Btech storyline been awhile since I've read any of that stuff.

[Akkori]

Getting harder to find the old Battletech stuff. I've thought about catching up on the series, but got very confused when trying to figure out where I left off based on the few books on the shelf. Same for the Shadowrun stuff.

[Hoax]

I have all the old battletech stuff, well damn near all of it except the really old old stuff.  I'm actually already on about book #20 of the Mechwarrior (post wizkids) storyline, the game is a mess now but the stories are still fun.

[Johny Cee]

Johny Cee,

Thanks for pushing me to pick back up The Golden Age and finally push through that first part into the meat of the story.  Great book. As a former probate lawyer, the scene with the Curia judges made me laugh out loud. I'm onto the second one now.

EDIT: Oh, and Banks has a new Culture novel coming out in late February. Just spied it on amazon and preordered it.

I'm glad that my recommendation was of use.  If you want,  I could mail the omnibus of the trilogy out to you.  Picked it up used for a few bucks.

I've been meaning to pick up Banks stuff for a while now.  The local Borders has a shitty selection of Banks,  so it looks like I'm going to have to order.

[Murgos]

I went to preorder that new Banks novel and I was recommended this:

The Tower of Fear  by Glen Cook.  I read this in 1990 and lost my copy of it.  It's a pretty good one-off and not set in any off Cooks established universes.  I recall enjoying it a lot.  Nice to see it's getting the reprint treatment along with the rest of his catalog.

[Raging Turtle]

Can we do book rants in this thread?  Because I want to do one.

I picked up Stirling's next book in the 'Dies the Fire' series, The Protector's War, on a whim, and it may have been a mistake. 

     The first book is set in a world where electricity and gunpowder and a few other things have stopped working, which makes for an interesting setting.  Mass starvation, a return to crossbows and chain mail in the 20th/21st century; fun stuff, right?  As previously mentioned, the protagonists are far too perfect and they don't really change or learn at all over the the course of the book, but whatever, I'm generally forgiving and not looking for Literature, I'm looking for Stirling to make a interesting world, which he did well in his Island in the Sea of Time series. 

     All that would be fine except for one character that grew increasingly annoying and finally went way over the top.  One of the two main characters is Wiccan, which, even if I personally think it's a silly religion, would be fine if she didn't wasn't thanking the Goddess everything the sun rose or a cow mooed.  It's not like the Christian characters ever spent two seconds to thank Jesus for anything.  I nearly put the book down when the she started channeling the Dark God of Badness in the midst of a battle.  There was a brief 'Well, it could have just been adrenalin' conversation afterwards, but still, that's not what I wanted or expected from this setting, and it came off as completely out of place. 

      I'm 50 pages in to the second book and it's becoming increasingly clear this is Stirling's attempt to make a world where former SCA will be the Lords of the Land. 
8 years after electronics stopped working, England has reverted to a strong monarchy - Fine, I can buy that.
Everyone uses longbows and swords - Sure, ok.  Guns don't work.
The king (Charles, by the way) has ordered everyone to dress like it's 300 years ago, for the sake of tradition - Um, what?  Vaguely acceptable, I can play along.
One character was chasing another, catches him, so they make a deal: whoever wins a single joust (jousting competition?  I don't know the phrase for just one run), will do what the other person wishes.  - What the FUCK?  Because everyone carries around huge long lances when they're on the run or in the middle of a search?  Or carries them EVER, because they're just so practical?   

     I'm going to keep reading in hopes that it becomes less of a Ren Fair and more something believable.  The conflict with the Protector was the most interesting part of the first book, and with a name like The Protector's War I'm hopeful that will crop up soon instead of this setting-up-later-plot-points England thing.

Also, he's horrible at writing dialect and needs to stop.  It's incredibly annoying when I have to sound out the words to know what a character said.

[Samwise]

My issue is not theoretically how to organize my books, it is how to physically sort 30 boxes of books.

Quicksort?   

[Abagadro]

I'm glad that my recommendation was of use.  If you want,  I could mail the omnibus of the trilogy out to you.  Picked it up used for a few bucks.

I've been meaning to pick up Banks stuff for a while now.  The local Borders has a shitty selection of Banks,  so it looks like I'm going to have to order.

I've got all 3 already, but thanks for the offer.

Banks is surprisingly hard to find, even from online retailers. I had to track down the other Culture books at the library.

Oh, and spring is set to drop another Peter F. Hamilton book (follow up to Judas Unchained) and Alistair Reynolds book (in the Revelation Space universe) if you like that genre of British sci-fi.

[Johny Cee]

Can we do book rants in this thread?  Because I want to do one.

I picked up Stirling's next book in the 'Dies the Fire' series, The Protector's War, on a whim, and it may have been a mistake. 

     The first book is set in a world where electricity and gunpowder and a few other things have stopped working, which makes for an interesting setting.  Mass starvation, a return to crossbows and chain mail in the 20th/21st century; fun stuff, right?  As previously mentioned, the protagonists are far too perfect and they don't really change or learn at all over the the course of the book, but whatever, I'm generally forgiving and not looking for Literature, I'm looking for Stirling to make a interesting world, which he did well in his Island in the Sea of Time series. 

     All that would be fine except for one character that grew increasingly annoying and finally went way over the top.  One of the two main characters is Wiccan, which, even if I personally think it's a silly religion, would be fine if she didn't wasn't thanking the Goddess everything the sun rose or a cow mooed.  It's not like the Christian characters ever spent two seconds to thank Jesus for anything.  I nearly put the book down when the she started channeling the Dark God of Badness in the midst of a battle.  There was a brief 'Well, it could have just been adrenalin' conversation afterwards, but still, that's not what I wanted or expected from this setting, and it came off as completely out of place. 

      I'm 50 pages in to the second book and it's becoming increasingly clear this is Stirling's attempt to make a world where former SCA will be the Lords of the Land. 
8 years after electronics stopped working, England has reverted to a strong monarchy - Fine, I can buy that.
Everyone uses longbows and swords - Sure, ok.  Guns don't work.
The king (Charles, by the way) has ordered everyone to dress like it's 300 years ago, for the sake of tradition - Um, what?  Vaguely acceptable, I can play along.
One character was chasing another, catches him, so they make a deal: whoever wins a single joust (jousting competition?  I don't know the phrase for just one run), will do what the other person wishes.  - What the FUCK?  Because everyone carries around huge long lances when they're on the run or in the middle of a search?  Or carries them EVER, because they're just so practical?   

     I'm going to keep reading in hopes that it becomes less of a Ren Fair and more something believable.  The conflict with the Protector was the most interesting part of the first book, and with a name like The Protector's War I'm hopeful that will crop up soon instead of this setting-up-later-plot-points England thing.

Also, he's horrible at writing dialect and needs to stop.  It's incredibly annoying when I have to sound out the words to know what a character said.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Island in the Sea of Time,  and I'm having some trouble with it.  Just not finding it fun to read.  I found Drake's fairly shitty 1634 or whatever to be more hacky,  but more fun to read.

The adaption of a modern society to early conditions should be the selling point.  In Island,  the islanders are handed a bunch of people with just the right specialties and anachronistic pursuits,  and are adapting without a hitch.  I mean....  compare it Kim Stanleys "Mars" books.  That guy made the terraforming/settling of Mars, especially the dry technical stuff, into interesting shit.

The tension in the story feels utterly contrived.  It's like characters have fits of insanity and launch bizarre plots for no more reason then the phase of the moon,  and the author decided we needed some Action! here.

[Johny Cee]

I went to preorder that new Banks novel and I was recommended this:

The Tower of Fear  by Glen Cook.  I read this in 1990 and lost my copy of it.  It's a pretty good one-off and not set in any off Cooks established universes.  I recall enjoying it a lot.  Nice to see it's getting the reprint treatment along with the rest of his catalog.

I've been buying all the Cook reprints just to have the books in a decent format.  Tower is a neat book,  and I'm going to enjoy replacing the falling apart paperback copy I bought used a couple years ago.

Still need to read for the first time The Dragon Never Sleeps (one of Cook's best reviewed books) and Swordbearer. 

[Johny Cee]

Okay,  been painting and unpacking (still, after 10 months) recently and uncovered this:

The American Fantasy Tradition

A large collection of all kinds of American fantasy short stories,  from Hawthorne to Lovecraft to "Rip Van Winkle" to Stephen King (has "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut",  which I think is his best short story) to Mark Twain.  A really great collection here.

[Raging Turtle]

The adaption of a modern society to early conditions should be the selling point.  In Island,  the islanders are handed a bunch of people with just the right specialties and anachronistic pursuits,  and are adapting without a hitch.

Dies the Fire is even more guilty of this.  The main character muses 'hey, we could use someone who can teach us to how to use a sword' and bam, three paragraphs later he founds exactly that.  Same thing for bowyers, horse trainers, etc.

I know the Island series has the lot of the same issues, but I liked watching history change with the effects of the new technology.

[Morat20]

I've got all 3 already, but thanks for the offer.

Banks is surprisingly hard to find, even from online retailers. I had to track down the other Culture books at the library.

Oh, and spring is set to drop another Peter F. Hamilton book (follow up to Judas Unchained) and Alistair Reynolds book (in the Revelation Space universe) if you like that genre of British sci-fi.

Finding his Culture stuff seems easier than his other works. I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of Feersum Enjinn, and The Bridge. I think Crow Road and Complicity are still in print, and I just saw a new printing of The State of the Art in my local bookstore, so they may be doing another run of his older stuff.

Samwise:
Ha!

[Margalis]

Twain is great, I love the story about the guy who encounters the devil and it turns out the devil is made of Plutonium. (Or something like that...maybe not Plutonium but something similar) I think it was whatever Mary Curie discovered, Radium maybe? I forget the exact details but the gist of the story is that the guy is going to sell his soul for the actual body of the devil, or something like that...really imaginitive and very interesting historically.

In my collection of books I have literally a hundred science fiction and fantasy anthologies, if not more. Along with a few hundred monthlies like "Fantasy and Science Fiction." It's kind of a pain in the ass because I know I must have 10+ duplicates of some stories.

[Endie]

I did read all the Island in the Sea of Time books, because the actual idea behind the story isn't completely useless.  I've also read a couple of the Protector's War books.  But it's the worst sort of Mary Jane writing.  I'd completely echo Turtle's stuff on his embarassing Wiccan stuff.  He's also obsessed with both lesbianism and bdsm (far less so male homosexuality, funnily enough).

It isn't quite as bad as Eric Flint's stuff, but basically Stirling vastly underestimates the difficulties of adapting to the technology levels each society finds themselves with.  Setting up a foundry without even the machine tools to bootstrap the undertaking takes less time for utterly inexperienced neonates with vast shortages of skilled labour than it would for us today in the modern world.  In the space of a decade or so, technology leaks have allowed early bronze-age societies to raise themselves up to cannon-using, trans-oceanic-trading superpowers, and learning dead languages takes weeks at worst.

Not to mention that he has no idea what sign language is like, nor the limitations upon conversing using it.  Whole societies learn to use it just because of one deaf girl, and they express themselves with as much subtlety and complexity as Stirling is able to muster.  Islam is reviled (not, of course, using editorial voice), Christianity treated with a kind of benign tolerance, while Wiccans are happily passing the James Randi test and manipulating the world around them supernaturally.  Not to mention the Lord of the Rings obsession thing which is so ridiculous and laughable that even he starts using characters to make excuses and wink at the reader about it.

Like I said, though, he came up with such an intriguing concept that I read a few.  No more, though.  The Protector's War was just awful.

[Morat20]

He's also obsessed with both lesbianism and bdsm

Let's be honest -- who isn't?

[Rasix]

Just finished Erikson's Midnight Tides.  Started slow, started somewhat confusing, and in Erikson's style it somewhat all made sense in the end.  The entirety of the Crippled God stuff doesn't really make any more sense at the end of it (than it did at the end of 3/4), but it was an entertaining and the payoff at the end again was well worth it.  Trull Sengar 

Ugg, Bonehunters is still in hardcover and Reaper's Gate isn't in the US yet.  Anyone know a cheap/reliable place to import from? Do the UK/CA versions do goofy stuff like add a "u" to color? 

Anyhow, this may now be my favorite series.  Erikson's style/voice just really clicked with me on this one.

[Murgos]

So, when do we get to close this thread and start "The Son of Book thread"?  Because, if we don't do it soon, it's going to be even longer until we can start "Return of Son of Book Thread."  After which we should probably have "Bride of Book Thread" or some such.   

[Polysorbate80]

Because the book thread should be a trilogy?

Although, a ten-volume epic thread series would be appropriate if you stick with fantasy novels as subject matter.

[Arrrgh]

Just finished Erikson's Midnight Tides.  Started slow, started somewhat confusing, and in Erikson's style it somewhat all made sense in the end.  The entirety of the Crippled God stuff doesn't really make any more sense at the end of it (than it did at the end of 3/4), but it was an entertaining and the payoff at the end again was well worth it.  Trull Sengar 

Ugg, Bonehunters is still in hardcover and Reaper's Gate isn't in the US yet.  Anyone know a cheap/reliable place to import from? Do the UK/CA versions do goofy stuff like add a "u" to color? 

Anyhow, this may now be my favorite series.  Erikson's style/voice just really clicked with me on this one.

Free shipping from the UK. Takes about a week to get to me at book rate.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/

[Johny Cee]

So, when do we get to close this thread and start "The Son of Book thread"?  Because, if we don't do it soon, it's going to be even longer until we can start "Return of Son of Book Thread."  After which we should probably have "Bride of Book Thread" or some such.   

Yah.  I already used Book Thread Redux, and More Book Thread.  Not that I try to keep some book thread from sinking below the first page....

[Johny Cee]

Just finished Erikson's Midnight Tides.  Started slow, started somewhat confusing, and in Erikson's style it somewhat all made sense in the end.  The entirety of the Crippled God stuff doesn't really make any more sense at the end of it (than it did at the end of 3/4), but it was an entertaining and the payoff at the end again was well worth it.  Trull Sengar 

Ugg, Bonehunters is still in hardcover and Reaper's Gate isn't in the US yet.  Anyone know a cheap/reliable place to import from? Do the UK/CA versions do goofy stuff like add a "u" to color? 

Anyhow, this may now be my favorite series.  Erikson's style/voice just really clicked with me on this one.

I've been ordering the Erikson books form Amazon UK,  though I think a Canadian seller should have it.

The next two books get pretty depressing.  Midnight Tides had some down bits,  but Tehol and Bugg kept the mood somewhat chipper.

[Sky]

Night of the Living Book Thread

[murdoc]

Just finished Erikson's Midnight Tides.  Started slow, started somewhat confusing, and in Erikson's style it somewhat all made sense in the end.  The entirety of the Crippled God stuff doesn't really make any more sense at the end of it (than it did at the end of 3/4), but it was an entertaining and the payoff at the end again was well worth it.  Trull Sengar 

Ugg, Bonehunters is still in hardcover and Reaper's Gate isn't in the US yet.  Anyone know a cheap/reliable place to import from? Do the UK/CA versions do goofy stuff like add a "u" to color? 

Anyhow, this may now be my favorite series.  Erikson's style/voice just really clicked with me on this one.

I can send you a copy of Bonehunters, it's a little beat up, but you're welcome to it if you want it.

[WayAbvPar]

I can send you a copy of Bonehunters, it's a little beat up, but you're welcome to it if you want it.

DVD or VHS? 

[Murgos]

Night of the Living Book Thread

  

[Johny Cee]

Bruce Campbell versus the Book Thread?


I'd offer to mail you Bonehunters and Reapers Gale, Ras, but I'm a little obsessive about having books I like in Hardcover.

I have old paperbacks of the first five Erikson "Malazan" books if any are interested.

[Sky]

Working through some more of Modesitt's stuff, the stand-alone books we have on the shelf here. He has a lot of fun writing some of those, I love some of the wordplay.

I just got a book across my desk, a graphic novel: As the World Burns. Pretty funny stuff with a message. Recommended reading for right-minded people everywhere! 

[Ironwood]

Dean R Koontz continues to be a hack.

"Religion will solve everything and you can always tell who the baddies in my books are, since they're scientists.  Evil Fucking Scientists.  But it's ok, the Monks get them in the end with FAITH.  THE POWER OF FAITH."

On a related note, I'd do Eliza Dushku.