Return of the Book Thread

[Rasix]

The series does kind of end on a "meh".  It does end though, which is refreshing.  I didn't find the whole "going South" to be quite as bad as others though and tackled the Glittering Stone books with as much zeal as the first 3.  Towards the end, I did get a bit tired of the "invincible super bad dudes" that Cook like to use liberally.

Please tell me you read The Silver Spike.  My favorite of the entire series, but is considered an offshoot.

[Murgos]

I found it rather impressive that the tone of the books changes so much with the Narrator.  Croaker, Raven, Lady, Case, Murgen, Sleepy and then back to an older Croaker, after everything he had been through.

Anyway, my favorite books in the series are The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The Silver Spike, Bleak Seasons and Water Sleeps.  I would probably put Shadows Linger at #1 as my favorite followed by Silver Spike and then Bleak Seasons.  I've grown to enjoy Lady's two books but not as much as some of the others and I like probably 3/4ths of Soldiers Live a lot and dislike 1/4th of it very, very much.

[Sky]

Glen should probably go back to work at the factory imo.

[Johny Cee]

I found it rather impressive that the tone of the books changes so much with the Narrator.  Croaker, Raven, Lady, Case, Murgen, Sleepy and then back to an older Croaker, after everything he had been through.

Anyway, my favorite books in the series are The Black Company, Shadows Linger, The Silver Spike, Bleak Seasons and Water Sleeps.  I would probably put Shadows Linger at #1 as my favorite followed by Silver Spike and then Bleak Seasons.  I've grown to enjoy Lady's two books but not as much as some of the others and I like probably 3/4ths of Soldiers Live a lot and dislike 1/4th of it very, very much.

I'm of the exact same opinion as Murgos, to the letter.

[Stormwaltz]

Holy fucking shit, I had totally forgotten how funy it was. It's a Star Trek novel -- an old one. How Much For Just the Planet?. It's a musical comedy.

That's one of the few - one of the very few - Star Trek novels that stands on its own merits as a piece of writing. Scotty golfing with Klingons was brilliant. Plus Neil Gaiman, under an anagramatical pseudonym, has a cameo.

I often enjoy Peter David's stuff, but I recognize that most of his charm is that I grok all his geek references to IP minutiae.

Anyway, I'm popping in because I found out this morning the writer of the original Homeworld has a novel out called "The Mirrored Heavens." It appears to be a near-future Tom Clancy-esque thing. It's probably disposable, but once in a while you have to eat a cheeseburger.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Mirrored-Heavens-David-J-Williams/dp/0553385410

[Margalis]

Right now I'm reading Barker's "The Great and Secret Show." Not sure I'll finish it, it feels like a retread of WeaveWorld but much lower quality. Disjointed, no central characters, very uneven - important things are glossed over in a paragraph while minor points go on for pages. Also it's long, and long plus not very compelling is a bad combination. I'll give it a few more chapters.

Over the course of his career he moved from horror to dark fantasy, I far prefer the horror stuff. I get the sense that my rating of his work would follow close to an exact timeline.

Finished the first book of Lovecraft stuff. "The Color of Space" was probably my favorite story.

[Sky]

Is that like The Colour Out of Space? Agreed, great story. My favorite is The Whisperer In Darkness.

I'm reading the Time Odyssey series by Clarke and Baxter. Meh.

[Rishathra]

I rather liked the first one, but I'm a big fan of alternate history/historical mash-up type stories.  Second one was meh; I don't care much for the "space shield that saves earth" stuff.  Finale was .

[Sky]

I'm bailing out after the second one, anyway. Now I gotta hunt down something to read.

[WayAbvPar]

Just another thank you to all of you who helped put me onto the Dresden Files. I am absolutely LOVING the series. Wikipedia mentions that there may be a PnP game being tested based on the universe. I would buy that just for the lore.

[Johny Cee]

I'm bailing out after the second one, anyway. Now I gotta hunt down something to read.

An invitation to bore someone?  Excellent.  Off the top of my head:

The Name of the Wind,  Patrick Rothfus -- Pretty traditional epic fantasy in story.  But it's really, really, really well written.  Got alot of critical praise last year,  and I think it's also a NYT bestseller.

The Lies of Lock Lamora, by Scott Lynch -- It's Oceans 11 meets Ren-faire.  Basically a heist plot.  Well written,  has a very modern sensibility.

Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson -- Hard scifi about a manned mission/terraforming of Mars.  Realistic science,  heavy on politics and philosophy.

Armor, by John Steakley -- Actiony scifi, with powered armor ala Starship Troopers, but without much of the philosphy beyond "war is bad".  There is one very wierd angle:  the author reuses a couple of characters from his only other published novel as the main characters.  The odd bit is the other novel is a contemporary horror/vampire novel, and this is far future scifi.

[Morat20]

Just another thank you to all of you who helped put me onto the Dresden Files. I am absolutely LOVING the series. Wikipedia mentions that there may be a PnP game being tested based on the universe. I would buy that just for the lore.

It's being done by Evil Hat, the folks that did Spirit of the Century and Don't Rest Your Head. Supposedly using a modified FATE system.

I like SoTC and Don't Rest Your Head is rather awesomely weird, if really only designed for maybe one or two players at most.

[Ironwood]

If you're going to read Red Mars, do so and then STOP.

Don't read the follow ups.

No.


NO.

BAD.

DON'T.

[Johny Cee]

The series does kind of end on a "meh".  It does end though, which is refreshing.  I didn't find the whole "going South" to be quite as bad as others though and tackled the Glittering Stone books with as much zeal as the first 3.  Towards the end, I did get a bit tired of the "invincible super bad dudes" that Cook like to use liberally.

Please tell me you read The Silver Spike.  My favorite of the entire series, but is considered an offshoot.

I liked Silver Spike.  It didn't sit well the first time through, mostly because I think its the most negative Company book outside of Soldier's...  but It really grew on me.


Just ordered a pile of books from Amazon UK:

Toll the Hounds (latest Erikson, being released a couple months early....)
A bunch of Mike Carey "Felix Castor" books (comics writer,  basically its a John Constantine-ish character in novel form)
Esselmont's Night of Knives (Erikson's buddy; he's writing supplementary books fleshing out background events in the Malazan series)
Joe Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings (this isn't coming out in the US for a while, I think, and I've heard lots of good stuff)

[Sky]

I'm tearing through a new Modesitt book, The Hammer of Darkness. Enjoyable, pretty quick read, sci-fi in the vein of his standalones but with esp and gods. He's having some fun with pulp psychology and wordplay. I like the way Modesitt is maturing as a writer and doing more and more with the prose while still keeping an interesting story line with enough action to move things along.

[FatuousTwat]

Please tell me you read The Silver Spike.  My favorite of the entire series, but is considered an offshoot.

Yeah, I read it, was pretty enjoyable, and tied up some loose ends as well if I remember correctly.

Armor, by John Steakley -- Actiony scifi, with powered armor ala Starship Troopers, but without much of the philosphy beyond "war is bad".  There is one very wierd angle:  the author reuses a couple of characters from his only other published novel as the main characters.  The odd bit is the other novel is a contemporary horror/vampire novel, and this is far future scifi.

I really remember enjoying this book, but can't remember many specifics... I guess I should re-read it.

I'm tearing through a new Modesitt book, The Hammer of Darkness. Enjoyable, pretty quick read, sci-fi in the vein of his standalones but with esp and gods. He's having some fun with pulp psychology and wordplay. I like the way Modesitt is maturing as a writer and doing more and more with the prose while still keeping an interesting story line with enough action to move things along.

I've never read any of his sci-fi, only his Saga of Recluce, I'll have to check it out.

[Sky]

Go back a bit in this thread, I think I liked Flash the best.

[Morat20]

Go back a bit in this thread, I think I liked Flash the best.

I finally picked up a copy of Adiamante a few weeks ago. You can see how much he likes playing with the same themes. I liked Flash, but preferred The Parafaith War and The Ethos Effect.

[Draegan]

If you're going to read Red Mars, do so and then STOP.

Don't read the follow ups.

No.


NO.

BAD.

DON'T.

I couldn't even finish Red Mars.  But that's all I remember about it since it was like 10 years ago or something.

[Reg]

The whole Mars series was great. Ironwood probably disapproved of the later books because there wasn't enough puppy slaughtering or something.

[HRose]

Toll the Hounds (latest Erikson, being released a couple months early....)

I'll wait for non-spoiler comments, if I'm not reading them already in other forums/blogs.

I'm still 250 pages from the end of Deadhouse Gates, but it's indeed a masterpiece.

[Abagadro]

If you like the Revelation Space books, Reynolds has a new full-novel called The Prefect that I thought was pretty good.

[Arrrgh]

Book Depository has Toll The Hounds now. Free shipping worldwide ftw.

[HaemishM]

Finished the first Malazan book, and decided to go a different route for my next read. I had gone to a library book sale a few months ago, and got The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat in hardback for like 10 cents. It's a compliation of the first 3 SSR books, and though I've seen the series in bookstores all my life, I've never read them. Very fun, very '60's style rogue adventurer type story. Fun, pulp reading.

[HRose]

Finished the first Malazan book, and decided to go a different route for my next read.

Don't wait too much before going into Deadhouse Gates. There are a lot of characters and plots being fleshed out, so it's better to read the books while they are fresh.

In particular there are a couple major revelations that make you reconsider those parts in GotM that didn't make sense.

And Deadhouse Gates is really a HUGE improvement over the first on every aspect possible.

[Abagadro]

New Neal Stephenson book drops September 9

[WayAbvPar]

New Neal Stephenson book drops September 9

 

[Engels]

Pretty psyched about this one! From wiki:

Anathem is a novel by Neal Stephenson, to be published on September 9, 2008.[1] Unconfirmed reports by Lev Grossman writing for TIME speculate that the novel is set in a post apocalyptic future, wherein the protagonist, Raz, is among a cohort of secluded scientists, philosophers and mathematicians who are called upon to save the world from impending catastrophe.[2] The novel's description on Amazon.co.uk concurs, explaining further that Raz has spent his entire life inside a 3,400-year-old sanctuary. The rest of society — the "saecular world" — is described as an "endless landscape of casinos and megastores that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, dark ages and renaissances, world wars and climate change." Resident scholars, including Raz, are unexpectedly summoned, one at a time, by a frightened "higher power" to leave their monastic stronghold in the hope that they may prevent an approaching catastrophe.[3]

[Sky]

Raz is sent out to find a water chip?

[Phildo]

Yes, I thought Foundation was a good story too.

[Engels]

I don't expect Stephenson  to even come close to the awsomeness of Azimov, but that's beside the point. The scenario is a pretty standard template in Sci-Fi...apocalyptic future with secluded surviving society making a stab at saving the world/universe by venturing forth into the wild unknown. Now the trick is, can Stephenson pull this off without going into a 60 page side-trek to explain the origin of the paperclip.

[WayAbvPar]

I really don't care if he can. I dig his tangents 

[Morat20]

New Neal Stephenson book drops September 9

It will be 1400 pages. It will weight more than a terrier. It will contain at least 200 pages of interesting, yet irrelevant, personal monologues on: Math, economics, common snack foods, the origins of words, cryptology, military tactics, the internet, digital content, economicss, or the odd nature of modern gonzo porn.

There will be a man with a strangely glowing ball, and an odd name. He will act as catalyst, but will not be explained.

And I will probably really like it anyways. :)

[Murgos]

And I will probably really like it anyways. :)

That's about how I feel.  I loved the Baroque cycle, not so much for the story, but for all the little interesting side bits.

edit:

Hardcover: 960 pages

[Samwise]

It would be very awesome if Enoch Root turned up in there somewhere.