Return of the Book Thread

[Rasix]

Finished Reaper's Gale. Not pleased with the way this one ended.  Two cheap deaths that really pissed me off with one significantly cheesier than the other.  I know he likes to pull this stuff, but doing it twice in short order to two very similar characters was just too much.  I struggled through this one. 

I think I'll start Feist's Magician books.  Not sure I can start back on Cook after finishing this book.

[JWIV]

Finished Reaper's Gale. Not pleased with the way this one ended.  Two cheap deaths that really pissed me off with one significantly cheesier than the other.  I know he likes to pull this stuff, but doing it twice in short order to two very similar characters was just too much.  I struggled through this one. 

I think I'll start Feist's Magician books.  Not sure I can start back on Cook after finishing this book.

The Magician stuff is enjoyable.  It wandered too far into milking the franchise territory for my taste afterwards.

I'm about halfway through Drunkard's Walk and it's completely fascinating, if a bit dry in parts, so I'm mixing it up with the Black Library's Heldenhammer (Time of Legends, Sigmar Trilogy).

[Johny Cee]

Finished Reaper's Gale. Not pleased with the way this one ended.  Two cheap deaths that really pissed me off with one significantly cheesier than the other.  I know he likes to pull this stuff, but doing it twice in short order to two very similar characters was just too much.  I struggled through this one. 

I think I'll start Feist's Magician books.  Not sure I can start back on Cook after finishing this book.

I'm having a rough time with Toll the Hounds, actually.  Pretty much all the viewpoints are whining with a side of narcissism, which seemed to be the M.O. for Reaper's Gale, and make it difficult to plow through.

The deaths in Reaper's Gale were completely shitty, though I could see where one of them could serve to push the story along.  I believe that Erikson has gone on record as saying that, much like <main character that dies in book 3>, those two are permadead.

[Johny Cee]

A friend from college is publishing her first big novel.  Sort of a YA/fantasy book, called Graceling

I only found out about it due to review threads that started popping up on some of the sff sites I browse, since I haven't spoken with her in ages.

[Brogarn]

Reading the Gotrek and Felix first omnibus. Fun read so far.

[jpark]

The Science of Leonardo (Da Vinci).  By Frijtof Capra.
Gorgeous plate illustrations through the books taken from both Da Vinci's paintings and his notebooks from various codexe's.  It covers his career as a sculpter, painter, engineer, anatomist, astronomer, biologist, mathemetician, geologist ... beyond the cliche reputation Leonardo has enjoyed, this book really brings to life the breadth of his accomplishments.  Also, oddly, this book is unique in that the "type setting" is gorgeous, the color of the font follows the paper used in Leonardo's notes.  There is a great deal to say about this book - regardless your specialty, chances are Leonardo has been a prescient interloper in your field. 

Michealangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.  By Ross King.
This book focuses on Michealangelo, but also spends time discussing his competitors during this era Rapheal and Da Vinci.  It's amazing that all three of these figures actually existed in the temporal spatial location in history.  I found this book rewarding as it gave me a much better sense of the early workings of the Vatican and the "war pope".  Further, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel always bewlidered me, I could not follow the scene progression, like a literal anatomy exercise it goes through every panel.  Rapheal was working in an adjacent wing, in the pope's private library on such works as the School of Athens and describes the competition between the artists.  The book describes in detail the process of transferring "cartoons" to plaster on the ceiling, the chemistry involved, the building of the scaffhold and the political turmoil of the time.  Great layman's read.

Starved for Science.  How Biotechnology is being kept out of Africa.  By Robert Paarlberg.
This book describes how science, in particular agricultural biotechnology, is being kept out of Africa.  Every country in Africa has banned or failed to use any form of agricultural biotechnology in exception for South Africa.  It describes unbelievable accounts where food aid has been sent back to the US because it is agricultrual biotechnology, despite the fact North Americans have eating the same foods for decades now.  It talks about how the main problem in Africa is food output, which is not addressed, since European trade pressure and the activity of Non-governmental organization have been so successful in discouraging the use agricultural biotechnology, which allowed America to achieve its current output levels.  Perhaps out of political correctness, the one factor never discussed in the book is the shear corruption or incompetence of African leaders that have allowed this circumstance to persist.  Africa is the only country in the world, according to this pundit, with declining agricultural productivity.  This book is written by a scholar in the area, but at a layman's level.

[IainC]

Just finished reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco which was ace, Matter by Iain M. Banks which was similarly ace and The Last Templar by Raymond Khouri which was underwhelming. Currently I'm reading Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe, Battle For The Abyss by Ben Counter and The Long Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks (sans M.). The first two are the predictable but enjoyable Black Library 40k war porn, the last is oddly off pace for Mr Banks.

I can't read only one book at a time, I usually have at least 3 or 4 on the go at any given time.

[Sky]

I usually have a couple going, too. Usually one fic and several non-fic. Not counting music books (you can find that info in the guitar thread). Right now I'm only reading two, The Historian (which I'm still loving at page 500), and an old beer brewing book from the early 80s just after it was re-legalized (from prohibition!).

[bhodi]

The Historian (which I'm still loving at page 500)

You aren't allowed. Ironwood said so.  (I enjoyed it also)

[Abagadro]

Burned through Generation Kill in about 4 days. Very good read.

[Ironwood]

The Historian (which I'm still loving at page 500)

You aren't allowed. Ironwood said so.  (I enjoyed it also)

You're more than allowed.  I welcome the fact that it has an audience.

However, I reserve the right to put that audience in the category of 'people who I just don't understand'.

[Sky]

I reserve the right to put that audience in the category of 'people who I just don't understand'.

S'what makes the world a great place.

Except when the people you don't understand are republicans.

[Sir T]

If I can toss in non fiction I'm reading "the Wisdom of Whores" by Elizabeth Pisani. Its about the whole Aids Industry. Utterly facinating, and more than a little bit shocking. Highly recommend it.

[Margalis]

While sorting through books I found "The Thing from Another World and Other Stories." It's the story that the 1951 Hawks movie was based on, as well as the 1982 Carpenter "The Thing."

It stands up really well and is *really* creepy. I can't wait to read the other stories in the collection. Also the Carpenter movie is *much* more faithful to the story, I'm amazed at how faithful it is. Carpenter absolutely nailed it, both the major plot points and the atmosphere. (I find the 1951 movie kind of silly)

[Reg]

I was in Chapters today and noticed that all of John Wyndham's books have been reprinted. So for anyone wanting to read Day of the Triffids in the original this is probably a good time.

[Margalis]

I have a bunch of Wyndham books to catalogue. Not sure if Triffids is one of them though.

[Rasix]

Just finished Magician (Apprentice & Master).  Is it worth continuing any further in the whole Riftwar series?

I found Magician to be a fairly enjoyable, easy read but the whole thing felt derivative and flat in parts.  I think I'll feel this in any work that immediately throws Humans, Elves & Dwarves in your face and has the orphan boy turn into ultimate badass++.   But I don't know, it just felt uneven.   

I think I may also just be a bit burnt out on fantasy series.

[Mazakiel]

I liked his stuff the first time I read it, long ago, but the early stuff at least is pretty cliched, and both the main characters quickly become so much more powerful than what he threw them against that it got boring.  I recall reading that his world's based off a DnD campaign he or a friend ran, and Pug and his friend quickly become the Elminsters of the world.  He quickly moves on to showcase different characters, but it never really feels less than a pretty standard fantasy series.  I've stopped following his work, so maybe his last few books have been much better. 

If you just want some easy reads that, on average, can be entertaining, they're worth reading, but there are far more enjoyable and satisfying authors to read out there.  Granted, if you've read all of the current ones already, that might leave few alternatives.  I've been reading a lot more sci fi lately, because I'm stuck waiting on the next installments from the fantasy authors I'm currently following. 

[Morat20]

Just finished Magician (Apprentice & Master).  Is it worth continuing any further in the whole Riftwar series?

I found Magician to be a fairly enjoyable, easy read but the whole thing felt derivative and flat in parts.  I think I'll feel this in any work that immediately throws Humans, Elves & Dwarves in your face and has the orphan boy turn into ultimate badass++.   But I don't know, it just felt uneven.   

I think I may also just be a bit burnt out on fantasy series.

That's the problem with older fantasy. All the good bits have been stolen by someone else, and thus have become "cliched". :)

Offhand, Feist doesn't get any better but he doesn't get a lot worse either. The last two books of the first Riftwar (Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, maybe?) are a lot lighter on the magic and revolve mostly around Arutha and Jimmy the Hand, and a lot less Pug. The second Riftwar series (until the last book) has virtually no Pug, and deals with more mundane stuff (the creation of the first 'real' Army of the Realm, a rather boring book about how one guy gets filthy rich, and then a big war where shit gets blown up).

Him and Alan Dean Foster tend to make up my beach reading, to be honest. :)

[NowhereMan]

.  Africa is the only country in the world, according to this pundit, with declining agricultural productivity.

I couldn't help myself here.

I don't feel in anyway justified in halting my contribution to this thread here though (otherwise it's just a cheap shot :()
Finally finished Slaughter House Five. It was certainly interesting and, having read Cat's Cradle, was what I'd expected from Vonnegut. To be honest despite reading Cradle I still started off expecting something a bit more mainstream SciFi. I was somewhat disappointed just on those grounds but it's an interesting marriage of contemporary political commentary with more general human themes. If you find questions of our perception of time and it's impact on our lives interesting you might enjoy it. If you enjoy commentaries on the tragedies involved in war and the capacity of those involved to distance themselves from it you'll probably enjoy it even more. Come to think of it this might actually be relevant to some sort of current affairs, who knows?

Aside from that I'm sadly lacking on non-academic books right now, closest I've got is The Philosophy of Gardens and only because I vaguely know the guy who wrote it. Interesting read if you like gardens or want to read something that tries to marry Western and Eastern views of relating to the world. I don't really want to offer an opinion because I feel I've got a bit of a mancrush on the guy who wrote it.

[JWIV]

I'm about to finish reading Battle for the Abyss (ah Black Library) after which it'll be time to start Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.

[lamaros]

Just finished Magician (Apprentice & Master).  Is it worth continuing any further in the whole Riftwar series?

Offhand, Feist doesn't get any better but he doesn't get a lot worse either.

Feist gets a lot worse. It's a steady progression downhill. He doesn't get to outright shit untill Shards of a Broken Crown, but much of it isn't worth it up to that point.

Magician is the best of the lot of you ask me, so if you're not feeling that a whole lot I'd find some other author to read.

As I have said in this thread (I think) Faerie Tale is a good book to read by him, his best by a long way if you ask me. But it is not part of the fantasy series, it's a one off fantasy/horror book set in a modern setting.

[HaemishM]

I think I may also just be a bit burnt out on fantasy series.

You most likely are. Feist is one of those that, read in context, he's a decent author, but yes, a lot of his tropes are by now standard fantasy cliche stuff. I really think Jordan's success has marred a lot of fantasy series fiction, because he's been so popular with so many of those cliches wrapped up into one series.

Finished the second Stainless Steel Rat book and started on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It's good but very very dense. I much prefer Tolstoy for depressing Russian literature.

[lamaros]

I think I may also just be a bit burnt out on fantasy series.

You most likely are. Feist is one of those that, read in context, he's a decent author, but yes, a lot of his tropes are by now standard fantasy cliche stuff. I really think Jordan's success has marred a lot of fantasy series fiction, because he's been so popular with so many of those cliches wrapped up into one series.

Finished the second Stainless Steel Rat book and started on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It's good but very very dense. I much prefer Tolstoy for depressing Russian literature.

Tolstoy? What? Fuck that. Better places to start on him than Crime and Punishment I think though.

[HaemishM]

Anna Karenina was an absolute gem, a complete masterpiece from start to finish. Crime and Punishment is good but he's no Tolstoy.

[Johny Cee]

Just finished Magician (Apprentice & Master).  Is it worth continuing any further in the whole Riftwar series?

I found Magician to be a fairly enjoyable, easy read but the whole thing felt derivative and flat in parts.  I think I'll feel this in any work that immediately throws Humans, Elves & Dwarves in your face and has the orphan boy turn into ultimate badass++.   But I don't know, it just felt uneven.   

I think I may also just be a bit burnt out on fantasy series.

Feist is derivative.  Magician is basically a Tolkien 2.0 world/plot,  but without the great subtext Tolkien had (nature vs. industry, progress vs. tradition).  I enjoyed Magician,  because it is well written, but it didn't particularly grab me. 

I stalled out half way through the next book because it felt very much like "generic quest novel".

[lamaros]

Magician is nothing like Tolkien. Magician is pure fantasy insofar as it is 'a young boy dreams, dreams become reality'. It is unabashed daydreaming writ large; it is not full of the creation wank of Tolkein, nor does it try to be.

Which is why Feist gets so shit later on, because he moves away from this fantasy that he is good at and tries to create, which he is shit at. And his world becomes a boring unbelievable laughable poorly written one rather than a fantastic, impossible, highly entertaining one. If he is good for anything in Magician it's because he's not a great writer not because he is.

[Endie]

As I have said in this thread (I think) Faerie Tale is a good book to read by him, his best by a long way if you ask me. But it is not part of the fantasy series, it's a one off fantasy/horror book set in a modern setting.

You did say that, and I agreed.  Faerie Tale is the one book by Feist I genuinely enjoyed.  I seem to remember that the geography and location are in Lovecraftian country, but the ambience is touched with a little more whimsy, as is fitting when the plot turns on the Sidhe.

[Jeff Kelly]

Just finished Imperium by Robert Harris. If my history or latin lessons had been as great as this book maybe I could remeber it. I am looking forward to Pompeji now.

[Sky]

Just finished Magician (Apprentice & Master).  Is it worth continuing any further in the whole Riftwar series?

The only ones I really didn't care for was the Krondor:Whatever series. I think the Conclave stuff was cool, the direction of one book was a great concept (one book features the previous book's antagonist as the protagonist).

I stalled on re-reading the Foundation series. Not a lot of reading time, lots of quick reading moments, so I've been reading the Time Bandit (the ship, not the movie) book. It's surprisingly interesting, but my family comes from a line of fishermen so I'm fascinated by what would've been my life if not for WW2.

[FatuousTwat]

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Reaper's Gale, I had forgotten how much I love this series! Also re-read a bunch of the Serge saga by Tim Dorsey (Florida Roadkill through Cadillac Beach).

Edit: Someone gave me a $50 gift card for Barnes & Noble, so I bought The New Space Opera (an anthology), The Best of the Best - 20 Years of the Best Science Fiction, and A Cruel Wind by Glen Cook.

I took the space opera book with me when I went antelope hunting with my father, so I finished it pretty quickly. I think the story that stuck out the most was Minla's Flowers, it's about a man who finds a human inhabited planet that had regressed technologically to around the 1920's era, and is about to be attacked by some alien ultra-force.

I haven't started on The Best of the Best yet, but I did get about 50 pages into A Cruel Wind, and I hated it. Maybe I should just stop trying to read Glen Cook.

I also read a few of Alastair Reynolds' stand alone novels, forgot which ones...

[Abagadro]

Just read McCarthy's The Road.  That guy can sure write well, but I'm not sure I saw the point.

[croaker69]

Just read McCarthy's The Road.  That guy can sure write well, but I'm not sure I saw the point.

I may be morbid...in fact I know I am, but I took it as a dramatically heightened version of what all parents go through.

***Spoilery stuff***











  You do your best to keep your kid alive and healthy in a cruel world and the best you can hope for is to die first, preferably once they can take care of themselves.  Also with a side of "it takes a village to raise a child" in that the father failed in his mission since he refused to team up with anyone even though he knew he was going to die soonish.  I was left wondering what had happened in the intervening decade between the birth of the son and the beginning of the book that prevented the father from even considering banding together with anyone else.   

[Arrrgh]

Nice blog devoted to REH...

http://www.thecimmerian.com/

Long posts going into detail about all sorts of obscure books that might be of interest to Howard fans.

[IainC]

When you read the Riftwar saga you can hear the rattle of the dice behind every page. It's so clearly the novelisation of a tabletop campaign it hurts.

Literature doesn't have to have a point. It's like an extended jam session with prose. Tried reading any of William Gibson's recent stuff? He describes how nothing at all happens in gorgeous hi-def detail for chapters at a time.

Currently I'm reading Nagash the Sorceror by Mike Lee and I'm enjoying it hugely, Matter by Iain M. Banks was also very good.