September's Studious Search For Sonorous Snippets

[Vertigo]

Well that was kind of fun! I have just had a bit of a tidy up of the bookshelves and came across an old hardback I didn't recognise. It appeared to be an ex army library book, probably picked up in charity shop years ago. Anyhoo it was Space Born (aka Exile from Xanadu) by Lan Wright written in 1962. Not recognising the author or name I read it (only 170 pages of fairly large type). It was a fun SF thriller; nothing special but a good read. What was interesting was the style of the book; I have read a number of older books recently but none of them struck me as stongly as this one. Very formal particularly in relationships between the protagonists, almost feeling like it had been wrtten fifty years earlier. Interesting also in that he was predicting massive over population of Earth and a kind of global warming, though not by quite the mechanisms we know today, depletion of Oxygen rather than excess of CO2 and also "drying up" of the atmosphere due to clmate control and nobody really wanting it to rain on them (all food production has shifted to the oceans). Quite forward looking really for its day considering this was even before people were predicting the imminent mini ice age never mind greehouse gases and global warming. An interesting curio

Edit:

Halfway through with Children of the mind...still tepid with few glimpses of anything good. Peter is a WEAK follow up for Ender, and so is Miro.
If this keeps up to the end of the book I'm really sad that the saga will so out in such a note.

That's a little worrying CyBeR since Im just reading Speaker for the Dead at the moment. though I have heard that the series goes downhill rather.

 

[CyBeR]

Yeah, be prepared to get murderous while reading Xenocide. I can't recommend that book at all except if you're really curious what goes down after Speaker for the dead.

 

[Ian Whates]

Yeah, be prepared to get murderous while reading Xenocide. I can't recommend that book at all except if you're really curious what goes down after Speaker for the dead.

I loved Speaker for the Dead and would rate it among my very favourite SF novels, but I really struggled to get into Xenocide. After two attempts I still haven't made it beyond the first 20 pages. One day, I'll make a concerted effort and try again.

 

[Mouse]

Now finished Wolf's Brother, by Megan Lindholm. Absolutely superb: the best depiction of shamans and shamanism I've read in fiction, and with excellent characterisation, sense of place and culture and whatnot.

I had thought it would then be natural to move on to her later Robin Hobb stuff, but had a look at Assassin's Apprentice and could not get interested in it. I didn't like Dragon Keeper much either.

Really? I always thought most people said her Robin Hobb stuff was better than her Megan Lindholm stuff. I almost picked up her Harpy one a while back (can't remember the exact title!) and didn't. Have you tried her Liveship books?

As for me, I finished Mortal Engines. My God, what a depressing ending! I like a tragic ending but that was just depressing.

Now started Corbenic by Catherine Fisher. Also still reading De Profundis.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Finished Nation by Terry Pratchett, and quite enjoyed this non-Discworld novel.

Using my patented random choice selector, I will next be reading: The Kingdom of Malinas by E J Tett

 

[bluespider100]

Finished reading Stealing Light a couple of days back, now I'm reading the next book in the Merrick Dakota Trilogy, Nova War...

 

[Mouse]

Finished Nation by Terry Pratchett, and quite enjoyed this non-Discworld novel.

Using my patented random choice selector, I will next be reading: The Kingdom of Malinas by E J Tett

Eeeek! My brother's friend just bought this too. That's at least two people in the world reading it right now.

 

[Perpetual Man]

And I'm really enjoying it so far...

 

[Mouse]

Just remember that I was only 17 when I wrote it! Not that I should make excuses. I think the third one (which is soooo nearly finished!) will be the best. I hope.

 

[Perpetual Man]

17? Wow!! Even more impressed now.

 

[Mouse]

You're too kind.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Or you are too good

 

[HareBrain]

Really? I always thought most people said her Robin Hobb stuff was better than her Megan Lindholm stuff. I almost picked up her Harpy one a while back (can't remember the exact title!) and didn't. Have you tried her Liveship books?

I liked Wolf's Brother partly because of the subject, but also because it was so unassuming and small-scale. I thought about getting her harpy one but wasn't quite tempted enough by the blurb.

As for her Liveship books, I've just been to three bookshops and that was the only trilogy that wasn't represented at all! Would you say it was her best?

 

[Overread]

Really? I always thought most people said her Robin Hobb stuff was better than her Megan Lindholm stuff. I almost picked up her Harpy one a while back (can't remember the exact title!) and didn't. Have you tried her Liveship books?

She writes with a very different style in her Hobb works as compared to her Lindholm works - far more wordy and can be a bit heavy going (her middle books of trilogies can be particularly heavy going at times). I'm glad to hear about the thoughts on shamanistic research and accuracy with her wolf and deer books since, whilst I enjoyed them, I've no further understanding of the culture they are based upon.


As for the Liveship books I'm not surprised you couldn't get into Dragon - its kinda a second series in the Liveship line, which in itself is a very close spinoff the Assassins apprentice series. Dragon was also not considered her best, but I think its a book that many feel you need to have read the previous of to really understand and enjoy.

As for liveships specifically its a different style again to Assassin's Apprentice, a wider array of character viewpoints followed; not as many as in say something like A Song of Ice and Fire; what I'd consider a manageable number of viewpoints without getting lost. Also as its not centered around a lead character with depression (something that Assassins and esp her Shaman trillogy are) there pace remains a bit more easy to follow.
I'd consider it a good series, a shame if you've not read the Assassin's series, but you should easily be able to get into Liveships.



As for me been going through Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" Trilogy and made it up to part way through the last book. Can't say if I like it or not at present, I enjoy several characters, but I can't help shaking the feeling that the author is stalling a lot of the time and that several characters are suffering from that "I want you here doing this, even though you really have no reason what so ever to" problem.
I think the 3 books read more like an intro book into a much longer book since even in the 3rd book, despite many events, things still feel that there is some stalling and building going on - too much for a 3rd book to stand on its own at the end.

 

[Hypnos164]

As for me been going through Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" Trilogy and made it up to part way through the last book. Can't say if I like it or not at present, I enjoy several characters, but I can't help shaking the feeling that the author is stalling a lot of the time and that several characters are suffering from that "I want you here doing this, even though you really have no reason what so ever to" problem.
I think the 3 books read more like an intro book into a much longer book since even in the 3rd book, despite many events, things still feel that there is some stalling and building going on - too much for a 3rd book to stand on its own at the end.

Currently listening to the First Law books on Audio (read them a couple of years ago too).

Isn't the "I want you here doing this, even though you really have no reason what so ever to" problem rather the point of his subversion of genre conventions?

None of the characters involved in the epic events (except one) wants to be involved in interesting times at all - instead of bold heroes setting out to save the world you have a bunch of deeply damaged people doing what they have to do to get by ... "you have to be realistic about these things".

In the end it seems to be a work that stands on its characters, they stay with you long after the plot has faded away.

In other news - finished The Algebraist by Iain M Banks - I liked the setting and the main story arc, but the descriptions never left me with a clear picture of the any of the aliens or their environments.

 

[Vertigo]

As for me been going through Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" Trilogy and made it up to part way through the last book. Can't say if I like it or not at present, I enjoy several characters, but I can't help shaking the feeling that the author is stalling a lot of the time and that several characters are suffering from that "I want you here doing this, even though you really have no reason what so ever to" problem.
I think the 3 books read more like an intro book into a much longer book since even in the 3rd book, despite many events, things still feel that there is some stalling and building going on - too much for a 3rd book to stand on its own at the end.

That's very much how I felt about them (but couldn't express it as well as you did ). Specifically I remember commenting at the end of the first book that I felt I had just read an introduction to the second book. I did enjoy them but I also felt somehow unfulfilled at the end.

In other news - finished The Algebraist by Iain M Banks - I liked the setting and the main story arc, but the descriptions never left me with a clear picture of the any of the aliens or their environments.

I've always thought, alongside Player of Games, that Algebraist was my favourite Banks book (not a common opinion I believe) however it was also one of my first Banks books and I have read a lot of other SF books since then (I blame this place!), so I might have to go back and read it again sometime.

 

[Glen]

H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds". Read it on my iPhone from the "SF collections" app and it made my recent train journeys a pleasure.

For some reason I was put in mind of Wells when I joined SFFC. He would have been one of the first sci-fi authors I read and I was fascinated by it all. WOTW still stands the test of time. Descriptive writing that makes you feel for the protagonist. Wells was great at making fear palpable and visceral, and he wasn't afraid to make his protagonists show their fear.

Some of the language is a bit dated. Not sure how a modern audience would take "I grew very weary and irritable with the curate's perpetual ejaculations". And if Wells uses the word "headlong" once he must have used it, well, a lot.

 

[AE35Unit]

H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds". Read it on my iPhone from the "SF collections" app and it made my recent train journeys a pleasure.

For some reason I was put in mind of Wells when I joined SFFC. He would have been one of the first sci-fi authors I read and I was fascinated by it all. WOTW still stands the test of time. Descriptive writing that makes you feel for the protagonist. Wells was great at making fear palpable and visceral, and he wasn't afraid to make his protagonists show their fear.

Some of the language is a bit dated. Not sure how a modern audience would take "I grew very weary and irritable with the curate's perpetual ejaculations". And if Wells uses the word "headlong" once he must have used it, well, a lot.

Yea I read that one recently, excellent!
Try finding the 'sequel' by Garret Serviss:

http://sfaddict.blogspot.com/2010/09/return-to-mars.html

 

[Mouse]

I liked Wolf's Brother partly because of the subject, but also because it was so unassuming and small-scale. I thought about getting her harpy one but wasn't quite tempted enough by the blurb.

As for her Liveship books, I've just been to three bookshops and that was the only trilogy that wasn't represented at all! Would you say it was her best?

I think it's her best, yeah. The characters (particularly the pirate captain) are far more complex. I almost didn't bother with it as I didn't think I'd like it, but I really enjoyed all three.

She writes with a very different style in her Hobb works as compared to her Lindholm works - far more wordy and can be a bit heavy going (her middle books of trilogies can be particularly heavy going at times). I'm glad to hear about the thoughts on shamanistic research and accuracy with her wolf and deer books since, whilst I enjoyed them, I've no further understanding of the culture they are based upon.

Do you mean her Lindholm stuff is wordy or her Hobb stuff is wordy?

I've not read the Dragon Keeper etc. books yet, but agree with everything you say about Liveships.

Definitely recommend them to you, HareBrain!

 

[Overread]

None of the characters involved in the epic events (except one) wants to be involved in interesting times at all - instead of bold heroes setting out to save the world you have a bunch of deeply damaged people doing what they have to do to get by ... "you have to be realistic about these things".

Yes, but, realistically speaking, Ninefingers and Ferro, whilst somewhat damaged characters, feel so much like spare parts that don't belong through the main content of the first and second books. They feel like characters the author wants to introduce to us and take out of events, but who have no real reason to be going on the quest at all (aside from "magi said so" and that argument wears somewhat thin considering how individual each of the pair is).
It just grates a bit that whole section; which is a shame because it really picks up with the Northmen and Glotcka's (sp) parts. Heck I'd say the book would be worth reading alone just for Glotcka

Do you mean her Lindholm stuff is wordy or her Hobb stuff is wordy?

Ahh her Hobb stuff certainly - her Lindholm are mostly short single novels, some parts of series. Whilst her Hobb works are more akin in size and structure to Lord of the Rings - big books broken into 3s.