March 2018 reading thread

[Garfunkel]

I finished Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb a few days ago. It was a good end to the Farseer trilogy, but I have quite a few questions that will hopefully be addressed in future books. Taking a short break from Hobb to read John Connolly's The Woman in the Woods, the latest entry in the Charlie Parker series.

I've been told to read the Liveship Traders trilogy before the Tawny Man trilogy, so I guess I'll make a start on that next, even though I'm desperate to see what happens next to the characters from Farseer.

 

[vanye]

Finished Luke Scull‘s Dead Man‘s Steel today and - while the beginning of the third book had me sit up and hope for a strong ending - am somewhat disappointed. No question, the writing is superb and the author is an accomplished storyteller, however, in the final reckoning it seems to me that he just did not have a story to tell (or maybe I missed it, would never discount the possibility).

It all seems rather pointless in retrospect. To my mind, just killing off the cast does not make an ending, but maybe that is just me. There are so many questions raised in the three books, especially about the history of the fed and humankind, yet they quietly die along with the characters and the story. Sorry, can not really like this three-book series.

 

[Extollager]

This book, A Shadow Above, sounds interesting -- does anyone intend to read it?

If you keep a pet raven, look out for your jewellery and car keys | The Spectator

 

[The Judge]

Has anyone hear read Shute's A Shadow Above, about ravens?

A Shadow Above : Joe Shute : 9781472940285

The Raven – bird of ill omen | Spectator USA

It sounds interesting.

I've read a couple of articles about it, including one by him -- he does write very well and knowledgeably from what I've seen of his journalism -- but I'm waiting to see it before I make up my mind whether to buy it. Stupidly, I forgot to look for it when I popped into Waterstones at the weekend. *makes a mental note to remember next time*

 

[Hugh]

I’ve just finished “The Eternal Frontier” by James Schmitz, volume six in the Baen Collected Works. This was just what I was hoping for, good solid stories from the 50s and 60s. Easily my favourite of the Schmitz collected works – in part because I’d already read the cream of volume four, “The Hub, Dangerous Territory”, and I don’t think volume seven, the novel “The Witches of Karres”, lives up to the original short story (one of my favourites). Thanks again to @J-Sun for the recommendation.

I also really enjoyed Bill Porter’s “South of the Yangtze, Travels through the Heart of China”, but this was hardly surprising as I always admire his gentle prose, his ability to speak Chinese and his knowledge of Chinese history and culture.

I’m afraid I abandoned R.A.Lafferty’s “Arrive at Easterwine, the Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine” after some fifty pages. Very unusual for me not to finish a book, but I just couldn’t be bothered with pursuing the intricacies of the storyline. I assume it’s an exploration of his Roman Catholicism. Life’s too short. A pity. I really rate some of his short stories. Maybe another time.

 

[Paul_C]

I’m afraid I abandoned R.A.Lafferty’s “Arrive at Easterwine, the Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine” after some fifty pages. Very unusual for me not to finish a book, but I just couldn’t be bothered with pursuing the intricacies of the storyline. I assume it’s an exploration of his Roman Catholicism. Life’s too short. A pity. I really rate some of his short stories. Maybe another time.

I'm intrigued enough to want to read that now, despite books of my own that I've struggled to get into and sometimes given up on.

My enjoyment of The Fifth Season is currently being tempered by part of the tale being written in second person, which I really don't like. Fortunately it's only part, otherwise I'd probably have abandoned it.

 

[Hugh]

I'm intrigued enough to want to read that now, despite books of my own that I've struggled to get into and sometimes given up on.

I’ll be very interested in your comments should you read it.

 

[Danny McG]

My enjoyment of The Fifth Season is currently being tempered by part of the tale being written in second person, which I really don't like.

Ditto, it only works for me in a Haynes Manual

 

[Vince W]

Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I've heard a lot of good things about his books for kids.

 

[Extollager]

Brad Strickland's continuation of John Bellairs's Lewis Barnavelt series, The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge, is an entertaining middle school-level book that monitors of Lovecraftian popular culture should look up, since it works with elements of "The Colour Out of Space," etc.

Also I'm read Douthat's To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, which seems even-handed and certainly holds the interest of this non-Roman Catholic reader.

It reminds me a little of the 1973 TV movie, set in the "near future," Catholics, which I don't suppose has been discussed here at Chrons before...

 

[Foxbat]

Just started David Weber's The Honor Of The Queen

 

[dask]

It reminds me a little of the 1973 TV movie, set in the "near future," Catholics, which I don't suppose has been discussed here at Chrons before...

Is it sf by chance?

 

[The Judge]

Four books started in the last week, but so far only one finished, The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, one of his Nursery Crime books, the first of those that I've read, though I've gone through several of his Thursday Next novels which are very similar in feel and comic happenings. Inventive and daft -- with a blue alien jellyfish-like policeman, a psychopathic Gingerbreadman, and a plot concerning very large cucumbers -- but with a core of old-fashioned goodness and integrity in the shape of Jack Spratt, who tries hard to conceal the significance of the fact he eats no fat.

Started at the same time but so far only a quarter of the way through, Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. Far more inventive -- though daftness is now exuberance of invention with its story of a winged woman who becomes a celebrity in Victorian London -- but much harder to read than the Fforde, since it's so extravagantly voluptuous, not to say dizzying, in its prose.

Harder still to read, The Spire by William Golding, which is elliptic and convoluted in an almost stream-of-consciousness way in its story of a medieval dean obsessed with building a 400ft spire on his cathedral which the foundations can't support, with brilliant images and lines that I'm itching to steal, but far too many sentences which need to be read twice to understand what's being said. So by way of light easy relief I'm alternating it with See Delphi and Die by Lindsey Davis, another of her Falco murder mystery stories.

 

[Toby Frost]

It’s worth it. They are rather amusing.

Thanks Rodders!

I finished Isaac Asimov Presents: Robots. "Decent but dated" would be a fair description. Many of the stories are pre-1960, and too much of the SF is clearly set in the 1950s with one small change: very few of the stories make much effort to think about what a futuristic society would be like (particularly in the near-total absence of women unless A Woman Event is needed by the plot). However, there are some decent names here and some good ideas. Of particular note is Philip K Dick's grim "Second Variety", which I think is about the best thing he ever wrote; "The Tunnel Under The World" by Fredrick Pohl, which is a satire on advertising; and "Sun Up" by Howard Waldrop and A.A. Jackson, a curious story about a scientist trying to persuade a spaceship to save itself.

Apparently, this book was one of a series of anthologies compiled by Asimov, called Isaac Asimov's Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction. The series included anthologies on monsters, space empires, and, rather oddly, neanderthals and the space Olympics.

 

[The Big Peat]

First off, in case he reads it, Caliban's avatar is awesome.


Second off, I got no further than the kindle sample for Drakenfield, but it didn't compel.


Anyway. Recent reading


Skyfarer by Joseph Brassey was as charming a fantasy book I could hope to meet but unfortunately more stilted than a wooden statue on stilts and horse tranquilizers.

Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone is very good save for his unfortunate tendency to write the same book and preach very loudly.

Snakewood by Adrian Selby is ambitious as all hell and nearly pulls it off, but ultimately never quite captivates. Still worth a read though.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Tried The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, but am going to abandon it. The first problem is male gaze - I suspect most women, upon finding themselves in another woman's body, won't obsess about how sexy they look and the state of their breasts.

Secondly - there's no tension. Despite the main character's life being in imminent danger from the start, the main character shows no real emotional reaction to anything. It's all trite, "Oh, dear, that was rather little silly of me."

Worse, there is infodump after infodump after infodump. Rather than focus on the information the character will immediately need to survive, we instead get pages and pages of history of the secret organization she's a part of. I ended up stopping on page 50, where every second page was a letter about things of absolutely no immediate concern.

This is one of those books where I really don't understand how it got published in this state. While the initial idea is nice, and the first couple of pages are intriguing, the rest I saw was seriously technically flawed and begging for an editor.

Unless. of course, it's simply pitched at young readers who aren't too worried about any degree of realism - or reading a thriller with no thrills!

Have moved on instead to Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal.

I'm also feeling a little burned out from reading too many books I cared little for, so have picked up Gemmell's Knights of Dark Renown to refresh me.

 

[Extollager]

Is it sf by chance?

Near-future kind of thing -- I guess "sociological sf" by a generous definition. I mean to watch it again before long, after seeing it once before when it was shown on TV.

 

[Anthoney]

I started the month with Robin Hobb's Assassin Apprentice. I'm finishing the month with Pierce Brown's Red Rising.

 

[HareBrain]

I've probably missed updating on several, but have just finished Daughter of the Empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts. Well-plotted and involving at the time, but emotionally distant (perhaps intentionally, to reflect the pseudo-medieval-Japan setting), leaving me feeling a bit unsatisfied afterwards.

It also felt lacking in raison d'etre. Why not write a story set in the real historical Japan, rather than basically copy it and not include any fantasy elements? (There was one bit of magic, which lacked any sense of wonder, and one fantasy creature that did almost nothing.) No invented world is going to match the real one for its depth of history and the added involvement of being a real place, in my opinion.

Anyway, it's spurred me to read James Clavell's Shogun, which will please @Boneman.

 

[The Big Peat]

I've probably missed updating on several, but have just finished Daughter of the Empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts. Well-plotted and involving at the time, but emotionally distant (perhaps intentionally, to reflect the pseudo-medieval-Japan setting), leaving me feeling a bit unsatisfied afterwards.

It also felt lacking in raison d'etre. Why not write a story set in the real historical Japan, rather than basically copy it and not include any fantasy elements? (There was one bit of magic, which lacked any sense of wonder, and one fantasy creature that did almost nothing.) No invented world is going to match the real one for its depth of history and the added involvement of being a real place, in my opinion.

Anyway, it's spurred me to read James Clavell's Shogun, which will please @Boneman.

The fantasy quotient rises in the second and third books of the trilogy.

As for the why of why Kelewan and not Japan - the world you see is used in Feist's second trilogy, and this is a spin-off of the story with a few links to it, so sticking it in Japan would work.

Plus they'd have had to include a lot more horses!