March Reading Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yesterday I finished Skyclad by Scott Browder, the first fiction book I read and finished in about 5 months. This long period of not reading is highly unusual for me. Somehow I couldn't get engaged, no matter what I tried to read, until I didn't even try anymore. Until Skyclad, that is.
So, what was so special?
Not because it was Fantasy, which isn't really my thing. Worse even, it was LitRPG; stories about things like [Classes] and [Skills] and [Levels], with a range of Fantasy creatures and, naturally, magic. I am just saying that this is not the usual stuff I read (with a few exceptions) and it certainly wasn't what made me start reading.
Could it perhaps be because the female protagonist is walking around in her birthday outfit from the second till the last page?
Well, I won't deny it made me curious. It what kind of situation would any sensible girl be willing to face the world naked and then become the [Skyclad Sorceress]? How would you go about telling such a story in a convincing, non-titillated way?
It was curiosity that made me start reading, but the excellent world-building, the strong characterization of all main characters and the well thought out plot were what made me finish it without any trouble. Now waiting for Book 2.

Morgan Mackenzie is having a bath after a bad day when she, complete with bathtub and loofah, drops through a hole into another world. Her fall ends in a tree, in the middle of the Wildlands, where she (or rather the bathtub) flattens several birds of prey in their nest. This earns her double points for defeating a threat while being [Naked] and [Unequipped]. This starts a series of events, while trying to survive in the well depicted and highly dangerous Wildlands, that eventually will influence Morgan when she has to choose a [Class]. And learns that every choice has a price.
It is by no means an erotic tale. It is a believable story about several 'worldwalkers' who all will have a role to play, in the larger world, in the coming battle against an evil slaver empire.
Recommended.
 
Halfwaw through the second Randall Garrett Megapack. None of the Lord Darcy stories (They're all in their own collected edition), but some very good stories about FBI agent Kenneth Malone - a sort of American precursor to Peter Grant in the Rivers of London in that he gets to deal with the weird stuff.
 
I don't read many crime novels. But Harlan Coben is an exception, I much enjoyed his Myron Bolitar series. Another writer I read in this genre is Michael Robotham.
Don't ask me who they compare to! I have no idea.
 
dannymcg said:
I would say Connelly, with Myron Bolitar taking a similar role to the Lincoln lawyer
Click to expand...

I vote Connelly too, his Bosch series are similar to Bolitar. Some of Harlan Coben's stand-alone books are also good. Connelly's Micky the defence lawyer series are superb. I used to read quite a few of both authors and enjoyed them a lot. It's been a few years I haven't read crime stories.

Now I am going to start either Robert Harris's historical thriller An Officer and A Spy, or Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, an unusual crime story. Both are supposed to be gripping enough to distract me from the very surreal reality.
 
Allegra said:
Now I am going to start either Robert Harris's historical thriller An Officer and A Spy, or Donna Tartt's The Little Friend, an unusual crime story. Both are supposed to be gripping enough to distract me from the very surreal reality.
Click to expand...

It is nice to find something normal to help cope with reality. Which is why I'm reading Fury from the Tomb. (*cough*)

Seriously, I understand your point. It's probably why I've read a couple of mysteries over the last month or so.

Randy M.
 
pyan said:
Halfwaw through the second Randall Garrett Megapack. None of the Lord Darcy stories (They're all in their own collected edition), but some very good stories about FBI agent Kenneth Malone - a sort of American precursor to Peter Grant in the Rivers of London in that he gets to deal with the weird stuff.
Click to expand...
Is Peter Grant the author or character and are these stories worth seeking out?
 
hitmouse said:
Loved the first three. She paused for many years before continuing. Didnt really enjoy the fourth.
Click to expand...

I was impressed in many ways by the fourth, but didn't really enjoy it either. It was a deeply feminist work, for the time, and that was what impressed me most.

But I was expecting all the things I had loved about Earthsea in the first three books, which I suppose was unreasonable of me, since she had lived decades of her life since then and in some ways was not the same person who had written those books, nor did she seem to want to write about the same sort of things.

In the following books she was writing about those same things, but from a completely different perspective (again, she was older and saw everything differently) and to me it was as though all the people and the institutions she had written about before had . . . lost their innocence I suppose, or at least that is the best way I can explain it . . .and I liked Earthsea and its inhabitants the way they used to be—well of course I did, I had fallen in love with them when I was much younger myself—so I was bound to be disappointed by the changes, and I was disappointed.

Which is not to say that all the books in the series after the first three might not be worthy books, maybe even better books, just that I am probably not in a position to evaluate them fairly, so I don't evaluate them at all. All that I will say is that anyone who reads past the third book should not expect, in reading the more recent ones, to find yourself visiting the same place you visited before. You won't be and that will probably influence your enjoyment, for better or for worse.
 
hitmouse said:
Loved the first three. She paused for many years before continuing. Didnt really enjoy the fourth.
Click to expand...

I think I've said this before, but I didn't enjoy the fourth much either, when I read it for the first time just after the other three. I think it's too different from them to be treated as the same series. When I read it for the second time, on its own, I liked it very much. (That might also be partly due to it being a reread, of course.)
 
dannymcg said:
I'm having a go at a new crime thriller today
The boy from the woods by Harlan Coben
Click to expand...
This wasn't so good IMO. I was less than halfway through the book and I correctly sussed out the surprise revelation in the final chapter.

Maybe I've read too many crime thrillers over the years so my subconscious picks up the tiny hints that the writers drop into the plots.
 
HareBrain said:
I think I've said this before, but I didn't enjoy the fourth much either, when I read it for the first time just after the other three. I think it's too different from them to be treated as the same series. When I read it for the second time, on its own, I liked it very much. (That might also be partly due to it being a reread, of course.)
Click to expand...
Ditto. I loved the first three. Particularly the first and a third. As a somewhat amateur yet dogmatic Jungian they connected to my inner world in a way that felt very meaningful. When the fourth came out I bought it like a shot but was totally thrown. I went over it again and again trying to get a handle on it. When I re-read it a few years later I wondered what all my fuss had been about. Not only that, but I connected with it in a meaningful way that still stays with me.

Aha! This is my discovery (hopefully) of how to use the spoiler..
Oh no it isn't! I should have used the preview! Ah! got it. I think...

As I became older and less capable, I began to connect much more with the helplessness of Ged and Tenar in the face of challenges. In the third book I had liked the analogy with the end of the Tempest where Prospero breaks his wand, and enters ordinary everyday life. This fourth book is like a continuation - Prospero without his wand and magic powers having to deal with the difficulties in life as an ordinary old man. I also thought it wonderful the manner in which the deeply hurt and abused child was able to access something much deeper and more powerful in herself through that very hurt."]
 
Last edited:
Alexander Theroux "The Strange Case Of Edward Gorey"
A brief (66 pages) account of the author's friendship with Gorey. It gives a definite flavour of the person, without (according to the recent biography) getting all the facts completely right.
Florence Parry Heide "Treehorn's Wish" & "The Shrinking of Treehorn", both illustrated by Edward Gorey. I wanted to see how he illustrated someone else's work.
1585405293346.png
 
Last edited:
I'm now onto Heliconia Summer, by Brian Aldiss. I read the first Heliconia volume (Spring) a year or so ago (in fact that was a re-read), but I've never read further, so I'm looking forward to this one. Whenever I read Aldiss I'm reminded that he's a superior writer than most others in the genre - few compare.
 
Spirit of the Bayonet by Ted Russ. (Ebook)

This looks like it's gonna be a typical space opera, I've went in without a blurb or review so i, as yet, haven't much idea about it.
The first ten pages have got my attention so that'll probably be me awake half the night reading it in bed.

I've only stopped reading it now to get comfy in my jim-jams and sort out my bedside snacks
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
The Judge March Reading Thread Book Discussion 239
The Judge March Reading Thread Book Discussion 164
The Judge March 2022 Reading Thread Book Discussion 191
Bick March 2021 Reading Thread Book Discussion 159
nixie March 2019: Reading Thread Book Discussion 212

Similar threads


Back
Top