[Ukjent]

Hm... Continue with Blood and Bone, or jump over to Cain's law or Ryan's Blood Song. What a choice.

[QuickTidal]

Graablick, on 17 September 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Hm... Continue with Blood and Bone, or jump over to Cain's law or Ryan's Blood Song. What a choice.

I have BLOOD SONG awaiting me on my Kindle...I've heard nothing but good things.

EDIT: JUST realized that a portion of my ToRead pile exists only on my Kindle...and thus the ToRead Pile is MUCH larger than it looks.

Ninja'd.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 September 2013 - 05:46 PM

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

177. The Well Of Stars by Robert Reed - Continues the adventure of Washen et al. - captains of a planet-sized ship. Somewhat lacking in the wonder of the first book, Marrow.

178. The Book Of Lies by Brad Meltzer - Superman history meets murder mystery. The comic book visual clue portion was well done. I wanted to like this one, but at the end of the day, it was just another mediocre suspense thriller.

179. Abarat: Days Of Magic, Nights Of War by Clive Barker - I read the first one years ago. A pleasant enough diversion, but not so much that I'm tempted to continue and wait years and years between installments.

180. Star Wars Legacy Of The Force: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss - Another good LOTF novel, although,

Spoiler

given that Jacen was always the candyass touchy feely bleeding heart jedi in the earlier EU novels, I'm continuing to find his Sith-transition arc very bizarre and out of character.

181. Medalon by Jennifer Fallon - Finding a lot of these 10+ year old fantasies in the bargain books. Some of them are well worth a read. This one, not so much.

182. Lord Of The Isles by David Drake - Ditto above, except I found this one pretty enjoyable. Reviewers critique it as being too derivative, but sometimes that's just what I'm in the mood for...

183. Empyrion by Stephen Lawhead - His first and only sci-fi attempt. He was wise to move to historical fantasies. I can see why this is his least popular work.

184. Tyger Tyger by Kerston Hamilton - Pretty good YA fantasy, based on Irish/Celtic mythology.

185. Emma And The Vampires by Jane Austen and Wayne Josephson - In case you were wondering, no, vampires do not make 1800s chicklit more interesting. Why oh why do I have so many of these stupid mash-up novels.

186. The Dead Kid Detective Agency by Evan Munday - This one gets the gold star of this batch. An unpopular high school girl meets a bunch of ghosts in the cemetery behind her house and enlists their help in investigating the death of her favorite teacher. Fun read, sequels to follow.

187. Cry Of The Newborn by James Barclay - "As the empire trembles, far from the war four unique children are discovering their powers." Given the description, I wanted this to be Game Of Thrones, with more magic, and focused on the children. However, I just found it boring compared to Dawnthief. Back to the Raven books I go.

188. The unofficial cartoon guide to He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe by James Eatock - Nice bit of 80s cartoon nostalgia. I wish there were more books like this for my favorite 80s shows.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 17 September 2013 - 05:45 PM, said:

Graablick, on 17 September 2013 - 05:22 PM, said:

Hm... Continue with Blood and Bone, or jump over to Cain's law or Ryan's Blood Song. What a choice.

I have BLOOD SONG awaiting me on my Kindle...I've heard nothing but good things.

EDIT: JUST realized that a portion of my ToRead pile exists only on my Kindle...and thus the ToRead Pile is MUCH larger than it looks.

Ninja'd.

Gah, my ETRP and the DTTRP actively compete these days. I ref them collectively as the TRPFH.

[amphibian]

I read all of Iain Banks' Culture books. What an author. Wry, hopeful and deeply interested in how individuals arrive at courses of action or in how cultures clash.Very willing to contort real life events and history and settle it slyly into the books.

Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, Excession and Surface Detail were the best. The others are still good reads, but don't have the full underpinnings of greatness like the above four.

Reading him was essential to filling in a previously unknown large gap in my SF ruminations. From him, a direct line can be drawn to Reynolds, Morgan and more. Perhaps even Mieville. Very important author and I'm actually angry at cancer for ripping away a mind like that from years more of provocation and humor.

[Tiste Simeon]

Read some of his other Sci-fi, non-Culture books too! Transitions is flipping outstanding and Against a Dark Background is very good too!

EDIT Finished Cold Days! That reread of The Dresden Files took a lot quicker than I thought it would... I think I am going to reread MBOTF in its entirety next... Not fully clear on the best reading order. I think it should be thus:

GOTM
DG
MoI
HOC
MT
NOK
TBH
RG
ROTCG
TTH
DOD
SW
TCG
OST
BNB

FOD

Anyone disagree/think I should do it slightly differently?

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 18 September 2013 - 04:15 PM

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 18 September 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

.... I think I am going to reread MBOTF in its entirety next... Not fully clear on the best reading order. I think it should be thus:

...
DOD
SW
TCG
...
Anyone disagree/think I should do it slightly differently?

just my 0.02, but while i realize that SW was originally released between DoD and TCG, i think those books work better back to back and THEN read SW.


And congrats on setting some kind of record with the Dresden reread. Now go bathe.

[D'rek]

Abyss, on 18 September 2013 - 04:34 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 18 September 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

.... I think I am going to reread MBOTF in its entirety next... Not fully clear on the best reading order. I think it should be thus:

...
DOD
SW
TCG
...
Anyone disagree/think I should do it slightly differently?

just my 0.02, but while i realize that SW was originally released between DoD and TCG, i think those books work better back to back and THEN read SW.


And congrats on setting some kind of record with the Dresden reread. Now go bathe.

If you want your re-read to be like a first-time read, I agree with Abyss. But since it is a re-read, I would actually suggest going RG > RotCG > TtH > SW > DoD > OST > BAB > TCG, since there's a lot of elements in OST and BAB pointing at the TCG finale, giving more build up and connections to the TCG finale while saving it for last. Assail is supposed to be a bit of an aftermath/epilogue to TCG, supposedly, so if it is out around when you finish your re-read up to OST/TCG, you'll be in a perfect spot to then read Assail, too.

[Tiste Simeon]

Hmm, thanks both. I have not read OST, BAB or FOD (and I realise FOD is one that can pretty much be read whenever especially if I have read the rest of them before. Well, either way I think I will make up my mind when I get closer to it (ie when I get to TBH). This reread will be nowhere near as quick as the Dresden reread as I am now in full time employment once again. Also, have you seen those books, some of them are BIG, man! Finally, I will be reading it with the Malazan Reread of the Fallen which may take me a bit longer...

Also, Abyss, it rains enough in England for it not to matter if I bathe or not. I think.

Edited for typing fails.

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 18 September 2013 - 05:09 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

I'd put FoD right before BaB, as ICE makes a fair number of (admittedly minor) references to SE's book. Not a big loss to do it the other way around, but it's the exact same reasoning for slotting NoK before TBH.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 18 September 2013 - 05:48 PM

[polishgenius]

amphibian, on 18 September 2013 - 06:37 AM, said:

Reading him was essential to filling in a previously unknown large gap in my SF ruminations. From him, a direct line can be drawn to Reynolds, Morgan and more. Perhaps even Mieville. Very important author and I'm actually angry at cancer for ripping away a mind like that from years more of provocation and humor.

Indeed. Banks was a giant. He was just coming back to his best form when he died too - I felt most of his books between 2001 and about 209 were pretty average, that I read, but since then he'd picked it back up.


The Quarry was an extraordinary and heartbreaking way to finish his career. Even moreso since he didn't know he had cancer when he wrote it.

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 18 September 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

Hmm, thanks both. I have not read OST, BAB or FOD (and I realise FOD is one that can pretty much be read whenever especially if I have read the rest of them before....

Actually the beauty of reading the books you haven't before starting the reread (so FoD before GotM) is that you'll be able to see all the links more clearly than reading FoD at the 'end'.

[Tiste Simeon]

Maybe I will read FoD first, I dunno... Don't want to read BAB or OST til I have caught up with other characters!

[Tiste Simeon]

Have started FOD!

[Chance]

The Incredible Kitsu, on 16 September 2013 - 07:15 PM, said:

Cracking open The Protector's War as soon as I finish typing this. Btw, Abyss, I've noticed you mention a couple places that you enjoy Stirling's work. How much past this first trilogy is worth the read? Does it stay pretty solid?

The series stay pretty good but is a bit of more of the same. For me it remains a read eventually when a book appears but not a top priority. Some of his side projects have been very good however.



Ran through Ace of Skulls while home sick from work. Found it a bit too much of a happy ending kinda of expected but not that good except for Crake who really got some nice scenes.

This post has been edited by Chance: 19 September 2013 - 08:46 AM

[QuickTidal]

Finished DUNE, great stuff...if somewhat longwinded in parts. Will read the next book.

I started Anthony Ryan's BLOOD SONG last night on my Kindle, and so far it's pretty good. Not mind-blowing, but entertaining. Though Vaelin is still only 11 so I have a ways to go methinks.

[lastname]

Finished AMoL (Jordan, Sanderson) recently. Thought it was a decent finish if nothing particularly clever or surprising (as some led me to believe). Some nice touches, some dull repetitive battle scenes, some time wondering if we needed all that angst in past books to get to this point in the story.

Am now a third of the way into FoD (Erikson). Its been great. Lots of surprises already.

[QuickTidal]

BLOOD SONG - Okay, 17% into it, and now I'm 100% hooked. GREAT fantasy so far. Young growing protagonist, being trained at a warrior school...seems like it's been done before yeah? Probably, but that doesn't stop it from being one hell of a page-turning read. I find myself slipping in little bits of reading whenever I can now.

Anyone who hasn't read this yet...get on it!

[Chance]

QuickTidal, on 20 September 2013 - 12:39 PM, said:

BLOOD SONG - Okay, 17% into it, and now I'm 100% hooked. GREAT fantasy so far. Young growing protagonist, being trained at a warrior school...seems like it's been done before yeah? Probably, but that doesn't stop it from being one hell of a page-turning read. I find myself slipping in little bits of reading whenever I can now.

Anyone who hasn't read this yet...get on it!

Strangely enough it only gets better the final 25% or so are glorious, if by then occationally predictable.

All in all one of the better series starters in a while.

[Studlock]

I've been in school so my pleasure read was taking a downturn but I have been a couple short stories and epics for class I've really enjoyed (still reading BaB and the anthropologist in me is loving it!). The Open Boat (by Stephen Crane) is an awesome short story and everybody should read it. Other favourites so far include: Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the first book of the Iliad. Didn't really like the Epic of Gilgamesh but the might be a translation.