[Tiste Simeon]

polishgenius, on 17 November 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 November 2014 - 11:28 PM, said:

Pullman started well, book 2 was OK & book 3 was a mess. IMNSHO obviously.

A lot of people don't like book 3 for some reason but I thought it was amazing.

Which is a bit weird because I'm a practising Catholic, you'd have thought I'd have more problems with it than the average punter, not less.

It's well known that I am a strong Christian and I didn't really have much issue with it tbh. Yeah it was a bit preachy (trollololol atheists can't preach cos it's not a religion etc.) but I was enjoying the storytelling from the first two books a lot and wanted to see where it went/how the characters developed and so on. But I just didn't enjoy it. I got bored quite quickly but only kept reading in order to find out how it ended. I don't really remember how it ended tbh, but I remember the joy of reading the first book quite sharply.

EDIT: On an unrelated note, I am now reading Whispers Under Ground. I was reading my trashy detective novel but it was so poorly written I had to give up. I know, that is what I was looking for in some ways, but there is a difference between cheesy thrillers that are actually pretty good and keep you going and very badly written books with 2D characters and nothing interesting in them. This was the second.

So, back to Aaronovitch!

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 17 November 2014 - 11:06 AM

[Puck]

Finished The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes yesterday. It wasn't great, but not bad either. In fact, it was a bit of a love letter to the mystery detective genre, in the established clichees of which it dug in wholeheartedly and then ran away with them. Expectations were not met, which was possibly the whole point of it, and as soon as one gets the idea it's actually quite fun. It also lampshades (ah, I should stop hanging out on TvTropes..) some of the typical plot devices. All in all, not going to reread that one any time soon, but it was worth reading

[Andorion]

Finished Goliath, didn't like the ending. Too convenient. Reimagining of the War was great though. Now onto the The Southern Reach Trilogy

[Macros]

Assail
man is it a fucking chore so far

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

I think the anti-Christian reputation of the Pullman books is overblown, since

Spoiler

the big bad turns out to NOT be God, but an imposter - the archangel Metatron...or some such nonsense. I believe the plot was loosely inspired by some Old Testament apocrypha.

Having said that, I agree with many that the 3rd book was a huge letdown compared to the other two.

[Grief]

I enjoyed the whole series, but Northern Lights is definitely in a league of its own. And I'd say they go linearly downhill from there basically. It's not that there's that much wrong with the others per se, it's just that NL is great beginning to end and the others drag in parts, as well as which NL has the advantage of introducing a lot of the setting. The latter two books also didn't feel quite so cohesive. Where in NL there's a clear plot that it all builds towards, in the others there are little dead ends and bits of filler that don't really seem to contribute to the direction of the narrative. That's my memory of the books anyhow, it must be a decade since I read them. I ought to do a nostalgia re-read at some point, but I worry it might not stand up...

As for the preachiness, I expect my views align with his in a lot of ways, but I still felt it got a bit much at points to the extent where it detracted from the books, because it just didn't feel fitting/natural, so it felt like he was forcing the plot a certain way for ulterior reasons,and it felt overly contrived and artificial at times.

[Andorion]

About halfway into Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. I am not sure about this book. It reads like a mashup of Edgar Alan Poe, Lovecraft, and the surrealism of Ballard. And its boring. The narrative is stifling, the PoV character is annoying. Not sure if I will go through with this series.

[EmperorMagus]

Andorion, on 18 November 2014 - 02:36 AM, said:

About halfway into Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. I am not sure about this book. It reads like a mashup of Edgar Alan Poe, Lovecraft, and the surrealism of Ballard. And its boring. The narrative is stifling, the PoV character is annoying. Not sure if I will go through with this series.

What?

[acesn8s]

I've got about 100 pages left in Emperor of Thorns. It's taken me close to a month to finish it. I think I'm a little burned out.

[QuickTidal]

Finished Conn Iggulden's TRINITY, which was excellent throughout. At two books in I think we've now caught up to the point where THE WHITE QUEEN starts, York and Salisbury are dead, Young Edward has the Tudors on the run, and Warwick is poised to come back onto the scene, and Henry VI is ill and still captive of York's forces. It was fascinating to read about what was essentially the beginning of a 30 year war started merely because of a combination of "assumed" ambition and neither York nor Lancastrian REALLY wanting the fight (aside from families like the Percy's and the Neville's being at one anothers throats in familial and territory squabbles), but forcing themselves into it anyway.

And since I've been listening to Dan Carlin's podcast about the Mongols, I've decided to stay on the Iggulden tip and re-read the first two Khan books (which I never got around to finishing) to then go on to finish the series.

[Macros]

I'm looking forward to reading his new books, Loved the Khan books, were better than the rome books (which I enjoyed, bar the terrible 5th)

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 18 November 2014 - 01:46 PM, said:

I'm looking forward to reading his new books, Loved the Khan books, were better than the rome books (which I enjoyed, bar the terrible 5th)

Both the volumes in this series that are out so far are quite good. He does an admirable job of focusing on the right people at the right times to try to get at the heart of the wars. And he invented a great spymaster character to help.

I've only read 3 of the Rome books. I ought to stop at 4 then?

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 18 November 2014 - 06:59 PM, said:

What author is this so I can look up on Amazon again. Sounds interesting.

Conn Iggulden

He's British, and writes historical fiction along the lines of Bernard Cornwell

He's done a Rome series, a Khan series, and now a Wars Of the Roses series.

[polishgenius]

I've heard such mixed things on Iggulden. Apparently 'historical' is quite a generous description of what he writes, in terms of accuracy.

[Baco Xtath]

Finished Broken Kingdoms and Mieville's the Scar (1st re-read/listen); both fantastic. Still on Otherland 2 and starting Malice. Also reading Vicious Circle and the Iron Jackal. All really damn good.

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 18 November 2014 - 09:15 PM, said:

I've heard such mixed things on Iggulden. Apparently 'historical' is quite a generous description of what he writes, in terms of accuracy.

You can fit nearly 75% of ALL historical fiction authors under that statement. That's where the "fiction" bit comes in.

Iggulden, like Cornwell, spends a few pages at the end summing up what he made up, what he had to speculate on, and what historians argue over.

In fact, the Khan books have to have a lot of author input in them simply becuase what we DO know of Genghis Khan is not only very little (we don't know where & when he was born, when exactly he died, where he is buried ect. ...there aren't even any quotes that can accurately be tied to him)...but moreover the fact that SO many historians from so many cultures over so many years have so many differing views on the Mongols in general...there is no one through-tale that is the truth.

As far as I'm concerned, accuracy, when it comes to history in general is not necesarily the best word to use. Only societies that are meticulously docmenented in writen word as they occured can be accurate. Everything else is largely stories from different people...and people rarely agree on the small stuff.

Iggulden makes up the small stuff.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 19 November 2014 - 12:08 AM

[Abyss]

Finally restarted CAUSAL ANGEL... gods this world is gloriously complex... I read 2 less than a year ago and I can barely remember my sobornosts from my hsiens.

[amphibian]

All hsiens are sobornosts, but not all sobernosts are hsiens.

[Andorion]

Decided to shake up my TRP, because I found myself disliking any fantasy I picked up. Clearly a time for a break. So brought out the old SF books I piled up, but never read.

Reading Larry Nivens Legacy of Heorot. Nice book, and I love it so far. Might go on to read Fleet of Worlds

[amphibian]

Andorion, did you read the Ringworld books? There's an interconnected series of books in the Ringworld/Fleet of Worlds series that's all worth checking out (I think 9 books at the last of my counts).