[HiddenOne]

I've been reading some free Kindle compilation of fantasy novels for several days, and it's about to make me give up reading altogether. Seriously, I need to delete this thing, it's about 10 books, but some of them... pure awfulness.

Why do people read low grade pulp? Is it just for the sake of keeping the eyeballs occupied or what?

[polishgenius]

You're the one reading them, you tell us...




I started Magic Bites. Interesting world.

[JPK]

Good timing on starting that PG, I just finished it. Imho, what has already been said upthread is right. This wasn't an amazing book by any means, but it was solid and I could tell that the author laid a lot of building blocks for the future here. Also, Curran is awesome.

I'm also working on finishing God Emperor of Dune. I have just under an hour left for the audiobook and won't be turning it off until I've finished it. I've very muchly enjoyed the new direction of the series. Leto's philosophy is very very gripping for me. The next book will likely be a June selection for me.

Next on deck for me is the first of the Star Wars reboot books: A New Dawn for kobo and The Knife of Dreams via audiobook (I am really looking forward to things happening in this series again!)

[Baco Xtath]

Just finished listening to House of Chains and jumped immediately into Midnight Tides. First re-read for me. Can't believe how much I haven't forgotten in 6 years. Some of the minor characters, yeah, don't remember too well but, overall, I remember quiet a bit. Also started listening to the Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Only about 45 mins in but I'm enjoying it. Fell off the wagon about a month ago so haven't read a damn thing.

[Dolmen 2.0]

Just Finished Stover's Heroes Die, Book one of the Acts of Caine.

That was an interesting read. There's alot of Meta, Levels within Levels. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking around for book 2.

Meanwhile back to Willful Child WooHoooo!

[Serenity]

 Briar King, on 08 May 2015 - 01:30 AM, said:

I've got less then 100 pgs of Rome 4 left in determined to read 5-7 and thus do the entire thing straight through. I've really enjoyed this series but at 1k pgs a pop it's daunting challenge to do. I'm really tempted to go to Outlander 1 once I finish up 4 but I know if I do I ll forget who's who with all these hundreds of side characters. It gets hard with all these Italin names. I hope I don't burn myself out on this brilliant wonderful series!

I ran into that problem - I decided to take a break after Caesar's Women and have yet to go back to the series. Keep meaning to but something else always seems divert me


I put Mieville's The City and the City to one side for a while - not that I wasn't enjoying it but I had a sudden urge to read some C J Cherryh, so I re-started Foreigner. I tried to read it last year but didn't get far with it, wasn't in the mood. This time around I'm really enjoying it.

[Salt-Man Z]

 Dolmen 2.0, on 11 May 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

Looking around for [Acts of Caine] book 2.

It's out of print, so you're not likely to find a physical copy for a decent price. It's available in ebook format, though.

[polishgenius]

I believe Blade of Tyshalle in paper has come down a lot in price since the ebook became available, to be fair.




Anyway, Magic Bites is good, a lot of fun, interesting world and I like the main character, so since a lot of people say it gets better I'm definitely going to carry on, probably quite soon.
However, the supporting cast felt really forced at times. I just didn't buy her relationship with Curran at all, and there were so many people being introduced that most of the others just didn't get enough time. The backing faces are important in a series like this, so I hope that improves.


p.s: I nominate that someone starts an Urban Fantasy subforum. We have so many recs flying back and forth and favourite series to discuss that it'd blatantly be worth it.

[Andorion]

Quote

p.s: I nominate that someone starts an Urban Fantasy subforum. We have so many recs flying back and forth and favourite series to discuss that it'd blatantly be worth it.

Seconded.

[amphibian]

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

However, the supporting cast felt really forced at times. I just didn't buy her relationship with Curran at all, and there were so many people being introduced that most of the others just didn't get enough time. The backing faces are important in a series like this, so I hope that improves.

The establishment of that relationship is badly botched and reeks of wish fulfillment. However, the depiction of that couple does get better to the point where the awful beginning is forgiven.

[Puck]

Finished Blackout, immediately started Doubletake. Now, Blackout was good, but THIS... this will be glorious. Pucks everywhere.

 Andorion, on 11 May 2015 - 06:22 PM, said:

Quote

p.s: I nominate that someone starts an Urban Fantasy subforum. We have so many recs flying back and forth and favourite series to discuss that it'd blatantly be worth it.

Seconded.

Thirded.

This post has been edited by Puck: 11 May 2015 - 06:33 PM

[polishgenius]

 amphibian, on 11 May 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

However, the supporting cast felt really forced at times. I just didn't buy her relationship with Curran at all, and there were so many people being introduced that most of the others just didn't get enough time. The backing faces are important in a series like this, so I hope that improves.

The establishment of that relationship is badly botched and reeks of wish fulfillment. However, the depiction of that couple does get better to the point where the awful beginning is forgiven.

I don't really have a problem with wish-fulfillment relationships in this sort of book - as long as it doesn't get too overly breathless, which this never did really, it's not a problem. Dresden does it a lot, after all.

It was just disjointed and didn't make sense.


Also, there were way too many C-names. Curran, Corwin, Clem... I was getting confused and I'm a Malazan reader ffs.

[Salt-Man Z]

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

I believe Blade of Tyshalle in paper has come down a lot in price since the ebook became available, to be fair.

Good point. Just perusing Amazon's other sellers, I see you can get acceptable/good copies of the mass market paperback for under $10 shipped.

[QuickTidal]

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

 amphibian, on 11 May 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

However, the supporting cast felt really forced at times. I just didn't buy her relationship with Curran at all, and there were so many people being introduced that most of the others just didn't get enough time. The backing faces are important in a series like this, so I hope that improves.

The establishment of that relationship is badly botched and reeks of wish fulfillment. However, the depiction of that couple does get better to the point where the awful beginning is forgiven.

I don't really have a problem with wish-fulfillment relationships in this sort of book - as long as it doesn't get too overly breathless, which this never did really, it's not a problem. Dresden does it a lot, after all.

It was just disjointed and didn't make sense.


Also, there were way too many C-names. Curran, Corwin, Clem... I was getting confused and I'm a Malazan reader ffs.

Other than Curran, there is a core grouping of side characters that start to run through the books...and they each get more depth in each outing. Glad you enjoyed the first one...and it seems like your reaction was on par with mine.

For my half of our deal I haven't been able to find GENERATION V in stores here...but it seems like waterstones has it so I'll grab it when I'm in London week after next.

[Morgoth]

 Mentalist, on 05 May 2015 - 06:31 PM, said:

 Briar King, on 02 May 2015 - 01:48 AM, said:

@ Ment I loathed Republic! I was so happy to get the bk finally and I was so mad reading it. I won't be getting the next bk in HC unless the reviews are just stealler. I ll wait for PB.

@Slow I loved NA. It has flaws and Lightbringer bks are loads better but NA is fun and Weeks said he going to return with more bks set in it. Can't wait!

I got like 150 pages to go, it's still ok. The 2 plots are kind of simplistic, compared to the previous books, but it's obv a character study book, so I don't mind. I find myself occasionally ok with such "mellow" SFF.

To be fair, I've never thought Lynch was the second coming of Tolkien or smth, so I didn't have grand expectations for the series. It serves to entertain me, and that's about it.

EDIT: no sooner have I written the above that the plot took a nosedive with the stupid "reveal"

Now, normally, I'm all for making things "epic" and "bigger picture", but this is the one story that really didn't need that, imho.

Anyhow, the election story ended up solid, the flashback story was good. The rest made me sigh in exasperation. And that epilogue.... ugh.

I'm not dissapointed, per se . The bulk of the book is decent fun, and the character arc didn't strike me as trying too hard, or being grating--hell, Words of Radiance made me cringe more in certain parts.

I'm just rather bewildered where Lynch is gonna take the series next. and I'm not in any especial hurry to find that out.

Anyhoo, moving on, I believe I need a quick change of pace, so up next I'm gonna read John Scalzi's next "Old Man's War" novel- The Human Division

I think my main issue with the Republic is that despite Locke being portrayed as a vertiable genius, his plan to win an election has the feel of what a 14 year old would think was a smart approach. The only marginally intelligent thing he did was to Reach out for those refugees, otherwise it was all nonsense. Look at any election anywhere to see what one actually should be doing.

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

p.s: I nominate that someone starts an Urban Fantasy subforum. We have so many recs flying back and forth and favourite series to discuss that it'd blatantly be worth it.

I disagree. Sub forums are were discussions go to die. I don't see the need for pretty much any of the ones we have now, let alone new ones.

[QuickTidal]

Started Diana Galbaldon's first OUTLANDER book. It's almost scene for scene line for line the TV show. The level of adherence to the subject matter is higher than a show like GoT...this apparently because producer/showrunner Ron Moore was introduced to the books by his wife who is a die hard fan and she refuses to allow him to cock up her fave book series by changing or dropping anything.

The book is actually wonderfully immersive and well written, and I quite enjoyed the 50-60 pages I read...but I feel that I'm merely retreading the show's first season...so I think I'll probably finish out the TV season and jump right into book two DRAGONFLY IN AMBER instead.

Between now and my trip I'm probably going to catch up on Volumes 5 and 6 of Cullen Bunn's THE SIXTH GUN, chased with Hickman's NEW AVENGERS run. Need a break from prose novels.

[acesn8s]

Quote

I disagree. Sub forums are were discussions go to die. I don't see the need for pretty much any of the ones we have now, let alone new ones.

I'm of a similar mindset. If we don't have separate Sci-Fi and Fantasy subforums, why an urban fantasy subforum?

This post has been edited by acesn8s: 12 May 2015 - 12:08 PM

[HiddenOne]

I just would like a simple app that compiles all the recommendations & comments of this book sub-forum, and lists them in an organized fashion so that when I get to shopping for books, I can have the info at hand, along with some of the reviews that members write. Just like Goodreads for the Malazan Empire members. If it was arranged so that we could see which members like which books, then based on mutual tastes, quality matches could be found.

Does anyone have the sheer genius power to create this?

[amphibian]

If we could have a thread for Apt's movie tastes alone, that'd be entertaining.

(For the newer people, Apt has famously erratic taste in movies)

[Abyss]

 Morgoth, on 12 May 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

 polishgenius, on 11 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

p.s: I nominate that someone starts an Urban Fantasy subforum. We have so many recs flying back and forth and favourite series to discuss that it'd blatantly be worth it.

I disagree. Sub forums are were discussions go to die. I don't see the need for pretty much any of the ones we have now, let alone new ones.

The otherlit forum has a handful of subforums for authors who generate(d) an abundance of threads, mostly to minimize replication and make it easier to find the discussions.
If a subforum becomes mostly inactive, we consider moving the threads back into the main forum and disintegrating the subforum. It's been done a few times. Nothing is set in stone here (except for those vows we made you all take while drunk, hypnotized and covered in virgin turkey blood).

 acesn8s, on 12 May 2015 - 12:08 PM, said:

I'm of a similar mindset. If we don't have separate Sci-Fi and Fantasy subforums, why an urban fantasy subforum?

That too.

 HiddenOne, on 12 May 2015 - 12:40 PM, said:

I just would like a simple app that compiles all the recommendations & comments of this book sub-forum, and lists them in an organized fashion so that when I get to shopping for books, I can have the info at hand, along with some of the reviews that members write. Just like Goodreads for the Malazan Empire members. If it was arranged so that we could see which members like which books, then based on mutual tastes, quality matches could be found.

Does anyone have the sheer genius power to create this?

Yes, but i'm too busy fighting the Lizard Illuminatii Cabal, taking over third world shadow governments, and trying to make it to my arctic naked yoga class Mon/Wed/Sat.

 amphibian, on 12 May 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

If we could have a thread for Apt's movie tastes alone, that'd be mildly nauseating.

Fixed.

On the reading front, in earbook almost done w MISTBORN - THE FINAL EMPIRE. I can see why so many people like this book, but i'm also seeing why many feel the opposite. There's this mix of clever and original with simplistic and predictable that alternately draws me along and throws me right out.

In pretty pictures, finished PLANET HULK and moved on to WORLD WAR HULK... it's kind of like seeing a really clever low profile movie that became popular by word of mouth, and then seeing the mass marketed horribly over-merchandised sequel.

Semi almost started Buchanan's BLACK DREAM, Wooding's IRON JACKAL and Jacka's TAKEN... can't quite get my brain to commit to a book lately, probably due to work stress sex whiskey extra-dimensional id intrusions stuff.