[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 01 February 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

Finally decided to dive into Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series. About 50pages into the first book (FOUNDATION, not PRELUDE) and I'm rather enjoying it so far. It's been a while since I last read Asimov (the I,Robot books), but the ease of his prose is everpresent.

This brings back memories. I finished the series with Foundation and Earth back in 2005 I think. From what little I remember, Foundation, Foundation and Empire were really good reads while the others were a bit slower.

[Salt-Man Z]

Andorion, on 01 February 2016 - 03:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 01 February 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

Finally decided to dive into Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series. About 50pages into the first book (FOUNDATION, not PRELUDE) and I'm rather enjoying it so far. It's been a while since I last read Asimov (the I,Robot books), but the ease of his prose is everpresent.

This brings back memories. I finished the series with Foundation and Earth back in 2005 I think. From what little I remember, Foundation, Foundation and Empire were really good reads while the others were a bit slower.

Back when my first child was born, I read through the entire Robots->Empire->Foundation series. (I brought one of the early Foundation books to the hospital.) I had read the four Robot novels before, and they remain my favorites. The Empire books were okay, but haven't aged well at all. The original Foundation bored me to tears, but the next two were okay. (I particularly enjoyed the Mule bits.) But I liked Asimov's Foundation sequels, and his prequels were decent. It was a fun experience reading the entire extended series.

As far as spin-offs go, Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban (robot) trilogy was enjoyable. But the Secound Foundation series was really hit-or-miss: Gregory Benford's (first) book was awful, and Greg Bear's (second) book was okay, but David Brin's concluding volume was a lot of fun and cleverly tied back into Asimov's Robots/Empire stuff.

[Andorion]

Salt-Man Z, on 01 February 2016 - 04:37 PM, said:

Andorion, on 01 February 2016 - 03:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 01 February 2016 - 01:56 PM, said:

Finally decided to dive into Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series. About 50pages into the first book (FOUNDATION, not PRELUDE) and I'm rather enjoying it so far. It's been a while since I last read Asimov (the I,Robot books), but the ease of his prose is everpresent.

This brings back memories. I finished the series with Foundation and Earth back in 2005 I think. From what little I remember, Foundation, Foundation and Empire were really good reads while the others were a bit slower.

Back when my first child was born, I read through the entire Robots->Empire->Foundation series. (I brought one of the early Foundation books to the hospital.) I had read the four Robot novels before, and they remain my favorites. The Empire books were okay, but haven't aged well at all. The original Foundation bored me to tears, but the next two were okay. (I particularly enjoyed the Mule bits.) But I liked Asimov's Foundation sequels, and his prequels were decent. It was a fun experience reading the entire extended series.

As far as spin-offs go, Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban (robot) trilogy was enjoyable. But the Secound Foundation series was really hit-or-miss: Gregory Benford's (first) book was awful, and Greg Bear's (second) book was okay, but David Brin's concluding volume was a lot of fun and cleverly tied back into Asimov's Robots/Empire stuff.

The prequels add a lot, I agree and for me as well the Robot books were superior. But my favourite Asimov pieces are his Robot short stories. I just love those

[Mentalist]

Went thru part of this thread in order to update my Goodreads account (havent' done so regularly since June).

Added a bunch of things to look into thanks to this thread:

"Traitor's Blade"
"When the Heavens Fall"
"The Iron Ship"

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 02 February 2016 - 02:28 PM

[Morgoth]

Just finished Bennet's City of Blade, a sequel to City of Stairs. It was enjoyable, as all his books are, but I was disappointed when I learned he was making a sequel and I think I was right to feel that way. One of Bennet's strenghts is his creativity, his crazy gaimanesque worlds and plots, and exploring deeper into a world he already covered in a previous book lost some of that. To me at least.

Still, it was an excellent tale and I finished it almost in one reading. Well worth it despite the above.

[Serenity]

Finished Lieutenant Hornblower and today made a start on Morgan's Black Man.

[firvulag]

Morgoth, on 02 February 2016 - 11:17 AM, said:

Just finished Bennet's City of Blade, a sequel to City of Stairs. It was enjoyable, as all his books are, but I was disappointed when I learned he was making a sequel and I think I was right to feel that way. One of Bennet's strenghts is his creativity, his crazy gaimanesque worlds and plots, and exploring deeper into a world he already covered in a previous book lost some of that. To me at least.

Still, it was an excellent tale and I finished it almost in one reading. Well worth it despite the above.

^This. This is exactly how I feel. I refuse to read any series until it's complete, so finding out that there was a sequel to City of Stairs was a little annoying. Luckily for me I only read it a few months ago so it's not too bad.

Glad you enjoyed it though, I'll be reading it myself in the next few weeks

[Salt-Man Z]

It was announced as a trilogy from the beginning, though...

[Morgoth]

Salt-Man Z, on 02 February 2016 - 02:01 PM, said:

It was announced as a trilogy from the beginning, though...

It doesn't say that on the copy I own of City of Stairs. However, I would have bought it anyways as I enjoyed all of his previous books, and did enjoy this too. Still, I've long since come to the conclusion that I prefer stand alone novels, and Bennet always did so well with those. City of Stairs works perfectly well as a standalone too.

So, I'm not saying it was bad. It was a good book and I will buy the third of the trilogy. Yet I would much rather have read a new book of his in a new setting with new people and crazy concepts.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 02 February 2016 - 02:11 PM

[Abyss]

Clines' EX-ISLE.

More superheroes vs zombies MORE!!!!!!!!

The likelihood of me being at all productive at work today just dropped significantly.


....also, REPUBLIC OF THIEVES can go sit in the corner being disappointing til i'm done.

[worry]

Finished NK Jemisin's Dreamblood duology. This seems to get a lot less chatter than 100k Kingdoms and the new series, so I was wondering why (on top of starting to just be a NKJ completist, cuz she's just that good). Gotta say, both books, but especially the second one, were as good as anything I've read the last few years and better than most. Particularly the second book, which builds on and expands from the first so naturally that it should be an educational text for authors aspiring to write multibook volumes. In that way it reminded me of the Long Price books. Just so good at the subtle elements of character building, and actual development.

I'm gonna slip in Jordan's The Fires of Heaven before I get to The Fifth Season. I'm a couple pages into the Prologue and already every single woman's appearance has been commented on. Can't wait to dive in and see who else is beautiful and who has never been among those counted beautiful. I love that RJ understands that there's a gray area here where women can be beautiful at first glance, but still be unattractive due to constant STERN-FACE. Here lies the true origin of nuance in epic fantasy.

[Andorion]

Dumbledude, on 03 February 2016 - 01:36 AM, said:

Finished NK Jemisin's Dreamblood duology. This seems to get a lot less chatter than 100k Kingdoms and the new series, so I was wondering why (on top of starting to just be a NKJ completist, cuz she's just that good). Gotta say, both books, but especially the second one, were as good as anything I've read the last few years and better than most. Particularly the second book, which builds on and expands from the first so naturally that it should be an educational text for authors aspiring to write multibook volumes. In that way it reminded me of the Long Price books. Just so good at the subtle elements of character building, and actual development.

I'm gonna slip in Jordan's The Fires of Heaven before I get to The Fifth Season. I'm a couple pages into the Prologue and already every single woman's appearance has been commented on. Can't wait to dive in and see who else is beautiful and who has never been among those counted beautiful. I love that RJ understands that there's a gray area here where women can be beautiful at first glance, but still be unattractive due to constant STERN-FACE. Here lies the true origin of nuance in epic fantasy.

I have been looking at the Dreamblood books for months and hesitating. Thanks for the review! Time to jump in.

Fires of Heaven - Is this the cleavage prologue? I am forgetting

[Baco Xtath]

I need to listen to the Dreamblood duology. I bought them after listening to 100k kingdoms. And I loved the Fifth Season. I'll up them on my TRP.

Almost finished with Long Way to Small Angry Planet - definitely a lot of fun. Probably I'll knock out Gamehouse next.

Finished listening to Sorcerer to the Crown; really good stuff. I saw it compared somewhere to Strange and Norrell and it definitely has that feel but a lot less uptight, helluva lot of fun.

Poseidon's Wake was released on audible yesterday so, even though I read it fairly recently, I'm listening to it.

[QuickTidal]

Finished FOUNDATION by Asmiov. I liked it. I think Salt-man had a point about boredom though. Later in the book when I realized that I was BASICALLY reading a mildly entertaining set of Encyclopedia entires on an era of time...I was like "meh". But I will definitely read the others in the series.

Started CAREER OF EVIL by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling), the 3rd Cormoran Strike novel. It's as good as the other two so far...can't wait to see who they cast as Strike and Robin in the BBC tv series they are making. I'm hoping for Tom Hardy and Emma Watson...but I realize that may be a pipe dream.

[Andorion]

Finished Rachel Aaron's One Good Dragon Deserves Another, a significant improvement on the last book.

Started Bradley P Beaulieu's Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, pretty entertaining so far.

[Salt-Man Z]

QuickTidal, on 03 February 2016 - 02:30 PM, said:

Finished FOUNDATION by Asmiov. I liked it. I think Salt-man had a point about boredom though. Later in the book when I realized that I was BASICALLY reading a mildly entertaining set of Encyclopedia entires on an era of time...I was like "meh". But I will definitely read the others in the series.

Part of the problem (for me) was just the nature of the book being a "fix-up" of previously-written short stories that were only loosely connected to each other. The later installments in the trilogy worked better, I thought.

As for the rest of the series: If you plan on reading anything past the original trilogy, I'd recommend reading his four Robots novels first, as both the Foundation sequels (Edge and Earth) and prequels (Prelude and Forward) tie back to those books. (And besides which, they're just a lot of fun.)

[QuickTidal]

Salt-Man Z, on 03 February 2016 - 05:35 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 03 February 2016 - 02:30 PM, said:

Finished FOUNDATION by Asmiov. I liked it. I think Salt-man had a point about boredom though. Later in the book when I realized that I was BASICALLY reading a mildly entertaining set of Encyclopedia entires on an era of time...I was like "meh". But I will definitely read the others in the series.

Part of the problem (for me) was just the nature of the book being a "fix-up" of previously-written short stories that were only loosely connected to each other. The later installments in the trilogy worked better, I thought.

As for the rest of the series: If you plan on reading anything past the original trilogy, I'd recommend reading his four Robots novels first, as both the Foundation sequels (Edge and Earth) and prequels (Prelude and Forward) tie back to those books. (And besides which, they're just a lot of fun.)

Thanks man.

Yeah, I've read all the Robots book. Love those.

I MAY go on beyond the main trilogy. I like the idea of the whole thing, I was just disappointed in (for example) following Gaal Dornick around for 60 pages and then having to switch gears to follow Salvor Hardin around, and again, and again with new characters. By the end I was very aware of the fact that I was reading completely separate short stories as opposed to one main narrative. It was fine once I accepted that, but initially I was rankled. The other thing that bugged me a bit was the lack of description to the world around. I don't think it was till the last 50 pages or so that I had a clear picture of what Terminus looked like.

[amphibian]

Mang, it took me three reads before I really got Blood Meridian and how bleakly meaningful McCarthy could be.

[acesn8s]

About 90% of the way through The Air War. Been sick the past few days and had some trippy fever dreams about Ornithopter, synchronized dog fights.

[Salt-Man Z]

Haven't been able to bring myself to pick up a new novel for whatever reason, but I'm working through some more Borges, currently on Brodie's Report. So far it's all his Argentinian stories, which I never enjoy as much as his more "Borgesian" tales (though some of them are great) but I read "The Encounter" last night, which was really good.