[Macros]

fucking Eaters

[End of Disc One]

Briar King, on 08 March 2017 - 05:03 AM, said:

As I suspected.. I have had Horizon exactly one week now and in that time i have only read 24 pgs of Safehold 7 on pg 494 and 17 pgs of Expanse 5 on pg193(I hate this bk so much in comparison to 1-4)

And my DVR is piling up

I've read probably 6 pages of The Red Knight since Zelda came out. Great book, but Zelda man.

[Mentalist]

Wrapped up the "enclaves" spin-off. Meta-plot... semi-confirmed? I'm confused now. Which means I'll really have to read the rest to see what the hell happens.

Also, finally sat down and read a solid chunk (up to page 200-smth) of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. It's an interesting premise and cool mytolgy setup. Characters are so-so, but I'm intrigued, the pacing is ok, and I'm not having problems with the somewhat-disjoined narrative so far.

Not sure what I'll be throwing into my bag for next commute read. I think I'm leaning towards the 3rd Colonel Pyat book right now.

[Andorion]

Nearly finished Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Of all the classics I have read so far, I like this one a lot. Interesting characters, great social commentary, entertaining, if a bit irritating story.

Started The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Only 50 pages in, but I think I am going to like this one.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 07 March 2017 - 02:55 PM, said:

...
Starting Carey's THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS.

about 1/2 way in.... damn, i had forgotten how good Carey is at slow boil abrupt shift.

[QuickTidal]

Finished ARCANUM UNBOUND...and it was (naturally) Cosmere Sanderson excellence!

Need a book to tide me over till my vacation next week (which I have books picked out for), so I grabbed SHARDS OF HONOR by Bujold again (I stalled out on it last time)...eh, I'm again not feeling it. I keep hearing how good these books are, but I'm not seeing it. Am I missing something here?

[Chance]

QuickTidal, on 09 March 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

Need a book to tide me over till my vacation next week (which I have books picked out for), so I grabbed SHARDS OF HONOR by Bujold again (I stalled out on it last time)...eh, I'm again not feeling it. I keep hearing how good these books are, but I'm not seeing it. Am I missing something here?

Simple answer Shards of Honor isn't that good, it gets a lot better if you start with The Warriors Apperentice it is fun, so is Vor Game and Cetaganda; Mirror Dance, Memory and Komarr are all exellent. I personally think the last few are a bit worse (A Civil CAmpaign, Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn) than the high point around Mirror Dance maybe they just are average compared to the excellence but who knows.

Just finished Heirs of Empire a strange science-fantasy thingy which couldn't really decide if it was Young Adult or dead serious, some fun hints that there is more to it hopefully in the next book and some glorious ideas but rather average in total. Might test the next one when I get some time over but not a prioriy. Now starting Sins of the Empire set in the same world as the Powdermage Trilogy so I'm expecting some serious fun but not the heaviest of reads.

This post has been edited by Chance: 09 March 2017 - 08:19 PM

[Macros]

Just finished Consider Phlebas, the first culture novel.
I enjoyed it. Wasn't blown away, but I'm not really much of a space opera sci/fi fan. At a story level yes it was engrossing and come the end I really wanted to see who would go all in on the grand game of damage so to speak. The last section is quite the page turner.
But the setting, eh it's really just not my bag baby.

I have the next 2/3 culture novels at home but I don't think I'll chain read them. From what I can gather they aren't really sequential anyway so breaking it up won't matter.

Continuing to catch up with the count again.
And have The Girl on the Train over with me as well, but my new reading regime is, catch up on christo, then read other stuff.
That starts tomorrow, I'm for bed

[QuickTidal]

Fuck it...BK, Ando...I'm joining you to see what the fuss is about.

Safehold #1, here we go...

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 10 March 2017 - 12:26 AM, said:

Fuck it...BK, Ando...I'm joining you to see what the fuss is about.

Safehold #1, here we go...

Briar King, on 10 March 2017 - 12:42 AM, said:

WHAAAAATTTT?!! Fucking right on! It's fun super predictable 🍿! Totally worth it. Downside is infodumps. I think you ll enjoy it for what it is though.

Woah.... I would not have pegged QT for a Weber reader, this will be interesting.

QT, read it for social commentary, politics, and extensive, detailed military conflit and development.

The infodumps, as BK says, are the worst parts.

And if you want to talk about Bujold later, ask me, I have read the entire series.

[QuickTidal]

Always willing to try new things. Let's see how this goes.

[Tiste Simeon]

Macros, on 09 March 2017 - 10:20 PM, said:

Just finished Consider Phlebas, the first culture novel.
I enjoyed it. Wasn't blown away, but I'm not really much of a space opera sci/fi fan. At a story level yes it was engrossing and come the end I really wanted to see who would go all in on the grand game of damage so to speak. The last section is quite the page turner.
But the setting, eh it's really just not my bag baby.

I have the next 2/3 culture novels at home but I don't think I'll chain read them. From what I can gather they aren't really sequential anyway so breaking it up won't matter.

Continuing to catch up with the count again.
And have The Girl on the Train over with me as well, but my new reading regime is, catch up on christo, then read other stuff.
That starts tomorrow, I'm for bed

Yeah The Culture stories can be dipped into whenever. Mostly, they are unrelated to each other and are often quite different in style/tone/theme etc.

[QuickTidal]

Safehold #1...so far I'm really QUITE liking Weber's writing style, and the concept is damned cool!

[Andorion]

Started reading Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem.

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 10 March 2017 - 07:00 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 10 March 2017 - 04:11 PM, said:

Safehold #1...so far I'm really QUITE liking Weber's writing style, and the concept is damned cool!

Where you at now?

Still early days...JUST got to Lakeview on Safehold with one of the Archangels coming down (2499 I think?) to speak with a priest and another dude who doesn't age?

[amphibian]

I've read quite a few books lately:

Super Extra Grande (Yoss) - very funny story about a space veterinarian with some Spanglish (as the Latin Americans discovered hyperspace travel first). Think Douglas Adams without as much bizarreness. Short at 160 pages, I wanted more after it ended.

The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - tremendous book. Even better than his Vaelin/Blood Song/Raven's Shadow books. It's steampunkish dragon hunting with plots by the bad people and plots by the good people. Very well written, fun to read, expansive world. I'm looking forwards to the next one coming in the summer.

Charlie Stross's Merchant Princes series - not as good as his Laundry Files, but still enjoyable. The last couple have gotten a bit too British in the American bureaucracy segments, but he's doing well with the non-Earth parts. The time skip helps the story immensely and I'll stick around to see where he goes with the story.

This Savage Song (V.E. Schwab) - probably her worst written book and it's still fairly decent. It skews a bit YA for me, but it obviously works for a lot of people as her books keep selling like hotcakes. I'll get the sequel when it comes later this year and see if Schwab's writing improves in that world. Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic are much better written.

As A God (T.G. Shephard) - an indie book written by a Twitter friend. It's about a warrior who is a freed slave and how she has to solve a series of murders in the big capital city. It reads like a combo of the first Ryan book with the blood song and Mieville's Perdido Street Station. The author really knows how to write a fight (because she trains in several martial arts that aren't bullshit) and those are taut, fun to read, and move the story along. However, where the book stumbles is that the city itself isn't much of a character beyond the first couple chapters and the character cast is too small to really make an impact because Shephard spends so much time with her main character. Pretty good for an indie book written with very little support though. Not long, decent to read.

[Tiste Simeon]

Finished the first Lightbringer book... I'm not sure if I want to continue... I enjoy the magic system and the world building/history etc. Very clever and quite unique. But the characters were pretty annoying on the whole and I'm not sure I'm invested enough to keep going. Especially as the final book isn't out yet...

Is it worth it?

[Andorion]

amphibian, on 10 March 2017 - 07:58 PM, said:

I've read quite a few books lately:

Super Extra Grande (Yoss) - very funny story about a space veterinarian with some Spanglish (as the Latin Americans discovered hyperspace travel first). Think Douglas Adams without as much bizarreness. Short at 160 pages, I wanted more after it ended.

The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - tremendous book. Even better than his Vaelin/Blood Song/Raven's Shadow books. It's steampunkish dragon hunting with plots by the bad people and plots by the good people. Very well written, fun to read, expansive world. I'm looking forwards to the next one coming in the summer.

Charlie Stross's Merchant Princes series - not as good as his Laundry Files, but still enjoyable. The last couple have gotten a bit too British in the American bureaucracy segments, but he's doing well with the non-Earth parts. The time skip helps the story immensely and I'll stick around to see where he goes with the story.

This Savage Song (V.E. Schwab) - probably her worst written book and it's still fairly decent. It skews a bit YA for me, but it obviously works for a lot of people as her books keep selling like hotcakes. I'll get the sequel when it comes later this year and see if Schwab's writing improves in that world. Vicious and A Darker Shade of Magic are much better written.

As A God (T.G. Shephard) - an indie book written by a Twitter friend. It's about a warrior who is a freed slave and how she has to solve a series of murders in the big capital city. It reads like a combo of the first Ryan book with the blood song and Mieville's Perdido Street Station. The author really knows how to write a fight (because she trains in several martial arts that aren't bullshit) and those are taut, fun to read, and move the story along. However, where the book stumbles is that the city itself isn't much of a character beyond the first couple chapters and the character cast is too small to really make an impact because Shephard spends so much time with her main character. Pretty good for an indie book written with very little support though. Not long, decent to read.

I absolutely loved Waking Fire. It ticked a lot of my boxes - exploration, naval, dragons, modern age - I too am looking forward to the next book!

[End of Disc One]

It will be interesting to see whether QT ends up passing BK in Safehold

[Macros]

Read The Girl on the Train this evening.

Didn't really know much about it beyond it wasnt the kind of book I normally read.
The format is something that annoyed me for the first few chapters, I'm not a huge fan of such...Bland? (Not really the word I want) POV editting, but it really suited the novel when I got into it.
Read it in one sitting, not overly long but even so, once you get past the half way point it becomes quite a page turner.
I don't know what the standard 'AHA!' point is for most people on the big parts but I think I caught them quite early.

Considering how short it is I'd say definitely worth a read