[Cyphon]

Just finished Empire Ascendent, the second book in Kameron Hurley's Worldbreaker saga. The books are definitely worth a read for malazan fans, complex, shifting, plots where the reader is expected to figure it out and some really interesting and well used concepts. Third one isn't out yet, so completionists may want to hold off, but of you want to RAFO then it's worth picking up. First in the series is called The Mirror Empire.

[QuickTidal]

Finished David Dalglish's SKYBORN...I have a few overall issues with the book, some bigger than others…but I’d say overall I enjoyed it.

So yeah, I’ll read the next one at some point…but I'm not in a rush.

Not sure what I'll read next. I may do a non-fic book in a palette cleanse for DEADHOUSE and then OATHBRINGER.

[Baco Xtath]

Andorion, on 26 October 2017 - 01:13 AM, said:

Baco Xtath, on 25 October 2017 - 11:17 PM, said:

Andorion, on 25 October 2017 - 12:46 PM, said:

November is going to be so good in terms of new books -

Alastair Reynolds - Aurora Rising - Prequel to the Prefect!

The book synopsis has this as a sequel.

Spoiler

In the Prefect, the Melding Plague hadn't begun, which is what this books about.

unless I'm misremembering everything.

I had a harder look and it seems to me that Aurora Rising is basically the retitled Prefect, while the sequel is Elysium Fire coming out in January

Ah, I didn't even note the title. Interesting that they're retitling the Prefect. Elysium Fire is probably my most anticipated book this year. Revenger was pretty good but I love the Revelation Space universe so I'm glad he's getting back to it.

[Baco Xtath]

Abyss, on 26 October 2017 - 06:36 PM, said:

Ah well, no earbook for book 2 yet so I don't need to decide quickly. Started ANCILLARY JUSTICE.

beware. the narrator for JUSTICE is about as bad as they get. they switched for the remaining books. I had to read JUSTICE as I just couldn't listen to it.

[Abyss]

Baco Xtath, on 27 October 2017 - 02:21 PM, said:

Abyss, on 26 October 2017 - 06:36 PM, said:

Ah well, no earbook for book 2 yet so I don't need to decide quickly. Started ANCILLARY JUSTICE.

beware. the narrator for JUSTICE is about as bad as they get. they switched for the remaining books. I had to read JUSTICE as I just couldn't listen to it.

Ok, no kidding, the narrator is awful. I dropped the book two hours in. Maybe I'll try the ebook. But wow.... SO bad.

[polishgenius]

Andorion, on 25 October 2017 - 12:46 PM, said:

November is going to be so good in terms of new books -

Alastair Reynolds - Aurora Rising - Prequel to the Prefect!
Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dogs of War
ICE - Deadhouse Landing
Brandon Sanderson - Oathbringer
Stephen Donaldson - The Seventh Decimate

The only one of those- given the apparent thing about Aurora Rising just being a retitled The Prefect- I'll be getting on release is Deadhouse Landing, but I'm also really hyped for Nick Harkaway's Gnomon.

I get the feeling there was something else I really wanted too, but I'm forgetting it right now.

[Andorion]

polishgenius, on 27 October 2017 - 09:17 PM, said:

Andorion, on 25 October 2017 - 12:46 PM, said:

November is going to be so good in terms of new books -

Alastair Reynolds - Aurora Rising - Prequel to the Prefect!
Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dogs of War
ICE - Deadhouse Landing
Brandon Sanderson - Oathbringer
Stephen Donaldson - The Seventh Decimate

The only one of those- given the apparent thing about Aurora Rising just being a retitled The Prefect- I'll be getting on release is Deadhouse Landing, but I'm also really hyped for Nick Harkaway's Gnomon.

I get the feeling there was something else I really wanted too, but I'm forgetting it right now.

Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War?

[polishgenius]

Well that was on your list so I'm not forgetting it. I enjoy Tchaikovsky but he's not a read-on-release author for me. And this book sounds like a WE3 ripoff.

[JPK]

Alright guys, I give up on The Core and I will not be coming back to it. I imagine the book ends with the demons winning and eating everyone's brains, because that's the only ending I'd be even remotely happy with at this point. I will not be buying another book from Peter V Brett and I think I'll be selling and/or donating all of the books from this series. Possibly to a dumpster fire. I give it 1 star and cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone. In case I wasn't clear enough, I hate this book so fucking much.

I'm gonna go read Vallista by Steven Brust as a palette cleanser now.

This post has been edited by JPK: 28 October 2017 - 05:02 PM

[Mentalist]

Finished Fukuyama's "Political Development and Political Decay". Interesting book, though towards the end he's gotten a tad repetitive in an attempt to really hammer his points home, so that detracted from stylistic enjoyment a bit. Given he's not a history expert, a lot of stuff I'd find really interesting is only briefly touched upon, but there's a huge bibliography, If I ever have the enormous amount of time to actually check his sources.

Staying on the "kind-of-academic" kick I'm currently on, I started Martin Meredith's "Fortunes of Africa". Not sure what I think of this yet, but my non-classical African history is really spotty, so maybe this'll fill in some blank spots and give me a bit of a systemic overview.

IN the commute, I'm working through the War among the Angels omnibus by Moorcock, and it was really hard-going through the first part ("Blood: a Southern Fantasy"). Now that I'm into "Fabulous Harbours", which is more of a short story collection, it's going a bit better. Still not sure what I think of the whole thing and what it means for the whole multiverse cosmology that was kind of established up to now.

[Andorion]

JPK, on 28 October 2017 - 05:00 PM, said:

Alright guys, I give up on The Core and I will not be coming back to it. I imagine the book ends with the demons winning and eating everyone's brains, because that's the only ending I'd be even remotely happy with at this point. I will not be buying another book from Peter V Brett and I think I'll be selling and/or donating all of the books from this series. Possibly to a dumpster fire. I give it 1 star and cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone. In case I wasn't clear enough, I hate this book so fucking much.

I'm gonna go read Vallista by Steven Brust as a palette cleanser now.

Lol that sounds bad. Are all the books like this?

[JPK]

Andorion, on 29 October 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

JPK, on 28 October 2017 - 05:00 PM, said:

Alright guys, I give up on The Core and I will not be coming back to it. I imagine the book ends with the demons winning and eating everyone's brains, because that's the only ending I'd be even remotely happy with at this point. I will not be buying another book from Peter V Brett and I think I'll be selling and/or donating all of the books from this series. Possibly to a dumpster fire. I give it 1 star and cannot in good conscience recommend to anyone. In case I wasn't clear enough, I hate this book so fucking much.

I'm gonna go read Vallista by Steven Brust as a palette cleanser now.

Lol that sounds bad. Are all the books like this?

I loved book one, it's very story driven and very personal with the characters that it follows. I thought book two was stl pretty good, but books 3 and and were definitely weaker, but potentially worth the read as long as it had a strong payoff with the lost book. Unfortunately, this last book didn't deliver for me. At all. I'm fairly smashed atm, so if you want more info PM me and I'll expand further after I sleep this off.

[Andorion]

Reading At The End of The Day by Claire North. Extremely depressing. Probably the darkest thing she has written ever.

Also reading Destiny's Conflict by Janny Wurts. I don't like it. Arithon's plotline is too repetitive.

[JPK]

Andorion, on 30 October 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

Also reading Destiny's Conflict by Janny Wurts. I don't like it. Arithon's plotline is too repetitive.

I've got this lined up for when I finish Vallista. I do have a friend that had finished it already and swears that this book has a huge payoff. Also, I stopped reading this series for Arithon around 3 books ago. It's all about Lysaer for me now.

[Andorion]

JPK, on 30 October 2017 - 03:22 PM, said:

Andorion, on 30 October 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

Also reading Destiny's Conflict by Janny Wurts. I don't like it. Arithon's plotline is too repetitive.

I've got this lined up for when I finish Vallista. I do have a friend that had finished it already and swears that this book has a huge payoff. Also, I stopped reading this series for Arithon around 3 books ago. It's all about Lysaer for me now.

There really had better be a payoff. Halfway in and my eyes are hurting due to continuously rolling them at Arithon

Yeah Lysaer is far more interesting.

Also I have felt for around 3 books that

Spoiler

what Ath needs is a campaign of extermination against the Koriathain.

Also I finished Claire North's End of the Day. Very strange book.

[amphibian]

JPK, on 30 October 2017 - 03:22 PM, said:

Andorion, on 30 October 2017 - 01:36 AM, said:

Also reading Destiny's Conflict by Janny Wurts. I don't like it. Arithon's plotline is too repetitive.

I've got this lined up for when I finish Vallista. I do have a friend that had finished it already and swears that this book has a huge payoff. Also, I stopped reading this series for Arithon around 3 books ago. It's all about Lysaer for me now.

I'm reading Vallista right now.

I finished Walter Ellis Mosely's Futureland collection. It was fairly good, but not great. I truly liked his willingness to take upon inequity, racial (social) divisions, and the different vision of the future. However, it often felt like he didn't think things through all the way and we were left with a sort of incomplete future because it didn't quite add up enough to be a fully realized world.

I finished Ian MacDonald's Luna: New Moon and Luna: Wolf Moon books. They are EXCELLENT. The initial plot revolves around drama between five families/zaibatsu on the moon and then sprawls out to include Earth and a little bit of spacefaring. The characters are vivid, stunningly alive, easy to connect to or react to, and interact with so much believability that I'm amazed. The dumbed down tagline is "Game of Thrones in space", but it's honestly so much better than GoT in the specifics of how it handles interlocked families/empires, conflict, and the characters themselves are incredibly diverse and interesting. I highly recommend this series to anyone.

I do have one slight criticism of Wolf Moon - so I'll go into spoilers.

Spoiler

The Vorontsov enmity towards the Asamoahs isn't ever gone into and as a result, half of the war that they wage upon the moon doesn't make sense. The Cortas wanted to destroy the Mackenzies and the Suns, that's obvious. But why would the Vorontsovs severely damage or kill the food production crowd of the moon?

[Macros]

Just started 3 parts dead yesterday.

Forgot I had picked up the 5 book omnibus on offer on my Kobo ages ago.

[Andorion]

Finished Destiny's Conflict.

Yup there is a payoff. In fact there is a lot of payoff and lot of plotlines have been wound up. But the horrifying twist at the ending is making me really anxious for the next book.

[acesn8s]

Compelted The White Luck Warrior.

Wutteät! Yesssssss!

[Traveller]

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I'm about halfway through. It's been pretty good so far.. lacking something though? Possibly just some humour - it's very dry, and although the spiders need different versions per generation to keep the story spanning their evolution, there just aren't any decent protagonists.

I want to find out what happens but at the same time I'm not really itching to pick it up each time.