[Esa1996]

acesn8s, on 21 December 2017 - 06:45 PM, said:

I finished Bakkers's Aspect-Emperor series. Wow...not how I envisioned it wrapping up.

I'll start Sebastien De Castell's Tyrant's Throne over vacation! I need some swashbuckling after the mindfuck of The Unholy Consult.

Just to make sure, the series doesn't end with The Unholy Consult. Bakker originally planned the series as a trilogy with the first book being The Prince of Nothing, the second The Aspect Emperor, and the third The No-God. Turned out he couldn't quite fit it into a trilogy so he decided to write two trilogies and a duology. While writing the second trilogy it turned out he couldn't fit it into a trilogy so it became a quadrilogy. The last part of the series, The No-God, is planned to be only two books long but Bakker has said that it might become three. TLDR; There're still at least two books to come.

This post has been edited by Esa1996: 23 December 2017 - 01:39 PM

[polishgenius]

Esa1996, on 23 December 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

acesn8s, on 21 December 2017 - 06:45 PM, said:

I finished Bakkers's Aspect-Emperor series. Wow...not how I envisioned it wrapping up.

I'll start Sebastien De Castell's Tyrant's Throne over vacation! I need some swashbuckling after the mindfuck of The Unholy Consult.

Just to make sure, the series doesn't end with The Unholy Consult. Bakker originally planned the series as a trilogy with the first book being The Prince of Nothing, the second The Aspect Emperor, and the third The No-God. Turned out he couldn't quite fit it into a trilogy so he decided to write two trilogies and a duology. While writing the second trilogy it turned out he couldn't fit it into a trilogy so it became a quadrilogy. The last part of the series, The No-God, is planned to be only two books long but Bakker has said that it might become three. TLDR; There're still at least two books to come.

But just to make sure sure: current status is that it could well end here. By Bakker's own words, when he originally conceived the series, the ending of Unholy Consult is what he had in mind. Later on he came up with more and does still plan to write it, but he hasn't currently got a deal for it afaik, needs to work full time to pay the bills, and as such, feels he'd be happy to leave it as it is if it came to it, although he'd rather finish it.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Hamilton's Fallen Dragon. I had thought this was a Commonwealth book, but I was mistaken. Oh well, seems decent so far.

[Aptorian]

Having some down time while visiting the parents, I finally got into Deadhouse Landing.

Damn this is some high grade Malazan crack. This is the kind of enjoyment I got out of reading the original 4 or 5 books.

[Mentalist]

Jared Diamond is a slog. Mostly because it's too "pop-scienc-y", and he started by listing his major argument, and now he's kind of just restating it ad nauseum. I've adopted my usual approach to dense but not gripping at-home books: I'm committed to at least a chapter a day (at least 2 if it's a non-work night), so even if I doze off halfway through one, I then resume and make at least some progress. Some of his facts are fairly neat, but overall, this is so primitive compared to Fukuyama, it's not even funny.

In commute, War Factory is an epic story of a psychotic AI manipulating most of the known universe, seeking some kind of redemption while messing with the space-time continuum. Also, something most accurately described as "geriatric alien crab monster porn", I'm not even kidding.

Since I'm at home for the next few days, I'm also gonna get back to New Amsterdam in eBook on my phone's Kindle.

[amphibian]

Chance, on 22 December 2017 - 12:10 AM, said:

Going through the Greatcoats series and while I think they are pretty good books, I'm not sure I actually like these books. The author like a number of other fantasy authors go a bit deep into the lets torture our protagonists for 3/4 of the book (every success just revealing a new greater torment), then most everything solves itself in the last 1/4 after a few sacrifices. Its a story structure I really detest and so far each greatcoats books more or less follows it.

The author didn't present that great of an imagination for expanding a buddy group adventure into more without straining things in the first two and a half books. I'm hoping Tyrant's Throne takes what Saint's Blood did and runs with that because I'm getting bored.

[Mentalist]

General conclusion on finishing Guns, Germs, and Steel : I should've read this before Fukuyama

It gets better. Part 3, where Diamond does actual case studies from different world regions is quite interesting. And in the end he DOES start to address the more "relevant" (imho) questions. But his afterword ends up pointing at "development of institutions" (which is the focus of Fukuyama's books) as the big reasons for "why comparatively similar (economically) societies can develop differently".

Still, I think I'd actually be interested in reading his "Collapse".

I'm also about 75% done "New Amsterdam". It's basically a collection of detective stories, with a meta-plot. And one of the 2 detectives is a vampire. It's pretty great.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 24 December 2017 - 08:28 PM

[Esa1996]

Finished Wars of Light and Shadow 5 on Saturday. Definitely the best entry in the series. The latter part of the book gave even Malazan a run for it's money. The good thing about the series is that it seems to get better with every book. Certainly the threats the world is facing seem to get worse and more imminent with every book. I really hope that trend continues. So far the beginning of the 6th book has been quite promising, though being only 50 or so pages into the book I can't really say much about it.

[Esa1996]

Finished Wars of Light and Shadow 5 on Saturday. Definitely the best entry in the series. The latter part of the book gave even Malazan a run for it's money. The good thing about the series is that it seems to get better with every book. Certainly the threats the world is facing seem to get worse and more imminent with every book. I really hope that trend continues. So far the beginning of the 6th book has been quite promising, though being only 50 or so pages into the book I can't really say much about it.

[Mentalist]

Finished "New Amsterdam" yesterday... really fun book.

I'm severely dissapointed, because the 2 sequels aren't available on Kindle. WTF, Amazon?

Anyhow, for the next "at-home' read I'm tackling Vellum by Hal Duncan.

[Macros]

Nearly finished children of dune.
It's better than Messiah but still nowhere near as good as dune.
I can see me struggling to be bothered to read god emperor even though I have it sitting waiting.

[Salt-Man Z]

Macros, on 26 December 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

Nearly finished children of dune.
It's better than Messiah but still nowhere near as good as dune.
I can see me struggling to be bothered to read god emperor even though I have it sitting waiting.

It's totally different than any of the first 3 books; I'd say give it a try. (And then 5-6 are still quite different again.)

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 27 December 2017 - 06:49 AM, said:

Just got done with The Grace of Kings. That was so good! Just wow.

Starting bk 2 but I have a fear it will not be near as special as 1 was.

I'm really happy you found it so good.

Right now, Wall of Storms has an even better rating on Goodreads than Grace of Kings.

I haven't read Wall of Storms, but I have read Liu's translations of Cixin Liu's books and they're very, very good. They're dense science fiction and not the same style at all as Grace of Kings though.

[End of Disc One]

I'm in the middle of Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie short story collection at the moment. It's pretty good.

I had heard that The Wall of Storms has a slower beginning focused on a new character, similar to House of Chains. I hope to start it within the next few months.

[Andorion]

So I have been in a kind of strange mood lately and I have been binging urban fantasy. So far I have read -

Steve McHugh - Crimes Against Magic

Lilith Saintcrow -Night Shift, and Working for the Devil.

I rather like Lilith Saintcrow - quite dark, very action packed. McHugh has potential but the writing is very clunky.

I have also reread a bunch of Kate Daniels and read On the Edge by Ilona Andrews.

[polishgenius]

Have you raid Kate Griffin AKA Claire North's urban fantasy alter-ego?

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 28 December 2017 - 07:27 AM

[Andorion]

polishgenius, on 28 December 2017 - 07:27 AM, said:

Have you raid Kate Griffin AKA Claire North's urban fantasy alter-ego?

Read all the Matthew Swift books. Loved them. I really wish she had done a few more with Swift as the main character.

[QuickTidal]

Finished the first tale of FAFHRD & GREY MOUSER (THE SNOW WOMEN), and quite enjoyed his intro!

Might bust into one of the books I got for X-mas, either FAERIE FRUIT by Charlotte E. English, or THE ROOK by Daniel O'Malley.

[worry]

Finished Acceptance, and thus the Southern Reach Trilogy. I know this isn't the majority view, but I thought each one was better than the last. I friggin' loved this book and this finale.

Spoiler

The first book was a trip, and I understand why people love it. The second book had such an interesting choice for a protagonist in Control, and watching him grapple with his position (w/ some seeming clarity, even as he's lowkey going crazy, all kind of hinted at in his very code name) was such a tricky thing to pull off. But splitting the perspectives even more for book 3, from before and after Area X, was a wonderful surprise.

And it made Control's cowardice -- not so honest or stark when it's his POV the whole time -- stand out next to Ghost Bird, Gloria (the Director), or even Grace (the assistant director). It's not that he's a coward in the archetypal sense, like Sam Tarly, but there are clearly things he can't handle that others can. He loses his head a few times. He's brave in a few other ways, but that's just another way VanderMeer storytelling gifts shine through. To be clear, he is so good with the characters in this book that it even retroactively made the first two books better, more interesting.

Anyway, learning about Saul (the lighthouse keeper) and his relationship with young Gloria was really rewarding. Ghost Bird coming into herself was fascinating, especially in contrast (somewhat) to the Biologist, and definitely next to Control. I can't say I fully understand what Area X is, or especially what the mechanism is that got it to Earth or into a lighthouse lens, but that doesn't particularly matter. It was mind-bending in a good way.

Standout moments: seeing the skeleton of the Moaner; the Biologist's island journal with the owl story; the leviathan-Biologist paying a visit to Ghost Bird and company; also I think the word leviathan being used throughout instead of, I presume, "whale" was strange, then off-putting, then completely clicked into place as prepwork for the Area X leviathan(s) we see, just an interesting authorial trick; Saul seeing his lover off, sticking around the bar til closing, and then everything getting hugely haywire and bloody; and my favorite moment in the book, the final passage in Control's final chapter. I won't repeat the whole thing, but I think the phrase "John Rodriguez elongated down the final stairs, jumped into the light." is one of the best I've ever read. That verb choice!

Anyway, great series, and I hope to read more VanderMeer in the future. I'd rate em this way: Annihilation: 4 stars. Authority: 4.5 stars. Acceptance: 5 stars.

[Macros]

Salt-Man Z, on 27 December 2017 - 01:29 AM, said:

Macros, on 26 December 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

Nearly finished children of dune.
It's better than Messiah but still nowhere near as good as dune.
I can see me struggling to be bothered to read god emperor even though I have it sitting waiting.

It's totally different than any of the first 3 books; I'd say give it a try. (And then 5-6 are still quite different again.)

Just finished children of dune.

I'm curious enough now to see where Leto's story goes to read god emperor