[Tiste Simeon]

Finished TCG and I'm left with the usual post-Malazan slump. True, I've not read BaB or Assail this time round and I definitely intend on doing so but I feel like I need a breather for a bit... Not sure what I'm going to do next...

[acesn8s]

I added Last Wish and Sword of Destiny to my to purchase queue.

[polishgenius]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 October 2018 - 08:11 PM, said:

Finished TCG and I'm left with the usual post-Malazan slump. True, I've not read BaB or Assail this time round and I definitely intend on doing so but I feel like I need a breather for a bit... Not sure what I'm going to do next...

All about that Gone-Away World slump-ending boost.

[worry]

Read Gardens of the Moon.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Up to Poul Anderson's The Queen of Air and Darkness in Hugo Winners, Vol. 3. I love the opening paragraph — it stirs my imagination:

Quote

The last glow of the last sunset would linger almost until midwinter. But there would be no more day, and the northlands rejoiced. Blossoms opened, flamboyance on firethorn trees, steelflowers rising blue from the brok and rainplant that cloaked all hills, shy whiteness of kiss-me-never down in the dales. Flitteries darted among them on iridescent wings; a crownbuck shook his horns and bugled through warmth and flower odors. Between hori­zons the sky deepened from purple to sable. Both moons were aloft, nearly full, shining frosty on leaves and mol­ten on waters. The shadows they made were blurred by an aurora, a great blowing curtain of light across half heaven. Behind it the earliest stars had come out.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 12 October 2018 - 04:18 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is amazing. I swear I'll finish it today. (I said the same thing 2 days ago at 85%, but man it just keeps going.)

[Tiste Simeon]

Salt-Man Z, on 12 October 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is amazing. I swear I'll finish it today. (I said the same thing 2 days ago at 85%, but man it just keeps going.)

Yeah I really loved it glad you're enjoying too.

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 October 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 12 October 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is amazing. I swear I'll finish it today. (I said the same thing 2 days ago at 85%, but man it just keeps going.)

Yeah I really loved it glad you're enjoying too.

Is that standalone or part x of whatever?

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 12 October 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 12 October 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 12 October 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is amazing. I swear I'll finish it today. (I said the same thing 2 days ago at 85%, but man it just keeps going.)

Yeah I really loved it glad you're enjoying too.

Is that standalone or part x of whatever?

Standalone.

However, if you haven't read it I'd say read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August first. Not because it's related in any way- just because it's better.

Though I should say I didn't like Hope as much as those two guys did so they may disagree with that rec. But Harry August is certainly North's signature book.

[Andorion]

polishgenius, on 12 October 2018 - 05:16 PM, said:

Abyss, on 12 October 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 12 October 2018 - 05:07 PM, said:

Salt-Man Z, on 12 October 2018 - 04:49 PM, said:

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is amazing. I swear I'll finish it today. (I said the same thing 2 days ago at 85%, but man it just keeps going.)

Yeah I really loved it glad you're enjoying too.

Is that standalone or part x of whatever?

Standalone.

However, if you haven't read it I'd say read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August first. Not because it's related in any way- just because it's better.

Though I should say I didn't like Hope as much as those two guys did so they may disagree with that rec. But Harry August is certainly North's signature book.

Yep. Harry August is her best. Hope is really not that good in comparison.

[Salt-Man Z]

Not sure I agree. I loved Harry August, and the book did an amazing job with its premise. But I'm enjoying the character of Hope far more, and the writing is much more personal and emotional/psychological, I think.

They're very similar books, in that they take a POV character with a weird SFF condition, and then graft them into a specific genre: Hope reads as a sci-fi technothriller (I was not expecting that) which I find slightly more engaging than August's espionage story (time travel notwithstanding.)

They're certainly both very good, and I couldn't argue against Harry August being North's "signature work", but I think I'd have to give Hope the edge in personal preference.

[Tiste Simeon]

I think I liked Harry August better but only just. Hope has a fascinating premise but the way the story is told was very unexpected and it took a while to get into but it is a powerful and thought provoking piece in a way that Harry August wasn't in quite the same way. I feel like Claire North poured more of herself into Hope.

Both of them are great and I definitely want to read more of her work and also delve into her stuff under her different names.

[polishgenius]

Tiste Simeon, on 12 October 2018 - 06:42 PM, said:

Both of them are great and I definitely want to read more of her work and also delve into her stuff under her different names.

Beware: The End of the Day is... experimental. I didn't hate reading it but a lot of people did, and you have to at least be aware going in that it doesn't really have a conventional plot at all, it's basically a series of vignettes.

[Mentalist]

Finished the last of the 3 volumes of Moorcock's best short fiction. Didn't expect to get through it this week, but the "Behold the Man" in this collection is the original novella, and much shorter than the novel I reviewed earlier.

Overall, the collection was fine. nothing really, really stood out. The titular "Breakfast in the Ruins" was basically a collection of period vignettes, as Karl Glogauer (the time traveler in "Behold the Man") relives the lives of his many incarnations around the world, in each decade from the 1870s onto 1960s. But I really didn't feel much about this. The connected short stories of "Time Dweller" and "Escape from Evening" that deal with a really far-flung future earth and how different branches of humanity adapted to it.

Next I think I'll go back to De Castell's "Greatcoats" and read teh 3rd book, Saint's Blood as the commute book. At home, making progress through Metro 2034.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 13 October 2018 - 01:27 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

polishgenius, on 12 October 2018 - 07:59 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 12 October 2018 - 06:42 PM, said:

Both of them are great and I definitely want to read more of her work and also delve into her stuff under her different names.

Beware: The End of the Day is... experimental. I didn't hate reading it but a lot of people did, and you have to at least be aware going in that it doesn't really have a conventional plot at all, it's basically a series of vignettes.

I don't have that one/not in my TRP but if I do end up with it I'll remember. I do have the trilogy of Novellas on my Kindle (Steamhouses I think?) and I am hoping to get Touch and 84K.

[polishgenius]

Tiste Simeon, on 13 October 2018 - 02:03 PM, said:

I don't have that one/not in my TRP but if I do end up with it I'll remember. I do have the trilogy of Novellas on my Kindle (Steamhouses I think?) and I am hoping to get Touch and 84K.

Gameshouse. I really like those.

And of course her work as Kate Griffin is excellent.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yes I shall definitely be checking that out in the near future I am sure.

[JPK]

I finished Realm of the Elderlings book 10 today, Dragon Keeper. I enjoyed this book, but I agree that it was obviously only half of a book. Hobbs is no stranger to 800+ page novels in her Elderlings series, so it was a bit jarring to have this one end under 500. I'll end by saying that Alise is a particularly refreshing character for me, because I feel she really breaks Hobbs' usual wilfull and unyielding female character archetype. (See Molly, Kettricken, Althea, MALTA, Serilla...)

Next up I'm going to treat myself to a reread of Zafon's Shadow of the Wind.

This post has been edited by JPK: 14 October 2018 - 05:12 AM

[Zetubal]

So... I just got around to finishing City of Miracles and, by extension, Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities Trilogy. Since I already shared my impressions (i.e. my gripes) on the first two novels with you guys, I figure it only makes sense to do the same for City of Miracles and the trilogy on the whole. In the process of doing that, I will spoil some details about the series up to its end, so...you've been warned.

Just to get this off my chest: The Divine Cities trilogy is great fun. Every novel has its recurrent and new great characters who are all around likable, sometimes intriguing people with complex emotional relations to all the others. I like the subliminal melancholy of each novel and their protagonist -they are all somehow broken people trying to put themselves together and be better than they were before. Makes for great, relatable personal quests that also tie in well with the overarching narrative of each novel. I'd say, if you're looking for a fantasy novel that has great sympathetic characters dealing with some heavy personal stuff, these novels will totally be your cup of tea.
I also really, really enjoyed the concept of lost/forbidden history introduced in the first novel.
The fact that each novel has its own tone and style is...interesting. Novel 1 is a mystery thing, novel 2 goes into anti-war and detective directions, while number 3 is somewhere between what I can only call "James Bond" action scenes mixed with high fantasy X-Men (or rather New Mutants/New Warriors) stuff. For those who enjoy somewhat predictable consistent novels in a series, this might be an issue. I was fine with it, though.

Unfortunately, there are also a couple things that I absolutely didn't like. First and probably most minor among my "complaints" is how Benett kind of copy+pastes the internal structure of each novel. There's always a mystery to be solved at the beginning, a minor action scene around the 25% mark, a major battle against a supernatural foe around the 60% mark, a "surprising" character reveal in the last quarter and a grand high fantasy battle extravaganza to close it off. Not that any of that is bad in itself; actually the opposite is true since the action scenes in Bennett's novels are absolutely fantastic. It just makes the novels seem...formulaic.
Easily the worst thing about the series is the antagonists of each novel. There's no real way around it: They suck. Big time. Novel 1's baddie is spoilered clumsily halfway though the book, turns out to be a big cartoonish fanatic and dies like a wimp for literally something along the lines of wearing a shirt that isn't pure cotton. Novel 2 has two baddies, one whose motivations don't make any sense at all and the other who's just another caricature (this time of a warmonger instead of a religious nut job). Novel 3 is a whole new level of bad villainy though. The novel has three major antagonists: The first is a random vile thug who gets disposed of at the 100p mark like it's nothing. He's boring, one-dimensional, and largely inconsequential. Number 2 is the major big baddie and his whole story is basically about a super-powered childish tantrum along the lines of "the world was mean to me so I'll take my revenge on it". Largely uninteresting guy. Also, the way he meets his end is ridiculous. Last antagonist is only there for like 50p. and their motivation is similarly childish.

Last minor comment (spoilers for the very end). I like how at the end of the novel, the antagonist basically turns the world into an X-Men thing where there are now super-powered individuals everywhere around the globe. There's just one issue with that. Her magic apparently also affects people outside of the Continent which basically implies that Divine power isn't necessarily restricted to the Continent. What's the problem with that? Well, the novels tease one question very early on: Why was it that only the Continent had Divinities? Why didn't the Saypuris and Dreyling have their own divine creatures? Although this is never directly explored as a major issue, it's repeatedly touched upon whenever the novels explore the nature of the deities. Basically the world of these novels works in a similar fashion to MBotF inasmuch as Divinites draw their power (and in this case also their core characteristics) from worship(pers). The deities are basically manifestations of people's beliefs. Which only compounds the mystery as to why only the Continentals had divinities. Ultimately, we are sort of left to believe that...I dunno...the continental ground is particularly fertile for miracles(?). But when the final antagonist basically spreads miraculous powers around the globe...that's totally antithetical to what was suggested before. And the question as to why there were never any Saypuri divinities is just forgotten.
Somehower, this really bugged me.


Anyway, great novels for the most part - Nothing stellar or unique but solid reads. Will definitely check out Bennett's new Foundryside novel(s) sometime in the future.
For now I gotta make a choice between Furies of Calderon, Darkness that Comes Before, and Black Company. Or Age of War.

This post has been edited by Zetubal: 14 October 2018 - 09:58 PM

[Chance]

Zetubal, on 14 October 2018 - 04:11 PM, said:

For now I gotta make a choice between Furies of Calderon, Darkness that Comes Before, and Black Company. Or Age of War.

Can't see how thats a choice...go Black Company everyone should read the first trilogy.

Port of Shadows wasn't top notch but it got me into a re-read of the Black Company, the first book is pretty damn good and very unique in style. Currently on Shadows Linger which I've always found is the weakest in the first trilogy but still pretty interesting.

This post has been edited by Chance: 14 October 2018 - 07:37 PM