[Abyss]

Astra, on 30 July 2010 - 05:57 PM, said:

... then I am going to read The Host.

And the award for Best Glutton For Punishment goes to...

[Dag]

Finished "Anansi Boys", and it was good and entertaining, but just like "American Gods", it didn't convince me Gaiman was a genius, as some people's praises seem to indicate...

Also, finally finished Mieville's "The Scar", and I really liked it, primarily because of Belis' character. I think I will be ordering other Mieville books as well.

And now I have to take a longer break from fantasy and start chewing on a bunch of academic texts... of the rather unadventurous and unexciting kind...

[stone monkey]

Astra, on 30 July 2010 - 06:01 PM, said:

I am sorry to disappoint you and Sombra
But Breaking Dawn was way better than soap operas New Moon and Eclipse.

Isn't that akin to saying that having one eye poked out with a sharpened tea spoon is better than having both eyes poked out with a sharpened teaspoon? It may be better, but it's still not fun...

[End of Disc One]

I haven't read any of the Twilight books, but I read a summary of Breaking Dawn and it was by far the worst thing I've ever read. I can't imagine how New Moon and Eclipse could be worse than that.

[Ember]

Reaper's Gale. As well as The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

[Ulrik]

Winterbirth from Godless World. Solid, but far from top levels.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher.

[Aooga]

in last few weeks:

The Cardinals Blades - Piere Puvel. 3.5/5
The Strain - Guilermo Del Torro & Chuck Hogan. 3.5/5
Altered Cazrbon - Richard Morgan 4.5/5


Now reading:

Redemption Space - Alastair Reynolds. So far so good.

on the shelf:
House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds
Wolrds Enough and Time - Dan Simmons
The Book of The New Sun (all 4 parts) - Gene Wolfe

[QuickTidal]

Just finished THE PRINCE OF MIST, the first of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's YA books that have been stuck in legal North American release hell for a number of years and it was really good. Like Shadow Of The Wind-lite. Same amazingly readeable gothic flavour! Highly recommended!

After that I finally finished Robyn Young's Templar series with THE FALL OF THE TEMPLARS....and to be quite honest it falls a bit flat in spots. There is a whole arm of the plot that revolves around French king Phillipe being a madman trying to take out the Templars without anyone thinking poorly of him, and those parts are quite, quite boring sadly.

There are sections of the book that concern Will Campbell (protagonist) going home to family in Scotland he hasn't seen in years and he ends up fighting for a young William Wallace..and those bits are great! I think this book suffers from how all over the place it HAS to be really. Young should have just concentrated on the final few years of the Temple and told the story of only their downfall...but she spends too much time endearing me to Will and the Scottish cause to make me care about the rest of it. Sigh. I wanted the end of the series to be good.

I've got a few trade's on the go of Geoff John's run on Green Lantern right now with Rebirth and No Fear. I am also going to finish RETRIBUTION FALLS by Chris Wooding, which I was enjoying.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 02 August 2010 - 01:03 PM

[End of Disc One]

Started on an ARC of The Way of Kings. I'm pretty busy though and probably won't finish this beast by the time it is released.

[Puck]

Taking a break with King's Insomnia, which is, uh, not really gripping me even at ~250 pages in, and am now reading The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar for a change. Like it so far

[kcf]

I finished up The Dervish House by Ian McDonald. It's good, and I expect it'll be a favorite for several awards, but I still found it a bit uneven - just enough to hold it back from being a really great novel. (full review)

Now I'm reading The Chamber of Ten by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon. I was thinking that it could be for getting me in the mood to travel. So far it's rather a rather mediocre Dan Brown knock-off.

[MecnunK]

Mistborn. I bought all three in paperback because of lack of any other inspiration and after having read the The gathering storm I was mildly impressed with Sanderson. Really liked the first, original magic system and although the universe is a bit dull and grey it was an enjoyable read none the less and I didnt really put it down till I finshed, the second one, well of ascension I found myself bored at times and beginning to get worried that he had lost some inspiration, in the end it was so so and I thought blegh ok the final one hopefully is little more in line with the first. I am halfway through the third and final installment and so far I have found it a struggle to get through or carry on reading. I think his best work in this series was the first. Hopefully something will happen in this book soon.

[QuickTidal]

Gave FOR THE WIN by Cory Doctorow a shot, but by the halfway point the infodumping got tedious and the charm from his previous great effort LITTLE BROTHER was missing, so I bailed.

Now I am into SWORDS & DARK MAGIC sword and sorcery anthology Edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders. So far, so good!

[teholbeddict]

Rading Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet atm. Everyone tells me it's supposed to be excellent and is a must read book. I'm about two hundred pages in and so far it's definitely good. Nothing mind blowing yet, or anything that warrants it being a must read, but I'm sure I'll get around to that. It is right up my alley as far as types of books I like to read go. In the end I doubt it will be bad, I'm sure it will continue to be very good, just have to see if it's going to live up to the hype.

[Sinisdar Toste]

just today finished the many deaths of the black company(omnibus of water sleeps and soldiers live). had to get myself up to date on that series cuz its awesome might check out dread empire in between rereads of the MBotF.

oh and Croaker wins the A+ Best Bro In All The Sixteen Worlds Award. that man is....... the most interesting man in the world

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 04 August 2010 - 02:15 AM

[End of Disc One]

MecnunK, on 04 August 2010 - 12:53 AM, said:

Mistborn. I bought all three in paperback because of lack of any other inspiration and after having read the The gathering storm I was mildly impressed with Sanderson. Really liked the first, original magic system and although the universe is a bit dull and grey it was an enjoyable read none the less and I didnt really put it down till I finshed, the second one, well of ascension I found myself bored at times and beginning to get worried that he had lost some inspiration, in the end it was so so and I thought blegh ok the final one hopefully is little more in line with the first. I am halfway through the third and final installment and so far I have found it a struggle to get through or carry on reading. I think his best work in this series was the first. Hopefully something will happen in this book soon.

If it helps, I think the first half of Hero of Ages is the worst part of the trilogy, and the second half is the best. Or to be more precise, the final "book" of Hero of Ages is IMO the best part of the series.

Also I'm finding The Way of Kings to read much more like The Gathering Storm but without the introspective fluff that you find in WoT.

[Puck]

Puck, on 02 August 2010 - 03:09 PM, said:

Taking a break with King's Insomnia, which is, uh, not really gripping me even at ~250 pages in, and am now reading The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar for a change. Like it so far

Finished The Good Fairies of New York and had quite a few good laughs, fun to read
Now back to Insomnia, maybe..

[Salt-Man Z]

Finished Ursual K. Le Guin's Rocannon's World last night. Here's a copy-and-paste of my LibraryThing review:

A very short, but entertaining, book. Le Guin manages to cram into 150 pages here a story that most authors would spend 500 pages telling. To accomplish this, the story is related as a tale of myth might be told: "five days later they reached the mountains" or whatever, without feeling the need to detail anything unnecessary to the main narrative. As such, the story has a vague, mythic, almost dreamlike quality that resonates in the subconscious longer than any details of the text will. Speaking of the story: you might think from the cover blurb that this will be another unoriginal "Avatar"-style "human goes native/rogue, rallies the natives to take down the technologically-superior bad guys" tale, and the first half or so seems to reinforce the illusion. It's not nearly so rote as that, though, and the swiftness and finality of the rather abrupt ending comes as something of a surprise. With this book, I gave Le Guin one final chance to win me over (after being underwhelmed with the Earthsea trilogy and The Left Hand of Darkness) and I was surprised to discover that she did.

3.5/5

[Puck]

Now reading Bleak Seasons. Finally some Black Company stuff again