[MTS]

Beevor's Stalingrad is utterly brilliant.

[stone monkey]

Just finished Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt. It was fun.

Like the others in his loose series that began with The Court of the Air, it mixes penny-dreadful Victorian stylings (fortunately without the abysmal prose) with steampunk and magic; and has at least 3 cliffhangers per chapter once the story gets into full flow... I've descirbed the others in the series as Perdido Street Station-lite and it's the same for this one. It's not the kind of reading that changes the world, but Hunt has a very fertile imagination (steam-powered suits of power armour, anyone?) and the stories do rattle along at a fair old pace.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 21 September 2010 - 06:45 PM

[beru]

MTS, on 21 September 2010 - 11:04 AM, said:

Beevor's Stalingrad is utterly brilliant.

also scary...

[QuickTidal]

Cocoreturns, on 20 September 2010 - 09:22 PM, said:

Quick - are you reading the Sharpe books in chronological order? they are good, but very easy to get through quickly, more brain Crack than candy.

Actually yeah, I've been reading them in Chronological order. They really are easy to burn through and they are a blast too. Very crack-like!

[pat5150]

Finished Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings.

Due to a number of shortcomins, I felt that it wasn't the great work we were told we'd get, but it's nevertheless a good read.

As far it being the next big thing in the fantasy genre, we'll have to wait and see. Compared to other opening chapters of great sagas, it's a distant last to frontrunners such as The Eye of the World, A Game of Thrones, and Gardens of the Moon.

Check out the blog for the full review.

Cheers,

Patrick

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Finished The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach whose title is almost longer than the book itself

Anyway the novellas were all three funny reads with Blood Follows the one I think most flawed due to a rather abrupt ending( although Guld was a character I really liked) and The Healty Death which won me over with its nonsensical absurdness.

[Thalraxal]

Just finished Brandon Sanderson's The Hero of Ages onto, uh, textbooks.

I really enjoyed the Mistborn Trilogy. I think the first book was my favourite in the series, although the ending of The Well of Ascension was fantastic and I really enjoyed all of The Hero of Ages. My only "complaint" is that Sanderson left behind some plothooks for future Mistborn books, and I'd love to find out what happens to everyone after the end, but we're clearly not going to get any more Mistborn until he finishes with The Stormlight Archive. Arg.

[Defiance]

Started The Bonehunters again yesterday, already almost 300 pages in. I think this might be my favorite book in the series now. I'll have to see if RG reclaims its throne.

[amphibian]

So I went back and re-read Dan Simmons's Olympos (the sequel to Ilium). It was better than I thought, but still riddled with absurd problems that Simmons basically decided not to resolve.

The following will be in spoiler text, as to allow those who haven't read it to encounter the book fresh:

Spoiler

What in the gotdamn fuck made Setebos leave? The mysterious Quiet? Was it a function of Circe, the post-human who had been orbiting Earth for however many centuries, taking off with Odysseus?

The transition of Harman and Daeman into better characters was well handled - even the famous "corpse-fucking" - but it was kind of idiotic that Harman was left alone in the Atlantic Breach and then magically rescued by good ol' Grandpa Orphu.

Ariel's non-importance after the introduction of Harman to the Library was really badly handled.

The whole "these creatures spring from works of genius" thing was underutilized, once introduced. There was an interesting conflict about whether that was really true or if the post-humans just decided to fuck around with genetic manipulation and vat-grown creatures.

The ending of the Odysseus/Circe storyline was straight out of Hyperion. It felt kinda doofy to me, but it's Simmons. I don't expect greatness.

All in all, it was an okay book, but Simmons really drops the ball on all kinds of interesting areas he could have taken the book to. It's as if he wanted to pay homage to these great authors and characters, but failed to make the story-vehicle he was doing it in compelling or well-developed on their own. The sole relatable characters ended up being Achilles, Mahnmut and Harman.

I dunno - it's kind of like Simmons' entire career put into one book. Great concept, really interesting beginning, but sloppy as shit and occasionally bad writing in terms of discarding storylines. Other than The Terror and Ilium, I don't know that I would ever buy one of his books. They come off as too derivative and too much of a "we gotta appreciate these old-time authors or we're heathens" vibe sometimes.

[stone monkey]

For those and other reasons, Olympos is a profoundly disappointing book. It's not technically bad, as Simmons can write; it's just that he does seem to (if you pardon the pun) lose the plot when he's wrapping things up. He really doesn't do endings all that well, especially when coming, as this book does, straight after Ilium which is an amazing piece of work.

I'm not all that bothered about him referencing other works as he normally does it very well. Although I do find that there's a certain element of him showing off when he does it, though.

[Salt-Man Z]

Yeah, Olympos left a bit to be desired as far as wrapping things up went. I recall being most disappointed with Odysseus, who was apparently not connected at all to the other Odysseus running around in the Trojan war reenactment. To me, though, this series is all about just throwing everything together (Greek gods, robots, Shakespeare, Proust, Lovecraftian horrors, et al) and seeing what happens, like he basically lays out in the intro to Ilium.

-----

Myself, I just finished GotM for the third time last night (awesome) as well as The Left Hand of God, which ended better than I expected, but still disappointed from the (slight) promise shown in the early pages. Full review here.

Currently reading Gene Wolfe's Golden City Far again, and either tonight or tomorrow will be diving into Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. series, starting with Sweet Silver Blues.

[Astra]

I finished The Well of Ascension [Mistborn #2] by Brandon Sanderson.
I liked it quite a lot. A bit too much of politics for me, otherwise very good.

Before I read the last book in Mistborn trilogy, I need some break, so I started We by Yevgeny Zamyatin as a prequel to George Orwell's 1984. The beginning is very promising, apt to my cynical mood nowdays.

This post has been edited by Astra: 25 September 2010 - 02:01 PM

[Tapper]

Finished Beevor's Stalingrad, started Halberstam's the Best and the Brightest... and realised that I'd be running out of my American treasure trove way too fast for my liking, so I hit town on saturday to buy a few lighter reads and order Peter Krentz' Marathon.

Of my shopping spree, I finished Jenna Jameson's (ghostwritten) biography, How to make love like a pornstar - a cautionary tale. Not exactly a light read and very much a cautionary tale indeed.

Waiting to start on is Princeps' Fury, which now tops the to-read pile. That makes The Best and the Brightest my secondary slow read book. The TRP consists further of The Powers that Be, The Greatest Generation and two times Anita Blake plus Un-Lun Dun and King Rat, for all of which the reading order has to be yet determined.

Also read Under Heaven by Kay, which is an awesome book, and is probably the best description ever of receiving a hugely impractical gift you do not want yet can't get rid of for all the wrong reasons. That and it being set in ancient China (or a parallel thereof) makes it fan-fucking-tastic.

[QuickTidal]

Tapper, on 26 September 2010 - 07:30 PM, said:

Finished Beevor's Stalingrad, started Halberstam's the Best and the Brightest... and realised that I'd be running out of my American treasure trove way too fast for my liking, so I hit town on saturday to buy a few lighter reads and order Peter Krentz' Marathon.

Of my shopping spree, I finished Jenna Jameson's (ghostwritten) biography, How to make love like a pornstar - a cautionary tale. Not exactly a light read and very much a cautionary tale indeed.

Waiting to start on is Princeps' Fury, which now tops the to-read pile. That makes The Best and the Brightest my secondary slow read book. The TRP consists further of The Powers that Be, The Greatest Generation and two times Anita Blake plus Un-Lun Dun and King Rat, for all of which the reading order has to be yet determined.

Also read Under Heaven by Kay, which is an awesome book, and is probably the best description ever of receiving a hugely impractical gift you do not want yet can't get rid of for all the wrong reasons. That and it being set in ancient China (or a parallel thereof) makes it fan-fucking-tastic.

PRINCEP'S FURY is effing GLORY INCARNATE! there was a chapter end in that one that made me absolutely gasp from the awesome. Man, I gotta start re-reading the Alera series!

[Abyss]

Just finished THE FADE by Chris Wooding. Great great book, will review elsethread but recommended.

Starting Mieville's KRAKEN now. About 50pgs in and fun! Unusually Gaiman'esque for Mieville. Yes, yes i know some peeps hated this or were disappointed by the end, don't feel obliged to tell me so...

[Tapper]

Abyss, on 27 September 2010 - 03:11 PM, said:

Just finished THE FADE by Chris Wooding. Great great book, will review elsethread but recommended.

Starting Mieville's KRAKEN now. About 50pgs in and fun! Unusually Gaiman'esque for Mieville. Yes, yes i know some peeps hated this or were disappointed by the end, don't feel obliged to tell me so...

I thought Kraken was far superior to Perdido Street Station, personally - probably because it is a less massive and draining read. I don't feel obliged to tell you, but I do so just because I relish saying so.

[Roland_85]

I'm halfway through Leviathan Wept and Other Stories by Daniel Abraham. So far it's really good.

[Fist Gamet]

The Curse of Chalion, which is pretty damn good. Powered through the Black Lung Captain which was as utterly awesome as I expected it to be. Soooooo much fun!

[Astra]

Yesterday, I finished We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
WOW! Fantastic book. Even more WOW! because I never expected to like it. I forced myself to read because it is known that this book influenced George Orwell's 1984.
As a consequence I started 1984.

[Use Of Weapons]

Currently reading Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold, and thoroughly enjoying it, more so even than The First Law trilogy. Loving the characters.