[Abyss]

Serenity, on 26 July 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

Abyss, on 25 July 2012 - 01:08 PM, said:

Serenity, on 25 July 2012 - 07:02 AM, said:

...About 40 pages left of The Breach. Wanted to stay on the tube this morning so I could keep reading ...

I do so love how the six or so of us who have read that series keep being right.

Oh yes, you were right. Finished it last night. Going to read a short story or two and then move straight on to Ghost Country. Thanks for the rec

Mos welcome. Enjoy GC... likely my favourite of the three.

drinksinbars, on 26 July 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

finished deep sky, was enjoyable read. Any new material coming out soon from Patrick Lee?

Glad you liked. QT em'd w Lee briefly just after DEEP SKY was released and was told he was working on a new set of stories about ordinary people in crazy circumstances, but that's all we know and his site doesn't say anything about new books at the moment.

I know i'll grab whatever he does next. The BREACH series was too enjoyable not to.

[QuickTidal]

So I'm about halfway through Gemmell's TROY: SHIELD OF THUNDER and it's as kickass as the first book was, reading through it like wildfire and don't want to put it down.

Next up I'm PROBABLY going to be doing a re-read of David Mitchell's CLOUD ATLAS since I just found out that the film version (directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski's) is coming to the Film Fest this year, so I want to brush up on it...plus it was such a phenomenally strange but fulfilling read the first time I read it...and I was nearly ten years younger then.

After that either the DeGrasse Tyson book I bought, or something fantasy.

[Catherine]

polishgenius, on 19 July 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

Catherine, on 19 July 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

Just started GGK's Under Heaven myself and enjoying it, love the Heavenly Horses angle as I have one myself. Tried Googling to find out the exact breed they are describibg but no luck so far.

Probably these.

Thank you, I can start looking into the ferghana horse - always interested in the ancient breeds

[Nocturnal]

Finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... absolutely ingenious, and I was wondering where "42" was from. Now onto the 2nd book: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Also read Murakami's short story The Folklore of Our Times. It's incredible how he managed to make me tearful even though nothing particularly sad happened.

[T77]

Just finished Dawnthief by James Barclay and I enjoyed it. It was sort of like Malazan light. Will definitively continue with the next in the series. Maybe I just hadn't noticed, but there does not seem to be much Barclay discussion in the forums. Surprising as I thought this was one of the better fantasies I've read lately. It was a bit rough around the edges, but being his first book I imagine it only gets better from here.

[Abyss]

T77, on 27 July 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Just finished Dawnthief by James Barclay and I enjoyed it. It was sort of like Malazan light. Will definitively continue with the next in the series. Maybe I just hadn't noticed, but there does not seem to be much Barclay discussion in the forums. Surprising as I thought this was one of the better fantasies I've read lately. It was a bit rough around the edges, but being his first book I imagine it only gets better from here.

Barclay tends to generate a love or hate reaction. Many here really have no love for his Raven series.
Now me, i mildly enjoyed Dawntheif and steadily enjoyed the rest of the seven to the point of sheer love for the last four. Seriously the first trilo is fine but the second is awesome.
Enjoy!

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 28 July 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

T77, on 27 July 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Just finished Dawnthief by James Barclay and I enjoyed it. It was sort of like Malazan light. Will definitively continue with the next in the series. Maybe I just hadn't noticed, but there does not seem to be much Barclay discussion in the forums. Surprising as I thought this was one of the better fantasies I've read lately. It was a bit rough around the edges, but being his first book I imagine it only gets better from here.

Barclay tends to generate a love or hate reaction. Many here really have no love for his Raven series.
Now me, i mildly enjoyed Dawntheif and steadily enjoyed the rest of the seven to the point of sheer love for the last four. Seriously the first trilo is fine but the second is awesome.
Enjoy!

I'm still having a fuck of a time finidhg a copy of noonshade in the same MMP veriosn I have....screw it...off to order on amazon!


Long live being drunk on wine!

[Ukjent]

Hm.. considering buying the book, how will you compare it to Cry of the newborn and shout of the dead?

[McLovin]

THE ILLEARTH WAR by Stephen R. Donaldson

and

THREE OF SWORDS by Fritz Lieber

[Abyss]

Graablick, on 28 July 2012 - 03:18 AM, said:

Hm.. considering buying the book, how will you compare it to Cry of the newborn and shout of the dead?

I can't as i haven't read them.
I can say this...Chronicles of the Raven bk 1, DAWNTHIEF is a by the numbers widget quest with archetypical characters, a few fun takes on the tropes, maybe the odd twist. It is neither novel nor original and the characters and a certain charm in classic swords and sorcerors fiction just barely carries it along. I was in the mood for straightforward fantasy and i got it. Anyone expecting Malazan or SIF would be hideously dissappointed. NOONSHADE is essentially more of the same. Then NIGHTCHILD knocks everything sideways, puts the characters in serious jeapordy and is a quantum improvement on the first two. If Barclay had written the first two like this way more people would read his stuff.

That said enough people read it that he did a second RAVEN trilo, LEGENDS OF THE RAVEN. And it is great. ELFSORROW Kicks everything sideways, has some brilliant brilliant action scenes and a few great new characters. Barclay writes some of the bestest elves and dragons i have ever enjoyed in fantasy lit. I enjoyed it so much i went and got the next two - SHADOWHEART is as good, DEMONSTORM is even better - , hammered through them and bought RAVENSOUL, the seventh book immediately. Loved that one too - i admit to being seriously emotionally invested in the characters by then.

I get why many forumites didn't stick with the series after the first or second and I wish the first two were better, but i think that reading the entire series is worth the thinkytime and dollars as long as you can reset your expectations from Malazan to something a little more straightforward and a lot less complex.

[LadyMTL]

I'm currently reading Peter Orullian's The Unremembered and I'm not loving it so far. Sigh.
I'm about 250 pages in and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere; the plot is a bit disjointed and I'm finding it hard to care about any of the main characters. Now I know that this is a 900+ page book so I'm hoping it'll pick up soon but as it stands right now I'm forcing myself to read it and that's never a good sign. Plus it reminds me a LOT of the first book from the Wheel of Time series (Eye of the World) so I keep comparing the two and Unremembered comes up short.

Anyway! All that to say that I'm going to finish it but unless it really gets a lot better I doubt I'll continue with the series.

[QuickTidal]

About halfway through my Re-read of David Mitchell's CLOUD ATLAS.

Man, either I wasn't all that with it when I first read this book 8 years ago, or it's affecting me in a more profound way this time, but damned if I'm not absolutely loving it that much more this time round. I enjoyed it when I read it in 2004, but man is it blowing me away this go. Just wow. Makes me want to put both GHOSTWRITTEN and NUMBER9DREAM on my Re-Read list now too.

[T77]

Thanks for the Barclay impressions Abyss. I agree, that Dawnthief was good, not great. A bit formulaic, with a bit of depth. I can't put my finger on it, but it just had something a bit more than most fantasy novels. He kept it moving along at a good pace without constant fighting, was not afraid to kill off characters and it had a kind of "cool" vibe, for lack of a better term. That is where I got the Malazan light, I hate using the term, but Erikson has that "cool" vibe too. Going into other realms and dimensions, assassin missions, magic use, etc. I came away saying this was good, it was his first book and it can get better.

[Abyss]

T77, on 30 July 2012 - 02:25 PM, said:

Thanks for the Barclay impressions Abyss. ... Dawnthief ... I can't put my finger on it, but it just had something a bit more than most fantasy novels....

Yes i think it it does, and it's something very specific that only really becomes clear in bk 3 and then he uses it brilliantly in the later books.

I won't spoil here but there's a ded-thread HERE when you feel like it.




Finished Ruckley's FALL OF THANES. satisfying ending to the trilo. I can't quite write raves about it but i got my money worth, tho i will say a swordfight at the end of the series between two key characters is one of the best raw 'there is nothing glorious about this and i am going to stab you with this sword as soon and as much as i can and/or kill you any other way a lot' fight scenes i have read.


Started WHISPERS UNDERGROUND by Ben Aaronovitch, his third 'Peter Grant' urban fantasy in London book. Totally enjoying.

[Nocturnal]

Continuing the Hitchhiker's series with Life, Universe and Everything Else.

[yuna_anomander25]

down to the last 300+ pages of The Wise Man's Fear, and I still don't know if i like this (and TNoTW for that matter) or not, there's good stuff there but idk, it wasn't much developed and just glimpsed, no resolution forthcoming yet for most of the plot, I'll just keep on reading, and eventually I hope it comes, and even if Denna wasn't on-screen, just a mention of her by Kvothe irritates me, of all the girls to be obsessed about,

I'm deciding what to read next after i finish this one, I'm hoping for a back-to-back read of the Dresden Files, but I'm still patiently waiting for my copy of Grave Peril, so I could start Fool Moon,
I could start with Abercrombie's The Blade Itself later, or finish the Night Angel trilogy with Beyond the Shdows

[Ukjent]

I would rather read the last Night angelbook than the blade itself. But then again i love tKKC.

[yuna_anomander25]

Graablick, on 31 July 2012 - 12:43 AM, said:

I would rather read the last Night angelbook than the blade itself. But then again i love tKKC.

thanks, well, actually there's so many good stuff there in the book, i just got so much irritated by Denna's existence, I'm already at the Felurian story arc, and I hope the 3rd day is good, and to finally show him, being this KingKiller, that's what I'm actually just waiting,

Briar King, on 31 July 2012 - 01:50 AM, said:

I'd go with Night Angel until you get the next few Dresden books.

I just started Calibans War: The Expanse 2. I've not read a SF book in yrs really until late 2011 with the Kovacs books. Both of those series have really shocked me. I may go on a SF spree after I finish up these new Fantasy bks I got.

yeah, I'm actually excited, and it took this much longer to finish, and I'm now seriously considering picking up the Black Prism, thanks BK, and i know the Blinding Knife is just coming, isn't it,

[Ukjent]

Halfway through Reaper's gale now, a bit disappointed now since I don't think that I will manage to finish my reread of tMBotF before I travel back to my bedsit.

[Morgoth]

Read Cat's Cradle for the first time and thoroughly adored it.