[Chance]

 Tiste Simeon, on 04 July 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

Was I the only one who thought after book 1 Bakkers series was... Boring?? *awaits torrents of rage*

Probably not most people either declare it very good/perfect or find it more or less uninteresting. At least your first impression save you from book 2.

Just finished Hunted by Kevin Hearne and found it so-so mainly I think because the series more and more feel like episodes from a longer book the whole you never really get to read.

Now if I only could get into Abaddon's Gate but I'll probably fold and go buy Wicked Bronze Ambition instead since the Garret Files have been pretty good in recent installments.

[Serenity]

Nearing the end of Neal Asher's The Technician. It's taken a long time, but it's finally come to the boil. Don't think it'll go down as one of my favourite Ashers.

[Abyss]

 Tiste Simeon, on 04 July 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

...
In other news I just finished Simmons' "Fall of Hyperion." Seriously enjoyed it & the concepts & worlds were fascinating. The ending wasn't as terrible as people said, either!

Never understood all the hate for the ending of HYPERION. Yes, it gets a bit metaphysical, but the sci elements still explain it, and as a sprawling sf epic spanning world and systems and cast of thousands and so on it's pretty awesome.

Quote

Bit unsure what to read now... I have Morgan's "Kovacs" trilogy on Kindle, and I know the four mother fluffing Caine books are cheap for Kindle too. However... I really want to do a MBOTF reread as I recently bought FOD & OST. (all my MBOTF books are in boxes though...) I also kind of want to reread the entirety of the Dresden Files before Skin Game comes out later this year.

Thoughts?

That's a lot of awesome in one space. your head may explode.

Kovacs and Caine are entirely too awesome for you to have gone this far in your life without reading them. Go there.

 Chance, on 04 July 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

 Tiste Simeon, on 04 July 2013 - 08:42 AM, said:

Was I the only one who thought after book 1 Bakkers series was... Boring?? *awaits torrents of rage*

Probably not most people either declare it very good/perfect or find it more or less uninteresting. At least your first impression save you from book 2.

Bk 2 lags, and bk 3 is the slow build to massive finish, but it's a hell of a finish. I thought it was worth the time.

Quote

Just finished Hunted by Kevin Hearne and found it so-so mainly I think because the series more and more feel like episodes from a longer book the whole you never really get to read.
...

I'll never accuse Hearn of brilliance (thus far), but as popcorn reading his IRON DRUID is fun for the most part.

Almost done RIYRIA bk 4 EMERALD STORM. Sullivan seriously raises his game in this one. Everything just works better than 1-3.

[QuickTidal]

Finished SABBAT MARTYR by Abnett. A sold finish to the second arc of the WH40K Ghosts stuff. Looking fwd to see where the series goes next!

Needed a short easy book so I am onto Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 3rd YA book (before he made success with his adult books, he wrote a bunch of gothic YA books which are slowly being translated into English) THE WATCHER IN THE SHADOWS.

These are wonderfully simple little reads that have ever ounce of the mystery, gothic tension and twists as his adult books. Anyways, enjoying!

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

134. Star Wars Legacy Of The Force: Exile by Aaron Allston - Continues the trend of an excellent LOTF series.

135. Imaginary Friends edited by John Marco & Martin H. Greenberg - Continues the trend of NOT excellent anthologies. Maybe 3 or 4 decent stories in the bunch.

136. Alosha by Christopher Pike - In spite of the Captain Planet storyline, this is a very entertaining YA fantasy. Parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny, like when the main character renames some trolls in order to befriend them (Snot becomes Snickers, etc.). Sequel already purchased.

137. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith - Closer to what I'm looking for in a mash-up novel, but no cigar. Why did I buy so many of these stupid mash-up titles? Luckily they were all bargain books. Anyway, currently watching the movie...

138. The Sad Tale Of The Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington - Chapter 1: Over-the-top comic violence. Chapters 2 through whatever: more of the same. Has potential, but just gets old after a while.

139. The Clockwork Girl - by Sean O'Reilly - Cute graphic novel about a wolf boy falling in love with an automaton.

140. A Tolkien Treasury edited by Alida Becker - Essays, poems, etc. about Tolkien. A mixed bag. For me, the gold standard for Tolkien-inspired essays is still Master of Middle-Earth by Paul H. Kocher.

[Tiste Simeon]

Oh I stuck with Bakker as he kept promising so much & in the end I'm not sure the payoff was worth it. Sure, there were some amazing moments that I loved but generally I was dissapointed...

As for the next book debate I'm not sure I want to start a trilogy/series as a family friend sent Banks' The Quarry to me but at my parents house. I'm going there soon but am debating whether to start something else & hold off reading it...

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 04 July 2013 - 06:14 PM

[amphibian]

 Tiste Simeon, on 04 July 2013 - 06:10 PM, said:

Oh I stuck with Bakker as he kept promising so much & in the end I'm not sure the payoff was worth it. Sure, there were some amazing moments that I loved but generally I was dissapointed...

As for the next book debate I'm not sure I want to start a trilogy/series as a family friend sent Banks' The Quarry to me but at my parents house. I'm going there soon but am debating whether to start something else & hold off reading it...

You need to hurry up and get on the Takeshi Kovacs and Caine books.

I'd hold off on Banks and The Quarry until after.

[polishgenius]

The new Kate Griffin book, The Glass God (second in the Magicals Anonymous subseries of the Urban Magic series) is out apparently, so that. Ol' reliable Kate Griffin knocking it out the park so far, though it needs to differentiate itself a tad from the previous book for maximum effect.

Quote

You need to hurry up and get on the Takeshi Kovacs and Caine books.

I'd hold off on Banks and The Quarry until after.

To be fair, The Quarry is an awesome book, though a difficult one to judge objectively.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah maybe I will wait til it stings a bit less... :-(

[Serenity]

Finished The Technician and made a start on Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. Read four chapters and so far it's bloody good. Kind of Gemmell-esque I suppose - traditional heroic fantasy in many ways, but really well written, with excellent characters.

This post has been edited by Serenity: 05 July 2013 - 11:59 AM

[QuickTidal]

Finished WOKEN FURIES by Morgan...

Erg...this is going to be an unpopular opinion but...

Spoiler

I mean, BROKEN ANGELS, with its excellent Mars/Avian Archeology gate thingie, and ancient race trying to keep humanity tamped down by instituting massive technological orbiters designed to destroy us if we fly too high...WAS AMAZING!

But then that MAJOR worldbuilding feature of the second book is then relegated to lame plot device at the tail end of this book? Oh, remember those orbiting lasers? Yeah, we need those to cause some havoc with these assholes on my homeworld...and one of the heroes can manipulate them. Oh and a younger version of myself is hunting us...but when it comes time to kill him I can't do it...so someone else (of course) comes along to do it so as the protagonist I can be free of the moral guilt of killing my younger body double.

Yeah.

No.

It's like Morgan took ALTERED CARBON and mixed in a smattering of BROKEN ANGELS and then spat this out. He's a great author, and the book is well written (though some of it is REALLY meandering), but the story hiding in here is a little too simplistic for the heights I thought the second book reached for.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 July 2013 - 12:28 PM

[Abyss]

 QuickTidal, on 05 July 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

Finished WOKEN FURIES by Morgan...

Erg...this is going to be an unpopular opinion but...

Spoiler

I mean, BROKEN ANGELS, with its excellent Mars/Avian Archeology gate thingie, and ancient race trying to keep humanity tamped down by instituting massive technological orbiters designed to destroy us if we fly too high...WAS AMAZING!

But then that MAJOR worldbuilding feature of the second book is then relegated to lame plot device at the tail end of this book? Oh, remember those orbiting lasers? Yeah, we need those to cause some havoc with these assholes on my homeworld...and one of the heroes can manipulate them. Oh and a younger version of myself is hunting us...but when it comes time to kill him I can't do it...so someone else (of course) comes along to do it so as the protagonist I can be free of the moral guilt of killing my younger body double.

Yeah.

No.

It's like Morgan took ALTERED CARBON and mixed in a smattering of BROKEN ANGELS and then spat this out. He's a great author, and the book is well written (though some of it is REALLY meandering), but the story hiding in here is a little too simplistic for the heights I thought the second book reached for.

I don't agree with your critiques becaise i think there was more going on...

MORGAN'S KOVACS TRILO SPOILERS ALL BOOKS

SPOILERS

Spoiler

The orbiting lasers, iirc, aren't there to keep humanity down. They existed before humans ever came to the planet.
And in WOKEN they are a major plot point in that they turn out to be so much more than simply orbiting anti-tech lasers, in fact the entire plot of Falconer's return hinges on that and leads to why she can control them at the end.

By digitzing itsef, humanity has evolved to the point that the alien lasers aren't a threat any more. They're a tool. That's a major development in that rather than being a race living off the scraps of a dead race, humanity is moving forward.

As for the clone, the point in CARBON, clarified in a brief bit of internal monologue in ANGELS, was that Kovacs' issues were not resolved by his conversation with his copy at the end of that book, because they run deeper and further back. Hence, in FURIES, putting him up against a younger copy forced him to confront those deeper issues, and in the end he couldn't kill the copy because that time of his life was part of him. Hence it took a member of his 'new' family (the scavengers) to kill the part of him that was rooted in his 'old' family (the Envoys).

Just my take.

[QuickTidal]

 Abyss, on 05 July 2013 - 01:36 PM, said:

 QuickTidal, on 05 July 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

Finished WOKEN FURIES by Morgan...

Erg...this is going to be an unpopular opinion but...

Spoiler

I mean, BROKEN ANGELS, with its excellent Mars/Avian Archeology gate thingie, and ancient race trying to keep humanity tamped down by instituting massive technological orbiters designed to destroy us if we fly too high...WAS AMAZING!

But then that MAJOR worldbuilding feature of the second book is then relegated to lame plot device at the tail end of this book? Oh, remember those orbiting lasers? Yeah, we need those to cause some havoc with these assholes on my homeworld...and one of the heroes can manipulate them. Oh and a younger version of myself is hunting us...but when it comes time to kill him I can't do it...so someone else (of course) comes along to do it so as the protagonist I can be free of the moral guilt of killing my younger body double.

Yeah.

No.

It's like Morgan took ALTERED CARBON and mixed in a smattering of BROKEN ANGELS and then spat this out. He's a great author, and the book is well written (though some of it is REALLY meandering), but the story hiding in here is a little too simplistic for the heights I thought the second book reached for.

I don't agree with your critiques becaise i think there was more going on...

MORGAN'S KOVACS TRILO SPOILERS ALL BOOKS

SPOILERS

Spoiler

The orbiting lasers, iirc, aren't there to keep humanity down. They existed before humans ever came to the planet.
And in WOKEN they are a major plot point in that they turn out to be so much more than simply orbiting anti-tech lasers, in fact the entire plot of Falconer's return hinges on that and leads to why she can control them at the end.

By digitzing itsef, humanity has evolved to the point that the alien lasers aren't a threat any more. They're a tool. That's a major development in that rather than being a race living off the scraps of a dead race, humanity is moving forward.

As for the clone, the point in CARBON, clarified in a brief bit of internal monologue in ANGELS, was that Kovacs' issues were not resolved by his conversation with his copy at the end of that book, because they run deeper and further back. Hence, in FURIES, putting him up against a younger copy forced him to confront those deeper issues, and in the end he couldn't kill the copy because that time of his life was part of him. Hence it took a member of his 'new' family (the scavengers) to kill the part of him that was rooted in his 'old' family (the Envoys).

Just my take.

Spoiler

Eh...okay not meant to keep humanity down, but kind of a Universe policing feature. Wrong words. I still feel that their use in WF was lackluster compared to the lofty heights I thought Morgan made of them in BA.

I see your take, but I was left with a rather bland taste in my mouth by this one. Just personal preference. There wasn't as much going on in this one that I cared for. And Kovacs seemed like a snap-angry version of his old self the whole time.

[Tiste Simeon]

Decision made! Morgans Kovacs trilogy THEN The Quarry THEN Dresden reread THEN the MBOTF reread. Good to have a plan.

[Salt-Man Z]

No Stover? I am disappoint. >:|

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 05 July 2013 - 07:30 PM

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

I've just finished The Quarry by Iain Banks. I really enjoyed it—it's funny but serious at the same time and reveals a lot about Mr Banks' personal world-views in the form of a series of the characters' not-so-subtle rants.

This isn't my favourite of his novels but it's a satisfying addition and serves as an ironically fitting closure to his work.

Not sure what to read next. I have ToB&KB to read or I might re-read some more Banks—I want to pick up his Raw Spirit but trying to save money right now...

[worry]

Hey I just bought Leviathan Wakes or whatever it's called cuz it's only $2.99 on amazon. So these things are good eh?

Anyway, I also started Alera #6.

[Mentalist]

 worry, on 06 July 2013 - 02:40 AM, said:

Hey I just bought Leviathan Wakes or whatever it's called cuz it's only $2.99 on amazon. So these things are good eh?

Anyway, I also started Alera #6.

Yeah, it's a solid chunk of sci-fi. and not so far into the future as to seem totally unrelated.

I've finished "Warbreaker". All the nice things people have been saying about Sanderson are true. This makes me more confident about Stormlight Archive, but it's still not an immediate must buy. Yet.

Next up, I have many choices (again). I think I might crack open that 3-pack of the first Culture books, and give "Consider Phlebias" a read.

[Tiste Simeon]

 Salt-Man Z, on 05 July 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

No Stover? I am disappoint. >:|

Ah. Will fit that in somewhere. See how long it takes me to read Kovacs!

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

 Mentalist, on 06 July 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Yeah, it's a solid chunk of sci-fi. and not so far into the future as to seem totally unrelated.

I've finished "Warbreaker". All the nice things people have been saying about Sanderson are true. This makes me more confident about Stormlight Archive, but it's still not an immediate must buy. Yet.

Next up, I have many choices (again). I think I might crack open that 3-pack of the first Culture books, and give "Consider Phlebias" a read.

I'm tempted to read Consider Phlebas again, myself (third time). I've also remembered that I want to pick up The Quantum Thief.

EDIT: Ok, I've ordered Raw Spirit and The Quantum Thief. Will probably read Consider Phlebas in the meantime.

Want to pick up some more Mieville, too, at some point.

This post has been edited by Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast: 06 July 2013 - 12:36 PM