[Morgoth]

I bought, brought home, and finished in a night Ancillary Mercy. I quite enjoyed it. It was.. hm.. not as epic as I had expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything was wrapped up. The Preseger are fantastically rendered, especially considered how you never actually encounter them.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

Morgoth, on 27 October 2015 - 07:28 AM, said:

I bought, brought home, and finished in a night Ancillary Mercy. I quite enjoyed it. It was.. hm.. not as epic as I had expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything was wrapped up. The Preseger are fantastically rendered, especially considered how you never actually encounter them.

I have it on my shelf! Just need to finish Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley first... Has anyone read this book/series? I like the concept, but I find the writing a little meh, and the plotting is sort of...messy.



BTW, Ann Leckie is coming to Oslo in Februray for a book signing and whatnot

[Morgoth]

Grimjust Bearegular, on 27 October 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 27 October 2015 - 07:28 AM, said:

I bought, brought home, and finished in a night Ancillary Mercy. I quite enjoyed it. It was.. hm.. not as epic as I had expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well everything was wrapped up. The Preseger are fantastically rendered, especially considered how you never actually encounter them.

I have it on my shelf! Just need to finish Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley first... Has anyone read this book/series? I like the concept, but I find the writing a little meh, and the plotting is sort of...messy.



BTW, Ann Leckie is coming to Oslo in Februray for a book signing and whatnot

Is that so? Outland by Karl Johan I take it?

[Serenity]

I'm about 150 pages into Only to Die Again (aka Signal) by Patrick Lee.

[QuickTidal]

Grimjust Bearegular, on 27 October 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

Just need to finish Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley first... Has anyone read this book/series? I like the concept, but I find the writing a little meh, and the plotting is sort of...messy.

I read the first book in her first series (GOD'S WAR)...and it suffers from exactly the things you note about this new series. Great concept: Execution is WAY off. I also don't much care for Hurley as a person from what I've read of her online, so that kind of taints any desire to read her newer work as well.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 27 October 2015 - 03:19 PM, said:

Grimjust Bearegular, on 27 October 2015 - 08:50 AM, said:

Just need to finish Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley first... Has anyone read this book/series? I like the concept, but I find the writing a little meh, and the plotting is sort of...messy.

I read the first book in her first series (GOD'S WAR)...and it suffers from exactly the things you note about this new series. Great concept: Execution is WAY off....

Seconded. Wanted to love, was rejected.

[amphibian]

I mostly liked Mirror Empire. There are some grating bits of writing, but it's a generally interesting world.

Ancillary Mercy was good, although I'm wondering why Leckie eschews the space battle parts so much considering that her main character was once a spaceship and one of the best in the universe at it (until the Presger came). The theme of inclusion/exclusion, distribution of wealth, the uncaring governing system, and individual rights were tremendous. Leckie does a fantastic job of making all of this personal, of keeping the characters interesting, and of stirring empathy in the reader.

I think we'll get far future sequels someday, as the ending was decisive, yet open to more in a way that suggested that the story wouldn't be picked up right away.

I also read Zachary Jernigan's Shower of Stones, which is the sequel to No Return. The duology is fascinating to me because it's very much focused on what Malazan veterans would describe as "ascendants" and "gods", while creating a very, very strange world that slowly reveals itself to be more than it is.

I like Jernigan's writing very much. It is Intense with a capital, especially regarding combat and the eerieness of the Elders and the modern world there. He also writes with great conviction very interesting characters. I also wonder if he was rushed to stuff all this into a duology, as the second half swerves dramatically, yet interestingly into characters that weren't in the first half. On the whole, I give it four stars out of five, which is a "very good, not a surefire classic" rating.

[Mentalist]

Finished "The Rhesus Chart", the 5th "Laundry Files" book. Solid entry, got really tense in the second half.

all the bits of family and relationships meshed really well with my TtH re-read, surprisingly enough. I'm about halfway through that, and all the side-stories make for a great read third time around.

I'm tempted to keep the theme going by taking "Sixty Days and Counting", the last volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capitol trilo as my commute read. But I think I'll stick with my original plan and follow-up on Stross with the 3rd Ketty Jay book, "Iron Jackal"

[polishgenius]

I'm reading Catherynne M. Valente's Radiance. Loooooooooooove the prose, as per. Also (after slightly tripping at the very start) liking the narrative form, which is a mystery about whodunit and what was dun but framed through interviews, movie scripts, described videos, diary entries, etc etc about the subject before and after the event. It's something that could easily be a pretentious mess but so far I think is pulled off very well.

As for what it actually is, it's a steampunk(ish)* space-opera/planetary romance set in a solar system with veeeeeeeeeery old-school ideas of what the planets might be like, all oceans-of-Venus and fields-of-Pluto etc. Which suits Valente's style very well.



*Valente describes it as steampunk, but I don't think it has enough focus on actual oldie-technology- to whit, basically none- to quite qualify. But it's the right sort of setting.

[Abyss]

Coming down from the intensity of the RAVEN'S SHADOW trilo, was wanting something light, went with Sanderson's RECKONERS bk 2 FIREFIGHT.
It suits my wanting something frivolous and entertaining.

[Serenity]

Finished Patrick Lee's Only to Die Again. Very enjoyable until the horribly rushed and weak ending.

Now, finally, making a start on the Caesar, the fifth of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome books. Been about a year since I read the previous one.

[QuickTidal]

Started on Sanderson's THE RITHMATIST (Thanks Salt-Man for the recco)...which is damned good so far!

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Having another crack at The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's a funny one - I loved the second and third books but couldn't quite get on with this one. It's still leaving me slightly cold.

[End of Disc One]

Lol that sounds so backwards

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

End of Disc One, on 30 October 2015 - 07:00 PM, said:

Lol that sounds so backwards

I know right? I liked the first one just enough to give the second one a try, and just ended up much preferring them. Figured the first one deserved another shot on the back of that.

[JPK]

I'm about to finish Forge of Darkness on audio. This book is even more striking the second time through, and now I'm more amped than ever for Fall of Light.

Next book going into my ears is Grave Peril by Butcher.

[EmperorMagus]

I read three quarters of Revelation Space in one sitting yesterday. Alastair Reynolds is extremely good at portraying what the future of humanity is going to be like. The book reminded me of Blind Sight, I wouldn't be surprised if Peter Watts got the setting of Blind sight from this book.

Fucking Ilia Volyova though, I don't think I've had such a crush on a book character since I first encountered Envy..

This post has been edited by EmperorMagus: 31 October 2015 - 08:08 PM

[Macros]

I didn't really like the Reynolds stuff that much, guess space opera just isn't my bag

[EmperorMagus]

Macros, on 31 October 2015 - 08:21 PM, said:

I didn't really like the Reynolds stuff that much, guess space opera just isn't my bag

I'm not surprised about that, it's not a book that fosters much "love", you keep reading for the same reason you can't stop watching an accident ....
Although the characters themselves are superbly done, the pacing was excruciatingly slow during the first half. His action scenes suffer from overly long descriptions as well (tbh the descriptive stuff was mind numbing for most of the book).
You could argue that the pacing/descriptions are part of what builds the atmosphere of despair/agony for the whole book; and that atmosphere just pulls a reader in. Overall, it's not a book written to please the reader.


I don't even know if I'm making sense or not.

[Macros]

Too much waffly pseudo-science and tedium, yeah pretty much covers my problems with what I read of his stuff