[Macros]

Starting Nemisis (Horus 40k book...13?) Today at some stage.

Read the blurb, not sure if I'm gonna like this one.

Stalled out a bit on Vellum already

[Zeto Demerzel]

Macros, on 24 August 2018 - 06:47 AM, said:

Starting Nemisis (Horus 40k book...13?) Today at some stage.

Read the blurb, not sure if I'm gonna like this one.

Was pretty much pants. Gave Fear to Tread (#21), also by James Swallow, a good run for the title of worst Horus Heresy novel in my books. Battle for the Abyss and Vulkan Lives are also in the running somewhere. Swallow should just stick to his Garro stories, me thinks.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

polishgenius, on 23 August 2018 - 07:37 PM, said:

By the way I started a quick re-read of Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning and ended up re-reading the entire damn series and wanted to re-iterate that those of you who haven't should really really pick this series up. She reads a little like an SF Guy Gavriel Kay in that it's a lot of very pretty prose describing a bunch of remarkable people where a lot of the most brilliant scenes are just about people talking in rooms, where the joy is in the shift of tension and balance of power throughout the conversation.
But quite honestly unless she really fucks up the landing in book 4 I think she might be a better writer than Kay, because none of his books, even the most brilliant ones, are as consistent all the way through as this series is so far - also like Kay she's not averse to letting odd narrative stylistic choices slip into the work, but it never detracts from the books like it often has with him for me.

It's a remarkable piece of work. The main character is something special, one of the most compelling protagonists of an SF story there's been for ages, but almost everyone involved in the story is of interest in one way or another.

I've had this sitting on my shelf for a few months, yet haven't started it for fear of committing to another series. Seems like I may have to upgrade its status.

[acesn8s]

I put Too Like Lightning into my queue.

[Salt-Man Z]

Finished The Red Tree at 1:30 in the morning. Really good. Very moody and more than a little disturbing. I think more than a few readers will be put off by the way the story is resolved (or not) but I thought it was fantastic.

[Tiste Simeon]

Salt-Man Z, on 24 August 2018 - 03:42 PM, said:

Finished The Red Tree at 1:30 in the morning. Really good. Very moody and more than a little disturbing. I think more than a few readers will be put off by the way the story is resolved (or not) but I thought it was fantastic.

Disturbing in Mount Char ways?

[Mentalist]

"The Year of Our War" is weird. There's opera, and newspapers, and coaches, which are generally things you'd associate with early industrial age. But the weapons tech is totally Medieval.

About halfway through, and it's crisp, but the plot is meandering.

[Salt-Man Z]

Tiste Simeon, on 24 August 2018 - 03:52 PM, said:

Disturbing in Mount Char ways?

No. Disturbing in a very creepy way. Not like blood-and-guts, but like a really spooky ghost story. (I'll just say I was very glad to have my wife sleeping next to me as I read.)

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 24 August 2018 - 04:49 PM

[worry]

Finished The Judging Eye. Various thoughts...

Spoiler

This book was more riveting than the entire first trilogy put together. Really firing on all cylinders story-wise.
All the new characters are good. Sorwheel is probably my favorite character in all the books so far. Interesting perspective. I also love that his Zeumi prince friend who's part of the Ordeal calls white people 'sausages', which made me laugh more than anything so far.
Drusas & co.'s trip through the Black Halls was obviously the Mines of Moria on another level. Every chapter in this sequence was excellent. The Skin Eaters have a passing resemblance to Jorg's Broken Empire crew. That kind of thing was sadly absent in the Prince of Nothing books, despite its whole span being a war campaign.

Kellhus's kids are all something, ain't they?
And Bakker really has a thing for sociopaths.

All in all, I have to say Bakker's world is probably the worst fantasy world I've ever read about. In the Leibniz/Voltaire sense, not in terms of quality of creation. Everything about it is a hell. Magic is real but awful. The gods/God are apparently real, but awful. The orcs (I mean sranc) are disgusting, the elves (I mean Nonmen) they were created from were brutal monsters, the dragons all worked for the No God, the Consult are either aliens or escapees from the Outside (don't tell me) and they're awful, and everyone is going to Hell when they die.
I do like that Bakker detailed a whole empire succumbing to a charlatan in the first trilogy, and I'm even more curious now how everything will play out.

Now onto Fall of Hyperion.

[Abyss]

Luv2B_Sassy, on 25 August 2018 - 01:34 AM, said:

Finished The Judging Eye. Various thoughts...
..., and I'm even more curious now how everything will play out.

oh... you are in for a treat.

A messy, gross, violent hideously creative fucking epic level treat.

[Mentalist]

Yeah, worry sound like he'll have no issues with The Slog.

I'm less than 100 pages away from the end of "The Year of Our War" , and I still have no idea where this'll go, or how Swainston made a series out of this. Not sure if that's a good thing.

[Maark Abbott]

No weepers.

[Sky Sermon]

I loved the Second Apocalypse and will always recommend it. However, I...well...stopped reading at the Unholy Consult. No weepers, right? I did a ton of that about 27% in. >

[Tiste Simeon]

Started on TCG! The end is nigh!

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tiste Simeon, on 25 August 2018 - 07:24 AM, said:

Started on TCG! The end is nigh!

Tissues to hand? Destroys me every damn time!

Rereading Dan Jones' The Hollow Crown. Ace book about the Wars of the Roses, although he's apparently far too fond of the phrase "hacked to death".

[Chance]

Going through the last quarter of the Poppy War, I'm starting to like this book less and less the further in I get. The first half or so was pretty standard fantasy school drama easily as average/good as any other but then...after that there are a lot of unfortunate decisions going on.

This post has been edited by Chance: 25 August 2018 - 01:52 PM

[Mentalist]

Finished "The Year of Our War". As expected, there's no real conclusion. It's knda obvious where the plot goes from here for a bit, but I'm still struggling to see how we got a series out of this setting.

planing to pick up the third Peter Grant book today for commute; I'll see if iether teh next Instrumentalities of Night, Bel Dame Apocrypha, or Fourlands books are available at Chapters as well.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

About halfway through Davidson's Unwrapped Sky and in going to put it down to maybe revisit later. The worldbuilding is great, but the characters are all unsympathetic and constantly engaging in existential sad-sackery.

Giving Palmer's Too Like The Lightning (dope name) a go.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 26 August 2018 - 05:06 PM

[Mentalist]

SInce I appear to be on track with my Goodreads challenge again, I started my second yearly project: the re-read of the core Tolkien works.

In less than 2 days I re-read the Hobbit. First time I read it in English, and having a map (rather than just reading text in a word file) helps.
The question now is, do I follow up with Silmarillion or LOTR?

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Too Like The Lightning is outstanding so far. Thanks for the good words, polishgenius.