[Mentalist]

Ahh, so the Chronicles, where it all began...

Well, obviously, it's no MBotF, but t hen few things are...
What I really enjoyed about that whole story is the acknowledged existance of a balance--i.e., you can't have the evil totally destroyed forever. That gave the series a sense of realism...
While I am not a fanatic who gets just about everything with the logo on it, I did bother to get the main sequence of the series (3 trilogies + 1 book by Weis & Hickman, + another trilogy by Rabe, so's to understand what the hell happened before War of Souls) all in all, that series has a right to exist, imho.

[Astra]

kud13;221208 said:

@ astra: 73 km which way?

A small town with a bunch of coal mines.... Any ideas?


Anyway, two 10 hours flights combined with a week of cubinian wonderful sun and Atlantic ocean helped me to finish American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I don't think I will read anything of this writer for quite a while. Didn't like the book. At all. The first half of the book was horrible. Then 1/3 was .....OK ...the ending was good.

After that I started to read Perdido Street Station. About 1/10 into the book. So far, not bad. A bit difficult read for me. His narration style is very descriptive - too many words in English that I don't know. Shame on me. Though, I think I am going to learn China Miéville's vocabulary soon and it is not going to be a problem. Well, it is more exciting than American Gods or Black Man.

[Slum]

Crime and Punishment, 'cause I want to make sure I'm well read.

It's pretty suspenseful, actually.

[Dag]

Still refreshing my childhood memories - with Joan D. Vinge's The Summer Queen.

I loved that book when I read it some 15 years ago, and the story and especially the characters have left pleasant echoes in my memory. But now, years later, I have come to realize with a mild disappointment that:

a) Vinge can't write male characters. Her men are simply women with hairy chests: the balls are missing.

and

All the sex scenes and "passion" I found so fascinating and imagination-itching as a teenager made me giggle this time: "...the burning sword of his manhood tracing a fiery track across her skin, its white heat driven deep into her loins, searing the soft floods below..." *giggle... sry, I just can't help it*

I am not claiming that it was not fun to re-read "The Snow/Summer Queen" again - those are great books, with really interesting story, but... it was also a slightly disappointig experience. Maybe next time I should let the pleasant childhood memories rest where they are, the way they are...

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

A Game Of Thrones is great! And I have this forum to thank. I never would have read this series without you guys. Thanks!

[Mappo Trell]

Thieves World #1 - Just re-read all the Myth books and fancied reading these. So far im loving the idea that this was really the 1st shared "world" that well known authors could contribute to, and other authors could include their characters in their stories (as long as they retained the general essence of the defined character)

Good read

[Darkwatch]

Curse of the Chosen by Ian Irvine

[Dag]

Dan Simmons - The Terror

[Kurt Montandon]

Churchill, by Roy Jenkins. Pretty fascinating, if you don't mind long, dry biographies by people who are masters of their subject (Jenkins having been an MP for 50 some-odd years, plus having held many of the same offices as Churchill, and been in Parliament with him for a number of the same years).
I read Dreadnought by Massie a few months ago, so this is a great follow-up on the subject matter - I also read Peter the Great by Massie a few months ago, which has me on a biography kick (read in the past two months: The First American by H.W. Brands about Ben Franklin - absolutely fascinating; and His Excellency by Joseph Ellis about George Washington, which I thought was extremely lacking).

[cauthon]

Bleak Seasons reread.

[caladanbrood]

The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman, on my Dark Materials re-read:)

[Spindrift]

Just finished the Terror, now reading the Name of the Wind

[Optimus Prime]

Finally decided to give The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook and am really enjoying it so far.

Also picked up Scar Night

[Mentalist]

Finally finished "Lord Foul's Bane" by Donaldson... It was a surprisingly hard read for me--probably because I found it really hard to get inside Covenant's head (and for a psychology major, that's an important part of understanding the book, perhaps the most important). That being said, it is certainly one of the most original appraoches to telling a story, although I hope the action picks up in the next two volumes, because to be honest, it hasn't felt very "epic" (so far)

[GaesII]

Sepulchre - Kate Mosse
Not as good as her first, but it's OK.

[pat5150]

Discoveries is a new speculative fiction imprint from Wizards of the Coast (Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc). Hence, let me begin by saying that it's about time! A new adult-oriented specfic line is good news to fans of the genre.

Wizards of the Coast sent out a very neat publicity kit last fall. Of all the advance reading copies it contained, I elected to read J. M. McDermott's debut. Last Dragon is advertized as a literary fantasy novel in the tradition of Gene Wolfe and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Talk about raising expectations to a level that no debut can aspire to reach, right? Still, I was intrigued and decided to give it a shot.

Last Dragon is written economically, which is both a positive and a negative thing. On the upside, it makes for a narrative that flows well. Extremely short scenes in relatively short chapters help speed the story along. On the downside, many of the concepts are bare bones and should have been further fleshed out to make this tale more absorbing.

I'm well aware that I don't say this very often, but I believe that Last Dragon should have been longer. It would have given the author the chance to bring this book to another level, for the potential is definitely there. The absence of details concerning too many facets of the novel makes for a somewhat bland story that could have been a lot better. It's sad, for Last Dragon showed a lot of promise. . .

Check out the blog for the full review...

Patrick

[Sinisdar Toste]

re-reading MT right now, i totally forgot all about iron bars and his squads badassitude.

[pat5150]

I just finished GRRM's A Storm of Swords (finally, I know!). In a word: Awesome!

Check the blog for the full review.

Cheers,

Patrick

[Mentalist]

still on Chronicles of thomas covenant--liked the "illearth war" a LOT more, probably because of more fighting and less Covenant.. onto the third one..

[Valgard]

Am currently reading Rubicon by Tom Holland about the fall of the Roman republic. Enjoying it greatly very well written and gripping with an excellent background to the whole thing so definitely worth reading.