Reading at t'moment?

#4721 HoosierDaddy

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Posted 15 February 2010 - 09:42 PM

Finished:

Heroes Die, Stover: Fun read. Takes a little bit to get into what exactly is going on. It's a strange mix between 1984 and Brent Weeks. 7.5/10
Best Served Cold, Abercrombie: Joe sure knows how to make you keep reading despite wondering why. 6.5/10

Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore....

#4722 Use Of Weapons

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Posted 16 February 2010 - 11:21 AM

Got a couple or three books from Forbidden Planet last night. First up is the finale of Lois Bujold's _Sharing Knife_ series, _The Sharing Knife: Horizon_. Much complications, much excellent writing. Why did I wait so long to take up this one?

Also purchased: from recommendations on here, Daniel Abrahams 'Long Price Quartet', I got the first two in omnibus form; and the final book in Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true.
-- Oscar Wilde

#4723 Deornoth

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Posted 16 February 2010 - 05:01 PM

Finished reading Jonathan Oliver's 'The Call of Kerberos' where a fisherman must learn to control powers that he never even knew he had in order to fight off an invasion of monsters from beneath the sea...
As you can tell, there isn't a lot here that you won't have read before in other books and there's also a disturbing lack of background for the story to set itself against. When things get going though, Oliver does tell an entertaining tale that's worth a read. My full review is over Here. I'm now finishing off 'Kitty's House of Horrors' and 'The Eternal Prison'.

#4724 Stalker

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Posted 16 February 2010 - 05:16 PM

I'm currently reading Richard Adams' Shardik, based on a recommendation here (think it was Salt-Man Z).
I'm enjoying it so far, just started book 2 so I'm still in the beginning. My only problem is not enough free time hehe.

#4725 Salt-Man Z

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Posted 16 February 2010 - 05:48 PM

'Twas me, indeed! Glad to hear you're enjoying it so far. Definitely let me know what you thought when you finish. Shardik is one of the few books where I honestly feel like I was there for a lot of the scenes. (The one that sticks in my mind most is when they find Shardik by the pool in the trepsis.) I could chalk some of that up to having read it 10 times, but I also credit Adams' amazing prose. I've heard some complaints calling him "too wordy", but really, all of that language just sucks you (or at least me) into the scene, through every sense. I also love his use of simile, something I don't see a lot of from most S/F authors.

I finished Storm Front late last night. Fantastic. I can't remember the last time I read a book in 2 days; I just never wanted to stop reading. I haven't had many books do that to me recently (like Scott Lynch's books last year) and I love it when that happens. I'll be starting Fool Moon sometime today.

"Here is light. You will say that it is not a living entity, but you miss the point that it is more, not less. Without occupying space, it fills the universe. It nourishes everything, yet itself feeds upon destruction. We claim to control it, but does it not perhaps cultivate us as a source of food? May it not be that all wood grows so that it can be set ablaze, and that men and women are born to kindle fires?"
―Gene Wolfe, The Citadel of the Autarch

#4726 QuickTidal

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Posted 16 February 2010 - 10:38 PM

Salt-Man Z, on 16 February 2010 - 05:48 PM, said:

I finished Storm Front late last night. Fantastic. I can't remember the last time I read a book in 2 days; I just never wanted to stop reading. I haven't had many books do that to me recently (like Scott Lynch's books last year) and I love it when that happens. I'll be starting Fool Moon sometime today.

Oh man, you ain't seen nothing yet! Seriously. Wait till book 3 and 4...and then 7....Holy shit, how nice would it be to be at the beginning of the series again! (Stares wistfully at his entire shelf of Butcher books)

On the same note, I am currently about 100 pages into the sixth and final Codex Alera book by Jim Butcher, FIRST LORD'S FURY, and damn if this series hasn't earned a place in my heart right next to Dresden. The series got progressively better and better with every volume after the first, and the sixth book is no exception.

Butcher is god.

"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon

#4727 Deornoth

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Posted 17 February 2010 - 04:54 PM

Finished reading 'Kitty's House of Horrors'; a fast paced tale with an engaging lead character that somehow managed to remind me of Kelley Armstrong's 'Stolen' so much that I didn't enjoy it perhaps as much as I could have done. The full review is over Here. I'm now finishing off Jeff Somers' 'The Eternal Prison'.

#4728 wolf_2099

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Posted 17 February 2010 - 09:22 PM

Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol

Good lord this is a badly written book, with ridiculous segways into random (and probably dubious) "historical" fact.

It's taken 3 chapers so far to walk to a freaking sub-basement.

"HAIL THE MARINES!"

#4729 QuickTidal

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Posted 18 February 2010 - 12:31 AM

wolf_2099, on 17 February 2010 - 09:22 PM, said:

If you think it gets better...you'd be wrong. It gets significantly worse. By the end it devolves into some sort of hybrid preachy science allegory. Ugh what a horrific book. Poor Robert Langdon having to be the protagonist in such a bad book. I don't even think I'd use it to burn in the fireplace to keep warm.

I'd actually not realized how long it took to get to the first "historical spot". It does.

I think the biggest problem is that Langdon is good at investigating mysteries from the ancient world (one of the reason the first two are so readable)....not one that originates in a country that is only 200 years old itself.

"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon

#4730 PeterWilliam

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Posted 18 February 2010 - 01:03 AM

Finished Barclay's Shadowheart on the 12th and am approximately 100p from finishing Demonstorm, the next in that series.

There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death.

Ubiquitous Absence

#4731 kcf

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Posted 18 February 2010 - 03:46 PM

I finished up The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. This one is getting lots of buzz and quite a few people are reading it right now. In my opinion it pretty easily lives up to the buzz and is a great debut. (full review) I also have a copy to giveaway over on the blog.

Next up is The Conqueror's Shadow by Ari Marmell - it's more of a typical sword and sorcery book than I usually read.

Neth Space

#4732 Deornoth

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Posted 18 February 2010 - 04:51 PM

Finished reading Jeff Somers' 'The Eternal Prison', a tale of... well, the main character had no idea what was going on so I certainly didn't! Having said that though, lots of stuff got blown up against a brutally dark background and that was all that mattered at the end of the day. Confusing but good fun, my full review is over Here. Now, I'm finishing off 'A Thousand Sons'...

#4733 Salt-Man Z

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Posted 19 February 2010 - 04:23 PM

Picked up the next 3 Dresden books from the library on the way home last night. Finished off Fool Moon and started in on Grave Peril. Whoever likened these things to crack is right on the mark.

#4734 lobo the wolfman

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Posted 19 February 2010 - 08:38 PM

Reading 'The Vampire Genevieve' by Jack Yeovil, it's pretty much Warhammer Gothic horror at it's best. Simple but entertaining.

In a world gone mad, we will not spank the monkey, but the monkey will spank us.

#4735 Puck

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Posted 19 February 2010 - 11:32 PM

Currently reading the third Dark Tower novel - The Waste Lands - by Stephen King. Next up is Wizard and Glass.

Puck was not birthed, she was cleaved from a lava flow and shaped by a fierce god's hands. - [worry]
Ninja Puck, Ninja Puck, really doesn't give a fuck..? - [King Lear]

#4736 HoosierDaddy

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Posted 19 February 2010 - 11:34 PM

Enjoy, Puck. Wizards and Glass was my favorite in the series, albeit my version didn't have the kick-ass artwork the last two volumes had in them.

#4737 Riot

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Posted 20 February 2010 - 01:48 PM

just started, Devices and Desires: The Engineer Trilogy

#4738 QuickTidal

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Posted 20 February 2010 - 06:52 PM

Salt-Man Z, on 19 February 2010 - 04:23 PM, said:

GRAVE PERIL is the beginning of the super awesome. By the midway point of that book, it changes from a book you are reading into a series that you must read like chain linked crack.

"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon

#4739 Slow Ben

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Posted 20 February 2010 - 11:23 PM

Puck, on 19 February 2010 - 11:32 PM, said:

Currently reading the third Dark Tower novel - The Waste Lands - by Stephen King. Next up is Wizard and Glass.

H.D., on 19 February 2010 - 11:34 PM, said:

Enjoy, Puck. Wizards and Glass was my favorite in the series, albeit my version didn't have the kick-ass artwork the last two volumes had in them.

Yeah, Wizard and Glass is my favorite too. Might be my favorite book period, well, at least in the top 3. Posted Image

Just started The Silver Spike by Cook and Bleak Seasons is on its way from the Library.

@SaltMan. QT's right, you think they were good before, NOW you're in for a treat.

I've always been crazy but its kept me from going insane.