[rhulad]

Just started "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene... so far so good.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Knight of Darkness, on 10 March 2010 - 03:23 PM, said:

Just started reading Bakker's "The Darkness that Comes Before". Liking it so far

I've got that. It looks pretty good.

[QuickTidal]

Just getting into Altar Of Eden by James Rollins. It's a standalone story and not Sigma Force, but apparently it's very good.

[Morgoth]

Just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I've just never gotten around to reading even though it's been on the shelf for years. Though the pacing at times got a little tedious, I absolutely adored it. Mr. Norrell is exactly how a number of my professors would be had they'd been in his exact shoes, and strangely I found myself very sympathetically inclined towards him. Jonathan Strange, for all his gentlemanly bluster, was quite the twat and I have a hard time imagining people not cursing his name during the centuries following the events of the book.

I'm now reading Salt: A world history, an impulse buy that I'm so far quite pleased with.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 12 March 2010 - 09:39 PM

[Yellow]

Morgoth, on 12 March 2010 - 09:18 PM, said:

quite the twat

Indeed.

[Puck]

Yellow, on 12 March 2010 - 09:34 PM, said:

Morgoth, on 12 March 2010 - 09:18 PM, said:

quite the twat

Indeed.

Well put indeed, haha

This post has been edited by Puck: 12 March 2010 - 10:59 PM

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Morgoth, on 12 March 2010 - 09:18 PM, said:

I'm now reading Salt: A world history, an impulse buy that I'm so far quite pleased with.

Is that by Adam Roberts? I've got a couple of his parodies.

[Morgoth]

It's by Mark Kurlansky and is as far as I can tell not a parody, nor for that matter is it fiction..


.. good try though

[Pilgrim]

Right now I'm reading Lord of Chaos by Jordan, found the whole series pretty much at a used bookstore and reading them in order. Starting to get burned out. I also found Donaldson's " The Mirror of her Dreams" but haven't started it yet. Looking forward.

[MTS]

In a refreshing change of pace, I'm now reading the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. It's very good. I recommend it for people who like thrillers.

[Astra]

Finished Crown of Shadows (The Coldfire Trilogy, #3) by C.S. Friedman
It was a bit difficult to get through some places and I found myself skimming through some descriptions. The ending is good but that's it. Not a great fantasy series as I was told. Just OK.

[QuickTidal]

MTS, on 13 March 2010 - 05:41 AM, said:

In a refreshing change of pace, I'm now reading the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. It's very good. I recommend it for people who like thrillers.

The financial aspects of that first book made me put it down after about 50 pages. I didn't care for it.

[MTS]

Yeah, I can see how that would annoy people. I just plowed through that stuff. Don't see much of it in the second book, though.

[Puck]

Done with Salem's Lot. Nice. Not great, but nice. I liked the protagonists.

Next up Hearts in Atlantis, the second of the two books outside the Dark Tower I managed to get my hands on fast and cheap.

This post has been edited by Puck: 14 March 2010 - 04:35 PM

[Mentalist]

Finished "Iron COuncil"

loved it. grantred, it's been a while since i've read "Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar", but i'm pretty sure this is my fvourite work by Mieville. It's much more political, and the story has a really "epic" feel to it, probbaly due to the way the story's timeline is revealed.

I found a lot of parallels to Jack London, who is one of my favourite English authors, as well as historical parallells. The whole Collective idea seems inspired by the Parisian Commune, for example.

Overall, it just seems that this novel was an evolution of the Bas Lag novels. Mieville played with a whole bunch of themes he never touched before, and I found myself to be really receptive to them,but i'm sue that not everyone feels the same way.

next up: "Gridlinked" by Neal Asher.

[stone monkey]

Fantastic! Finally someone else who also sees what I do in Iron Council; I should warn you that we're in a minority.

Personally, I thought it was going more for the Western vibe rather than that of Londonesque Frontier Fiction; iirc I think Mieville has confirmed this. The big giveaway (for me, at least) is the title, which echoes The Iron Horse

[Fist Gamet]

Finished Pandora's Star, which finished strongly and got a lot more interesting once the action picked up.
Now reading Twelve by Jasper Kent

[Mentalist]

stone monkey, on 14 March 2010 - 09:37 PM, said:

Fantastic! Finally someone else who also sees what I do in Iron Council; I should warn you that we're in a minority.

Personally, I thought it was going more for the Western vibe rather than that of Londonesque Frontier Fiction; iirc I think Mieville has confirmed this. The big giveaway (for me, at least) is the title, which echoes The Iron Horse

Well, aside from the frontier fiction, London aso had a fantastic novel called "The Valley of the Moon" the first part of which dealt with the San Fransisc/Oakland strikes of the early 20th century. that's what I meant.

[Dag]

Just finished China Mieville's "Looking for Jake & other stories" and I must say that - maybe because of high expectations (he gets a lot of praise in this forum and Mr. B, who gave me the book, is a big fan of his) - I was a bit disappointed. Most stories were OK, none of them was brilliant, and with one or two exceptions, the endings were pretty messed up, as if the text originally wasn't meant to be a short story but rather a novel the writer didn't bother finishing.

Still willing to take another chance with him though and moving on to "The Scar".

[Use Of Weapons]

Currently reading the second omnibus of Daniel Abraham's _Long Price Quartet_, which collects the third and fourth in the series. Fantastic book, cheers whoever recommended it upthread!