[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Pig Iron, on Sep 30 2008, 10:32 AM, said:

And I love Instrumentalities of the Night.

I just can't get into it. I'm struggling to force myself to finish the second book, simply out of respect for Cook as an author. NOt exactly sure why, but it's not grabbing me. I don't care about the characters, the plot isn't compelling, It's too closely based off of actual history, the style of writing reads like a history textbook, it is full of (deliberate?) sentence fragments. Which are unnecessary. Oh, and there are guns. Not a fan, it's almost enough to make me go and finally read the last book of WoT, which I have been putting off for as long as possible.

@Noxchild: It's a relevant plotpoint later, read and find out.

This post has been edited by Raymond Luxury Yacht: 03 October 2008 - 04:16 AM

[Pig Iron]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Oct 3 2008, 06:15 AM, said:

Pig Iron, on Sep 30 2008, 10:32 AM, said:

And I love Instrumentalities of the Night.

I just can't get into it. I'm struggling to force myself to finish the second book, simply out of respect for Cook as an author. NOt exactly sure why, but it's not grabbing me. I don't care about the characters, the plot isn't compelling, It's too closely based off of actual history, the style of writing reads like a history textbook, it is full of (deliberate?) sentence fragments. Which are unnecessary. Oh, and there are guns. Not a fan, it's almost enough to make me go and finally read the last book of WoT, which I have been putting off for as long as possible.

@Noxchild: It's a relevant plotpoint later, read and find out.

I like the weird medieval/renaissance setting with strange gods, magic and a coming ice age. The main character's typical Cook, fatalistic and moody. The story, again in typical Cool fashion (like Vance and dare I say it in some ways Erikson), goes off in random directions like life itself. But sure, it's probably not everyones cup of tea.

[Salt-Man Z]

I'm reading Silver Spike now, and I'm kinda wishing I had read the Books of the South first. It's not that I don't like the book, 50 pages in (geez, does it read fast!) but I just wanna know what Croaker and the Lady are up to.

I'm definitely going to have to check out more of Cook's stuff. Instrumentalities has sounded interesting to me.

[Chance]

Pig Iron, on Oct 3 2008, 07:38 PM, said:

I like the weird medieval/renaissance setting with strange gods, magic and a coming ice age. The main character's typical Cook, fatalistic and moody. The story, again in typical Cool fashion (like Vance and dare I say it in some ways Erikson), goes off in random directions like life itself. But sure, it's probably not everyones cup of tea.

Me too, actually I think I like instrumentalities better (well if you skim the monk dudes passages now and then) then any black company book after the first three...question is when the hell is he going to release the third one

Salt-Man Z, on Oct 3 2008, 07:53 PM, said:

I'm reading Silver Spike now, and I'm kinda wishing I had read the Books of the South first. It's not that I don't like the book, 50 pages in (geez, does it read fast!) but I just wanna know what Croaker and the Lady are up to.

I'm definitely going to have to check out more of Cook's stuff. Instrumentalities has sounded interesting to me.

I usually recommend people to just skip the Silver Spike its pretty much just closing a side story and its horrible compared to the rest of the series...

[opiate taylor]

@ Pig Iron: Sorry it took me so long to reply. Been out of town and all that shit... Anyway, I hope you will check out Matthew Hughes' books, as they are really fun reads and very reminiscent of Vance, who is one of my favs along with Wolfe. Also, just got An Evil Guest yesterday, and last night I read half of it in one sitting. Great so far. To answer your earlier question about Jack Vance and whether or not he was writing anything new, he has actually finished his autobiography and has found a publisher for it. No word on the pub date yet, but it seems pretty far off. Here is a link to the Jack Vance MB. I have the same username there. Come check it out.


http://jackvance.yuku.com/

[Pig Iron]

Thanks for the tip on Hughes and the link OT, read Fools Errant and have Fool Me twice and Black Brillion on the to-read pile, great fun. A Vance autobiography, wow I'd give a lot to read that. From what I understand he's given very few interviews in his life. "An Evil Guest" is Wolfe at his best, as usual I'm not sure I understood all of it though

[Lisheo]

Hey Nox, Im reading it too... Soulcatcher is a woman.

[Salt-Man Z]

I finally picked up the last 3 Black Company books at Half Price Books (yay birthday gift card). Both She is the Darkness and Water Sleeps had some minor water damage, with the wavy pages and the edge of the back cover worn off, but with their relative rarity, I decided to grab them anyway. And as a bonus, She is the Darkness is autographed!

[Lisheo]

Salt, WOW
I cant believe I haven't read the Black Company before... If anything, these books are more enjoyable than even SE's, and SE is by far the best modern fantasy writer.

[Use Of Weapons]

My omnibus edition of the Black Company trilogy (The Black Company; Shadows Linger; The White Rose) has unfortunately got several pages of The Black company missing, with pages from The White Rose inserted in their place.

Waaaaaah!

Back to Forbidden Planet to see if they've got a good copy.

[cauthon]

Yeah Soulcatcher is female.

[Reborn]

I have read the the first trilogy of The Black Comapany, The Books of the South and The Silver Spike and enjoyed all of them. Pehaps they lack the depth needed to make it among my absokute favorites (Erikson, Martin, Bakker, Miéville, and perhaps Simmons if Endymion and The Rise of Endymion are as great as the first two) but the plot is so damn intense and often unpredictable with many twists and turns along the road that it's awesome anyway. Reminds me of The Chronicles of Amber in that regard and I love those books. Just pure delight to read them.

What makes me a bit sad though is that I cannot get ahold of The Books of the Glittering Stones anywhere. I was really hoping that they would release these in an omnibus just as the others but have heard nothing to indicate that. Does anyone know anything about plans for a The Glittering Stones-omnibus?

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Reborn, on Oct 15 2008, 01:16 PM, said:

I have read the the first trilogy of The Black Comapany, The Books of the South and The Silver Spike and enjoyed all of them. Pehaps they lack the depth needed to make it among my absokute favorites (Erikson, Martin, Bakker, Miéville, and perhaps Simmons if Endymion and The Rise of Endymion are as great as the first two) but the plot is so damn intense and often unpredictable with many twists and turns along the road that it's awesome anyway. Reminds me of The Chronicles of Amber in that regard and I love those books. Just pure delight to read them.

What makes me a bit sad though is that I cannot get ahold of The Books of the Glittering Stones anywhere. I was really hoping that they would release these in an omnibus just as the others but have heard nothing to indicate that. Does anyone know anything about plans for a The Glittering Stones-omnibus?

I think wiki says there are plans to but I couldn't swear to that.

[Salt-Man Z]

It seems like it should be an obvious move. And the omnibuses have been coming once a year: Chronicles was published 11/07, and Books of the South on 6/08. Seems reasonable to expect Glittering Stone to be published sometime next year, or perhaps early 2010.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 15 October 2008 - 10:31 PM

[Reborn]

That would be great. Another book to look forward to next year.

[Tarcanus]

After a bit of googling, I failed to find any news of plans for the 3rd Instrumentalities of the Night book. Has anyone else heard anything or is Cook being his normal reclusive self?

[pat5150]

I'm currently conducting an email interview with Glen Cook, so perhaps he'll shine some light on this in the Q&A. Should get it tomorrow (keeping my fingers crossed).

Should have posted this early last week, but Cook keeps sending me a file my computer can't read. And the guy doesn't understand how to save it as an RTF file that any word processor can read, nor can he copy-paste it inside the body of an email. . .

Yeah, it's been that kind of thing. . .

Patrick

[Tarcanus]

Awesome, Pat. It's always good to get some news - any news - out of Glen Cook.