What are you reading? Erudite Aug 2018 Edition

Blue · Aug 4, 2018

So I'm just about to crack open Sarah J. Maas' Crown of Midnight, second in the Throne of Glass series. I think it's technically YA, I enjoyed the first book. Amusingly, the main character is an incredible Mary Sue - but in ways that are almost orthogonal to the actual story. So you can just assume "okay, she can do near-impossble-thing-X that's motivating the characters, but that's not an important part of the story". It's almost like her being THAT good was a macguffin to unlock the plot.

We'll see how the second book fares.

Oh, also still reading my "side book" on my phone: Scoundrels. It's an old Han Solo (and Chew and Londo) book set soon after A New Hope. Definitely a heist story, and it's been gelling together as well as throwing some unexpected twists. It may suffer some from my reading it as a side book, as almost an ensemble cast and a tricky heist.

EDIT: Put the name of the first book instead of the second.

Blue · Aug 6, 2018

Finished Scoundrels. Good. A few iconic Han moments but he seemed to get the least focus. Lots of twists, but the twist at the end wasn't as good as some that lead up to it. ALso all this high tech heist going back and forth and then the unbelievable "I spent a large fortune on my estate and guards and security droids and this ridiculous vault, but I lock prisoners in a bedroom closet".

I bought the Amazon ebook which came with the novelette "Winner Loses All", which is about Lando and a few of the other characters from the main book, also written by Timothy Zahn. Nice little bonus.

delericho · Aug 7, 2018

"Scoundrels" was okay, though I could probably have done without the scene lifted from "Raiders of the Lost Ark". I definitely preferred Zahn's other two post-Ep4 novels ("Allegiance" and "Choices of One").

I'm between books - I finished "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes" late last month, and have just finished my Pathfinder for this month (not really enjoying the current path, sad to say).

Next up will be "White Knight/Black Swan" by David Gemmell, followed by the last of the Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton. And then the 30th anniversary reprint of the Star Wars d6 RPG.

Janx · Aug 7, 2018

Still reading Wizard of the Crow. it's a hefty book.

After that it's DL Young's third in a series, El Flaco, a dystopian future Republic of Texas which shows why seceding is such a bad idea.

Ralif Redhammer · Aug 10, 2018

The Wheel of Time’s Towers of Midnight is done. A strong showing, with a lot happening as we race to the close. Now it’s the final book, A Memory of Light.

I'm so looking forward to finishing the series. Though, it's definitely picked up with the last four books. That middle stretch was painful at times.

Richards · Aug 16, 2018

I just started Pompeii by Robert Harris. It's a novel that starts a few days before the infamous eruption hits. I'm only a few chapters in, but the main character is a stoic, no-nonsense aquarius (not his astorological sign but his job - he tends the aqueducts); I like him already. It's a shame events aren't in his favor to make it out alive....

But I was in a mood for something different than the fantasy series I just finished and since my son and I are working our way through the "Spartacus" TV series on DVD (we just started season three), a novel in the Roman era hit all the right chords for me.

Johnathan

Blue · Aug 16, 2018

Richards said:
But I was in a mood for something different than the fantasy series I just finished and since my son and I are working our way through the "Spartacus" TV series on DVD (we just started season three), a novel in the Roman era hit all the right chords for me.

When you're done with ait and want to mix some fantasy back in to your Romans, try Jim Butcher's other series. What, he's got his pseudo-steampunk? Okay, his original other series then. Codex Alera.

Kramodlog · Aug 16, 2018

I finished A Fire Upon the Deep. It was very enjoyable as it is packed with many ideas. I like the end and the new status quo, even if everyone meets up at the same time too conveniently. The new status quo opens all sorts of doors. It was really fun world building.

I thought AFUtD influenced Charles Stross' Accelerando, but on Goodreads he told me it wasn't a big influence, but it did influence Singularity Sky. It's gonna be my next novel right after I finish Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

RM is a slogged. It is full of big ideas that kept making me stop and think about them. That makes the reading last longer, but isn't necessarely a bad thing. The problem is that it's also boring. There is no plot until the middle of the book. And even then... Still, Robinson had some great insight. It was published in 1992 and sure saw the longer term effects of global warming.