[August] What are you reading?

[vtaltos]

WOOT Brust fans!
I am currently reading The Ten Thousand by Michael Curtis Ford.
After that i will dive into books two and three of The Viscount of Adrilankha by Steven K. Zoltan Brust, pjf.

 

[Olive]

Olive, I just finished Iron Council. My thoughts, without giving too much away:
-Of the three Crobuzon books, this one is far and away the most political. That's something that I enjoy a lot, but other folks may not like so much; be aware when you read it that you're going to be reading, not a didactic work, but a work that offers a grim and thoughtful treatment of social upheaval in a fantasy world.
-Perdido Street Station made me gasp on just about every other page with some bizarre new idea. This one didn't quite do that, but it still had a fair share of breathtaking scenes.
-I think the characters are better drawn in this one than in his previous books, and the language is the same surefooted baroquery that you'll either love or you'll hate. Obviously it works well for me.

AWESOME

Maybe I'll try to find it int he way overpriced scifi bookshop that seems to get stuff earlier than general release next week...

So where did you hear about his next and his Wolfe recomendation?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, just finished Mad Ship by Robin Hobb and am working on the last book in this trilogy, Ship of Destiny. Solid writing and this book actually had a few surprises for me. For example, I didn't suspect that there would still be a serepent, "She Who Remembers".

 

[Tetsubo]

The History of Civilizations, by Fernand Braudel. A must read for any fan of history.

 

[mmu1]

Funny, I was just thinking of picking up some Gene Wolfe based on Mieville's recommendation. Synchrofreakinnicity, don'tcha know.

Hmm. Two recommendations for Wolfe, one from an author I like, another from one I hate.

My problem with Mieville is that I don't like his style (He's got some very good ideas, but there's too much weird stuff that's just there for the sake of being weird and exotic, and no real internal consistency - his books just remind me of a Final Fantasy game), and that he injects way too much of his own personal politics into his books, which I don't care for at all.

 

[Pielorinho]

Yeah, I can understand folks not liking his politics; without discussing the particulars, I'll just say that his politics inform his books as heavily as, say, Heinlein, and if you find his politics disagreeable, his books might be similarly disagreeable. I enjoy that aspect of them.

As for the weirdness, he does sort of hint at its explanation--not so much in Perdido Street Station as in The Scar and Iron Council. There's an energy called Torque that's responsible for a lot of what's going on, and it's tied to two landscape features: the Cacotopic Stain, and The Scar itself.

I don't find it weird for the sake of weirdness, any more than Conan is violent for the sake of violence. The weirdness really adds to the storytelling for me.

But it's a matter of individual taste, of course, and de gustibus etc.

Olive, I forget where I heard about his next book--it was an interview somewhere online. Same thing for his Gene Wolfe recommendation: I was looking up a Mieville quote about Weird Fiction to answer someone's query about the topic, and ran across the recommendation in which he said Wolfe was one of the greatest living authors. Figured I'd check it out.

Daniel

 

[Desdichado]

I don't find it weird for the sake of weirdness, any more than Conan is violent for the sake of violence. The weirdness really adds to the storytelling for me.

He does seem to occasionally wander off in weirdness that serves no purpose whatsoever. The entire handlinger sequence in Perdido Street was just to show off "hey, look, here's a really weird, grotesque element of my aw3some 53tting, d00ds" kinda moment. It didn't further the storytelling at all; in fact, it interrupted the momentum of the story for no apparent reason. Which was unfortunate, as it took at least 200 pages to build up any momentum to begin with.

 

[Pielorinho]

Huh. I only vaguely remember the handlinger segment from PSS. Maybe so.
Daniel

 

[Laurel]

Someone loaned me 'Kingdom of the Grail' by Judith Tarr, so starting that one. I think there is one more after this, but not sure.
Anyone else read this? What did you think?

 

[myrdden]

I've finally started Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erickson. I am so looking forward to this one. 150 pages in and I can barely set it down.