What are you Reading? Mentatiferous May 2019 edition

Ralif Redhammer · May 30, 2019

Cool; I've got this sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read. I loved Lawrence's Broken Empire trilogy.

carrot said:
Just finished "One Word Kill" from Mark Lawrence.
I rather enjoyed it and was one of the more hard-to-put-down books I've read for a while. It was quite a neat story, although you can see some of the plot twists coming a mile off!

Nellisir · May 30, 2019

Finished Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Fewer spiders. Definite undertones of David Brin's Uplift Saga and CJ Cherryh's "aliens think different" mentality. Finished Provenance, by Ann Leckie. Still not sure if I've read the 3rd book in her trilogy, but this is same universe and it makes me think I haven't. Good culture building, as always. Finished Blood Rain, a mystery by Michael Dibdin. Good book, nothing exceptional. Partway through A Serpent in Venice, by Christopher Moore. I think it's a sequel of sorts to Fool, but it's been a while since I read Fool (which I really like), so I'm not 100% certain. 90% though. It's alright, but I took a break midway to read Provenance, so obviously not gripping.

Blue · Jun 1, 2019

[MENTION=1370]carrot[/MENTION], [MENTION=30438]Ralif Redhammer[/MENTION] - what would you suggest as a first Mark Lawrence book to read?

carrot · Jun 3, 2019

Blue said:
[MENTION=1370]carrot[/MENTION], [MENTION=30438]Ralif Redhammer[/MENTION] - what would you suggest as a first Mark Lawrence book to read?

I've only read The Broken Empire and The first two Impossible Times books. They are not related stories, but since the Broken Empire trilogy is all available, I'd go for that first!

Ralif Redhammer · Jun 3, 2019

I would concur with starting with Prince of Thorns. Jorg Ancrath is a great and vicious character.

Blue said:
@carrot, @Ralif Redhammer - what would you suggest as a first Mark Lawrence book to read?

Blue · Jun 3, 2019

Finished the 3rd of the Legacy Fleet series on Kindle loan. End had a bit more interesting twists but I'm not going to bother to pick up more in the series. I would had been disappointed if I paid for those books, even witht he first at only $4 for the Kindle version.

Also finished The Rule of Luck, which I enjoyed quite a bit more. An earlier complaint was that the author seemed to "go big" on everything, but that actually works out to be a plot point. The ending was a bit rushed, and the resolution felt a little Deux ex Machina, but still was enjoyable. To steal from a webcomic that also reviews movies, it didn't clear my Threshold for Awesome. Still, I'll pick up the next book in the series.

Got a large TBR pile, will see what grabs me next.

Nellisir · Jun 4, 2019

Finished A Serpent In Venice. it was...alright. Fool was much better. Read The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, by Theodora Goss. It was fine but suffered from a serious case of Spunky Heroine (x5). I'm all for more female protagonists, but these were cliche and pretty one-dimensional. Also read Shadow Captain, the sequel to Revenger, by Alastair Reynolds. I'm a big fan of Mr. Reynolds, but this didn't thrill me - which was also true of Revenger. (Also, these characters all felt undeveloped too. Maybe it's me? Probably not...I just gotta find a better book. Time to get serious, I guess....) This feels like a stab at YA, to be honest. On the upper end of YA, but still.... On the other hand, the worldbuilding is A+ top notch. 5+ million years in the future; all the planets dismantled and made into millions of smaller habitats, most with miniature black holes inside to create gravity; a great cycle of civilizations rising and falling.....

Naturally I've been in NY for a week+ now, and have exhausted all the books I brought, and the books I bought to supplement them, and now I'm bookless. Argh. I've got Mists of Avalon looking at me, but wasn't it enough to hate it once? Do I have to do it again? Frack. Used bookstore tomorrow. I've got credit.