What are you Reading? Jumentous July 2019 edition

Richards · Jul 15, 2019

As for my personal reading, I started The Empty Chair by Jeffery Deaver the other day. I was really, really hoping it would be good, as I took a chance and bought eight of his novels (and one short story collection) at a library book sale based on the fact that the back cover blurbs seemed interesting. (I'd never heard of him before and had never read anything of his.) So if this first book of his (and by that I mean the earliest-published of the ones I picked up) was no good, it would be a poor indicator of the quality of my purchases.

Fortunately, this is quite good. It's apparently not the first book of his to feature the main character, a quadriplegic profiler with a red-haired female NYC detective (I keep picturing her as a taller Dana Scully) as his hands and eyes in the field and a full-time male nurse taking care of him. This novel features them trying to track down two young women taken by a crazy teen in South Carolina with an unhealthy obsession with insects, hopefully before he has a chance to kill them.

Johnathan

Ralif Redhammer · Jul 18, 2019

I finished reading Todd Lockwood’s The Summer Dragon. It was really good. Far better than I would’ve expected for the first novel from a painter. I was absolutely riveted to the end.

Next up is a dive into the past, with Gardner Fox’s Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman. Been craving some more Appendix N reading as of late.

Richards · Jul 18, 2019

I finished The Empty Chair last night - it was so very good: twists and turns abounded throughout the book, to the point where you start to second guess yourself while reading through it at what can be taken at face value and what might be intentionally leading you astray. Jeffery Deaver excels at throwing you curve balls when you least expect it.

And it turns out I missed one of his books in my pile when I was sorting them by year of publication, because the next one of his I bought is Shallow Graves, written several years before The Empty Chair (and originally under a pseudonym). But it all turned out fine, as I enjoyed that first book so much I think I would pick up anything of his sight unseen and be pretty assured of a good read. I'll start Shallow Graves tonight; it features completely different characters so I won't have read anything "out of order."

Johnathan

Richards · Jul 23, 2019

I'm now reading Bloody River Blues by Jeffery Deaver, starring the same protagonist - a location scout for movies named John Pellam - as in Shallow Graves, so reading them back-to-back is kind of cool. Apparently there are a few more in this series as well, which I may have to hunt up.

Johnathan

mrrockitt · Jul 23, 2019

Just finished 'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie.
Bit of a slow start but great character development and a sharp sense of humour in the book.
I guess I might describe it as being a bit of a cross between GOT and the Dark Wheel series. Lots of political intrigue and back-stabbing in a very cynical, low magic world.
Just starting the second book...

Mallus · Jul 23, 2019

I recently finished Moorcock's The Jewel in the Skull, Dorian Hawkmoon book 1. Haven't touched it since high school, but plucked it off the stack after hearing the BBC is adapting it for television. It's no Elric or Corum, but the setting is cool.

Also reading Max Gladstone's Empress of Forever. It starts well; the world's smartest & most successful tech entrepreneur going on the run, believing the government is about to arrest her. Then almost immediately morphs into gonzo space opera. Unsure of where it's going (except for a super-obvious plot point), but the writing is a pleasing combination of 'excellent' and 'fun'. In that regard it reminds me of the Expanse novels.

Blue · Jul 24, 2019

Rereading Marion Harmon's Wearing the Cape series. Decent plots, enjoyable and snarky characters, okay twists, and some deconstruction of superheros in a world where they are only around for the past decade and comics and everything did exist beforehand.

This was triggered by borrowing the one side-book from the Kindle lending library - I'm not into vampires so hadn't picked it up previously. When I needed something to read when not near my TBR pile I borrowed it, read it (still not a large fan), but it inspired me to read the others.

I'm on book 5 (plus side book and short story), but book 6 is coming up and it's the one I have the most reservations about. Crossovers are a common superhero trope, with alternate dimensions barely less so. And I liked seeing alternate history version of the main universe. But it started and ended with a crossover with characters used with permissions from another author whom I was unfamiliar. I've now read a bit of them, but I still find them a jarring addition that doesn't quite fit the tonality of the rest of the series.

That said, I still have fun with the Wearing the Cape series, hence the rereading. Superhero is not one of my normal genres. I think "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Gross is my only other reread superhero book. (A wonderful yet inconsistant book with periods of awful, and a fantastic deconstruction of what it means to be a superhero and a supervillian.) I couldn't even get through the second Wild Cards book. "Those Explosions Weren't My Fault" also had a bit of a good take on supers for their setting, but it involved vampires again and I don't like other-genre stories with vampires mixed in. (I don't like straight vampire stories that much either: not into horror and much of the current urban fantasy treats vamps as romance objects. Anita Blake and all of your kind, I'm looking at you.)

If people have superhero suggestions, especially ones that don't just assume the classic tropes but either have their own, or go into the "why" of them, please recommend.

carrot · Jul 25, 2019

Blue said:
If people have superhero suggestions, especially ones that don't just assume the classic tropes but either have their own, or go into the "why" of them, please recommend.

I quite enjoyed Drew Hayes Super Powereds series.

Blue · Jul 25, 2019

carrot said:
I quite enjoyed Drew Hayes Super Powereds series.

Thanks. I noticed the first one of them is available with Kindle Unlimited - my wife has that. So I can try out the series and if so pick them up.

Ralif Redhammer · Jul 25, 2019

I quite like the Hawkmoon series. Probably my favorite of Moorcock's works after the Elric saga (though there is something to the melancholy of Erekose, too).

I finished reading Kothar and the Magic Sword. Decent stuff, though not, great (it lacks the vividness of R.E. Howard, and the weirdness of Lin Carter). It's entertaining and moves at a solid clip nonetheless. And the second tale within it is one of the clearest antecedents to a dungeon crawl.

I also finished Richard Sharpe Shaver's "I Remember Lemuria!" While this is no great work of pulp literature, it’s got weirdness in spades. All the moreso since Shaver believed this to a real account of his past life, and spent his life researching and finding “evidence” of it. Also, it's the source for both the Derro and Marilith demons.

I'm in an Appendix N mood, so next up is Margaret St. Clair's Sign of the Labrys.

Mallus said:
I recently finished Moorcock's The Jewel in the Skull, Dorian Hawkmoon book 1. Haven't touched it since high school, but plucked it off the stack after hearing the BBC is adapting it for television. It's no Elric or Corum, but the setting is cool.