August - What are you reading?

[Wombat]

Well, recently finished Kim Harrison's For A Few Demons More -- I think it's the last in that series I'm going to read. Too much Bizarre Love Triangle stuff, too much fashion, too little plot and what action there was left me scratching my head saying, " Well, I guess it could turn out that way..."

So now I turn to a truly excellent volume -- Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride.

After that, I'm considering setting sail for a third time with Capt Jack Aubrey and Mr Stephen Maturin.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. In 1527, following a failed expedition by Spanish conquistadors, he wandered through North America for nine year among the natives before finally returning to Spain.

 

[Tolen Mar]

I'm dipping my toe into Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of Seven Suns but am having trouble staying interested.

I've been having the oposite reacion to that one. While I don't think its the greatest story I've ever read, and does turn predictable here and there, I've followed the entire saga. And once we get the bills caught up from our accident this summer, I hope to read the final book (Which I think is due around Christmastime).

Edit: Looking at their site, there is one more due next July.

 

[WayneLigon]

The Ninth Talisman by Lawrence Watt Evans. Second in a series, the first book being The Wizard Lord.

I'd consider the first book to be a stand-alone. It wraps up it's tale and is done, so you're not left hanging. You could probably read the second one without reading the first; it gives a short description of what went before.

Breaker is a young man in an isolated village in Baroken. He's been vaguely dissatisfied with his future as a barley farmer, so when the Chosen Swordsman and two wizards arrive, he's interested. The Chosen are eight people gifted with magical abilities; they have one function: should the supreme wizard of all Baroken, the Wizard Lord, go bad then they have to kill him. As one ages, they find a replacement for themselves. Breaker considers that there has not been a Dark Lord in over 100 years, so he accepts the training to becomg the Greatest Swordsman In The World.

Baroken is an interesting place. Everything, everything, has a spirit associated with it. Humans can only live in areas that have been 'tamed' so the wilderness between towns and cities is dangerous to someone who doesn't know how to placate the local spirits. Each town is an entity unto itself because of this; the spirits of one town might demand that everyone wear red. Another, that no-one work unless they are a woman. Another, that a baby is given to them on the first moonless night of the year. No armies can be raised, so the people are remarkable peaceful and almost pacifist: Breaker's sword is usually the only real weapon they've seen in their lives.

Also reading Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman . I'm not done with it yet but it's a superhero story done with a modern sensibility that manages not to be snarky, post-modern, or mean-spirited. That's virtually unique for mainstream fiction, which is where you'll find it shelved.

 

[takyris]

Finished the last Harry Potter book and one of the J.D. Robb mysteries ("Survivor in Death") and am moving on to Nora Roberts' "Blue Smoke".

 

[Obrysii]

Still crawling through Ringworld.

 

[Jubilee]

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie King. It's the 2nd in her series about Sherlock Holmes after retirement and his young-lady apprentice, and very entertaining indeed. I intend to bring 3 and 4 for my travel-reading during GenCon

To get my GenCon entries painted, now that I'm done listenning to Harry Potter, I'm back to re-listening to Elizabeth Peter's amusing Amelia Peabody series - I just finished The Ape who Guards the Balance yesterday and will start The Falcon at the Portal tomorrow.

I, too, finished For a Few Demons More (in a single 6ish hour sitting - since I started around 9pm, I was regretting it the next day at work!) and was overall not that excited about it, it seemed to be a bit overfull of odd plots and trauma and I am not terribly happy with how much of it came out at the end.. I will probably continue the series in the hope it will improve, and see how some of the dangling plots pan out..

Wombat, have you read Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Underworld series? I can do without some of the gore in Bitten, which kept me away from Stolen, but the others have been fairly entertaining and if you have liked Harrison, you might enjoy Armstrong. I just finished the latest, No Humans Involved, a few weeks ago.

/ali

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Blew through Harry Potter/Hallows in 2 days on vacation. Tried to start Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton after hearing it raved about on radio a while back but it fails to grip me in any way. Went through Eaters of the Dead by Michael Chrichton on audiobook. I have Snow Crash on audiobook and I'm now listening to that for the... 4th time? I just love the characters, although the passages detailing the neurolinguistic research are now quite tedious and I skip over them. I'd LOVE to see it as a movie though the adaptation would be quite challenging. Currently reading Rebels and Redcoats by Scheer and Rankin, a collection of contemporary accounts of events in the American Revolution.

 

[Pozatronic]

I'm on the last 40 pages of Jeff Vandermeer's "Shriek: An Afterword". I think it's great. Imagine if Charles Dickens and H.P. Lovecraft had a kid that wanted to follow in it's parents footsteps. Instead of writing about London, he writes about the fictional city Ambergris. Instead of unimaginable horrors from outer space, he writes about sinister molds and fungus and "gray caps", that come up from the underground and do very bad things. Instead of layfolk fighting landowners, two rival book publishers wage a war out in the streets. It's a follow up to "The City Of Saints and Madman", and it references much of the short stories found in that collection. I recommend it to anybody who enjoys literary fantasy/new weird/ "slipstream" fiction. I recommend it highly.

After that I've got Warren Ellis's novel lined up. I really like his comic work, so I'm hoping this is as good. If not, I'm hoping to switch over to some older Jonathan Lethem novels I still have yet to read.

 

[Crothian]

I've started the Riverworld saga, I'm just four chapters in the first book. I am also reading through the Dark is Rising series since that's coming out as a movie in a few months.

I read Golden Compass last week and I'm surprised I never heard any buzz on it till the movie was announced. That's a good book to talk about since it has a few interesting takes on things.