[Feb05] What are you reading?

[ShadowDenizen]

I´ve just finished "Chainfire" by Terry Goodkind, and all that I can say is - wow!!
This book reminds me of why I love fantasy so much: great charachters, powerful magics, mighty weapons and a BBEG that makes you shiver with disgust.

Really?
Hmm.
Intersting: I'll see if I can get a couple of other opinions. (Anyone???)
I purposfeully bypassed this book up until now:, I'm currently engrossed in too many "Epic Series", so I have to cut back, else I'll never finish any of them. That, and I think I'm getting fed-up with Terry Goodkind. He seems to me to be quickly falling into the Jordan/Martin camp.

Honestly, I was more impressed with "Shadowmarch" by Tad Williams than I have been by any of Goodkinds books. And "Wars of Light and Shadow" blows all the other competition out of the water, IMHO.

 

[Starman]

What's Steam & Steel like? I haven't found any reviews of it.

Banshee

I've liked it so far. I haven't really dug into the mechanics, yet, but the background info has been good. It was worth the purchase.

Starman

 

[Desdichado]

Currently reading Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: by H.P Lovecraft and Divers Hands which is an anthology of mostly pastiche authors, including Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Brian Lumley, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long and others. There's some real duds in there, but some that are pretty good. It also includes, for those curious, the original story that featured the hounds of Tindalos. It's a surprisingly mediocre story, and the other story by the same author "The Space-Eaters" is actively bad.

After that, I've got some ILL books coming my way, including The King in Yellow and the first White Wolf imprint of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, which I haven't read in a looong time. And I've got Douglas Preson and Lincoln Child's Relic as well to read. I still want to pick up the Eberron novel, but even if I do in the next few weeks, I probably won't read it this month.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Really?
Hmm.
Intersting: I'll see if I can get a couple of other opinions. (Anyone???)
I purposfeully bypassed this book up until now:, I'm currently engrossed in too many "Epic Series", so I have to cut back, else I'll never finish any of them. That, and I think I'm getting fed-up with Terry Goodkind. He seems to me to be quickly falling into the Jordan/Martin camp.

Honestly, I was more impressed with "Shadowmarch" by Tad Williams than I have been by any of Goodkinds books. And "Wars of Light and Shadow" blows all the other competition out of the water, IMHO.

I have been holding of Chainfire myself because I felt Terry's work was getting (what word am I looking for)...lackadaisical.

 

[Pozatronic]

I found Samuel R. Daleny's "Tales Of Neveryon" at a used book store. It's an old early 80's (i think) mass market copy. The blurb on the back reads "Epic adventure in a realm of fantasy..." but I'm about 120 pages into and there hasn't been one sword fight or spell cast yet, and I love it. It's more about reflections on our society, but it's very subtle.

I found a very hard to find collection of Tanith Lee short stories at my library called "Dreams of Dark and Light" and one story in particular called "Cyrion in Wax" makes me want to play an Arcana Unearthed/Evolved game. I love Tanith Lee, her settings and characters are usually pretty exotic.

I just got through a Jonathan Lethem kick, reading five of his books in a row. Fortress of Solitude is his most "classic", but I think "Girl, In Landscape" is my favorite so far. I highly recommend him...just don't read Amnesia Moon first. If that was the first one I read, I might not have read any of his others.

I WAS thinking about maybe picking up the second Stephen Erikson book "Dead Gates" or whatever it is. I didn't care much for the first one (I stopped less then half way through it) but for some reason it's calling to me. Can anybody convince me to read it?

Hey, has anybody read "The Etched City". The authors last name is Bishop. It looks really interesting and it was compared to the works of China Mieville (whom I love) and Stephen Kings Dark Tower Series. It looks interesting, I just wanted the opinion of somebody who's actually read it.

 

[Asmo]

Honestly, I was more impressed with "Shadowmarch" by Tad Williams than I have been by any of Goodkinds books. And "Wars of Light and Shadow" blows all the other competition out of the water, IMHO.

Tad Williams is without a doubt a better author, but "Chainfire" is nevertheless a great read imho.
The only thing I´ve read by Janny Wurts is the "Empire" series with Feist wich is probably the best fantasy I´ve read so far.

Asmo

 

[Crothian]

For the first time I'm reading Black Company, started it like a month or so ago but never found the time so I restarted it and am about half way through. Should finish it fast as it is a quick read and I got nothing else to really do.

 

[PhoenixDarkDirk]

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Hard to describe, an alternate history/science fiction novel aimed I guess particulalry at literature buffs. I'm not one of those, but still enjoyed it. Very funny at times.

That's a good book. I recently finished reading through the entire four-book series. The last one, Something Rotten, has a very surprising ending.

The books I'm reading:
- The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin, detective novel set in a city of intelligent toys where someone has been killing the nursery rhyme charachters.
- Animorphs #51: The Absolute by K. A. Applegate, from the endgame period of the lengthy series about some shape-changing kids who try to repel an invasion of Earth by body-stealing aliens.
- Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic by Terry Jones, adaptation of a science fiction comedy computer game.
- The Sound and the Furry: The Complete Hoka Stories by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson, assorted antics of small, bearlike aliens who eagerly adopt the personas of characters from any story they've recently read or otherwise learned.

 

[Melkor Lord Of ALL!]

Rereading Song of Ice and Fire, I am in love with those series!

Also got Vampire Lestat by Ann Rice.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I am rereading the Fire & Ice series (skipping Daeny's chapters, much better that way), and am almost done. I am also reading Pompeii and am looking forward to starting Robin's Laws Of Good Game Mastering in the next few days. I need to find a new author for Fantasy, I am getting tired of old favorites and shooting in the dark with new authors. It is hard to find a good book that way, but that is how on stumbled on GRRM work as well.