[May 2015] What Are You Reading?

[delericho]

You know the drill by now...

I'm partway through "Vanity Fair", by William Thackery, though I'm taking a bit of a break from it for the moment. In the meantime, I'm about to start the latest Pathfinder Tale - "Firesoul" by Gary Kloster.

I'm also reading the 5e Monster Manual, which is great - the second best monster book, IMO, just behind 2nd Ed's Monstrous Manual. In particular, the artwork is spectacular.

The pipe band competition season starts next week, which means I should have plenty of time for reading this month, but I don't have my books picked out yet - guess I'll update as we go.

And the final note: last week I discovered that a fourth "Shakespearean Star Wars" had been published, "The Phantom of Menace". I finished reading through that yesterday, and it's a good one - better than "The Jedi Doth Return", and probably better than the film, too. Though given the acrobatics of the Jedi in the film, I don't see how this one could actually be staged as a play - I think that might have been just about possible for the previous ones.

Anyway, over to you...

 

[Nellisir]

Wrapping up The Story of a Nation: The History of Scotland, by Magnus Magnusson. It's excellent for a casual overview, but a bit less scholarly than I would have liked, I think. A good starting book, I suppose.

Book Sale started this week, so picked up a bunch of titles. Since I'm in the thick of it, I'll probably move on to Donald Gregory's History of Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland, or possibly Ungrateful Daughters, about the daughters of James VII & II.

 

[WayneLigon]

The Undead Hordes of Kan-Gul and Slavers of the Savage Catacombs by (Jon F. Merz) sound like 1E adventure modules, but they are books with a very old-school feel to them - pure adventure in a supernatural Eastern setting. These are the first two books for the Shadow Warrior chronicles, which follows the journeys and adventures of Ran, recent graduate of a mysterious sect of shadow warriors.



The last book in the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz, Saint Odd, is a satisfying and enjoyable conclusion to a great series of books.

 

[Jhaelen]

I finally returned to reading 'The Peripheral' by William Gibson. Actually, I started to re-read it from the beginning since I couldn't recall much from my previous reading. I'm really finding it hard to make sense of this. Apparently, it's kinda about time travel or at least has (at least) two different timelines that interact with each other in weird ways...

 

[EricNoah]

The Peripheral - keep at it, it pays off.

 

[Jhaelen]

Yup. It's been picking up speed after the first third, and it's finally starting to make some sense!

 

[delericho]

"Firesoul" was okay, I guess. To be honest, I kinda lost interest about a quarter of the way in but made it to the end. The MM didn't disappoint, though.

I'm still reading "Vanity Fair" - should be done some time this week. After which I may well raid my father-in-law's library for something suitable.

 

[megamania]

Re-reading all of Keith baker's Eberron Novels

 

[Nellisir]

Read The Nineteenth Annual Years Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois. 2000 or 2001, I think. There's something about the SF in the 1990's that I really often didn't like. This is starting to come out of that phase, but I still skipped a lot of stories.

 

[Mallus]

The Hugo Award voting packet was just released. So I'm reading all of that (I'll skim the stuff that's execrable). So I've got my work cut out... and I have to resist the temptation to drop everything & burn through the next Expanse novel when releases in early June.