[Madness]

I liked it, Royce . It's a fairly interesting series. Actually, reminded me of Gemmell a little but more emphasis on the actualities of war. And Kearney knows a fair bit about sailing, which makes for an awesome lens too.

I was just recommending this to geoffrobro yesterday after our Cast.

[SilentRoamer]

Finished Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956).

Yeah I really like this novel even if it was totally not what I was expecting. You have to sort of re-explain it to yourself because it is really trippy. I can definetely see influences on more recent authors.

Not sure what to read now. Im going to look at my shelves tomorrow and pick something short so I can read it before next weekend when ill hopefully pick up FL#3.

[Royce]

I liked it, Royce . It's a fairly interesting series. Actually, reminded me of Gemmell a little but more emphasis on the actualities of war. And Kearney knows a fair bit about sailing, which makes for an awesome lens too.

I really enjoy it so far. I love journeys to unknown territory, and the naval setting suits me fine. Born and raised by the coast:)

Have you read his Macht series?

[SilentRoamer]

I haven't read and don't own any Kearney - he's not stocked in the UK (at least not on the shelves).

Finished Abercrombies Half a King. I liked this, it had a nice flow to it and didn't turn out exactly as I would have expected but sets the next book up nicely. I do like Abercrombies style, this was the same style but a totally different tone.

Now reading Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon - sufficiently odd reading so far. Alien aliens and weirdness seem to be the theme and I hope that continues.

[Wilshire]

Finished HoC. That makes 2 books this year . Will move onto some sci-fi for a bit.

Thoughts on HoC: http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1458.msg21506#msg21506

[Camlost]

Finished the last of my exams on the 20th, so now I can finally really get into some fiction. The past week has been a bit ravenous, but that might just be months of restricted time being loosened.

Read Heinlein's Star Beast. I'm hesitant to use this term with anyone, but I think he certainly deserves it: Heinlein is a master of his craft. Not sure what more I can say about the book that isn't summed up by that. Whilst reading, I found myself marveling at how every introduction of a new significant character arose as a demand of circumstance within the narrative, nothing came about arbitrarily if you will. He has an amazing ability to keep his aliens alien, yet at the same time make them endearing and accessible. As always, he manages to showcase the tenacity and ingenuity he loves to attribute to Man.

I've been a sucker for Blizzard games since I was a kid (I used to hold a fairly respectable NA ranking in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne back in the day, but that's beside the point). A local book shop closed a few months back and since then the proprietor has been forced to sell off his stock online and outrageously and unfortunately low prices, so I picked up a few dozen novels from him. Among those was a collection of Blizzard novels. I finished The Day of the Dragon by Richard Knaak. I won't bore anyone with the details unless their interested other than to say it's a decent showing of Knaak's early talent and somewhat difficult to reconcile its place in the history if you're up to date with the Warcraft universe.

Yesterday I burned through Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. I really liked it. Went out today and bought the follow up. Only things I had any real trouble with was some of the in world references until about midway through the book when events conspired to make more sense of that. The only other thing I had trouble reconciling, and it didn't detract any from my enjoyment of the story in the grand scheme of things, is Jorg's age. Even for an exceptional character in extreme circumstances, I never really considered him as young as he claims.

Moving forward, I have another Knaak Warcraft novel that I've started and should be done shortly. I started The Last and First Men just before exams, so I'll be back to restart that. I've been leafing through some history texts and I have a Glen Cook omnibus to finish as well.

[EkyannusIII]

Yesterday I burned through Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. I really liked it. Went out today and bought the follow up. Only things I had any real trouble with was some of the in world references until about midway through the book when events conspired to make more sense of that. The only other thing I had trouble reconciling, and it didn't detract any from my enjoyment of the story in the grand scheme of things, is Jorg's age. Even for an exceptional character in extreme circumstances, I never really considered him as young as he claims.

I will pick up Star Beast on the strength of your recommendation.

Prince of Thorns questions: 

1.) I've heard it is postapoc rather than straight fantasy?  Is this so? If so, how obtrusive is the sprinkling of "real world in the savage future" elements?

2.) I don't expect to like Jorg, but I would at minimum expect him to have agency pouring out of his ears.  Will I be satisfied, or is he all angsty and emo?

[Camlost]

1.) I've heard it is postapoc rather than straight fantasy?  Is this so? If so, how obtrusive is the sprinkling of "real world in the savage future" elements?

My impression/understanding of the text is that it is a medieval fantasy setting an undetermined period of time following some cataclysmic event that wiped out "our" civilization.

As for sprinklings, the first one you encounter is an ancient text by Plutarch. Other historical authors names eventually pop up too, but I'm trying to say little out of fear of saying too much. Some form of Christianity remains as well.

I will pick up Star Beast on the strength of your recommendation.

If you like Heinlein, I don't think you'll have any problem with it. I don't know if it fits into his expanded history or not, I wasn't really looking for those details when I read it.

[The Great Scald]

Finished The Blade Itself this morning.


It ended up being a slog.  The characters ended up not being able to overpower my distaste for Abercrombie's writing style...

I've read some parts of The Blade Itself, years ago, but I was also put off by Abercrombie's juvenile writing style and attempts to imitate Tarantino in prose. I guess it's all a matter of taste - if you enjoy Tarantino's movies, you'll like Abercrombie's books.

I don't really read any fantasy lit anymore, Bakker excepted, and I honestly don't feel I'm missing out much.

[Wilshire]

Not really sure what you mean by Tarantino prose, but I'm not generally a fan of his stuff and I really enjoyed Abercrombie. I know a certain blogger who read a few parts of TDTCB and quite a mess of things by hating it (just came up on TPB so had it in mind). I'm all for not reading stuff you dont enjoy, (what would be the point?), but, to paraphrase, "a juvenile tarantino ripoff" seems a bit hasty. My two cents.

[MSJ]

Right now I'm in the middle of two series going back and forth between Gentleman's Bastards and The Book of the New Sun. Then will probably give Rothfuss a go and towards end of the year do another reread of TSA.

[H]

I hope maybe I can read a book this year, but it doesn't seem likely, 

[SilentRoamer]

I have finished Olaf Stapledons StarMaker (1937) which I enjoyed thoroughly but found an increasing dissonance towards the end of the novel - I just felt like I was missing something but then again that is the whole point of the continuously strengthened viewpoint of the anthropomorphic failings of the narrator.

Also read E. M. Forsters The Machine Stops (1909) which is available for free download. This is an incredibly predictive piece of work. It is so hard to appreciate this was written over 100 years ago. It stands the test of time very well and at approx. 40 pages is well worth the time for anyone interested in early and speculative science fiction.

Not sure what to read now - any suggestions? Felling like some fantasy. I still need to pick up First Law #3 so I might grab this over the weekend. Ill check through my shelves tonight and pull out some fantasy think I have a few things I have wanted to start.

[H]

I would definitely recommend reading almost anything by Stanislaw Lem, but most definitely Solaris and The Futurological Congress.

[Alia]

Among those was a collection of Blizzard novels. I finished The Day of the Dragon by Richard Knaak. I won't bore anyone with the details unless their interested other than to say it's a decent showing of Knaak's early talent and somewhat difficult to reconcile its place in the history if you're up to date with the Warcraft universe.

I read some Knaak's Warcraft novels years ago and I quite liked them. Certainly, they stand out in the category of game-based books. I was also unfortunate enough to pick up some Baldur's Gate novels and these were really awful.

At the moment I am reading Gibson's "The Peripheral", I am about halfway through it. It is not an easy read, I have to stop and think about it, sometimes re-read some passages, but on the whole it seems very satisfying so far. But you do not judge a book like this before its end.

And then there is a very long backlog of books that I bought and had no time to read - third Lynch book, an omnibus of Amber (well, actually, only Corwin's chronicles, so first five books of the series) - and some books by our authors that haven't been translated into English.