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Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee was a fun story about the daughter and little sister of three superheroes (her mother and father were low tier D-List supers and her sister is an upstart who is looking to become the next big thing) who gets a job working for her parents' biggest archenemy. I got the audiobook because I really like other books I've read narrated by Emily Woo Zeller. It's good. The sequel is out but a different narrator (because it's told by a different character) so I'm probably gonna get it digital.
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Sep 27, 2018 14:41
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The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, was a dull slog of the sort I haven't sat through since Oroonoko. I got it months ago when I heard that it was a very early example of fantasy fiction, plus I remembered a reference to it in one of the better parts of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Having read it, I wouldn't consider it a fantasy story, or even a story at all, but a utopian treatise in the vein of Thomas More. After it starts like a portal fantasy in the free sample segment that tricked me into buying the whole copy, the vast majority of the book consists of the main character having endless dialogues about science, religion and politics with her subjects and the author herself. By the time something happened in the last quarter, I had checked out of the proceedings. Other people will probably find merit in it as a proto-feminist curiosity or a peek into what satire and discourse was like in 1666, but those gigantic paragraphs bore down on me and made this read much slower than I thought it would be from the slim page count. I'm going back to The Count of Monte Cristo a book that's much longer and much breezier at the same time.
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Sep 28, 2018 04:04
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Serpent's Blood by Brian Stableford. It looks like a fantasy, acts like a fantasy, is actually... a biological sci-fi adventure novel? Starting with an ex-prince in a tavern getting arrested and thrown in jail, and ending with a climactic fight within an alien anthill after going through part of a giant alien's body was... it was wild. The book was fairly slow-paced, but the constant interesting details were fun, and while I can't say any of the characters were amazing, they were fine. I liked the growth in the princess, and in Jacom - he went from a ho-hum character to a fairly compelling portrait of an unlucky jerk forced to be kind of decent by circumstance. Now, while it ended in a solid spot, it's clearly book 1 of a trilogy, so now I get to hurry up and wait for book 2 to arrive.
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Sep 30, 2018 02:32
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The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker It was Making Money without the laughs.
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Sep 30, 2018 06:50
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Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff Another homerun for Matt Ruff, as far as I'm concerned. The Mirage was excellent: action-packed alternate history / sci-fi that told a strong story using provocative themes without rubbing your face in it. Lovecraft Country is on the same bent, using provocative historical themes to explore characters in a creepy sci-fi-lite setting. It feels like a series of intertwined short stories that pay lip-service to HP Lovecraft but they really gain traction and weight by the last third of the book. All the tales are riveting and strange and filled with dread. Total recommend.
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Sep 30, 2018 21:22
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BananaNutkins posted:The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker I dunno, I thought it was pretty witty, up to the point where it knifes you in the gut - same as most Parker work. Megazver fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Sep 30, 2018 |
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Sep 30, 2018 21:54
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Cursed by Benedict Jacka I enjoyed this second novel in the Verus series, and the cast of characters continue to grow on me. I'm still unclear on whether or not people in England know the place is crawling with mages, but maybe that's just something you take for granted in the British Isles.
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Oct 1, 2018 01:00
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Megazver posted:I dunno, I thought it was pretty witty, up to the point where it knifes you in the gut - same as most Parker work. It wasn't so slow I felt like giving up, but the endless yoyo of Basso's success got pretty old quickly. I was annoyed that so many scenes, even late in the book, consisted of entirely of Basso interacting with some newly introduced character that didnt even have a name, just a position or title.
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Oct 1, 2018 02:31
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Lethal White by Galbraith/JK Rowling. It's definitely a huge book, which is a good and bad thing. The Strike books are basically the literary equivalent of a CW show, which I love for all their drama and atmosphere, so you best believe I ate all 650 pages of that poo poo up. On the other hand, this one felt more scattergun than the last book because of it. It kind of meanders in places to try and build up intrigue and only half succeeding. The big moment that kicks the investigation into gear doesn't really start until halfway through the novel. However, taking the crime to the political realm felt like a step back, but in a good way from the grime of "Career of Evil." A bit of a refresher to focus on Strike and Robin's growth, which is ultimately what I am here for anyway. Axel Serenity fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Oct 1, 2018 |
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Oct 1, 2018 19:26
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Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Géza Gárdonyi. To be honest, I re-read this one every 5 years or so. It's a book about Hungarian-Ottoman wars in 16th century. But written as epic three-part adventure novel for young adults, similar to Dumas' Three Musketeers (but much easier to read). Sort of national micro-epic for Hungarians, it's a really good read if you like historical battles, courage and an epic tale with historical medieval seasoning. Most of the dudes in the book were real, too. Gárdonyi writes pretty well, many chapters end with a sentence or thought that sends chills right down your spine. Here's example, and I paraphrase/retell (since I didn't read book in English) pretext: Basically, less than thousand Hungarian defenders in Eger Fortress are about to get surrounded by 200 000 Turk invaders (modern history says there were more like 45 000 but still pretty OP), so they have this last meal together before their desperate defense against siege starts. So they cry together and toast to their nation soon to fall under Ottoman sword, for sad fate of their nation, for courage to hold the fortress and so on. Nobles cheer the toasts. One noble stays quiet. Finally, he raises glass and says: "I toast for the man who's first to give his life for Eger Fortress". And then Gárdonyi goes: "He probably didn't know he was toasting for himself." Entire book is full of twists and foreshadowing like this. Love it! Woohoo fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Oct 2, 2018 |
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Oct 2, 2018 19:51
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Last First Snow by Max Gladstone. I was looking for something to scratch the itch I've been having since finishing up the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch and had a friend suggest it (and the entire Craft Sequence series). It's drat hard for me not to get behind something that has urban planning having to include leylines and where you have a warrior-priest having to step in to do community organizing but I mostly found it to be serviceable more than anything else. Where Aaronvitch takes great pains to ground his series in both modern London and modern police procedure Gladstone seems to have just filed off the serial numbers of various pop-culture mystical thinking and put it in a world of his own creation. This worked better with Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World than it does here, and I wasn't compelled to finish the book all in one go like I am with Aaronovitch (or like I was with Pratchett, which was what I was looking for when I came across the Peter Grant stuff). Maybe the future books in the series do a better job (and I wouldn't mind giving them a go when I have the next lull in my reading list) but until then I'll finish working my way through my omnibus of the Brother Cadfael stories.
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Oct 4, 2018 02:49
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I just finished The Vory by Mark Galeotti. It's a history of the Russian mob and Galeotti is clearly an unparalleled expert. My only problem is that the last hundred or so pages feel a bit repetitive and disjointed--he mentions in the foreword that the book is pieced together from articles, but I feel like a good 10% could be safely cut from the book. Other than that, it's a very keen insight into how Russian gangsters operate today and in the past.
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Oct 5, 2018 15:43
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I just finished Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin. It's a futuristic dystopia in a theocratic Orthodox Russia detailing one day in the life of a member of the oprichnina, the tsar's personal task force. It's bloody, manic, and short.
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Oct 8, 2018 23:45
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To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts. A really good high fantasy adventure novel. It starts out as a political intrigue/mystery novel, then halfway through becomes sword-fights, desperate horse chases, and demons. 
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Oct 8, 2018 23:53
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So here are some books I read recently: Red Plenty by Francis Spufford, a sort of historical fiction about the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev era, it uses both real-life and fictional characters. The book is divided into several parts with each part starting with an introduction written in an expository style, followed by three or four stories written in the narrative style. Essentially a prehistory of Perestroika. A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa. An interesting North Korea defector account, what helps separate it from others was the fact that the author was born in Japan to a Korean father and a Japanese mother (the father had been brought over during WWII) and only moved to the DPRK at age 13 with his family. This means that compared to his Korean classmates he more aware of the bad polices of the DPRK government. For example, when planting rice with his classmates, Ishikawa is told to plant the seedlings closer together for a more abundant harvest. Of course he knows from growing up in Japan that this will mean that none of the seedlings will grow. Let's All Kill Constance by Ray Bradbury. Written in 2003 this book is weird in the only Ray Bradbury can be weird. Set in 1960's Los Angeles, an aging Hollywood star, Constance Rattigan, enlists her neighbor, an unnamed author clearly based on Bradbury, to find out who plans to kill her. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, my first time reading something by this author. I can see why this mystery is so popular, as Christie's Poirot is able to present the facts of a complicated case without confusing the reader. I was a little incredulous towards the end as the various coincidences kept piling up, of course it turns out that they are not coincidences at all. The Inimitable Jeeves, Thank You, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, and Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves by P G Wodehouse. I also haven't read much Wodehouse, but after going thru The Inimitable Jeeves I got hooked and picked up the others from my library. Fun, light reading all around but while reading Thank You, Jeeves I was a bit disturbed by the casual use of the N-word and Bertie spending half the book in blackface.
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Oct 11, 2018 22:03
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Carnival of Destruction by Brian Stableford, the final book in his Werewolves trilogy. The majority of the book concerned itself with exploring a number of potential Heavens for humanity, the reality of the universe the characters live in, and - in a very Olaf Stapledon-esque sequence, the destruction of the Earth, and what comes after. It's the kind of book where I'm going to be thinking about it for a long while afterwards, and I look forward to a reread in a few years. Just... absolutely stunning sci-fi that wants to explore ideas. The author is so good at that. He's not amazing at making characters, but they serve and it's a pleasure to watch them verbally fence their way through everything.
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Oct 11, 2018 23:09
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StrixNebulosa posted:Carnival of Destruction by Brian Stableford, the final book in his Werewolves trilogy. The majority of the book concerned itself with exploring a number of potential Heavens for humanity, the reality of the universe the characters live in, and - in a very Olaf Stapledon-esque sequence, the destruction of the Earth, and what comes after. Would you recommend the rest of the series or just this one? Always looking for new sci fi.
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Oct 12, 2018 02:35
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tuyop posted:Would you recommend the rest of the series or just this one? Always looking for new sci fi. All three books need to be read in order, there's information in previous books you need for the next. I would say they're all worth it, though! The evolution of Victorian (esque) supernatural horror into science fiction was incredibly cool to read. Alternatively, if you want to go to more direct sci-fi by the same author, his Inherit the Earth book covers similar questions (but with a crucially different focus). It has sequels but works as a standalone. (...and I haven't read them yet. Soon!)
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Oct 12, 2018 02:58
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The Prague Cemetary by Umberto Eco. It's the most  book I've read in a long time: seeing the chaotic politics that gave rise to modern anti-semetism is horrifying but also there's something darkly humourous about parts like a group of intellectuals having a pro-bourgeoisie, anti-proletariat reading of Das Kapital. It's a lot to process and it's kind of horrifying that it was written right in 2010 just before a lot of this stuff came roaring back instead of just simmering
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Oct 12, 2018 16:58
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We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehishi Coates, a collection of essays on how the US has systematically disempowered and worked to keep black Americans impoverished since the end of slavery, written as counterpoint to the first African American President. It's really good, go read it now.
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Oct 13, 2018 17:42
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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I was thinking about watching the show, so I decided to read the book first. It's really fascinating, and a true page turner (finished it in a couple of days). I kept thinking about women in Saudi Arabia or girls enslaved by the Taliban or by ISIS.
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Oct 15, 2018 02:39
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the scene in the handmaid's tale where a guy is falsely branded a rapist and literally torn apart by women is uh hmm
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Oct 15, 2018 03:13
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chernobyl kinsman posted:the scene in the handmaid's tale where a guy is falsely branded a rapist and literally torn apart by women is Yes, pretty incredible. From the get go I assumed what was up though.
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Oct 15, 2018 10:05
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Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts. First book in a long high fantasy series (that should be set to be finished in the next few years, if not sooner), and one hell of a read. The journey as two half-brothers are exiled from their home dimension and thrown into a bleak land was surprisingly effective at making me emotional. I got invested in the characters, I got angry at them for being idiots, and man was I upset when everything went to hell in spectacular fashion. The titular curse is probably one of the meanest things I've ever seen an author do to their characters. Comparing it to To Ride Hell's Chasm, it's not as well-written - it's rougher, the prose is more prone to rambling with descriptions - but that makes sense, as they were written ten years apart. It's also more clearly the first book in a series, even if it ends in a satisfactory pause point. However, the big advantage this book holds over Hell's Chasm is that if you let yourself get invested, the emotional journey has far more impact. There's less trained-author-performing-her-craft and more young author bringing raw inspiration and emotion to the table, so to speak. drat, but these were both good books.
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Oct 16, 2018 03:36
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Banner of Souls by Liz Williams. Wow. The imagery in this book is intense, and while the plot turned out to be more... I want to say standard... than I had hoped, the rich imagery of a far-future Mars/Earth/etc was very, very solid. I enjoyed it! I'd compare it to Perdido Street Station, but far less gross and more fun to read.
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Oct 19, 2018 23:44
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I just finished American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin. It was fairly captivating, since I wasn't familiar with the Patty Hearst story. He wrote it in 2016 so there's some new info like her Shih Tzu won the Westminster Kennel Club toy category in 2016. Where I think it falls short is when he tries to explain the radical politics of the era, he just kind of lapses into a lazy "well, we all know hippies and leftists are just kooky" affect rather than grounding the SLA in context of the era. In conclusion, the 1970s in California were bad.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:07
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Unnatural Creatures edited by Neil Gaiman. A collection of short stories about weird animals. Was a bit uneven given an unfocused audience--there were children's stories and some for adults--but all in all some very good poo poo. I hate Larry Niven and yet his story rated as one of the best. And the story by Nnedi Okorafor was so good I just picked up one of her novels (which is excellent). Thanks Franchesnado for the great SS gift! Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Oct 21, 2018 |
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Oct 21, 2018 01:43
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Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. Starting the Vorkosigan saga. My copy of the book has a blurb from Romantic Times on the first interior page, which threw me at first. But after finishing the novel, yes, it can be classified as a romance. It's also an often brutal look at the cost of war and politics on innocent lives. Bujold makes the lead character of Cordelia Naismith shine, and it's difficult not to fall in love with her. Looking forward to the next novel.
Robot Wendigo fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 00:40
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Captain Hotbutt posted:Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff Your short review here piqued my interest. (I, uh, may have needed a same-day delivery from Amazon, and remembered this book. Added another few books on, and there we were.) It was great. The specific historical context did provide a unique take on the mythos, and left me wanting more tales from the characters. Anyway, thanks. I bought Mirage and maybe other one of his books too.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:10
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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas was a breezy and engaging read despite how long it took me to finish it. I'm glad the version I got has annotations; they gave me context for the historical events connected to the plot and the copious theatrical references the narration and characters make. A lot of the appeal in reading it came from the revelation of how the events in the middle of the book would play into the Count's revenge scheme, which was enough of a Rube Goldberg machine that it lends credence to the idea that God is guiding him. A minor quibble I have with the ending is that I'm skeptical Danglars' ability to turn over a new leaf, and not inclined to forgive people like him. I'd say that the Count's emotional state after he killed a child by accident makes me understand his decision enough to let it slide, except my edition keeps in the scene where he goes back to Chateau d'If and gets his conviction back, which seemed incongruous to me. It's a compelling read aside from that, though your mileage may vary on how big you like your books.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:27
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What version did you have?
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Oct 22, 2018 22:36
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tetrapyloctomy posted:Your short review here piqued my interest. (I, uh, may have needed a same-day delivery from Amazon, and remembered this book. Added another few books on, and there we were.) It was great. The specific historical context did provide a unique take on the mythos, and left me wanting more tales from the characters. I think I’ve read everything Matt Ruff has written and Set This House in Order is still my favorite so check it out if you haven’t 🙂
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Oct 22, 2018 22:45
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tetrapyloctomy posted:Your short review here piqued my interest. (I, uh, may have needed a same-day delivery from Amazon, and remembered this book. Added another few books on, and there we were.) It was great. The specific historical context did provide a unique take on the mythos, and left me wanting more tales from the characters. Glad to hear it! 
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Oct 23, 2018 15:48
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Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death. If you like magic in your post apocalyptic Africa-set stories, then check this one out. It has elements of horror, weird, and sci fi, rolled into a fantasy burrito. A female take on the classic hero cycle. Good stuff worth a read.
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Oct 26, 2018 15:12
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Slade House by David Mitchell. I found Cloud Atlas to be too dense and never ended up finishing it. But this is a short little haunted house/ghost story broken up into five parts that's perfect for this time of year. I guess this is also a companion piece to The Bone Clocks, which I also haven't read.
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Oct 27, 2018 16:06
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Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. I started literally 3 years ago and loved it, thought it was hilarious, and then I put it down about halfway through I think and never picked it up again until yesterday. Found where I left it at and just marathoned it and loved every brilliant, dark, horrifying page. Definitely plan on rereading it at some point!
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Oct 28, 2018 00:30
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King's Dragon by Kate Elliott. It's the first book of a mammoth fantasy series, and I shouldn't be reading it when I'm reading other things, but hell. I read it. It was good! It's more on the side of historical fiction than fantasy, for all that the author's renamed every country. The lifestyle of all classes of life are portrayed fairly accurately - a women gets sold into slavery when her father dies thanks to his debts, women either go into church or marry, etc etc. Kings don't summon armies, they raise levies and wait for them to arrive, etc. It felt a lot like reading a version of Crusader Kings 2, what with keeping track of who was related to who, which duchy had influence and which margrave didn't. Not to mention the influence of the Church - it's an alternate church, with a different version of Christianity, but it's got a similar structure...and there are wandering fraters, and boy do the biscops get involved with politics. One of the main villains of the piece is a powerful biscop who meddles. It takes place in fantasy!France and fantasy!Lowlands, during a succession crisis: the King's sister is convinced she's got a better claim on the throne, you see where this war is going. The King, meanwhile, wants to name his bastard as his heir, because he's a badass half-elf. Because, yes, it's also a fantasy! The elves have left the lands behind, but magic remains and it's in a weird half-place where the Church only vaguely sanctions it. One of the main characters is deeply involved with this magic. There's also not-orcs playing the role of Vikings, invading from the North. There are two main protagonists, both starting at the bottom rung of society, and the book follows them as they not so much rise through the ranks as they get involved in things bigger than them. One of them is a merchant's son, and he gets a surprisingly compelling yet cliche version of "young man gets drafted and has to grow up and learn about society". The other is the more striking and painful one. Trigger warnings: rape, torture, abuse, emotional torture, and worse. Early in the book, Liath gets sold as a slave to a monster who isolates and tortures her for a year before her friend helps her escape him. It's probably one of the most harrowing things I've read in quite a long time, and if I hadn't read it all in an evening I could not have continued the book. Just awful, even if it includes interesting world-building involving astronomy in this world and the different languages. Like - the author didn't include it for torture porn, she did it to set up the monster as a force later on - he's got something going on that will definitely come back, even if it wasn't in book 1. But drat was it awful to read. Fortunately - once she escapes - events lead her to becoming a King's messenger, linking her into the plot as she gets caught up in the not-orc/viking siege in a northern city. So. Really good book, I read it in about a week, and I'm going to read more. Brutal, but not grimdark. I really, really enjoyed it and would recommend it, provided you're willing to read something that's really long, has that godawful torture sequence, and is full of details about medieval life and not-Christian saints and heresies.
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Oct 28, 2018 18:19
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StrixNebulosa posted:King's Dragon by Kate Elliott. It's the first book of a mammoth fantasy series, and I shouldn't be reading it fixed this for you
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Oct 28, 2018 18:52
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chernobyl kinsman posted:fixed this for you I'm glad you enjoyed the low-hanging fruit, I guess.
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Oct 28, 2018 19:03
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np let me know what else you need help making good decisions about
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Oct 29, 2018 01:50
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