What Are You Reading?

ixoy · 17-12-2011 11:57pm

Just started into "The Age of Heroes", the final book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. Looking good so far - I greatly enjoyed the first two books so I'm hopeful for this one too.

vasch_ro · 18-12-2011 4:05am

ixoy wrote: »

Reading "The Modern World" by Steph Swainston, the final book in her Castle trilogy. Enjoying it so far - it's got a pretty original world.

read the trilogy on the recommendation of this thread, and this is such a good book, really love it and great end to the novel as well, good series and highly original also.

ixoy · 18-12-2011 2:01pm

vasch_ro wrote: »

read the trilogy on the recommendation of this thread, and this is such a good book, really love it and great end to the novel as well, good series and highly original also.

Yep - it's a shame she's stopped writing! I've only got "Above the Snowline" left now.

Tym · 18-12-2011 7:52pm

Just started into "The Age of Heroes", the final book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. Looking good so far - I greatly enjoyed the first two books so I'm hopeful for this one too.

I actually keep meaning to read those books, but I want to buy a few other books first:P You should give Warbreaker a go. You can download it free off his website.

mcgovern · 21-12-2011 3:46pm

Finished The Hunger Games. Its pretty obvious they are aimed at a younger audience but I can see where the appeal is, not a bad story once you don't think too much.
Still not in the mood for anything too heavy, so started Jennifer Government by Max Barry. So far I can't help but think that the people who rated it so highly have not read much other dystopian novels, as after only a few chapters its feeling contrived and old.

mcgovern · 22-12-2011 6:14pm

mcgovern wrote: »

Finished The Hunger Games. Its pretty obvious they are aimed at a younger audience but I can see where the appeal is, not a bad story once you don't think too much.
Still not in the mood for anything too heavy, so started Jennifer Government by Max Barry. So far I can't help but think that the people who rated it so highly have not read much other dystopian novels, as after only a few chapters its feeling contrived and old.

Finished Jennifer Government, its not too bad I guess if you don't think too much about it.
Started Excessions by Iain M Banks.

constantg · 24-12-2011 10:16am

is terra incognita any good? noticed it in the shop the other day

5live · 26-12-2011 7:08pm

Santa was very good as he brought me GRRMs Dance with dragons. What a guy:D

I will have to leave 'Gardens of the moon' by Steve Erikson. I just cant get into it. And this is my third attempt and first time to get past page 200. I just cant seem ton warm to any charachter bar Paran so maybe later....:(

gufnork · 26-12-2011 8:34pm

5live wrote: »

Santa was very good as he brought me GRRMs Dance with dragons. What a guy:D

I will have to leave 'Gardens of the moon' by Steve Erikson. I just cant get into it. And this is my third attempt and first time to get past page 200. I just cant seem ton warm to any charachter bar Paran so maybe later....:(

I just about managed to finish the second book, Deadhouse Gates, and was thinking about whether to attempt to attack the third, Memories of Ice when I was side-tracked by Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law(which is fantastic by the way), and then moved on to the second in the Mistborn series, The Well of Ascension(which i'm enjoying at least as much as the first, The Final Empire). Am about 400 pages in. Loving it.

AnCapaillMor · 28-12-2011 11:14am

5live wrote: »

I will have to leave 'Gardens of the moon' by Steve Erikson. I just cant get into it. And this is my third attempt and first time to get past page 200. I just cant seem ton warm to any charachter bar Paran so maybe later....:(

I was in the same boat, my 3rd attempt i finally finished it, it was a good book not great but the others are fantastic with some amazzing characters. Stick with it, its worth it.

5live · 29-12-2011 12:16am

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

I was in the same boat, my 3rd attempt i finally finished it, it was a good book not great but the others are fantastic with some amazzing characters. Stick with it, its worth it.

Thanks for that. I was reading all the rave reviews here about the series but it just hasnt hooked me yet. I am not a huge fan of over-magicked (is that even a word:D) fantasy and the cast of hundreds in the first few chapters was a bit daunting. I will take your advice on this one but if you are wrong........:pac:;)

AnCapaillMor · 29-12-2011 10:16am

I was exactly the same, i was more of hack n slash fan with a bit of magic thrown in but the magic in this grows on you and there's some epic hack n slash too. You'll get explanations on the god races etc later on in the books. My brain was melted halfways through gardens.

BlaasForRafa · 29-12-2011 8:58pm

5live wrote: »

Thanks for that. I was reading all the rave reviews here about the series but it just hasnt hooked me yet. I am not a huge fan of over-magicked (is that even a word:D) fantasy and the cast of hundreds in the first few chapters was a bit daunting. I will take your advice on this one but if you are wrong........:pac:;)

Nah he ain't wrong, the first book is a mess but if you can slog through it you will find that the series gets much better from the second book on.

DublinWriter · 29-12-2011 9:01pm

Just finished Elizabeth Kostova's dreadful The Historian, every one of its 620 pages felt like trying to get out of bed in the morning.

Cleansing my palette with Irvine Welsh's Glue at the moment with Jo Brand's second autobiography queued up next.

ixoy · 29-12-2011 9:45pm

Reading "Surface Detail" by Iain M. Banks. I'm 8% in so far and there seems to be awful lot of disparate plot threads. I know they'll tie in at some point and hopefully in a good way. First time I've seen Hell in one of his books anyway.

mcgovern · 30-12-2011 10:41am

Finished Excession, it was good but I was expecting more of a twist, it being Banks and all.
Starting The Departure by Neal Asher.

constantg · 31-12-2011 4:13am

slightly off topic but should i spend my €20 book voucher from christmas on the box set of a song of fire and ice or should i hold onto it for a memory of light???

ixoy · 31-12-2011 3:12pm

constantg wrote: »

slightly off topic but should i spend my €20 book voucher from christmas on the box set of a song of fire and ice or should i hold onto it for a memory of light???

Buy the "Song of Ice and Fire" set boxed set for a few reasons: Firstly, it's better than the Wheel of Time. Secondly, "A Memory of Light" isn't scheduled for release until November 2012 so you'd be holding on the voucher for nearly a year during which you could read ASoIaF.

OwaynOTT · 31-12-2011 3:50pm

ixoy wrote: »

Buy the "Song of Ice and Fire" set boxed set for a few reasons: Firstly, it's better than the Wheel of Time. Secondly, "A Memory of Light" isn't scheduled for release until November 2012 so you'd be holding on the voucher for nearly a year during which you could read ASoIaF.

Ah now Ill have to stand up for WoT here and say thats it is in fact better than aSoFaI but thats just my opinion. However I do agree with buying the box set as its a series you must read.

Reading The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams at the minute myself.

Dades · 31-12-2011 11:42pm

mcgovern wrote: »

Finished Excession, it was good but I was expecting more of a twist, it being Banks and all.

Couldn't even finish that one. All the ship-speak drove me up the feckin' wall.

coffee_cake · 02-01-2012 1:53am

i really liked book 1 of the bakker "prince of nothing" series but im part way through "the warrior prophet" and god it's boring
bit of a struggle
what do ye think of it

mcgovern · 02-01-2012 2:21pm

Dades wrote: »

Couldn't even finish that one. All the ship-speak drove me up the feckin' wall.

I found it quite hard to tell the different ships apart, which confused things alot.

About 40% through The Departure so far, its not anywhere near as good as the polity stuff. The writing at the start was especially poor, and I'm struggling to believe in the future world he has created, but its getting slightly better as it goes.

ixoy · 02-01-2012 2:28pm

mcgovern wrote: »

About 40% through The Departure so far, its not anywhere near as good as the polity stuff. The writing at the start was especially poor, and I'm struggling to believe in the future world he has created, but its getting slightly better as it goes.

It doesn't seem as popular as his Polity stuff (I haven't read it yet). It's a shame as there's two more books yet to go in this Owner series ("Zero Point" and "Jupiter War") before he goes back to his Polity stuff in 2013 (a novel about a rogue drone tentatively called "Penny Royal").

OwaynOTT wrote:

Reading The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams at the minute myself.

Got this (amongst many others) for Christmas. Be interested to know if it's any good.

OwaynOTT · 03-01-2012 5:08pm

ixoy wrote: »

It doesn't seem as popular as his Polity stuff (I haven't read it yet). It's a shame as there's two more books yet to go in this Owner series ("Zero Point" and "Jupiter War") before he goes back to his Polity stuff in 2013 (a novel about a rogue drone tentatively called "Penny Royal").

Got this (amongst many others) for Christmas. Be interested to know if it's any good.

Its okay. A solid 7/10. Some of the characters are boring and under developed, okay maybe a lot of them are. The worldbuilding in the book is sparse as well, as I never really felt that anything existed outside of the little sphere shown in the book and even then the empire itself was lacking any real character.
The vizier is corrupt, aren't they always, and a few of the other characters could of been lifted from any other fantasy series .The central idea, that of the patterns, is kind of a let down in the end.
In a lot of ways it reminded me of Brandon Sandersons first Mistborn novel, fast paced and action orientated but sparse on character development and getting a sense of the world. Its not as good as Mistborn though.
From reading the sample chapters on the kindle I thought it would focus a lot more on Sarmin, the prince locked up in the tower, but in each chapter the point of view is switched between a number of characters quite a lot, sometimes for only a few lines.
The quality of the writing is nowhere near G.R.R.M., Lynch or even Robert Jordan. Again its a lot like Sanderson's first Mistborn book and there's a lot of very short sentences and very little actual description.

Despite all this I read it inside five days, which I last did with The Painted Man. It has its faults but its an enjoyable and quick read, the potential for the series is there. Oh there is a serious lack of levity in the novel. Im not looking for a Discworld book but a single display of humour wouldnt go amiss.

Up next The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P. Beaulieu. After only the first few chapters it is a step up in terms of fleshing out of the characters and of the world.

pH · 05-01-2012 1:32pm

Just finished REAMDE - not that impressed, and probably doesn't even merit a post in this thread as it's hardly Sci-Fi or Fantasy!

Turns out it's an over-long "thriller" with a peripheral plot device around a fictional MMORPG called T'rain - but seems mainly there so Stephenson can lecture us on how clever he'd be at designing a MMORPG. Slow to start, when it gets going in its globe trotting gangster/hacker plot it's readable in a Dan Brown way but that's all.

Sleepy · 05-01-2012 3:25pm

Inheritance by Christoper Paoloini...

I know, I know, it's disposable rubbish but with 3 books of buildup as to how invincible Galbatorix is I'm curious to see how Eragon will beat him in the end... that and I like disposable rubbish from time-to-time...

ixoy · 05-01-2012 3:38pm

pH wrote: »

Just finished REAMDE - not that impressed, and probably doesn't even merit a post in this thread as it's hardly Sci-Fi or Fantasy!

Turns out it's an over-long "thriller" with a peripheral plot device around a fictional MMORPG called T'rain - but seems mainly there so Stephenson can lecture us on how clever he'd be at designing a MMORPG. Slow to start, when it gets going in its globe trotting gangster/hacker plot it's readable in a Dan Brown way but that's all.

Indeed - there's a reason that I didn't include it in my Best of 2011 list. Not a patch on "Anathem", "Snow Crash", "Cryptonomicon" etc.
I thought, before reading the novel, that it'd be more about "gold farming" (like Charles Stross's "Halting State") but it's more of a Hollywood thriller. Not what I was hoping for.

Trojan · 06-01-2012 10:04pm

Reading "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield - story of the "300".

ixoy wrote: »

I thought, before reading the novel, that it'd be more about "gold farming" (like Charles Stross's "Halting State")

There's one for my re-read list.

Zapp Brannigan · 06-01-2012 10:12pm

Finally on to A Dance of Dragons.

Had to do a series re-read as it had been so long!

vasch_ro · 07-01-2012 11:09am

mikeyboy wrote: »

Just finished "The Lies Of Locke Lamora" in the Gollantz 50 edition and have ordered "Red Seas Under Red Skies" along with the first two of Jim Butcher's "Codex Alera" series. While I'm waiting for those to arrive I'll get stuck into "Snuff"

Read the first two of the Codex Alera on recommendation of this thread and really enjoyed them, especially the first one, really liked the furies magic concept, luckily Dun Laoghaire/ Rathdown Library has the entire set.

Also started the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson again having looked at this thread and I have to say what a book, really really enjoyed it and could not put it down, or indeed wait to read it again, currently on the the 2nd one The Well of Ascension not quite as good as the first but still a cracking read ( both also in Dun laoghaire Rathdown library)

so two great discoveries as a result of the thread !

What Are You Reading?

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