ixoy's reading log

Finished 'The Amber Spyglass' on Saturday and enjoyed it. For those people whose only exposure to the series is through 'The Golden Compass' (or even the movie adaptation), the series matures a huge amount over the trilogy. I believe this book is unfilmable if concessions were required to the US market - there's a strong anti-establishment (the Church) running throughout this book but it's done without the sort of vitrolic Atheist response used by Dawkins. In fact this book is very spiritual in many ways as well as imaginative. I can see why people think it's pretentious but I think that's an unfair label and the series, for its take on theology and spirituality, is quite a classic.

Next up: "Red Seas Under Red Skies" by Scott Lynch.

Finished "Toll the Hounds" - quite enjoyed it but perhaps Erikson could do with a bit more editing? He had a tendency to ramble on a bit in places and it affected the pacing at times. The last 1/4 of the book is full on epic and it's still an essential instalment for all fans.

Also read "Swords and Devilry" by Fritz Leiber, the (chronologically) first set of Lahnkmar stories. Pretty decent and I can see how it might influence other works I've read (thinking Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard sequence in particular).

Finished "Accelerando" by Charles Stross. It's incredibly inventive but can be quite dense at times. I don't believe characterisation is his strong point (a failing of many sci-fi authors) but the sheer originality and thought gone into this makes it worthwhile. It's not for anyone new to the sci-fi genre, and some basic understanding of science (particularly comp. sci.) will help you here.

Now I'm reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel alongside "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer" by Jennifer Lynch.

Finished "The Nano Flower" by Peter F. Hamilton, the third book in his 'Greg Mandel' series. This is an earlier book than the latter series that made him famous and it's quite different in that it leans more towards the science end of science fiction than the space opera that got him the fame and glory. Quite parochial (there is a strong thread on Welsh devolution for example) but that's no harm - some interesting ideas about alien life forms and technologies.

One minor quibble though - his characterisation can be a little weak. He flitted a little too much between some characters and then seemed to drop them, and he was far too fond of everyone praising one particular (Julia) at every second page.

Still a good read - just don't expect the planet smashing, billion-deaths of his later works.

Finished 'Shadowplay' by Tad Williams. It's the middle book of a trilogy and suffers a small bit as a result - there's a feeling that the reason characters experience events is purely to set them up for the third book. Having said that Williams is a fine writer and his characters are well crafted.

The faerie mythos in the book isn't terribly original, and I find the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter very dull, but there is still enough meat in this story to make me anticipate the third volume with the understanding that, so far, this is the weakest of his series ('Otherland' and 'Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn' were definitely superior).

Finished 'The Dark Tower' by Stephen King, Book 7 in the series of the same name. My full thoughts on it are here, but it's a (mostly) satisfactory end to a series that I began reading almost twenty years ago. It didn't forget the face of its father

Finished "Isle of Battle" - Book 2 of "The Swan's War" by Sean Russell. It's a pretty decent "middle" book but not exceptional. It's not bad but it's not good either and ultimately has a sort of inoffensive forgettable quality.

It's set on a small scale and this somewhat works against it - the world seems very small, so it's hard to contrast that against characters and events that we are told are epic. The characters that are there often too mired (figuratively and literally) in the one faceless location and, although that's a central point, it can become a bit laborious wading through endless descriptions of lands draped in fog and singing frogs. One character though stands out above others - Lord Carral. The author does a great job of exploring the world through this blind man and he stands out among characters where development is often flimsy.

Could do worse than this book, could do better - I'll await full judgement until I read the final instalment some point later on in this thread.

Finished "Isle Witch", Book one of "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" trilogy by Terry Brooks.

It's a book that's been sitting around for ages and it's been well over a decade since I visited the world of Shannara. It's a bit of a mixed bag for me - I don't find the actual world all that interesting. In these days of grim and epic fantasy, Shannara's homely mix of elves, dwarves, druids and haunted lakes seems a little too homely and almost trite.

It would be helped with an engaging plot and, for the most, this book is a decent page turner. The plot - to journey across an ocean to an unknown land to recover an item of power - is hardly startlingly original but there's a sense more will be revealed in later books. Some of the keys events in this one though feel like a series of set pieces (particularly the quest for the keys) and don't really stand out in terms of excitement or interest.

Characters in this though are quite good and I found Bek particularly easy to empathise with. Brooks turns of phrase also ensure the story never drags, even if it never lifts too much and it's all a fairly solid, if uninspiring, affair.

Finished 'Dearly Devoted Dexter' by Jeff Lindsay, the second book in his Dexter series and written before the TV adaptation of Dexter first aired.

It's quite interesting reading this as I'm a big fan of the TV series. As a result, I find myself projecting it onto the characters and in particular hearing the whole book narrated in Michael C. Hall's soft voice (the book is written in the first person). It's a testament to the strength of the show, as much as anything, that I can see this book fitting comfortably into the characters I know.

The plot itself is fairly slight and the killer-at-large works quite well. There's no last minute revelation, that hampered the Ice Truck Killer in the first book. It helps the plot here that I don't actually know what will happen as the show didn't use this for source material. Both TV and book form share a lovely taste in black sardonic humour, although I think that this Dexter is more cold and calculating than the TV version which partially can be attribute to spending more time inside his head. The other characters are all as I have come to know them on TV, although Debbie manages the feat of being even more annoying here...

I'd recommend this book for a fan of the show and for those who would like a black-hearted twist on the serial killer genre. Don't come in with too many preconceptions from the show (it does take some interesting divergences from it) but you still get to enjoy the same humour, characters (for the larg part) and screwed-up slayings that the series brings.

Finished 'Return of the Crimson Guard' by Ian Cameron Esslemont. Set in Erikson's Malazan world, it chronicles events that happen somewhat in parallel with Erikson's series.

I enjoyed this one and it marks another good entry in the Malazan world as a whole. Esslemont's writing style is tighter than Eriksons. This means that there's less lush descriptions but also fewer moments of padding. I don't think he's quite got the humour that Erikson manages to inject but his characters are all quite solid and he does no disservice when handling characters created by Erikson.

A recommend book and necessary as a whole for fans of the Malazan series.

Finished 'Forever Free' by Joe Haldeman, a sequel to his highly-regarded "Forever War".

This book continues themes of alienation experienced by a war vet who is trying to re-establish his life following his time serving in a pointless war. He attempts to understand how humanity has "evolved" into a homogenous culture called Man and decides that he must escape from this culture which he feels treats him, and others, as odditiies.

Initially there was a fair bit to like here as we saw a man trying to understand the world around him, 1100 years after he was first born. The science fiction concept of relativity has been well handled previously and it plays a role here. There's an interesting mystery but it all falls to pieces when we get to an ending that is, to my mind, one of the weakest endings to a novel that I've yet encountered - truly a Deus Ex Machina cop out if ever there was. I thought that "Olympos" didn't close well but it has nothing on the mess "Forever Free" turns out - which is a shame as there was definite potential there. I cannot recommend this book however for the highly flawed resolution, the lack of insight the first gave to us, and characters whom we never really get a grip on.

Finished 'The Year of Our War' by Steph Swainston. A debut novel, it's in the sub-genre of fantasy that some have labelled "New Weird" - essentially fantasy with a twist. In this case, it's a first-person narrative dictated to by an immortal drug-addicted half-angel(esque) messenger, recounting a country's fight against a mysterious race called the Insects.

There's lots of moments to like in this - some real interesting ideas here such as the drugs enabling Jant (the lead) to Shift to another world which, for my money, is a far more interesting one than the one we spend the most of our time in. There's also moments when the plot wanders around and it doesn't seem fully cohesive - the novel ends quite abruptly (it is the first in a series mind you) and there is one major incident, about mid-way, which completely shifts the book's plot but not necessarily to the book's advantage. It's a bit distracting.

Yet, having said all that, there's enough here to make me recommend the book. Some crazed ideas, some worthwhile characters, and a fairly interesting style of writing that engendered equal parts frustration and admiration. I imagine I'll read the follow up at some point, but it won't be for a while yet.

Finished "The Confusion" by Neal Stephenson, Part 2 of his "Baroque Cycle".

The book is a piece of historical fiction, telling of the exploits of the fictional characters of Jack Shaftoe, Eliza, and Daniel Waterhouse in the late 17th/early 18th century as they interact and weave around the historical events of the time.
Now there's much to appreciate about this book - Stephenson has done a tremendous amount of research and he's very good at setting the period for the reader.
Some of the plot points are clever (I did quite enjoy the ending) and there's some very interesting discourses on the inventions and changes of the time too - such as the beginning of the more complex credit trade markets (particularly relevant currently). There can be also a good line in humour, more of the witty variety (there's a great joke in there about leveraging and synergy applied to slaves) and Stephenson certainly knows how to turn a phrase. The fact that he's able to do us against a background spanning decades and the whole world is admirable.

However, at times, the pace really drags - Stephenson deliberately skips over some major events in the character's lives and instead has the characters relate them to us in pages of dialogue. Conversations, well written and all, can go on for ages - a character cannot merely say who his parents are, or where they came form, without elaborating on such over three densely-written pages. He can get dragged down too much in explaining certain aspects and settings.
Also I find the characters a little distant and, in the case of Eliza, somewhat too cool and aloof to even like.

I think a lot of my criticisms are valid only from a personal point-of-view in that I'm not a fan of the historical-fiction genre. I favour more fantastical escapism (evident from the list above) or at least not to feel that the plot is restricted too much by the confines of history. It's my failing, rather than the authors so that whilst "The Confusion" is a good book, it's not entirely for me and maybe not necessarily for other Stephenson fans who are expecting something other thn his normal non-Baroque cycle output (including, for that matter "Cryptonomicon" which I loved).

Finished "Polity Agent" by Neal Asher, Book 4 in his Agent Cormac series.

I very much enjoyed this novel as it nicely ties together events from the previous three, answering questions they posed and leaving a few new interesting ones. It's a full-on space opera here, with a great pace - the action doesn't stop for near 400 pages and there's some space battles there to match anything that Reynolds or Hamilton are currently throwing out.

Characters are all pretty good although Cormac himself, given its his series, doesn't feature too much. It's more than made up by some fascinating insights into Horace Blegg and other supporting cast but that won't stop Asher being pretty ruthless to his characters.

The novel doesn't conclude properly, due to the sequel (lying on my "To Read" pile) but not too sure if I consider that a flaw, or merely an incentive to read more. A great energetic enjoyable read.

Finished "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds. It's a set of short stories and novellas set in his Revelation Space universe.

The stories themselves, as might be expected, are of variable quality. The first piece was quite weak, which had me worried, but most of the other pieces were of a higher quality. Their style generally has the Gothic horror that permeates his work, most noticably in the longest piece - "Nightingale" which is almost pure horror SF (albeit one of the weaker titles in my opinion).

There's a couple of stand out tales in this, including the eponymous title story "Galactic North" that will please fans of harder SF, and also some very enjoyable background detail into the world and history (and future history) of the RS universe.

Definitely recommended for fans of Reynolds as there's more than enough quality to offset the more tepid offerings.

Finished 'The Briar King' by Greg Keyes, Book 1 in his 'The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone' quadrilogy.

The book starts out with a set of characters who seem almost clichéd - the spoilt tomboy princess, the taciturn woodsman, the naive scholar, the noble knight - and drops them into a world where an established Kingdom has ruled for millennia. What Keyes is able to do though is flesh out these characters into three dimensions over the course of the novel, defying initial expectations that they're merely card-board cut outs.

The plot itself is multi-stranded, but includes the regular fare of political ambitions and dark forces. Again Keyes handles all these well and I quite enjoyed his system of magic displayed here, which is quite religious in nature.

The short chapters lead to a snappy pace and, to his credit, Keyes drives the book to a satisfying conclusion, while still leaving open more than enough plot points for the sequels.

In some ways the story reminded me a bit of Kate Elliot's "A Crown of Stars" septology (although this could change) and I'd ultimately have the same sort of attitude to reading the sequel: Yes I will, but not before a few other books. Definitely enjoyable, without quite getting that extra factor of brilliance.

Finished 'Swords Against Wizardry' by Fritz Leiber, the fourth collection of his Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series. The vast bulk of this is taken up by two novellas - 'Stardock' and 'The Lords of Quarmall'.

The first novella starts off well, and the mountain (the eponymous Stardock) is beautifully described. However, the inhabitants of the mountain are relatively unexciting and the finale is quite weak.

'The Lords of Quarmall' is a stronger affair. The setting is interesting, telling the tale of two warring brothers inside a large mountain. Splitting up the duo, it effectively uses their personalities as each is on an opposing aside, unaware of the other's presence. It builds up well, and there's some beautiful descriptions, and the finale is very satisfying.

A pretty decent collection of stories over all.

Finished 'Dune: The Butlerian Jihad' by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, Book 1 in the 'Legends of Dune' trilogy.

Well this was a bad one - I expected it to be poor, but it defied those expectations by being worse than I'd feared. Reviews over on amazon.co.uk, more eloquently describe the many flaws than I can - suffice to say the word "cash in" was never more aptly applied. The prose is lacklusture, the characters laughable, the dialogue insipid, the clichés rampant, but even worse it barely feels like the Dune universe - it's as if the two writers are so intent on trying to show how the Dune universe came to be, that they ignore Frank Herbert's thoughtful and philosophical insights into humanity and ecology, that made up his original series.

On a positive note, I've no more Anderson or Brian Herbert books on my shelf to read and nor will I ever have them again. Avoid.

Finished 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss - "Day One" of the Kingkiller Chronicles.

When discussing this book with a friend, I jokingly accused Rothfuss of being a pseudynom for another writer because, if that's not true, then this is one of the best debut fantasy novels I've read (an honour shared with Scott Lynch's "The Lies of Locke Lamora"). It's the tale of an inn keeper whose previous life, as a historic figure, is recounted to the scribe who tracked him down. This being the memories of the inn-keeper, Kvothe, it's written primarily in the first-person and this works very well: Kvothe is smart (very smart) but also quite human and filled with curiosity and humour. The characters are all well fleshed out - it's not that any are particularly original but what's there is done very well.
Indeed much the same could be said for the plot - it's the manner of execution that stands out. Many tales talk of some poor orphan rising to power, but partially what stands out here is how Kvothe doesn't get lucky breaks, or find some convenient amulet, but uses his skills to get by.

The chapters are short generally and it brings a nice brisk, page turning pace to the novel. I got through the bulk of the novel in about five days.

For those who care, there's also an interesting system of magic in the book which draws vaguely upon some scientific principles (e.g. conservation of energy).

After a couple of disappointing reads, I really enjoyed this one and unreservedly will recommend it to friends.

Finished "Forever Peace" by Joe Haldeman. This is a thematic companion piece to "Forever War", exploring many of the same themes but from a different angle. It's about a long-running war in the near future where humans remotely pilot mechanised robots through a neural interface - that in itself is hardly new but Haldeman is interested not in the technology so much as the human effect it has and how it changes (or does not) attitudes to war and killing.

What I liked in this novel was that Haldeman spent some time to describe the daily lives of the inhabitants and fleshed out some decent characters - many science fiction writers are big on ideas but weak when it comes to the people. Like a lot of good sci-fi he uses the technology and discoveries to ask bigger questions about people rather than just for a pyrotechnic display - in this one it's a quest to find peace for humanity.

In places the novel is a little jarring as it switches between first- and third-person perspective but it's not unduly so. The ending is a little hurried but the pacing otherwise is pretty good and the plotting is pretty tight. It's a good read for its exploration of war and a look at the alienation and damage it can bring to people.

Finished "The Toyminator" by Robert Rankin. Straight out: Did not care for this. The plot was fine, up to a point, but halfway through it makes a big change in direction and turns into a poor pastiche. The plot is then riddled with convenient setups (which the author tries to mockingly joke away), characterisation stagnates, and the denouement is weak.

The first book - "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" - was at least very creative in places but there's no such spark here as we don't expand on the original Toy City premise and spend too much time in an old Hollywood era.

Additionally Rankin's writing style really began to... rankle. He has a habit of repeating things over and over, over and over repeating them and it's irritating. The humour was also absent for a large part and relied too much on pop culture references to even wring a smile from me.

By the end of this, I was just almost in a state of apathetic page turning. Given my less than stellar enjoyment of the first instalment, I think I can safely say that I won't be perusing any of Rankin's other books.

Finished "Evil for Evil" by K.J. Parker, Book 2 of 'The Engineer' trilogy.

It's an interesting concept here - the lead is a brilliant engineer who can coldly create massive systems to achieve goals. He sees people and situations as cogs in a machine that are ultimately used (to their death even) in the cause of love. An unusual dichotomy but it makes sense as the concept of love, and its link with pain and hurt, are explored throughout as people's various relationships fall back to haunt them.
It's a bleak book but Parker's refreshing style means there's a vein of very dark, dry self-deprecating humour to it. Characters are given almost conversational inner voices, although at times it means some characters are less distinguishable. I was also glad that Parker's propensity for showing their detailed knowledge of engineering/forging/etc. was held in check this time.

It doesn't suffer too much from "middle book" syndrome and it sets itself up nicely for a finale but due to a game-changing piece, it may not map out the way originally intended. That means I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next but I won't rush to it as it was in a sense a tough read with its cynical bleak outlook.

Finished "Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick (a couple of weeks ago). It's the second book collecting his short stories and, although none made it into movie format, there's plenty there that have some great ideas. The titular tale stands out, but there's also the likes of "Adjustment Team" (think "Dark City") or the mysterious "The Commuter".

As with all short stories, there's a fair few duds ("Martians Come in Clouds" did nothing for me) but I was generally quite surprised at how he seemed to have his pulse on sci-fi concepts that would only generally enter the mainstream (in tvs/movies) decades later.

As to his literary skills, his prose can be a little staid and I found some of his characters a little stiff, although that may reflect the '50s when they were written. There's also an amusing amount of unintentional sexism and some of the futures envisaged seem already amusing fifty years on. Nonetheless I enjoyed this collection and will be getting the third volume.

Finished "Black Man" by Richard Morgan ("Thirteen" in the racially-sensitive U.S.).

I was disappointed with this one. It's not bad as such, it's just not very good either. It's the story of a genetically-modified human in 2107 (called a variant "thirteen") who was designed as an alpha-male soldier with a psychology harbouring back to cut-throat savagery. He's hired to help investigate a string of murders perpetrated by a fellow thirteen and, from this, a mystery unfolds.

It's the unfolding of the mystery that is, I believe, one of the novel's flaws. It seems to ramble a lot with the lead, Carl, stumbling along from one intuitive hunch to another. Eventually the pieces all get connected up, and it makes sense, but the path to it all is disjointed and the explanation at the end is in a rather heavy-handed expository manner.
Along the way I was treated to a bit too much social commentary. I'm all for sci-fi being used to explore the human condition but here the sci-fi trappings seemed minimal at best and I felt that they were almost redundant. Morgan wants to explore concepts like racism, the feminisation of society, etc. but the characters he's doing it through and the prism of technology he's using to focus (genetics) didn't really work for me - what was here, including the mystery, could very easily have been transposed to a modern setting without much shift.

The characters in the book are okay - the lead is well 'ard and yet he still resembles a more one-dimensional version of Morgan's Kovacs. There's a bit of depth to him but I don't feel we ever got under his skin in the way the author intended.

The writing was quite good in this, and Morgan shows more descriptive agility than most sci-fi writers, but I just wished he had tightened the plotting a lot more and maybe fleshed out the future setting to make a more interesting book. Not bad but he's still yet to reach the heights he established with "Altered Carbon".

On an aside - I think this just about gets me in for the 50-book challenge...

Finished "Line War" by Neal Asher, the fifth and final book in his Agent Cormac series.

At this point, it's a series for fans only building on the previous four books. The plot is reasonably intricate but at its basic is about how a rogue AI attacks the Polity (the future Earth society) using a highly dangerous and virulent form of alien biotechnology. He's up against Agent Cormac and a number of others from the series.

For fans of big space opera, and the Polity universe itself, this is a great read. We've got the multiple plans, the big guns, the huge AIs. We've also got what I found as a very interesting alien antagonist (if a non-sentient bio-virus can be an antagonist). The characers they're up against aren't very deep but they work for the novel and I found Cormac to be quite likable rather than the "hard-as-nails" bastards that say Richard Morgan employs.

There's plenty of big revelations here and all the main plots conclude in a very satisfying bar the almost coda piece at the end, which seems a bit rushed.

Sure the prose isn't exactly Wilde but that's not important when you've got a good bit of creativity, a cracking pace, and lots of galaxy-spanning mayhem. A highly recommended series for me.

Finished "The Prefect" by Alastair Reynolds, a book set in his "Revelation Space" universe (before the events of the initial trilogy).

I got through most of this book in two days, which is testament to how much I enjoyed it. It's a detective novel with science fiction flavouring - that concept is a little reminescent of Richard Morgan's Kovacs' series but I think the RS universe is far more interesting. This time we're in the Glittering Band - 10,000 individual habitats orbiting a central seat of power (a band which is very dead by the time of the original trilogy). The slaughter of the inhabitants of one habitat leads to a chain of events that, naturally, take a wider scope.

I imagine this is a pretty good novel for new-comers to his universe. It's more rewarding though for long-term fans as it enriches a certain portion of time, just as "Galactic North"'s stories did. The revelations come along at a good pace and Reynolds does a great job of giving us a glimpse at the diversity and potential of our future, as well as the tragedies to come. There's also some nice action sequences, albeit not as much as in previous (which is fine, as it's not strictly space opera as the others were).

There are flaws - Reynold's again has difficulty tying things up conclusively and there are some important scenes that transpire "off screen". One main character pretty much drops off screen for the last third of the book. His characterisation is tighter than before but he often struggles with dialogue, making some of it sound quite clunky. It's quite common in sci-fi however, and it didn't really detract from the novel.

Very enjoyable overall and I'd like to see a further instalment in this era of the universe - and that in itself shows how I rate this novel.