ixoy's reading log

Finished "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Short but powerful - some great prose in here that really captures the desolation of a post-Apocalyptic world. It's very bleak but, at the same time, "the boy" is the ember of hope and innocence that McCarthy does a very good job of conveying. A tough read in some ways but well worth it. Just don't expect to smile much.

Finished "Blood and Bone" by Ian Cameron Esslemont, the fourth book in his Malazan sequence. Running in parallel to the tenth book in Erikson's "Malazan: Book of the Fallen" sequence this further expands on some of the story lines laid out there.

It's set in the continent of Jacuruku, previously only mentioned in dialogue. There's a number of plot threads and characters here - which was part of the problem for me because I never felt they weaved together except at the end. The plots meandered a little before convergence: which is something both series have done but I didn't find it as entertaining this time.

It's a shame because the jungle-setting of Jacuruku is good and quite fresh. The characters moving through it... not wholly convinced. Some I enjoyed (the Golan/Thorn dialogue) but others felt a bit flat. Some of this though is due to my inability to wholly keep track of all the machinations spread across all the books - everything is once again inferred and rarely explicitly explained. A frustrating experience at time and, like in "Orb Sceptre Throne", I felt this went too much on the side of being vague.

Still there are good moments here and it's nice to see a continent that genuinely feels different to some of the other places in Wu. There's also a good set up and promise for the next (and final) book in this series. I think I just need about a year off to re-read the entire 16 books to clear my mind on the events...

Finished "Tigana" by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's an excellent novel, dealing with what happens when a nation's identity is wiped from the minds of everyone but its conquered citizens and the lengths they will go to to reclaim it.

What works here is the strength Kay puts into his characters, making them believable and multi-dimensional. Particular noteworthy is how he crafts one of the chief villians, Brandin, and the relationship with his concubine Dianora.

The plot itself involves a fair bit of manipulation and cunning and in fact the series reminds me in tone, and approach, of Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet (although that was published after this novel). Since I rated that very highly, I'm pleased I can say this is excellent too and manages to particularly noteworthy for being so self contained. It's inspired me to check out more of this author's works.

Finished "Magician's End" by Raymond E. Feist. It's the third book in his Chaoswar Saga but more significantly the final book in his Riftwar series. It's a series I've been reading for over twenty years so this one was quite nostalgic.

Thankfully, in some ways, Feist was also feeling nostalgic. There are numerous references to other books in the series, particularly the first few. These references are a little forced at times, somewhat of a deus ex machina, but he just about pulls it off as they're used to unfurl the main A-plot where the stakes are ridiculously high.
The A-plot feels suitably epic and involves the characters we've known (and I've liked) over years. It draws in multiple arcs from the previous series and the pay off in the end works.
The B-plot, involving a civil war, by contrast feels mundane. It's generally with characters we've only known for a couple of books and it's much harder to care with the A-plot being much more interesting.

In terms of pacing, the first half is a little slow. The A-plot suffers a little from exposition and the B-plot from manoeuvring pieces. In the second half both pick up momentum and I was satisfied with their ends.

Editing wasn't nearly as sloppy as previous books although I do think Feist's prose could be tightened at times. It's perfunctory but I can't help but notice the overuse of "suddenly" for example or the same turns of phrases within a few sentences of each other.

Overall, I'm happy with this final piece. Perfect? No but I was satisfied and I felt I got a decent goodbye to a series I began about 22 years ago.

Took a little bit of time to finish off "The Guns of Avalon" by Roger Zelzany, the second book in his Amberverse series. I'd been slowly reading through it over the last few weeks which, given how short it is, will say a lot.

There's something about this series that's meant, so far, I could never really get into it. Perhaps it's to do with the almost abstract nature of the worlds they're traversing - I never really get a feel for where the characters are because they're moving between different versions of the world as they move towards the city of Amber at its heart.
I also found it difficult to care much about the main character (whose viewpoint the story is told from). I never really felt I got to know him or those he encounters.

For me the series so far, even though seen as a classic, has not yet gripped me. I'll probably continue on the basis I bought the first five but it certainly isn't anything I'm going to rush into.

Finished Charles Stross's "Jennifer Morgue", the second book in his Laundry series.

Really enjoyed this one. A fun take on the Bond tropes mixed in with geeky computing and a large dose of Cthulhu. There's some great black humour in it as it digs in at a range of topics from civil service bureaucracy, PowerPoint and spy movies.

It also comes with a short story (which isn't of a similar quality) and an amusing piece on the evolution of Bond, including a superb follow up interview with a former boss of SPECTRE.

Looking forward to reading the next one in this series to see what insanity his mind can think up.

Finished "The Unravelling" by Hugh Howey, the fourth book in his Wool series. It's another Kindle-success story and this one is a very good instalment in the series. It nicely ties together elements from the previous three books, expands the scope of the story and features good characterisation. Much like I commented on with Anthony Ryan, it's no surprise that Howey has found deserved fame from his work here. As smart and well written as many experienced authors who came down the traditional publishing route.

Also recently finished "Silently and Very Fast" by Catherynne M. Valente, in a bid to clear a backlog of shorter works and make my reading pile seem smaller.
This novella - originally published in three issues of a sci-fi magazine - is about the emergence of a sentient AI that began originally as a household management program.

It's.. odd. It's quite heavy and deals with elements like anthropology, sentience, myth, etc. Lots of unusual imagery as the AI explores dreamscapes created by the occupants of the house and bodies/gender/concepts get rapidly switched around. If it was any longer this fusion mix, while nicely rendered, would have been a bit too heavy. Short as it is it works but something a bit more in the regular narrative vein, as opposed to almost completely outside of it, would work better for my next read.

Another novella down: "Emperor's Soul" by Brandon Sanderson. In a short 160 pages, Sanderson creates a magic system more intriguing than most authors manage over 1600 pages and it's this magic system - a series of "stamps" that re-write the history of an object - that are at the front of a story where a Forger must try and forge the soul of an emperor.

Sanderson created some good characters along with the magic system and even got to throw in some good action sequences. An excellent little novella from one of my, by now, favourite fantasy authors.

Finished "The Straits of Galahesh" , book two of "The Lays of Anuskaya" series by Bradley P. Beaulieu.

This fantasy book's quite refreshing, fusing a mix of Russian culture and Arabian. Picking up from the first book a few years on, it details the desperate plight to close rifts that threaten to destroy a world. The magic is elemental in basis (reminding me a little of Avatar: The Last Airbender at times) and well thought out.

The plot is a little confusing at times - not sure if that's a criticism of it or more of my attention span. The prose is dense enough and there's next to no levity to lighten the mood. R. Scott Bakker would be proud. The use of Russian/Arabian settings means a lot more unfamiliar terms than normal and names that require a little bit more effort - it's good that he's trying but it can be trying in itself.

Overall it's a worthy series so far and good to see someone trying to knock something out a bit different. Tough enough going but I think it's going to be worth it.

... And I followed an excellent book with "Prince of Thorns" by Mark Lawrence, the first book in his Broken Empire series. A series I won't be reading any more of because I really did not like this book at all.

It's a revenge tale of a young prince who sees his brother and mother slaughtered and it's "dark". Jorg cruelly kills as he forces himself to walk a dark path. Unfortunately it made the character not just somebody you couldn't like but didn't because they just weren't interesting. It reminded me of Brent Weeks: a moody emo guy, who was just trying too hard. Since it was a a first person novel you couldn't escape and the characters around him were thinly sketched.
If you want to do a bastard right, look at Abercrombie, Bakker, or more recently Richard Morgan. I could actually empathise them despite their serious flaws. I didn't care less here.

The story that backs it isn't particularly interesting, despite the potential of the setting of the world. It's also marred by weak prose, the sort I'd find in some of the weaker self-published authors.

I might be missing something, because it's gotten praise elsewhere (so did Brent Weeks though). As it stands, one of the most disappointing and weakest reads of the year so far. Not a chance I'm buying the next book.

Finished off "Darwin's Children" by Greg Bear, a sequel to his book "Darwin's Radio" and one that I had been reading on and off for weeks.

It was a pretty decent read but I'll admit to being quite lost during the heavy biology pieces when characters discuss SHEVA, a virus that has created a new breed of humanity with new characteristics that frighten the regular humans. The book is about how the world reacts to this new evolution of humanity.

Character wise it's grand, although nobody in particular stands out. As mentioned the science is heavy and took me out a little - Bear is quite demanding on your ability to understand cellular biology and even with the primer at the back (which I only discovered at the end!) it could be tough. There was one oddity in it for me, of a religious nature, that took me out a little but Bear does discuss it in a short piece at the end.

Since I found the novel a little bland, I'm not going to outright recommend it but it's still a fair follow up to "Darwin's Radio".

Finished "Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears" by William Hertling, the first book in his Singularity series. 'Twas a short read which is why I got through it in a day but also an enjoyable one which is the second reason I got through it.

Avogadro Corp is a thinly disguised Google. The lead of the story, David Ryan, is working on an R&D project to create a predictive model of content of an e-mail. Unfortunately, he ends up coding a little too well and begins to create a sentient system that will ensure its own survival.

It was a bit of a novel of two halves - the first half, showing the growth of the sentient eLOPE system - is well done and quite realistic (no surprise as the author is a software engineer). The second half I found to be a lot ropier as the speed of events seems utterly unbelievable as well as the mechanisms used to bring it about. Its complete implausibility contrasted against the first half.

Still though, the pacing was good and the writing, while somewhat perfunctory, kept it going. No stand out characters but the novel only cost me about €2 and there's enough here to make me purchase the next instalment.

Finished "The Scarab Path" by Adrian Tchaikovsky , the fifth book in his Shadows of the Apt series.

It picks up a while after the first four books kicking off a new plot arc and featuring some of the original characters from the first four. These happened to be my favourite characters of the series and I really liked how Tchaikovsky handled how they had been changed from the events of the previous book. Some interesting relationships are developed here.
The plot also brings in a nice mystery as they try to uncover the secret of the Masters of a far-flung city with potential consequences, I assume, for future books. Threats from the previous books are also subtly moved along.

I felt this was probably the strongest in the series yet and Tchaikovsky did a good job of balancing characters, plot, and action. Moved along nicely and I will of course be back for the sixth instalment.

Finished "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" by Edwin A. Abott. Thanks to Project Guttenberg, it cost me nothing to read this odd tale from the 1880s about a resident of a 2D world called flatland. The first half is the narrator's attempt to explain how society functions in a world without height and it's done quite well. The second half concerns what happens when he meets someone from a 3D world and how you'd explain it.

It's a very interesting little piece and Abott put a bit of thought into mapping it out. The satirical elements are there but, as I don't live in Victorian London, not quite as contemporary as they once were! The apparent sexism - women are decidedly Irrational and dumb in this - might show its age (although I'm aware the author said that wasn't his intent).

It was really like nothing else I've read and, being short, was an enjoyable oddity.