[ixoy]

Finished "Once Upon a Time in the North" by Philip Pullman.

It's a short story relating a tale of Lee Scoresby, a character from "His Dark Materials". There's not much to the tale but it's told well. The book itself is beautifully illustrated and packaged, including fake news articles and a pullout board game. Top marks for presentation.

It's not substantial but a lovely treat for fans of the series.

[ixoy]

Finished "Luminous", a short story collection by Greg Egan.

Like "Axiomatic", this collection is full of wonderful insights, pushing the boundaries of science fiction (emphasis often on the science here). If there's a theme here, it's of genetics and biology. Egan once more asks the big "What ifs" if we could fine tune aspects of ourselves. Questions as to whether consciousness is pure biology or not, crop up for example and whether we could control emotions through logic.
Only one of the stories disappointed ("Our Lady of Chernonbyl" wasn't as insight as others). One other then just confused me - "The Planck Drive" seems to require a working knowledge of theoretical physics (I've never felt so dumb reading a story). The rest though all have worthy elements and can address a spectrum of topics about humanity. Sure Egan's characters are pretty flat, and use introspection to address Egan's viewpoint (the stories are all, bar one, in the first person). When the ideas being explored are so interesting though it's easily forgiven.

[ixoy]

Finished "The Judging Eye" by R. Scott Bakker, the first book in his Aspect-Emperor trilogy which is itself a sequel to his Prince of Nothing trilogy, set twenty years after the event.

Straight out - I enjoyed this a lot more than the mildly disappointing conclusion to the previous trilogy in "A Thousandfold Thought". Here we see the pay off to those events and Bakker skilfully creates the world where Kellhus has risen to a supreme power. We have a number of other returning characters, as well as some interesting new ones.
Like the previous novels, there's a lot of introspection with characters. There's not as much philosophy now (thankfully) but at times the prose does get a little bogged down as characters focus on the significance of any- and everything. Fortunately these characters are interesting, as are most of their musing, but it does mean that you can't get through it at the same pace as you would typically for a book this size.

There are some great moments in here (the last chapter, in particular, stands out for some vivid scenes and descriptions) and Bakker does a good job of keeping the pace in the various story lines by cleanly separating. Never bored, always interested, I definitely felt it was a return to the form of the first two books in the "Prince of Nothing" trilogy and I'll look forward to the sequel.

[ixoy]

Finally crawled to the end of "Fatal Revenant", the second book in the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

I struggled with this. There's not enough plot and too much turgid prose here. Donaldson's writing style means employing fifty words when one could do. However, many of these words you won't know nor will your concise dictionary. He'll have plucked them from a thesaurus or some archaic location. It wasn't just me - all the reviews mention it and there's even a website dedicated to this. It'd be okay if it added something to the book but instead it drags the pace down and makes dialogue seem pompous and stilted. I mean why say "nameless" when you can say "innominate" (Firefox dictionary doesn't like that word), or "limitless" when "illimiatable" will do, "omitted" when you can use "elided".

The dialogue would be okay if it was delivered by interesting, rounded characters. It isn't. The story and world are only ever told through Linden Avery's view and are barely fleshed out. The many faces blend into one another. Linden herself is well drawn but not likeable. She's too self absorbed and actually quite selfish. If these qualities got redeemed in the book, it would be forgiveable but we suffer the puissance of her whining throughout.

The plot too is anaemic. It could be summed up in a handful of sentences and most of it seems almost pointless by the end. Sure, there's a handful of decent scenes - and the ending is suitably climatic - but you feel you're wading through so much morass beforehand.

It's a shame because I really enjoyed the first two chronicles many years ago and loved the Gap series. This novel seemed self indulgent and almost pointless until the denouement. I'll finish the series because I've started it but it won't be any time soon.

[ixoy]

Finished "The Born Queen" by Greg Keyes, the fourth and final book in his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series.

I'm not sure what to make of this. The first half continued on with the same characters that I had grown to enjoy. After an initial feeling of displacement (some months had passed in the character's lives from the last book) I got into the grip of it and was enjoying it.
And then, in the second half, it changed. A lot. Characters personalities started changing wildly. It felt as if the characters were being forced to serve the plot too much. It wasn't that there was a deus ex machina here - Keyes generally had established reasons for these shifts - but it was unsatisfying from a reader's perspective as it made it harder to care. Only Cazio came out unscathed and others, whom I liked, were given short thrift.

It's a shame that the ending was a let down because the previous three books were enjoyable and indeed a lot of this is too. It's just a poor farewell - the series deserved better.

[ixoy]

Finished "The Company" by K.J. Parker.

This is the story of a group of famous war veterans who seek to retire to an island for a quiet life. Unfortunately their past, and present, conspire against this...

I really enjoyed this book. It had K.J. Parker's crisp, dry writing style that makes the whole world seem so very believable. It helps that the traditional elements of fantasy (magic, etc.) are stripped away. The characters that he/she creates here are quite good, although two of the company of five are a little thinly sketched.

Yes the plot wasn't as clever as the Engineer trilogy and the ending wasn't as rewarding as the Scavenger trilogy but the prose get me gripped and the way it dealt with the effects of war. I'm glad I read this one.

[ixoy]

Finished "The Engineer [Reconditioned]" a short story collection by Neal Asher (that I was reading in parallel to other books).

There's ten short stories in here and all, bar two, are drawn from two sources (and one of these is from his "Cowl" standalone world). The primary is Asher's Polity universe. We see the first Spatterjay story here and meet two of that story's cast in some of the other stories. Many of these again demonstrate his great ability to create alien life forms. Two of the Polity stories show how religion can grow up around xeno-biology.
The second set of stories (3 in total) are part of his Owner series. What makes them interesting is that Asher's next body of work is a trilogy in the Owner series. I like what I've seen here and my appetite is whetted.
Some of the stories are a little rough around the edges and do come across as early works.

There's one big problem with the book - and it's not really a fault of Asher. The editing is woeful. It's so bad that I started a thread on it. The contents list five stories (there's actually ten). Seven of these have clear cut introductions but three others begin in the next paragraph after the conclusion of an existing story. It's very confusing and very unprofessional (and there is of course numerous typos, etc). It's a shame that it's so very unpolished because there's some rough gems in here. I imagine his "Gabbleduck" collection is more polished but anyone who reads Asher should have a look here and just grit their teeth at the book's layout.

[ixoy]

Finished "Rides a Dread Legion", the first book in Raymond E. Feist's Demonwar Saga and the 1346th instalment in the Midkemia series.

This takes place ten years after the previous Darkwar series and, like those, it introduces a bunch of new characters as well as some re-occurring favourites.

The plot concerns demons that are appearing. Now at this point Feist is telling us that the previous 25 books are all part of some Master Plan, continuing here. I'm not convinced and reckon there's some retconning going on but he does a pretty good job of upping the ante here. The plot, as ever, moves along briskly and there's always enough to keep you interested.
The finale builds up well and definitely whets the appetite for more, with yet more game-changing moments.

The new characters are quite decent, although none ever really seem to match up to the earlier Riftwar Saga or Serpentwar Saga (IMO). Pug appears (naturally) and I've still got a lot of fondness for the character, probably one of my favourites in the many fantasy series I read. He works well and he plays a strong part here.

One thing bugged me again: typos. Seriously, Feist is one of the biggest names in the fantasy world yet his latest releases have been plagued with irritating typos, such as mixing up "two" and "too". It's easy to catch so why weren't these proof read? Surely Harper Collins can afford some decent editors for a guy who brings in millions!

Typos aside, I very much enjoyed this book and would eagerly await the next one if I hadn't seen so many poor reviews. Nonetheless I'll be happy to continue to the end (only 4 more books!).

[ixoy]

Finished "Morgawyr", Terry Brooks' third and final instalment in his "The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara" series.

Good stuff: Characters were quite good and believable. They weren't omnipotent as you find in some fantasy, but quite frail at times yet had time to grow.
The pace was generally consistent and Brooks' writing style is generally crisp enough.

Bad stuff: It's all a trifle dull. It's not quite boring, but it's never exciting either. The world of Shannara just isn't that interesting compared to where authors like Abercrombie or Miéville are exploring today. It also doesn't have the interesting mix of high-tech and magic that the previous book had, making it just plain fantasy.

It is, in all, an inoffensive series that's just a little bit too forgettable.

[ixoy]

Finished "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson. It's set in a world similar to Ireland where all the intellectuals (avouts) are in concents (sort of like monastries). In there they debate philosophy and science, holding the knowledge for the world. Indeed they debate the philosophy of science and where they interact and the book has discussion of mathematical concepts as well as quantum physics.
It's also peppered with new words (detailed in the glossary but more fun to derive from context) that are used to flesh out the world and it works quite well, making the world more real and less like a clone of ours.

The book is told in the first person from a young avout and begins quite slowly until events begin to take interesting turns. I went in with no knowledge of the plot and that worked very well (I'd advise against reading the blurb on the back). The mixture of philosophy, quantum physics and maths was presented very well (Stephenson is great at bringing across ideas) and, although detailed at times, the book never suffered the lethargy that I found in the Baroque Cycle. It's far closer to "Cryptonomicon" in many ways - and that's a very good thing.

The ending is a little bit abrupt (even after 930 pages!), characterisation a little thin at times, but this was a very satisfying read and restored faith in me that Stephenson can be long winded but still deliver interesting and original ideas (and I will be vague because it's more fun to discover it as a reader).

[ixoy]

Finished "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge. It's a techno-thriller set in the author's imagined evolution of the Internet where reality itself can be blanketed in a range of digital overlays. People view events through a worldwide distributed network and the whole concept of knowledge has been altered...
And it's a premise that, although interesting in a high brow sense, never really felt believable to me. Yes Vinge has an interesting idea but I didn't find it credible (e.g. how a system could be put in place and run in an economic sense, how it could be immersive if it was limited to two senses, etc). That made it hard for me to interact with the world - not a good thing.

The plot had some interesting ideas in there as well, including the ultimate mind control weapon. The book doesn't really deliver on them though and the different plot strands don't mesh well. The first two thirds focus primarily on character building, but that's ditched for a final third with the "thrill" moments. The espionage element would be good but it got side tracked by the introduction of new protaganists who were poorly written.

The characters in the book were done quite well I thought as we see definite character progression. What I didn't like was how, again in the final third, this was pushed aside and we barely returned to some of the characters we had been following. There was no sense of finality or closure in the characters and indeed in some of the major plot points.

It's not a bad book - it's just very flawed. Lots of ideas, but I just don't think they were well realised. It won a Hugo for some reason (even though it was up against Charles Stross' "Glasshouse" which was far better, even though Vinge is a major influence on Stross). His short story collection was better... this hasn't really left me wanting any more.

[ixoy]

Finished "Blaze" by "Richard Bachman" (a pseudonym for Stephen King). It's the story of a borderline-retarded criminal, conspicuous because of his huge size, who tries to kidnap a baby for ransom.

It's more of a novella than a novel, but it's a very enjoyable read. The character of Blaze is very sympathetic - King has always had a great knack with the "gentle giant". The time line jumps between Blaze's present predicament and back to various episodes in his life. The writing is tighter than some of his other works (such as "Lisey's Story") and the pace is very good, although the ending very obvious.

Overall, it's well worth a read - although do skip the weak "Memory" short story attached to it.

[ixoy]

Finished reading "The Family Trade", the first book in Charles Stross' "Merchant Princes" series.

I really enjoyed this one. It's an interesting take on parallel worlds, allowing certain people to flit back and forth and use this to execute trade deals. Stross lays down some foundations for a much larger story to evolve from this with lots of hinted potential. The book definitely feels like the first instalment in a series - it is not a standalone.

It's quite different to other works I've read by him - there's no real focus on science. Instead the lead protagonist applies logical thinking to their situation - thinking about what a parallel world trade could do, etc.

Very enjoyable so far - which is a good thing as there's five books to go.

[ixoy]

Finished Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book", my first full book by him (although this is closer to a novella than a novel).

The story resolves around "Bod", a boy who is brought up by the ghostly inhabitants of a graveyard after his family are murdered. The book is divided into a number of chapters with each chapter being quite episodic, detailing the event in a particular year of Bod's life. There's not too much connecting these - instead it's about seeing Bod grow up slowly. The final chapter itself ties some strands together and does so quite well.

The writing has a touch of gothic to it - the language is simple (in the sense that it's accessible to all ages), but there's more than a touch of darkness to it. It reminded me a little of Clive Barker's young adult book "The Thief of Always".
The characterisation is done well - it's often melancholic with the ghosts unable to move on and Bod their focus. The mysterious Silas, Bod's guardian, is interesting and I appreciated how who, or what, he was is purposely vague.

The book went up against "Anathem", which I recently read, for many awards and, although this is good, it's a little too slight for me and I personally favour Stephenson's piece. Nonetheless it's quite a beautiful little book and recommended.

[ixoy]

Finished "Stoneweilder" by Ian C. Esslemont, the second book in his Malazan Empire sequence.

This book continues on with characters established in "Return of the Crimson Guard". Like the previous book, it explores areas that are previously only been hinted at in Erikson's companion series "The Malazan Books of the Fallen". In this case it's Koleri, which has the awesome Stonewall that's featured briefly in character's pasts.

The plot is quite intricate and should only be read by those who have read the previous combined 12 books. Certain plot lines are advanced, there's some interesting revelations, and a future arc is set up.
There's some very good action scenes in this - large epic scale battles. The finale is a tad disappointing as we don't really get a good feel for the grandness of the event. It's a little muted. There's also some mean cliff hangers that will almost leave you frustrated.

The characters are quite good in this - those from the previous book have matured. There's also some interesting new ones and we're introduced to one of the best comic characters in the franchise in terms of Manask, a scene stealer. Some other long term faces re-appear as well but it's too spoiler heavy to mention who!

Esslemont's writing has definitely improved with this one. The pacing is better, although perhaps the time spent between characters is a little unbalanced. He sometimes loses focuses on character stories and they fizzle out a little. I was never bored at any point and read through the book swiftly.

If you're a fan of the Malazan world, then this is a must. There's too many revelations and developments to ignore. It's a very enjoyable experience and, some criticisms aside on the ending and some plot lines, I definitely recommend it.