What Are You Reading?

coffee_cake

read children of time and children of ruin today.

the hype was justified. what awesome reads!

your man keeps writing 'loathe' instead of 'loath' and 'compliment' instead of 'complement' though... bothered me a bit

Thargor

bluewolf wrote: »

read children of time and children of ruin today.

the hype was justified. what awesome reads!

your man keeps writing 'loathe' instead of 'loath' and 'compliment' instead of 'complement' though... bothered me a bit

Give the aforementioned Flood and Ark a go if you want something similar, great reads.

pixelburp

Picked up and read Ben Aaronovitch's second 'Rivers of London' novella, "The October Man"; most immediately notable about this latest story is that it neither features Peter Grant or is even set in London - it's set in Germany. Trier to be exact.

I was beginning to tire jusssst a little of Peter's smart-arse perspective and the London setting, so this switch up was quite enjoyable as a change of pace. The location and details seemed as authentic as in the London books (though maybe native Germans spotted obvious differences), while the lead character had a different sensibility to Grant. More world-weary than his English counterpart, while he and his partner made for a charismatic team. I'd like to read more non-English, stories set in this world.

RMDrive

bluewolf wrote: »

read children of time and children of ruin today.

the hype was justified. what awesome reads!

your man keeps writing 'loathe' instead of 'loath' and 'compliment' instead of 'complement' though... bothered me a bit

Just to be clear ... you read both in one day?

I'm listening to children on ruin on Audible after just listening to children of time. I struggle to imaging reading either in a day.

Good stuff outa you!

coffee_cake

Yeah i had the day off and hadn't read anything in ages
Finished up at midnight. Was about 9 or 10 hours of not moving a muscle. My fitbit was very sad with me

Dades

bluewolf wrote: »

Yeah i had the day off and hadn't read anything in ages

:eek:

A day off to read... I can only dream!
I'd be lucky to finish a Mister Man book in one sitting.

ixoy

bluewolf wrote: »

Yeah i had the day off and hadn't read anything in ages

Are you a speed reader? I wish I was faster because I have a insane backlog of books and the pile keeps growing.

coffee_cake

ixoy wrote: »

Are you a speed reader? I wish I was faster because I have a insane backlog of books and the pile keeps growing.

not on purpose... always been a bookworm so i suppose it might be practice. i do read faster than most. usually 100 pages an hour average. flew through those 2 though

Thargor wrote: »

Give the aforementioned Flood and Ark a go if you want something similar, great reads.

i had started "empire of black and gold" but the preview of Flood is sucking me in, so i might get that next... pity it's not on kindle unlimited!!

ixoy

Recently finished "The Collapsing Empire" by John Scalzi, the first in his Interdependency trilogy. It's a fast moving, quite funny, story about what happens when the access routes between an empire begin to collapse. A very easy entertaining read.

Now 64% into "Cage of Souls" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I'm enjoying this a lot and it's a much more personal tale (so far) than some of the larger scale work like the "Children of.." series. It's set in a prison in the future of a dying earth and it's very good so far.

Also 51% into "The Ninth Rain" by Jen Williams, the first book in her Winnowing Flame trilogy. Also good - likeable characters, decent pace and some pretty good takes on traditional tropes like elves.

ixoy

bluewolf wrote: »

read children of time and children of ruin today.

the hype was justified. what awesome reads!

He tweeted that he has an idea for a third one...

Also he's going to have one novella out next year - "Fire workers" set in Ghana in the near future where climate change was brought disaster and how it's being worked around.
More interesting again though is the sounds of his novel, "Doors of Eden", that will feature a world where an alternative path of evolution lead to trillobites evolving a lot further than they got to.

That's what he said yesterday anyway at Worldcon and confirmed to my face when I asked

Thargor

The man is a writing machine, just remembered I have Cage of Souls of his to read aswell, anyone read it?

The Sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapur, last of all cities, harbours fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilisations, surviving on the debris of its long-dead progenitors, Shadrapur is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.

Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new, is Stefan Advani, rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will treat with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

smacl

Thargor wrote: »

The man is a writing machine, just remembered I have Cage of Souls of his to read aswell, anyone read it?

Yep, highly entertaining, quite compulsive and very novel. Currently nearing the end of children of ruin which is also a solid read and have Becky Chambers new novella queued up next.

Dades

Thargor wrote: »

The man is a writing machine, just remembered I have Cage of Souls of his to read aswell, anyone read it?

Loved it.
Posted about it here.

Thargor

I was stuck for something to read so picked The Traitor Baru Cormorant at random from my backlog, I thought it was just going to be more young adult fluff about some wonderchild taking down the evil authority like the Hunger Games and a million other copycats but I am seriously hooked, its very well written not young adult at all, Ill be moving straight on to the sequel The Monster Baru Cormorant straight afterwards.

shrapnel222

Thargor wrote: »

I was stuck for something to read so picked The Traitor Baru Cormorant at random from my backlog, I thought it was just going to be more young adult fluff about some wonderchild taking down the evil authority like the Hunger Games and a million other copycats but I am seriously hooked, its very well written not young adult at all, Ill be moving straight on to the sequel The Monster Baru Cormorant straight afterwards.

I've been singing the praises of this series for a long time now. Absolutely love it and delighted someone else is finally reading and enjoying it! You're in for a treat!

Trojan

Ok so I just bought The Traitor Baru Cormorant - cheers folks.

Ave Sodalis

I wanted something light and easy to read, just as a switch off after studying. I picked up A Court of Thorns and Roses because I enjoyed her other series as a light read (and also because I was buying something off Amazon and it bumped me up over the free shipping mark, but cheaper than the shipping would have been). I opened the map, and there in front of me was Ireland. She even called it Hybern! A slightly more obscure UK was there too, but I could have picked out where I lived in Hybernia Hybern. Not sure I want to keep reading, given the complete lack of imagination in the map making.

smacl

On the phone so not sure if the link will work, but good fun trying to find your home in Gerardus Mercator's old map of the sod

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geographicus.com%2Fmm5%2Fgraphics%2F00000001%2FL%2FIreland-mercator-1606.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geographicus.com%2FP%2FAntiqueMap%2FIreland-mercator-1606&tbnid=cBxkwo7PyS5SPM&vet=1&docid=EikDeh9irdui6M&w=600&h=482&q=mercator%20map%20ireland&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim

Fian

Finished the wind-up bird chronicle (murakami) - was heavy going by the end. Sometimes it can be annoying when a book is more "worthy" than enjoyable. Took me a long time to finish it off, I just wasn't that enthused about picking it up and reading some more. Didn't have much of a "story" to it, though obviously it was not intended to.

Now on to children of earth and sky (Guy Gavriel Kay) which is much more fun.

I have children of time and children of ruin on kindle ready to go to after that, based off recommendations in this thread. so three books starting with "children" in a row are queued up.

cdgalwegian

Fian wrote: »

Now on to children of earth and sky (Guy Gavriel Kay) which is much more fun.

I have children of time and children of ruin on kindle ready to go to after that, based off recommendations in this thread.

Not into fantasy novels, but the reviews sounded intriguing, with generally excellent scores; it seems the 'fantasy' element is really just that the world created is a slightly altered and renamed version of our historical world.
Would this be about right? Because if it is I'd certainly give them a go.

Buford T. Justice XIX

cdgalwegian wrote: »

Not into fantasy novels, but the reviews sounded intriguing, with generally excellent scores; it seems the 'fantasy' element is really just that the world created is a slightly altered and renamed version of our historical world.
Would this be about right? Because if it is I'd certainly give them a go.

Yeah, Kay normally takes from historical incidents and transfers them to a fantasy world. He's very good, tbh. I particularly liked the Lions of Al-Rassan.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/104101.The_Lions_of_Al_Rassan

Igotadose

Trojan wrote: »

Ok so I just bought The Traitor Baru Cormorant - cheers folks.

Me fein. Just can't put "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" down. Fascinating ideas, well written.

Fian

cdgalwegian wrote: »

Not into fantasy novels, but the reviews sounded intriguing, with generally excellent scores; it seems the 'fantasy' element is really just that the world created is a slightly altered and renamed version of our historical world.
Would this be about right? Because if it is I'd certainly give them a go.

Yes. there is no magic (with very limited exceptions in some novels like "Tigana"), or at least none that could not be a magic trick, nothing that is not plausible in our world. But he has a series of novels set in a sort of parallel europe, like an "alternate history" historical fiction. Most of the cities are recognisable: muscav instead of moscow, Sessenia in this book I am reading is clearly venice and Dubrovnik is called dubrovna. The characters are not heroes or extraordinary warriors, they are normal people.

In fact i am puzzled why they are not just set as historical fiction in our Europe, or perhaps rather than "historical fiction" just fiction in an historical setting. I don't really see what benefit he gets from the altered version of our historical world. Not that it matters - the books are very good.

Don't be too quick to dismiss fantasy though, there are lots of other authors writing good fiction in fantastic settings nowadays that are a long way from the old cliches of mages or warriors fighting dragons and orcs to win the fair maidens. Think game of thrones rather than conan the barbarian.

Glebee

Just finished up Assassins Apprentice. Felt it just started to get going and then it just finished.... Was showing up as 80% complete on my reader and then I realised the 20% remaining was the start of the next book.

Half way through The Dark Tower:Wolves of the Calla audio book in the car. Typical dark Tower so far but am enjoying it. It sort of has a Magnificent 7 western feel to it at the moment...

Third of the way through DeadHouse Gates. Im really enjoying it so far and am amazed how quickly I got into it and got to grip with the characters. Could not really remember much from Gardens of the Moon, its been a while since I read it and after finishing I felt I would read no more of the series. Needed to google a few of them from time to time to stop getting mixed up and had a map of the continent saved to my phone to look at locations which also really help. Am really loving the desert / middle eastern location feel in the book.

shrapnel222

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

Yeah, Kay normally takes from historical incidents and transfers them to a fantasy world. He's very good, tbh. I particularly liked the Lions of Al-Rassan.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/104101.The_Lions_of_Al_Rassan

Kay is absolutely fantastic in that genre, and i absolutely love most of his books. Sadly children of earth and sky is one of his few duds imo. thought it was very poor.

kirk buttercup

shrapnel222 wrote: »

Kay is absolutely fantastic in that genre, and i absolutely love most of his books. Sadly children of earth and sky is one of his few duds imo. thought it was very poor.

a year or so ago I said I had tigana sitting beside my bed and I hadn't read it ... its still there . one of these days

shrapnel222

kirk buttercup wrote: »

a year or so ago I said I had tigana sitting beside my bed and I hadn't read it ... its still there . one of these days

Love tigana. It's a beautifully scripted one volume story. First kay book I read, and have read his entire bibliography since, many multiple times. It's not his best, but loved it!

Fian

shrapnel222 wrote: »

Kay is absolutely fantastic in that genre, and i absolutely love most of his books. Sadly children of earth and sky is one of his few duds imo. thought it was very poor.

though it is good so far imo, but tbh he is still just establishing the characters I guess. Not really gotten into the meat of it yet.

shrapnel222

Fian wrote: »

though it is good so far imo, but tbh he is still just establishing the characters I guess. Not really gotten into the meat of it yet.

It's still an enjoyable read, with some good story arcs. Overall I just found it one of his weaker efforts.

Manic Moran

Currently working my way through the Posleen war series. Good, bubble-gum SF. Awaiting my next Bolo book on Amazon.