Which book are you reading currently? #4

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I just finished Petty Pewter Gods - it was an absolute mess.

I am starting on the next book Faded Steel Heat (which is the last one that I have). If there are no signs of a return to the quality level of the earlier books then I will probably not bother looking for any further Garrett novels.

 

Well, the first Otherland book got much stronger the mid/late stages (or my mood changed)...and then fell apart at the very end. When the characters start saying stuff like, "it's the council of elrond!" and "an unlikely group of heroes bands together to save the world," and aren't kidding, it's time stop reading.

 

the train ride I have ahead of me is going to include taking a good long hard look at Jane Eyre... endeavour to catch the reins, indeed.

 

Yeah, so far Faded Steel Heat is a step up from Petty Pewter Gods but that isn't saying a heck of a lot.

Oh well, I picked up the first nine books together as a cheap package deal so I guess I will be happy with the good earlier ones and just forget about the later not so good ones.

 

Finished China Mieville's (spelling?) Perdido Street Station, and, um...

Well, I highly recommend him. He's up there with Erikson, with the caveat that he probably isn't for everyone--his imagination is a bit too bizarre for that. Take the world from the Arcanum CRPG, then remove all the dwarves, elves, dragons, and other recognizable fantasy critters. Now add in weird stuff along the lines of human females with scarabs for heads. Also add cyborgs, self-aware washing machines, science that's far different from what we know, and you'll have the very tip of the iceberg.

Sounds stupid, doesn't it? That's what I thought when a friend described it to me. Then he gave me the book and I started reading it. It's really, really good.

Currently reading Greg Keys' Charnel Prince. It's been at least six months, probably more than a year, since I read the first book in the series, and the distance is hurting me. I don't have a friggin' clue who the characters are or what the current crisis is. I think I need to stop reading (I'm about 60 pages in) and reread the Briar King first.

 

Just finished Eragon by Chris Paolini - not bad, just started The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfield

 

I finally found a copy of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents at the library! Everytime I say that title, I picture Michael Palin doing his greasy emcee impersonation.

All of the Chris Paolini (sp) books - Eragon and the sequal - have heavy waiting lists. Or I could drive to Nowhere, Labrador and check out a copy.

 

I did a review of Perdido Street Station - it's not the wackiness that's the problem, it's the total lack of making that wackiness have something to do with the plot.

The setting is very good, however.

 

Well I just finished 'Angles and Demons' and let me be the first so say that I hate Dan Brown's genius!

I couldn't put that damn book down for 2 nights in a row, and the book ends right as a sex scen is about to begin! That's the *last* place a book should end!

So now I'm deciding if I should read the 'Chronicles of Narnia' or if I should go out and buy 'Digital Fortress'. I seem to have fallen in to Dan Brown's books, and I really like the Robert Langdon character...I hope he's not only confined in 'The DaVinci Code' and 'Angles and Demons'.

 

True to a point, but only to a point; the wackiness is integral to the setting, which in turn is integral to the plot, and the wackiness is no more strange than elves and dwarves and dragons and orcs and...yeah, you get the idea...it's just that it's not the sort of wackiness we're accustomed to.

No. Don't. I don't care how much you like Dan Brown, don't read that book.

 

Er ... no, I'm not sure that you quite get what I mean...

Probably spoilers ahead:

You have the setting involving civil unrest, authoritarian governments, class divides, species discrimination, dodgy underworld sorts, funky technology, and other good, original ideas.

And then you have the plot: It's about hunting giant insects.

My problem if that it turns all that juicy setting into merely colour - nice details, but not integral to the story itself. It doesn't hit the issues that matter, which have already all been set up. Instead the characters ... go kill bugs - bleh. How dull.

 

I think you missed something important in the book. That you can boil the plot down to "hunting giant insects" and dismiss everything else outright tells me...

well, I'm damned if I know what it tells me. Point is, that's a gross oversimplification, and the elements of setting you mention all play a role in the plot. In some respects, the plot is merely a tool used to explore those ideas.

It does hit the issues that matter; an oblique approach remains an approach.

 

I do hope you'll give an explanation for your dislike for 'Digital Fortress'. From what others have said, it's just as good as the 'DaVinci Code' and 'Angels and Demons'. It can't be *that* bad.

Would you be more willing to recommend 'Deception Point'?

 

@Kitrax

I'm with Amaster. Skip Digital Fortress. 1st off, because if you've read Dan Brown's other novels already, you'll detect early on just who the villain is. Also, iirc it's hist 1st work among the 4, and it shows. It's boring. Deception Point isn't as good as the 2 Langdon novels but it is light years better than the crapola that is Digital Fortress. However, if you're intent on picking it up, go ahead. Might as well grab a copy of Elminster in Hell as well if you're into (as Tal put it) literary S&M

@Newfie

Yeah, we get lots of D&D books (which I don't read) Magic: The Gathering books (which I also don't read) and Dragonlance books (which I ALSO don't read ) but our FR selection is qctually quite limited and while Martin has become quite popular recently (I latched on to him a long time ago though thanks to you guys), the demand for Hobb is still very small and Erikson practically non-existent.

I'm now reading Blood Storm by Colin Forbes. It's okay so far. Not nearly as good as his old stuff imo, the characters seem to be acting out of character, Tweed and Newman are getting kinda annoying in this one.

 

I went to a Lifeline bookfest today and picked up a heap of second hand books cheaply ... but first, to finish Always Coming Home, which is not exactly the easiest thing to read.

And AMaster - guess it's just down to agreeing to disagree

 

The last books I read were Richard E. Leakey's and Roger Lewin's Origins and Terry Pratchett's Thud!

Origins is a rather old book concerning human evolution. Bit outdated really, but not that awful.

Thud! was, well...Terry Pratchett. I loved it. But maybe he's getting a little too repetitive.

 

Just finished "The Darkness that Comes Before" by R. Scott Bakker.

True its recommendation, this is a great book for anyone who is waiting around for the next Steven Erikson or George R. R. Martin books to come out because it is written in a similar style with events covering a wide area and no characters that are specifically "good" or "evil".

 

I'm reading The Secrets of Harry Bright by Joseph Wambaugh. His characters and writing are very entertaining.

 

Lord Of Chaos by Robert Jordan. I'm hoping to get all the way through the series so far. From what I've heard though, it might be best if I didn't