Salt-Man Z's reading journal

List of books read.

JUST FINISHED

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - Took me a little over a month, but I finally finished. I won't deny it was a struggle at times, but paradoxically, every word was enjoyable. I like how the plot threads came together at the very end. And though the abrupt ending caught me by surprise at first, in retrospect it just "feels" right. The Baroque Cycle is sitting on my shelf taunting me (I read Crypto in preparation for that trilogy) but I think I'll have to tackle some shorter/lighter fare first.

Starwater Strains by Gene Wolfe - Not every story "did it" for me, but I always got the feeling I was reading the work of a Master. Excellent collection, though it's not all sci-fi as the subtitle would indicate. There are a couple obvious fantasies, and quite a few that have an element of horror/terror—something Wolfe does extremely well. Lord of the Land is, in fact, a Lovecraft story, and my second favorite in the collection. My favorite, though, is the final tale, Golden City Far, which completely blew me away. I'm thinking I'll be rereading that story very soon.

CURRENTLY READING

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson - This is my third time through; this time I'm following along with the Tor.com reread. Not much to say other than I love this series and am looking forward to rereading Night of Knives shortly (which I've only read once so far.)

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman - I got this book through the ER program, and I'm not sure what to think of it yet. The first 1/4 was intriguing; even though I was a little iffy on the "evil Christianity" thing he had going on, it was still gripping. But then everything started to turn pretty cliche. Now at 3/4 of the way through, suddnely it's a love story, and I find myself rolling my eyes frequently. The worldbuilding also produces some definite WTF moments, as Hoffman uses plenty of real-world places and names in what is still obviously a secondary-world fantasy. And let's not forget the (thus far "evil") religion that's basically Christianity had Jesus been hanged instead of crucified. Still, it's hard to fault Hoffman too much when he makes it so hard to stop turning the pages.

Cryptonomicon has been on my TBR list for years. Even found a used copy for 50 cents. Just can't make myself pick it up yet... It's good to hear that it's worth the time and effort.

I hadn't realized that Cryptonomicon was kind of the Prequel to the Baroque Cycle so I had started with Quicksilver and have had The Confusion sitting on my shelf for over a year. I will eventually read it, the 3rd in the trilogy and then go back for Crypto.... But at the rate I'm reading them it may be quite a few years yet to complete.

Yep, Crypto was written first, but its characters are descendants of characters in the Baroque Cycle.

I didn't know that.

I've got Crypto on my Wishlist - do you think it's a book that would work on audio saltmanz?

There are a couple of humorous graphs, and a diagram/map or two that I found helpful, all interspersed throughout the text. Other than that, I don't see why not. That said, keep in mind that I've never listened to an audiobook.

I agree with what you said about Starwater Strains, esp. "Golden City Far" which I too would read again. I recommend other short story collections by Wolfe.

I got Crypto free at a library sale (it was beaten up somewhat) and it remains the longest book I've ever read. I still think Stephenson could use an editor. I'd read more if the books were shorter.

I got more than halfway through Quicksilver earlier this year and had to temporarily lay it aside because I wasn't getting on with it. I will go back and finish it because I hate leaving things unfinished but I'm disappointed because I wanted to like it so much more than I did. I get the impression that Neal Stephenson is a bit of a marmite author, and I am sadly not in the "love it" camp.

I have the 3 books of the Baroque Cycle lined up for next year. I also have Cryptonomicon sitting on the tbr shelves so should I read that one first for maximum enjoyment or leave it until after?

I would probably read Crypto first, just because that's the order they were written. Also, if you end up hating Crypto, you can save yourself the trouble of reading through a trilogy of similarly-sized books.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. The only other one of Neal Stephenson's that I've read is Snow Crash and really enjoyed that. Hopefully I'll be ok with the rest.

You know, I haven't read anything by Gene Wolfe for too long. I just added that to my wishlist, as if it needs to be longer. I need to stop reading these threads.

JUST FINISHED

The Left Hand of God - Whipped through the last 60 pages last night. I was about to write this one off as a disappointment, but then came the last handful of pages and, though they didn't exactly fulfill the promise shown early on, they got me interested in the story again. I might have to check out the sequels when they arrive. See my full review here.

Gardens of the Moon - Normally I do my Malazan reading (with the Tor.com reread) on Tuesday night in anticipation of Wednesday's discussion threads. But I had some time left after finishing the above, so I read the final chapter and epilogue of GotM. Should be some good discussion next week.

CURRENTLY READING

Starwater Strains - Reading through Golden City Far one more time. Like all of Wolfe's work, you catch a lot more the second time through.

Sweet Silver Blues by Glen Cook - I'll be starting this either tonight or tomorrow. It's part of the Garrett, P.I. series of fantasy mysteries, of which I own 8 of 13. I've been slowly collecting them, being a big Glen Cook fan. I had stated the intention of reading something lighter/shorter next, and I think this will fit the bill. I'll probably read the first four in the series, read something else, read more Garrett, and so on. I ran through the entirety of the Dresden Files in a similar fashion earlier this year. I'm actually interested in seeing how the two series compare: the Dresden books feature a wizard solving (at least initially) mysteries in real-life Chicago; the Garrett books feature a hard-boiled P.I. solving mysteries in a fantasy world.

Why did I think that Dresden was the serial killer who helped stop serial killers? I guess that is Dexter, or something? The premise of both Dresden and Garrett sounds interesting, I may have to try them out.

Having only recently started on Glen Cook's Black Company books, I've been wondering about his other series as it has made an appearance on my amazon recommends list. The Dresden books are great fun and I should be getting back to that series soon as I still have a couple of titles on my tbr shelves.

MrsLee, yes Dexter is the serial killer who goes after other serial killers. A series of books by Jeff Lindsay that has made a successful adaptation onto the small screen.

I read (and enjoyed!) all of the Black Company books a couple years back. Then I came across The Tower of Fear and was impressed enough to immediately add Cook to my buy-everything-this-guy's-ever-written list.

JUST FINISHED

Sweet Silver Blues - Finished this last night. It was pretty much what I expected: a mystery set in a fantasy world. What was unexpected was how much action and adventure there was. It was very close in feel to Cook's Black Company books, especially the earlier ones, so if you liked those you'll probably dig this. I was impressed by how many twists and subplots Cook was able to tie in here, and must admit to having a hard time keeping track of which group of goons was which and who was blackmailing whom and for which reason, et cetera; Cook is very much one of those writers who expects his readers to be able to keep up without resorting to hand-holding or spoon-feeding. And I partly blame myself and the fashion in which I read most of this book: in brief spurts, maybe 2-3 times a day (some just before falling asleep) spread out over a week. Easy to do when the chapters average 5 pages apiece, but it's one of those books that's probably better when you crank through it in just a couple of sittings. Recommended, all the same. (3.5/5 stars)

CURRENTLY READING

Cold Copper Tears by Glen Cook - The second Garrett book. Even after just the first chapter, I enjoyed the writing more than the first book's; it captures that humorous/playful "hard-boiled" narrative feel much better. Here's a quick sample, where Garrett meets with a potential client who claims to have known him when she was nine years old:

She looked like a Jill, complete with amber eyes that ought to smolder but looked out of arctic wastes instead. But she wasn't any Jill I ever knew, nine years old or not.

Any other Jill, and I would have come back with a suggestion about making up for lost time. But the cold over there was getting to me. My restraint will get me a pat on the head next time I go to confession. If I ever go. Last time was when I was about nine.

Just realized I mixed up books 2 and 3. Bitter Gold Hearts should be next. {Grumble, grumble} But I'm already 1/4 of the way through Cold Copper Tears, and from what I've heard the order doesn't particularly matter, so...

JUST FINISHED

Cold Copper Tears - Another good Garrett mystery. Accidentally read out of order (as explained above) but it didn't appear to be a problem. Trying to put a star rating on this was difficult; I'm starting to wish I had set up my system a little differently. I currently use 3 stars as a base level of "I enjoyed it" and go from there. But then I run into problems like: I gave The Left Hand of God 3.5 stars, because even though it didn't wow me, it turned out better than I expected, and overall I couldn't put it down. And I gave Gene Wolfe's Starwater Strains 4 stars because it's a great, if not brilliant, collection. The Garrett books are better than TLHoG, but they're definitely not on par with Wofle! And to complicate matters further, I've rated most of the Dresden books a 4 as well. Ah well, so far I think that the Garrett books, though technically better written than the Dresden books, aren't quite as must-read as Butcher's series. So 3.5 stars it is.

Oh, and another interesting parallel between Garrett and Dresden: Cook's Chodo Contague ("the kingpin") versus Butcher's Gentleman Johnny Marcone.

CURRENTLY READING

Bitter Gold Hearts by Glen Cook - The next* (*see previous posts) Garrett book. 20 pages read during lunch. So far, so good.

RECENT PURCHASES

Dread Brass Shadows by Glen Cook - The fifth Garrett book. I now own the first 6 in the series, and will likely read them in order before moving on to something else.

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany - This has been on my radar for a while, and I found a great new copy at Half Price Books. I hope to read this soon.

JUST FINISHED

Bitter Gold Hearts - Another solid Garrett book. This one might be the best of the first three books.

CURRENTLY READING

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany - Heard/read lots of good things about this one, and I like digging into the founders of the genre. Hard time getting through the first chapter, though.

CURRENTLY READING

The King of Elfland's Daughter - Okay, this got really good. Dunsany tells what could make an entire book in just a couple of chapters, and you would have thought the story could end there, but he doesn't stop at that. The consequences ripple out, and the story keeps going. Halfway through, I honestly have no idea where he's going to take me, and it feels fantastic. It pained me to set it aside for a night or two so I could start in on...

Night of Knives by Ian C. Esslemont - The second book for Tor.com's Malazan Reread of the Fallen. I didn't much enjoy this book the first time through, so I've been looking forward to this reread. So far, so good, but then I've always enjoyed Esslemont's prologues.

What the heck is the proper order for this series? I thought Deadhouse Gates was the second. So confusing with two authors.. Is there somewhere I can see the actual correct reading order?

24, as far as I can work out, the suggested reading order is to go by publication date with the exception of The Return of the Crimson Guard which should be read prior to Toll the Hounds.

The generally-recommended reading order is publication date, as Wolfy says: Night of Knives after Midnight Tides, Return of the Crimson Guard after Reaper's Gale, and Stonewielder after Dust of Dreams.

But for the Tor.com reread, Erikson and Esslemont actually recommended putting NoK second. It's an interesting choice, and I could see arguments go either way.

#26 Thanks for that explanation. I was scratching my head wondering why they were reading NoK next. I had missed the suggestion by Erikson and Esslemont. Interesting. I guess I'll have to follow along. Have not read anything in the series beyond GotM.

JUST FINISHED

Old Tin Sorrows - The best Garrett book so far. I think the previous ones suffered (to this reader at least) from jumping around too much; too many locations and characters popping in and out. Basically, too much stuff to keep track of. This book tried something new—well, for the Garrett books, anyway. 'Twas a classic "one dozen people stuck in a haunted mansion and one of them's the killer" story, with thievery, a slow poisoning, and a serial killer all mixed together; not to mention the ghosts and zombies. Garrett's humanity gets highlighted as well, further endearing him to readers as a very relatable protagonist. 4/5 stars.

RECENTLY PURCHASED

Swords and Dark Magic - A fantasy anthology with an A-list lineup including Gene Wolfe, Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Glen Cook with a new Black Company story, and Steven Erikson with a maybe-Malazan short. I've been looking forward to this for some time. Thank goodness for birthday money!

Lexicon Urthus - An awesome reference guide for Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. I'll be reading that series for the third time this December, and I wanted to have the Lexicon with me this time through.

JUST FINISHED

Dread Brass Shadows by Glen Cook - Garrett #5. Another solid entry in the series. The only thing that drags it down is the fact that Garrett is stuck pretty much playing catch-up the entire book. Almost every other character seems a step or two ahead of Garrett; even the reader knows where the MacGuffin is at long before Garrett finds out. Solid entertainment nonetheless.

CURRENTLY READING

Red Iron Nights by Glen Cook - Garrett #6. This one starts out fairly innocently, but quickly brings in a pretty nasty murder case. Looks like there might be some dark stuff coming up.

CURRENTLY READING

Red Iron Nights - I'll be finishing this one up today. Definitely one of Garrett's most bewildering cases!

Swords and Dark Magic - Finally got this anthology in the mail. I love the compact size of the trade paperback; it feels very nice in my hand. So far I've read:

Goats of Glory by Steven Erikson - Okay, so this is pretty obviously set in the Malazan universe, sometime after Toll the Hounds, but no other hint of where or when. Doesn't matter. It starts slowly, as five battle-weary soldiers from a decimated army ride into town, only to see the townspeople already preparing five graves. Good stuff follows, and the "twist" is nicely done, if telegraphed ahead of time. The very end was more surprising, but amusing, and realistically shows that this entire story is just an interlude.

Bloodsport by Gene Wolfe - I read a lot of reviews complaining about this story, but I loved it. Of course, I'm a big Wolfe fan. It ends fairly abruptly, yes, but that's a Wolfe trademark, and this one is more coherent than most. I found it kind of moving, actually. This one's definitely on my reread list.

Tides Elba by Glen Cook - Hooray, more Black Company stories! Except...I didn't really follow this one too well. It seems like it's pretty convoluted for a BC adventure, but then nothing much happens. It was nice to read an early BC story, though, as this one slots in somewhere between the first two books of the original trilogy.

CURRENTLY READING

Swords and Dark Magic:

Red Pearls by Michael Moorcock - I'd never read an Elric story before—heck, I'd never read anything by Moorcock before. This one was enjoyable, but nothing particularly impressive. And yet...for some reason I feel like I want to read more about this character that I found completely uncompelling. Might have something to do with seeing The Dreamthief's Daughter on the shelf at Half Price Books and being intrigued...

The Singing Spear by James Enge - Short and fairly humorous. I hear there are more Morlock Ambrosius stories; I might have to look into those.

CURRENTLY READING

Heroes Die by Matthew Stover - A couple people on the Malazan forums were soliciting recommendations to read this book, and having read this book twice and loved it I had to give mine. I punctuated it with a quote that I looked up on Google Books, but then got to reading more... So yeah, now I'm rereading the Acts of Caine. Hopefully I can get them all in before my annual Book of the New Sun starts up in December.

CURRENTLY READING

Heroes Die - Unless something unexpected comes up, I'll be finishing this tonight. It's not that I actually forgot how flipping awesome this book is, but dang--! I loved catching the early references to Purthin Khlaylock that I'd forgotten by the time I read Caine Black Knife two years ago. I just love how Caine/Hari's backstory is so tight even though the three books of the series have been spread out over ten years.

Your reading journal is having a nasty effect on my wishlist. It keeps growing every time I take a look here. I already had the anthology listed but Heroes Die has now been added also.

Mission accomplished, I'd say. :)

Stover's work certainly deserves to be more widely read. I seldom find anyone who's read his fantasy - which is just as good.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Heroes Die - Yeah, I finished this two days ago, but I still had to post about how awesome it is. If there was one book that I could erase from my memory just so I could read it again and re-discover how awesome it is, it'd be this book. How everything comes together and pulls out in the end is just incredible. As Janny said above, Stover is criminally underread.

CURRENTLY READING

Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Stover - The sequel. I absolutely love "Chapter Zero" detailing Hari's early adventures in the Studio school. Well, okay, I love the whole thing. Great stuff.

JUST FINISHED

Night of Knives - This was much better the second time through, especially with the discussion going on at Tor.com. It's still easily the weakest book in the entire Malazan series, though. I bumped my rating from 2.5 stars up to 3, but I just can't bring myself to go 3.5. I still find the epilogue (by which I mean, the last few pages) to be oddly moving; I read that part probably half a dozen times just this time through.

JUST FINISHED

Blade of Tyshalle - I was sick earlier this week, so reading was a bit of a chore at times, especially in the 250-or-so-page stretch of this book where all of the protagonists lose everything. It's one of the most depressing stretches of any book I've read. Of course, the rest of the book makes up for it. And this being my third read, I was even able to make sense of a couple of parts that had always eluded my grasp before. I still can't decided if this or Heroes Die is the better book, though. But this is much more powerful in its way.

CURRENTLY READING

Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover - The third book in the Acts of Caine. I've only read this one once before, and even then it had been a whole year after the other books. It's nice reading them straight through like this.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Caine Black Knife - Fantastic, of course. I think I recall liking the "Then" portions of the book better the first time through, whereas this time I looked forward to the "Now" portions more. It was still a confusing book, because it's such a tight first-person narrative that you don't really know what's going on in the background until Caine explicitly lays it out. So I can't justify bumping my rating up from the current 4.5 stars. But it's still an awesome book, and I'm even more impatient for His Father's Fist to be published next year.

CURRENTLY READING

Swords and Dark Magic - Still working through this. Brief thoughts on the stories:

In the Stacks by Scott Lynch - A fun story, with a satisfying if abrupt twist at the end. Thought maybe he'd do more than just the vocabuvores, but they were amusing enough. Probably my favorite story in the collection not written by Wolfe or Erikson.

Thieves of Daring by Bill Willingham - Enjoyable, but literally forgettable.

The Fool Jobs by Joe Abercrombie - A fun romp; reminded me a lot of Erikson's piece (that one opened the anthology; this one closes it.) I might have to look into more of Abercrombie's work.

The Undefiled by Greg Keyes - Okay, but a little obtuse.

A Wizard in Wiscezan by C. J. Cherryh - This was a fun story about a wizard-in-training during a medieval coup. I kept reading "Wiscezan" as a bastardization of "Wisconsin", though.

A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet by Garth Nix - Eh. Enjoyable enough, but unsatisfying. Oddly enough, the title is perfectly fitting.

A Rich Full Week by K. J. Parker - I really liked this one, about a kind of travelling country-doctor style wizard. There's a little more going on than I think I was able to catch the first time; this one probably deserves additional readings.

The Sea Troll's Daughter by Caitlin R. Kiernan - Started off promising enough, but turned into a lesbian love story or something? I'm not sure I get the point of this one.

Joe Abercrombie is definitely someone you will enjoy reading. He's located at the darker end of the Fantasy spectrum which should be right up your alley. So far he's released The First Law trilogy, beginning with The Blade Itself, and a follow-on story set within the same universe which features some of the minor characters of the trilogy. Another of these is planned for release early next year entitled The Heroes.

Hope you enjoy your re-read of New Sun. It's one of my all-time favorites. I just finished Wolfe's The Sorcerer's House and recommend it highly. As you said, many of his works are even better on subsequent reads.

I picked up a copy of Cook at TriNocCon a couple of years ago and haven't managed to get to it... thanks for the nudge, and for the others you've mentioned.

CURRENTLY READING

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson - My third time through, for Tor.com's "Malazan Reread of the Fallen". Just read the prologue, and man, I love Erikson's prose; there's just a gravitas, a realness there that few authors are able to capture. Oh, and Baudin reminds me a bit of Stover's Caine.

I'm also currently reading Deadhouse Gates. First time for me. And it is... tough going. So unremittingly grim. Still, I'll finish it, just slowly.

Yeah, DG is pretty grim. (Come to think of it, so is MoI, RG, TtH, DoD...) There are some pretty fanastic moments in that book though, that make it my favorite of the series.

CURRENTLY READING

Swords and Dark Magic:

The Deification of Dal Bamore by Tim Lebbon - An intriguing story. Not necessarily memorable, but enjoyable at the time. That seems to be the story for most of this collection.

Dark Times at the Midnight Market by Robert Silverberg - This one was fun. I was not expecting it to go where it did.

Hew the Tintmaster by Michael Shea - I gotta say, I enjoyed this Cugel the Clever story more than any of Jack Vance's Cugel tales.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Swords and Dark Magic - Overall, an above-average collection. Most of the stories were enjoyable, if not particularly memorable. I'd put Wolfe's and Erikson's stories at the top, with Lynch, Abercrombie, Enge, Cherryh, Parker, and maybe Moorcock rounding out my favorites.

Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe by Tanith Lee - Another strong story despite the jokesy title. It would have been nice, though, to get some hint as to why the two protagonists were near-twins. I found it amusing that everyone called the titular "war-robe" by a different name.

CURRENTLY READING

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe - For my annual Book of the New Sun reread. Man, I love this book.

I've just joined up with Amanda Rutter's Speculative Fiction Challenge 2011 over at her Floor-to-Ceiling Books blog. The challenge is to read 12 sci-fi/fantasy books next year; not a problem for me, but it'll force me to do some reviewing. And I've posted my reading list over at my blog, comprising 22 books (in 15 volumes) that I've had sitting around for a while and want to make sure I get read this coming year. I've also tagged the books in my catalog under "SF Challenge 2011".

JUST FINISHED

The Shadow of the Torturer - It took a little longer this time, but that's only because I just bought Super Mario 64 for the Wii. :) Anyway, this might be my favorite of the four BotNS volumes; I love the first hundred pages or so with Severian in the Citadel. And reading it knowing revelations from the latter three books gives it this magical quality unlike anything else I've read.

CURRENTLY READING

The Claw of the Conciliator - Moving on to book two now (real easy when you're reading the omnibus edition!) I did, however, just receive my latest ER book (Orson Scott Card's The Lost Gate) so I'll have to read that at some point. I figure I'll finish Claw and then see if I can put down TBotNS long enough to read something else.

CURRENTLY READING

The Claw of the Conciliator - I recently got to one of my favorite parts of the series: where Jonas' true nature is revealed just before he disappears. It's a very "wow" moment, highly memorable. Quickly followed by another great section, with Severian meeting the curator again and recognizing the Autarch. Unfortunately, what follows is probably the most difficult section of the entire series, which is Dr. Talos' play: 20 pages (in my book club omnibus edition) of almost indecipherable craziness. Fortunately, before I was forced to dive into that last night, it occurred to me that I needed to get up to speed for this week's Malazan reread discussion...

Deadhouse Gates - I think what I'm going to do here is make note of things that jumped out at me during the reread, that I can share during the discussion on Tor.com. Here are my notes for Chapter Two:

Talk about prophecy! "Two fountains of raging blood! Face to face. The blood is the same, the two are the same and salty waves shall wash the shores of Raraku. The Holy Desert remembers its past!" Wow. Total foreshadowing of the end of House of Chains. The italics are mine, highlighting the words that describe the climactic showdown in HoC, to go into which would intrude upon major spoiler territory. My mind is blown.

I love the history revealed between Bult, Duiker, and Dujek. And I loved Coltaine consoling Bult about his single wife. I picture him struggling to keep a straight face as he does so.

Ah, the description of Sormo E'nath's death and reincarnation. More "pay attention" material.

There seems to be an error in the passage where Mallick Rel gives Pormqual's orders to Coltaine. He refers to Coltaine as "High Fist" throughout, but I'm pretty sure he's only a "Fist" and I don't think he's ever referred to as a High Fist by anyone else.

More on Laseen's purge of the "Old Guard" along with a bunch of names: Toc the Elder, Ameron, Cartheron Crust, Urko... file those away for later.

When Fiddler meets with the Tano Spiritwalker, we get another fun hint about the origins of the Bridgeburners, and Kalam's and Quick Ben's history with them. Contrast this with a similar story that was briefly mentioned in GotM.

Kimloc puts his hand on Fiddler's shoulder when he says goodbye. Such a subtle gesture, and yet the ramifications...

And again we get another glimpse at the Malazan conquest of Seven Cities, this time with a mention of the T'lan Imass. I'm just constantly wowed by how tight and developed the history is.

Kalam's line about the bluetongue plague is hilarious!

Earlier in the book, and even this chapter, they were called the "Red Swords". But as of Kalam's scene with Mebra, they're the "Red Blades" and for the rest of the series will be exclusively referred to as such. I can only assume that's some sort of editorial oversight.

Only our second scene with Mappo and Icarium, and already we get to see Icarium fly into "rage mode".

Oh, and a shoutout to Nemil! Wow.

I finished Deadhouse Gates (first read) a few weeks ago. Thanks for this as it is helping me as you go along.

No idea when I'll get to the next book though. I might, as I did with Deadhouse, toss in my plans and just move it up though.

fwiw, Salt-Man, I love the play. It contains clues that help us interpret the big picture.

Also, I feel like The Urth of the New Sun should help in deciphering the play, but whereas I've read TBotNS twice previously, I've only read Urth once. (I'll be reading it again this time through, though.)

you passed!

Sorry about that, maj. It did take a while, but I have finally passed my "test". :) I wrote a PHP script that pulls my posts from this topic and puts them in an RSS feed (available here) which then posts to my (homepage). Pretty slick, I think.

Anyway...

CURRENTLY READING

Deadhouse Gates - Just a couple of notes for Chapter Three:

As Felisin plots revenge against her sister, she thinks One day, face to face, sister. Compare with the prophecy given just last chapter (and quoted in my previous entry). Wow. I am humbled by Erikson's genius.

It's good to see that it's not just a lot of readers that have a problem with Kalam's plan to deliver the Book of Dryjhna and incite the Seven Cities uprising; in fact, it's a point of falling out between Kalam and Fiddler (and Crokus too, perhaps). It does make sense that Kalam likes the plan, seeing as how he's a 7C native and currently has a hate-on for the Empire/Empress. But it's moving to see how Fid feels betrayed by the move, and it sets up motivation for the role he'll take in HoC and beyond.

RECENTLY FINISHED

The Claw of the Conciliator - The first time I read it, the end of this book completely threw me. Now I love it. I'm going to use this space to give my interpretation of what happened. (If you don't want to read spoilers, I'd recommend skipping ahead to the "Currently Reading" section.)

When I rose again, I seemed to have lost sight of Apu-Punchau among the leaping, shrieking dancers. Instead there were two Hildegrins, one who grappled with me, one who fought something invisible. Wildly, I threw off the first and tried to come to the aid of the second.

What is happening here is that Apu-Punchau is being either annihilated by or absorbed into Severian (because, as we find out later, they are in fact the same person.) As this happens, Severian's POV begins to overlap with Apu-Punchau's; there is only one Hildegrin, but Severian sees him from two perspectives: first from the POV of Apu-Punchau (with whom Hildegrin is fighting) and secondly from Severian's own. Apu-Punchau appears "invisible" either because he is being absorbed into Severian, or simply because Severian cannot see himself (Apu-Punchau) from an outside perspective (just as you or I are unable to see ourselves without the aid of a mirror or recording device.) LATER EDIT: Thinking about it more, I think the latter is the best explanation; then when Severian rushes to assist Hildegrin #2, he gets too close to Apu-Punchau, resulting in Apu-Punchau's (and consequently Hildegrin's) annihilation.

CURRENTLY READING

The Sword of the Lictor - I wanted to dive into The Lost Gate for the ER program, but I couldn't make myself do it. So onward to book three! When I first read this two years ago, I was excited to recognize the Shaft of the Donjon in Stover's Heroes Die (and the method by which Caine escapes through it) as being a direct homage to the Vincula in Sword.

Ah...where to start?

RECENTLY FINISHED

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I got a big Barnes & Noble edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes from my in-laws for Christmas, and having neglected to bring my book down, and having nothing else to read, I dipped into this. Very good, though the whole Mormon angle came out of left field. (Very well-written, though.)

CURRENTLY READING

The Sword of the Lictor - Between the holidays and this book just seeming to bog down, it's been very slow going. I'm {gasp!} starting to get bored with the BotNS, and it makes me sad. I'm deciding that I like the first two books best, followed by the very end of the sequence, but much of books three and four I find fairly dull. (Good, but dull.) High points in book three include: Thrax, the encounter with the alzabo (though that lost much of its edge this time around) and Typhon. I could care less about the magicians or anything around Lake Diaturna. Pretty sure I'll be pausing after this book to finally read my review copy of The Lost Gate.

The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The second Sherlock Holmes story. I started this when I began to get bored with the BotNS. I haven't read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories before this past week (though I read Conan Doyle's Tales of Unease earlier this fall), but they're good so far.

JUST FINISHED

The Sign of the Four - Again the story ends with an extended account of events given by the perpetrator. I'm not sure I like the effect, and it looks like the shorter stories will avoid it, which is good. Conan Doyle's writing is still topnotch, though, and it actually makes me want to pick up his Tales of Unease again.

A Scandal in Bohemia by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Ah, this is more like it! Short and to the point, and it was great to see Holmes get his comeuppance this time. Looking forward to the other shorter stories.

CURRENTLY READING

The Sword of the Lictor - Oddly enough, even though in the previous post I air my reluctance to pick up this book, when I do finally sit down to read it I'm still captivated. Wolfe's prose is stunning, and even the parts I will later declare as dull fly by as I read. I swear the man is some sort of magician. Here are a couple of passages that recently jumped out at me:

I have never had much need for companionship, unless it was the companionship of someone I could call a friend. Certainly I have seldom wished the conversation of strangers or the sight of strange faces. I believe rather that when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuality; to the thrush and the rabbit I had been not Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular person again, and so I sought the mirror of other persons, which would show me that I was not as they were. (TBotNS, p.649, SFBC ed.)

As I stared into the fire, it seemed more possible than I would have liked to believe that someday, perhaps after a blow on the head, perhaps for no discernable cause, my imagination and my reason might reverse their places—just as two friends who come every day to the same seats in some public garden might at last decide for novelty's sake to exchange them. (TBotNS, p.652, SFBC ed.)

CURRENTLY READING

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card - I finally started in on this, my November Early Reviewers win, last night, and read through the first chapter. It's still obviously "late Card", but it's better than some of the stuff he's written since the turn of the century. It's hooked me in nicely, at least, and now I really want to read his related stories "Sandmagic" (which I've read once before, but remember nothing about) and Stonefather (which I've yet to get my hands on.)

CURRENTLY READING

The Lost Gate - Okay, I'm really digging this book now. I don't love it; it's nowhere near the quality of Card's work in the 70s/80s (which I've now officially given up hope of him ever recapturing) and I still find myself cringing at the occasional line of dialogue. BUT, I did stay up last night reading three chapters instead of the mere one I intended. The plot's moving along nicely, if not necessarily quickly, and the pages are just flying by. I predict a solid 3.5-star rating by the time I'm finished.

CURRENTLY READING

Deadhouse Gates - Just a couple of notes for Chapter Eight:

This is my third time through this book, but only the first time that the following passage has jumped out at me. Why? Because this is the first time I've read DG since reading Reaper's Gale. I was not expecting this:

Meanas was a remote warren, and every fellow practitioner Kulp had met characterized it the same way: cool, detached, amused intelligence. ... Accessing the warren always had the feel of interrupting a power busy with other things. ... Kulp did not trust his warren's uncharacteristic attentiveness. It wanted to join the game. He knew he was falling into the trap of thinking of Meanas as an entity, a faceless god... Warrens were not like that.

One of the greatest threads running through the Malazan books is the story of the Silanda, and here we get our first glimpse. I'm once again amazed at the clues given beforehand about who attacked the Tiste Edur: a spear that's Barghast, but looks "too big", and the "breath of Otataral" in the cabin...

I had forgotten just how hilarious Stormy and Gesler are, how well-written their dialogue.

"'Cultured conversation has been rediscovered and used with guile and grace. Look upon them, Iskaral Pust, they are won over one and all.'" LOL

I enjoyed (is that the right word?) Deadhouse Gates. It was my first time through it.

And yes, some of the dialog with humor i impossible situations is wonderful.

I don't really understand the Warrens and have no idea how the Silanda fits in, but I will keep reading to find out!

JUST FINISHED

The Lost Gate - Not Card's best book, but an enjoyable one, and certainly his best book in a while. A promising start to a new series. Full review here.

CURRENTLY READING

The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe - Back to my Book of the New Sun reread. I've already skipped ahead to read "Foila's Story: The Armiger's Daughter"; I love that one.

CURRENTLY READING

Deadhouse Gates - Notes for Chapters Ten and Eleven:

In Chapter Ten we get to see how magic in the Malazan world is far more than just Warrens. Unlike most fantasy worlds where there's one, maybe two, magic systems, the Malazan world is just crawling with them. As we'll find, the human-accessible Warrens are merely the newest system.

And hey, is that the same Cuttle we get to know in later books?

In Chapter Eleven, Kulp remarks that Osric was rumoured to have "journeyed to a continent far to the south a century or so back." Which totally jives with Return of the Crimson Guard. Neat.

When I first read Night of Knives, I figured the "Shadow Moon" was just something Esslemont made up for that book. But here it is mentioned in DG four years before NoK saw publication. (And according to Google Books, this is the only place Erikson ever mentions it.)

Hm. Are the "unwelcome intruders" in the Imperial Warren who I think they are? (Who we first get a glimpse of The Bonehunters?)

JUST FINISHED

The Citadel of the Autarch - I don't know why, but I tear up an awful lot throughout the final chapter. (And it's only 3 pages!) Something about the writing; the finality of it, the tying back to earlier threads and mysteries. Heck, the final line of the book (in Wolfe's "translator's" appendix) totally gets me, as it echoes the first line of the first book. This is just all around amazing stuff. Review here.

CURRENTLY READING

Stonewielder by Ian C. Esslemont - A little over a third of the way through, and it's sooooo good. It seems to work (so far) fairly well as a standalone novel; an all-new continent (Korel/Fist) with mostly all-new characters, another wrinkle in the magic system. Only a couple of recurring faces from Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard, and what looks to be the integration of one of Erikson's dangling plotlines. The history of the Malazan Empire pushes forward, and we get some good glimpses backward, as well as some tantalizing hints of things to come (Assail!) Things are really starting to pick up and I'm absolutely loving it.

Sigh. I'm confused again in what order one should read the damn things. I've read Gardens of the Moon then Night of Knives and Deadhouse Gates I THINK Memories of Ice is next, but who knows?

Where's the (latest) definitive reading order of these bloody things, do you know?

Maj, the "definitive" order is publication order, which you can see here. (The Tor.com reread order is based on direct input from the authors; the positioning of NoK is questionable, but whether you read RotCG before or after RG makes, I think, little difference.)

CURRENTLY READING

Stonewielder - It's weird going back and forth between this and Erikson's Deadhouse Gates throughout the week. Both great books, but the styles are just so different. Where Erikson imbues his writing with subtext, with subtlety and depth—basically a very "literary" quality—Esslemont eschews all of that and just gets right down to the proverbial brass tacks. I feel right at home when I slip back into DG, but when I go in the opposite direction it takes me a little bit to get my bearings, so to speak.

Also: Manask is awesome.

CURRENTLY READING

Stonewielder - I've noticed a fair amount of sexism in this book. Not that there's a lot, but as it's almost entirely absent in the Malazan books, it's presence here (in the remarks of a handful of male characters) struck me as odd. And then I realized why. The gender equality in these books has always been a function of the magic system; there is no inequality in a society where a female mage can fry your brains just as well as a male one. But on the continent of Fist (where Stonewielder takes place), where the warrens and other systems of magic have been, shall we say, repressed...

Man these guys (Esslemont and Erikson) are good.

JUST FINISHED

Stonewielder - Whew! It was good, but I've noticed a quirk of Esslemont's writing that's starting to get to me: he doesn't like to explain anything. Erikson gives you some dots to connect, and every now and then he draws a line between some of them for you. Esslemont gives you a couple of dots and leaves it at that. Like I said, it was a good book, and it was awesome really seeing the continent of Fist for the first time, but the ending seemed rather arbitrary and contrived to me, and the lack of any real explanation for anything was mildly frustrating. Still, 4 out of 5 stars.

CURRENTLY READING

Old Man's War by John Scalzi - Time for some good old-fashioned science fiction. I tore through the first three chapters last night. So far this is a hard book to put down!

I'll look forward to your comments on Old Man's War as it still resides on my tbr shelves. Been meaning to get to it for a while now.

My review for Stonewielder is up. I should have one for Old Man's War up this weekend if my current reading pace holds.

I'm confused. There are two authors for the Malazan series? Did one author start it and the other continued it?

sandragon: Erikson and Esslemont created the Malazan world together in the 70s-80s and decided they'd write a bunch of novels about it. Erikson got published first, with his 10-book Malazan Book of the Fallen series (now complete). Esslemont came on the scene later with his own Novels of the Malazan Empire sequence. Esslemont still has a couple of books left in his series, while Erikson is writing at least two more trilogies set in the same world, and apparently they're also co-authoring an upcoming Malazan novel as well.

Esslemont's books are not required in order to enjoy Erikson's, but it does make for a "fuller" experience. In general, to get the most out of the two series, it's recommended that you read the books in publication order.

Thank you for the explanation, saltman. The series sounds complex and interesting but too large for something new I want to commit to right now. On the other hand, I read through your journal again and Swords and Dark Magic sounds like the perfect book to introduce me to some of the authors you've mentioned here.

You can always just read the 10-book MBotF; no other books are necessary to enjoy it. And in fact, the first 5 books can roughly stand on their own as well.

But yeah, Swords and Dark Magic makes for a very nice fantasy author sampler, keeping in mind that it's not each author's best work.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Old Man's War - Tore through this in just a few days; definitely falls into that rare "can't put it down" category. Not as mind-blowing as I thought it would be, but really good nonetheless. And surprisingly touching.

CURRENTLY READING

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi - About a third of the way through now. I miss the first-person narrative of John Perry, and so far not much has happened. But it's good, and I like the narrative trick Scalzi pulled with Cainen in the first chapter.

I enjoyed those first two of Scalzi's books as well. In each, he introduces something toward the end that is the obvious setup for the next volume. I've had too many other things to read to get to the next one. I agree about missing Perry in the second one.

Okay, so a lot can happen in a week when a series is this hard to put down. Sorry about that.

RECENTLY REVIEWED

Old Man's War - Review here. 4/5 stars.

The Ghost Brigades - Another great read, if not quite as fresh as the first book. I missed Perry, but on reflection I think Jared Dirac might have ended up the stronger character. Review here. 4/5 stars.

RECENTLY FINISHED

The Last Colony by John Scalzi - John Perry's return wasn't anything like I expected. If I was a little let down by this book, it was only by the slimmest of margins. Review forthcoming. 4/5 stars.

CURRENTLY READING

Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi - It's turning out to be fun seeing The Last Colony from a different perspective. Seems like this should be a more successful attempt to do what OSC did with Ender's Shadow, given the first-person perspective that Scalzi employs.

CURRENTLY READING

Deadhouse Gates - In preparation for the discussion post each Wednesday, I try reading one chapter on Monday, and another on Tuesday. But for the past month or so, each week I've been whipping through both chapters on Monday. Then I skip ahead to the end of Chapter 21 and the tears start flowing. Then I skip to the Epilogue, and when I finish with that I'm practically bawling.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Zoe's Tale - It was good, and Scalzi pulled of the teenage-girl POV well. A nice companion to The Last Colony. Review here.

JUST FINISHED

Peace by Gene Wolfe - It was enjoyable (4 out of 5 stars' worth of enjoyable) but I can't say that I "get" it. I was fully expecting the last page or two to change the way I looked at the entire story, but that wasn't the case at all. And yes, I've checked out some of the interpretations online, but I have to say it's all way too obtuse for me.

CURRENTLY READING

The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Looks like The Crippled God won't be here until Monday (even though it's been in the Cities for a whole day now, according to the tracking site) so I'll be reading some more Sherlock Holmes stuff the next couple of nights.

CURRENTLY READING

The Complete Sherlock Holmes:

A Case of Identity - I felt pretty good about this, as I had it figured out before Holmes did—or, rather, before Holmes explained it to everyone else.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery - This was a decent story, but at its heart it seems to be almost exactly the same as the previous tale (though with more murderin'.)

The Five Orange Pips - Nice to see that Holmes doesn't know everything. A bit of an ego-booster to the U.S. reader, who will know the significance of "K.K.K." and which state the Lone Star refers to.

CURRENTLY READING

The Crippled God by Steven Erikson - Last week I got my hands on this, the tenth and final installment of the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Lots of good stuff, and crazy revelations. More background on the Tiste races, the Eleint, the relationship between Dassem Ultor and the T'lan Imass (!) and an absurd amount of callbacks to earlier books in the series. Much like Dust of Dreams, the pace moves fairly slowly, which is more or less fitting for two volumes that depict a slow march across an entire continent. Just reaching the halfway point now.

JUST FINISHED

The Crippled God - I just finished this today, and...wow. I'm still digesting it, I suppose, and I'm not entirely sure what to think. So much gets tied up at the end, but so much goes by unresolved/unexplained. My expectations were both exceeding and subverted, somehow. There's just SO MUCH to absorb. Beyond that, I've spent 5 years with this series, and now it's over, and it's just a bizarre feeling. Almost an empty one. I don't really know what to say at this point. 4 out of 5 stars for now, we'll see if that gets bumped up when I'm through sorting out my feelings.

CURRENTLY READING

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss - I actually just did a quick reread of the previous book, The Name of the Wind, before starting this. I loved that book, and this book so far (a third of the way in) is more of the same. ...Which is kind of disappointing, really. Worry about tuition. Work in the Fishery. Pine about Denna. Fight with Ambrose. Much as I love all that, this book/series really needs to shift away from Imre and the University and it needs to do so sooner rather than later.

I know the feeling about finishing a long series to which you've devoted a lot of attention. I had that experience when I finished Citadel of the Autarch, and then again after Urth of the New Sun. Do you have any sense yet of whether the Eriksons will reward re-reading? That's one thing I really like in a book or a series.

Jim, yes, the Malazan books are very much a high-reward reread. Myself, I've read the first 6 books twice and following along with the Tor.com reread means going back for a third time. Like Wolfe, Erikson sets up a lot of stuff beforehand; stuff that, the first time you read about it, has no significance, but once it gains significance, you've completely forgotten that you've already read about. You pick up a lot more that second time through, as your knowledge of not only the overall plot, but of the world and its history have grown considerably.

CURRENTLY READING

The Wise Man's Fear - Just as I said! I start reading again and Kvothe leaves the University. Serious adventure times commence. Great stuff.

JUST FINISHED

The Wise Man's Fear - I just finished this one last night. Excellent, if not quite at the level of the first book. My main complaint would still be that the first third is just too much more of the same University goings-on as TNotW. Once he moved away from that, I really got into it.

Bast is really turning out to be one of the most intriguing characters in the series.

#90 I'm not at all impressed with Kvothe, but I do like Bast so I'll read The Wise Man's Fear for him.

Why do touchstones not load for me, whine...

CURRENTLY READING

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson - The third Malazan book, reading for the Tor.com reread. Here are my notes for Chapter Two:

After The Crippled God, I had half-convinced myself that the artist Munug was in fact the Crippled God's avatar. So I was a little bummed to see that they meet face-to-face here.

And speaking of which, remember in Disney's Aladdin when Jafar dresses up as a beggar to trick Aladdin? Yep, that's how I've always pictured the Crippled God. :)

And on that topic, I know that the chick with the sword on the Tor cover by Todd Lockwood is supposed to be Stonny Menackis, but I always picture her as Picker.

And speaking of Picker, do those arm torcs ever play a significant role? I forget. I know they get a brief mention in TCG, but I don't think they actually ever did anything.

Ganoes Paran is fretting so much over the Hound's blood in him, it makes you think there's some big change coming. And there is, but it's not what you'd expect. This amuses me.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Dissolution by C. J. Sansom - I unexpectedly got this book from a friend for World Book Night 2011. It's a murder mystery set at a monastary set in the 1500s. Great book; good mystery, but I found the setting even more intriguing.

CURRENTLY READING

The Princess Bride by William Goldman - I didn't mean to start rereading this; I recently bought a copy, and picked it up to read the 30th and 25th anniversary introductions, which I hadn't read before, and found myself just continuing on. I think I almost enjoy Goldman's interjections even more than the story (which is good, too.)

I really do need to read Princess' Bride one of these days. I've seen the film even. I've skimmed it in bookshops numerous times, but always persueded myself to buy something else. I think it's the cutesy interjections that put me off. Do they continue all the way through the book?

The interjections are probably less frequent than you'd think, and there are long stretches of story that go uninterrupted. But the book starts with basically an entire 30 pages or so of Goldman talking about how he loved the book as a kid and went about tracking it down and then doing the abridgement; and if you make sure to read all of that first (and better yet, read the 30th and 25th anniversary introductions beforehand) it sets up the "real world" narrative quite well, I think, to the point where it just becomes another piece of the story. Even if that doesn't work for you personally, it's very interesting if you're familiar with the movie; the book was written 17 years prior, and it's fun to see the differences between book and film, and how Goldman was able to adapt his book for the screen while still keeping the same feel with the secondary "interrupting" narrative.

JUST FINISHED

Iron Dawn by Matthew Stover - It was good, not great. Definitely worth checking out for a Stover fan; this is obviously the guy who would go on to write Heroes Die. Iron Dawn is part of a duology set in the Mediterranean back in the Bronze Age, featuring a trio of mercenaries: Barra (the main character), a Pictish "princess", Leucas, an Athenian warrior, and Kheperu, a slimy Egyptian alchemist/sorceror. I found the book a little slow-moving at times, and Stover overuses the device where he starts off a chapter a ways out from the end of the previous chapter, then goes into flashback mode to fill gap before continuing on from the "present"—but the action is rocking, the setting is unique, and the characters are fantastic.

CURRENTLY READING

Jericho Moon by Matthew Stover - I had a little bit of trepidation going into this one; I know that Barra and company end up going up against the Israelites and their god, Yahweh. As a Christian, I'm not sure I'm going to be thrilled with the result. But so far, I like Stover's portrayal of Joshua; and if his take on Yahweh makes me a little uncomfortable, it's only because it's pretty accurate to the Old Testament.

Catching up a bit here:

FINISHED

Iron Dawn/Jericho Moon - reviews up here. 3.5 stars

Embassytown by China Miéville - Awesome book. Best of the year (for me) so far. Review here. 4.5 stars

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding - A lot of fun, this book. Great characters that I fell in love with. 4 stars

CURRENTLY READING

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan - A quarter of the way through and, um...I think I'm not the target audience for this one. I kind of hate it so far. It reads quickly, at least. We'll see if it improves at all, but I'm not holding my breath.

FINISHED

Glow - Took a bizarre direction at the end, but it has me somewhat intrigued how it will play out. 2.5 stars.

Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe - Enjoyable, with a completely-out-of-left-field twist at the end that, while cool, seemed rather out of place given the rest of the book. 3.5 stars.

CURRENTLY READING

The Breach by Patrick Lee - Nothing special so far, but I'm just looking for a quick sci-fi-y thriller. The opening bits put me in mind of Crichton's Sphere.

FINISHED

The Breach - This was pretty awesome. Not great literature by any means, just a taut sci-fi thriller. It took a little while to suspend my disbelief, but by the end everything was made to be (mostly) convincing enough. (4 stars)

Ghost Country by Patrick Lee - Not quite up to the bar set by The Breach, but a great sci-fi thriller regardless. Lee's definitely set up a strong series premise here, with each book based around a single "entity" while continuing the underlying arc of Travis Chase's mysterious future. Looking forward to the next installment. (3.5 stars)

CURRENTLY READING

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall - I'd heard good things about this one a while back over at the Malazan forums. It never made Wishlist status, but when I saw it on the clearance rack at Half Price Books (for $2) I couldn't pass it up. And I had nothing else to read at lunch, so I started in. Great start, looks promising.

I enjoyed The Raw Shark Texts when I read it a couple of years ago. It's certainly different to pretty much everything else I was reading at the time (or since for that matter) and it's a hard one to recommend. I'm sure you'll see why when you read some more. There were rumours of a film adaptation but I can't see how they could accomplish on the screen what this book does on the page and in your mind.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the rest of it.

FINISHED

The Raw Shark Texts - Awesome. It honestly didn't get as weird as I was expecting (though it was plenty weird, don't get me wrong) and in fact I thought the last third or so was downright straightforward. That said, on the last page he throws a very Gene Wolfeian ending at you that makes you potentially rethink everything you just read. Actually, the whole thing reads almost like if Gene Wolfe tried to write a Hollywood script. Great book.

CURRENTLY READING

The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison - It's taking me a while to get into this one, especially with Eddison's overly-old-fashioned prose. But I recently got through the wrastling match, and am starting to enjoy it a little more.

Glad you enjoyed The Raw Shark Texts. It's a bit different but I thought it was really well handled. Still awaiting a 2nd novel from Steven Hall though.

JUST FINISHED

Greed by L. Ron Hubbard - Picked up via LT Early Reviewers. I've never read L. Ron Hubbard before, but kinda wanted to, but these three stories weren't that great. Full review here.

CURRENTLY READING

The Worm Ouroboros - Slow going. Juss and co. climbing through the mountains dragged on quite a bit, and then the political intrigue in Carcë had me bored. But it's picking up again, I think. It's good, and I'm glad to be reading it. But it's hard work.

FINISHED

Storeys from the Old Hotel by Gene Wolfe - Great short story collection. "The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton" is probably my favorite.

Blood Follows by Steven Erikson - I finally picked up the omnibus edition of these novellas from the library, and was mildly disappointed with the first story. Nothing much happens, and the solution to the "mystery" is aleady known to any reader familiar with the characters of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach. Also, I'm not sure why there were so many players involved when nothing came of it at the end. Still, entertaining and very well-written. Also, it doesn't gel with Stonewielder at all, does it?

CURRENTLY READING

Strange Travelers by Gene Wolfe - Another good collection. Currently in the middle of "The Ziggurat", which is the longest story in the collection, and is fantastic so far.

JUST FINISHED

Strange Travelers - Okay, the end of "The Ziggurat" was simultaneously really good and rather disturbing. Another solid collection all-around. I can't decide whether I prefer shorter stories as in Storeys from the Old Hotel or the longer ones in this collection.

CURRENTLY READING

The Lees of Laughter's End by Steven Erikson - The third Bauchelain & Korbal Broach novella, but second chronologically and in the omnibus. Just a dozen pages in, and I'm really enjoying it. Lots of ties to the wider Malazan world we all know and love. And the super-short "chapters" make it hard to put down.

FINISHED

The Healthy Dead by Steven Erikson - The second (third chronologically) B&KB novella. Highly amusing. Better than Blood Follows, but The Lees of Laughter's End is easily the highlight of the collection.

The Worm Ouroboros - Took me a month and a half to finish, but I did. It was a slog at times, but still really good. I'm glad I persevered.

Echo by Terry Moore - On a whim, I picked up the first 4 (out of 6) collections of this comic book series. Holy crap, I was blown away. Just amazing stuff. I just bought the 5th one on eBay, and I can't wait for it to get here.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - Outstanding novel. Infused with mystery, intrigue, a little horror, and a love of books.

CURRENTLY READING

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges - I knew Gene Wolfe had been influenced by Borges, but man, this is ridiculous! Borges' storytelling itself isn't anything special (or at least, not in translation) but man the ideas behind the stories are crazy. And they stick with you, even if the story itself didn't. Weird and wonderful stuff.

The Worm is really quite odd. It's ofen called one of the for-runners to modern fantasy, but it didn't really feel like that when I read it.

FINISHED

Ficciones was amazing. "The Garden of Forking Paths" was the clear winner for me (I read it twice!) with "Death and the Compass" coming in a close second. "The Library of Babel" was pretty darn cool as well. But really, almost all of it was top-notch stuff.

JUST FINISHED

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks - The first book of the Night Angel trilogy (of which I own the enormous SFBC omnibus edition) didn't impress me at first. Weeks throws every other cliche in the book into, well, his book. But after the first 100 or so pages, I was hooked regardless. You know the "no character is safe" cliche? Yeah, Weeks pulls that one too, but to a degree I don't think I've seen any other author come close too (including Steven Erikson.) Once this was made apparent, the final third of the book just flew by. Off the top of my, I can think of three characters who I think will probably survive the trilogy—and one of them's already died once!

CURRENTLY READING

L. Ron Hubbard Presents: Writers of the Future, Volume XXVII - A sci-fi/fantasy short story collection that I won from the July Early Reviewers batch. Four stories in, and I'm thus far impressed:

"The Unreachable Voices of Ghosts" by Jeffrey Lyman - An intriguing, if relatively predictable, sci-fi story.

"Maddy Dune's First and Only Spelling Bee" by Patrick O'Sullivan - This one blew me away, and I'm not entirely sure why. But it was good. Really good. This O'Sullivan fellow will be someone to keep an eye on.

"The Truth, From a Lie of Convenience" by Brennan Harvey - The second sci-fi story, and probably the weakest of the four stories I've read. It just doesn't bring much new to the table: a reporter discovers that the Crazy Conspiracy Theory just might be true. Shocking!

"In Apprehension, How Like a God" by R. P. L. Johnson - My second favorite so far, after "Maddy Dune". A captivating sci-fi murder mystery, the culprit of which I guessed early on, but which still managed to surprise me when the murderer's actual identity was revealed.

Glad you enjoyed the Brent Weeks book as I have that trilogy on my tbr shelves. Maybe now I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

Yeah, I didn't have particularly high hopes for it, but I was enjoying the heck out of it by the end. A very solid stars.

FINISHED

Star Wars: Vortex by Troy Denning - Not much to say here, other than that Denning has consistently been kicking the action up a notch in this series.

Star Wars: Conviction by Aaron Allston - Moves the plot along (finally!) and man, that Abeloth is turning out to be real hard to kill. The synopsis blurb on the jacket completely spoils the major event that takes place halfway through the book, treating it as if it occurred in the previous book. How did that make it past the editor?

CURRENTLY READING

Star Wars: Ascension by Christie Golden - The book starts with 50 straight pages of the Sith on Kesh. Wow, Golden loves her Sith, eh?

L. Ron Hubbard Presents: Writers of the Future, Volume XXVII:

"An Acolyte of Black Spires" by Ryan Harvey - Eh. Mostly pretty bland, though I liked the way it ended not quite how you'd expect.

"The Dualist" by Van Aaron Hughes - This is another great one. I didn't see the final twist coming until it was only a page or two away, and even then I didn't understand it until the final paragraphs. Surprisingly moving.

"Bonehouse" by Keffy R. M. Kehrli - An intriguing premise: hunting down people who've run away and fully immersed themselves in the internet. But it didn't really do much with it. Still enjoyable, though.

"This Peaceful State of War" by Patty Jansen - A decent "first contact" story, and if the fact that mysterious alien biology is the culprit is predictable, the truth of that biology is stunning.

"Sailing the Sky Sea" by Geir Lanesskog - A decent story about survival in a gas giant's atmosphere. I loved how they pulled off the rescue, though I wish it had been foreshadowed earlier, instead of just coming out of the blue as it did.

FINISHED

Star Wars: Ascension - I'm not sure what to say about the Fate of the Jedi series anymore; it just seems like the writers are making it up as they go along. This book managed to be repetitive and move the plot in crazy new directions at the same time. Luke Skywalker hatches a really stupid plan that has the Jedi doing the right thing for entirely ridiculous reasons. I enjoyed it to the tune of but it really is a dumb book.

L. Ron Hubbard Presents: Writers of the Future, Volume XXVII - "Unfamiliar Territory" and "Vector Victoria" were both fairly dull and cliche, but Adam Perrin's "Medic!" was great, with a rather enjoyable protagonist, and John Arkwright's "The Sundial" might just be the second-best entry in the collection. A solid anthology.

JUST FINISHED

Side Jobs by Jim Butcher - A collection of short stories set in the world of the Dresden Files. It's Dresden, so it's all good stuff, but "The Warrior" might be my favorite Dresden story ever.

I'm going to have to pick up Side Jobs. I too think "The Warrior may be my favorite Dresden story, just read it in Mean Streets, but I haven't read the latest two books in the series yet, either.

FINISHED

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher - I had some issues with this one. It definitely had the feeling of "filler" to it, and the cover blurb is all sorts of misleading when you think about it. That said, it's Dresden, so it's still awesome; and though the plot doesn't really advance much, there's enough character development—along with showing the consequences of the events in Changes—to justify its existence.

CURRENTLY READING

Reamde by Neal Stephenson - Only 40 pages in, but it reminds me a lot of Cryptonomicon. Highly readable and amusing, I'm just waiting for the plot to arrive.

Hah! "I'm just waiting for the plot to arrive." I know that feeling. I read one a while ago (not a Stephenson) where the arrival never did happen.

I think I liked Ghost Story more than you did. As you say, another Dresden is always awesome, but I also enjoyed his figuring out how to get things done as a ghost, and the development at the end.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Ghost Story as I was reading it; it was only upon finishing it and reflecting back that it lost a little of its luster.

FINISHED

Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher - I found the hardcover edition of this Dresden Files prequel graphic novel at Half Price Books for $9—a veritable steal—and was amazed at how good it turned out to be. It was just like reading another Dresden novel, and the art by Ardian Syaf was just spot-on. An absolute must-read for any Dresden fan.

CURRENTLY READING

Reamde - The plot has arrived! This looks be a fairly straightforward thriller (not quite what I was expecting after Cryptonomicon) but there are plenty of interesting ideas here. I don't know what Stephenson's gonna do for another 800 pages, but we'll see!

saltmanz & jnwelch, what did you think of Changes? I was not in love with it. As always, I love reading Dresden books, but I didn't love this story. I'm still waiting for Ghost Story to arrive.

I loved Changes, though I'm a little sad to see the first "arc" of the series come to a close like it did. Ghost Story really is like a little interlude getting everything in place for the second arc to start in Cold Days.

Yes, I'm a pushover for Dresden, so I loved Changes, too. But I can understand your not having the same reaction. I wish there had been a way to resolve it without that key character dying, but there was a logic to it.

I thought the end of Ghost Story was a clever and believable way (within the overall story's context!) to set up the second arc.

#122 I agree. Considering what had all gone on before, it was, once I thought about it, the only way for Harry to go forward.

One of things I love most about the series is that it isn't static; things change, characters grow, relationships develop. Butcher is never afraid to shake things up, and the result is a series that feels that much more "real" than many others.

I don't think I minded that one character's death (I mean, I knew the date wasn't happening and it was pretty obvious something had to). What I minded was the world being torn apart, I'm simply not ready to move on. I also felt it was vampire overkill, just like Fool's Moon was werewolf overkill.

In the two short stories in side jobs which are told from other characters perspectives, I was surprised at the flatness of the tales. It really is Dresden and his perspective I love. At the same time, it was interesting how different a character's view and voice could be.

124 - I like that about Butcher, too, and because it feels more real, it affects me more deeply. I'm not sure I like change!

I think the vampire subplot had to be concluded. Butcher never seems to have one idea linger into too many books (cf Luriel whom I really liked), but plausibly the Reds were never going to just go away. Ghost Story is different. I was very much hoping that it didn't turn out as a reset button with Harry learning from scratch how to cope in his new situation - and I'm very glad it didn't work out that way.

Remade - might be the book where I give Stevenson another chance after the abomination of Quicksilver

MrsLee: You should give "Even Hand" from the Dark and Stormy Knights anthology a try: it's told from Marcone's perspective, and is (IMHO) easily the best of the non-Dresden-POV stories.

saltmanz: You are not helping my book budget. ;) I thought all the short stories were in Side Jobs, obviously I was mistaken.

:) There were 2 stories that didn't make into Side Jobs, since they appeared too recently in their original publications. The other one is "Curses" in, I believe, Naked City.

CURRENTLY READING

Reamde - About a third of the way in, and the plot's kicking along in high gear. Actually, it looks like things are going to be a taking a bizarre turn; Stephenson started with Chinese hackers and Russian mobsters, but now he's mixing in British spies and radical Islamic terrorists!

CURRENTLY READING

Reamde - Halfway through. This book be looooong. It's weird, it feels like a chore to pick it up and start reading every night, but it's positively riveting when I am reading.

I'm reading Reamde as well and understand!

RECENTLY FINISHED

Echo by Terry Moore - I finally was able to finish this series last night. See, I had purchased the first 5 (out of 6) TPBs earlier this summer, but shortly afterwards they released a 600-page (!) collection of the entire series. So I sold my 5 TPBs for $20 and bought the complete edition for $24; not bad. Anyway, I read the sixth and final part last night. It didn't quite live up to the buildup of the previous issues, but it was still pretty darn good. As an overall series, I can't recommend it enough. If you do want to check it out, spring for the complete edition, which normally retails for $40, but is only $26 on Amazon with free shipping. Anyway, I'm a Terry Moore fan now; I'll have to keep an eye out for his Strangers in Paradise series...

CURRENTLY READING

Reamde - 80% or so done! One thing that the length of this book does is really get you familiar with the characters. I think I'm going to miss them terribly when it's all over.

FINALLY FINISHED

Reamde - It took me 4 weeks to finish this beast, which means events in the book (which spans a little over 3 weeks) happened almost in real-time. I really enjoyed it, but this is a book that demands commitment. Or, as I plan on saying in my review: This contradiction of a book is a taut, fast-paced thriller that spans 1,000 pages and took me a month to read. Perhaps the worst that can be said of the book is that the titular computer virus REAMDE (and the copious backstory of the MMORG that hosts it) plays almost no part in the story besides being the trigging event that kicks the plot into action. The book's length serves to fully immerse you into the story (much like an MMORG?) alongside the numerous and memorable characters. As far as star ratings go, I'm leaning toward

You've got me intrigued on Reamde and encouraged on Echo, Chris.

I haven't read Stephenson since he started putting out such whopping huge books, but this one I might try. (I'm a ways into a Murakami thousand-pager, so it may be a while!)

I liked Strangers in Paradise a lot, and read the beginning of Echo. After your comments, I'll make sure to finish it.

Good to hear, Joe! My only warning with Reamde would be that it's almost entirely a straightforward thriller. If you're expecting any real SF/F elements, you'll be disappointed.

I'm on the list for Reamde at my library, but I'm number 500 something. Still, your comments have got me intrigued. Really looking forward to it now.

>136 Thanks, Chris. I do like thrillers, so that may work for me.

Man, I actually went to bed last night sad that I was done with Reamde. I actually miss reading about Richard and Zula, Csongor, Olivia and Sokolov, and everybody else. I had initially mentally stashed this as a "loved it, but probably will never reread it" book, but now I'm not so sure about that.

Also, last night being Halloween, I decided to reread a couple of Lovecraft stories. I did "The Shunned House" and "The Curse of Yig". Neither was quite as scary the second time around, but still, reading Lovecraft in bed by flashlight can't be beat.

139> I've been reading Lovecraft lately as well. I'm finding he's more spine-tingly/creepy than full on scary. I guess the scariness is kind of ruined by the rampant racism and xenophobia. Still, fun read all the same.

CURRENTLY READING

Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson - Read number three, again for the Malazan Reread at Tor.com. Man, that is one heckuva prologue.

Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds - I've read all of the Revelation Space books, except for The Prefect and this anthology. This is my bring-to-work book (actually, leave-at-work book) that I read at lunch or on breaks. Man, it feels good to dip into the RS universe again. Thoughts on:

"Great Wall of Mars" - Man, I had forgotten how old Nevil Clavain was. And how awesome he is.

"Glacial" - I figured out the significance of the worms right away, but there were enough twists in this story to keep me in suspense.

CURRENTLY READING

Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks - Finally starting up book #2 in my enormous Night Angel Trilogy omnibus. It's been just over 2 months since I finished the first book (I swear I'm still planning to write a review of it!) so I had to skim the last few chapters to refresh myself. But Weeks does a good job of subtly recapping at the start of book 2. So Kylar's sworn off killing, huh? Why do I get the feeling that's not going to last?

My review for Reamde is up.

What an excellent review, Chris! Thumb from me, and thanks. Very helpful.

I'm still plugging away through Reamde. I really enjoy it but, you know, nano month...

CURRENTLY READING

The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer - I won this in an online giveaway a couple weeks ago, and even got it personalized by the author. I wasn't sure if I'd get to it this year, but I didn't want to lug the ginormous Night Angel omnibus up to my grandparents' for Thanksgiving, so I took this one along with. Now I can't put it down.

Shadow's Edge - On the back burner until I finish up Whitefire, but the second Night Angel book is moving along nicely. Logan's story has been the most compelling so far.

RECENTLY FINISHED

Shadows's Edge - The last chunk of that book really blew by! I was surprised to see such a major plotline wrapped up that quickly. And that shocking final sentence! My major complaint is the way Weeks continues to just drop major new characters/factions in without warning. Where did this Sisterhood come from? Or these Ceurans? Or this group of mages? And it's still annoying trying to keep track of the Dorian/Feir/Curoch subplots that only make a couple of appearances each in each book. Still, an enjoyable read, and I've already starting into the final book.

CURRENTLY READING

Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks - See above.

FINISHED

90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper w/ Cecil Murphey - A co-worker loaned me her copy of this out of the blue, so it became my at-work reading material for the first couple weeks of December. It wasn't bad; it's an incredible story, very uplifting and encouraging. My main complaint is that writing left a bit to be desired. It felt very much like just a transcription of Don telling his story—which is surely how the manuscript began, and very much the intended effect, I'm sure—but I was bothered by the way the narrative jumped around chronologically, and ended up repeating itself fairly frequently. Still, it was good.

Beyond the Shadows - I also finally concluded Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy. Not great literature, but at least a compelling story. I'm not entirely sure what to make of the final volume, as the "battle for Cenaria" plot the makes up most of the book, everything dealing with the Chantry, and the importance of Ezra's Wood seem to have sprung up out of nowhere. But Dorian and Solon finally get stuff to do, Lantano Garuwashi and Logan Gyre were both awesome, and the resolution of Kylar and Elene's story was well-done. I'm not entirely sure the whole thing was worth the 2½ months it took me to read it all, but I it enjoyed all the same.

CURRENTLY READING

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe - Time for my annual reread of The Book of the New Sun. This will be my fourth time through the series. But I'll also be doing the entire Solar Cycle, including Urth of the New Sun (2nd time), The Book of the Long Sun (2nd time), and The Book of the Short Sun (1st time), as well as related short stories.

JUST FINISHED

The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe - Read number four. I caught some things I missed the first three times, something I would hardly have guessed possible.

Deep Sky by Patrick Lee - The third and final Travis Chase book (see previous post regarding the earlier books). I picked it up at Walmart Saturday afternoon, started it that night, and was up waaaay too late last night finishing it. The last time I powered through a book like that it was with the first couple of Dresden books. Not quite as good as Ghost Country, I think, and I'm not sure that I "buy" the big reveal at the end, but I couldn't put the dang thing down, and there were definitely some brilliant moments. Worth picking up if you enjoyed the first two.

Finally put up my Best of 2011 blog post. I'm oddly proud of how the trophy came out.

Love the trophy!

Jim Butcher got into the runners up twice! *squee*

Very nice presentation, saltmanz!

Good wrap-up for the year. I really must pick up a Borges book at some point.

I'm going to have to add those two Wolfe collections to my wishlist.

Thanks, guys!

@Sakerfalcon: I think Starwater Strains might be my favorite, but really, you can't go wrong with any Gene Wolfe collection.

On a related note:

CURRENTLY READING

Endangered Species by Gene Wolfe - Another short story collection; this is my "read at work" book, mostly because it contains "The Map", "The Cat", and "The God and His Man", three Urth-related short stories I plan on fitting into my complete Solar Cycle read. Good stuff so far (but then, I expect nothing less from Wolfe.)

The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe - Read #4. I just got to the bit with Cyriaca; I love how Wolfe doesn't show reveal how his meeting with her ended until like 30 pages after the fact. :)

CURRENTLY READING

The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson - I was intrigued late last year by the Repairman Jack series, and found this book cheap in December. Sword of the Lictor started to slow down, so I picked this up; I'm a little over halfway through, and it's starting to really pick up. Not entirely what I expected, but I'm really liking Jack. This is a revised edition that tries to update the book (written in 1984) for 2004: references to VHS and Walkmans have been replaced with DVD and iPods, yet the main character uses an answering machine hidden under a typewriter case, so the updates are pretty jarring. Thankfully, they're only noticeable a couple of times early one, and I'm liking the book, so it's more or less forgivable.

Also, I joined the Books of the Shelf Challenge, and my goal is to have 25 of my reads this year (roughly half of my projected reads) be books I purchased prior to 2012.

JUST FINISHED

The Tomb - Not quite what I was expecting when I started in—I was thinking more along the lines of The Dresden Files—but after a short time to adjust to it, I ended up really enjoying it. If, as Jim Butcher says, The Dresden Files is a comic book, then Repairman Jack is an action movie. Think adventure/thriller/mystery, with a little bit of magic and supernatural horror thrown in for good measure. Jack himself is a great character, a little (okay, a lot) more grey than Harry Dresden, but just as much a "good guy". I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for subsequent books.

I wanted to recommend Morgue Drawer Four to you. I'm pretty sure you would enjoy the humor in it.

Thanks for the rec, Mrs! It's on my radar now.

JUST FINISHED

The Sword of the Lictor - I've had a few distractions keeping me from reading consistently/much at night the last few weeks (chief among them being The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword) but I finally finished my annual reread of this one. It was slow going in the middle, as usual, but I still loved it.

I was kinda hoping my Early Reviewers copy of Darth Plagueis would show up by now—seeing as how it's been out in stores for almost a month now—but I guess I'll just have to continue on and wrap up my BotNS reread instead.

CURRENTLY READING

Magic: The Gathering: Test of Metal by Matthew Stover - Wanted something short (and, presumably, lighter) before I finished my BotNS reread, so on a whim I grabbed this off the shelf. I know nothing about Magic: The Gathering (other than that it's a card game) but I can't put it down. Man, I love Matthew Stover. I can't wait for Caine's Law!

I used to play M:tg a lot, severla years ago. I've never really got into the books. There are a lot of them though!

To be honest, I could care less about M:tG, but Matthew Stover is one of my favorite authors.

JUST FINISHED

Test of Metal - Fantastic, even if I didn't quite "get it" at the end. Lots of double-, triple-, and quadruple-crossing. Good stuff. I kinda want to read more about Tezzeret now, even though I just know any other non-Stover M:tG book I read will be a total disappointment.

CURRENTLY READING

Endangered Species by Gene Wolfe - About halfway through the collection now, but I felt I had to drop a mention about how much I enjoyed "The HORARS of War". Nicely ambiguous and oddly moving.

CURRENTLY READING

The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe - My fourth time through the final part of the Book of the New Sun. My annual {ahem} December reread has gone a lot more slowly this time than previously; I might have to take a break for a year or two after this. We'll see how I feel come November, I suppose.

Full review for Test of Metal is up.

FINISHED

The Citadel of the Autarch - The last few chapters get me every time; I'm invariably moved. Such beauty and majesty, and forward-looking optimism, even as events come full circle.

CURRENTLY READING

Endangered Species - After finishing The Book of the New Sun, I read the two short stories in here that take place between TBotNS and Urth of the New Sun. "The Cat" was mostly forgettable, but I loved "The Map".

CURRENTLY READING

The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe - This is only the second time I've read this, but I've read The Book of the New Sun three times since the previous read, so I'm anticipating it being much more enlightening this time around. I'm a handful of chapters in, but it's gotten set aside because of...

When She's Gone by Steven Erikson - I got a Kindle Touch for a (late) Christmas present from my parents. It's...it's pretty awesome. I've been playing with it a lot, and downloaded this short novel by one of my favorite authors. It's not the sort of thing I'd normally read, very stream-of-consciousness, about Winnipeg and hockey, but for the most part it's oddly gripping. I'm 2/3 of the way through, and starting to lose a little bit of steam now, but we'll see.

FINISHED

When She's Gone - Finished this a while ago, actually. It was different, but very good.

The Urth of the New Sun - This one I finished last night. I enjoyed it a lot more the second time, I think, though I don't think my star rating changed any. I was continually amazed by how many times it called back to the original quartet of books, and I had completely forgotten how it ended. Not as strong as the main sequence, but a fitting coda nonetheless. Now I desperately need someone to make a nice Barnes & Noble style leatherbound hardcover omnibus edition with all 5 books included.

#166 - anything you'd particularly recommened by him? I've read his adaption of the revenge of the sith and it was alot better than the other authors doing Star Wars re-writes.

You can't really go wrong, whatever of Stover's books you decide to pick up.

By far his best work is his Acts of Caine series, starting with Heroes Die, a brutal, hard-hitting sci-fi/fantasy hybrid with some actual thought behind it. It was written as a standalone, so you don't have to worry about committing to the whole series. The second book is, bewilderingly, out of print, even though the third book is easily available, and the fourth comes out in April. It can be found used online, but often at a steep price; it is available as an eBook, however.

His other SW books are great, too. Traitor is part of the 19-book New Jedi Order sequence, but can probably be read independently, and is the most philosophical of all the books in the franchise, with great discussions on the nature of the Force and personal responsibility. Shatterpoint is basically Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness starring Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. And Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is great pulpy fun with the original trilogy cast.

CURRENTLY READING

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - What with the movie coming out soon, I figured now was as good time as any to get this off the TBR pile. (I probably won't see the movie anyway, as we don't get out to see movies, but still.) I can't believe this prose is 100 years old; apart from the stuff about Indians, it feels like it could be contemporary. (I had the same reaction to Robert E. Howard a couple years ago.)

FINISHED

A Princess of Mars - Good, pulpy fun. Almost hard to believe it was written 100 years ago. I also saw the movie this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

CURRENTLY READING

The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - About halfway through the second Barsoom tale. Not engaging me quite like the first one did.

UP NEXT

As soon as I finish up my Barsoom omnibus, I'm diving into my third read of Caine Black Knife in anticipation of the release of Caine's Law in only 2 weeks!

Catching up...

FINISHED

Endangered Species by Gene Wolfe - Short story collection that I started in January, and made for reading material at work. Another fantastic Wolfe collection. 'Nuff said.

The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - I found I didn't really care much about the Therns (white men) and the First Born (black men), but the second half of Warlord was a lot of fun; just some good old-fashioned rescue-the-princess hack-and-slash. The first in the trilogy is still the best. each.

Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover - Reread in anticipation of Caine's Law. This was my third time through the book, and the fastest I've devoured the text: four days. I really wanted to be able to give it 5 stars after this read, but on the contrary, I discovered a glaring continuity error (presumably an editiorial overlook) where Caine ponders the origins of "Simon Faller" two chapters before he hears his name for the first time. And the "Now" portion of the book still suffers from Caine never letting the readers in on how he figures out his solutions. In particular, he has a random prophetic dream that uncovers the mystery of the Smoke Hunt, but the dream is never explained. Perhaps it will be addressed in the sequel, but for now it's irritating. That said, it's still a phenomenal book.

CURRENTLY READING

The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson - For the Tor.com reread.

My preordered copy of Caine's Law won't arrive until probably Saturday (when I could go to the store right now and buy a copy, grrr) so I'll read my TBH chapters for Wednesday and Friday's discussion, but I don't know what else I'll read until then. I don't want to start in on anything new. Maybe I'll read some more Buffy: Season Eight TPBs...

CURRENTLY READING

Caine's Law by Matthew Stover - YES. This came in the mail Saturday (as predicted) and it's pretty amazing. I'm almost done already.

FINISHED

Caine's Law - I finished CL earlier this evening, and, uh...I think my brain broke. I spent another hour or two skimming back and forth through the text trying to make sense of it, but. But. Wow.

CURRENTLY READING

Star Wars: Darth Plagueis by James Luceno - So dull. It's an ER book, though, so I'm gonna plow through. (Also, I never quit on a book partway in.)

CURRENTLY READING

Darth Plagueis - Now that Plagueis has (spoiler!) taken on Palpatine as his apprentice, things have started to pick up. The political intrigue is still pretty boring, though.

The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany - Reading this one on my Kindle at work. I used Calibre to make a homebrewed MOBI file using the Gutenberg Project file and adding in illustrations found on Google Images. It's light and whimsical stuff. Perfect for a 5- or 10-minute break, if not particularly memorable. (Though I love Captain Shard's lament in "The Loot of Bombasharna": "I wish I knew more about the ways of Queens.")

FINISHED

Darth Plagueis - Finished this over the weekend. It was...okay? It was really much more about Palpatine than Plagueis, sort of a peek "behind the scenes" of The Phantom Menace and it's prequels, which I've decided to read next. It tries not to depend on those other stories too much, I don't think Luceno quite pulled it off. As for the new background info presented in the book, it was neat to read about Palpatine's apprenticeship and his machinations, but losing the mystery has a steep price; this manipulating, pure evil bad guy from the original trilogy, already made less mysterious by the prequel trilogy, is now revealed to be a pretty mundane guy. Oh, and Plagueis himself was around during TPM? Really?

CURRENTLY READING

Cloak of Deception by James Luceno - The official prequel novel to TPM. Just getting into it, but already it's more fun than Plagueis was.

The Book of Wonder - I think the latter stories in this collection are the winners. "The Coronation of Thomas Shap" is a tale about a man who gets too wrapped up in the fantasy worlds he's created—a surprisingly timely story, given that it's 100 years old. And "Chu-bu and Sheemish" had me laughing out loud.

CURRENTLY READING

John Dies at the End by David Wong - This had been on my radar for a while, and I saw it yesterday on the clearance rack at Half Price Books for $2. I still wasn't sure I wanted to pick it up, though—that is, until I read the first page. I was sold. I couldn't help myself last night, and I dove on in. Man, there's nothing like a book you just can't put down.

John Dies at the End is on my wishlist already. Glad you're enjoying it.

FINISHED

John Dies at the End - My only real complaint with this was a kind of inconsistency of mood. Usually funny, sometimes horrifying, often over-the-top ridiculous, sometimes thoughtful. By the end it maybe made some kind of sense, I guess? but overall, wow, what a ride!

CURRENTLY READING

Tales from Super-Science Fiction ed. by Robert Silverberg - My October 2011 ER book that finally arrived. The first story, "Catch 'Em All Alive" by Silverberg, was pretty bland and predictable.

Star Wars: Cloak of Deception - Enjoying this one more than I would have expected.

CURRENTLY READING

Cloak of Deception - This has gotten booooooring. Setting aside (for now) in favor of...

Scourge of the Betrayer by Jeff Salyards - This marks the first time I've ever received an email from an author saying "Hey, do you want to review my book?" I might have been hesitant, but I'd already heard good things about this debut from trusted sources, so I said yes. Honest-to-gosh hardcover copy arrived Friday, and I picked it up last night. It's a first-person account of a scribe hired to follow what seems to be a mercenary company, who might be staging a coup. Not much has been revealed yet, plot-wise, but I'm enjoying it!

#187 I just received a signed copy of Scourge of the Betrayer through Goodreads. You're giving me hope I'll enjoy it!

Maj, just glancing over your catalog, it looks like our tastes run fairly similar. I'm sure you'll enjoy it—thus far, at least! :)

Just a heads-up for those who might be interested: I've started a Tumblr called "Chris Hates Books where I post tongue-in-cheek book reviews. (They also auto-post to my blog and my home page.) These reviews are by turns sarcastic, exaggerated, or just plain ridiculous, but always wrapped around a grain of truth; hopefully you'll find them entertaining.

FINISHED

Scourge of the Betrayer - A great military fantasy debut. Full review here.

@191. One to look out for methinks. Good review!

FINALLY FINISHED

Star Wars: Cloak of Deception - Started and finished strong, but everything inbetween was boooooring.

CURRENTLY READING

The Children of Húrin by J. R. R. Tolkien - Starting what will hopefully be a full-on Middle Earth read, including The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales as well as my third reads of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. We'll see. It's been almost a dozen years since I last read Tolkien; getting back into it is like coming home.

FINISHED

The Children of Húrin - Wow. This was tragic, but still sooooo very good.

CURRENTLY READING

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien - Just dipped in late last night and read the second edition preface.

Been a while since my last update here, so...

FINISHED

The Silmarillion - Gorgeous. Amazing. For twenty years I thought this was a dull, dry textbook of a novel. But it was so very much the opposite, even if it wasn't always the easiest read. Beautiful. Moving. Wonderful.

CURRENTLY READING

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay - I decided to take a brief pause in the middle of Middle-earth because they were doing this book for the Sword & Laser podcast. About 1/3 through, and it's quite enjoyable.

The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson - Less than a week away from wrapping up my third read of this one, for the Tor.com readalong. Like all of the Malazan books, it gets better and better every time.

Tales from Super-Science Fiction - 10 stories read out of 14. Nothing spectacular, and most of them have been fairly predictable. My favorite thus far is, I think, A. Bertram Chandler's "I'll Take Over".

I take it back: I just read Alan E. Nourse's "The Gift of Numbers" and it's easily the standout story in Tales from Super-Science Fiction (so far.)

So glad you enjoyed The Silmarillion, I always wondered what people found dull about it. I thought it was lyrical.

I thought the same thing about The Silmarillion when I tried to read it in high school. Didn't get very far into it before stopping. Just seemed boring to me then.

I picked it back up when the movies came out, and I loved it. Made me enjoy The Hobbit and LotR a lot more.

CURRENTLY READING

Orb Sceptre Throne by Ian C. Esslemont - The newest Malazan novel! I won an ARC of it from Tor.com back in early April, but had some issues actually getting my hands on it; it finally arrived last night. Couldn't help but immediately dive in. (Sorry, Tigana.)

Tales from Super-Science Fiction - The second half of this collection is definitely the stronger: Charles W. Runyon's "First Man in a Satellite" was heart-breaking, and Tom Godwin's "A Place Beyond the Stars" quite clever.

I won an ARC of it from Tor.com

Oh, stop bragging! Brat.

I'll consider myself duly chastened. 8(

FINISHED

Tales from Super-Science Fiction - Finished a lot stronger than it started.

CURRENTLY READING

Orb Sceptre Throne - Loving it! Can't believe how many old threads ICE is pulling in to this one. I mean, geez, even the "bone phones" from Gardens of the Moon (that haven't been seen since) make an appearance!

FINISHED

Orb Sceptre Throne - Eh. It was decent. A far cry from great. Kept the flaws of his previous book, Stonewielder, but without most of the strengths of that novel. The best part about it was how it tied up so many dangling threads from ICE's previous books, as well as Erikson's series.

CURRENTLY READING

Tigana - Set this down to read OST, and just picked it back up and was surprised how smoothly I slid back into the story. Kay's prose is like poetry compared to Esslemont's. About halfway through now, and really enjoying it.

Transformers Legends ed. by David Cian - The only official Transformers short story anthology. Currently reading legendary TF scribe Simon Furman's "A Meeting of Minds", which takes place near the end of the Beast Wars cartoon; enlightening, if a bit pedestrian in execution. But I'm a huge TF nut, so there's little doubt I'll enjoy this collection.

CURRENTLY READING

Transformers Legends - Finished Tim Waggoner's "Collect and Save". Short, kind of fun, nothing special. It's like reading decent TF fanfic, but that's okay because I like decent TF fanfic.

- - - - -

Otherwise, not a lot of reading lately! But that's mostly because I've been staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing DOOM, or more accurately I've playing custom megawads for DOOM using the GZDoom source port. I'm loving 1996's "Perdition's Gate" at the moment.

CURRENTLY READING

Transformers Legends - Really enjoying these:

• "Paddles" by Jean Rabe - An interesting and somewhat sad story about a lost Dinobot.
• "Redemption Center" by Alexander B. Potter - Starscream loses his memory and joins the Autobots. A lot of potential here that didn't get realized because of the necessity of hitting the reset button at the end.
• "Something Robotic This Way Comes" by John J. Miller - The first story outside the G1/BW universe, this one's from the Transformers: Armada franchise. A very cute story. Halloween Mini-cons!

CURRENTLY READING

Crack'd Pot Trail by Steven Erikson - Poor Tigana; it's really good, I swear, I'm just not feeling the desire to pick it up. So I decided to get in the last Malazan story that I own but haven't read, before the next ones (The Wurms of Blearmouth and The Forge of Darkness) see publication later this month.

I hated Tigana. THe writing was beautiful, but a book about someone who destroys her life for revenge just isn't my cup of tea. I made it through about halfway before the depressing business just drove me away.

CURRENTLY READING

Crack'd Pot Trail - It's taking me far longer than it should, but I'm really enjoying this. It's very different from the rest of the Malazan stuff, but it's quite amusing and entertaining. At about a third of the way through I think I figured out the twist at the end. (I'm 2/3 through now.)

Transformers Legends - "Two for the Price of One" by Brandie Tarvin: Swindle does some double-dealing in the Middle East. Not too special. I remember falling in love with one of Tarvin's early fanfics, though; "The Chosen", I think it was called. I'll have to look into that...

FINISHED

Crack'd Pot Trail - Actually finished this last week. Loved it. I actually really like it when Erikson goes off in "literary mode" and the first-person narration by a poet facilitated that well. I also loved the mixed-up poems and songs about Anomander, Kalam vs. Laseen, and other familiar Malazan names. Funny stuff.

CURRENTLY READING

Tigana - Roughly 2/3 of the way through now. Really enjoying it, if slowly (still.)

Transformers Legends - "Joyride" by Jenifer Ruth was fairly amusing. "Lonesome Diesel" by David Bischoff could have been fantastic, but it read like a rough first draft that never saw an editor: major typos everywhere, and a startling lack of knowledge about Transformers themselves. Still, there was a good story buried in there.

FINISHED

Tigana - I feel bad that it took so long to read this. It really was fantastic. The ending in particular made tears well up. (Manly tears, of course.) Just beautiful.

CURRENTLY READING

Transformers Legends

The Keep by F. Paul Wilson - Just picked this up the other day. It's the first book in the "Adversary Cycle" series, of which I've already read the second, The Tomb (which also doubles as the first "Repairman Jack" book.)

CURRENTLY READING

Transformers Legends - "Healers, Fighters, and Transformers" by J. Steven York. Ratchet's my favorite Transformers character, so I'm a sucker for a good Ratchet story, and this is a decent one.

Yesterday I finished The Book of the Short Sun, which came right after reading The Book of the Long Sun. It was my summer project. Wow. I remain overwhelmed. I'm sure it is Wolfe's best work and if I had the patience and the time I would re-read them someday. But there are other books to get to.

Clearly Wolfe is in a class by himself. But in your reading have you found anyone similar?

@211: The Book of the Short Sun is the last piece of the Solar Cycle I need to read. I feel certain I'll have to reread Long Sun before I do so, though, which is causing me to put it off.

As for who comes similar to Wolfe, if you enjoy Wolfe's short stories, Jorge Luis Borges is one of Wolfe's major influences; his stuff reads much like Wolfe's but with most of the SFF elements removed. Try Ficciones or Labyrinths. In genre, the closest I can think of is Steven Erikson and his Malazan series. If the sheer scope of his 10-volume Book of the Fallen scares you off, you might want to start in with his shorter Malazan-related Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas, or give his new prequel trilogy a try, starting with Forge of Darkness (published in the UK, out in the US mid-September.)

Catching up after a week of vacation:

FINISHED

Transformers Legends ed. by David Cian - A fun collection that reads (for better or worse) like above-average fanfic, let down in a few cases by some pretty poor editing/proofreading. The highlights are easily the first and last entries, both by official TF scribes and seamlesly taking place during the Beast Wars/Machines cartoons.

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Picked this up at Half Price Books two days before we left, and was pretty much useless for 24 hours while I cranked through it. Absolutely amazing. It was so good, I feel bad for not having read it until now.

The Keep by F. Paul Wilson - "Nazis versus Vampires" fairly sums this book up, but doesn't really do it justice; there's a surprising amount of depth here—consider the Jewish scholar's crisis of faith upon recognizing the power of the cross on a vampire. Not sure how this book connects to the second book in the cycle, The Tomb; I'll just have to check out more books in the series.

CURRENTLY READING

A Games of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - Fricking finally, eh? Amazing so far (200 pages in), but man, it's just one downer after another with this book.

Update time!

FINISHED

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - What can I say? It was pretty amazing, even if it was never any fun. Bleak from beginning to end, with only a few moments of levity as provided by Tyrion. But all in all, a tremendous book.

CURRENTLY READING

Ghost Ocean by S. M. Peters - I really enjoyed his debut, Whitechapel Gods, and despite the different sub-genre (Ocean's urban fantasy versus Whitechapel's steampunk) it has much the same feel. Some high-octane nightmare fuel here. It's getting hard to put down.

Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson - A third of the way through now, for the Tor.com reread. I'm liking this one a lot better than I did my first time through. Whether it's because I've read already through the end of series now, or just that I've gotten accustomed to Erikson's sprawling style (employed in the latter Malazan books as well as some of his other writing) I don't know; probably a mix of both.

CURRENTLY READING

Ghost Ocean - Oh man, I am loving this book, you guys. If S. M. Peters ever gets a third book published, I will buy it sight unseen.

FINISHED

Ghost Ocean - Really liked this one. Didn't always understand what was going on, but there's just a "feel" to Peters' writing that I can't get enough of.

CURRENTLY READING

The Tainted City by Courtney Schafer - I won a signed copy of her debut (The Whitefire Crossing) last year, and this year I won a signed copy of the second book! The front page of my copy reads: "To Chris- Luckiest man alive!" :D Looking forward to seeing how Dev and Kiran manage to get out of their predicament from the end of last book, and excited to see The Labyrinth of Flame slated for next winter!

oh! I read Whitechapel Gods and liked the feel of it, so am putting Ghost Ocean on the wishlist. I hadn't realized it existed!

Cool! Then you'll probably be interested in this interview with Peters.

CURRENTLY READING

The Tainted City just started to really get interesting, but...

Forge of Darkness just arrived. I'm lost in it already.

CURRENTLY READING

Forge of Darkness - Whewf! This is heady stuff. It's rich and absorbing, but it's very slow going.

All of Erikson's books are like that for me. I'm currently reading The Bonehunters and am amazed how slowly I'm reading it because, I suppose, there is so much to absorb, certainly not because I'm not motivated by the story.

Catching up!

FINISHED

Forge of Darkness - This blew me away! It's dense reading, and slow going, but it's a fascinating look at the distant past of the Malazan world, or at least of one of the realms related to it (or maybe both, I can't be sure!) Erikson's writing is powerful, and he loves confounding his readers' expectations and illusions that we've got a grasp on the "truth" of his world. Can't wait for Fall of Light!

The Tainted City - Not quite as good as Schafer's first book, and part of that rests specifically with the fact that I just didn't enjoy Kiran's POV chapters like I did in The Whitefire Crossing. Dev's first-person chapters remain fantastic, though. Beyond that, this book is a major departure from the first one, and it looks like the third will be another beast entirely, which is refreshing to see. Looking forward to the finale.

CURRENTLY READING

A Clash of Kings - About 70 pages in. Man, I wish every chapter was about Tyrion.

FINISHED

Reaper's Gale - Much better the second time through. I recently reread the mini-review I wrote after my first read back in 2008, and it was pretty harsh. But I've had four years of life experience, reading experience, and experience with Erikson's voice, and I take back just about everything I said back then. Granted, it's still my least favorite of the first seven Malazan books, but that still makes it better than 99% of the other stuff I've read.

CURRENTLY READING

A Clash of Kings - Almost a third of the way through, and I've almost gotten my wish, as every second or third chapter seems to be a Tyrion one. :)

CURRENTLY READING

A Clash of Kings - A little over halfway through. Not much to say, other than this one's even better than the first book.

This Book Is Full of Spiders - Getting in the Halloween spirit with this horror/comedy. Read the first 60 pages last night, and am now thoroughly freaked out by the Star Trek transporter.

FINISHED

A Clash of Kings - I don't what else to say: besides not being a "proper" novel with a beginning, middle, and end, this book was practically flawless.

This Book Is Full of Spiders - Not nearly as good as the first book. That one was pretty much all over the place, but ended up the better for it. This book, while structured as a more traditional novel, basically turned into (what I can only assume to be) your standard zombie novel plus some John Dies elements. For a sequel, it's bizarrely standalone: I say "bizarrely" because, though it makes numerous references to the previous book, it does so in as vague and non-specific a way as possible.

CURRENTLY READING

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin - About a fifth of the way through, continuing on nicely from ACoK.

CURRENTLY READING

Vale of Stars by Sean O'Brien - My latest Early Reviewers win. Started in on it last night. The characters and their interactions are already bugging me, but I'm holding out hope that the book can still surprise me.

CURRENTLY READING

A Storm of Swords - Just read the "red wedding" the other night and had to put the book aside for the night. Holy crap! This book's pretty much impossible to put down now.

FINISHED

A Storm of Swords - I'm kind of at a loss for words. Right up to the last, this was an amazing book, and then the end just blew me away entirely.

Honestly, I had to stop at the chapter following the Red Wedding because I found it so distressing. Maybe I'll go back and finish it now that I've gotten some distance on it!

CURRENTLY READING

The Eternal Champion by Michael Moorcock - So I've been collecting Michael Moorcock books for over a year now, after reading my first Elric short story a couple years ago. Finally digging in now, and holy crap, I feel like my eyes have been opened. This is just absolutely fantastic. I've got probably a couple dozen books set in his Elric/Eternal Champion series, and if they're all half as good as this one, I am in for a treat.

>230 I love many of Moorcock's Multiverse books too. While not "bad", I didn't feel the Erekosë tales added much. But I came to them last, and felt that the other incarnations of the Champion, the worlds they lived in, the characters they interacted with were maybe more... colorful ?

@231: Goodness, I loved that first Erekosë story, though. If the other incarnations are even better, I can't wait!

FINISHED

The Eternal Champion - Loved this.

CURRENTLY READING

The Sundered Worlds by Michael Moorcock - Second story in my Eternal Champion omnibus. I can see the connections to the first story, but this one's just not grabbing me a third of the way through. Oh well, there's only a hundred pages left, and then: more Erekosë!

CURRENTLY READING

The Sundered Worlds - In the second half of this one, and it's starting to pick up a little more. But really I'm just excited because there are only 50 pages before more Erekosë!

Shardik by Richard Adams - This is my all-time favorite book that I've read 10 times. It's been a few years, and I'm sending a copy to a friend as a surprise Christmas gift, so I had the itch to dive back into it.

FINISHED

The Sundered Worlds - Didn't do much for me. Not really a fan of the 60s sci-fi thing.

CURRENTLY READING

Phoenix in Obsidian by Michael Moorcock - I was looking forward to another Erekosë story, but ha-ha nope, this is an Urlik story (but really still kind of an Erekosë story.) Anyway, I'm really enjoying it.

Finally (maybe) got out of my reviewing funk with my Vale of Stars review.