Where are you in Fantasyland? : September 2012

Finished Stormlord Rising and started Stormlord's Exile by Glenda Larke.

Just marking the thread.

Marking the thread too.

seitherin, how did you find the Glenda Larke books? I tried The Last Stormlord but lost interest about halfway through the book; found it kind of bleak too.

Breezed through Black Sun Rising, will be seeking the remaining parts of the trilogy.

Currently beginning The Innocent Mage, which so far seems decent but somewhat less intriguing.

Still plugging along with Barbara Hambly's Stranger at the Wedding and John Crowley's The Deep.

I'm finding both a bit frustrating narratively. I'm about 30 pages in to Stranger (through a prologue and two chapters, into the third chapter) and Hambly has a tendency to jump ahead in time a few minutes between chapters, which is normal, but often the point-of-view character's emotional state is radically different (from annoyed to really anxious and willing to work magic she shouldn't, for example) and I really wish that I got the _why_of it. The plot and worldbuilding and the wizard protagonist are enough to keep me reading for now, though.

The Deep has an omniscient POV that spends a lot of time following a bunch of characters whose names are so similar they all blend together (we get Protector Redhand, Learned Redhand, Younger Redhand, Red Senlinn, Red Senlinn's Son, and Sennred all having a conversation, for example), and it hasn't spent enough time in a third of its short page count to make them distinct in any other way. Despite that, there are occasional lovely passages of description when he gets away from the political conflict. It was his first novel, and it's promising enough that I'll look forward to Beasts and Little, Big which are in my TBR pile.

I'm in between books right now, but considering rereading something Discworld.

3, anatwork.k: I am not really enamored of the Larke books. Sometimes they read like romance novels. Mostly they come across as juvenile (and not the good kind.) I think what I call juvenile may be what you think was bleak. For me, they are a mindless distraction from the grind of university course work.

>5 sandstone78:: Hang in there with 'Stranger', sandstone; it's all tied in to what happened in the past, which is revealed a little bit at a time as the story moves along in the present and Kyra relives her memories.

>7 seitherin: I think we both mean "emo". And I agree with your assessment. :-) As far as I was concerned, they didn't even do the job they are doing for you.

I am currently in pre-apocalyptic Boston with Ben Winters' The Last Policeman. I should have read it months ago for early reviewers but travel and work and real life got in the way... It is quite good so far.

>8 humouress: Thanks humouress, good to know that it will be explained! I found the world interesting enough that I picked up the Windrose chronicles set in the same universe at the used bookstore too, so those are into the TBR pile.

On a trip at the moment so I've decided to try an audiobook, Kristin Cashore's Fire. It was going along well enough through the first five chapters, even if the worldbuilding has some gaps in logic (could the ecosystem really support that many apex predators?), but I think The Love Interest may have just shown up...

Finished Stormlord's Exile by Glenda Larke. Started The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin.

I just gave up on Kushiel's Chosen, after about 60 pages. I loved Kushiel's Dart but just couldn't get into this one. I'm not sure why. I knew going in that I would have trouble remembering characters and all the political intrigue, because it's been about 3 years since I read the first one. But it felt like those first pages were a lot of rehashing of the previous book, to get you up to speed, and it wasn't keeping my attention. Very disappointing.

>7 seitherin:: Sometimes they read like romance novels.
I'll get in trouble for generalizing, but has anyone else noticed that quite a bit of fantasy from female Australian authors is like that...? Clearly a fantasy in terms of story and setting, but with more of a... tone, I guess... of a romance? Not in a derogatory way, as there's clearly an audience for it, but most of the fantasy series I've set aside as being too "romance-y" for my tastes have been from Australian authors. I've always wondered if it's really a difference in the fantasy market down there, just coincidence in my reading, or what...

=>13 Niko:, Niko: I can't speak to the romance-iness of female Australian fantasy writers because Glenda Larke is the first I actually remember reading who I knew was Australian. I had the same romance-y problem with the only Sharon Shinn novel I read so I've never bothered with any of her others. Despite being female, I like what I've come to think of as "guy books", i.e. the assassin books by Brent Weeks, Brian Ruckley's Godless World books. What other female Australian fantasy writers would you class as being romance writers?

>14 seitherin:: The ones that started me paying attention were Sara Douglass, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, and Juliet Marillier. I really *don't* often set books (or series) aside unfinished for just "not my cup of tea" reasons, so the fact that all three of them pinged as "not my cup of tea" in very similar ways made me curious about where there was something in their backgrounds that explained it. (I've also found that a mention of "anthropology" in an author's bio is almost a guaranteed sign that I'll adore their work. It informs their world-building differently or something. Looking for something like that.)

Jennifer Fallon, Fiona McIntosh, and Kate Forsyth are others that I've been drawn to by word-of-mouth and backed off when I realized their work sounded too romance-y for me (and didn't realize until later that they were Aussies, too).

(And again, no offense to romancier fantasies, and I'm sure some Aussie authors have plenty of gritty, non-romantic style... just curious to compare notes.)

>15 Niko: I would agree that there's a certain common style that I often notice when I pick up a book by the Australian authors you've mentioned. I would say that Sharon Shinn and Martha Wells also "ping" me as being in that category- usually a female point of view character (or two points of view from a man and woman that later get romantically involved), usually a secondary world, usually a romance subplot, and usually character-driven. Isobelle Carmody is another Australian author, and I think her Obernewtyn series also falls into this category for me.

As someone who occasionally reads romances (as in books shelved in the romance section, though almost all fantasy, science fiction, or older "futuristics"), I'm not sure I would call it romancier though- romances for me are usually marked by a tight focus on the romantically involved leads and copious amounts of physical description of characters' beauty/sexiness/what have you. I see that sort of description a lot in urban fantasy and modern YA, but not generally among this set of authors.

I think the similarity is that a lot of romance plots are character-driven in the same way that this particular fantasy subgenre is, where the conflict comes from characters' pasts that they need to face up to with the emotional support of other people (rather than prophecy, war, quest, political conflict, and so on- in this subgenre, those things seem more like plot catalysts to get the characters to come to terms with things than the point of the plot).

As for me, I'm currently reading Calculus: Early Transcendentals by James Stewart and looking wistfully at Barbara Hambly's Stranger at the Wedding, which has indeed begun to pick up, and Samuel Delaney's Fall of the Towers which is in the queue behind it as my entry in the A More Diverse Universe reading challenge.

I am flashing back to freshman year of college with the Calculus book. It occasionally surprises me how long ago that was!

I like Sharon Shinn and possibly Martha Wells when I get around to her and Robin McKinley and N.K. Jemisin. (The latter two are thrown in because I personally would rank this group of writers together). I find that what they all have in common which I like is good writing. I find it interesting that people get the same sort of feeling from Glenda Larke's work and Juliet Marillier and Cecilia Dart Thornton all of which I most emphatically don't like.

Very interesting. I shall have to think about this.

=>17 anatwork.k:, anatwork.k:
=>16 sandstone78:, sandstone78:

I've not read any Martha Wells, Juliet Marillier, or Cecilia Dart Thornton so I have no idea what their styles are like. I really enjoy Robin McKinley and I've only read one chapter of one book of N. K. Jemisin's (currently reading The Killing Moon) so I don't quite know yet what I think about her.

There are at least two kinds of romance novels that I've come across: the standard bodice rippers like the Harlequin-esque books or faux historicals, and the ones that are disguised as sf/f because they involve fantastical elements/futuresque elements but the whole purpose of which is to throw obstacles in the way of the relationships of the "it" couples or to redeem and bring together the bad boys and the good girls. Writing abilities vary wildly, but there is a similarity in the tone/rhythm/choice of words across all of them. For me, Sharon Shinn has that tone of voice as does Glenda Larke.

And don't get me started about some of the stuff being palmed off as urban fantasy. Charles de Lint writes urban fantasy.

>16 sandstone78:. It's interesting you mention Martha Wells, because I do find it a little odd that she and Carol Berg are definitely also authors who have a romantic focus in their fantasy... and yet, they're two of my favorite authors, hands-down. I think the difference for me, and what causes the other authors to feel too "romance-y" is... authorial focus? Like, the others, to me, felt almost... Mary-Sue-ish in the sense that the only characters I felt the author really *cared* about were the hero/heroine and love interest. Everyone else comes across as pretty much "Enemy Archetype #32" or "Ally Archetype #47", existing only when they're actively doing something to help/hinder the character who has the authorial mark of "I'm the only important person in this book". Like seitherin's second type of romance in #18, I associate that sort of narrow focus on heroine/love-interest as a primary hallmark of romance, ergo... :)

I guess maybe I should call a spade a spade and say that I've seen a trend in Australian fantasy for blatant Mary Sues populated with cardboard supporting characters... but since these authors have PLENTY of fans, I guess I prefer to assume that there's some sub-genre that I just don't get, and that happens to be popular in Australia. :)

Very interesting. I happen to like the "romance-y" stuff, as long as it's well-written and the characters are effectively defined as complex, interesting people rather than Bella Swan-like blank slates. Mystic and Rider was one of my more pleasant discoveries last year. While it was clear that the love story was central, I felt the supporting characters were developed (after all, they're going to be the protagonists of books of their own), and themes of politics and prejudice were crucial. Plus, I adored Senneth and didn't find her a Mary Sue at all. (Maybe I just don't "get" the term "Mary Sue," unless it refers to those blank slate type characters whom everyone worships and protects despite the fact that they don't have a single active, positive personality trait to call their own.)

It so happens that I'm reading The Thirteenth House now. I've put it off for a while, for the simple reason that I wasn't nearly as fond of Kirra as I was of Senneth. Now that I'm some pages into it... I like it, but it's not as good as its predecessor. And why? Because Kirra is no Senneth. Bless her heart, she means well, but Kirra comes across as an airhead, and that's generally not the kind of character I enjoy reading about.

Romance doesn't put me off. Tech Talk and uber-cynicism and an overly harsh, gritty style put me off. So I guess it's important that there's something out there for everyone.

Yeah, I tend to like mixed genre type things. Since fantasy is essentially defined by the setting, I find it mixes well with romance and with mystery, since they're both defined by the plot arc. I like Juliet Marillier and Sharon Shinn (who often has a side of science fiction, too), and detective urban fantasies like The Dresden Files and Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series. I also like some purer fantasy like Robin Hobb and the Song of Ice and Fire books, but when I think about it there's not a lot of my collection that falls so neatly into only one genre.

>19 Niko:, 20 I agree. A romance focuses on the romantically involved (or potentially so in the case of love triangles etc) characters, but a _good_ romance isn't myopic about them. I have also noticed a correlation between this sort of obsessive focus on the romantic leads and underdevelopment of them that relies on cliches like "alpha males" and "broken birds" (see http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/broken-birds-damage-brave-new-worlds/ ).

seitherin@18, I know what you mean that there is a difference in tone between fantasy published as romance and fantasy published as fantasy, but I will argue that poorly plotted romances that place obstacles like "the big misunderstanding" in the way of their leads getting together are no better or worse than poorly plotted fantasy novels that place obstacles like "wise mentor who keeps secrets" or "obscure prophecies" in the way of their protagonists and the fulfillment of destiny. There are well-written and poorly-written books of almost all genres. Romance has as much a valid place as violence in my landscape of speculative fiction, and I don't believe fantasy novels with a prominent romance plot are romance novels "disguised" as fantasy any more than fantasy novels that center around epic wars are military fiction disguised as fantasy.

That said, romantic fantasy has its problematic tropes, such as the loathsome one of the "alpha male" controlling man who is always right and the woman who must give up her own interests to fix him that shows up over and over in romance, but this is no more or less hurtful than the problematic tropes in other branches of fantasy, such as the increasing prominence and normalization of sexual violence in the "gritty" subgenre of A Song of Ice and Fire and many of the works that follow in its footsteps (see http://tinyurl.com/sady-doyle-grrm ).

The fact that a lot of books are really, really problematic doesn't change that one of the most powerful elements of fantasy and speculative fiction in general to me is the ability to change normal, and that means that we can also change the "normal" of romance. Some of my favorite romances are (spoilers!) ones where the girl gets the girl (Fires of the Faithful, The Exile and the Sorcerer), where the prince gets the boy thief and they live happily ever after with their asexual female mage friend after they save the kingdom (The Fire's Stone), where the hermaphroditic, winged non-human gets the hermaphroditic, winged non-human (Delan the Mislaid), and these things can be _normal_ in the way that they can't be in settings derived from Earth reality. These aren't contemporary romances pretending to be fantasy- these are romances that are fantasy at their core, where the romance is inseparable from the fantasy elements, tropes, and setting.

(As a side note, I agree on Urban Fantasy, my taste definitely runs much more towards Charles de Lint and Nina Kiriki Hoffman than modern urban fantasy with "kick-ass protagonists" like Laurell K. Hamilton or Jim Butcher.)

>19 Niko: That's interesting. I have only read Carol Berg's earlier work, Song of the Beast and Transformation and its sequels, but her style strikes me as being closer to Robin Hobb (for sheer level of beating on the protagonists) than to Martha Wells. However, full disclosure, I have had a hard time getting into the Martha Wells books I've tried, The Element of Fire and Death of the Necromancer and ended up putting them aside partially read for another time. I like her concepts enough that I want to give them another chance, though.

So as not to diverge from the thread too much, mildly related to the topic at hand, I have spoiled myself on the romantic outcome in Kristen Cashore's Fire and decided that I have other books I'd much rather spend my time on than ones where (spoiler warning, trigger warning) the heroine's love interest triggers a nervous breakdown on his first appearance because she mistakes him for her dead, abusive father, slams her against a wall and pins her wrists against it hard enough to cause bruises that she must cover up the next day in his next appearance, and turns out to be someone who is impervious to her magical power so it's "safe" for her to love him. Emphatically not my cup of tea when it comes to romance! (But hey, he likes her horse and he has pretty eyes, and their fathers were both awful people!)

20, 21, 22 > I tend to agree with the central message of these posts particularly with sandstone78's very thoughtfully written and well broken down analysis. :-) I agree that there are good and bad books in every genre and while entering fully into the spirit of finding modern urban fantasy annoying, there are some standouts there for me too. Ilona Andrews anyone?

I think the discussion kind of morphed from Niko pointing out certain similar writing styles among australian authors. Now I wouldn't say the problem with Glenda Larke's and Karen Miller's writing was the romance. I would just call their books poorly executed in terms of plot, characterization and tone.

Sidenote, I really must get around to reading Martha Wells.

I've got to say that I've enjoyed the discussion about genres and authors. Thank you all for sharing. With that said, college has kept me seriously busy so I've not had much chance to continue reading The Silmarillion or The Killing Moon.

Cool discussion. I'm with #20 - I've enjoyed my share of romance/fantasy books though don't normally like regular romance novels. A well written, well told story is still a well written, well told story.

Anyway, I'm heading for a trip around the universe with Arthur Dent in Life, the Universe and Everything.

Currently visiting Sandman Slim down in Hell with Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey.

I've been stumbling through various locales of the multiple realities of the Amber-esque world of Webmage, with a protagonist literally hounded by the Fates and Furies.

Later I've been at the siege of Pale with the last survivors of the Bridgeburners, now arriving in the city of Darujhistan as I'm finally tackling Gardens of the Moon. Pages fly and as I was sort of expecting, it seems I've found a new series to add to my favorites.

Stuck in a spooky, small village in White Crow.

I (and my little soapbox, I'll own up to it :) enjoyed the discussion too, thanks everyone. I found it interesting to see the opinions of authors like Glenda Larke, who I've never read but who I've heard generally positive things about before.

I've just spent a pleasant afternoon reading Ted Chiang's novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects, a near-future story about AI. As a computer programmer, I was somewhat distracted by the fuzziness about how the digients work, but this is really a story of ideas rather than a story of concrete scientific projection, and the two main characters are a former animal trainer and an animator that work at a start-up, so those details would have been out of place in the story anyways. The hardcover I checked out from the library is printed in two colors, black and red, and there are some lovely watercolor illustrations by Christian Pearce in each chapter that really add to the book, but unfortunately, the paper version is out of print (not sure how well the illustrations would show up in an electronic copy). I'll keep an eye out for his short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others.

>23 anatwork.k: I picked up Ilona Andrews' Magic Bites at the used bookstore yesterday for National Buy a Book Day. The setting of a city where magic is on and off and prone to interrupting technology reminds me a bit of the old Borderland anthologies edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (though I'm not sure any modern book could match those for their sheer, fantastic cheesiness- "where magic meets rock n' roll" indeed.) I'm not opposed to recent urban fantasy, but there hasn't been a lot I've tried and liked. (The only one I can think of offhand is Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series, starting with Ill Wind, and generally enjoyed them for what they were- fast, action-movie-paced reads prone to end-of-book cliffhangers and big, pyrotechnic weather magic.)

>27 Jarandel: Interesting comment about Webmage being Amberesque, that hadn't occurred to me back when I read it (but I can't remember if I'd read the Amber books yet or not when I read it). I've got the sequels for it around somewhere that I should give a try sometime...

I am back in magic-on magic -off Atlanta with Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews. Comfort re-read.

>29 sandstone78: If you don't like Magic Bites don't give up. The series gets crackingly good around book 3 which is Magic Strikes. I loved the world with the interrupted tech and magic and didn't know there was anything else like it. Based on your description of the borderlands I think Ilona Andrews has a series (the Edge novels) that is even more similar to the world. Not campy though -- kind of gritty actually.

Also, I wish to visit Liaden (based on amazon's rec of Dragon Ship) but am somewhat overwhelmed with choice and don't know where to start. Any tips?

Just prematurely hopped off Basilisk Station (a bit too heavily military for my taste) and boarded The Ship Who Sang. It may be heresy to say as much, but so far I'm enjoying it much better.

>30 anatwork.k: I've heard that before about the Andrews books, thanks for the info. I'm assuming the best place to actually start is still book 1, though, to get the background and setup right?

I've read a handful of Liaden books, and while I didn't by think they were bad, I don't really get all of the hype around them either. They are light space opera and many of them have a romance bent, but the romances felt kind of same-y across all of the books I read. The reading order is rather obscure, though, and the way the series is organized here on LT seems geared more toward series fans than new readerrs, so I'll try to clarify.

With the currently-in-print Baen publication, The Dragon Variation contains the books I started with, and also the three books out of five that I read that I liked best. Mouse and Dragon was written much later but picks up immediately after the end of Scout's Progress, the second book in The Dragon Variation, and if memory serves the outcome of that story may be spoiled by mentions in the third book included in The Dragon Variation, Conflict of Honors.

The next omnibus is The Agent Gambit which continues into Korval's Game. The end of these dovetails somehow with the Theo Waitley books (she comes in at the end of Korval's Game, I know, but I haven't read that far so I'm not entirely sure how the timeline matches up).

Dragon Ship that you mentioned is part of a sub-series that follows a character named Theo Waitley. Her story is covered by Fledgling, Saltation, Ghost Ship, and the recent Dragon Ship. Fledgling may be an appropriate place to start the series, but I haven't read them so I can't say for sure. I've heard that Fledgling and Saltation were more geared toward a YA audience, but that could just be because they have a younger protagonist than the rest of the books.

There's also an omnibus that goes back to the beginning of the Liaden timeline quite a while before the other books, The Crystal Variation. I have the duology that makes up the first two thirds of this in my TBR pile, and it looks much more military-SF-ish than the rest of the series, so I don't think it would be representative of the series or a good place to start. There are also approximately umpteen works of short fiction set in the Liaden universe that fill in between stories, but I didn't feel that I was missing anything critical without having read them.

Hope this helps.

32> You could potentially start with the second book and just think of the first as a prequel. I wouldn't recommend starting with the third, as by that point there are enough characters that it might be hard to keep track without having read the first two.

>33 pwaites: That's true, The Agent Gambit starts with Agent of Change which was the first book published (and thus really ought to alone without previous books). I'm probably partial because I started out with the Meisha Merlin book Partners in Necessity, though, which contains Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, and Carpe Diem in that order, and I liked having the background on Shan and Priscilla from Conflict before going into Carpe Diem (if I remember right Carpe Diem brings the storylines from the other two together).

It's funny how things work sometimes- I hadn't thought about the Liaden books in ages, but I picked up Assassin Fantastic last week, which has a short story that details Miri's background, and now this topic comes up. Perhaps it's time for a reread to confirm or deny my lukewarm impression...

I just finished rereading The Avenger and can't figure out why I thought it was worth keeping the first time I read it. It's time travel romance and I didn't read it expecting anything else, but it fails on both the romantic and the fantasy/SF world-building levels. The setting and the relationship between the main characters are both shallow. I know it's a category romance and the word count restraints only allow for so much development but I have seen better jobs done with them so I know it's possible.

In SanFrancisco with Under Wraps

Just finished The Good Fairies of New York.

>32 sandstone78: Thank you so much for the Liaden info! I was going around in circles trying to pinpoint where I should start. It seems like they are all different sub-series of different characters so I might start with the Theo Waitley ones if I won't suffer too much from not knowing anything about the world from the earlier books? What do you think?

It is better to start Ilona Andrews with the first Magic book. I think pwaites was saying you could skip book 1 entirely as a host of main characters are introduced in book 2 but I'm a bit of a series purist. I think book 1 is still good; I just know some people haven't liked it. Either way, enjoy your sojourn in Kate's Atlanta. :)

>38 anatwork.k: You're welcome! From what I can tell, Theo's storyline converges with the Clan Korval storyline that runs through The Agent Gambit and Korval's Game in the second half of her second book, Saltation, and both stories continue on intertwined in Ghost Ship.

So, I would say that you could probably start with Fledgling without a problem, and probably continue on to Saltation, but if you decide to go further you'd probably want to read the Korval omnibuses to get the other half of the story before continuing on in Ghost Ship. Her parentage is part of the reason that she comes into contact with the others, and some of the backstory on that is covered in Scout's Progress (included in the omnibus The Dragon Variation) and Mouse and Dragon (but you could probably read those as prequels after the fact.)

I also found a page on Sharon Lee's site that has links to long samples of each book, http://sharonleewriter.com/bibliography-2012/free-samples/ , so I would suggest checking out Fledgling, Agent of Change, and Local Custom (first book of the prequels) to see which storyline you're most interested in. Hope you enjoy!

I'm looking forward to Magic Bites, I think I'll start there since I have it in hand and I find it nice to have the backstory when I can. Thanks for clarifying!

Next I'm going to finish up the Magister Trilogy with Legacy of Kings.

Finished Pavane by Keith Roberts, which was quite good.

Also read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente. Normally, I enjoy Valente, but this one didn't quite work for me. It's not that it's YA. Something just didn't click.

> #29, sandstone78

I studied programming myself so I know what you mean about Lifecycle. I think it's one of Chiang's weaker efforts. Stories of My Life and Others is fantastic and definitely worth it.

>41 beniowa: Excellent, Stories of Your Life and Others just arrived in the mail for me yesterday so that's good to hear :)

I think my biggest problem with The Lifecycle of Software Objects was the implicit assumption that of course AI is self-aware, which while it was necessary for the story he told in the length he told it to accept that as a given was still a bit jarring in a near-future story. I was also not that pleased with the way things worked out regarding Derek's decision at the end- it wasn't that it was really out of character for Derek, but it was rather... out of "tone", so to speak in the story, in that it followed from the emotional subplot rather than the arguments the author had laid out about AI. It had almost the feel of a cop-out, a way to avoid coming down on one side or the other about the validity of the decision being made, and also more than a little of the "humans will be humans" tone to it. I did like the Instant Rapport concept though- I enjoy what I think of as "peripheral speculation" in stories, where the author acknowledges that society and other industries are going to be developing alongside the main speculative concept over time.

Melissa Scott is another author that does this well (The Jazz was one particularly good example- some of her other works that were near-future in the 90s when they were written are dated by innovations she didn't predict, though, such as Trouble and her Friends where there is immersive virtual reality but no wireless internet or cell phones.)

I have heard a lot of good things about Catherynne Valente, but I had about the same feeling you did when I read the short story in the same universe recently posted on Tor.com, whose name now escapes me. Something about the writing style just didn't really appeal to me. Do you have any recommendations for a good starting point? I have been considering The Orphan's Tales, Deathless, or maybe her earlier work Myths of Origin, but her other works look good as well.

As for my reading, I've laid down Barbara Hambly's Stranger at the Wedding for the minute to pick up Samuel Delany's The Fall of the Towers for this month's A More Diverse Universe challenge, so I have just escaped the tetron mines with Jon Koshar under mysterious circumstances that may have to do with those extradimensional entities mentioned in the prologue, and I am now outside the dead city of Telphar, on the wrong side of the radiation zone border. So far, the writing style is as compelling as I remember- Delany is another author like Tanith Lee who seems to me to have a gift for sparse, perfectly chosen words in description, and I really should seek out more of his work.

#42: Regarding Valente, I know you weren't talking to me, ha, but my own two cents: I read The Orphan's Tales first and loved loved loved it. I have also enjoyed most of her other writing, but haven't fallen completely in love with any of it like I did Orphan's Tales. I have read her two Prester John books and they are my least favorite so far...

Newbie reporting for duty. Assignment - first post.

At the moment I am reading Tricia Rayburn's Siren. At first I thought it a bit confusing but I am about half-way through and it seems really great now. I hope it will have a good ending, then I will have a reason to buy the next book in the series.

>43 kmaziarz: I'm not picky, thanks for the input! I think that might be the place to start.

>44 LetumTactus: Welcome! Please let us know how Siren turns out!

Finished The Spirit Lens... excellent, as usual from Carol Berg. :) I'm looking forward to seeing where she takes things.

Currently about halfway through Graceling. I was kinda leery at first, because the world-building seemed overly simplistic, but after dialing back my expectations on that front, I'm finding the depiction of the main character's struggling to break away from her own assumptions about the sort of person she is and re-shaping her expectations is really great.

>46 Niko: That is Kristin Cashore's Graceling right? I have read her Fire. At first did not seem like much, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. Not the best, but good and worth reading.

44> Hi! Nice to see another traveler in fantasyland.

39> Your info really helped! Especially Sharon Lee's page; like a dummy I did not look there earlier. Anyway, I got started with The Agent Gambit since I found it at the library and am liking it so far. The world building is a little murky as in she/he/they haven't explained how stuff changed into the weirdness of the future but I am hoping that is fleshed out with their 13 books that will follow. So far, not great but fun to read.

How is Magic Bites?

Just finished the Siren. If I would have to rate it I would say it is 4.5 out of 5. A lot of loose ends but that only makes me want to get my hands on the second book Undercurrent that much faster. But all in all had just a right amount of everything. I would definitely recommend it.

After finishing that one I started on the first book of a whole new series for me, Rachel Vincent's My Soul To Take. I have read her Shifters series in which the first book was brilliant but every next was worse than the last. Will have to see how this series turns out.

Leaving Gillengaria (Dark Moon Defender - Sharon Shinn) and the Union (The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie).

Thinking of reading some YA; will return anon ...

How is Dark Moon Defender? That was actually the one of the Twelve Houses series I was planning to skip, because based on some of the things I've read, Ellynor has not made a very good impression on me. But I'm open to changing my mind.

However, as I'm reading The Thirteenth House, Kirra is rapidly growing on me. Will I ever love her as much as I loved Senneth in Mystic and Rider? Probably not -- but I appreciate that she's flawed and sometimes makes terrible mistakes, yet is still motivated by her ideals and beliefs on what's best for the country. I've discovered a way to tell whether a book is "too romance-y" for my own taste. I ask these questions: how much time does the female lead spend interacting with characters other than her love interest? How much energy (and page space) does she spend on goals other than living happily ever after with her love interest? If plenty of page space is devoted to matters beyond or apart from the romance, then I can appreciate the character a lot more, and I can even enjoy the romance more.

I just finished Leviathan last week, and I've started Wise Child, a book I've been meaning to read for a long time.

51> I remember when I was reading the Twelve Houses series Dark Moon Defender was one of the good ones mainly because the society it described was a lot different than the rest of the kingdom (and the usual European medieval fantasy kingdom structure). I remember enjoying it but I must confess I cannot bring to mind a lot of details about the book since I read it a while ago. OTOH, I liked The Thirteenth House but was left quite underwhelmed by the end of the book because of how Shinn decided to resolve the situation. It felt like a complete cop-out as far as the romance went (and let us be honest, that was the memorable plot thread in the book).

PS - The book with Cammon and Princess Amalie was my favourite. I loved it to bits.

Update from Liad: I am now in the middle of Carpe Diem and I quite enjoyed the first two books. I think they are getting better. However, anybody else think they felt a little dated? Some books really are timeless, you can read them whenever and you can't really point to a particular time when they were written. These felt very 80's light sciene-fiction to me. Someone was also wearing velvet bell bottom pants in them! I found that hilarious.

>48 anatwork.k:/52 Glad to be of service! I tend to read space opera in the same way I do as secondary world fantasy- there may be humans, but they aren't _our_ humans even if there are references to Earth or "Terra" or what have you. Also velvet bell-bottoms... in space! :D That's fantastic.

I'm only fifty pages into Magic Bites with Kate in Atlanta, but I have mixed feelings. So far, it hasn't done much to distinguish itself from the standard tropes of the urban fantasy genre* and many of the things that grate on me when I pick up an urban fantasy novel are present, for example everyone that shows up is described first in terms of how objectively physically attractive they are and like most urban fantasy protagonists Kate's tone in the first-person narrative never veers from snark even when she tells us that she is feeling other emotions.

I'm not too far in, though, and I'm hoping it will start to diverge from this before too long. Between the tropes and the way the authorial hand shows for me in some of the plotting (for example, Ghastek's vampire shows up in the first scene to tell her that something has happened, and when she finds out that a dead vampire was found at the scene of the crime no more than ten pages later, the thought that Ghastek or one of his underlings might have been involved on one side or the other doesn't even cross Kate's mind?) this reads very much like a first novel. The mystery is interesting enough that I'll keep reading for now, though.

*(Loner protagonist with a background hinted to be tragic that's masked by a tough, snarky exterior and the hint of untapped magical powers? Check. Protagonist is independent from but has a past relationship with the magical organization that's more powerful than mundane people know, and gets involved with their business again for personal reasons? Check. Undead- usually vampires, in this case necromancers that control non-sentient vampires- organized in a vaguely mafia-like fashion and shapeshifters in an organization called "the pack" except for the occasional uncontrollably violent renegade? Check.)

>51 kceccato:: Hmm; how to answer your question about Dark Moon Defender without spoilers, kceccato?

Well, I think it's fairly obvious from the back of the book that it's not giving anything away to say that Justin and Ellynor, a novice of the Pale Mother, are attracted to each other. The surprise, for his friends, is that Justin should fall in love. As Justin is on a solo mission, we do see a lot of their interaction. We also see Ellynor's point of view, and she has other concerns, apart from falling in love with someone that she shouldn't, as she realises her life is in danger. And we also divert to catch up with Senneth, Kirra et al, and find out what is happening in other parts of the kingdom.

I think it meets your criteria; give it a go!

Sorry - double posted.

>51 kceccato:, 54: Dark Moon Defender was my second favourite (after Mystic and rider) of the Gillengaria books. I went into it with similar reservations about it being too much a "star-crossed lovers" romance, but the balance between the love story and other plots/issues was about right for me.

54, 56: Thanks, guys! I will pick it up the next time I get near a bookstore. I am curious to see how and why any halfway decent person would be drawn into the service of the Pale Mother, but that's often one of the good things about the fantasy genre: the lines between good and evil may not always be clear cut. (We find an interesting example of this in the Codex Alera, with the Dianic League, an organization whose women's-rights and abolitionists aims could not be more noble, but which is headed by the series' most despicable character.)

One of the most pleasant surprises I've found as I've been reading The Thirteenth House is the emergence of Amalie as a character worth reading about; right now she's the protected Princess, but she's growing into a potentially sympathetic female authority figure. I appreciate Shinn's willingness to show us women in leadership roles, both good (Senneth) and evil (Coralinda).

Followed warlord Coltaine's awe-inspiring transcontinental march and various events in assorted other places as I gobbled up Deadhouse Gates.

Next (current) read is SciFi.

53> The mystery really is the highlight of Magic Bites. The mythology (that makes it distinct from the rest of the urban fantasy genre) doesn't really begin to emerge until book 2 and does it more properly in book 3.

Ilona and Gordon Andrews (or Ilona and Andrew Gordon) were doing a live web chat the other day and the question was "would you like to re-write any of your books". They were falling over themselves to say "yes, book 1". It does suffer from first novelitis. There is no denying it.

The Liaden universe is taking better shape now but I think that is because I have reached the more modern novels. It is fun. And I needed a new world to play around in. :)

> 53, 59 I've only read Magic Bites - from what I remember it wasn't that bad. What intrigued me about it was the Atlanta setting (I live there). When a book is particularly bad I'll put it down unfinished and it more than passed that test.

Fifth voyage to Malazan in Midnight Tides. The all new continent and cast is a bit disconcerting, but I was forewarned.

I'm in San Francisco with October Daye. Reading Ashes of Honor

> #42, sandstone78

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. Valente, for the most part, doesn't write series so you can pretty much jump in anywhere. Like kmaziarz, I absolutely loved The Orphan's Tales while being somewhat underwhelmed by the Prestor John books. Deathless is quite good and Palimpsest isn't too shabby either. Earlier this year I tried to read The Labyrinth, but couldn't get into it.

I'm off to Calgary with The Enchantment Emporium.

I've been time-travelling with a novella called Lord Dickens's Declaration.

>63 beniowa: No worries, thank you for taking the time to respond! I think The Orphan's Tales are a likely place to start with Valente for me, maybe to be followed up with Deathless. Luckily, my local library has most of her work, as soon as I have time to read it... I think Palimpsest is an interesting concept, but as someone who has been borderline asexual all my life I have to admit that the premise that only people who have sex can be part of the magic city really puts me off, even if it is well-written as the positive reviews suggest it would be.

>59 anatwork.k:, 60 Work has kept me busy (an already "aggressive" deadline got moved forward two weeks), so I haven't been able to make any more progress in Magic Bites, but thank you for the comments. @anatwork.k, I'm glad that the mythology comes out more in the second book- I will have to keep an eye out for it.

I'm running through the West with Chess and Ed in Rope of Thorns. They are hexacious!

I'm in Paris with Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook in Frozen Heat. No doubt heading back to New York soon. What?you say that's mystery, not fantasy! Hello? Novel written by a TV character? LOL

I'm in some "holy land" at the opening The tyranny of the Night, as some soldiers are preparing to give an attacking demon (?) a taste of silver shrapnel via early firearm technology.

I'm at sea, some weeks out of Madeira, with Temeraire, who has yet to become His Majesty's Dragon.

Right now reading DragonSpell (http://www.librarything.com/work/215519) by Donita K. Paul. I find it very good and easy to read.

Finished And Blue Skies from Pain by Stina Leicht, sequel to Of Blood and Honey. Both books are about a young man who's half-Fey and who gets caught up in a holy war between fairies, fallen angels, and the Catholic Church as well as paramilitaries and the IRA in Ireland in the '70s. Both books suffer from plotting issues, but I think the author shows a bit of promise.

I've just passed through a worldgate to who-knows-where, to defeat The curse of the Mistwraith.

I'm in the wastes near the Seven Cities with the wreckage of Sh'aiks army. The Bonehunters

Just finished The Shadowed Sun and started The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, both by N. K. Jemisin.

I'm in Yok.

Reading Richelle Mead's Storm Born. I have read her Vampire Academy and already knew that she is brilliant but I had heard a few things that were not exactly complimentary about the Dark Swan series. Whoever said that, they were wrong. I am more than half-way through and it is great, I love it. Definitely would recommend it.

Having been seduced by Hobbit trailer on Youtube, I am rereading The Hobbit. Had forgotten how much fun it is.

I am currently reading The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks.

I'm in a city in Hell called Pandemonium in Devil Said Bang.

Finished with the Liaden universe finally (apart from prequels). It was an interesting visit. On the whole I think I preferred the overtly Korval storylines (i.e. the agent of change series) rather than the Theo Waitley ones. She really annoyed me a lot, especially in Saltation because of her social awkwardness, standoffishness and zero desire to make friends (and I blame the authors here -- they didn't describe the friends she did have enough).

I'm about to re-enter Gillengaria again, with the next instalment of Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, Reader and Raelynx.

October thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/142944

Oh yeah -- forgot that it was a new month!

>81 anatwork.k: Disappointing to hear that about the Theo books. Our discussion up thread caused me to pick up my copy of Partners in Necessity and start re-reading Conflict of Honors, but I decided to go back to the previous generation Korval books instead and start a re-read from there to get the background. (I have not read the the other prequels collected in The Crystal Variation; they consist of a duology that explains the origins of Clan Korval and a standalone about a Terran trader that takes place 300 years before the rest of the books.)

So, I picked up Pilot's Choice from the library the other day, which contains the two immediate prequels Local Custom and Scout's Progress (about Shan's parents and Val Con's parents respectively) so I could fit in the recent release Mouse and Dragon which is a sequel to Scout's Progress. I have to say, though I don't remember disliking it before, Local Custom is just not a very good book, at least in the first fifty pages- it's very much a "big misunderstanding" plot, and there are gross cultural misunderstandings that really just don't make any sense when the two protagonists are a prominent human professor of Liaden literature and a Liaden Master Trader, both in their thirties, whose intelligence and competence we are supposed to respect.

I could only really recommend it for the dedicated fan at this point; though I mentioned it as a potential starting point above, I have to amend that- do not start here. I'm hoping for better things from the second book in the collection, Scout's Progress. (Note: both of these books and Conflict of Honors are part of The Dragon Variation in the current Baen publication.)

I liked the Theo books a lot. YYMV, I guess :)

To reiterate, the October thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/142944

>85 sandstone78:, 86: I loved the first Theo book, Fledgling, but haven't got to Saltation yet as I was advised to go back and start with the earlier books to avoid spoilers. I enjoyed Scout's progress too. I agree that Local custom was not that great, for the same reasons you mention.

Off to the October thread to report this month's reading there!

I think it is okay if we make this an unofficial "Liaden Discussion" thread.

85, 86> I think the Theo books hit a couple of my knee-jerk irritances and maybe I'm just not that into science fiction. I also disliked Lee and Millers retconning in the last Theo book w.r.t. one of the secondary characters. Also Lee and Miller developed a thoroughly annoying habit in Dragon Ship of having the "Terran" characters say bidness instead of business which they had not done throughout the 14 or so books that came before!*

I really enjoyed the Agent of Change storyline with Val Con (or "Korval Himself" as he is known in the universe) and Miri Robertson which is the main storyline of the Liaden books. I _don't_ think I will enjoy the prequels as these seem more of like a filler for the universe and the fandom rather than advancing the main plot in anyway. Kind of like Christopher Tolkien writing 10 or so History of Middle Earth books. On the whole, I am glad I started with those books despite the velvet pants in space (see upthread)--this happened in Conflict of Honors which I read second. ;)

*Contrast this to my great love of the Tiffany Aching subseries in Terry Pratchetts Discworld which is a similar situation of an established adult author turning to YA. I don't wish to be harsh about the authors but it strikes me that the Theo Waitley books came about because the authors wanted to flesh out their world rather than tell an actual story. I agree though that it is very much YMMV. :)

Over to this months thread for new reading.

>89 anatwork.k:: "Also Lee and Miller developed a thoroughly annoying habit in Dragon Ship of having the "Terran" characters say bidness instead of business which they had not done throughout the 14 or so books that came before!"

It really annoys me when authors do this sort of thing! One of the (many) reasons I took a violent dislike to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books was when she suddenly made one character start speaking with a Germanic (Yoda-esque) syntax, which he had never previously done. I know it's the author's world and he/she can do as they please within it, but at least be consistent! *steps off soapbox*

>89 anatwork.k:,90 "Bidness"? Really? Wow. Reminds me of the Ferengi on Star Trek, who can pronounce every English word except human (which is, of course, "hyoooo-mon"). Completely agreed as well on the consistency issue.

I'm still reading through the first of the 30-years-before prequels, Local Custom, I have to agree that it feels rather much like fanservice to explore the character backstory rather than anything affecting the main plot- I suppose that the reason is because of the constraints of what was already said in the later books that were already written. Crystal Soldier and Crystal Dragon are about Cantra and Jela and the origin of Korval, but I don't think Balance of Trade is related to Korval at all (not having read any of the three, I can't say for sure).

Anyways, Local Custom... I can't say I'm not enjoying it, but I'm going to need a new pair of disbelief suspenders to wear by the time I get to the end of this book. I've had to sort of rewrite it in my head so the characters are about ten years younger to explain why they are acting like they are, and the gaps in their knowledge. For example, Er Thom's lack of knowledge about Terran customs when he's supposed to be one of only three hundred Master Traders and thirty-five years old, and we can presume that he has been trading with Terrans since he met Anne at a Terran party on a Terran world, and similarly Anne's oddly knowledge about Liadens- she's a very prominent scholar of Liaden literature, versed in Liaden language and history, and can recognize the different levels of honor in bowing and proper phrases, and yet conveniently she didn't think to ever find out which clan Er Thom belonged to, she knows nothing about Liaden romance customs and she thought it would be okay to (mild spoiler) have his child without his knowing when the line is so important to Liadens.

About the not knowing what Clan Er Thom was, if Korval is the High House as it's made out to be, I would expect them to be something of public figures, in the way that, say, royalty is, or at the very least a prominent family like the Kennedies. If half of Korval was killed a few years before the book started, Er Thom and his family would have been all over the media; similarly, how could Korval get down to only having about six people in the first place if, as the running conflict driving the story is, each child of the Clan has a duty for one or more contract-marriages?

In fact, on that topic, I'm also not thrilled about the whole concept of "everyone has to have contract marriages, everyone that is except... well, pretty much all of the protagonists that we follow, who find true lifemate love." That was one thing I liked about Anne McCaffrey's Nimisha's Ship- though the writing style is very tell-y and I ended up not renewing it from the library though I'd only gotten halfway through, the heroine is a typical product of her society and not only has a contract marriage and a child, but neither angsts about it and tries to (or does) escape nor falls in true love with her contracted husband.

90, 91 - I will admit the "bidness" thing really enraged me. I think the Theo books have suffered the most from retconning and internal inconsistency. By the time you get to get to them you will need triple supersized disbelief suspenders. Especially when it comes to Theo's father. My main peeve with them was that they are supposed to function as a Bildungsroman as Theo comes of age. Now a good coming of age story has the character grow and deepen and be introspective. Theo does none of this. Correction, she did a little of it in Fledgling which I enjoyed and then completely stopped.

Also the plot was definitely the strength in the agent of change books. I wonder where it vanished in these. Ultimately the last book I desperately wanted the sequel to was probably I Dare.

And the decimation of the Korval clan has been bugging me forever! They've been on Liad for a thousand years. There should be whole continents full of Korval descendants. That is how genetics works! Consider Mitochondrial Eve. It is blatant ret-conning plain and simple.

>92 anatwork.k: I think to some degree the Liaden books suffer from the Very Special People trope. That is, there are a group of Very Special People (Clan Korval, Dragonriders of Pern, Heralds of Valdemar, Comyn of Darkover, Wizards, Mutants, Superheroes, Lost Heirs, Genius Lone Straight Male Scientists Who Can't Get Laid, Vegetarian Sparkling Vampires, Thinly Veiled Objectivists, and so on) with Awesome Powers who are Looked Down On or Oppressed by Mainstream Society, because Mainstream Society is Envious And Scared Of Their Power, and they let themselves be oppressed Of Course they would Never Use For Bad Purposes Like Self-Defense because they are Good People. Either Society Realizes This At The End, or, failing that, they Die A Tragic Death, but at least they are Morally Right. Usually, Our Protagonist is Secretly or Overtly A Very Special Person, either that or, as in the case of some of the romancier parts of genre, they are Sadly Normal but their Love Interest is A Very Special Person.

There's nothing wrong with this trope in general, of course, and books that use it can be a great comfort to those of us who fall outside society's norm when we feel ostracized (and really, who's "normal" anyways?), but like all tropes, in the best books the details of the situation are actually worked out in a logical fashion. I would argue with Korval, it's not- their power isn't just magical (pilots, dramliz, etc) but also very much material (just passed a passage in Local Custom where Anne just found out that Korval is Rich and owns six whole shipyards). I could understand their diminishment if, say, permanent marriage for alliance was common so Korvals left and became part of other clans, or if most people just don't decide to have children, but the policy is contract-marriage, and the custom is that every member of the clan has to reproduce at the will of their delm... hmm, unless they're lifemated, maybe. Perhaps all the historical Korvals got lifemated and then didn't have kids? :)

I'm curious what the retcons are in the Theo books... are they along the lines of character behavior/backstory, or changing the rules of the world?

>93 sandstone78:: I am, in fact, myself a Very Special Person. I just haven't worked out how, yet. ;-)

>94 humouress: :) You never know when you might stumble through a Magical Portal and Discover your Destiny as Unfairly Exiled Last of the Royal Empathic Wombatriders! It's not too late!

94, 95 - Lol! And aren't we all. ;-)

The retcons (which are kind of spoilery, so you have been warned) in the Theo books would be "all of the above" to paraphrase the POTUS. You have character and backstory changes on the part of Theo and a secondary character named Kara Ven'Arith to insert a hitherto completely unknown romance.

More irritatingly there is a huge, giant gaping hole about the needed medical facilities for one of the characters. If you guys have read Plan B you remember how conveniently Val Con and Miri were healed right? Similar situation and one character cannot be healed by any autodocs known to man so they need to go look for a sentient ship. Why didn't they do what worked in Plan B???!

Having found the Baen unibuses (unibi?) I am now reading the Liaden short stories. These are actually pretty good...

All this talk of the Liaden books makes me feel I ought to be reading them, or at least give them a go; but now I'm not sure where to start, or which books to read. Any clues?

I am about to jump through a Magic Portal, and leave Fantasyland for a short sojourn in Sci-Fi universe, with On Basilisk Station, which is (hopefully) the first in the Honor Harrington books. Something I rarely do, but I thought I'd give it a go.

Back soon, to claim my birthright as Last of the Royal Empathic Wombatriders (though, of course, it'll be something more romantic than that - my sis has a thing against wombats).

ETA: oh, sorry - this is the September thread.

>96 anatwork.k: Erf, sounds irritating. Protagonists who are not straight are Relevant To My Interests, though sadly I doubt any non-heterosexual relationship will ever attain the blessed "lifemate" true love status (I'd love to be proven wrong), but I'm not a fan of retcons*, and that sounds pretty iffy about the autodocs. I'll see what I think when I get that far, but in any case, at least those triple-wide disbelief suspenders will look quite fetching with my velvet space-pants. I heard that Baen bought print rights for the short stories too, but haven't seen anything about a release- I believe one about Miri was printed in Assassin Fantastic which I recently picked up, I'll have to give it a read.

Another thing I can't figure out, and I'm wondering if it's ever explained at all... where did Shan's white hair come from? Does it have to do with the whole Lute thing, maybe? Hmm...

* Never watch the 2011 series of Doctor Who; if you unfortunately have, "Melody", enough said.

>97 humouress: Are you sure your sister isn't secretly evil? Not liking wombats could in fact be the first sign, do watch out for melodramatic monologues when she thinks you're not looking. (I catch my sister at this all the time.) On the other hand, I did hear that the Fancy Horse Riding People had an opening for Lost Heir too, so if Wombat Destiny doesn't work out and you're into fancy horses...

We had a discussion upthread in the 30s hashing out the reading order for the Liaden books, I think we settled on (US in print Baen omnibi) The Agent Gambit, followed by perhaps Conflict of Honors in The Dragon Variation (the other two in that book are set before, but somewhat more romancy and of iffy thought-out-ness), and then Korval's Game. There is something of an ending there, but the series continues with another character, Theo Waitley, whose story begins in Fledgling and Saltation and connects with the others in Ghost Ship and Dragon Ship.