Which book are you reading currently? #7

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Just finished 'Ilium' and 'Olympos' by Dave Simmons.
Very interesting !

 

Yeah that was my opinion too although the series does seem to have rebounded a little after hitting rock bottom in Petty Pewter Gods. I have been keeping a spreadsheet of the books I have read over the last 2 years and my ratings out of 10 were

Old Tins Sorrows 7
Dread Brass Shadows 7
Red Iron Nights 6
Deadly Quicksilver Lies 5
Petty Pewter Gods 4
Faded Steel Heat 5
Angry Lead Skies 5
Whispering Nickel Idols 6

Basically 7 is good, 6 is o.k., 5 is mediocre, and 4 is poor.

 

hehe you really are an accountant JSBB before I buy a book, I'll ask you about it first, it may be one that you've already rated

 

Thanks, kids.

 

I finished At All Costs last night. It wasn't anywhere near as good as the early Honor Harrington books but it was better than a lot of Weber's more recent books. Still, there were a couple of plot elements that I didn't like and Weber really needed to expand out the ending a bit more. After the final naval battle the book ends really quickly. I would have liked to have had a chapter or two where the leadership of each side considers the implications of the battle on their overall war strategy.

I started this morning on A Deeper Blue by John Ringo. So far it has been much more subdued and serious than the previous books in the series which isn't really a good thing. Ringo is not Tom Clancy. Most of the appeal of the earlier books in the series is that they are completely over the top popcorn books.

 

Bugmenot, thanks for the review on Halting State. Just finished reading Glasshouse by the same author and was very impressed with it. It had some rather slow passages in the early going but then picked up pace and got very interesting and exciting to read. Whole other side of him from his Bob Howard series, which is hilarious.

 

During my lunch break I finished A Deeper Blue. Unfortunately my initial impressions were pretty much dead on. For the most part Ringo played this one pretty much as a standard military counterterrorist squad book with relatively little of the silly over the topness that the previous books have had. If I wanted that I would have picked up something by Clancy.

I am going to be starting on Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson.

 

I read right now Ursula K. LeGuin's "A Wizard of Earthsea", and it is ok enough atm.

I also read Stephen Sizer's book "Christian Zionism" and poems by Joachim Ringelnatz.

 

I've just finished reading George R. R. Martin's A Feast for Crows (actually I read the entire series so far back to back).

Great epic storytelling. Does anyone have any recommendations for any books in a similar vein? Please don't say Wheel of Time

 

Strife:

R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness that Comes Before

Stephen R. Donaldson's The Real Story (three caveats; it's scifi, not fantasy, and it's by far the weakest book in the five-book series. It's also extremely brutal, and fairly graphic in its brutality. Yes, moreso than GRRM. However. The series is ridiculously good. Give it a shot.)

Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon

In that order.

 

@Strife

Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and Erikson's Malazan series are awesome.

 

While I quite like Hobb, her work isn't remotely similar to ASOIAF.

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

I've read Robin Hobb's Assassins series many years ago (the first book or so anyway, I think), and wasn't too impressed by it.

I will check out the other books first though.

 

Just started on Dean Koontz's "Dragon Tears" due to a reference in the author's note to "Ticktock", I want to see if he's at all similar to Stephen King's Ticktock/Randall Flagg character

 

Aldazar, I look forward to hearing what you think of "Dragon Tears." My experience with Koontz's books is that I either love them and reread them or hate them and quit after 20 or 30 pages.

I am in an endless cycle of work and reading almost nothing not related to it - a couple of short story anthologies, nothing worth mentioning. Maybe once I recover from vacation I'll start reading something I like again.

 

finally finished stolen child. it was okay, not my usual type of read. Anyway, while looking for next read I reread They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie. Her stuff never gets old.

 

I finished Midnight Tides a couple days ago. It was good but Erikson's habit of dropping uberpowered characters into the plot with minimal explanations of who or what they are is starting to get a little annoying.

I am currently reading Off Armageddon's Reef by David Weber. I remember someone posting here about how much of a Mary Sue the main characters is. I don't think she technically meets the definition of a Mary Sue given that the nature of the character is the main basis for the plot and by extension for the creation of this sci-fi universe but I will concede that dropping an android with high tech gear and library into a medieval setting makes for a pretty unbalanced results. At times it seems like something David Eddings would write.

 

Yes, I agree. And The Bonehunters is even worse in that respect. But Midnight Tides is still better than the Bonehunters, which was somewhat dull and predictable in comparison. I'm hopeful that Reaper's will be a better read.

 

I love the Ice and Fire series, but couldn't really get into Bakker. Read the first book and said "meh", basically.

Steven Erikson is good, and different from Martin. Not quite as mentally vicious but still lots of death and betrayal, larger in scope, more magic and gods taking an interest in things.

Just read: Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko has its charms, just like the two films (so far) based on his books. Very stylish and with good shades-of-grey characters.

Reading now: Lies of Locke Lamora.

 

The thing with Erikson is that every book is a lot better during a reread than the first time through. Bonehunters is the weakest yet but still an awesome read. Reaper's Gale is on level with all the others but it was a shining example of a book that was a lot better the second time through. I kinda like how Erikson keeps dropping in his super characters, they are integral parts of his world and what the books are all about or rather how powerful "regular" humans can be even when faced with some ancient god.