Which book are you reading currently? #7

Remove all ads!

I thought Phaurun was an excellent character. The mage equivilant of Jarlaxle.

 

I read 2 more Death Gate books in the past weeks. Elven Star was fun but I didn't really like Zifnab's character and his constant references to other fantasy works. The references to the Old World of the series being a future Earth also annoyed me. The worlds in the series are so interesting by themselves that there is little reason to link them to ours. That said the detail in the story is fascinating and there's a lot of creativity that has gone into the worlds-building. For some reason I was expecting Fire Sea to be the best book so far and it is. Haplo is a great protagonist and the book was dark, much more so than the previous ones. I'm really enjoying the series.

 

Started Anna Karenina from Tolstoy while i'm waiting for the books i ordered to arrive.

Speaking of Anna Karenina i'm reminded of The Hedgehog. Beautiful movie although i haven't read the book. The author seemed mightily impressed by Tolstoy. Think it's permanently linked in my head now


RAWR, just monstrously devoured The Winter King in an allnighter.
Loved the more realistic view of the characters, as opposed to the fairytale it's turned into on every corner. Lancelot was a shocker!

 

Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus (...)'. When I shall finally understand what the hell was it about, I am throwing a bloody huge party. You are all invited.

 

Halfway through the second "a song of ice and fire" book. Great stuff!

 

I agree - one of the best fantasy books ever written. Halfway through 'A Clash of Kings'? Well, if you read it slowly enough, you might even avoid the 'waiting-for-ADwD' frustration !

 

hahahaha, I read it too fast. I thought you were saying you had a book named "Triactus". I would have said what a fine book that would have been...

I'm at the end of "Clash of kings" myself. I really like the writing style. Have multiple narrators keep the story fresh, imo. I like how the characters are progressing, although the Jon Snow part is the weaker of the stories...

Yeah, what the hell is up with the newest book? He's been writing it for more than five years now with no end in sight? Is he notr in the mood anymore? Sucks when the fans are waiting to see what happens with their favorites characters...

 

Heheheheh! Believe me, you would not recognize yourself, were Wittgenstein to write a book about you!

I think so, too - even some of the ASoIaF die hard fans agree that this character has quite a few traits of a Canon Sue. Still, the guy is not as bad as, say, the protagonist Jean M. Auel created .

If I ever, ever publish anything, I will send him a thank - you letter for unknowingly showing me that one should never, in any circumstances, show any part of his book series to his agent/publisher/whosoever before it is finished. Or, alternatively, in the likely case I do not publish anything, I will send him a thank - you letter anyway: for unknowingly being my excuse (As in: 'Hey, I am not the greatest procastinator on Earth! He is! *points and laughs*)

 

In the middle of Matt Farrer's Enforcer omnibus, which is much better than 40k fiction has any right to be and is therefore easily the second best batch of novels set in that world (best are the Inquisition War).

 

I am generally very impressed by the quality of the 40k novels. Nothing that has really blown me away but most everything has been worthwhile.

 

Path of the Warrior was mediocre to terrible, the Space Wolf omni was mediocre, Gaunt's Ghosts was unbearably repetitive, the Vampire Wars was tolerable

Yeah, I haven't had all that much luck with the Warhammer books.

 

Just finished Turn Coat by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files book 11)

I'm a fan of the series, but you have to be a cold bastard to a char (although Butcher never struck me like one before) for what this book did. :/

Spoiler

Killing off Morgan at the end ?! after pretty much breaking him apart the whole book, bit by bit? Then wrapping the whole thing in *cringes* "content death and a onesided infatuation" *shudders* :/ I'm perfectly subjective here. The guy was far from perfect and he had a Badass case of Knight Templar, that *really* needed work (just like his social skills) but you just don't do that to a character. After Kincaid, he was actually one of my favourite chars. Stubborn, loyal, worn out and to borrow Harry's words, vicious attack dog of a person, he simply didn't deserve to get mauled to death. Sure it illustrates some points, but it was downright cruel. I probably sound like a raving lunatic, but I really get insulted when a char that is duty bound not to flinch and not able to defend themselves or run is used like a punching bag, just because he will take punches.
"He had it coming" talk just doesn't cut it for me. It's downright insulting, imo, for Morgan to be reduced to a "content death" after the Anastasia face-stab in Harry's flat and the fact that he spends the whole goddamn book in pain. He deserved better then... torture. I stared at the death line for quite some time, until the face-stab really sinked in. Damn.

I'll stop frothing and hissing now. 5 am. What a downer.

 

Just started with The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. It's a book about a certain guy I know.

 

Needed cheering up, so I've picked up Good Omens. Az and Crowley are great.

 

Slowly digging into Titus Groan (First of Gormenghast trilogy) by Mervyn Peake.

What a change from typical fantasy read!
The style alone jumps in your face. The book being released in 1946, it's definitely noticeable. Then Peake's dense uncommon writing manner only adds to it. The result is prose that is crossbred with poetry and takes far more effort to read than anything modern-modern. Usually with newer fantasy books, even quality ones (and i'd stretch this to modern books in general) you skip a paragraph here and there and you can be sure you haven't missed anything important. A description perhaps, or something other inconsequential. Not so with Titus Groan. Very often, even reading through the paragraph only once will not make it clear. So often i find myself backtracking, trying to find the path and sense of what i'm reading. Could perhaps be compared to a dense, confusing forest and being semi lost in the undergrowth. There's a path, but it's half hidden. But the forest is stunningly beautiful.
Another characteristic of it's age rears it's head. It's incredible focus in detail. It is not hard at all to get lost in the detail. Being beautifully written makes it more bearable. I'm at 90th page now and i'm just starting to make sense of story enough to be pulled into it. It starts with presenting viewpoints of different characters on the same day of an important event, to avoid spoilers. But a lot of them are so separated from each other that it takes a while to gather enough cross references to build something akin to a comprehensive picture.

Last, and IMO most important characteristic is the way Peake thinks and writes. It's just so alien! I don't think i've ever read a book that baffled me so much simply sentence by sentence. Just such irregular word combinations, stringing seemingly unrelated parts together it only compounds the dense effect the book just radiates.


For all that i've written, it probably comes across that i dislike the book. I adore it. It's poetry mated with painting expressed in words. Spectacular, even if hard to digest.

 

I tried to read Gormenghast in my teens and wasnt able to. Now I feel like it is time to give it another shot and hopefully I will be able to appreciate it.

It would probably be a change of pace to what I am currently reading which is the Robotech Saga by Jack McKinney. They got recommended to me by a blog I respect and as a young child I adored the anime, as a very young child. It has brought back fond memories to me and as franchise books go it is ok but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't already have some kind of relation to Robotech.

 

Scourge the Heretic - solid 40k stuff.

 

Finished with Gibson's Count Zero and moving on to Mona Lisa Overdrive as soon as it arrives. This one was a lot easier to read than Neuromancer, or maybe I had got used to the scifi lingo.

 

Book 8 of the Merry Gentry series.(need cold shower)

 

I'm currently reading "Star Wars: Darksaber". It's not bad. I'm about halfway through it.