Which book are you reading currently? #3

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Started Laurell Hamilton's first Meredith Gentry book, "A Kiss of Shadows", and, erm...

I dunno. I like the characters, and the plot's nice, and there's decent tension and all, but she's reaaaalllly overdoing the sex thing. It feels either forced or gratuitious. I'm still liking the book, but, meh. Ain't what I was expecting, I suppose.

Jacqueline Carey's handling of sex/eroticism in her Kushiel trilogy was far, far, far better--it never seemed gratuitous, actually added to the plot, and helped flesh out the characters. This stuff, on the other hand...a bit of it is well done, but it's too much. It feels as though every interlude between action scenes is an "action" scene *wink wink*.

 

Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams - Joseph Ellis

 

@AMaster - the Meredith Gentry books are trash - and they just keep getting worse the further along you get. I would strongly recommend tossing Kiss of Shadows and reading something else. Whatever you do, DO NOT read book two or worse yet book three. The early Anita Blake books were good but Hamilton has completely lost it since then.

I finished Hawk and Fisher - it was a real shame, the characters and Green's writing style showed the potential for it to be a good book but the locked room mystery plot totally ruined it. The mechanism for the murder was decent but the explanations for the red herrings were absolutely terrible.

 

I've just finshed reading one of Matthew Reilly's books, Scarecrow. I've read the prequels to Scarecrow, i'm now on to his second newest book, Hover Car Racers. So far(i'm about halfway) I don't don't like it as much as the rest of his books. His newest book, Hell Island, looks good though.

 

I finally gave in and bought "The thousand orcs" and hte "Lone Drow" as I was all out of ideas. It has not started very good. Salvatore is good at managing to wear out cliches he started himself and turned into cliches.

 

Just finished Steel and Snow quite unexpectedly, I thought I had about 100 pages to go when I suddenly stumbled upon the (by now outdated) Appendix

On to Blood and Gold

 

JSBB, sheesh, you weren't kidding. I thought the plot had promise when I was 100 pages in or so, but it turned out to be a lot like a porn movie; the plot exists for the sole purpose of providing lots of opportunity for lots of sex. Hell, Hamilton even tossed in an anime-esque tentacle sex scene. Christ.

...are the later Anita Blake books similar to the Meredith Gentry books? *shudder*

 

The Anita Blake books have not yet sunk to the level of the Meredith Gentry series but there is a definite progression towards it as the series goes on and they are getting close.

 

As it is, Hamlton is a hack. Am reading the first Anita Blake now...

*sigh*

 

I have started on Winner Takes All (Hawk and Fisher #2). So far it has been o.k. but nothing special.

Instead of your typical locked room murder it looks like your standard election in a completely corrupt city story.

It is kind of a shame, Green has a nice writing style and I rather like the main characters but Green doesn't seem to be able to come up with a good story to tell with them.

 

Just finished the Halo books and the Hobbit. I think I'll start on a Robin Hobb book next.

 

amen to this.

 

Deathworld 4 "Return to Deathworld" by H.Harrison. I'm suprised I survived that far...first book is pretty good, but then...sigh...it seems that help of Ant Skalandis was not best choice...now I'm really struggling to finish this book...with number 5 threatening me .... ...

 

"Gardens of the Moon" - Steven Erikson for the second time. So far, none of it seems the lest bit familiar.

 

Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello - Andrew Burstein. A new book on Jefferson's private life during his last years at Monticello. I'm not very far into it yet, but thus far it's been disappointing - really dry stuff. zzzzzzzZZZZZZ.

 

If Chandos finds it dry, I shudder to think what my reaction to it would be.

 

I finshed Winner Takes All and I have moved on to The God Killer (Hawk & Fisher book 3).

Winner Takes All actually turned out to be fairly entertaining and The God Killer seems to be starting off on the right track.

Edit: Sigh, you got to hate it in a murder mystery when by pretty much the start of the book you think you know who the murderer is, your opinion never changes,and sure enough you turn out to be correct. The God Killer has got to be as bloody obvious about this as it could possibly be. Oh well, apart from that it was decent.

[ May 04, 2005, 02:05: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Taken a break from the Chronicles of Amber to read Lord Chesterfield's letters. He's been described to "have the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing master". I'm sure I'm going to find it very instructive

 

I just started Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon. The intro was o.k. but now that I am into the beginning of the actual story I kind of feel like the characters are just being thrown at me without really establishing what is going on. I am pretty early into it though so I will reserve judgement for a while.

 

Started to re-read Goodkind, currently onto Blood of the Fold.