Which book are you reading currently? #4

Remove all ads!

Reading David Weber's In Enemy Hands, and I have to say I'm impressed. This book, and the previous book in the series, might just be moving out of the realm of pulp military scifi.

 

I finished Princess of Wands - I actually liked it quite a bit. As with all of Ringo's work it is certainly no literary masterpiece but it is enjoyably pulpy and most definitely not sappy like the title might lead you to believe.

I have started on Bolo by David Weber. So far it has been fairly mediocre. The characters and plot are so predictable and cliche that Weber ought to be ashamed of himself.

 

@HB

while that's true, (that golden fool spoils the whole liveship trilogy) what Iago probably means is that while the events that happened in liveship affect the Tawny Man, it's not necessary to read it in order to fully appreciate Tawny Man. It just gives it more background because you actually know who these people are and what they refer to. That's what I think he meant. That's what I mean at least

 

Yeah, but it means you could never really enjoy reading The Liveship Traders if you'd read Tawny Man first. Half the fun of Liveships is the slow revelation of the mystery.

 

Must Love Dogs by Claire Cook. I didn't realize it was the basis for the movie out, but it sounded good fro mthe blurb. It's not a book I would recommend though. Sarah Hurlihy (protagonist) is too much of an indecisive doormat for my tastes.

 

I just started _A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America_, since I'm almost finished with _Fool's Errand_.

But I don't get this part of the story: "Is Fitz really pretending to be Lord Golden's man-servant, Robin Hobb?"

Robin Hobb: "Why yes, Chandos. That's why he does many of the things he does in a large part of the story."

"Well I'm not sure I get it, that he's just pretending and all..."

Robin Hobb: "Don't worry, Chandos; I'll just repeat it 1200 times during the story. And at the end of every paragraph. I will also explain why he unpacks things, and opens the window and goes to the stable and sleeps on a hard bed, and...well...I'm sure you will get it at some point"

"Gee, thanks, Robin Hobb. I should get it by then...I think."

 

Should have read the rest first.

If you're frustrated with Hobbs 'slow-pace' I'd suggest you give most fantasy books a wide-berth (save Eriksson, who bombs along so fast you lose what the hell he's talking about).
Hobbs characters are by far the richest I've ever known, and the way she has advanced Fitz through the books is magnificent.

Brilliance.

 

The theme with Fitz not being good as servant is followed through all three parts of the tawny man. He just wasn't raised that way. You get some more clues on the second and third part. Particularly the second part. There's a big hint on that at the end of Ship Of Destiny:


"You worry too much.... Humans live such short lives. I believe they have little impact on the world. So Wintrow will not be a priest. It is probably no more significant than if a man who was meant to be a king became a philosphical recluse instead."

"Oh, ship," she rebuked him softly. "Was that meant to be comforting?"

 

It would seem that Hobb is deserving of her own thread. So, I responded on the topic thread for Hobb.

 

I finished Bolo yesterday - it had a few good moments but for the most part it remainded far too cliche and predictable.

I have started on Beyond World's End by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill. So far it has been quite good.

 

I recently started "The sun also rises", by Ernest Hemingway.

At work (lunchtime) I am reading and old pulp sci-fi novel called "Return to the Stars" by Edmond Hamilton.

I finished "Player Piano", by Kurt Vonnegut. It was great. The ending was perfect. He consistently blows my mind.

 

I finished Beyond World's End. I really liked it. The characters were interesting and so was the plot. On top of that the writing style was very good and surprisingly consistent for a co-authored book.

I have started on the next book in the series - Spirits White as Lightning. I am a little concerned about the level of co-incidence that appears to be going. There are two big co-incidental things so far.

The first will either turn out to really be a co-incidence in which case it will be a really lame plot hook, or, I am hoping, it is not a co-incidence and there is some sort of scheming going on.

The second co-incidence is just plain stupid.

Actually come to think of it there was a pretty big co-incidence near the end of Beyond World's End. It didn't bother me all that much at the time but it kind of looks like part of a bad trend now.

 

I have dived into Wheel of Time again, along with my other millions of books. I am now reading:

Wolf Brother, Michelle Paver
Bloodsong, Melvin Burgess
Priestess of the WHite, Trudi Canavan
Lord of CHaos, Robert Jordan
Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson


And that's before I even mention my reading for my studies:

Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice
Frankenstein, Mary SHelley (yuck, I hate this book)
The Aeneid, Virgil IN LATIN!
about 4 English Civil War books, most of them by Peter Young.


I read way too much. My head shall explode soon, I think.

 

I'm about to start Deathstalker Coda by Simon Green and then I'm going to try Deadhouse Gates

 

Jane Eyre

 

I finished Spirits White as Lightning - it was shockingly poor compared to the previous books in the series. I am going to have to go back and check out the first co-incidence mentioned in my last post to make sure that I didn't get the facts wrong initially because that co-incidence turned out to be completely unimportant to the plot.

I have started on the next book (Mad Maudlin). So far it has been decent enough. Hopefully it will stay that way.

 

David Weber's War of Honor.

Pretty good, actually. My initial reaction was, "oh, he's just artificially extending the series to get more money. No one could be as stupid as these politicians." And then I thought about real-world examples of idiotic, politically motivated military decisions (Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Vietnam, the pre- and early-war decisions Stalin made, Hitler, the utterly unnecessary slaughters of the First World War, and so on) and realized that, actually, it's not unbelievable at all. So I'm having fun with it.

 

I just finished Mad Maudlin - it was really quite good which was a welcome surprise given how poor the previous book was.

That being said, I still don't quite know what to make of some of these stupid coincidences that Spirits White as Lightning introduced - they have not had any significance to the plot so why would the authors include them? There is either some really weird long term planning going on here or they are just plain poor decisions. All they have done so far is to stretch plausibility to the breaking point.

Tomorrow morning I will be starting on the next book in the series - Music to my Sorrow.

 

I've more or less given up on the WoT 200 pages into the sixth book. TBH, I just couldn't handle reading it much more. I will come back to at some point, but I've just started reading Bernard Cornwell's Harlequin. This will be the third time I've read it and it's still fresh each time I read it. I have the other two in the series, so there's no doubt I will fly through them before I move on.

 

Just finished "The Golden Fool" by Robin Hobb. Great book. Now starting "Fool's Fate" by Robin Hobb.