191 replies to this topic

[Rory Abel]

Just starting on the Sandman Slim novel Aloha from Hell. After the epic and brutal levels the previous novel reached I have high hopes for this one.

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Just starting on the Sandman Slim novel Aloha from Hell. After the epic and brutal levels the previous novel reached I have high hopes for this one.

Kill the Dead is sitting on top of my to-read pile. I liked the first Sandman Slim novel even though the banter was a bit cringeworthy here and there. But from what I hear Richard Kadrey has evolved as a writer so I’m really looking forward to reading the second novel.

[Christian U]

Finished Pratchett's Snuff, which was everything a good novel about The Watch should be, and will now start Shades of Grey.

[Rory Abel]

Kill the Dead is sitting on top of my to-read pile. I liked the first Sandman Slim novel even though the banter was a bit cringeworthy here and there. But from what I hear Richard Kadrey has evolved as a writer so I’m really looking forward to reading the second novel.

Yeah I thought Killing the Dead was a big step up from Sandman Slim and resolved a lot of the problems I had with his structure in the first book. So far Aloha from Hell is off to a slow start, basically getting you up to date on the last two books (something Killing the Dead did poorly).

Edited by Rory Abel, 11 January 2012 - 05:17 PM.

[Ogul]

Finally got around to finishing Alloy of Steel, the fourth in Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn" series. He'd originally made it a trilogy, and then he decided he wanted to do a trilogy of trilogies, each set centuries apart, and unlike in some universes, their level of technological and social development would actually change during each epoch. He originally intended to use the first, which was in a proto-industrial/fuedal era, a bit on par with the late 18th/early 19th century America (slave-based, largely canal-oriented, some industrialization and factory systems), and then a second set in a modern era, and a third set in a sci-fi future era. Instead, he started this second arc a little earlier than that, in a period roughly on par with the very late 19th century America (railroads, firearms, the beginnings of electricity). It's essentially an cowboy story, similar to DC's current All-Star Western title, in which a wild west lawman returns to the great metropolis, and finds that it can be as wild as the Roughs he just left.

And of course they have superpowers.

It's only a minor spoiler to say that the world survives, in some form, from the results of the first Mistborn trilogy. This book takes place three centuries later, as humanity has reclaimed the planet from the results of the final battle. The characters combine six shooters with magnetism, shotguns with healing factors, all constrained by the flexible but orderly system of "Allomancy", in which consuming and digesting one of sixteen specific metals allows attuned people to access very specific superhuman effects. The main character is able to mentally track any metal that comes close to himself, and to force metal away, and he also is capable of increasing or decreasing his weight to significant levels, for example.

The core cast of characters are an ex-lord, turned frontier lawman, turned lord again, his amusing klepto/master of disguise deputy (think Parker+Sophie+Spencer), and a slightly reserved aristocratic criminology student/fangirl that gets rolled into their adventure (think Annie from Community). Their interplay and characterization really sells the book, and each chapter drives you to read the next as soon as possible, in which our heroes piece together the mystery of a chain of daring train robberies, culminating in a massive action piece.

This book is readable without having read the previous series, it explains everything that you'd need to know to enjoy and understand this one, although there are several in-jokes that you would miss, and it would slightly spoil certain elements of the first trilogy, although not as directly as it could have and so long as you don't pay too much attention you might miss them entirely. One really funny injoke (which is a minor spoiler for Alloy of Law, but a fairly significant one for people who haven't read Hero of Ages yet) is that

Spoiler

Spook's ridiculous street gutter "wasing of where" dialect is considered the "high imperial" tongue of the land, used for formal documents like Middle English or Latin is today, as he was the founder of their society.

I'd thought that this book was entirely standalone, and to a point it is, there is resolution at the end, but not complete resolution, there is very clearly a pitch towards a second book in the series using the same characters and continuing their adventures. I definitely recommend this one to anyone who thinks that stuff sounds cool.

Edited by Ogul, 19 January 2012 - 10:04 PM.

[Rory Abel]

Finished Aloha From Hell last week. Overall, it was pretty good. The second half felt a little too much like Kadry's previous novel Butcher Bird unfortunately and it never quite reached the same hard edged nasty epicness that the Killing the Dead got to. Still it was a fun fast read and I'll still be picking up any further books in the series if there are more.

I put it down in writing now and predicting that if there is another book in the series it'll be titled Part-time Devil.

[Ben the Obiwomble]

Finished Pratchett's Snuff, which was everything a good novel about The Watch should be, and will now start Shades of Grey.

I keep putting off reading Snuff, every time I read it, it's brilliant but I don't want it to end.

[Paul F]

Just started Padgett Powell's You & I. I really enjoyed his last novel, The Interrogative Mood (a novel made up entirely of questions), so I'm looking forward to it. This one is an entire novel made up of a conversation between two men.

[Adam Wednesdays]

I need a little bit of advice, from anyone who knows:

Last year I read Glenn Cook's "The Black Company" trilogy, and I really enjoyed it. In fact it got me reading fantasy again after about a decade away. And now I'm wondering if the books that come after it are worth picking up, or if this is a series that outstayed its welcome after it should have ended. Anyone read them?

[Will Carper]

As I Lay Dying was really great. The voices from chapter to chapter are just incredible. Sometimes frustratingly obtuse, but confusing plot elements tend to be explained in later chapters from a different, clearer viewpoint. And the obtuseness comes naturally from each character's voice, so it's justified.

[Mark Peyton]

I need a little bit of advice, from anyone who knows:

Last year I read Glenn Cook's "The Black Company" trilogy, and I really enjoyed it. In fact it got me reading fantasy again after about a decade away. And now I'm wondering if the books that come after it are worth picking up, or if this is a series that outstayed its welcome after it should have ended. Anyone read them?

I find it depends if you like the narrators. The world itself is still interesting, but I do miss certain characters.

[Johnny Henning]

Just started ABE LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER and it has a pretty good opening. I expected it to be a lot less serious.

[Rory Abel]

About to start The Lost Goddess by Tom Knox so I can write a review of it. Just based on the press release I have a sinking feeling that it's going to be a Christian novel masquerading as a horror thriller, which i tend to find particularly insidious.

[Ricardo_C]

So I finished The Shining, and while I agree with most of the criticism it got earlier in the thread, mainly with how disjointed Jack's descent into madness feels, overall I loved it. I can't make a hard judgement on King's novel vs. Kubrick's film, as they're both very unique takes on the same general concept.

On to Nightmares and Dreamscapes now. "Dolan's Cadillac" was a very satisfying (if implausible) introduction.

[David Chapman]

On to Nightmares and Dreamscapes now. "Dolan's Cadillac" was a very satisfying (if implausible) introduction.

Once you get past the requirements to set the plan up, Dolan's Cadillac is 100% plausible. The full story is in the afterword to the book, but basically King asked his genius brother Dave to give it a once-over and ended up getting back instructions that were so detailed he had to make changes to avoid publishing a self-help guide on stealing public works road equipment.

[Dave Wallace]

Once you get past the requirements to set the plan up, Dolan's Cadillac is 100% plausible. The full story is in the afterword to the book, but basically King asked his genius brother Dave to give it a once-over and ended up getting back instructions that were so detailed he had to make changes to avoid publishing a self-help guide on stealing public works road equipment.

Yeah, I remember reading that in the notes. He had to change it or it would have been a published guide to hotwiring.

I quite like Nightmares and Dreamscapes - although like all anthologies, some stories are better than others.

[Will]

Just started Devils in Exile by Hogan - cant remember his first name.

Next up is Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver, the new Bond book.

[Ricardo_C]

Once you get past the requirements to set the plan up, Dolan's Cadillac is 100% plausible. The full story is in the afterword to the book, but basically King asked his genius brother Dave to give it a once-over and ended up getting back instructions that were so detailed he had to make changes to avoid publishing a self-help guide on stealing public works road equipment.

Definitely, I'm amazed by the amount of detail he went into regarding the setup, all of it valid. By implausible I only meant the perfect storm of circumstances required to pull the plan off.

Will, I think I'm getting "Devils in Exile" based on the title alone.

[Will]

Will, I think I'm getting "Devils in Exile" based on the title alone.

It's definitely a cool title. And it's by Chuck Hogan.

[Martin Smith]

Just finished A Way of Kings Part 1 by Brandon Sanderson last night. It's left me conflicted. For a start, it's only half the book, yet is 600. I don't object to that on principle, but the problem is there's not a huge deal of story and what there is moves incredibly slowly. Instead most of the book is spent world-building, which is all very clever and impressive, but seems rather self-indulgent. It ends with two nice cliffhangers, but I'm not sure I want to get the second half because those cliffhangers are the kind of hooks that should have appeared several hundred pages earlier really.