2018-04-01 02:20:41 (edited by flackers 2018-04-03 15:26:27)

So what are you reading now, and what have you read recently that you enjoyed? I've just started book 2 of Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, and am quite enjoying it. I loved his Otherland series, though it was stupidly long, and could have lost a thousand pages and not suffered. Memory sorrow  and thorn also seems to be long for long's sake, and could do with losing a bit of flab, but I'm getting through it okay. I've had a couple of false starts with it over the years, but this time I slogged through the slow start.
Other books I've read recently are The Howling by Gary Brandner, and La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman. I downloaded the AD film version of The Howling and listened to the first ten minutes before deciding it stunk, but it did say at the start that it was based on a novel, so I went and got an ebook of that instead, and it was a quick easy and enjoyable read. I find werewolves stupid, and about as scary as a bowl of milk, but the book was good because the author made everything else interesting and readable.
La Belle Sauvage for those who don't know is a prequel to Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and is definitely a return to form. I thought the HDM trilogy was great for the first two books, but I was pretty sick of it by the end of the third, and never thought I'd want to read more, but a prequel centered around completely new characters sounded intriguing and I'm glad I gave it a go.

2018-04-01 03:12:04

I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn years ago and while it is long, for me that is what I like, I don't want books to be over in a minute, I want them to last. Without spoiling it for you, I will say you are in for a surprise! I will say no more, so don't even ask.

Now, if you want a really long story, the kind I like, try Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, now that is a long story taking 13 books to finish with the last book so big it had to be published in two parts, just as Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn's last book, To Green Angel Tower was.

Another really long story is Sanderson's Stormlight Archives, that will take ten books, though only the first two have been published so far, and I'm thinking that the third book seems over due.

I thought His Dark Matterials was quite good and was rather disappointed that the movie they made from the first book didn't do well, or they might have done all three books.

What I'm reading now is another series of books called An Unfortunate Series of Events by Lemonny Snickets. I think that's spelled right.

2018-04-01 17:52:29

@Flacus, tad williams is one of my favourite authors ever! I'd be hard put to say whether I think Memory sorrow and Thorn or Otherland is the better series, I love both of them equally and have read Otherland three times and ms&t twice. I can't wait to  onto his recent series set in the same world, albeit I think its set a good bit later.

I particularly love how in Ms&t he manages to play with your expectations and use all the fantasy cliches in a really random and roundabout way, heck he even has a fifteen year old couple who both sort of act  both of whom you slightly want to slap on occasion, but both of whom you really want to see get together, damnit I want to reread that series now big_smile.

Shadowmarch I enjoyed, though imho it wasn't quite as good as Memory sorrow and thorn, and I've enjoyed each of his stand alone books, war of the flowers, ()imagine steampunk fairies), Tale chaser's song (wonderful if you like cats), caliban's hour (great whether your a shakespear fan or not), and child of an ancient city. The only stuff of williams I didn't like were his bobby dollar urban fantasy series.
Well the second book, happy hour in hell had it's moments, but that is more because Tad williams writing hell was so uniquely nasty it couldn't be belived. Unfortunately the plot and characters, ----- mmmm less so, then again with only one or two exceptions urban fantasy has been less my thing over all.

@Orko My lady loves! the wheel of time and is rereading it slowly again right now, since someone is doing a first time report and read over on tor.com. indeed  I bought her an Aessidai great serpent ring in sterling silver and a green aja pendent for christmas last year.
I enjoyed the series, albeit books 6-10 were quite the slog though it did really pickup towards the end.

As regards Stormlight, book 3 is actually out. it's called Oathbringer and my lady and I are reading through it together right now, we're about 21 hours in. It's pretty awesome, particularly since it deals with dalinar's past (so some surprises there), as well  giving answers to a lot of questions from the first book, though I will say as is usual with stormlight it is pretty bloody grim big_smile. Also note that you really do need to have read the novella edge dancer which is in Sanderson's collection Arcanum unbounded before going on to Oathbringer since that explains two characters who are fairly major in the story.

For me, at the moment my lady and I are reading Oathbringer togehter as I said.
I've just finished Throy by Jack vance, last of his Cadwal chronicles trilogy, an sf series set around a planet which is like a wildlife preserve and all the politics and shenanigans, not to mention a good look at lots of different random alien worlds.
I did not! enjoy this, indeed how such a good trilogy could have such a dire ending I don't know, but as I often do I've written up a review which should be posted on www.fantasybookreview.co.uk quite soon, along with my reviews of the first two books in that series.

For myself I'm at the moment going through some of the doctor who short trips collections from big finish.
I've had these for quite some time, but haven't read them, I don't know why.

They are actually extremely good! short stories are wonderful for random sf/fantasy or horror settings, and when your dealing with Doctor who with characters you know and who can go anywhere, they can do some pretty unique things, especially since the short trips stuff tend to be much more at the speculative end of things.

When I finish this I'm not sure what I'll embark onto next,  my choice these days is also at least partly dictated by what I want to write reviews for.

i'm tempted to reread Steven King's the stand, which I've been meaning to do for a long while as I haven't read it since I was 17, my lady has also recommended a paranormal fantasy set around an art academy called roses and wrot which I need to look into.
I'm also tempted to go along with my project of rereading and reviewing soem books by Anne McCaffry, though of course if I want something darker and more adult I also have The Healer's war by Elizabeth anne Scarborough, on my immediate list.

We'll see, though I am very happy doing the doctor who short trips at the second.
So many good books, so little time big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-01 18:34:19

I just looked, Book Share has Oathbringer, but since I prefer audio books to text read by a synthesizer, I'll wait for it to appear on BARD.

As for Edge Dancer, unless it is freely available, I'll have to do without it as it is not available on either of my two primary sources of books, BARD, and Book Share.

When you said Oathbringer, the first thing I thought of was Brisingr, the third book of The Inheritance Cycle, which was very good, though it did have one glaring plot flaw at the end.

2018-04-01 18:39:00

Bard actually do have Edge dancer Orko, its in the collection Arcanum unbounded, which also has a lot of background to Sanderson's universe and  that tie in to different series such as Mistborn.

We have the commercial version of Oathbringer so are reading that.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-02 01:02:50

I've been reading the Across the Universe series by Beth Revis and enjoying it a ton. I've also started on one called New Earth which is also good. I love book series.

2018-04-02 01:06:16 (edited by Chris 2018-04-02 01:09:46)

I love A Series of Unfortunate Events! I just watched the second Netflix season.
I've started reading the Sookie Stackhouse books from the beginning again. I'm also planning to reread the Iron Druid series from the beginning. The final book is coming out in two days on Audible. I can't wait!

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-04-02 01:34:35

I read the Iron Druid series on BARD, I'll have to keep an eye out for the next book there in about a month or so. What is it called?

I'll have to look up that Arcanum Unbounded book, though only so I can read Edge Dancer.

2018-04-02 02:23:02

The final book is called Scourged.

Grab my Adventure at C: stages Right here.

2018-04-02 02:32:40

I've heard good things about the iron druid books, though as I'm only luke warm on urban fantasy I haven't checked them out yet.

@Orko, Arcanum unbounded is also good because itt gives you a lot of background to Sanderson's series, the shards, the cosmir etc, and even if you miss out the stories that tie into specific series of his like Mistborn or Elantris, there are still a couple of pretty awesome stand alone stories there too.

@Nightshade I'm always up for some sf but I don't think I've heard of Beth Revis myself.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-02 12:28:01

@Chris

Thanks! From experience, Audible books usually show up on BARD about a month after they appear on Audible. For free, I can wait a month.

@Dark

At present the only Sanderson story I have any interest in is the Stormlight Archives, and with so many other things to read, for now I'll pass on all the other stories and just focus on Edge Dancer.

2018-04-02 21:14:22

@Dark
I'll have to check out Tad's other stuff after I finish MST. Though  I do lean more towards sci-fi than fantasy, when it comes to that sort of fiction. I've read Shadowmarch and thought it was pretty good, with just my usual gripe about tad in that it could have done with having the fat trimmed off. There's a Frank Muller reading of The Burning Man, which I think is a MST tie-in, so I'll try that next, then look at his other stuff, as I love Muller's narration. When I first heard of Tad Williams, it was impossible to access most of his work. eBooks weren't accessible, and I hadn't yet acclimatised to reading fiction with a screen reader anyway. And none of his books were available commercially as audios, which surprised me given how good he is. All I could find were pirated cassette rips of the library of congress audios of Otherland and MST. Now everything's accessible, so there's nothing stopping me.

2018-04-02 22:31:40

Has anyone read the Expanse (novel series) by James S. A. Corey. I am rereading the Expanse books, or at least the main story line. I know that a new one came out back in December. Anyway, the plot line is action field at times, and I think the space battle are well described. No, you do not get any star wars like battles, but you get people trying to figure how to win them per say. Think Torpedo’s and missals in space and you will get the picture. Basically, the plot line surround this artifact that has been found in our solar system and what some people do with it is not very nice, and that is putting it lightly.
Anyway, I have read the hunger games, and found it to be pretty good over all. I highly suggest that anyone looking for a good read where the main character goes mad at the end, the hunger games is a good read if you can make it through all three books.
I have read His Dark Matterials and found that the plot was pretty good, but maybe not something I would recommend to all readers. I personally would think that some Christians would find the last book a bit of a hard read to say the least. The trip to the death area and the whole angel thing comes to mind plus the whole battle against a city thing. I am trying to leave out just enough to not spoil it, but at the same time give people enough to know rather or not the His Dark Matterials books are for them or not. On the other hand, I found the whole idea of different universes and how the travel between them to be interesting to say the least.
Anyway, the books I would love to get my hands on for a good price, maybe off of bard if it is ever made available there, is the Frontier Saga by Ryk Brown. I have heard just enough good things about this series that think I might want to read them. From what I understand, there is plenty of details in the plot to make it worth reading.
I am sort of surprised that no one has said anything about Lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Talking about a book, split into three, with lots of details. So much so, that it is a bit long, but yet, at the same time, paints a full picture of the world. I could be wrong, but I believe that it has had an effect on modern day fantasy Per say. Then again, there is The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis That is a fun read to say the least. A series of books that is more geared towards young readers instead of being long and extremely detailed sort of like Lord of the rings.
I have read The Inheritance Cycle and found that the books were pretty good, but I found the ending of those books to be sort of a letdown. The fight with the king was sort of one of the let downs in the books for me do to the whole think about making the king feel sorry for everything he has done. It was as if the defeat of Lord Voldemort from the Harry potter books was lifted and reworked a bit. Also, the whole love scene with the elf was predictable, even from the second book. The flaming sword in the third book sort of reminded me of the light sabers off of star wars. Throwing in another sage in the third book was a bad mistake as far as I can tell. It made it look like they were easier to defeat then I think the author attended. I could be wrong.
I have read the maze runner books. Note I have not read the prequels. I found them ok. I just not a big zombie type stories per say. Grant it, there are no zombies in these books, but there is, per say, people catching a sickness that they could not recover from that made them sort of act like zombies. I am not too sure how to best describe the books.
Anyway, sorry for not putting my whole reading list up here. It would be like dumping the whole list of stuff I have on my stream in one go and I do not fill like putting that all in yet. LOL. I hope this post is not to long.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
DropBox Referral

2018-04-03 04:24:07

@Flacus burning man is actually set after ms&t. My lady  loved it despite not reading ms&t, but obviously its better to have the prior context.
I actually first read MS&t in braille, but had to do a deal with the national braille library to get some of the books from what was then the nls in the states , who were willing  lend to the braille library over here if not to individuals,  as well as finishing MS&T, this also let me read otherland for the first time.
It was sort of ironic, since in one weekend I had the first ever release of order of the pheonix followed by Otherland, I also got most of the wheel of time from them a little later. Of course this was before a lot of the commercial stuff, plus my lady does have access to Bard as well and the amount of stuff on Bard for authors like Tad williams is quite staggering as compared to the RNIB or indeed anywhere else.

Right now I've started Steven King's the stand, and am finding it pretty awesome, albeit not many of the characters are particularly likable. Still, I'll wait to give my thoughts until I've finished the book since manifestly even though I'm only five hours in there is a long ways to go, and of course I will probably bang out a review of it as well.

@Cw, bare in mind this topic is about "what are you reading now!" not what books you'd specifically recommend, otherwise my responses would be much longer, ---- hell for a few recommendations just see My book reviews found here though even these are just the books I happpen to have written reviews for, not an exhaustive list of everything I'd recommend.
I've heard of The Expanse series but not read them.
Dark materials was a really good fantasy series and I enjoyed it right up to the point i saw philip pullman talk about it on an interview, since it always amuses me that he is this huge great atheist, and then has created a particle of universal consciousness, ie, dust which pretty much fulfills the roll of god by another name. No, he doesn't like organised religion and his alegories got so heavy handed as to be annoying, but how any writer who talks about "the universe feeling" can then repudiate God I don't know.
This is one reason that I enjoyed the first two books more than the third.

Generic fantasy that doesn't try just annoys me. I saw the Eragon film, then checked the plot synopses of the first book, and it was honestly one of those occasions where I just couldn't see the point. The plot is so blatantly cobbled together out of starwars, Lotr wheel of time Anne Mccaffrey  and other elements, with a love story that is positively painful. When friends who'd read it told me the writing style was pretty appauling, and when I learned that the author basically was the son of a publisher and a family friend published the thing he wrote when he was fifteen I pretty  decided not to bother.

Lord of the rings is something I reread every few years and get more out of it each time, its one of my perminant comfort books.
Next up my lady and I want to do the american Minds eye radio adaptation. While everyone I know who's heard both has said its no where near as good as the bbc, as a tolkien completionist  am interested just out of curiosity, especially as it features John vickery, aka, Neroon in Babylon 5 and Scar in the Broadway production of the Lion king as both legolas and Greamar wormtongue/

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-03 11:54:41

WDark

Is this your first read of The Stand?

2018-04-03 17:59:20

Nope I read it literally half a lifetime ago when I was around 17, after seeing the miniseries with rob low as Nick andros.
I will say I've never read the original cut version published in 1978, both back then and now I am reading the full, uncut version from 1990, since even if I could get the cut version I wouldn't really see the point.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-05 06:12:22

Currently rereading the Divergent books again and starting on the Psi Changeling books here

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-04-05 16:49:16

Hmm Jace, the divergent ones is that the trilogy by Veronica Roth? I have them but haven't tried them yet.
I will confess the last ya distopea, ali condy's matched trilogy severely disappointed me, so it might be a while before I try another, though on the other hand I did very much enjoy both James Dashna's Maze runner trilogy and of course the grand daddy of all Ya distopea, the good old hungar games big_smile.

I've not heard of the psi changeling books though, who wrote those?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-05 16:59:56

Nope, Nalini Singh wrote the Psy/Changeling ones I'm on about, they're very, very interesting.

Mazerunner's also good but oddly I like the films more myself, but the Hunger Games....no no. If you want the granddaddy of a genre, Neuromancer, nuff said....though I'll admit the Hunger Games at least here varies by chapter

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-04-05 17:31:59 (edited by flackers 2018-04-05 17:41:21)

The granddaddy of dystopia: boy that's a tough call. There's quite a few good ones. 1984 is the obvious one, but If you held a gun to  my head, I'd probably plump for Lucifer's Hammer. Though I'm never quite sure if post apocalyptic fiction properly qualifies because it's really just people trying to cope with a catastrophe. I suppose a true dystopia is where a group of people have deliberately chosen to make society the way it is. Something like Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall would qualify, and I love it, but it is a bit comic-booky and unrealistic. Westall is such a good writer of young adult fiction. I quite like that kind of simple writing because of its lean, straight forward A to B style. I think a lot of writers who write adult fiction seem to feel they have to have backstory an subplots in order to be taken seriously, but this often results in flabbiness. I really admire authors who write for adults, but keep it tight and don't feel the need for alternating chapters of main thread, subplot, main thread, subplot etc.

2018-04-06 00:21:02

@Jace I'm not sure if neuromancer and hungar games are comparable since Neuromancer is far more in the vane of world wrecked by huge mega coorporations while people live in urban sprawls than a specifically oppressive government in charge, ---- not distopea, more sort of what we have now actually big_smile.

Hunger games I site as the first example of the modern ya distopea novel, ie, protagonist who is a young adult, oppressive government, resistance, lots of action etc, though I could definitely see how something like Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall would fall into that, ---- actually Futuretrack 5 is a book I need to reread and review myself and comparrisons to Hunger games are sort of interesting, indeed I'm finding reading the Stand now its showing its age as novel not just by the culture being very 1970's, but also by the fact that gender rolls  are fairly rigid, and there aren't really any competent female characters, which  are rather jarring today. Then again My lady did acuse King in his early days of writing all his women as what she descriptively called "wet tissues" since they spend so much time crying big_smile. So this might not be as much about the genre as about King, still as compared to something like Justin Cronin's passage trilogy it is rather dissonant, though manifestly both The Passage and The stand are examples of post appocalyptic epic rather than specifically distopea,  the Twelve does actually feature a distopic society, ---- okay genre boundaries can go jump in a lake big_smile.


One other ya distopea I read last year and was very! disappointed by was the red rising series by pierce brown, which were down right crap! basically all big explosions with a main character I constantly wanted to slap, actually I was sort of cheering on the bad guys since I wanted him to lose, though sicne I posted several rather scathing reviews of those over on fantasybookreview.co.uk I'll let people look there.

@Flacus I don't know about sub plots. On the one hand I do take your point  it being better to follow a single character's journey and not have too much that is irrelevant, on the other I love seeing the world and exploring different perspectives on things.
This is one thing that made Brave new world such an interesting distopic novel since you followed characters who were or were not fans of the system, and it was the over all effect that gave you an idea of how problematic the particular society is, ----- a society which seems at least culturally if not quite in terms of organisation closer to monopolistic capitalism we have now than Orwell's vision of a totalitarian state.

Anyway before this turns into an essay methinks I'll stop big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-06 01:41:34

Sorry, I think I got the wrong end of the stick there. Thought you were just talking about great dystopia books rather than specifically influential young adult ones.
As for sub plots, I'm all for multiple threads as long as they seem vital to the overall story, and are just as enjoyable to read and keep the story moving forward. Otherland for instance must have had eight or nine strands, and yet they were all strong, and you never felt like oh no we've got to put up with this for a chapter while the main story is left jogging on the spot. For the first two thirds, Otherland was like reading half a dozen good books at once. It's books that have threads that seem secondary and obligatory that I can't be doing with.

2018-04-06 20:16:41

Tad williams is very good at the hole subplots thing. I will say some are more interesting than others at times, but thats the mark of a good author, its not actually surprising that Williams is one of George R R Martin's idles, ---- there's even an amusing nod to MS&T in one of the game of thrones books in which your told about a nightly house who's standard is three swords and a dragon, where the two sons are Joshua and Elias ;D.

I don't tend to find subplots bother me if they go! somewere. My major problem with subplots is when you've been forced to follow a character and there actions and there is no payoff, or the thing just peter's out mid flow as unfortunately does happen in some of steven King's earlier books (the tommyknockers in particular i remember as quite bad for this, though the stand doesn't seem to be).

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-04-06 22:51:02 (edited by flackers 2018-04-06 22:53:55)

Oh my, The Tommyknockers, King really dropped a bollock there. His genius shines through here and there, but there's a ton of bulk, and the main storyline and central characters just don't hold enough interest to compensate. He gave so much page-room to characters I really couldn't give a stuff about, and the one person who had any kind of spark was a villain, and she was dead within five minutes of turning up. By King standards Tommyknockers was a bit of a stinker. King at his best though is definitely one of those writers who makes the little spin-off side-stories every bit as enjoyable to read as the main thrust. When he's really on form it's like having extra little novelettes to read inside the main book.

2018-04-06 23:16:51

Hm, let’s see. Love the percy jackson books, Harry Potter is cool, hungergames is good even though I hate the main char, mase runner is good. Oh and yeah, I love the divergent books.