Books

[Lady Door]

Alas, no Stephen Fry this time -- Tom Hollander (aka Lord Cutler Beckett of Pirates of the Caribbean) reads this one.

[Shale]

Cold Days: started this. One of the main characters is named Cat Sith, and there's at least one ridiculously obscure Star Wars joke about that. Still waiting on an FF7 reference.

Infinite Crisis: I think I lost at least fifteen IQ points reading this.

[Captain K.]

You do know that Cait Sith had a meaning before FF7 used it don't you?

[Hunter Sopko]

Of course not. He reads Dresden Files in a complete vacuum of mythic knowledge. It's totes not that the main character makes pop culture references at a rate of 1.21 per page.

[Shale]

Plus if he used the name to make a joke about the verbal tics of some Expanded Universe authors, it's not like the FF7 reference would be too obscure.

[Veryslightlymad]

Jealous of Rob and people who can get Hawkeye.
~~~

Neverwinter, by RA Salvatore (8/10)

The first book in the third chapter of the life of Drizzt Do'Urden, Neverwinter manages to be one of the better novels in the series, which is impressive, because most of the supporting cast is either not present or dead. We're introduced to a darker, more reckless Drizzt, and the character really benefits from it. The quote on the back cover reads "I am alone. I am free." You can almost see how Salvatore perhaps believes that himself--freeing his character from the emotional ties of his companions really lets Salvatore take him in whatever direction he wants to. I'm down with this, since personally, I've always felt that Drizzt is at his best when he takes needless insane risks to win the battle, as opposed to just being really skilled. There's more banter and danger to the character than there has been in a while, and I very much like this trend.

Dahlia is still there and still kind of blah. She's suitable in her role as "Crazy bitch", and has a few decent scenes. I don't really like the character, but I don't dislike her either.

SPOILER ALERT: The dude you already fucking knew was Entreri is Entreri, and as always, he's the best fucking thing in these books. As with every Entreri book past.... Jesus, I dunno. The Legacy? Probably every book past the first trilogy, Entreri has at least two moments that make me laugh out loud. The personality on this character is masterful. He's not comic relief, but he's consistently the most amusing character in the series. He even cracks Drizzt up with his acerbic wit a few times. I like that he's basically utterly Alegni's slave, but the chapters from Alegni's point of view do mention a few times that he's still somewhat afraid of good ol "Barrabus" finding a way to off him. I also like how this book continues the trend of people thinking Entreri is some kind of hero, when really he's just a killing machine that they have the good fortune of having him be pissed off at what is bothering them. For all that, yes, the character is increasingly murdering the hell out of things for fucking with the lives of ordinary people.

The downsides are the usual Salvatore stuff. Can't write sexy to save his life, which I almost find as a blessing, because the thought of sexy Drizzt is weird. I'm a bit annoyed that there wasn't a scene between Artemis and Guenwhyvar, and I'm in full nerd-rage mode that Andahar and Entreri's nightmare didn't, you know, try to kill each other out of principle. Also, Entreri somehow survives an imp sting, when imp venom was enough to kill Pikel back in book one of the cleric quintet. I know modern D&D Imps don't have the "Save v poison or DIE" thing, but, uh.... at some point the universe needs consistency.
~~~~~
Lost Everything, by Brian Francis Slattery (1/10)
I did not think it was possible to write a novel while covered in oil, masturbating to the smirking image of your own nude reflection, but Brian Francis Slattery has shown me that a man can. I picked this novel up on the inspiration that it was a science fiction novel set, not in deep space, but in a not-too-distant future where the Earth deals with serious ramifications extrapolated from the problems of the day. Unfortunately, Slattery is hamfisted and preachy, and more than a little smug. Also, for a novel that's supposedly full of realistic characters and setting, the characters come off as melodramatic caricatures more than actual people. Keep in mind I attempted to read this after a novel published by Dungeons and Dragons, part of a series to promote their upcoming MMO.

The timeframe skips around for no reason, as though Slattery watched Resevoir Dogs and then decided that he, too, wanted to play with time. Only, after considering it, he decided that it would be best to drop all semblance of style and general coolness because it might get in the way of his MESSAGE. (Please take care of the environment.)

The book is so unbelievably smug, I have a hard time thinking that it was written by someone who wasn't deliberately trying to win an award. It reminds me over-much of a sociology professor I had in college, who was just the shittiest human being I've ever met. Worse, in its attempts to be realistic, it has an ongoing war and then DELIBERATELY DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY IT IS GOING ON. It's just sort of glossed over. "Oh, the usual, you know. Power. Resources." But there's a (unnamed?!) side and a resistance, but... what the fuck are they resisting? Look, asshole. War is stupid and meaningless but the people involved in a goddamn war tend to know why, and also the people fighting. They don't go "Tum te-dum. Being bombed. Guess there's a war going on. Better flee."

For all of its trying-too-hard prose and terrible setting and characters, I think the real crime of this book is that it's just plain boring. It's not one of those "It's so bad it's good" books, if such a thing can exist. It's just... bad. It's boring. It is a bore. This is a book I literally stopped reading today in favor of doing absolutely nothing.  I could not finish it. There was no reason to. I can't decide if this is the worst novel I've attempted to read lately, or merely the worst novel I've attempted to read. Nonetheless, it's the first book I quit partway since The Wayfarer's Redemption (truly, the most evil thing RuinChaser ever did was recommend me that book), and it's a book that, when I decided I would get annoyed carrying it around the mall, my solution was to abandon it in the bathroom.

Incidentally, this novel has a four star rating on Amazon. Maybe more people need to just stop fucking reading.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Plus if he used the name to make a joke about the verbal tics of some Expanded Universe authors, it's not like the FF7 reference would be too obscure.

In fairness, Harry Dresden can watch movies, and certainly read books, but can't play video games. If there's an FF7 reference it would have to come from another character and leave Harry at least momentarily confused.

[Grefter]

The downsides are the usual Salvatore stuff. Can't write sexy to save his life, which I almost find as a blessing, because the thought of sexy Drizzt is weird. I'm a bit annoyed that there wasn't a scene between Artemis and Guenwhyvar

Yep.

I picked this novel up on the inspiration that it was a science fiction novel set, not in deep space, but in a not-too-distant future where the Earth deals with serious ramifications extrapolated from the problems of the day.

It sucked.

Looks like someone needs some Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson in their life.  It doesn't have dudes fucking animals like you seem to want but it does have old people fucking.

[Veryslightlymad]

The downsides are the usual Salvatore stuff. Can't write sexy to save his life, which I almost find as a blessing, because the thought of sexy Drizzt is weird. I'm a bit annoyed that there wasn't a scene between Artemis and Guenwhyvar

Yep.

AHAHAHAHA. Whoops. Thought I edited my paragraph better than that.

"I'm a bit upset there wasn't a scene where Guenwhyvar reacts to Artemis being present, somehow."

I'm gonna keep the original for posterity, though. God damn it, Grefter.

[Lady Door]

Time for a final Wheel of Time re-read before A Memory of Light!

Surprisingly, I have copies of every book except 3, 6 and 9. I've been collecting these since the mid-90s, and that covers about 10 moves, plus several thieves (like my parents, who read fantasy, and friends, who "borrow" books).

--

Also bought, finally, Bujold's Paladin of Souls. It's been at the top of my to-read list for quite a while and I finally picked it up yesterday. I'm about 3 chapters in and it's already awesome. I'll get back to this after WoT.

Some day I will actually read Jhereg.

--

EDIT: Damnit! It was bound to happen someday given all the books I own, but I just found a copy of Paladin of Souls on the shelf. Guess I'll be returning this new one to B&N today.

[superaielman]

Cold Days: Finished. Ghost Story was a bridge between Changes- which altered the series fairly strongly- and Cold Days, which focuses some the big plot arcs. It was good fun that doesn't take itself too seriously, as the Dresden Files usually is.

[Shale]

Mistborn: Submitted to the endless Aiel whipping and read. It was good stuff. Very good worldbuilding with a solid central narrative to hang it on - although I was definitely looking forward more to finding out the history of the Lord Ruler than to the resolution of Kelsier and Vin's story.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Innocent Mage by Karen Miller - A decent book, a bit of reasonably stock fantasy with magic that sets up the setting rather than is a part of the story, which I appreciate. The story is mostly about the relationship between friends with a bit of overarching mystery. The main character suffers a little bit from the usual main character thing, people love him unless they are evil and then they are his enemies and he is good at most everything he does. He's still not terrible, and I kind of enjoy the secondary characters. The ending I rather like. It's a decent but not wonderful book.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb - A really fantastic book, has tons of political intrigue and not too much fighting, a little bit of romance and a lot of good times. It's also another book that has magic in the background rather than as an essential part of the fighting (not that there is all that much). The villain is a glorious bastard and I love him for it. Verity got no game.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - Would be the best book ever if Dalinar had like 60% of the POV time rather than Suetastic Kaladin. Dalinar is boss, ain't no lie. Shallam's stuff is pretty good too, and Kaladin' background story is okay even though he is the NICEST MOST HONORABLEST WONDERFULEST GUY EVER AND EVERYONE LOVES HIM EXCEPT BAD PEOPLE WHO ARE BAD. The whole sequence toward the end is uber-lame where he saves Dalinar's life and orders around troops and gets his superpowers from an honorspren lol. In general I think the series would benefit from laying off Kaladin chapters so much, I hope Book 2 has less of him. Most of the things that weren't Kaladin's present POV were awesome though!

Awakened Mage by Karen Miller - Read the first third or so of this. The back cover of the book is hilariously inaccurate for some reason.

[superaielman]

A Memory of Light: Done! I am spoilering everything with this, including favorite scenes and characters. See below.

The entire book is a fantastic capoff for the entire series. The entire book is the last battle- the sides of the light battle the baddies.  There are a few surprises along the way (I am pretty stunned that Lan survived of all people) but by and large  it was what I expected. I'm seeing Dragonmount collectively shit a brick over details that were not worked in, but I don't especially care. Sanderson did the best he could and the main story resolved itself well enough. The bit with Moiridin and Rand's body swap was glossed over, but that is easy enough to cover up as well. I'm sure there are a lot of small things that could be picked at, but by and large I enjoyed the book enough to not care about it. 'm unsure how to feel about who died and who lived. There were a few notable deaths, but the body count was pretty light. I don't think this is unexpected. For better or worse, Wheel of Time is not a series that is heavy on character death.


Where the book surprised me wasn't in the overarching battle or character conflicts, but with the bit characters. Everyone from Slayer to Demandred to Thom to Talamanes got a chance to shine a little bit in this book. I was not expecting minor characters to steal the show, but hey. I think he got more camera time than Moiraine, which is just weird. So it goes.

Favorite scenes. I am just grabbing scenes out of thin air here. I reserve the right to edit these.

1. The very last scene. It fit.
2. Rand and the Dark One exploring worlds that could be. The worlds that could be are a recurring theme in the series, and they are usually a ton of fun to read.
3. Rand confronts Tuon. This is one of those scenes where something isn't fully fleshed out in words, but you can pick it up if you pay attention. Rand picked up the song of growing (From Lews Therin likely; it was clear from The Shadow Rising flashback that the Aes Sedai knew of it) and was using it to impress people. The book is already massive, and there is so much (Logain being captured, Alanna being caught, etc) that isn't in there due to time contraints on both the book and the author. It was still neat to see that explained.
4. Logain's last scene. It's been clear since at least book three that Logain would be a big player in the last battle or the events afterward. He is faced with the same choices Rand is given- power in the form of the Sa'angreal or saving people who had scorned him before. He makes a perfectly logical decision here in light of the way he was influenced. I dug it. 
5. Shendla's scene with Demandred.  The book does something I did not expect. It doesn't make Dem sympathetic in the least, but shows his human side; his Ayaad lover had begun to corrupt him. It also shows his reasoning for going over to the shadow- not only revenge, but a belief that he can save the world under the dark one. It's more nuisaned than his Forsaken Seifer act, that's for sure.  He of course acts like a wanker for most of the book then gets killed by a mere swordsman, but that was a fitting end for him.

Other favorites: Perrin breaking Lanfear's neck, Bridgette owning Hanlon hardcore after he had killed her, Talamanes in the intro, the three duels with Demmy. There is a lot to choose from here.

Favorite characters. This is hard for me to order, because all the main players (Nyaneve, Egwene, Mat, Perrin, Elayne, Rand) are mostly done growing in their character arcs.


1. Rand.  This just feels right to me.
2. Androl/Pevara- They functionally work as a pair here. I went from really not caring a whit about Androl to enjoying his chapters immensely. He and Pevara have good chemistry together.
3. Mat- He's a finished character in the book, but I still enjoyed him anyway.
4. Egwene- I'm not sure what to feel about her final scene, but she went out in a proverbal blaze of glory. Feels weird to not note her here.
5. Talamanes- This is odd, but he got a fair bit of character work in the book.

I didn't go into much depth, I am still chewing on things. Some of this will likely change when  I talk to other people about the book. Oh yeah, keep an eye out for me in the book- I'm a Red Shield!

[Dark Holy Elf]

You're a machine.

Looking forward to talking with you about it in a couple weeks!

[Luther Lansfeld]

You are a madman!

[Hunter Sopko]

Pfft. It took him a couple more hours than me to read Cold Days. His machinery is paltry and weak. I believe they made a movie about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaKxRN2LdEI

[superaielman]

I read cold days on Christmas, the day I got it.

[Shale]

Well of Ascension: Welcome to the Brandon Sanderson topic, I guess. Strong book, not sure where I see it relative to Mistborn because it really doesn't stand on its own well - the ending makes clear that almost everything that happened was just setup for Hero of Ages. So it depends on how well he does that third book.

[Idun]

L'Étranger - Camus &
Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours - Verne.

Probably won't finish these. Reading the French versions, obv. Won't respond any further about them, probably.

[Lady Door]

A Memory of Light was SUCH a Sanderson book. A good ending, though, to the series.

I'll probably edit this post later with some more thoughts, or maybe post a new one, but I thought I should commemorate the moment.

[Cotigo]

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER.

Bless Me, Ultima: Reread for the umpteenth time.  Rudolpho Anaya is a beautiful man.  I can't recommend this book enough, it's a fantastic bildungsroman with tons of magical realism thrown in.  Read it.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Basically the opposite end of the spectrum from Bless Me.  Reading this because it's light reading and I may as well read something if I'm going to hate it so irrationally.

It's very much a children's book and I try to judge it as such, but god damn does Rowling like to fuck around a lot.  "OK now we're gonna play quidditch.  Let's fuck around with this dragon for a chapter.  Now Harry's gonna spend a chapter looking in the mirror and admiring himself."  It all ties together in the end but it just doesn't do it very well.

I also had a lot of problems with point of view here, primarily that it seems to be third person limited to Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, which is an OK decision (first person and omniscient simply wouldn't work), but it's just so sloppy between those three.  The chapter where Quirrell tries to kill Harry during the quidditch match comes to mind as a particularly jarring moment for this.  We get a few paragraphs of Harry's PoV up in the sky, and then all of a sudden Hagrid shows up! And then afterwards she establishes that we're looking at Hermoine and Ron, and Hagrid did not in fact decide to fly into the game. This is a pretty constant problem for Rowling once she introduces Ron and Hermoine.  Suffice it to say there is a reason most other fantasy writers tend to pick one person to be limited to at a time and makes clear delineations when our focus shifts to other characters.

Pacing was another big problem.  4 chapters to actually get to Hogwarts and then 1 chapter for the climax, with a lot of fucking around in between.  Yawn.

There are a lot of things the book does that make it obvious as to why it's so popular, though.  It's blatant wish fulfillment at its finest, so no wonder kids took to it as fastly as they did.  Her world building is also pretty fantastic, and while I hate the ways she introduces the world to the reader, it's clear that there was a lot of thought put into it, and on the whole it feels pretty consistent within itself as of the first book.

Overall it's still a piece of trash but I can see why people like it. 

How to Win Friends and Influence People:  The first chapter basically says "Don't be Zenny" and that isn't a thing that stops happening or anything stupid like that.  I'm only a couple chapters in but I'm enjoying it so far.  It's a lot of stuff that I've heard time and time again but with a lot of good, clear examples to remind yourself to put these things into practice when talking to people.  I'm not much on self help, but at the same time I've never really heard someone talk about this book and not recommend it, and I can see why.

For the record, no, I will not be putting these things into practice in chat.  Raw Zenny All The Time.

Dance with Dragons: I forget if I've spoken about it, and I feel like I have, so I'll keep it short.  A Song of Ice and Fire continues to be better than the Wheel of Time and anyone who thinks otherwise disagrees with me.  I know the books are written for two vastly different audiences, but I think comparing this to Harry Potter is useful for highlighting how bad Rowling's problem with fucking around is.  Dany does a lot of fucking around in this book, and since her storyline is much less entangled with the other point of view characters' up until the end of the book it can really break the pacing of the book and it sometimes gets a little bit tedious reading about the politics of Meereen when I want rush through and find out what's happening with the other characters.   

However, during this fucking around, we get tons of character building for Dany, and it's pretty clear that all this fucking around is happening because a ton of point of views are all converging on Meereen, so having the information on what's happening in the city makes it seem a lot less contrived once those characters actually get there.  On the other hand, while the fucking around in HP does pay off eventually, there's basically no indication that it will until the very end of a very rushed climax.  Moreover, we get almost no character building for any of the characters during this fucking around, aside from "Harry is unconfident and now he can fly and confidence GET!"

tl;dr: Dale Carnegie, Rudolpho Anaya and George RR Martin yay, JK Rowling boo.

[Sierra]

I'm torn on Dany's recent chapters. It's apparent that pretty much everywhere not Westeros (or I guess Braavos) thrives on slavery, and that by taking the stand she has, Dany is basically bringing the world economy to a halt. This is awesome in theory, and understandably does focus many eyes in her direction. In practice, I don't think Martin has any idea how to resolve the situation, and sending a gang of Ironmen (hate them so much) her way isn't going to make that any easier.

It does give us plenty of Barristan Selmy being a badass old man though, so that's something.

[Hunter Sopko]

Zenny: Pretty much right on Sorceror's Stone, and even moreso on Chamber of Secrets. They're very much products of children's literature. If you can make it to Prisoner of Azhkaban, you'll be reasonably well rewarded as the series starts to grow up and stretch beyond standard children's lit conventions. Books 3-5 are constantly building on themselves and improving the quality of the characters, writing and the series as a whole.

[Grefter]

If you stick with it the series that was written to target the same readers that started it will eventually become a young adult fiction book!

Tragic the Gardening: Purifying Fire - This was a Tragic story about a fire mage.  It was okay because it had burning.
Tragic the Gardening: Agents of Artifice - This is less fun.  I picked this up to see how much of a Mary Sue Jace is.  He is pretty Sue.  Otherwise I am disappoint.  The setting of Ravnica is honestly the thing that got me back interested in Magic after I dropped it way back in Urza's Saga stuff.  It was a cool interesting setting with lots of flavour that transferred over to the card game quite well.  Stuff set in Ravnica after the guilds kind of blows chunks.  I have the follow up book about Tezzeret but that is just going to be about Nicol Bolas and maybe new Phyrexia so Mirrodin + Pyrexians = so few shits to give.

BAD PULP BOOKS ARE BAD OH NOES.