Kevin's Watch

ur-bane wrote:So far, I have to say I am a bit disappointed. Is the whole series family feuds?
I am also a bit perturbed at the amount of names thrown at you all at once. I have to keep backtracking to find out which character is which.

There are a lot of family feuds, but as you get acquinted with the characters you will see how character-driven those feuds are. It takes a while for a person to coalesce in your mind.

I have an author friend whose most frequent criticism of a book is "too many characters." She knows her craft very well, but doesn't write for the "complexity" market, obviously.

Mieville. Meh. The Scar was good, Iron Council was decent, if flawed, but Perdido Street Station bored me (considering I read IC first, Scar second, and Perdido St. third, perhaps the novelty just wore off). Stylistically, he's very good. I'd even say he's creative. But as a storyteller... meh.

Well, I'll read the first couple of Mievilles in the order they were written and see if I want the third one.

ur-bane,

Speaking from experience - you'll get used to it. I had the same experience. And regarding the family feuds, it isn't the entire series but it is an aspect of it. I like it personally. Reserve judgment till the book is finished.

Read Runes of the Earth over the weekend.

Finally. Off to the Runes forum.

--A

Dragonlily wrote:There are a lot of family feuds, but as you get acquinted with the characters you will see how character-driven those feuds are. It takes a while for a person to coalesce in your mind.

That is true. I am finding (as is the case always) that I am slowly becoming familiar with the characters.

Dragonlily wrote:I have an author friend whose most frequent criticism of a book is "too many characters." She knows her craft very well, but doesn't write for the "complexity" market, obviously

I have a liking for complexity. Simplicity bores me. It's not a matter of too many characters for me, I just was hoping to understand each character better before the next was introduced, that's all. But as the pages turn, the familiarity grows.

Lord Mhoram wrote:Speaking from experience - you'll get used to it. I had the same experience. And regarding the family feuds, it isn't the entire series but it is an aspect of it. I like it personally. Reserve judgment till the book is finished.

I will indeed reserve judgement. The more I read it, the more it is pulling me in. I guess I had a misrepresentation of the story in my head before I started reading, so I was thrown for a curve.

I need to stop comparing every other author to SRD, and let their works speak for themselves. I like the way SRD writes, and the way you become his characters as you read. You know them, you understand them, you want to smack them upside the head sometimes. He doesn't just throw names at you. I like that.
GRRM has a different way of developing characters. I'll get used to it, I hope.

Reading the third book in the Riftwar Legacy: Krondor, Tear of the Gods.

I like Feist quite a bit.

Looking forward to Shadow of the Giant by Card. I agree with Donaldson about censorship (I would hate to have some group (religious or not) decide for me what is good for me to read and what I shouldn't because I'm considered so stupid that I would allow what happens in a book to influence my actions in real life) Censorship is a bunch of crap, as far as I'm concerned, but I can't help liking Card's books.

I remember in high school, the librarian would not allow the boys to look at the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated unless they could give her the exact article they needed from it, and what paper they were writing that needed the article for. I was very opposed to that, and thought it was wrong.

Shoot, I'm threadjacking here, aren't I?

Sorry folks

LR

Danlo - Eon was AMAZING! I recommed you finish it one day. It has some fantastic revelations, and there is sad sense of irony pervading the book. Very imaginative, and one of the alien races - the Frants - are great!

Thanks to Danlo's list, I'm trying Delaney's Triton again. Actually, as I read it, it's slowly coming back to me. Especially the description of the awesome board-game that they play.

Can't for the life of me remember why I gave up on it before, but I'm giving it another chance. (See I've also got The Fall of the Towers by him. Will have to do that one next, after I reread Runes.)

--Avatar

I'm reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. What's amazing me most about it is how absorbed I am by it, considering that it's a bit disjointed. Very intense stuff.

I quit a third of the way through that, Myste. Too intense for me, the descriptions of the plague.

The Darkness That Comes Before by Bakker. Good stuff.

Reading the first book of swords by Fred Saberhagen. MUCH better than I remembered in the past, the writing is actually really great. Of course, I read it when I was 13 so there was probably a lot I was not appreciative of..

I've been busy the last week or so with a reread of Harry Potter, in preparation for the upcoming release of the next book in that series. I had forgotten what a supreme meanie Umbridge is. A classic villain, easy and fun to despise.

I also read the novelization of Star Wars Episode 3. I hope the movie can even somewhat live up to the book.

I read a vampire novel from Robin McKinley called Sunshine. Quite a bit of the book was the main character working through emotional responses to finding our things (such as new abilities) about herself, and big changes in her life. I enjoyed the book, but might be a bit too "chick flicky" for some out there.

Just started a hard core military science fiction novel called Armor by John Steakley. So far it reminds me quite a bit of both Starship Troopers and The Forever War as it has been telling the story of a trooper in a high tech galactic war...

About to start a reread of the books in David Zindell's epic fantasy series, The Ea Cycle, as the next book will be coming out soon.

Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

Loremaster,

What do you think so far? That's one of my favorites.

It is fantastic!

I've just finished reading "God Emperor of Dune"
I can't believe I haven't picked up the Dune series before now!

Brilliant, isn't it? One of my all time favourite series. (First one was the best though, but if you read them all one after the other, the others seem to work better together.)

--Avatar

I'll begin Miéville's The Scar tonight.
Perdido Street Station was brilliant - best work I've read in a long time. Everyone should read it.