Kevin's Watch

I enjoyed the Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens books.

Just got a review copy of DemonSouled, will be hedging between that and Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space.

Ainulindale wrote:
Just got done with these and going through them again for forthcoming reviews Martha Wells' Death of the Necromancer (thanks Encryptic)

No problem. Hope it was worth the read.

I've since read City of Bones and The Element of Fire by her as well. Both pretty good reads, if not quite up to the same level as Death of the Necromancer, IMHO.

Almost done with Revelation Space and going to go into Reynold's Chasm City.

I've since read City of Bones and The Element of Fire by her as well. Both pretty good reads, if not quite up to the same level as Death of the Necromancer, IMHO.

I've also completed my interview with her, and I'm planning a next month release, jsut to give you a heads up.

I'm want to start her other work, but I'm so behind with other stuff, it's impossible.

I've since read City of Bones and The Element of Fire by her as well. Both pretty good reads, if not quite up to the same level as Death of the Necromancer, IMHO.

Her latest series is the best. I am looking forward to The Gate of Gods coming out this fall. Despite its freshman roughness, I prefered The Element of Fire over Death of a Necromancer. But I am one of the few that really liked her Wheel of the Inifinite.

Right now I am working on Ellen Steiber's A Rumor of Gems though my eyes keep wandering over to a little treasure that Book Expo yielded up. I keep telling myself it has to wait for the weekend; The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders. I think I got this by mistake. But definitely not letting go.

Busy on Ambassador Without Credentials by Sergei Snegov. Book of short sci-fi stories, all with a common thread, (i.e. the same two main characters) translated from the Russian.

Not bad at all. I've tended to enjoy the few other books I've read translated from eastern European languages. In fact, I tend to get on with eastern Europeans. I like their mindset on the whole.

--Avatar

Ainulindale wrote:Almost done with Revelation Space and going to go into Reynold's Chasm City.

Then you are addicted right along with me, then?

Reynolds and Scott Westerfeld are the best new writers I've discovered in recent years.

Just starting Absolution Gap, the conclusion of the Inhibitor series.

Delicious.

Ken Socrates wrote:Reynolds and Scott Westerfeld are the best new writers I've discovered in recent years.

Here's a new one for you two to try. CAST OF SHADOWS by Kevin Guilfoile. It's an outstanding debut novel about cloning. Going to be hard to match with his second novel, but whatever the second one is, I'm there.

I just read Katherine Kurtz's IN THE KING'S SERVICE. And although not her best effort, it was still a good book.

But I would not recommend it as a starting point for newcomers. As a matter of fact, the book sets the stage for what is to come and new readers, unfamiliar with both what occurs before and what will take place two generations hence, will indubitably be lost and quickly lose interest. And since the Deryni series is such a grand historical tapestry, it would be a shame.

This prequel to Kelson's adventures covers a lot of ground. It sweeps across many years and a plethora of characters, preparing us for the many conflicts to come. Several plotlines will appear quite familiar to fans: Mearan rebels, Torenthi incursions into Gwynedd, the Church's hatred toward Deryni, and a king desperately attempting to protect his lineage. The book bridges many of the gaps in the Deryni timeline.

For the full review, you can check out the blog!

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

Finished Fevre Dream. Starting The Once and Future King.

Finished up Ellen Steiber's A Rumor of Gems. Not bad. A standalone that is possibly the introduction to an ongoing world it seems.

Now working on Glen Cook's The Tyranny of the Night. Another no bad. Way too big of an infodump though at the onset. A bit too rigid and bulky use of the real medieval world with slight changes as well. Not sure if my familiarity with the time is helping or hindering. The distraction of placing Cook's to the real world inspirations is distracting. At the same time my knowledge allows me to bridge some gaps in logic and flow concerning motivations etc that give depth to what would otherwise be meaningless listings of nations and lands and peoples. Gaps I could see being fatal to the uninitiated.

It has been awhile since I last read any Cook and i was surprised at how poorly and stitled he wrote his dialogue. Still, so far, the book is not bad and hopefully the story will even out a bit as it goes on.

I'm now about 190 pages into Dune: House Atreides

I re-read Sabriel by Garth Nix today. It's so good. But I'm putting off reading a bunch of "should-reads," so it's really just a sign of intellectual laziness. Of course, no one's making me read anything at the moment, so there shouldn't be any such thing as a "should-read" in my life. But it's that nagging voice in my head saying, "You know, you bought that book six months ago, and you still haven't gotten to it."

What I really ought to be reading:
A Whistling Woman by A.S. Byatt
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
Parsival by Richard Monaco
The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Wreckers by Bella Bathurst
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
McSweeney's Enchanting Chamber of Astonishing Stories ed. by Michael Chabon
Knock'Em Dead 2005 by Martin Yate (a job hunting guide)

What I think I'll read next:
not a flippin' idea.

Grab the Ondaatje, Myste.

I have books I've owned for years that I haven't read yet. It's perfectly okay. *consoling pat on back*

Almost halfway through K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires, so far very good!

THE DIGGING CREW by Nathalie Mallet, an ebook that was just released this month. It's half sci fi adventure, about a group of women convicts attempting an escape from hard labor in the mines, and half chick lit, about how they get to know each other and what they have to go through to learn to cooperate. Hardbitten and quite well written, but I'm thinking it's a little too long, as if the author couldn't bear to leave out any of her ideas.

Parker seems to have a habit of naming books the same way - The Scavenger Trilogy, The Fencer Trilogy, and now The Engineer Trilogy, heh. I might look at Devices and Desires sometime, but I didn't particularly enjoy Parker's writing in the Scavenger books.

I haven't read the "Scavenger" trilogy yet so I can't give you a comparison. I do think he has improved tremendously since "Fencer" though. But there are elements to his style that remain the same. So you might want to avoid it.

Devices and Desires, so far, is good enough I might break my rule and go back and start the "Scavenger" series.

Finally got round to reading Sailing to Sarantium, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Today I bought Lord of Emperors so I can finish before starting my next project. Unfortunately, the editions don't match: one hardcover, one trade paperback. C'est la cookie en crumblant.

I went against all my convictions and read the first Harry Potter novel. And, well... I might as well not have. Maybe if I hadn't seen the film, yeah, but - well, the film and the book are virtually identical. Nothing in the book seemed any different from what I'd seen in the film, and all I came away with from reading it was that I now knew the names of more characters.
Often there's some quality lost in the conversion from book to screen, something in the written format that just can't be conveyed in a movie - but the prose in The Philosopher's Stone was so simplistic there wasn't anything to be lost in the transfer.

I must say, if you're going to read these books, read the book before you see the film. If you've already seen the film, you might as well skip the first book. There's nothing extra to be gained by reading it.