Kevin's Watch

My biggest problem with it was (major spoiler Murrin, don't read this. )

Spoiler

The dead? Capone as a major villain? C'mon!

Other than that, I enjoyed them. Excellent world-building, great detail.

Thanks Duchess...The horror has already begun...

(Actually, I'm going to be starting a thread in the RJ forum on this soon, because you know what? Despite everything, I still pretty much enjoy them. *shrug* Must be a sucker for punishment. )

--A

Avatar wrote:My biggest problem with it was (major spoiler Murrin, don't read this. )

Spoiler

The dead? Capone as a major villain? C'mon!

Yeah, good point.

Otherwise, it was great.

Say, have you read any of the published volumes of the Saga Of Seven Suns? Kevin J Anderson. Just up your street. Makes Nights Dawn look simplistic.

--A

I might just give it a go, though I am suspicious of Mr Anderson given his writing history.

Avatar wrote:(major spoiler Murrin, don't read this. )

I'm not the one who hasn't finished it yet. I read the series a year and a half ago. I think you mean Nav.

Know nothing about his writing history...only that this is a long and fantastically complicated series, that I've been quite enjoying. (Only read the first 3 though.)

--A

Wrote novels for the x-files, star wars, and co-writing Dune background. Not that he can't write. Just makes me wary is all. Still if you reccommend, I will read.

Try the first one, (preferably from a library or something) and see if it doesn't pique your interest.

--A

I've been hit and miss with Kevin J. Anderson myself. But can there be two more prolific authors in the nineties through today than Anderson and Harry Turtledove?

What do they crank out - a book every three months? I'm serious. It used to be Piers Anthony, but I think these two guys have surpassed him in recent years.

Murrin wrote:The Wasp Factory was good, if not quite as macabre and disturbing as the blurbs in front had led me to believe.

I imagine it's a bit like the Exorcist in that respect, what may have been shocking 20 years ago doesn't quite have the same impact today. I think most of the controversy at the time of publishing centred around the graphic descriptions of violence against the children. The one passage that still makes my skin crawl is:

Spoiler

the bit in the mental hospital when we find out what happened to Eric

At the moment, I'm rereading all my old books... I reread The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and now I'm moving onto Lord of the Rings.

Nav wrote:I think most of the controversy at the time of publishing centred around the graphic descriptions of violence against the children. The one passage that still makes my skin crawl is:

Spoiler

the bit in the mental hospital when we find out what happened to Eric

Oh, yes, definately. I meant to mention that bit - it was the only part that actually made me cringe.

I finished Tim Lebbon's Dusk, and must reluctantly agree with Ainulindale. It didn't really up to the promise of the beginning, and although there is a sequel due out next year, entitled Dawn, I'm not sure it will redeem itself. The plot gets very repetitive, and some of the magical elements are vague and seem very out of control to me.

So any comparison I made to Mieville's Perdido Street Station I shall officially withdraw.

Now I've started Neal Asher's Gridlinked. I enjoyed one of Asher's other novels, The Skinner. Asher writes visceral, in-your-face space opera, with wildly adapted fauna and ecologies run amok. Gridlinked is described as James Bond in outer space - I'm liking it through the first fifty pages, anyway.

I have no patience or restraint. The Bonehunters arrived this morning - I read the prologue and two chapters instead of doing the work I was supposed to have done already.

I've began rereading The First Chronicles.

So any comparison I made to Mieville's Perdido Street Station I shall officially withdraw

Thank goodness!

Rignt now I'm reading Steven Erikson's Bonehunters, as welk as Jacqueline Carey's forthcoming Kushiel's Scion, while stealing sometime to dive into a new PKD collection coming out soon, Vintage PKD.

Recently finished Patrica Mckillip's Solstice Wood, which I really enjoyed.

I have just started on 'A Feast of Crows'.

BTW...has there even been an anticipated release date of 'A Dance of Dragons'?

BTW...has there even been an anticipated release date of 'A Dance of Dragons'?

Martin has recently stated any date you see is pure speculation, and he will tell us at his site/blog first. That said, early release dates have been displayed early 2007, but I can tell you the publishers have no idea either. So no real date.

I have been reading the new Star Wars novel Dark Lord which begins towards the end of Revenge of the Sith and tells how the last remanants of Annakin Skywalker's personality and mind are subsumed into the new Darth Vader...it is not as good as the novel based on Revenge of the Sith but it is interesting, and tells something of the emotional transition of going from being Anakin to being Vader...

I have also been reading the old fantasy classic The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. It is very good. Even though I believe it was first published way back in the 1920's, if it reminds me of any other more modern writer it would remind me of Neil Gaiman in its tone and writing style. And sicne I really like the works of Neil Gaiman, that's a good thing.

I'm reading Zelazny's Eye of Cat and am really getting into it---very New Mexican sci-fi: The old Enemyway singer and the presence that follows the Startracker is just one iota of how damm cool this book is right now... (I've got a few Navajo friends who I think would get a serious kick out of this little gem) thanks duchy!