Kevin's Watch

Bought "Tuesday Next: First Among Sequels" on Friday and finished it on Saturday. Jasper Fforde is entertaining, as always. And as this one ends with a cliffhanger, clearly there are more to come -- yay!

Went to the used bookstore on Saturday and picked up a bunch of paperbacks -- Walter Jon Williams, Sheri Tepper and one Patricia McKillip that I haven't read yet. Still working on that massive fantasy/horror short story collection, but I may bail on it and pick up one of the new books. (I also bought Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" Friday -- which is not fantasy, but which I've been meaning to read it. Might read that first.)

I am reading Iain M. Bank's Use of Weapons

Just finished Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone.

Sedia set up the bar pretty high with The Secret History of Moscow, and her latest work doesn't quite live up to the expectations generated by its predecessor. While The Secret History of Moscow delivered on all fronts, one reaches the end of The Alchemy of Stone with a sense of "what might have been." The potential was there, no doubt about it. I think that the author simply needed to run with those ideas a little more. . .

Check the blog for the full review.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

I just finished The Dark Glory War

I dont know how the rest of the series is (yet) but the first book is really good.

The Dark Glory War is the first novel in the DragonCrown War Cycle of novels. It was published in March of 2000. The book follows four friends on the eve of their becoming adults within their society. This transition from youth to adulthood is supposed to be a light and joyful one, but events quickly conspire to change that. The young men are launched on a grand adventure that will take them far from home and change their lives forever--and not necessarily for the better.

Over the weekend I finished Stephenie Meyers' Twilight tetralogy, and now I'm close to the end of Interview with the Vampire by Ann Rice.

After this, I think I'd better get back to finishing the Dark Tower series... I'm kind of vamp'ed out at the moment

Just started Wells' The Time Machine. It's a slender volume, so it shouldn't tax me unduly during the apathy of my present day to day life. Also, it's one of those books I've been meaning to read - though less so than the other half of this H.G. Wells double bill, The War of the Worlds. That's up next, unless this particularly annoys me.

Just finished Glen Cook's first Black Company omnibus, Chronicles of the Black Company, and I love it!

I now understand what Erikson meant when he said that Cook brought the story down to a human level by dispensing with the cliché fantasy archetypes. And it's obvious Cook was a huge influence behind SE's Bridgeburners.

Perhaps not as groundbreaking today as they were when they were initially published in 1984, the three volumes contained in this omnibus are nonetheless as entertaining as anything you are likely to read this year.

Check the blog for the full review.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

Childhoods End, Arthur C Clarke.

--A

Just started Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. It's really good through the first 6 chapters.

pat5150 wrote:Just finished Glen Cook's first Black Company omnibus, Chronicles of the Black Company, and I love it!

I now understand what Erikson meant when he said that Cook brought the story down to a human level by dispensing with the cliché fantasy archetypes. And it's obvious Cook was a huge influence behind SE's Bridgeburners.

Perhaps not as groundbreaking today as they were when they were initially published in 1984, the three volumes contained in this omnibus are nonetheless as entertaining as anything you are likely to read this year.

Check the blog for the full review.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

I just finished reading that myself a couple weeks back. I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I recommed it highly!!!

Xar's North Star...

...off to have a good solid cry...

*wow*

Just finished David J. Williams' The Mirrored Heavens.

This scifi/cyberthriller yarn is a definite frontrunner for my "Unexpected Surprise of the Year" Award. If Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, and William Gibson had ever teamed up to write a book, this is the sort of thing they would have come up with.

Check out the blog for the full review.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

About 100 pages into 'Toll the Hounds' and am confused already, but loving it.

TOLL


THE


HOUNDS


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gee, too bad there aren't any Erickson fans here....

Fist and Faith wrote:TOLL


THE


HOUNDS


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

did you enjoy it, by any chance, f&f?

Only a hundred pages into it so far myself. But I'll be able to read a lot this week. I get a lot of reading done at work, but nobody leaves me alone on the weekends!!!

I'm reading Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson. It's really good; it's mysterious and I honestly can't say I know what the hell is going on. But the characters are interesting, and there's a really good romance going on (although no kinky/freaky sex yet, I'm sad to report).

Just finished the Subtle Knife from Pullman's Dark Materials about an hour or two ago. I'm thoroughly pleased. Yesterday I bought The Drawing of the Three by Stephan King, Red Prophet and Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Carde, and Ubik by Phillip K. Dick.

Just finished Brent Weeks' debut, The Way of Shadows.

This book piqued my curiosity when I was told that it was similar in style to Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora. And yet, though Brent Weeks' fantasy debut does bear some resemblance with Lynch's, The Way of Shadows has a lot more in common with R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels. Indeed, it is very similar in style and tone to Salvatore's The Legacy, Starless Night, and Siege of Darkness.

I reckon it's meant to be another dark and gritty fantasy epic, but it clearly doesn't fall into GRRM's "school of hard knocks" category. Although The Way of Shadows explores some very mature themes such as child and sexual abuse, the overall tone of the narrative is definitely YA. The resulting work makes for an uneven read, as the author tackles themes you'll never see in a YA work, yet the narrative appears to be aimed at a more adolescent readership. I have a feeling that Weeks might have been too ambitious to a certain extent, and thus he failed to deliver the emotional impact that would have made some scenes truly powerful.

Check the blog for the full review.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com