What fantasy/science fiction book are you reading RIGHT NOW?

[drew]

Glen Cook: Darkwar

[Fist and Faith]

The Warded Man, by Peter Brett. 314 out of 453 pages, and nothing spectacular. But it's fun enough.

[Menolly]

Did you finish Canticle?

[Avatar]

What? You were supposed to read Dhalgren!

--A

[I'm Murrin]

The Troika by Stepan Chapman.

[Fist and Faith]

Did you finish Canticle?

No. I only read Fiat Homo. I was entirely unimpressed. Not a thing wrong with it, but nothing worth going on, either.

What? You were supposed to read Dhalgren!

Yeah, that'll be within the next few books.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Recently read: The whole Hunger Games series, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (His debut novel, as far as I understood. At least I can tell he has improved a fair deal since.), and Gap #4.

Spoiler

Unholy crap, I scarcely still can believe Nick bit the dust so easily. Almost wondering if someone'll pull a Linden on him in the next volume...
And Angus making a working black hole--how seriously badass is that?

Starting on Gap #5 today; can't wait to see what happens.

Plus, as a masochistic crack item, trying to struggle through Paolini's Inheritance. I love how he's scribbled a blatant self-insert Gary Stu story that's just about the apotheosis of how not to write a fantasy series. Stuffed with every damn cliche imaginable, the characters and plot are so papery one might make origami out of them. He could well be called the Stephanie Meyer of high fantasy. Almost wept when I saw a news item telling that the 4th book had sold more copies than ADWD on its publication day. Why do people insist on adoring bad literature. O_o

[Spiral Jacobs]

Still working on AATE, and man, that Donaldson guy knows how to

Spoiler

kick his characters when they're down. The last bit I read was Liand becoming a hothead...

That was pretty nasty.

[I'm Murrin]

Plus, as a masochistic crack item, trying to struggle through Paolini's Inheritance. I love how he's scribbled a blatant self-insert Gary Stu story that's just about the apotheosis of how not to write a fantasy series. Stuffed with every damn cliche imaginable, the characters and plot are so papery one might make origami out of them. He could well be called the Stephanie Meyer of high fantasy. Almost wept when I saw a news item telling that the 4th book had sold more copies than ADWD on its publication day. Why do people insist on adoring bad literature. O_o

I didn't realise he was still publishing until recently. I hadn't heard anything for years.

[Holsety]

I started rereading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant again! On book 1. Can't find The Power That Preserves, so had to order that...

[Morning]

I am also going for take two on the first chronicles, since I was 19 when I first read them. Dan Simmons' Hyperion (omnibus) is also halfway through. And I finished Matter last week.

[aliantha]

I realized I was referring to my main character in this year's NaNo novel as "the Chosen". Need to fix that in the editing phase...

[danlo]

OOP!

[Savor Dam]

Indeed, ali. How would Chaim Potok feel about that?

[I'm Murrin]

Finished The Troika. Brilliant book, you should read it. Except you probably won't be able to, because it was published by a small press in 1997 and isn't in print any more.

One bit I particularly liked:

I know that what I did was wrong and futile. But I’ll make it up to you, Eva. I’ll take you to a quiet little cemetary. We’ll be happy there, among the tombs and the cedars. The snow will bury us for the winter. No one will disturb us. I have a plan. I shall amplify and elaborate you beyond your wildest dream of yourself. With my forceps, clamps, and bone saws, I will inlay your ribs with mercury and thread seashell copper spirals through your thigh bones. I will microtome your shoulder blades and spread them fanwise into angel wings. Disdiscovering physiology, disinventing dissection, I shall dilate your tissues into a gradually expanding cosmos of flesh. At first, none of the work will make sense to us. But I have my reasons. In spring, we’ll burst up through the melting snow, machine and flesh merged, machine forests, flesh cathedrals. So descend, my laser lamp. Set free your razor brilliance. Slice and peel, fold my love into origami, crown her with pulmonary flowers, and let slender bronchial vines wreathe the brow of my dead bride. For then I may brush back her raven-dark hair with a mermaid’s comb, just so, like the dark of the moon. Dear dead Eva, my only friend, this is all as it is meant to be.

[aliantha]

Putting this comment back where it belongs:

SD and danlo -- I'm debating whether to leave "the Chosen" in. I could always argue that I need it more than SRD does.

[Cleburne]

Only a couple of pages left of re-read of The Bonehunters, so looking forward to first read of Return of the Crimson Guard.

imho The Bonehunters are way cooler than The Bridgeburners

Well I enjoyed The Bone hunters and just finished Reapers Gale , very addictive reading but whats your reference to the Crimson Guard as I havent read that yet

[lucimay]

Only a couple of pages left of re-read of The Bonehunters, so looking forward to first read of Return of the Crimson Guard.

imho The Bonehunters are way cooler than The Bridgeburners

Well I enjoyed The Bone hunters and just finished Reapers Gale , very addictive reading but whats your reference to the Crimson Guard as I havent read that yet

perhaps you didn't realize that erikson is not the only author of the malazan world, cleburn?
he created the world along with a friend of his, ian cameron esselmont.

The Malazan world was co-created by Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont in the early 1980s as a backdrop to their *GURPS roleplaying campaign. In 2005, Esslemont began publishing his own series of five novels set in the same world, beginning with Night of Knives. Although Esslemont's books are published under a different series title - Novels of the Malazan Empire - Esslemont and Erikson collaborated on the storyline for the entire fifteen-book project and Esslemont's novels are considered as canonical and integral to the series as Erikson's own.

*Generic Universal RolePlaying System

tho erikson is finished with his 10 books comprising The Malazan Book of the Fallen, esslemont has only finished 3 of his 5.

Night of Knives (a prequel to Gardens of the Moon)
Return of the Crimson Guard (which has important info in it
regarding the Empress Laseen and probably should be read
somewhere after Bonehunters)
Stonewielder


i'm reading Stonewielder right now.

[Orlion]

tho erikson is finished with his 10 books comprising The Malazan Book of the Fallen, esslemont has only finished 3 of his 5.

Night of Knives (a prequel to Gardens of the Moon)
Return of the Crimson Guard (which has important info in it
regarding the Empress Laseen and probably should be read
somewhere after Bonehunters)
Stonewielder


i'm reading Stonewielder right now.

Don't you mean 4 of his six?

Orb, Sceptre, Throne has been completed and mass market paperbacks of Stonewielder in UK have the prologue for it... I'm so jealous!

Oh, and the two that remain are a novel set in Jackaru and that enigmatic Assail novel.

I, too, am reading Stonewielder

[Avatar]

Think it'll be my christmas present to myself. Snuff too probably.

--A