Kevin's Watch

I finished Mistress of the Empire a couple days a go. It was a great book, although it had a brutal start and took a long time to get going.

Now I'm reading Bearer of the Black Staff by Brooks. It's really good.

Yeah, I was always sorta disappointed by how Mara reacted though...like she lost all her political / strategic sense as a result of her tragedy. Was almost painful to watch.

--A

Toll The Hounds, always a rough one...

--A

Just finished First King of Shannara. It was really good. Now I'm about to start one of the most vilified fantasy books of all time, lol. I wonder if it will be a big drop off in quality from First King. I haven't read it in a long time, but am looking forward to it.

Somehow your sig seemed particularly apropos...

--A

Am most of the way through Running with the Demon, billed as the very first Shannara book, but actually bearing no relationship to the 'Sword' series at all in any meaningful sense. Who would have thought that Brooks could write in so much more of a hard-hitting fashion? This work is good, but set in 'our world' with magic just beginning to creep in at the edges - and waaay more gritty in it's feel to the latter work I mention. I almost struggle to believe he could move the 'series' into the light fantasy (that I really enjoyed, simply for it's simpleness) and will perhaps make the full journey simply to see how it was done.

Av - have now obtained a copy of Rivers of London and will begin it in a day or two. Much looking forward to it.

Most of the way through Tad Williams The Dragonbone Chair. Really enjoying so far.

My only minor complaints about it so far is that it borrows a lot of imagery from Christian beliefs which so far seems out of place in a other worldly fantasy book but perhaps will make sense sometime further. Also, the plot moves on rather slow. I am roughly 2/3 through the first novel which is quite lengthy and just beginning to get glimpses of the "real" evil bad entity/forces.

peter wrote:Am most of the way through Running with the Demon, billed as the very first Shannara book, but actually bearing no relationship to the 'Sword' series at all in any meaningful sense. Who would have thought that Brooks could write in so much more of a hard-hitting fashion? This work is good, but set in 'our world' with magic just beginning to creep in at the edges - and waaay more gritty in it's feel to the latter work I mention. I almost struggle to believe he could move the 'series' into the light fantasy (that I really enjoyed, simply for it's simpleness) and will perhaps make the full journey simply to see how it was done.

Av - have now obtained a copy of Rivers of London and will begin it in a day or two. Much looking forward to it.

Yeah, that is a great series. Read the next two series and you'll see how the Shannara series grows out of it, although there is a big jump between the end of the third series and First King of Shannara.

The Word and Void series is a lot like the Dresden Files, without the wisecracks. The books are all easy reads, which is sometimes just what I want.

peter wrote:Av - have now obtained a copy of Rivers of London and will begin it in a day or two. Much looking forward to it.

Ah, hope you enjoy it. Of course, in an ideal world, you will soon be madly looking for the rest...

--A

I'm going through one of those rare stages where books seem to be falling out of the sky at me - and I love it!

Finished Toll The Hounds, which is always a bit of an emotional experience.

Busy on Stonewielder now.

--A

I finished Sword a couple days ago. I thought it was alright. It has some obvious connections to LotR, but I didn't find it as bad as it's reputation. Sauron never really appears in LotR, but I liked the final confrontation of the book. The last battle was really good, too.

Reading Elfstones now, and really liking it.

Sticking to the author's recommended reading order, (although I got Toll The Hounds out of place), now onto Orb Sceptre Throne, which I've always liked because of the heavy focus on the Seguleh.

Must say that this time round I got the feeling that Stonewielder is under-rated. Enjoyed it a lot.

--A

Just finished Elfstones of Shannara, and I gotta say, I enjoyed it as much as I did when I last read it, which was when it first came out. It's a really fun book. I've started Wishong, and I'm not so sure about it, lol. I read it a longass time ago, and don't remember dick about it. Elfstones rocked, though. And it was waaaay better than the TV show, although I'm gonna have to watch that shit again.

I finally decided to join the NPR/NYTimes Now Read This book club, so I picked up Circe today and got through around a fifth of it so far.

It's the life story of a minor character from Homer's Odyssey, with a lot of nods to other characters from Greek mythology. So far, quite enjoyable. Full review coming in a week or two.

Most of the way through Esslemont's Blood and Bone, just Assail, DoD and TCG to go.

--A

BTW, my apologies for the mistake above: Now Read This is sponsored by PBS Newshour and the NYTimes, not NPR and the Times.

How bad is it that I confuse NPR and PBS?

Anyway, I finished Circe. It was... Interesting. It definitely takes the Greek gods down a peg - they aren't just flawed, they're downright villains. Also, Odysseus.

Overall I enjoyed the first third and the last third of the book, but the middle edged a bit into soft-core territory and almost lost me. Still, the story overall is engaging and well written, and I like the protagonist's development over the course of the book.

Go ahead and check it out.

Just finished Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. Oh. My. God. So good!! Why did I totally miss this when it came out?

Currently into the second book of the Keeper Chronicles by J.A. Andrews. A few chapters into the first book, I almost gave up because the characters (elf, dwarf, farm boy, failed wizard-ish guy) seemed a little shopworn. I actually looked at reviews on Goodreads to decide if I was going to finish. After a kind of two-dimensional start, the characters and story got more interesting. Not sorry I stuck with it.

Oh, I'm about a 3rd into Assail, haven't been reading much.

--A

Well, managed to ditch the PC games for a week(ish) at the end of my hols, so got some reading done.

Finished Assail, but was kinda Malazan'd out after that, so instead of doing DoD and TCG, I re-read all 7 of the "Rivers of London" books.

Now on something else, but not sci-fi or fantasy, so shall pop over to the other forum.

--A