I’m still reading Bleak Seasons, how about you?
Just finished Arturo Perez Reverte’s Captain Alastriste, a story of a wounded warrior in 18th century Spain doing what he can to get by. Quite good. If you like swashbuckling or the adventure genre in general, read this book. It’s awesome in a nice, understated way. It’s kind of like a restrained and more realistic take on the Three Musketeers genre.
I finished Shades of Milk and Honey and I think it will make a better movie than a book.
I was going to get started on The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker, my current fantasy fave, but I realized that I just got a Kindle and should probably read something on that.
So last night after finishing Shades, I started Winter Song, which I bought because it was $3 and also Amazon had this description
Rock-hard sci-fi adventure. No-one here gets out alive.
When his spaceship crashes on an unknown and forgotten planet, scientist Karl Allman discovers himself hunted by an ancient race. The descendants of earlier colonists have reverted to a savage tribal culture of sacrifice, pillage and violence. When Karl falls in love with an outcast girl, he has only one goal: escape. But escape is a distant dream on this nightmare planet.
Sounded like pure plot driven sci-fi rock em sock em survivalist adventure which I thought would make a nice antidote to what I’d been reading.
Just finished Zero History. Liked it a lot, but thought the resolution was a little rushed and messy.
I’m currently a chunk of the way through The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements as a nonfiction palate cleanser, and so far it’s nice pop-science light reading.
I read through some of the iBooks sample of Shades of Milk and Honey and felt like I’d enjoy it more if I was more of an Austen fan. Eric is probably right that it’d make a good movie.
I’m a huge Austen fan, so when it was pitched as Austen pastiche with a hint of illusion magic, I was intrigued. It was nice to see a modern idea of pastiche that didn’t involve lazily throwing zombies into an already existing text.
My Malazan re-read continues apace (with only a brief detour to devour K.J. Parker’s The Folding Knife, which I loved), and I’m now maybe a 1/3 into House of Chains.
HoC had been my least favourite of the sequence but this time around things are making more sense. Karsa’s business, which felt interminable the first time, blew by, and I have a much clearer picture of what everyone is doing and who they all are. My admiration and awe for this series only deepens as I move through it again.
I haven’t read the book but nothing makes me more frustrated than the success of Pride and Prejudice + Zombies.
ditto.
despise what that shit has wrought to the world
Started reading “A People’s History of the United States.” Next up… “I, Claudius.”
Still on The Devil by Bruen. I often just skip backwards a few chapters so I can catch new bits on the second read-through.
H.
Just finished Franzen’s Freedom and am about to start Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine.
So I am going to turn 30 on the 12th of this month. I’m thinking of doing a 52 Books in 52 Weeks for this year. Since going back to school I have had to cut way down on my reading for personal interest, especially more difficult stuff. The absence is starting to make itself impossible to ignore. I have a ton of school work to do, but I also have a lot of time. Should I go for it?
Memories of Ice … slowly
Naked Heat - Richard Castle.
If you like that, you may dig Pierre Pevel’s The Cardinal’s Blades, from Pyr. Pevel’s a long time game guy, and the book is basically the Three Musketeers with dragons.
For my part, I’m finally working my way through the Dark Faith anthology, edited by Broaddus and Freeman. I’ve got a story in there, and it’s always nice to be in the company of some other really good stuff.
Post back once you read it – I thought it was like reading an alpha of ASOIAF.
I noticed similarities between the BBC miniseries as the GRR Martin stuff, to be sure.
Pillars of the Earth. What a good (if simple) read.
What… there’s a sequel and it’s even bigger?
Sign me up!
Finished with the Merchant Princess. At least, so far. Book six had better fucking not be the end because it resolves absolutely fuck all. I got to the last page and went “was there some sort of error? Did I get a copy that’s missing pages?” Looked on Amazon, and yeah, nope. I remain resolutely unfazed by the book’s portrayal of the US government, which felt entirely appropriate to me, if perhaps a tad exaggerated, largely due to certain inventions to make Cheney more directly connected to the action…and more straight up villainous. I guess it wasn’t strictly necessary, and it might have gone over better with some people if it hadn’t been real world figures, but meh. Seriously, though, that ending.
Then I read the first Retrieval Artist book by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Disappeared. Interesting setting where humanity has decided to allow the judicial codes of alien races to apply to humans in the interests of smoothing interspecies trade and cooperation. The book is largely about what this does to the police that have to enforce criminal punishments such as the Disty’s vengeance killings, involving ritual disembowelment of the criminal and everyone that aided the criminal, or another race (whose name I can’t remember at the moment), who tend to take the criminal’s firstborn child and imprint them with the identity of a member of that race.
I’ve now moved on to Emerald Hell, a Hellboy novel written by Tom Piccirilli. This is an amazing combination and I am in love.
I’m reading some disparate stuff.
First priority goes to one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read, and it’s the recently released Disciple of the Dog by Scott Bakker, the Prince of Nothing guy. Subversive to the core and makes every line one wonderfully crafted quote. Supposed to be some kind of thriller about a missing girl who belonged to a cult of weirdos who thought the world was just a fake stage where everyone plays a role after having been hypnotized and forget reality (something like The Matrix). Only that this conceit is actually used to describe how the world actually IS. What we live every day. We have these two contrasting sides, one pitted against the other, that morph into scary mirrors.
The protagonist is built with the idea that he can’t forget anything, the perfect memory. One interesting consequence is about his perception of “people”. We, “normal people” perceive expressions and attitudes of others like something transitory, while people themselves are real and come first. But for him, his perfect memory makes him recognize the same expressions and attitudes across different people, to the point that it’s those expressions that he categorizes and recognizes, and the people themselves become transitory. People that become collections of deja-vus and known patterns. Oblivious actors.
Now down the priority list I continue to read Bakker’s fantasy The Darkness that Comes Before, which is excellent but obviously much more scattered and divergent compared to the book above. And then The Way of Kings which works well if I read it after Disciple so that I can actually go to sleep more relaxed ;)
I’m also reading Proust Swann’s Way. I’m italian, Proust writes in French, and I’m reading him in English. It doesn’t make sense but Penguin made this edition that seems to have a very good translation and is indeed a pleasure to read. Everyone should read some Proust, it’s maybe one of the most accessible between the literary writers. Very much evocative. It’s not one of those things that make reading feel like work and that one usually associates with the Big Names.
I’ll pick up Disciple of the Dog. I really enjoyed Neuropath, I’m glad to see that Bakker can keep his writing strong across genres.
He needs to come up with a better title than White Luck Warrior, though. What the heck was that whole thing about?
Yes – Absolutely do it. I did it last year for similar reasons and it was immensely rewarding on many levels.