What Are You Reading, Part 2

[Ammanas]

Continuing my James Clavell reread with Noble House. What a glorious mess of a novel this is! The author has thrown just about everything into this novel and I am having a blast slowly digesting it, unraveling the plot threads, and just letting the novel percolate in my mind. The only other novel off the top of my mind that is so all encompassing is War and Peace.

Here is a short explanation of the plot that is found on the back of the book: 
The setting is Hong Kong, 1963. The action spans scarcely more than a week, but these are days of high adventure: from kidnapping and murder to financial double-dealing and natural catastrophes–fire, flood, landslide. Yet they are days filled as well with all the mystery and romance of Hong Kong–the heart of Asia–rich in every trade…money, flesh, opium, power.

I know I have probably not convinced anyone to read this book, but if you do I highly recommend reading Tai-Pan (probably a better book than Noble House) first to fully enjoy this novel.

[Briar King]

2 hours ago, Ammanas said:

Continuing my James Clavell reread with Noble House. What a glorious mess of a novel this is! The author has thrown just about everything into this novel and I am having a blast slowly digesting it, unraveling the plot threads, and just letting the novel percolate in my mind. The only other novel off the top of my mind that is so all encompassing is War and Peace.

Here is a short explanation of the plot that is found on the back of the book: 
The setting is Hong Kong, 1963. The action spans scarcely more than a week, but these are days of high adventure: from kidnapping and murder to financial double-dealing and natural catastrophes–fire, flood, landslide. Yet they are days filled as well with all the mystery and romance of Hong Kong–the heart of Asia–rich in every trade…money, flesh, opium, power.

I know I have probably not convinced anyone to read this book, but if you do I highly recommend reading Tai-Pan (probably a better book than Noble House) first to fully enjoy this novel.

I have read 1-3. Sho Gun is one of my top favorite books of my reading life. Maybe one day I will do 4-6 but I prefer the old timeline vs the 1900’s that starts in 4.

[Sunbird]

Currently multitasking between Dragonsteel and The Creeping Shadow, the 4th in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. series.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Sunchicken

[The Invested Beard]

7 minutes ago, Sunchicken said:

Currently multitasking between Dragonsteel and The Creeping Shadow, the 4th in Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. series.

You actually got your hands on the BYU library copy of Dragonsteel? You lucky booger you.

[Ammanas]

2 hours ago, Briar King said:

I have read 1-3. Sho Gun is one of my top favorite books of my reading life. Maybe one day I will do 4-6 but I prefer the old timeline vs the 1900’s that starts in 4.

I wasn't a big fan King Rat and I don't have much of a desire to read Whirlwind. I do think that Shogun and Tai-pan are his best books. I would place Noble House on the same level as Gai-Jin though. It's really interesting seeing Hong Kong a hundred years after Tai-pan and there are a ton of references to stuff that happened in the previous book. Noble House is his longest book if that makes any difference; nearly 1200 pgs in my trade paperback edition.

[Briar King]

There was supposed to be a Sho Gun remake in the works on Fox but the news hasn’t updated at all in the past 2 years of that announcement so I hope it isn’t canned.

[Sunbird]

@The Invested Beard yes, I did! It was much easier than I expected. I was the first person in the hold line when I put in my request.

[+Extesian]

2 minutes ago, Sunchicken said:

@The Invested Beard yes, I did! It was much easier than I expected. I was the first person in the hold line when I put in my request.

Woah. I'd heard that the request queue was always huge. That's cool. I realized a while back i don't want to read it myself, i feel like the spoilers won't be worth it, but that's very very cool sunbird!

[Sunbird]

3 hours ago, Extesian said:

Woah. I'd heard that the request queue was always huge. That's cool. I realized a while back i don't want to read it myself, i feel like the spoilers won't be worth it, but that's very very cool sunbird!

I think I spotted Hoid already.

[The Invested Beard]

I'm currently attempting to finish The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams. I say attempting because for whatever reason it is really failing to capture me like the original trilogy did. I'm really sad about this as it is one of my favorite fantasy series ever. I'm trying to give it the benefit of the doubt until the end before I say it's not so good but we'll see. I'm surprised as everything Tad's ever written I liked.

[Briar King]

Bout 120 pgs into Grace. Fantastic and it’s causing me to neglect Malazan 5 and Dresden 3. If IB week wasn’t here on Destiny 2 I think I’d be even further.

[maxal]

I haven't given an update of my reading of the Lightbringer series in a while... I am slugging through the Blood Mirror...

Spoiler

 

This book is very uneven to me. I feel the author has taken everything which made it interesting and focused solely on what makes it uninteresting. Kip is not a great character. He worked within book 2 and 3 because his training for the Blackguard was actually interesting, but him as a military leader deep into a forest where he wins allies on whim and fights for transformed animals make me think of Narnia merged with Pokemon playing pain balls  I find his chapters... incredibly boring. They all are about fights which I don't care reading in such details. His relationships feel like they become meaningless, his crew is made of one dimensional lackeys and they evaporate to mere minor named character. I also disliked how he somehow turned even more powerful. So yeah, Kip is not great. 

Teia is moderately better but her story arc isn't very interesting either. It is so stand alone I can't get engage into it. Separating her from the other characters is not working out for me.

Karris and Andross both are amazing, but there is so little of them which brings me to Gavin who has been, IMHO, the best character in the story. Well, Brent Weeks managed to turn him into a useless character as he sits forever into this egg shell prison, not being able to do much but being crazy. Still his chapters are the best in the book, but there are so few of them.

 

So yeah, not a great book. I hope it gets better and it will be worth it in the end. It however suffers from not focusing onto the interesting characters.

[Ammanas]

48 minutes ago, maxal said:

I haven't given an update of my reading of the Lightbringer series in a while... I am slugging through the Blood Mirror...

  Hide contents

 

This book is very uneven to me. I feel the author has taken everything which made it interesting and focused solely on what makes it uninteresting. Kip is not a great character. He worked within book 2 and 3 because his training for the Blackguard was actually interesting, but him as a military leader deep into a forest where he wins allies on whim and fights for transformed animals make me think of Narnia merged with Pokemon playing pain balls  I find his chapters... incredibly boring. They all are about fights which I don't care reading in such details. His relationships feel like they become meaningless, his crew is made of one dimensional lackeys and they evaporate to mere minor named character. I also disliked how he somehow turned even more powerful. So yeah, Kip is not great. 

Teia is moderately better but her story arc isn't very interesting either. It is so stand alone I can't get engage into it. Separating her from the other characters is not working out for me.

Karris and Andross both are amazing, but there is so little of them which brings me to Gavin who has been, IMHO, the best character in the story. Well, Brent Weeks managed to turn him into a useless character as he sits forever into this egg shell prison, not being able to do much but being crazy. Still his chapters are the best in the book, but there are so few of them.

 

So yeah, not a great book. I hope it gets better and it will be worth it in the end. It however suffers from not focusing onto the interesting characters.

Did you feel that it was a big difference from book 3? I am still waiting for my turn for Blood Mirror from the library. So far my defense in the series echoes how some people feel about wheel of time which is:

I don't even care if anything really happens in these books. I just enjoy spending time in his world. 

I'm looking forward to listening to the fourth book and forming my own opinions. I have heard some mixed stuff, but @AngelEy3 vouches for it so expect it will be good.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Ammanas

[Who Sharded?]

I think Lightbringer 4 is similar to 3. Weeks lost control of the story and adds in a lot of fluff, but the world building revelations are amazing. 

[Ammanas]

Ok thanks for the clarification! I also felt the pacing was a step back for book three (compared to the previous two books). I feel that the author is becoming infatuated with the day to day minutia details of that world but, like I said, it's not really a issue for me.

[maxal]

8 hours ago, Ammanas said:

Did you feel that it was a big difference from book 3? I am still waiting for my turn for Blood Mirror from the library. So far my defense in the series echoes how some people feel about wheel of time which is:

I don't even care if anything really happens in these books. I just enjoy spending time in his world. 

I'm looking forward to listening to the fourth book and forming my own opinions. I have heard some mixed stuff, but @AngelEy3 vouches for it so expect it will be good.

The big difference for me was how the various characters story arc changed focus. As I said, I just can't get involve in Kip's story line. He has way too many chapters, I find them boring to read. I guess in terms of world-building, the book is great, but it feels disconnected from the other two books. And Gavin.... Someone bring Gavin back. Teia's story arc is terribly slow paced and not really exciting: I don't care so much for what she does.

As I said, I find Karris, Andross, Gavin and I would add Corvan to be the most interesting characters to read and to discover, but the author decided to focus almost solely on Kip and Teia which may be younger, but are terribly boring, IMHO. Oh and Kip reads too much like a Gary-Stu to be interesting. I had this problem with him in book 1, but book 2-3 got better, book 4 took a turn for the worst, still IMHO.

I read WoT and I never had issues with the slower paced books. The world-building was amazing (and I am not even a world-building reader, but WoT is just WOW), I liked the characters and I wanted to know what would happen to them. So far Lightbringer's world is not coherent, it feels more like stuff the author plucked out of a hat because he thinks it looks cool in a battle scene whereas Jordan developed entire cultures together with lore. 

8 hours ago, Who Sharded? said:

I think Lightbringer 4 is similar to 3. Weeks lost control of the story and adds in a lot of fluff, but the world building revelations are amazing. 

Yes, this. I have no idea where he is going with his story, he removed some of the viewpoints which were interesting to read. He also does the mistake of thinking his readers naturally root for Kip and want to read him because he is the young under-dog (though not really anymore), so by removing basically everyone else out of the story, he alienates readers who got into the book following Gavin and Karris. I am 70% into the book, the world-building is just too odd for me... It makes no sense.

[Trizee]

I recently finished the web fanfic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It is probably the longest book 've ever read (about 650,000 words) and was absolutely amazing. I'm now reading Six of Crows, and though it didn't start out so well it's actually gotten pretty good.

[Sunbird]

A day or so ago I finished reading Pick the Plot, the 4th book in James Riley's Story Thieves series. Talk about breaking the fourth wall! It's a novel in the form of a Choose Your Own Adventure, and I was highly entertained by the author's creative "railroading" (to use a role-playing term) to take the story where it needed to go while giving readers the illusion of choice. If you enjoy Brandon's Alcatraz books, I definitely recommend picking up Story Thieves.

[Steeldancer]

I got sucked into Worm. In the aftermath of the tragic end of a relationship, I discovered that Dresden Files and Powder Mage was not readily available... so here I am. Not writing my application essay like i should be.

[Toaster Retribution]

Reading the first Powder Mage. Heard good things about it.

[Steeldancer]

3 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Reading the first Powder Mage. Heard good things about it.

Really want to get my hands on that. 

I've been reading Worm for a WEEK now. I've NEVER taken that long to read a book... since... I read Harry Potter 5. And a tale of 2 cities, because I hated that book. But seriously. It's so good, but so loooonnggg. 

[Dunkum]

working my way through lightbringer 3 (i've already forgotten the name of the book itself) and I am finding it hard to concentrate,  I'll get through a chapter or 2 then set it down and take up something else for a bit.  I like it well enough, btu just cant find the focus for it.

 

not sure if that's because I've burned myself out temporarily (finished my reread of SA, plus the Ryria books, plus the first 2 in this series in the last few weeks, so maybe need a break from reading) or if maybe my attention span is just getting worse.  might be because i'm reading it as an ebook on my computer, so the temptation to tab over to the internet is higher than if it were a physical book, or a separate device.  or maybe it's the book itself.  maybe it actually is as disjoint as I am perceiving it, and that lack of flow is doing this.  I honestly don't know which factor is the biggest part here.

[AngelEy3]

I've been reading the Black Company series by Glen Cook. I really enjoy it. Starting book 4 in a few minutes. 

@Dunkum I know exactly what you mean about temptation to do other things. It's so bad for me that I mostly just read at work where my options are limited. 

Edited October 22, 2017 by AngelEy3

[Briar King]

59 minutes ago, AngelEy3 said:

I've been reading the Black Company series by Glen Cook. I really enjoy it. Starting book 4 in a few minutes. 

@Dunkum I know exactly what you mean about temptation to do other things. It's so bad for me that I mostly just read at work where my options are limited. 

You know Erikson is a big fan of Cook right?

[AngelEy3]

@Briar King Yea. @Ammanas queued me into it not long after finishing Malazan. It's been a great time so far.