What Are You Reading, Part 2

[leinton]

Have you read Angel: After the Fall? It's definitely better than season 8 was.

[Steve Diamond]

To make up for my poor decision, I'm going to dive into Rot and Ruin, the novel that just came out this week from Jonathon Maberry.

Do you mean DUST & DECAY? ROT & RUIN came out last year.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

Have you read Angel: After the Fall? It's definitely better than season 8 was.

I've read the first volume, and liked it. I haven't read the rest of it, though.

Now that I've finished those (at least the ones I have), I'm rereading WoK!

[fireflyz he/him]

I read Rot and Ruin and the sequel Dust and Decay by Jonathon Maberry this week. Really good stuff here. It's a zombie tale which I'm normally not a fan of. I do like the zombie series by Mira Grant. The main difference between her world and this one is that the zombies nearly won in Maberry's world. It's essentially isolated pockets of humanity living in fear of leaving their fenced in communities. Bounty hunters and traders venture out into the Rot and Ruin as the zombie lands are known. Think Hunger Games without a central government or any government at all.

What I really enjoyed about this was that Maberry took a completely different approach and made the reader remember that zombies were once people. They were friends and relatives. Some bounty hunters are "closure" experts who seek out specific zombies for their loved ones and humanely quiet them. The story follows a teenager who is apprenticed to his zombie hunting brother. It changed my perspective a little bit. If Mira Grant's series is Tolkienesque in that the mindless hordes can be killed without compulsion, Rot and Ruin brings some humanity back to the mindless zombie. They are to be pitied, not hated. Like I said, good stuff.

I read Mile 81, a short story that was just released by Stephen King. It's good, but if you've read From a Buick 8 you can skip this one. Unless you love his prose as much as I do, in which case it's a must read as always. THere was an excerpt from his novel coming out this fall which is about a man who travels back in time to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating President Kennedy. For those familiar with his Dark Tower series, I'm guessing that they will be involved in how the MC goes back in time. I'm definitely looking forward to this.

This fall should be a good reading season. Brandon's book will be coming out, another King novel, looking good :-)

[Ryan he/him]

A Night of Blacker Darkness!

Before that, I read "Hunting the Snark". Somehow, it got me into the perfect frame of mind.

[Sigyn]

I finished The White Rose by Glen Cook and absolutely loved it. It wasn't at all what I was expected and much better than I had hoped. I read two young adult fantasies, Entwined and Paranormalcy. Both were fun reads, but I liked Entwined better of the two. It was such an interesting look at grieving while also being a retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Paranormalcy had a few plot holes that bothered me, but I'm pretty sure I'll still give the sequel a try.

Right now I'm almost finished with And Only to Deceive which is fun for its Victorian-ness but weak on the mystery. I get annoyed when I figure out the mystery halfway through the book and the main character is still blindly puttering around.

[WriterDan]

Half-made world ended up being really good, but it would have been nice to know ahead of time that it was only the first half of a story. Still, great read.

Reading Blackdog by K.V. Johansen right now. If I can get past all of the POV-character introductions (like eight different ones so far...), it might end up being good. We'll see.

[Joe ST he/him]

Return of the Crimson Guard, and its taking me a long time :\

[Darth Squirrely she/her]

I'm about 322 pages from the end of my reread of Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. It's totally messed up my book count for the year, but whatever, I gave up when school started. XD

I'm also about a quarter of the way through A Game of Thrones, on audio book. I'm kind of torn. I like it so far, but even if I still like it when I'm done with it, I don't think I'm going to be able to read the rest of the books in the series. Various reasons. Oh well.

I'm not sure what I'm going to be working on next, but I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. I don't really count my textbooks. XD

[almeldiel she/her]

I was reading A Game of Thrones, but put it aside for a while when I was given an ARC of "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor. Laini is a great writer with a very lyrical style.

[fireflyz he/him]

I didn't get a chance to read much this past week. I live in the PA and about 1/4 of my town was underwater. Check out my twitter link if you want to see how close it came. Worst flood in recorded history, beat out the previous record set in 1904.

Anyway, I did read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. This is a fiction book about a Marine Infantry Company in Vietnam stationed near the Laos border. While it's fiction, Karl Marlantes is a decorated officer and served there. He's also a Yale grad and a Rhodes Scholar. So it's more of a semi-autobiographical account with the names changed. Very good, highly reccomend it. Makes me realize how good we had it in Afghanistan (condition wise) and how much we complained when it could have been worse. Granted, in the service you have to complain. It's an unwritten rule. Still, life in the infantry today is a lot different than life in the infantry in Vietnam. The book is 600 pages long, but only covers two months of his 13 month tour. It covers a lot of different subjects besides combat including living conditions, politics, and racial tension. Very good, interesting read.

Hopefully with my life returning to normal I can get some more reading time in. We'll see.

[FrostedDonut he/him]

A Game of Thrones

Yeah.

[whynaut]

Finishing up The Painted Man (aka The Warded Man).

I am torn between what I want read next between: Dan Wells' Mr. Monster or Stephen King's Dark Tower Series.

Help?

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

In the past couple of days I read both of Brandon's short stories, Firstborn and Defending Elysium, which were totally amazing, as expected.

[Adrienne she/her]

I'm almost done with The Night Angel trilogy. It's been amazing.

[Sigyn]

I'm reading Cast in Silence by Michelle Sagara. This series is a lot of fun, kind of manga-like. The main girl goes through lots of experiences, there are a few guys in love with her, and she doesn't have a ton of change in her character.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

So after I finish my rereads of Brandon's books (right now I've got half of WoK, most of Elantris, and have yet to start Warbreaker, and I'm not sure whether to get Alcatraz and reread that too) I'm planning on getting to some recommendations I've gotten.

My current list kinda looks like this:

The Hunger Games

Kingkiller Chronicles

Anything by Brent Weeks

The Dresden Files

City of Bones (which I started a while ago but didn't finish)

Recommendations on what I should read next out of these?

[fireflyz he/him]

@whynaut

Mr. Monster is good, but IMO the weakest of the trilogy. The whole series is thought provoking and well done so don't take that as a criticism not to read. I think this could be my perception because of how dark John becomes. The last book is simply amazing though, so there is that to consider. They're also relatively quick reads.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series is one of my favorites. I haven't read the series in several years, but I remember it fondly. It's incredibly long though, 7 or 8 books and most of them are 600+ pages. It helps if you've read a lot of other King novels as he does an amazing job of blending in many of the worlds he created. You don't have to know them, but it adds a lot to the story.

@Silus

I've read all of those save for City of Bones and I only read the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks. If I were to rank them by how good the story and writing were I would say it would be:

Dresden Files

Kingkiller Chronicle

Hunger Games/Night Angel trilogy

The Dresden Files are up to 13 books. The good news is that Butcher does a fairly good job of putting out another book every year. They're not too long (4-700 pages depending). The bad news is the first few are a little rough though it gets better from there. Butcher does an awesome job of having something happen in one book and three books later we see the consequences or something that was small turns out to be incredibly important. Great Urban Fantasy.

Kingkiller Chronicle is second because I wasn't as impressed with Rothfuss's second book and because it'll probably be another 5 years before we get another book. They're very good though, especially the first book. His prose is beautiful and his world and characters brilliantly realized. Unfortunately, the second book is a behemoth that does very little to advance either plot or character. It's 1000 pages where maybe 300 of those pages truly matter. Still love it and the prose is still beautiful, but I'm skeptical that he can wrap it up in one more book. Bottom line, you've got plenty of time to get caught up.

Hunger Games are really good, but fairly simple YA books. The characters are good and the situations are intense. It's a solid book and I definitely see why it has mass appeal. There's nothing extraordinary here, but it is being made into a movie and drawing attention to sci fi/fantasy YA which is a good thing.

Night Angel Trilogy is alright. I like Brent Weeks, but he writes with almost zero description. It's his first series and they put the books out one month apart. It shows. There's some intriguing bits that happen and a cool premise with good characters, but you have to have an amazing imagination. Why? Because the most description you'll get of one of the key characters is that his breath smells like garlic. You can maybe get away with this if you're working in our world (though I'm skeptical about that) but in a fantasy setting description is key for the reader. Still, I didn't have the urge to put down the books at any point while reading them. I just don't have the urge to pick them back up again. Again, a good series, but nothing that can't wait awhile.

All IMHO of course

[Sigyn]

I'm reading Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier. So far it's one of my favorite retellings of Beauty and the Beast that I've read in a long time.

[almeldiel she/her]

A Game of Thrones

Yeah.

Definitely, YEAH! I'm still having this internal debate: do I read A Clash of Kings after Season 2 of the HBO series is finished, or do I read it before?

My current list kinda looks like this:

The Hunger Games

Yay, The Hunger Games! Do you plan to read the entire series?

[guess]

Feed and Deadline by Mira Grant: I am not a zombie fan. The only other zombie book I have read was World War Z (which was terrific). I decided to read these books since it was nominate for a hugo and then I read some reviews about it. There are some things I really like about these books and some things that annoy me. First off the pacing is excellent, the prose is good, and the main characters are interesting and in some ways unique. These books take place about 20 years after zombies popped up in the world and it deals with a world that has to cope with them. It is written in first person and revolves around a brother and sister blogging team. The team is selected to follow a presidential candidate during his campaign. I don't really buy the premise that blogging is as reliable as mainstream news. I also don't did not like the relationship between the candidate and the reporters. It is not believable and they would not have that kind of contact. I rolled my eyes a few times. Also, Grant does not do a really good job with the hard science fiction. She took the internet circa 2010 and projected it 30 years in the future. The only change is that blogging is a bigger deal. Another annoying thing about the first book is a clear liberal bias. She created a republican presidential candidate that only liberals would support and then created a generic right-wing bad guy. I got just as annoyed when Tom Clancy showed his right wing bias in Rainbow 6. Another annoying thing in both books is that the bad guys all tell their dastardly plan just before they die. That is pretty cliched...

I do recommend these books. The brother/sister relationship she created is unique. It makes sense to them, but everyone else thinks its weird. I like the first person narratives as well. In the 2nd book the narrator is a bit insane and she handles it way. It works very well in her books. Another positive thing in her books is that there is a constant sense of danger. All of the characters are expendable. So you don't get the sense that anyone is superman. She also does a good job making the ensemble cast interesting. In many books with an ensemble cast, they tend to run together and I cannot tell them apart. That is not the issue here. They all have unique and interesting personalities.

Though both books are good. Deadline is much better. The ending to Deadline is outstanding. It makes you want to wait for the next book in the series.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

@almeldiel I do indeed.

I just finished Alloy of Law today...yeah...

[Joe ST he/him]

@almeldiel I do indeed.

I just finished Alloy of Law today...yeah...

[almeldiel she/her]

@almeldiel I do indeed.

That's great to know! I hope you like it.

I've just finished Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, and now I'm onto Elantris (even though Alcatraz 2 is waiting in my To Read pile)! I'm reading Brandon's books in a haphazard fashion, I know.

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I've decided to go with Hunger Games first, as there's been buzz about the movies on Tumblr and I want to be in on it. Also I'm looking for something lighter since I just finished WoK. So my dad is borrowing the first one from a co-worker for me. Should have it tomorrow evening. YAY!