What Are You Reading, Part 2

[kaladamSB he/him]

I'll probably end up reading it straight through. I heard there was no real plot line for the whole series so I thought maybe there might be bigger time skips but I was mistaken! Time to settle in

[Briar King]

RoT??

Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch.

[kaladamSB he/him]

I finished Memories of Ice today. What a fantastic series Malazan is turning out to be. There is an endless amount of unforgettable characters and the story itself is outstanding. I'm really impressed.

[Left he/him]

I got a Barabara Hambly( author of the famous- among sanderfans anyway- Dragonsbane) book from the library yesterday. I don't have a ton of reading time right now, but I'm going to try hard to read it, if only because I want to read the author that started sanderson.

[Steel he/him]

Hmm. I'm reading Words of Radiance, Brandon Sanderson, Moonrise, Ben Bova, The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan.

[Briar King]

I finished Memories of Ice today. What a fantastic series Malazan is turning out to be. There is an endless amount of unforgettable characters and the story itself is outstanding. I'm really impressed.

I'm glad your enjoying it!!! MOI was my fav of the 10 followed by 6, then 7 but they are all great fun. Even my least fav 8 was still awesome.

Anyway I'm still reading The Temporal Void. I've only managed about 100 pgs total in the last 9 days thanks to Destiny on my new PS4. That's taking ALL of my time lately.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Haven't updated this in a while.

I am mow reading Return of the Crimson Guard, Ian C. Esslemont's second Malazan installment. I really disliked his first, in fact I found the writing nearly unreadable, but I am about a quarter into this one and it is miles better so far. It doesn't have much narrative momentum yet, but I am beginning to see the bigger picture. I doubt RotCG will be Erikson good, bur it is far from bad.

[Left he/him]

I recently finished Runelords, the Sum of All Men by David Farland. My gosh that book was good, reminded me a lot of Warbreaker in ways. I loved how Farland did cliches but did them really well and in new ways, much like Brandon. Excellent book, going to have to get a hold of book 2.

[traceria she/her]

I recently finished Runelords, the Sum of All Men by David Farland. My gosh that book was good, reminded me a lot of Warbreaker in ways. I loved how Farland did cliches but did them really well and in new ways, much like Brandon. Excellent book, going to have to get a hold of book 2.

 

Oh man...a note of warning:  I liked Sun of All Men a whole lot (listened to the audiobook), and went onto the second book. It was good and then something at the end just struck me wrong, and now I have absolutely no desire to read beyond book 2.  Don't let me stop you, though!  I think my brother read and liked them all.

[Argent he/him]

The Sum of All Men is, arguably, the best one in the entire Runelords series, though the next 2-3 are not bad either. If I recall correctly they start declining after the fourth book, but I enjoyed them all (though it's been so long, I barely remember anything...).

 

Let's see what I've been reading since I finished The Broken Eye a little over a month ago:

• The Android's Dream: I actually remember the book a little more fondly than what my review suggests. It wasn't a bad book, but it was kind of unremarkable.
• Redshirts: Good read, but also weird. Very meta. Probably the best thing about it was the core idea.
• The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land: I'll let my reviews speak for this series, but in short - I was really fidgety about this series, it felt very very abnormal. Promises were made and then either broken or left hanging; tropes were ignored, and at times even demolished. I still think of the series as "messed up Narnia with a touch of Harry Potter, and then some death metal"
• The Way of Shadows, Shadow's Edge, and Beyond the Shadows: I've been waiting a (relatively) long time to wrap up Brent Weeks, and now I have finally done so. The first book was nothing impressive, but it was a quick and easy read; I heard somebody yapping that Warbreaker was practically identical to it, but I don't really see it. The biggest downside, I think, was that the fight scenes were the heart of the book, but Brent wasn't good enough to write them well enough for this to work. The good news is, the second and especially the third book were much better, with the third one walking the border between epic fantasy and whatever it actually is supposed to be.
• The Warded Man, The Great Bazaar & Brayan's Gold, and The Desert Spear: So far I am rarely impressed by the series. Two books and two short stories in, and it feels like every one of the main characters was either raped or heavily molested as a child. And while I am not squeamish enough of a reader to drop a book at the first sign of rape, it feels like Peter V. Brett has gone a little overboard with it, almost if this is a checkbox in each character's back story, and he had to check it; I can think of two main(-ish) characters who have to cope with being raped, and in both cases the normally extremely traumatic and scarring for life event becomes important to the characters for a few pages after the event itself, and in one other scene after that. And this is only the biggest of my problems with the series - Brett's style in general is just not my cup of tea. Way too much back story, too many pages spent on events that don't advance neither the plot nor the characters.

I am reading The Daylight War now, the third book in the Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle quintet. I just a few pages in, but it looks like more of the same...

[Briar King]

I've started Hamiltons Void 3 and that will end my straight run of his bks I've bought this yr. I've really enjoyed the Commonwealth for these 5 bks and I'm excited that he has a new set coming.

[Briar King]

Finally finished my Commonwealth reads. It's been a long few months, mostly because of Destiny, but I enjoyed them.

I'm now going back to my normal Fantasy bks starting with Lightbringer 3. damnation I missed this series a lot!

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

I finished Return of the Crimson Guard a little while ago, as well as Rothfuss's The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Return was good, not great; I enjoyed it much more than Esslemont's first book, and highly enjoyed the last third of the book. Slow Regard blew me away. I started Toll the Hounds a few days ago. It's good to be back with Erikson after quite a while.

Edited November 16, 2014 by GreyPilgrim

[Left he/him]

I'm working my way through the 3rd largest novel in the world. War and Peace. 1200~ pages, 1500~ if you count the two epilogues. It's very good and pretty funny sometimes, but boy it's going to take me weeks. I can't read it quickly like I can modern fantasy or anything so yeah. It's intense.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

I'm working my way through the 3rd largest novel in the world. War and Peace

*cough cough*

[Left he/him]

Guess my source was faulty   It sounded much cooler being 3rd

[Kobold King he/him]

Guess my source was faulty   It sounded much cooler being 3rd

 

Don't worry. You just need to learn French and read Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

Guess my source was faulty It sounded much cooler being 3rd

This is why I wish the Wheel of Time had won the Hugo for Best Novel; that would arguably certify it as one novel, and since it is in total longer than any of the novels in the list I linked to I would be able to say I have read the longest novel ever. Alas, win it did not.

[Delightful]

I'm working my way through the 3rd largest novel in the world. War and Peace

That's a novel? I always thought it was philosophy or something. 

 

I just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch. Actually wanted to throw the book across the room, which isn't an urge I have often. It gave me a good laugh though - I was just recently watching Iron Man 2, where Tony Stark compliments Romanov on keeping three different covers up simultaneously and I was like hehehe this guy totally has never met Locke Lamora . 

[Steel he/him]

I'm reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, and I've ordered Gardens of the Moon to try out, so I will be reading that soon.

[Left he/him]

I really liked Assassin's Apprentice, book two was sooooooooooo unbelievably hard for me to finish though. I know many people love Hobb, but I couldn't stand book two and haven't been able to bring myself to pick up another book by her. Hope you enjoy it though.

[Briar King]

I really liked Assassin's Apprentice, book two was sooooooooooo unbelievably hard for me to finish though. I know many people love Hobb, but I couldn't stand book two and haven't been able to bring myself to pick up another book by her. Hope you enjoy it though.

Oh wow that's very interesting to hear.

That's the 1st time I've ever heard someone say bk2 was bad. It was my fav of the old Fitz 6. I absolutely loved that bk. bk 3 was the only one I struggled on and that was only for the 1st half of it. The 2nd half was spot on.

[Briar King]

I'm reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, and I've ordered Gardens of the Moon to try out, so I will be reading that soon.

Good to hear Steel! GotM is the most awkward of the Malazan 10 for the most part. Even if you have trouble with it I strongly recommend you stick with it and then get bk 2. It's well worth it for people that struggled with bk1 not to stop there.

Grey...welcome back to Malazan! You need to come post over there!

[Argent he/him]

Ah, time for my monthly update!

 

I did finish Peter V. Brett's The Daylight War and found it largely more of the same. Better than the previous book, maybe better than The Warded Man, but still mostly the same style, the same form. I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, it's good - people who liked the previous books will like this one as well. On the other... I didn't like the previous books too much. So there's that.

 

Since then I've been eating The Broken Empire series. The Prince of Thorns, Select Mode (short story), The King of Thorns, Sleeping Beauty, and finally The Emperor of Thorns. I liked the series as a whole, but I think I liked the short stories better. Plus, confusing timelines are confusing. If nothing else though, I am glad I read them because they led me to Mark Lawrence's website, and this guy posts sharp stuff there. 

 

And speaking of Mark Lawrence, I decided to just finish him up and read Prince of Fools. Which is not working too well for me because a new expansion for World of Warcraft came out last week...

[Alya she/her]

I've just finished reading Traitor's Blade and it's so good I don't think I'll be able to read anything else for a week.