An Official Book Thread

[Secre]

I don't know how many of you are readers here, but I thought it might be interesting to see what other people are reading and what they recommend.

Currently I am reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow which is a beautifully written fantasy novel that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. The prose is nothing short of superb and the book has be absolutely engrossed. 

Perhaps my most recommended series of all time though is the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - for accessible science fiction written with wit and humour in spades, that is a series that I keep going back to time and time and time again. 

[oceanblue5333]

Thank you for the recommendation- I will add this to my list!

[_ivory_uri_]

I'm  restarting my fave book series "The Last Apprentice " by joseph delaney. It is a veryyy good series! Think Harry Potter, but more grown up a bit. 

[Bridgie]

I am reading the HP series as a start up for reading in English and reading more in general. Really do enjoy the nostalgia.

[Secre]

On 6/29/2020 at 4:47 PM, oceanblue5333 said:

Thank you for the recommendation- I will add this to my list!

No worries, I'm reading far less due to not commuting but always up for a good recommendation!

On 6/29/2020 at 5:29 PM, _ivory_uri_ said:

I'm  restarting my fave book series "The Last Apprentice " by joseph delaney. It is a veryyy good series! Think Harry Potter, but more grown up a bit. 

Ooh, I'll have to add this to the list.

On 6/30/2020 at 9:31 AM, Bridgie said:

I am reading the HP series as a start up for reading in English and reading more in general. Really do enjoy the nostalgia.

I love the HP series!! I've read all the books except CoS and DH well over 30 times!!!

 

I've just finished Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir. If you like your fantasy dark and complicated as hell, then this might well be for you. There are a ridiculous amount of names to keep track of and I felt there was a lot of world building that could have been unpacked further. It’s well written though and I enjoyed the tense relationship between Gideon and her necromancer; there’s a dry if somewhat crude humour running through this and it works well. I'd have enjoyed it more if I could have kept up with who each character was, but by the second half when a significant number of them have been killed off it becomes easier to follow! Who'd have thought I'd be grateful for character deaths on mass?! The second half turns into more of a locked room murder mystery and the pace picks up significantly from there, making this one of those weird books that I was fascinated by and certainly enjoyed by the end but also frustrated the hell out of me.

[berriganify]

ooo, adding Gideon to my to-read list!

yeah, i loved the potter series, but... i dunno. i think i'm just going to keep it as a fond memory and let it go.

currently (re-)reading: stephen king's dark tower series. i read the first four books back in high school but cant actually remember anything about it. so far i'm liking it, more for the writing than the story. it's a lot more meandering than his other novels. idk if im going to have the drive to make it all the way to the end, though. might pause after i finish the first and come back to it.

ill pick some lesser-known books to recommend, have six of varying genre:

The Snow Spider Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo: urban fantasy - a boy inherits magical powers from his welsh ancestors. im a little rusty on welsh mythology...ive only ever read the mabinogion and that was years ago, so i cant speak to the accuracy of what's mentioned in the book, but i enjoyed it! it does a cool thing where each part of the trilogy has a different pov character, but a continuous story. Nina's story (part 2) was definitely my favourite, mostly because i first read it when i was about the same age and going through some of the same things as her.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters: romance/crime thriller - i was hesitant to pick this one up, because i had just finished Tipping the Velvet which i thought was just alright. im glad i did though. a poor orphan and a swindler team up to con a wealthy heiress out of her fortune, posing as a teacher and her maid respectively. the orphan is meant to be there to encourage the heiress into forming a relationship with the swindler, but oops, they fall in love with each other instead. fairly standard romance, you might think. well, that's just act one. it has a very good movie adaption (renamed The Handmaiden) which swaps the victorian london setting out for pre-ww2 korea.

The Man Who Fell To Earth by Walter Tevis: science fiction - cool story about an alien who comes to earth looking for a way to solve his planet's drought problem. it was written in the 60s so you can imagine how that turned out. there's a film adaptation starring david bowie, which is just okay.

Kamikaze Girls by Novala Takemoto: slice-of-life/drama - a story about two japanese high school girls from wildly different subcultures (yanki gangs and lolita fashion). it's a good story, just dont go into it expecting the main characters to be in any way sympathetic. interesting, definitely. but not likeable. but despite being kind of insufferable individually, when they interact with each other it's really, really good, and im a sucker for opposites-attract friendships. the pov character does tend to drone on and on when she starts talking about clothes, but lolitas are just Like That, so I didn't mind, ymmv though. it also had a movie, which was pretty good!

The Valhalla Trilogy by Ari Bach: science fiction - a futuristic gorefest set a couple hundred years into the future, where governments have been replaced by corporations. not a downer dystopia, though, it's initially a revenge story about a secretive spy organization and taking down a gang. the setting is mostly a backdrop to the cool technology, action and violence. and hoo boy is it violent! literally nothing is off limits, check out the warnings if you decide to give this one a try because every time you think 'ok surely it can't get any worse', it does. the actually prose is hit or miss--apparently it was originally a film script, and it shows, although there are also some very good sections. but the story was wild enough that i didn't mind.

Eighty-Sixed by David B. Feinberg: general - a (partly autobiographical) story about a gay man living through the AIDs crisis, told in two parts. part one takes place in 1976, and is a hilarious romp. you'll definitely laugh. part two takes place in 1986 and is a punch in the gut. you'll definitely cry.

[Secre]

On 7/15/2020 at 12:59 AM, berriganify said:

ooo, adding Gideon to my to-read list!

yeah, i loved the potter series, but... i dunno. i think i'm just going to keep it as a fond memory and let it go.

currently (re-)reading: stephen king's dark tower series. i read the first four books back in high school but cant actually remember anything about it. so far i'm liking it, more for the writing than the story. it's a lot more meandering than his other novels. idk if im going to have the drive to make it all the way to the end, though. might pause after i finish the first and come back to it.

ill pick some lesser-known books to recommend, have six of varying genre:

 

Oooh, some really interesting recommendations here and I haven't come across any of them before which is even better! Thank you, I will have to check these out!! I never got the Dark Tower series. I read the first one, hated it and haven't gone on any further!! I'm particularly interesed at the moment in books set or written by authors from different cultures so I'll be looking at Kamikaze Girls!

I'm currently reading through the Hugo nominations for this year. I was meant to be voting on them but am rather behind. 

I just finished The City in the Middle of the Night, The Light Brigade and A Memory Called Empire. I think out of the three The Light Brigade was my favourite, which is a military science fiction where new technology allows soldiers to be moved from place to place by turning them into light. It has rather odd side effects for a few grunts though and Dietz finds himself experiencing the war out of order to the rest of his squad. Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference. This book is raw and gritty and oh so dark at points, full of the pointless brutality of war and all the politics that exist in the background. It is also an absolute mind melt, forcing you to re-imagine the world in sharp angles and refractory reflections. It's confusing and fascinating at the same time and whilst it is undeniably weird and will mess with your head in so many ways, it is also accessible and ultimately readable.

A Memory Called Empire is a wonderfully complex and immersive novel that demonstrates some of the most intricate world building I’ve seen in a work of science fiction without becoming overly bogged down in details. When Mahit arrives as the Lsel Ambassador to Teixcalaan, she knows nothing of the fate of the previous Ambassador or what she is walking into. Teixcalaan culture is very different from that of Lsel station and Mahit finds herself thrown in at the deep end, with only the imago technology that is fifteen years out of date to help her find her footing. And she has to find her footing fast, as what starts as a very personal mystery quickly spirals out with consequences that could engulf her entire home world. This is a slow moving novel with a strong focus on political intrigue and with a murder mystery at its heart. The pacing stutters at points, where there is simply so much to unpack in terms of culture, technology and politics that it becomes a bit of a chore to slog through. It picks back up though, and the pacing of the latter half was less problematic, and it becomes far smoother reading. What I found impressive was just how much world building Martine manages to pack into the novel, and how much introspective discussion was built into the characterisations and portrayals. There is a wealth of detail here.

Whereas The City In The Middle of the Night is a more confused novel that has some excellent parts but just didn't quite meet my expectations. I think my biggest issue with this novel is that whilst it starts out brilliantly, it becomes rather more confused by the second half and it doesn’t seem to have a full conclusion, instead it just stops abruptly. Even split between two narrative voices, I fell into the opening chapters and felt the world unfolding around me. The juxtaposition of Mouth’s cynical and violent worldview to Sophie’s relative innocence and nativity really caught me and Andrea builds up the dysfunctional totalitarian city around them beautifully. The shock of Sophie’s arrest and her first meeting with the strange and utterly alien crocodiles, or the Garet as she comes to call them, is strikingly written. I have to say though that the narrative loses some focus when you leave Xiosphant, the City of Timefulness and move to Argelo, a chaotic and noisy city, The City That Never Sleeps. Somehow the Gelet are all but forgotten for much of the novel as Bianca falls headfirst into high end society and Sophie mopes after her. Whilst they come back in force for the concluding chapters, they would have made a far more interesting focus than the petty night life and failure to recognise a toxic relationship when it’s right in front of you. The Gelert anthropology - or perhaps that should be xenopology, if that word even exists - is fascinating and could have been far been incorporated to a far greater extent.

 

[Angeló]

The Dark Tower series is amazing .. you should definitely push all the way through :D

There were complaints about the last two books but honestly I think Stephen King gave this Series everything he got .. even humor .. 

Im a fan of Haruki Murakami and I highly recommend Kafka On The Shore

[Secre]

1 hour ago, Angeló said:

The Dark Tower series is amazing .. you should definitely push all the way through

There were complaints about the last two books but honestly I think Stephen King gave this Series everything he got .. even humor .. 

Im a fan of Haruki Murakami and I highly recommend Kafka On The Shore

I've heard good things about Haruki Murakami so he's been on my radar for a while. I just need to get round to actually reading his work! My problem is I buy way more books than I could ever possibly read so I have close to 2000 unread books on my kindle alone!!

I might at some point give The Dark Tower another shot. I had a glance at my old review of it to double check, but yes, my remembered impressions were correct:

I really just didn’t get this. I tried so very hard and it still just came across as the fevered rantings of a delirious man who is probably high on something. The whole thing is so abstract that it loses any semblance of narrative, structure or a focus. I was baffled and bored in equal measure by this book and that isn’t something I’d have thought I’d hear myself saying about a Stephen King novel. But this really does just seem to be random thoughts and impressions with some hallucinogenic sparkles thrown in for the fun and giggles, all depicting one mans trip across the desert in over 200 pages. I thought this was a short Stephen King novel, after all King can be very verbose indeed, however the issue is that he says virtually nothing but takes a whole lot of words to not say anything.

[berriganify]

14 hours ago, Secre said:

My problem is I buy way more books than I could ever possibly read so I have close to 2000 unread books on my kindle alone!!

oh, same. i ended up just giving my unread books their own dedicated bookshelf.  part of the problem is that i buy 90% of my books used, and like going through the discount bins where books are like $1-2. its great because you can usually find some interesting stuff, but not so great because it's really easy to walk out with like 20 books at a time, and my online book list is so woefully out of date that i often end up with double or triple copies of books.

The Light Brigade sounds like my absolute jam though, definitely putting that one on the list as well!

[Secre]

On 7/30/2020 at 5:32 AM, berriganify said:

oh, same. i ended up just giving my unread books their own dedicated bookshelf.  part of the problem is that i buy 90% of my books used, and like going through the discount bins where books are like $1-2. its great because you can usually find some interesting stuff, but not so great because it's really easy to walk out with like 20 books at a time, and my online book list is so woefully out of date that i often end up with double or triple copies of books.

The Light Brigade sounds like my absolute jam though, definitely putting that one on the list as well!

Nearly all my my current books are bought on Kindle as then I don't have to store them. And if I'm honest, my husband does have a point. We have no room for more books. I have books overspilling the bookshelf, on the window sill... personally, I just say we need more bookshelves. 

I've just bought Kindle Unlimited as well... so I now have access to SO MANY BOOKS!

I just finished two fantasy books that were both absolutely fantastic in very different ways. Middlegame by Seanan McGuire and Dragon's Reach by J.A. Andrews.

Seanan McGuire is one of my favourite authors of all time and Middlegame has only cemented that in my mind. This is a very different novel to others I have read by the author. The sarcastic humour that I have come to know and love from the October Daye series is very much reduced, leaving a work that is far more serious and heavy weight and sits the uneasy line between fantasy and science fiction, never quite stepping definitively into either. Middlegame is a complex adult fantasy, despite its focus on two children as they grow into teenagers and young adults. It's confusing and frustrating at times as you don't have all the information, but it is also intricate and brilliant and I have to admit that I loved it. Roger and Dodger are experimental twins, created and then separated at birth, each having one half of the 'Doctrine' within them. Don't ask me to explain the 'Doctrine' because I can't. At least no more than it is the very epicentre of the universe. When put into one child, it is too much for the human brain to handle, but when split into two - mathematics and language, with each part encased in a different human soul, the results are far more manageable. But Roger and Dodger have no idea of the plans that have already been made for them. There are so many varying and contradictory influences and concepts here that it could easily have become a mangled heap of confusion. With philosophy, science, literary references and even entirely invented literary foundations, it would be easy to lose the plot entirely. But McGuire pulls it off. And that is partly because of the characters she has created, but mostly down to the writing. McGuire has a knack for putting profound insights into words and making her characters bounce to life before you. She manages to capture the minutiae of an individuals life as easily as she does the broad strokes of the wider influences.

J.A. Andrews is a new author to me and yet it's been a while since I have been quite so caught up in a story as this one and there isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind that this novel deserves all the five stars I can give it and then some more. She has a way with words and a knack for breathing life into her characters as she captures a true sense of humanity at its lowest and its best. What I think I liked most about the novel though is that it doesn't start as an epic quest to save the world, although the world is surely threatened by the end. Instead it begins, and ends, as a very personal story. You meet Sable, bound to a Gang for her livelihood and her safety and everything hinges on her own personal quest to make a better life for herself and her sisters. Even when the plot begins to spiral into far wider concerns and consequences, that individual narrative is what everything else hangs on. I also admit that I adored the characters, more or less each and every one of them. There is a real sense of humanity here, with no character being perfect but all of them having flaws and hang ups that make them feel completely and utterly real. All in all, J.A. Andrews is an author I will certainly be following with interest and I look forward to reading more of her existing works. If they are anywhere near as good as this one, I will be in for a treat.

[Secre]

It's been a while since I've poked this thread - I've been largely reading indie fantasy for the Indie Fantasy Addict Summer Challenge these last few months and I've found a few absolute gems:

The Lightning Conjurer by Rachel Reneer caught me from beginning to end and I just couldn't stop reading. From a mysterious beginning, this novel picks up the pace quickly as Aspen begins to get to grips with her new powers and forms a relationship with Aiden. Through him she learns of a shadowy organisation, the Asterian Order, that would take great interest in her abilities, but that knowledge may have come too late. I flew through this book in two sittings, unable to take my eyes off the page. I loved Aspen and her relationship with her elderly neighbour Evelyn. She's a strong yet flawed lead character and she really resonated with me. The romance between her and Aiden was less of a draw, but whilst important to the character development, it doesn't interfere overly with the narrative. I was fascinated by how the use of elemental magic has been incorporated into the real world and the use of pseudo-science made it believable and interesting. I loved how magic and reality intertwine throughout the story and how the elements are used in interesting and innovative ways.

And Darkmage by M. L. Spencer is a far darker novel than the more YA approach of The Lightning Conjurer, but no less brilliant for that fact. M.L. Spencer wastes almost no time at all in bringing the world crashing down around both of her main characters, Darien and Kyel. Darien is the only mage to survive the destruction of his home town and whilst he starts as an innocent, the loss of everything he holds dear and the threat of a gateway to Hell being open soon propel him down a far darker and more tortured path. Kyel is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, and events that he had no control over lead him to being conscripted to the war at the front line. As the two stories converge, both characters are forced to examine exactly what they are willing to do or to become in order to prevent a tragedy. That's one of the strongest aspects of this novel; M.L. Spencer has a knack for writing heroes who aren't really heroes, they are just in the right place at the right time to make a difference. Darien is a deeply conflicted soul, his grief for his lover and his anger at his brother's betrayal lead him to decisions that are considered an abomination. He has no hope of redemption or even of forgiveness, with even those who previously admired him now reviling him for the power he wields and the choices he has made. It is difficult to know exactly where the line between his personal quest for revenge and the wider context of saving the world from the forces of evil begin and end. As with all things human, the lines blur and twist, making him a complex, multi-faceted character who is willing to destroy in order to save. If you're looking for white knights on noble steeds, then you might want to look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a complex tapestry of conflicted characters thrust into war then this is a fantastic offering.

Now to get a handle on my myriad collection of NetGalley titles awaiting my attention!