Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up, one of my recent Fictionwise purchases: The Winds of Time and Other Stories by James Schmitz

Excellent stories, but not a collection as such — just grabbed and put in a wrapper. I just wish I'd realised they were from Project Gutenberg, and that I already owned them in legitimate collections from Baen Books. I must remember to be more suspicious of Fictionwise multiformat ebooks when the stories were published pre-1964.

Next up: Next of Kin by Erik Frank Russell, also from my recent Fictionwise purchases, but not, as far as I can tell, from Project Gutenberg.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

speaking of that... I haven't read the other book of Markus Zusak yet you must be waiting for weeks now

Originally Posted by Iridal

I think I'm going to read that one too in the near future ... Time to update my TBR-list I think

I don't want to set your expectations that it's another Book Thief, 'cos in my view it's not as good. Still well worth reading though.

[maianhvk]

Originally Posted by orlok

I don't want to set your expectations that it's another Book Thief, 'cos in my view it's not as good. Still well worth reading though.

then it can wait a little bit longer

I'm stuck with the leftovers from Narnia and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and 3 more final tests so I just figured out that I can't read any new book until July

[ATDrake]

Read Above His Proper Station, book 2 of Lawrence Watt-Evans's "The Fall of the Sorcerers".

This is very much the 2nd book in what appears to be a trilogy, and continues the story left off in the 1st, A Young Man Without Magic, where the titular young man tries to carry out the legacy of a dead friend and ends up a fugitive on the run for challenging the socio-political status quo.

This volume carries on his further adventures and changes in both his own status and the developments in the Empire prompted both by his own actions last book, as well as those of others whom he intersected, from taking refuge with the lowest of the low, to confronting nearly the highest of the high, before it all goes pear-shaped again.

I quite liked it, although I happen to like coming-of-age stuff mixed with a healthy dose of political intrigue and social upheaval.

As far as style goes, this is kind of to Watt-Evans' Ethshar books what Steven Brust's "Paarfi" books are to his "Taltos" ones in the Dragaera series. With all the different styles of magic practiced in the different neighbouring lands, you can almost kind of see it as a sort of future Ethshar, which has become less medieval-ish and more proto-industrialized (and where people converse in that baroquely florid Enlightenment style).

Moderate recommend, because you really do need to read the 1st and follow up with the as-yet-unpublished 3rd book in the series to fully get the story, although there's a valiant attempt at catch-up recap in the first chapter.

But I enjoyed reading this and look forward to the conclusion (assuming this is trilogy and not a longer series).

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Iridal

...The book thief by Markus Zusak!

Originally Posted by orlok

Glad you enjoyed it . It's always a bit of a nailbiter waiting to see if a book you have really enjoyed and recommended is appreciated by others.

I just downloaded the sample from Amazon, but I have lots of books ahead of it. Interesting that a new hardcover and the ebook are the same price.

[BenG]

I'm reading Anno Dracula by Kim Newman which is sort of an alternative history where Van Helsing and company failed to stop Dracula from moving to England and vampires move into all levels of society with Dracula becoming the queen's Prince Consort.

[birdbrainbb]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I'm about half way through it and it's dragging for me. A lot is happening but not much is accomplished. There is hope that it all works together towards the end.

Considering all the positive reviews ...

I think possibly it's a bad sign that it's taking me two days to get through the prologue. If it's not going to get better after the prologue then maybe I should switch to something else. Or just go back to reading Wanderlust.

[Namekuseijin]

I'm currently zapping back and forth between "The adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "Arsène Lupin" and "King Solomon's Mines". Sherlock is always fine; Lupin was quite a good surprise to me, with its top narration, setting and characterization (Lupin is quite unlike Sherlock, plus is in the other side of the fence); Allan Quatermain's adventure is very anachronistic and shockful of dumb imperialist and racist remarks, but still a gripping read.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by birdbrainbb

I think possibly it's a bad sign that it's taking me two days to get through the prologue. If it's not going to get better after the prologue then maybe I should switch to something else. Or just go back to reading Wanderlust.

A previous poster mentioned the book works better as an audiobook and I now understand why. The comic this book originates from is probably better too.

Fortunately, my copy was a library book.

[ATDrake]

Finished Jane Goes Batty by Michael Thomas Ford.

This is one of those Austen-derivatives, only it's one of those where Austen herself is a vampire who's been suffering writer's block for centuries and seeing no royalties while people with less than 1/10th of her talent have been making major cash profit off spin-offs of her work and has finally decided to do something about it.

Well, actually, that was the first book which I haven't read, and might do so, because apparently I missed one hell of a vampire catfight between undead Jane Austen and undead Charlotte Brontë.

Anyway, this one continues the story established in the first, with Jane's new novel being turned into a film (which bears very little resemblance to the actual text) and Jane's new boyfriend's mother comes to visit under the impression that a) Jane is planning to convert to Judaism so they can get married and b) she still hates her anyway.

While the story made perfect sense even without having read the previous, it's really more of a curiosity thing rather than something of interest in itself, because aside from the novelty aspect of it having been THE Jane Austen who wrote THE Jane Austen Novels, this could be a tale about any other immortal vampire writer with comedic personal problems.

Very mild recommend if you like this kind of classics-derivative stuff to begin with and favour the sort of vampires who have neat-o powers and no real drawbacks to their lifestyles besides the occasional bit of angst as to what they'll be doing when their mortal friends die (turn them into more vampires!).

It's actually one of the more readable versions of this kind of thing and I'd probably go and read the other books in the series (this one had a sample chapter for the upcoming 3rd) if I spot them in a library display, but I wouldn't consider getting a copy myself.

In the meanwhile, I picked up a copy of The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer off the new books shelf when I went to return this one. I sense sparkly, sparkly vampires ahead, if only because jewel-encrusted garments where how the upper-class Elizabethans liked to roll.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Next of Kin by Erik Frank Russell, also from my recent Fictionwise purchases, but not, as far as I can tell, from Project Gutenberg.

Well, despite having a retail price of $15.99*, it is riddled with one particular conversion error. Every instance of "fi" or "fl" has been replaced by ". "

I suspect this is due to a poor conversion from a text in Mac OS Roman character set, which includes the fi and fl ligatures (fi and fl).

I've written to customer service requesting a fixed file or a refund. We'll see what they say.

Meantime, I'm going on to the next Agatha Christie book, The Hound of Death. Her 17th book, and only one real dud so far.



* Which I didn't pay, of course. I paid $5.44, thanks to club membership and a 60% sale. It's still more than I usually pay for ebooks.

[Crusader]

After loving The Line of Polity, I decided to jump right in and started Brass Man (the 3rd Cormac novel by Neal Asher).

[ATDrake]

Put a dent in my library book backlog and finished Pemberley Ranch by Jack Caldwell which was yet another Austen-derivative; in this case, basically a Pride and Prejudice Elseworlds, which recasts the story into the post-US Civil War landscape of Texas in order to make some points about North/South tensions.

It was an okay story that actually would have held up decently on its own without the P&P transplant grafting, albeit seeming a bit unbalanced due to the bulk of the "good" people who are being misunderstood being on the Southern side and the balance of the "bad" people doing the misunderstanding being on the Northern side (and coming around to the Southern way unless they're totally irredeemable). And some stuff about how slavery wasn't one of the really important factors in the US Civil War; it was mostly about "states' rights!"; which I understand is some sort of blame-shifting thing that gets taught in parts of the US.

But the back bio says this is the author's first novel and he grew up in Louisiana, so I can give him a pass on that.

Mild recommend for the novelty value. It's not badly written, comes with a few nice historical footnotes, and does moderately interesting things with the characters in their new setting. And I'm pleased that having changed so much about the original story, the author isn't a stickler for the original character outcomes and thus Charlotte Lucas ends up with someone far more deserving than Mr. Collins.

Best read if you're curious about Austen-derivatives which aren't direct continuations/retellings from a different character viewpoint of the original story and want to try one of the more relatively imaginative retakes.

[WT Sharpe]

I finished reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surprised to discover that it was the only Sam Spade book Hammett ever wrote; not only did it seem perfect for a series, but the character is so well-known by his many incarnations in other media. I'd like to watch the 1931 film that was banned by the Production Code Office because of what they felt was the film's "lewd" content, but it doesn't seem to be available as a download, and I don't want to watch it enough to buy it. I will, however, rent the 1941 version starring Humphrey Bogart. That the 1931 film was banned is hardly surprising, for if it's anything like the book, James Bond had nothing on Spade when it came to antics in the bedroom.

[phenomshel]

Just finished "Poison" by Sara Poole. It's about the court poisoner for Rodrigo Borgia. Historical fiction, obviously...but darn well researched, and I really enjoyed it. There's a new one with the same characters I'm anxious to get my hands on, called "The Borgia Betrayal".

This book seems to take a much more sympathetic view toward the Borgias than anything else I've seen (though admittedly I haven't researched them much).