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

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

There is good reason that it's out of print. It was HORRIBLE! It was as bad as the rest of the series was good. Absolutely boring!

Thanks for the warning, but now I'm kind of morbidly curious.

If my dad's old paperback of Whirlwind turns up, I'll give it a try, but otherwise it doesn't sound like it'd be worth spending money on even if it shows up in a discounted e-version.

(My personal not!recommendation for least favourite Asian Saga book that should only be read from the library or on dirt-cheap deep-discount sale would have to be for Gai-Jin, which I really, really wanted to like, but just didn't click for me and turned out to be dismayingly turgid and boring, although it had a bunch of otherwise interesting elements and backstory-filling-crossover-events that by all rights I should have loved when put together.)

Anyway, finished a bunch of other (non-childhood) nostalgia books by catching up with Lawrence Watt-Evans's Ethshar fantasy series, which I first encountered by purchasing the lot via Fictionwise coupon sale, but kind of lost track of since FW went defunct.

Wildside Press had a coupon sale in March which I took advantage of to get some discounted DRM-free copies of the more recently-released ones I'd been missing, and accordingly I eventually binge-read the lot.

The Unwelcome Warlock, #11 in the series, was where I left off last time, at that time being published as a reader-supported serial released in "as-soon-as-the-next-gets-funded" pre-Kickstarter model LWE was using at the time. It's kind of a triple sequel to 3 previous stories in the series, following up on what happened to the warlocks in general, one warlock in particular, and an empire relating to warlocks thereof, and while the story as I recalled it was interesting, I never did end up following it to the finish.

Anyway, this was an interesting wrapping up of a bunch of thematic threads and "what-happened-to-this-character/situation" from previous novels, even though I think I'd have liked some more exploration of one particular change-of-status-quo item (which I guess was in a way covered by one of the previous novels, and thus the author didn't feel like going over that ground again, even if the present setup could have made for a considerably more complicated and nuanced take on things than IIRC happened last time).

But otherwise it worked out satisfyingly enough, I suppose, and one of the late-story revelations was fairly intriguing and hopefully kicks off some more stories exploring that.

Sorcerer's Widow & Relics of War, #12 & #13 were next. Although the stories in these were somewhat different in tone and setting, thematically they seemed a bit the same, since they were kind of about young people learning lessons about the real world and such (one involving a pair of youths trying to swindle the titular widow out of some magical artifacts, the other with the children of a post-war family befriending an enemy soldier as a "pet") and employing trickery (or having it used upon them) to get to what seems to be the best possible outcome, even if it's not necessarily what they really wanted at the outset.

IIRC I read somewhere on LWE's site or blog that he'd been trying to retool the Ethshar series as more YA-oriented in the hopes of getting more market appeal for his titles, and IMHO it kind of shows in the writing of these, which is perfectly cromulent but seems rather simplified after the greater political and personal complexity of TUW.

That said, these were written fairly entertainingly and provided a nifty look at some more of the worldbuilding backstory underpinning Ethshar (its greatest strength, IMHO), by showing what happens to magical artifacts and the magically-affected after their creators are gone, and how otherwise ordinary people get along with such.

Tales of Ethshar was the short-story collection of the lot, a few of which I'd previously read in anthologies or as online freebie reads on his website. IMHO, LWE's work is better at longer lengths, at least in this setting, but some of the stories were neat little slices of encapsulated Ethsharicity, and a few stood out as especially good, such as "Sirinita's Dragon", which goes in an unexpected but harrowingly logical direction.

Finally, Ithnalin's Restoration, #8, was a re-read, my having gotten it out of the library in hardcover after having devoured the rest of the Ethshar series, and now finally available as an e-book after a few years in rights limbo.

A nifty self-contained wizard's apprentice coming-of-age tale when said apprentice has to deal with fixing a spell gone wrong while pretty much all the high-level experts who could help her are occupied with magical/political crisis going on in book #6, and thus has to resort to "mundane" help, as well as her own resources.

In retrospect, this gives me a bit of a "The Greatest Story Never Told" feeling like that Booster Gold spotlight episode from Justice League Unlimited where the real story is the relatively domestic mishaps the "ordinary" people have to deal with while the big city-crushing mega-event battle is going on, and I think I like it more now than I did back on the initial read.

Overall, these were a nice dip back into the world of an engaging and entertaining but not particularly complicated often-humorous light fantasy series which does sometimes explore the human condition with a certain amount of depth, and entertains the notion of compromise on one's ideals and ambitions, but never gets really heavy or dark, and maintains a firm sense of optimism even in the face of existential absurdity.

Medium-firm recommend for good, clean, wholesome, enjoyable traditional-ish high-fantasy fun where everything mostly works out okay in the end, if that's what you're in the mood for. (The novels are written standalone so you get a complete adventure in one book that you don't really need to have read the others for, although a few of them do refer back to or feature characters that were established from previous stories. But the actual storylines are written from times and places all over the Ethsharite map and history and there's only a vague semblance of sequence/interconnectedness to a handful of them, so you can usually pick up any given title and read it as an independent tale.)

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

My personal not!recommendation for least favourite Asian Saga book that should only be read from the library or on dirt-cheap deep-discount sale would have to be for Gai-Jin, which I really, really wanted to like, but just didn't click for me and turned out to be dismayingly turgid and boring, although it had a bunch of otherwise interesting elements and backstory-filling-crossover-events that by all rights I should have loved when put together.

I'm in full agreement. I had hoped that 'Gaijin' would be a captivating as 'Shogun,' but it just really fell flat. As you said, there were quite a few sub-plots and background issues that seriously tried to make the book work, but just couldn't do it. "Shogun" did have one or two cultural gaffs that would never be noticed by anyone not completely immersed in Japanese life, but they didn't detract from the story at all. "Gaijin" was full of them, and when combined with bad writing and plot, led to the overall loss.

There are just some things that a writer shouldn't do when writing an English version of Japanese speakers addressing their elders. Just because the -san ending to a name is called an 'honorific' doesn't mean that in English you would address your mother as 'Honorable Mommy!'


Stitchawl

[AstoundingBruce]

Four Reasons to Like Effie's Senior Year by Tracy Marchini

4.) All six of Effie's misadventures are included in this one book.
4a.) I like misadventures.

3.) Effie is a great character
3a.) Okay, she's not anyone I would aspire to be like.
3b.) On the other hand, as the fat, insecure girl she perceives herself to be, she is a believable character.
3c.) Marchini does an excellent job of getting the reader inside Effie's head.

2.) Effie has come a long way by the end of these six stories.
2a.) Even if she doesn't realize it.

1.)The lists were clever.
1a.) And fun.
1b.) And awesome.
1c.) And a great way to show the reader what Effie is thinking (see 3c. above).

What I Didn't Like About Effie's Senior Year

1.) Effie's potty mouth.
1a.) No, I do not consider myself a prude.
1b.) Yes, I did talk that way my senior year, so you could say it's realistic except....
1c.) Some of the swears seem like they were forced into the text with a shoehorn, as if Marchini felt her book wouldn't sell unless she made some magical quota of swear words. In fact, Effie's sister Ophelia has at least one unauthentic-sounding swear as well.
1d.) Don't get the idea that it's all swears. They actually make up only a small portion of the book.


I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Dazrin]

I'm not sure why I keep falling behind in this thread but I haven't updated it since April 21. Since then I have finished:

• DragonFlight by Anne McCaffrey - The first of the Pern books (in published order) which is a good nostalgic read, but nothing exceptional at this point. Awful formatting for this copy of the e-book.
• War of Honor by David Weber - Book 10 of the Honor Harrington series. I enjoyed most of it but skipped large sections of data dumps and other mind-numbing details. I hear the next one is better so I have hope.
• Patriot Games by Tom Clancy - Second published Jack Ryan book and another old favorite.
• The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth - I hadn't read this one and am glad I did but it felt fairly clunky in places. I think that is because of the perspective used but I'm not really sure. Overall it was good though.

Next up is Bill Bryson's African Diary which will be my first read by him. I am not expecting much given why this was written (and the reviews) but it was available immediately at my library and I am tired of reading on my phone, Day of the Jackal was e-pub only so I couldn't read on my Kindle.

[Lusitanic]

Started reading "The litigators", by John Grisham.

[Dngrsone]

I've only read one or two Grishams, but I get the idea he is similar to Robin Cook in that the formulae are similar in each book, so once you've read two or three, you've read then all.

Alexander Haley, on the other hand, changes professions with each book.

... I've read only a couple of his... The hotel one and one about a bank. Very informative, though.

Currently, I am devouring K. B. Spangler's State Machine hot off the digital press, as it were.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Next up is Bill Bryson's African Diary which will be my first read by him. I am not expecting much given why this was written (and the reviews) but it was available immediately at my library and I am tired of reading on my phone, Day of the Jackal was e-pub only so I couldn't read on my Kindle.

I'm not sure why the reviews I read all painted this as a bleak depressing book, maybe I just picked poorly. The main theme was about the hope that CARE helps foster in a country that has been through more hardship than most of us in a "first world" country could ever hope to relate to. Based on the little bit here I will be trying some of his other books too, assuming I can get them from the library.

[CRussel]

I recently read A Walk in the Woods, and really enjoyed it. It's the story of his walking the length of the Appalachian Trail, all the way from the South up to Maine. Fascinating and extremely well written.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I recently read A Walk in the Woods, and really enjoyed it. It's the story of his walking the length of the Appalachian Trail, all the way from the South up to Maine. Fascinating and extremely well written.

Did you finish the book? He didn't walk the length of the Appalachian Trail; he only walked a tiny fraction of it before abandoning the attempt. It is indeed an excellent book, but don't read it expecting to find a description of the whole of the AT or you'll be disappointed.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'm also in the middle of reading "The Owl Service" by Alan Garner. A rather good children's supernatural story set in Wales. I know some of my friends read this when we were children, but somehow I never got around to it, although the name stuck in my head, so when it was on special offer at Amazon recently I couldn't resist seeing what I'd missed.

And a good tale it was too. Worth a read, although some of the scene breaks seem to have got lost in the ebook edition.

Next up: They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer. One of her contemporary murder mysteries, rather than a regency romance.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And a good tale it was too. Worth a read, although some of the scene breaks seem to have got lost in the ebook edition.

I think that's the most common problem I see with back-catalogue ebooks these days.

I just finished The Copper Promise by Jen Williams, which was a fairly entertaining light fantasy. It was originally published as four novellas, so it suffers a bit from shortstoryitis (a lack of overall momentum from being too broken up), but the characters were good.

Started The Death of Grass by John Christopher, representing 1956 in my chronological 1950-1999 SF challenge.

I'm also approaching the end of The Mammoth Book of Steampunk edited by Sean Wallace. It's a pretty mixed bag, and hasn't made me love Steampunk, which seems a hollow and superficial subgenre, but there are some good stories here.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer. One of her contemporary murder mysteries, rather than a regency romance.

But since I didn't have my eReader with me this lunchtime, and I bought the Heyers from the sadly defunct BooksOnBoard (so I can't re-download it on my work computer), I've also started The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters, her sixth Cadfael novel.

[DuncanWatson]

I am reading The Spirit War by Rachel Aaron while my Calibre churns away on converting and emailing my old library to my kindle.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Did you finish the book? He didn't walk the length of the Appalachian Trail; he only walked a tiny fraction of it before abandoning the attempt. It is indeed an excellent book, but don't read it expecting to find a description of the whole of the AT or you'll be disappointed.

And yet, he did cover quite a bit of it in pieces all up and down its length. What he didn't do is do it in one continuous walk. Still, it was an interesting read, I thought. And yes, I did read the whole thing.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I recently read A Walk in the Woods, and really enjoyed it. It's the story of his walking the length of the Appalachian Trail, all the way from the South up to Maine. Fascinating and extremely well written.

I find all his books very interesting. Try The Mother Tongue to learn about this caos of a language we know as English. You will learn for example, what the single most understood word in the world is, spoken in every language in every country. It is an artificial word, invented by schoolboys at the turn of the century; that's 1800 to 1900 for you millennials.