Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading? - Page 1628

drjd · 08-16-2016, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drjd

Next read - The First Apostle by James Becker.

Finished The First Apostle by James Becker. The plot is stunning and breathtaking and leaves you racing to the end. Fast-paced action propels the imaginative and controversial plot. Recommended for thriller readers.

Next, I am taking The Venging, a short story collection by one of the foremost voices in science fiction, Greg Bear, a print book waiting in my TBR since ages.

ATDrake · 08-16-2016, 09:34 PM

Finished Frozen Assets by Quentin Bates (marketed as Frozen Out in the US and another Canada-available edition, confusingly), 1st in his police procedural series starring Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, Intrepid Icelandic Small Town Cop Who Sometimes Investigates Big City Crime.

I bought this a while back when it was one of Soho's $1.99 specials, but didn't get around to reading it until a couple of days ago when I realized that not only had the two tie-in novellas dropped to just 99 cents (they were something like $3 a pop when I bought the 1st-in-series), but #4, which is out from a different (non-couponable) publisher than #2 & #3, was also marked down to $4.99 and not in any of the local libraries thus far, and I could get them with 10x bonus points during the weekend promo. TBH, I'd have probably just gone ahead and bought them anyway since I'm interested in reading things in the setting to begin with, and checking to see that the author had reasonably decent prose and plotting was just a formality.

Anyway, this is the 2nd series I've tried with Icelandic characters in Nordic Noir-style novels written by Englishmen (I think they may be the only two series of such existing), so comparisons with Michael Ridpath's Fire & Ice series are inevitable. Overall, this came off as a little more obvious and less subtle in its character work.

One of the things that I liked about the Fire & Ice books is that while US-raised Icelander Magnus has his cowboy cop moments, he's balanced by nay-saying superiors and professional opponents who are competent and non-venal, and oppose more because they genuinely think that he's on the wrong investigative path and needlessly wasting limited resources and should be looking in the other direction, or there really are toes he'd be seriously stepping on and disrupting in a closed community that would have to live with the aftereffects and should tread more carefully while continuing his path, and less because they're mildly bad at their jobs, obstructionist for the sake of petty power-hoarding, or trying to rank-climb and playing politics. Officer Gunnhildur has a cruder supporting cast to work with, and the actual villains of the piece are also drawn in broader strokes, making for a different and more cartoonily thriller-ish, but still fairly enjoyable sort of storytelling.

This story was centred around Iceland's aluminum processing business, made possible by their cheap electricity, and set just prior to the economic crisis. It also plays the story from multiple angles, introducing a complementary narrative of gossip blogging which sort of meta-comments on the story as it goes along, and POVs from the sides of the baddies and people who just kind of get caught up in their actions as well. It's interesting to see the attitudes of the high-flying jetset just getting used to all their sudden wealth and influence before the bubble bursts and grounds them, and how it all gets viewed in the popular gossip rags.

Medium-light recommend if you think you might be into Nordic stories about insiders, as told by outsiders. The plot reasoning for the whodunnit seemed a little convoluted in a "why would you bother to go to this much trouble" sort of way (but then I often think that about many mysteries), but otherwise held together decently. And the supporting cast for future novels (if they weren't meant to be one-offs instead of recurring characters) were set up well enough, and the Icelandic cultural bits were incorporated in a reasonable fashion, though they didn't quite have the depth and smoothness of the Ridpath books. Though to be fair, this seems to be Bates' debut novel and Ridpath had over a decade's experience writing legal and financial crime thrillers before he started Fire & Ice, so this is perfectly cromulent for a first effort and hopefully the series just gets better from here.

drjd · 08-18-2016, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drjd

Next, I am taking The Venging, a short story collection by one of the foremost voices in science fiction, Greg Bear, a print book waiting in my TBR since ages.

Just finished The Venging. Although I dropped a few stories, mainly due to the small font size of the book. :sigh: that is why I switched over to ereaders! I may have to change my glasses before going for another pbook.

Next I'll go for 'The Lost Temple' by Vishesh Sharma, received as a gift! Of course ebook.

pdurrant · 08-18-2016, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Tale of the Fox by Harry Turtledove. My penultimate unread ebook from before July 2008.

Just over half way through - it's an omnibus of two novels. Most enjoyable so far.

DiapDealer · 08-18-2016, 11:05 AM

I recently finished Time Siege -- the second book in Wesley Chu's Time Salvager series -- and enjoyed it a lot. Even more than the first. It's gone in a slightly different direction than I assumed things were headed, but that's not a criticism; I'm delighted with the unexpected shift.

I also finished Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants. It was pleasantly OK, but that's about it. The premise was very interesting, but the epistolary format the author employed wore thin and grated on my nerves at times. It was fun here and there, but I don't think I'll continue with any subsequent installments if the same technique is used. It's a bit too "gimmicky" for my tastes.

pdurrant · 08-19-2016, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Tale of the Fox by Harry Turtledove. My penultimate unread ebook from before July 2008.

Which was very good. But not memorable. It's likely that I did read is around the time I bought it, but I have no memory of it.

Next up: Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold. From one of my oldest unread books to my newest - bought on the 15th of this month!

HarryT · 08-20-2016, 05:15 AM

I've got a bit of catching up to do on my reading status!

Firstly, I was enjoying Wilbur Smith's "Egypt" series so much that I read the remainder of the series: "Warlock", "The Quest", and "Desert God", straight through. I enjoyed them, but Mr Smith switched from straight historical fiction to fantasy in these books: the protagonist and former slave, Taita, is now a "Magus" with magical powers he uses to defeat enemies who also have supernatural powers. I can see why this has resulted in low Amazon ratings for these books - people don't read Wilbur Smith and expect fantasy, but they are (IMHO) good fantasy novels. I suspect Smith was trying to emulate Rider Haggard whose novels such as "She" have very similar fantasy themes.

And most recently I've just completed "Devil Bones", which is the 11th book in the "Temperance Brennan" series by Kathy Reichs. This one's about murders that seem to be linked to satanic rituals and was very enjoyable.

pdurrant · 08-20-2016, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold. From one of my oldest unread books to my newest - bought on the 15th of this month!

Most enjoyable.

Next up: Beyond the Doors of Death by Robert Silverberg and Damien Broderick. This month's Phoenix Pick freebie.

Luffy · 08-20-2016, 05:53 AM

Since reading the Words of Radiance, I've completed a couple of books that I haven't talked about. But for now I'm re reading Death of a Trophy Wife, by Laura Levine.

WT Sharpe · 08-20-2016, 07:01 AM

Yesterday I read the first third of Interference by Amélie Antoine (translated from the French by Maren Baudet-Lackner) while waiting to see a doctor during an appointment. And that was AFTER the 40 minutes that it took to fill out the necessary paperwork at the doctor's office (I arrived 20 minutes early). It's a good thing I'm a reader or I might have been miffed! Anyway, Interference was a free download of the month from Amazon that so far has proved itself worthy. It's a love story/mystery told in first person in turns by the various characters in the story, starting with the fellow's newly dead wife, then the fellow himself (who does not yet know his wife is dead), then by the eventual love interest (whom he has not yet met). I'm liking this one a lot.

DiapDealer · 08-20-2016, 08:17 AM

Just started The Raven in the Foregate. The twelfth in Ellis Peters' Cadfael line.

Luffy · 08-20-2016, 03:48 PM

I'm about to start Criminal Crumbs, by Jessica Beck.

pdurrant · 08-21-2016, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Beyond the Doors of Death by Robert Silverberg and Damien Broderick. This month's Phoenix Pick freebie.

I'd read the Silverberg story before. It wasn't really one I liked, and the Damien Broderick continuation didn't improve my opinion.

Next up: Empress of Light by James C Glass. My last unread pre-July 2008 book.

Loosheesh · 08-21-2016, 02:53 PM

2015 was a busy year for me, especially with my work life, and though I read a ton (108 books), I haven't posted here in over a year and a half. I recently started lurking around a bit, checking what others are reading, and I'll now get back to posting again

To begin, a recap of what I've read so far for the month of August: Assassin's Quest, last book in the Farseer Trilogy (completed the first two books at the end of July); my sister and I started these together and she's moved on to the next subseries (Liveship Traders) but I'm taking a break. Also, books 1-4 in Lyn Hamilton's Lara McClintoch archaeological mysteries, which I got from the Smashwords sale on cromag's worthy recommendation.

Next up is a continuation of the archaeological mysteries with the fifth book, The African Quest, and *maybe* Fellowship of Fear by Aaron Elkins. And I'm 40% through Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer, so I may try to finish it as well.

MickeyC · 08-21-2016, 05:43 PM

Just finished Death in Brittany by Jean-Luc Bannalec and it was a very good cozy mystery. All this thanks to a typically good reco from Apache.

And I tried something reading this book I've never tried before and was very pleased on how it worked. The story takes place in Pont-Aven in Brittany. I've never been to that part of France and, at one point, I googled a map of that town to better understand the story. And ended up in a Google street view and it really gave me a very effective view of the area and, consequently, a better understanding and feeling of the story. Plan to do this for other books

08-16-2016, 09:34 PM	#24407
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Finished Frozen Assets by Quentin Bates (marketed as Frozen Out in the US and another Canada-available edition, confusingly), 1st in his police procedural series starring Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, Intrepid Icelandic Small Town Cop Who Sometimes Investigates Big City Crime. I bought this a while back when it was one of Soho's $1.99 specials, but didn't get around to reading it until a couple of days ago when I realized that not only had the two tie-in novellas dropped to just 99 cents (they were something like $3 a pop when I bought the 1st-in-series), but #4, which is out from a different (non-couponable) publisher than #2 & #3, was also marked down to $4.99 and not in any of the local libraries thus far, and I could get them with 10x bonus points during the weekend promo. TBH, I'd have probably just gone ahead and bought them anyway since I'm interested in reading things in the setting to begin with, and checking to see that the author had reasonably decent prose and plotting was just a formality. Anyway, this is the 2nd series I've tried with Icelandic characters in Nordic Noir-style novels written by Englishmen (I think they may be the only two series of such existing), so comparisons with Michael Ridpath's Fire & Ice series are inevitable. Overall, this came off as a little more obvious and less subtle in its character work. One of the things that I liked about the Fire & Ice books is that while US-raised Icelander Magnus has his cowboy cop moments, he's balanced by nay-saying superiors and professional opponents who are competent and non-venal, and oppose more because they genuinely think that he's on the wrong investigative path and needlessly wasting limited resources and should be looking in the other direction, or there really are toes he'd be seriously stepping on and disrupting in a closed community that would have to live with the aftereffects and should tread more carefully while continuing his path, and less because they're mildly bad at their jobs, obstructionist for the sake of petty power-hoarding, or trying to rank-climb and playing politics. Officer Gunnhildur has a cruder supporting cast to work with, and the actual villains of the piece are also drawn in broader strokes, making for a different and more cartoonily thriller-ish, but still fairly enjoyable sort of storytelling. This story was centred around Iceland's aluminum processing business, made possible by their cheap electricity, and set just prior to the economic crisis. It also plays the story from multiple angles, introducing a complementary narrative of gossip blogging which sort of meta-comments on the story as it goes along, and POVs from the sides of the baddies and people who just kind of get caught up in their actions as well. It's interesting to see the attitudes of the high-flying jetset just getting used to all their sudden wealth and influence before the bubble bursts and grounds them, and how it all gets viewed in the popular gossip rags. Medium-light recommend if you think you might be into Nordic stories about insiders, as told by outsiders. The plot reasoning for the whodunnit seemed a little convoluted in a "why would you bother to go to this much trouble" sort of way (but then I often think that about many mysteries), but otherwise held together decently. And the supporting cast for future novels (if they weren't meant to be one-offs instead of recurring characters) were set up well enough, and the Icelandic cultural bits were incorporated in a reasonable fashion, though they didn't quite have the depth and smoothness of the Ridpath books. Though to be fair, this seems to be Bates' debut novel and Ridpath had over a decade's experience writing legal and financial crime thrillers before he started Fire & Ice, so this is perfectly cromulent for a first effort and hopefully the series just gets better from here. Last edited by ATDrake; 08-16-2016 at 09:38 PM.

08-20-2016, 05:15 AM	#24412
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,547 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	I've got a bit of catching up to do on my reading status! Firstly, I was enjoying Wilbur Smith's "Egypt" series so much that I read the remainder of the series: "Warlock", "The Quest", and "Desert God", straight through. I enjoyed them, but Mr Smith switched from straight historical fiction to fantasy in these books: the protagonist and former slave, Taita, is now a "Magus" with magical powers he uses to defeat enemies who also have supernatural powers. I can see why this has resulted in low Amazon ratings for these books - people don't read Wilbur Smith and expect fantasy, but they are (IMHO) good fantasy novels. I suspect Smith was trying to emulate Rider Haggard whose novels such as "She" have very similar fantasy themes. And most recently I've just completed "Devil Bones", which is the 11th book in the "Temperance Brennan" series by Kathy Reichs. This one's about murders that seem to be linked to satanic rituals and was very enjoyable. Last edited by HarryT; 08-20-2016 at 05:20 AM.

08-20-2016, 07:01 AM	#24415
WT Sharpe Bah, humbug! Posts: 39,072 Karma: 157049943 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA Device: Kindle Oasis, iPad Pro, & a Samsung Galaxy S9.	Yesterday I read the first third of Interference by Amélie Antoine (translated from the French by Maren Baudet-Lackner) while waiting to see a doctor during an appointment. And that was AFTER the 40 minutes that it took to fill out the necessary paperwork at the doctor's office (I arrived 20 minutes early). It's a good thing I'm a reader or I might have been miffed! Anyway, Interference was a free download of the month from Amazon that so far has proved itself worthy. It's a love story/mystery told in first person in turns by the various characters in the story, starting with the fellow's newly dead wife, then the fellow himself (who does not yet know his wife is dead), then by the eventual love interest (whom he has not yet met). I'm liking this one a lot. Last edited by WT Sharpe; 08-20-2016 at 08:39 AM.

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08-18-2016, 11:05 AM	#24410
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,584 Karma: 204624552 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	I recently finished Time Siege -- the second book in Wesley Chu's Time Salvager series -- and enjoyed it a lot. Even more than the first. It's gone in a slightly different direction than I assumed things were headed, but that's not a criticism; I'm delighted with the unexpected shift. I also finished Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants. It was pleasantly OK, but that's about it. The premise was very interesting, but the epistolary format the author employed wore thin and grated on my nerves at times. It was fun here and there, but I don't think I'll continue with any subsequent installments if the same technique is used. It's a bit too "gimmicky" for my tastes.

08-20-2016, 05:53 AM	#24414
Luffy Wizard Posts: 4,464 Karma: 429063498 Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Mauritius Device: Kindle Paperwhite 4	Since reading the Words of Radiance, I've completed a couple of books that I haven't talked about. But for now I'm re reading Death of a Trophy Wife, by Laura Levine.

08-20-2016, 08:17 AM	#24416
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,584 Karma: 204624552 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	Just started The Raven in the Foregate. The twelfth in Ellis Peters' Cadfael line.

08-20-2016, 03:48 PM	#24417
Luffy Wizard Posts: 4,464 Karma: 429063498 Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Mauritius Device: Kindle Paperwhite 4	I'm about to start Criminal Crumbs, by Jessica Beck.

08-21-2016, 02:53 PM	#24419
Loosheesh Wizard Posts: 1,680 Karma: 3137505 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Jianghu Device: PW1, PW5, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 2021	2015 was a busy year for me, especially with my work life, and though I read a ton (108 books), I haven't posted here in over a year and a half. I recently started lurking around a bit, checking what others are reading, and I'll now get back to posting again To begin, a recap of what I've read so far for the month of August: Assassin's Quest, last book in the Farseer Trilogy (completed the first two books at the end of July); my sister and I started these together and she's moved on to the next subseries (Liveship Traders) but I'm taking a break. Also, books 1-4 in Lyn Hamilton's Lara McClintoch archaeological mysteries, which I got from the Smashwords sale on cromag's worthy recommendation. Next up is a continuation of the archaeological mysteries with the fifth book, The African Quest, and maybe Fellowship of Fear by Aaron Elkins. And I'm 40% through Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer, so I may try to finish it as well.

08-21-2016, 05:43 PM	#24420
MickeyC Grand Sorcerer Posts: 16,731 Karma: 12185114 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Florida Device: iPhone 6 plus, Sony T1, iPad 3	Just finished *Death in Brittany* by Jean-Luc Bannalec and it was a very good cozy mystery. All this thanks to a typically good reco from Apache. And I tried something reading this book I've never tried before and was very pleased on how it worked. The story takes place in Pont-Aven in Brittany. I've never been to that part of France and, at one point, I googled a map of that town to better understand the story. And ended up in a Google street view and it really gave me a very effective view of the area and, consequently, a better understanding and feeling of the story. Plan to do this for other books