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

[ATDrake]

Stayed up last night to read Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's charming low-key urban fantasy The Godmother, one of my Fictionwise purchases from the recent wishlist discount sale.

The premise is that in an otherwise not-overtly-magical world, fairy godmothers occasionally do intervene to help their charges live happily ever after, but they try to do it in a Granny Weatherwax-style "headology" way. So this was really closer to magical realism and an imaginative mash-up of social services frustrations and fairy tale tropes set in Seattle, which is across the border from me, so it was nice to recognize some of the local placenames.

I liked this a lot and have already sought out the sequels at the library and will also be buying their e-book editions when there's a good sale to bring the price down.

But first I will be finishing Jo Walton's Ha'Penny and Half a Crown, part of her thus-far excellent post-WWII alternate-universe fascist Britain murder mystery/political thriller trilogy which I went specifically to the library to get.

I'll have to say that book 2 is even more enjoyable, since while the detective inspector is the same (and a good mixture of competent and constrained), the "upper-class twit" who supplies the secondary viewpoint this time is a much different and more interesting character who's very definitely based on the Mitford sisters, though I'm not quite sure which one she's supposed to be (barring the obvious exceptions).

[GraceKrispy]

Just finished a children's fantasy- "Velvet Fairy and the Broken Fairy." Review here.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

And I decided to begin with the classics, missing so many great stuff from far less mediocre times! Thank God for Project Gutemberg!

To be fair to modern day authors, I don't think it's that authors in the past were better, but that most of the common-place stuff of past times has simply been forgotten. We're left with the really good books — books that people from many different decades have found worth reading.

[captkjaneway]

All fluffified out on Plum at the moment so have turned to one of my favourite authors in John Connolly and his Charlie 'Bird' Parker series.

Just started 'Every Dead Thing'

[Rumpelteazer]

I finished a couple of books this week. First Stephen King's The Shining, which was a reread. I still love the book, but it was a slower read than I thought it would be.

To my great surprise my local bookstore had Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. It's a great story and I can recommend it even for people who are not into Urban Fantasy. I'm hoping the bookstore also has the next in the series.

Last night I finished the second in the Amelia Peabody series, The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Elizabeth Peters. I liked it even better than the first book. The pace is faster and the relationship between Amelia and her husband is very entertaining. My only comment is that the reader isn't told everything and that makes it hard to figure out who the murderer is.

Today I'm going to start with Kate Atkinson's Case Histories. I've been reading mixed reviews about it, people either seem to love it or hate it.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

I finished a couple of books this week. First Stephen King's The Shining, which was a reread. I still love the book, but it was a slower read than I thought it would be.

To my great surprise my local bookstore had Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. It's a great story and I can recommend it even for people who are not into Urban Fantasy. I'm hoping the bookstore also has the next in the series.

Last night I finished the second in the Amelia Peabody series, The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Elizabeth Peters. I liked it even better than the first book. The pace is faster and the relationship between Amelia and her husband is very entertaining. My only comment is that the reader isn't told everything and that makes it hard to figure out who the murderer is.

it.

Amelia gets better and better as the series goes...

[BenG]

I finished The Passage by Justin Cronin this morning. I loved every bit of it, beginning, middle and end. Now where can I buy a Team Babcock t-shirt?

[poohbear_nc]

I'm currently reading Margery Allingham's "Hide My Eyes" - which is the most fascinating Albert Campion book in the series. Allingham creates a truly frightening sociopathic murderer and narrates much of the book from his viewpoint. The books is very intricately plotted as well. A wonderful read!

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

To be fair to modern day authors, I don't think it's that authors in the past were better, but that most of the common-place stuff of past times has simply been forgotten. We're left with the really good books — books that people from many different decades have found worth reading.

time certainly is a good garbage collector, but that alone doesn't suffice. I claim that those people, working with far inferior tools were able to produce far brighter works than anything from XX onwards. Our superior tools and remote controls only produced lazy, incompetent, crying babies fashioned as artists.

Compare the multiple recursive ornate architecture from barroque age to simplistic, barren and plain geometric waste of modernist architecture. Compare the staggering works of Bach, Beethoven and Wagner to all the rubbish noise or background to movie scenes our time has produced. Compare exquisite renascentist paintings to the abstract sketches by infants from lucrative modern day art galleries.

We're so terribly lousy our contributions could be erased with no consequence to the history of arts... perhaps that's why we keep trying to create new expression media, like games or movies, and call ourself the greatest of greatest...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Namekuseijin

time certainly is a good garbage collector, but that alone doesn't suffice. I claim that those people, working with far inferior tools were able to produce far brighter works than anything from XX onwards. Our superior tools and remote controls only produced lazy, incompetent, crying babies fashioned as artists.
....

There is also all the current focus on Marketing and Communication which these days "makes" bestsellers. In prior times those same technologies acted as filters that only allowed the best things to pass...

[Iridal]

My copy of Brayan's Gold arrived today, and I read it on the train. It's a short story in the Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett. It was really good. Mr Brett is fast becoming one of my favourite authors, I can't wait for the next book in the series!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Emissaries of the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro.

Originally Posted by Fbone

Please let us know how it is. My library can get me a copy of it.

Originally Posted by kennyc

Great to see writers make it! Adam-Troy was just starting some 20 years back when I was really into it. Takes both skill and perseverance!

Well, I found it to be an excellent SF/Mystery novel with an interesting protagonist and universe. I'll be adding the next novels to my wish list. Recommended.

I'm not sure what I'll read next. I'm out this evening, so I have some time to decide.

[bookfiend]

I haven't posted in quite some time, so I thought I'd get back into the forums with this thread.

I just finished Hyperion, by Dan Simmons, and have now moved on to its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion (impossible not to read the second book, given how the first one ends!). As a sci-fi geek who is also a lit professor, I love the way Simmons blends meditations on literature into his stories. Hyperion is very much a futuristic Canterbury Tales, with a good dash of Romanticism (Keats, of course) added.

[killdanzig]

Just finished "Mockingjay", the 3rd book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

I must say that it definitely DID NOT disappoint at all.

I was so afraid that things would not tie up that way that I wanted, but it has definitely achieved "Firefly" status from me.

Without a doubt, Suzanne Collins has "Done The Impossible".

I was drawn in from the beginning and feared the worst throughout as the story unfolded. However I am definitely in awe of how the story was handled.

I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone regardless of literary preference.

The only drawback to this series is that it has come to an end. I know that is very cliched, but it is the truth.

Being a 37 year old male that has no feelings, other than for my wife and four legged children, it's hard to process how engrossed I became with this story.

Normally I never get too emotional with anything outside of military stories, the canceling of Firefly, Detroit Lions and Michigan football, hatred of the Evil Empire of Yankee nation, or my aforementioned family.

Do yourselves a favor and give it a go. You won't regret it.

Wow. That is all I have left to say.

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by killdanzig

Just finished "Mockingjay", the 3rd book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

I must say that it definitely DID NOT disappoint at all.

I was so afraid that things would not tie up that way that I wanted, but it has definitely achieved "Firefly" status from me.

Without a doubt, Suzanne Collins has "Done The Impossible".

I was drawn in from the beginning and feared the worst throughout as the story unfolded. However I am definitely in awe of how the story was handled.

I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone regardless of literary preference.

The only drawback to this series is that it has come to an end. I know that is very cliched, but it is the truth.

Being a 37 year old male that has no feelings, other than for my wife and four legged children, it's hard to process how engrossed I became with this story.

Normally I never get too emotional with anything outside of military stories, the canceling of Firefly, Detroit Lions and Michigan football, hatred of the Evil Empire of Yankee nation, or my aforementioned family.

Do yourselves a favor and give it a go. You won't regret it.

Wow. That is all I have left to say.

Firefly status

Wow! (I'm a Whedon fan, too. I'm looking at my pile of Whedonverse DVD's, including my Firefly boxset as we speak.) I really, really enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy as well, and I really didn't go into it expecting much. I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it as much as you have.