What are You Reading this August, 2018?

[Faith]

My review of Ravencry by Ed McDonald:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Gary]

Started King of the Murgos by David Eddings

[Jenny]

Aleksandra wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Hello! I'm hoping to pick up my reading this month. I'm in the middle of Age of Swords on Audible and Doctor Who: Fear of the Dark on my Kindle. I also s..."

That's so great! Have you read Michael J. Sullivan 's Riyria Revelations series? It's one of my favorite series of all time.

[Jenny]

A couple of weeks ago I read Bird Box which was awesome throughout, although I thought the ending fell a bit flat. I would still highly recommend it. Now I'm reading Pilot X by Tom Merritt, co-host of the Sword & Laser book podcast. I'm enjoying it so far.

[Andrea]

Had a long day at work, so having something for younger readers will be relaxing - No Such Thing as Dragons by Philip Reeve

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


Lost Stars by Claudia Gray
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And now I'm starting:


Invader by C.J. Cherryh

[Faith]

My review of Deliverance by Nicholas Sansbury Smith:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Mary]

Russia Under the Old Regime by Richard Pipes

[Silvana]

Enjoying The Hallowed Hunt too much, I barely managed to read Kraken in between.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Brendan]

Taking a break from reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to read Foundryside.

Randy, our reviews for Amber were pretty similar, weren't they? But your score was better.

[[deleted user]]

I haven't decided what I think of what I just finished:

Jade City by Fonda Lee

An alternate, modern-ish world has a small group of islanders able to use the mineral jade for a variety of magic-ish powers, These "Green Bones" have divided into rival clans and the clans have divided the island into territories, much like cartels & mobsters. I wasn't a fan of The Sopranos, so I find the characters disagreeable don't really care who wins their clan war. However, Lee has done some nice fantasy worldbuilding of her island, so it's got that going for it.

[Aleksandra]

Jenny wrote: "That's so great! Have you read Michael J. Sullivan 's Riyria Revelations series? It's one of my favorite series of all time."

I finished Age of Swords and now I'm hungrily going through Age of War. I'm so in love with his writing :) Absolutely perfect storytelling. I definitely need to find Riyria Revelations for the near future. Thank you for the recommendation ^^

[Andrea]

Finished both the dead tree book and the ebook I was reading so starting two new ones.

Paper - I'm back on Pern again with Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey, his first solo attempt.

Pixel - grabbed another random free book from Baen Caliphate - Tom Kratman, I know nothing about the book nor the author so we'll see.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Brendan wrote: "Randy, our reviews for Amber were pretty similar, weren't they? But your score was better."

Yeah, we picked up on a lot of the same things but gave different weight to them. I liked this book a lot when I first read it so my feelings are probably affected by that. For some reason though I can't bring myself to give it 5 stars.

[Ken]

Just finished Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson. Currently reading Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher and Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.

[Andy]

Just finished Temeraire. Military fantasy had never really appealed to me but, like Brian McClellan’s work (which I thought was awesome) this was a book I’d seen many a poster here mention, and took a punt on it for 99p on the Kindle. And I am glad I did! Lining the next one up now. Also revising my opinion on military fantasy as a whole.

[[deleted user]]

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

3rd novella in the "Murderbot" franchise settles into a prolonged, serialized plot. If you liked the 2nd (Artificial Condition) you'll like this about as much as the rogue mechanical killing machine continues to help humans it meets.


Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy

This was a popular novel in 1982, combining a crime mystery/thriller with some geeky computer jargon and just a touch of fantasy with an (alleged) Chinese dragon, which was unique in the 80's. The computer stuff is dated (not as dated as I am). I was surprised how little of this story I remembered from the good old days. Still an entertaining read, just not as hip.

i re-read it because Amazon had the ebook on sale for 99¢ a month or so ago, and so I picked it up. Bad move. Open Road Media did a wretched job formatting it for Kindle, omitting the wee bit of extra white space gaps that mark PoV changes in the printed version. So I ended up re-reading the old paperback after all.

[Pierre]

I finished The Ghost Brigades and went on to the third book in the series, The Last Colony. I found The Ghost Brigades better than the first book (Old Man's War) and I expect to like the thidd one just as much.

[Andrea]

Finished Dragonsblood...I am not a big fan of plague stories, and this is the third one for Pern

Currently reading the last How to Train your Dragon book - How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury by Cressida Cowell. My focus will now be mainly finishing those dragon series I started this year, got 4 in progress right now and hope to start & finish a fifth in October...

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I've started The Player of Games for our upcoming group read. I'll be out of town for Labor Day weekend but will post some thoughts when I return.

[Book Nerd]

Randy wrote: "I've started The Player of Games for our upcoming group read. I'll be out of town for Labor Day weekend but will post some thoughts when I return."

Probably my favorite of The Culture so far.

[[deleted user]]

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang almost seems like two different novels. It starts off as an oriental-flavored YA sword & sorcery, with a young girl wanting to escape her meager peasant prospects by winning entry to the elite military academy. At military college she's again bullied by her more noble fellow students, but she again perseveres....

And then, just past the midpoint, the war starts and the story transmogrifies into a really gruesome, disturbing grimdark, defying expectations completely. Based on the ending, there will be at least one sequel.

[Roger]

G33z3r wrote: "The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang almost seems like two different novels. It starts off as an oriental-flavored YA sword & sorcery, with a young girl wanting to escape her meager peasant..."

I just finished this the other day and definitely did not like the switch in tone, there was some really nasty explanations about what happened in the town and I did not like them at all. I don't mind some grimdark, but as you said that story got gruesome. I know I won't be picking up the sequel because of it.

[Rachel]

I read an article that the author wanted to highlight the Rape of Nanking (historical event most westerners are unaware of) and so thought it was too much for me at this time. Sounds like I was right but also sounds very ..real.

[[deleted user]]

Roger wrote: "I just finished (The Poppy War) the other day and definitely did not like the switch in tone, there was some really nasty explanations about what happened in the town and I did not like them at all. I don't mind some grimdark, but as you said that story got gruesome. I know I won't be picking up the sequel because of it...."

I haven't decided an intent toward any (unannounced, untitled) sequel. The tonal whiplash left me at a loss to sort out my opinion so far.

The author clearly succeeded in her goal: Start like a YA: Orphan peasant girl climbs her way up among the noble students, and then after getting the reader invested in the character and expecting the usual tropes, it veers off in a wildly different path.

I noticed a number of Goodreaders had tagged it "adult", which I thought odd when I was starting; I thought the readers doth protest too much. Now I see it as a warning. I pity any YA readers who think they've found a Chinese Harry Potter.

[Brendan]

G33z3r wrote: "I noticed a number of Goodreaders had tagged it "adult", which I thought odd when I was starting; I thought the readers doth protest too much."

Maybe not so surprising, she was still a teenager when she started writing the book. She's insanely young to be a published author. I thought this was an astonishingly strong debut, and I'll probably read the sequel when it comes out.

[Cat]

I'm still wading my way through New York 2140 but I'm definitely still going to be reading it into Sept.

The only other SFF book I've read recently was The Fire Lord's Lover which initially I wasn't a huge fan of because I thought it was a romance dressed up as a fantasy, but towards the end I was very intrigued by the fantasy world, a very different take on elves!

[Allison]

I was all over the place in August.

Graceling was...a perfectly cromulent YA. It did what it set out to do, and I only rolled my eyes at teenagers, like, twice.

The Changeling I think was either trying to do too much or needed more sanding between paint coats. It was sort of 2-3 stories massaged into one. But more sports-massaged--the work got done but no one's feeling great about it.

Certain Dark Things was an interesting take on vampires! And I liked the writing style. Buuut (you knew there was a but!) I feel like the author was either in a fight with the book or the editor, and I wasn't really happy to get caught in the middle. I'd read more by her, though.

The Book Thief made my jaded heart cry. I thought I was all out of WW2 tears, but no.

Tehanu also made me cry. I didn't expect a feminine horror to crop up in Earthsea, but Le Guin marched right on in and did it anyways. I may still go fly off with the dragons, TBD.

Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery was super fun! A great palate cleanser for all the sad.

Morosely reading Ammonite, The Poppy War, The Eye of the World (yes, shh I know I started this months ago) and about to start The Calculating Stars!

[Andrea]

So I managed to finish How to Fight a Dragon's Fury before the end of the month. It got a little grimdark there for the younger crowd...you know how in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files the Dresden character is beaten to a pulp in every book but he has to keep on fighting, it was a lot like that. It was also in competition with the Eragon series as having the longest drawn out ending after the final climax. But on the whole, that series grew on me and I'm glad I made it to the end.

Starting on the second book in the Dragonvarld trilogy - The Dragon's Son by Margaret Weis

[Brendan]

Allison wrote: "Tehanu also made me cry. I didn't expect a feminine horror to crop up in Earthsea, but Le Guin marched right on in and did it anyways. I may still go fly off with the dragons, TBD."

Yesss. May be my favourite fantasy novel, at least top two. The final book in the series, The Other Wind, is also worth reading.

[Mary]

The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien

[[deleted user]]

Mary wrote: "The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien"

I think it was the day before yesterday I received an email from Goodreads with subject "A New Book Is Available from J.R.R. Tolkien," and all I could think was, "I thought he was dead." Or as it says on the Horn of Valere, "The Grave Is No Bar to My Publisher's Call."

[Mary]

Yup.