The Sword and Laser discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading - March 2019
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In Ohio if you work in one county and live in another you can get library cards for both. In New Hampshire that doesn’t really matter as much since it’s so small. NH is basically divided into north and south regions. Digital for both looks like it’s statewide.
Aaron wrote: "Conal wrote: "John (Taloni) wrote: "^^ Same state residency requirement for city of LA and San Diego city and county library systems. LA city library has different overdrive options than LA count..."Thanks for the info on these libraries. I plan to at least join the city of LA library but that will have to wait until the next time I am in that direction (live in the high desert and work in the inland empire).
I’ve always thought “Inland Empire” is a way cool sounding name for a city. But from what I hear the city itself doesn’t live up to the coolness. When I first heard the name mentioned, I just thought it was a nickname, I was a bit surprised when I found out it was the actual name. Then again where I’m from in WI we have a fair share of our city names that come from Native American names, and that makes everyone visiting sound like Veronica. But there is some coolness to that as well.
Actually Inland Empire is a region that comprises much of the populated areas of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
John (Nevets) wrote: "I’ve always thought “Inland Empire” is a way cool sounding name for a city. But from what I hear the city itself doesn’t live up to the coolness. When I first heard the name mentioned, I just thoug..."I haven't really spent any time in WI so interesting to hear that cities and towns named from Native American tribes is popular in other areas. I grew up on Long Island (NY) and many of the towns there are named for tribes that inhabited these areas or words in their languages.
If I remember my history correctly, some of the tribes from Long Island ended up in WI for various reasons, mostly not good ones. So some of the city names may sound familiar.But even Wisconsin is a butchering of a Native American name for part of the area that become the territory, and then the state. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Reco...
Regardless of the final vote still being in progress I decided to carpe diem and start Theft of Swords on audiobook. *fingers crossed*
I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic fantasy but sometimes I like it, so what possessed me to commit to reading this one I"ll never know. But it's not just the epic part that I didn't like. You can see more in my review. Also, I'm a fast reader. I read this book off and on for OVER A MONTH. Finally free....
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic fantasy but sometimes I like ..."It takes quite a lot for content in a book to make me queasy but this one has managed to do it. It definitely made it worse that this horrifying death/scene was simply to provide a tragic backstory for an essentially uninvolved (male, obviously) character to angst over, and the female victim was not mentioned in previous chapters or ever again.
Brendan wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic ..."A few times, the women in the story even point out how they are seen as an extension of men, but it's not like the male characters get it. I think James could have proven a point by not using them in this way. But the children scenes were worse, a little later.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic fantasy but sometimes I like ..."I totally agree. It took me FOREVER to read that book. There were times I thought he was doing something interesting, but finally the brutal violence and narrative self-indulgence drove me nuts. And maybe worst of all, after 600 pages, I just didn't care about the main characters -- except Sadogo. Sadogo was cool.
Bill wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic ..."I like to say his name Sad Oggo. He was cool except for when he was raping and killing people, I guess.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Bill wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually d..."Ugh -- I don't remember him doing any of the raping. I liked him for the way he (view spoiler)
Melani wrote: "Bill wrote: "Sheila Jean wrote: "About halfway into Spinning Silver on audio from the library."Let us know what you think! It's been on my tbr list for a while."
I loved it. It's..."
I'm finishing Spinning Silver now. I agree with Melani and Sheila Jean -- it's great! Beautifully written fairy tale fantasy. I also loved Novik's earlier book Uprooted, though I wasn't as into her Temeraire / Her Majesty's Dragon series.
I'm reading City of Miracles, the last of the Divine Cities Trilogy. I've been loving all three books. Also almost done with The Rook audiobook, which is really fun! Great narrator.
Trike wrote: "Dara wrote: "Trike wrote: "Dara wrote: "Trike wrote: "On tap: Assassin's Apprentice...."Have you read Assassin's Apprentice before?"
Nope. My hold on Opening Atlantis ..."
Pat wrote: "Iain wrote: "Dara wrote: "Trike wrote: "They just murdered a puppy. Fuck this book and fuck Robin Hobb. I’m out."
Totally get that. I pushed through it because I was addicted to Hobb's writing and..."
This might be a spoiler, so fair warning -
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Sorry if I'm misremembering, I know that series is very long so you might be referring to something else, but isn't it revealed later that Burrich never hurts the puppy? He just sends it to live somewhere else? Which of course doesn't mean Fitz isn't traumatized, but it might be somewhat comforting the the reader.
However, there are later instances of animal cruelty, I can think of a really chilling scene in Fool's Assassin involving a dog.
On a side note, does anyone else find the novel titles in this series to be maddening? I always have to look them up in sequence if I ever want to discuss them. "Fool's Errand, Fool's Quest, Fool's Assassin, Assassin's Quest, Fool's Fate, Assassin's Fate..."
Tiamat’s Wrath came out today, I have the week off work and I have healed enough from my eye surgery to read it. I feel like that’s all worked out rather well 😀
Bill wrote: "Melani wrote: "Bill wrote: "Sheila Jean wrote: "About halfway into Spinning Silver on audio from the library."Let us know what you think! It's been on my tbr list for a while."
I..."
I loved Spinning Silver too, especially the audiobook narration!
I read The Rise of Io in ebook form. So good! Finished reading just in time because I'm taking part in a book exchange in a Facebook group and that book came today. It is The Complete Robot. I read I, Robot many, many moons ago, but I'm looking forward to delving back into that universe.I should finish On the Shoulders of Titans on Audible in the next day or so. Going to save my next credit for whichever book wins March Madness.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I finally finished Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James last night by forcing myself to stay awake until it was over. I am not usually drawn to epic fantasy but sometimes I like ..."I was feeling excited to read this book after seeing the buzz around it but the discussion above has kinda put me off...
My understanding is that people really weren't prepared for Marlon James's style (violence, etc.) unless they had previously read his non-SFF book A Brief History of Seven Killings. People were hyping him because he was writing in our genre, but he's still Marlon James with all that entails. I think I'll give his earlier book a try and then if I like it at all, I'll give his new one a try, but I'm not going to dive into this first (I'm always a little hesitant about literary authors jumping into SFF).
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams: I read this with an online read-along, now I'm onto the sequel.The Demons at Rainbow Bridge, The Run to Chaos Keep, and The Ninety Trillion Fausts by Jack L. Chalker: A reread of an early '90s SF trilogy--basically one space empire discovers some demons frozen on a planet, and it and two other space empires rush to discover what's going on. Shades of Dante's Inferno and general weirdness.
Los Nefilim and Where Oblivion Lives by T. Frohock: Los Nefilim collects the original three novellas, and Where Oblivion Lives is the first of a new novel trilogy. Freaking loved these, set in a 1930s Barcelona with people caught between angels and daimons.
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz: Read for an IRL book club, good first novel.
Jade City by Fonda Lee: Read for the same IRL book club (I missed reading this with the S&L crowd last summer). Really liked this one, can't wait to see what happens in Jade War this summer.
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka: Read this for a different IRL book club, this is straight historical fiction featuring a Japanese-American family in an internment camp during the war.
Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews: The fourth Kate Daniels novel. Quite fun, and finally some developments I was waiting/hoping for. :)
David wrote: "My understanding is that people really weren't prepared for Marlon James's style (violence, etc.) unless they had previously read his non-SFF book A Brief History of Seven Killings. People were hyp..."I had a great comment on my review where someone made an argument that the book is marketed wrong - epic fantasy when it really fits better as grimdark. But you know sometimes literary crossover publishers and marketers may not get the nuance. *duck*
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "David wrote: "My understanding is that people really weren't prepared for Marlon James's style (violence, etc.) unless they had previously read his non-SFF book A Brief History of Seven Killings. P..."Yeah, I think the 'African Game of Thrones' marketing hype is not quite right, and probably created some false impressions of what the book is doing. I would agree that it's not even really epic fantasy. Definitely has more in common with A Brief History of Seven Killings than with most other fantasy.
Unfortunately, Marlon James himself contributed to that--he's the one who said he wanted to work on an "African Game of Thrones" after he won the Book Prize for ABHo7K. Whoops!
Um, maybe I’m alone on this, but isn’t game of thrones grimdark itslf? And one of the starts of that sub blowing up?I know I didn’t make it through the first book on the first read, and only tried again to try and stay ahead of the tv series. I made it through on the second read, but said enough was enough after the second book. Funny enough, I’m more fine with the violence and gore on the tv show. It’s just my imagination that can’t handle it.
I think part of the issue is that "This is just like X Game of Thrones" or "This is X meets Game of Thrones" is a nearly 100% useless statement, because it's incredibly overused. A book *may* be like GoT, but it may also very much not be. It's just the newest version of "This is just like Lord of the Rings!"So saying "This is an African Game of Thrones" is just saying "This is an African fantasy," not necessarily "African grimdark" or "African epic fantasy."
John (Nevets) wrote: "Um, maybe I’m alone on this, but isn’t game of thrones grimdark itslf? And one of the starts of that sub blowing up?I know I didn’t make it through the first book on the first read, and only trie..."
If Game of Thrones is grimdark, Black Leopard Red Wolf is ULTRA grimdark. :)
Bill wrote: "Yeah, I think the 'African Game of Thrones' marketing hype is not quite right,"To be fair, that comes from the author himself.
ETA - I should have waited literally three seconds to reply.😂
David wrote: "Unfortunately, Marlon James himself contributed to that--he's the one who said he wanted to work on an "African Game of Thrones" after he won the Book Prize for ABHo7K. Whoops!"
David wrote: "I think part of the issue is that "This is just like X Game of Thrones" or "This is X meets Game of Thrones" is a nearly 100% useless statement, because it's incredibly overused. A book *may* be li..."David, I mostly agree with you in that it is often a cheap way to describe something. A good reviewer should avoid this always, and learn how else to describe things. That being said, having touchstones that we all know can be a useful shorthand for finding out what peoples tastes are, and what they are looking for. Me being me, I would tend to couch these statements with something like " If you tend to like this and that story, this other thing may be up your alley". But sales people rarely couch things, since they are sales people.
Oh, and while I'm not a fan of grimdark, I'm glad that it fills the need for some folks out there. I'd almost never advocate censorship, unless others can be physically or emotionally damaged by it's very creation.
The Tower of Babel is Moses meets Die Hard.The Grasshopper and the Ants is 24 Hour Party People meets The Road.
John (Nevets) wrote: "Oh, and while I'm not a fan of grimdark, I'm glad that it fills the need for some folks out there. I'd almost never advocate censorship, unless others can be physically or emotionally damaged by it's very creation."I wasn't advocating censorship, just to clarify. But I would have preferred not to read it.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I wasn't advocating censorship, just to clarify. But I would have preferred not to read it."
I apologize Jenny, I did not think you were either. I was trying to reference my own comment in that post, but obviously failed. I probably should have left that part out.
Now that that tangent has devolved this far, back to your regularly scheduled forum postings. ;-)
John (Nevets) wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I wasn't advocating censorship, just to clarify. But I would have preferred not to read it."
I apologize Jenny, I did not think you were either. I was trying to refer..."
No worries! We librarians are just sensitive to censorship. One person somewhere made a good point that the severity of the violence helps the reader understand what drives the Tracker, and I think that is logical, although maybe I'd prefer a hero who does the same for less.
Half way through The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and really liking it. Although a lot will depend on how it ends. I can often see where books are headed, but not a clue with this one. Then on to April BOTM (Theft of Swords).
Just finished Vita Nostra. Wow, what a strange book. It's described as "the anti-Harry Potter book you didn't know you needed." The MC is coerced into attending an odd college in a provincial Russian town where the curriculum is incomprehensible and the more advanced students so messed up mentally and physically that no one would want to be like them.
The book slowly metamorphoses into a voyage of discovery. The curriculum includes a method of visualizing Platonic ideal that change the student, leading to an understanding of first the realm of ideas, and then the ability to manipulate the real world. Whether it's magic, technology, or mysticism is never quite clear.
This isn't an easy book but it is a compelling one. It's self contained. The book is part of a nominal trilogy but the other books are unrelated, being linked only by the concept of metamorphosis. Well, and they're not available in English yet anyway.
Now on to the second two books in Laumer's Worlds of the Imperium trilogy. Gonna enjoy the nostalgia run.
Finished with Tiamat's Wrath yesterday and still continuing Chronicles of the Black Company. Also starting The Bird King. Should have read it this earlier but....I got more books than time.
I finished Chanur's Venture and am starting The Kif Strike Back.(As an aside, I was very surprised to see that on my Kindle Chanur's Venture looked to be shorter than the first novel, The Pride of Chanur, because my original paperback Venture is quite a bit larger than my original paperback Pride; but when I checked, I found that the typeface in Venture was considerably larger than the typeface in Pride. So now you know.)
Finished the second Worlds of the Imperium book, The Other Side of Time. Sometimes a nostalgia read turns out disappointing. This one was even better than I remembered.We start out with Brion Bayard, MC of the first book, dragged across alternate timelines so far away from the Imperium that he encounters worlds where other simian races rose to sentience. This includes Dzok, an Australopithecene who both helps and hinders Bayard in his attempt to save his adopted home timeline from extermination by another simian race.
It's an adventure romp start to finish. Odd and mysterious plotlines that seemingly go nowhere tie up nicely by the end. This includes an oddly unpopulated version of Stockholm, a man so hot he burns those around him while being unaffected himself, and travel both sideways and backwards in time.
It's a prime example of a 1960s SF adventure, and suffers a bit by today's standards. All of the MCs are male, and the one female character that approaches MC status ties herself to Bayard mainly to escape the dull timeline she lives in - but there's also a heavy romantic subtext. The ending line is funny but superceded by today's science.
I would otherwise go directly to the third book in this series but Thief of Swords has come in off library hold. There's a line for it so I'll read and return before moving back to books I own. But I do recall a lurid, fascinating travel through the Blight of worlds that surround the Imperium, where the crosstime experiment did not go well. The ending of that book is dim in my memory but I recall that it resolves the Blight in a satisfactory fashion. I have this to look forward to once done with Thief. After that, I will have to find a way to track down the fourth book, done decades later, and apparently unavailable in ebook form.
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The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
The Other Side of Time (other topics)The Pride of Chanur (other topics)
The Kif Strike Back (other topics)
Chanur's Venture (other topics)
Tiamat's Wrath (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles Stross (other topics)J.G. Ballard (other topics)
Marlon James (other topics)
J.G. Ballard (other topics)
J.G. Ballard (other topics)
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Thanks for the prompt to sign up for an LA county library card. Really happy about the big selection of audiobooks they have on Overdrive...
Same state residency requirement for city of LA and San Diego city and county library systems. LA city library has different overdrive options than LA county.