August 2016: What have you been reading?

Mythopoet said:
Just finished the Winter of the World trilogy by Michael Scott Rohan (The Anvil of Ice, The Forge in the Forest and The Hammer of the Sun). This was written back in the 80s and by the time I had heard of them it was already out of print. I had gotten the first book from the library but could never find the others. But I recently found them published as ebooks. Yay! I really enjoyed them. They take place in our world during an Ice Age, where there are great civilizations of Men that are fighting against the Powers of the Ice, which is a force of evil trying to return the world to a lifeless state. It draws on both Norse and Finnish mythology and could probably be called "Tolkienesque" but I believe in the best sense. There is a similar feeling of a great battle between good and evil and there is a similar large scope of adventure. The main character is a blacksmith who wields a magical kind of "smithcraft" that leads him to make many great artifacts useful during the stories and the smithing often comes under focus. I found it really fascinating. Would highly recommend to anyone who loves high fantasy.
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It's a remarkable series. The story, characters, and setting are wonderful, but I also thought the prose was exceptional. Good to know they've been re-released as ebooks so that more readers can discover them.

I liked it so much, I went to great efforts to procure the books in the second series (which were never published in this country, and hard to find even through Amazon UK. They're not as good as the first three, but they have their moments.
 
Having completed my Silmarillion re-read, I'm onto a Poul Anderson - Brainwave. I'm pretty sure I made about six different promises to read something else next in six prior posts here and there, but as I've forgotten all of them, I'll go with the Anderson! Tonight I'll be like "oh, yeah, I thought I'd read xyz next". :confused:
 
I'm reading the ARC of the Legacy Fleet collection coming out tomorrow! It's a pretty fun read in one of my current favorite universes to read.

Also on the Shining, which is quite great so far.
 
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. I've been hoarding this for a decade without actually reading it.
 
I just finished The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan. Now I'm on to The Shadow Rising.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
It's a remarkable series. The story, characters, and setting are wonderful, but I also thought the prose was exceptional. Good to know they've been re-released as ebooks so that more readers can discover them.

I liked it so much, I went to great efforts to procure the books in the second series (which were never published in this country, and hard to find even through Amazon UK. They're not as good as the first three, but they have their moments.
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I remember reading them when they came out, with super pen & ink covers. Great books.
 
I finished Red Rising and I don't know how I missed this the first time around. It kind of reminds me of The Second Sons trilogy in that the main character uses his brains to get ahead. I'm really looking forward to cracking open book two.
 
After going through a lot of heavy non-fiction, I needed some easy reading. Picked up The Son by Jo Nesbo from the huge stack of thrillers in my TBR pile and the opening snared me with its easy voice.

100 pages in and all I can say is that it has all the hallmarks of Scandanavian noir - in fact, my only criticism is the one of the supporting characters riffs a little like Saga Noren from the The Bridge - but only a little, and not a main character.

Am hooked - cleverly done, and good stuff.
 
Next up: The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014), edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane. This isn't the wide-ranging anthology you might expect from the title. (Apparently there are a large number of "mammoth" books on tons of different subjects.) Rather, the contents are almost entirely from the 21st century. The introduction and the names of the authors tend to suggest an emphasis on "diversity" (which is OK with me, given my own biases.)
 
Read The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts. I didn't like it. There were entire stretches of the novel that were basically unreadable. It felt like a novelette that was cobbled together with some other ramblings to try and get the novel up to a particular word count. It starts with an amazing first chapter and then never recovers. There's a point in the book where the main characters says "Oh great, more philosophy." That's pretty much spot on.
 
Currently on a quick re-read of The Great Gatsby, while I wait for a volume of Kipling to arrive from an eBay purchase. It's so many years since reading Gatsby, and my memory is so poor it seems for literary detail, that I may as well be reading it for the first time. It's an easier read than I think I found Tender is the Night to be, which I read about 5 years ago.
 
For most of August I was concentrating on short works, a few by Ted Chaing including "Story of Your Life" which is the basis for an upcoming movie.

Now about 80 pages into Paul Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts and enjoying it quite a bit. Even as he writes his own story of possession/insanity, he alludes to Shirley Jackson, "The Yellow Wallpaper," and others. A strong start, I'll be interested to see if he can stick the landing. (Maybe I watched too much gymnastics during the Olympics.)


Randy M.
 
I'm currently about two thirds of the way through The North Water by Ian McGuire. It's about a 19th century whaler and it's pretty (as in 'very') grim and not for the faint-hearted. Given some of the things that happen in it it'd be best not to say I'm enjoying it, but it is a bloody good read :ninja:
 
I put the book I was reading on hold, partly because I felt I needed something earth-shatteringly brilliant, and probably also due to having watched a couple of the films the other week, which reminded me how much I loved the books. So, I re-read Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity. Finished it in two and a bit nights, reminding me of my first feverish read-through when I literally couldn't put it down.

It still blows me away. I was about 18 when I read it, and I'd never read anything quite like it, an adrenaline-filled mystery with a big dollop of violence. I thought the Matt Damon films were great (though modernised and considerably different in a number of ways), but for me the book wins every time (probably by using an unexpected household object to batter the film senseless:ninja:).
 
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas, complete and unabridged in translation

100 pages down, 1100 to go. I am enjoying it though. A bit overwrought, as romantic literature can be, but serially addictive and fun.
 
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