January 2020 Reading Thread

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Tony Hillerman "People of Darkness"
Fourth in the series of detective yarns involving Joe Leaphorn and Jimmy Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. This one's got Jimmy Chee in over his head with a professional hitman, a peyote church, and plenty of New Mexico badlands. Gripping.
 
I finished Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower. I really enjoyed her Ancillary series and was interested to read her first attempt at switching from science fiction to fantasy, I liked this book but perhaps not as much as her earlier work. It has a cleverly constructed plot, it's a twist on the 'locked room' murder mystery, and there's a lot of things going on that aren't immediately apparent to most of the characters. It felt a bit slow to begin with since it does have to do quite a lot of work introducing the world and the way things work there, but I thought the pace picked up in the second half and the story became more compelling. In retrospect there is an inevitability to the ending and I think it does tie up the key plot points but it did feel a bit abrupt, perhaps a bit too much happens in the last few pages and it could have benefited from spending a bit more time reflecting on what was happening.

The way the story is written has some unusual elements. One of the two protagonists is The Strength and Patience of the Hill, an ancient God who inhabits a large rock, half of the narrative shows their backstory as the God gradually gets drawn into the affairs of humans and other Gods who disrupt its simple life of spending eons contemplating the world around it. I thought for much of the book this was the more interesting of the two main plot threads, and it does provide useful worldbuilding. The second plot thread focuses on Eolo, an aide to the heir of the local ruler, who has to investigate when there is an attempt to usurp their master's position. This part of the story is told in second person perspective, as if the narrator is addressing Eolo. Telling a story in second person is a tricky thing to get right, and I felt that it didn't really add much to the story here and I thought it made it hard to really connect to Eolo as a character, and although the mystery of what is really going on is interesting it is also difficult to really care too much about what the outcome is going to be.

Overall, I think this is a reasonably good book but I think it had the potential to be better.

Next up I'm going to read Neil Gaimain's The Doll's House.
 
finished with the 5 books from memory man. great read. there's a new one coming this year. next i tried atlee pine from the same author. didn't catched my interest. now jack mars, let's see if it's worth
 
dannymcg said:
The Vanishing Season, book 4 in the collector series by Dot Hutchinson
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You’re charging through those books, Danny. They must be either very good, or very short!

I finished Reaper Man by Sir Terry Pratchett (comments in due course on the Discworld thread I’ve been adding to occasionally). I’m now starting At Freddie’s, which is the next up in my chronological read-through of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels.
 
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I got Nigel, My Family and Other Dogs by Monty Don for Christmas so I'm reading that at the mo.
 
Bick said:
You’re charging through those books, Danny. They must be either very good, or very short
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They're not all that short, I don't think (kinda hard to say cos I have them as ebooks and my reader is long set up to my font size preference/page view size etc)

This is the last one, so far, in her series and, tbh, they're getting a bit 'samey' now (with too much team hugging!)... I've been able to pick out the killer in the last two by halfway through the books .

I've read a lot worse. The first one was very good.

Update: I've just had a quick look on the Barnes and Noble site; the hardback book has 320 pages.....a fairly small number for someone used to the typical modern sci fi books of 600 - 800 pages.
 
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Bick said:
Is he the bloke who’s written Star Wars Old Republic stuff? Name rings a bell.
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Yeah, same person, I've played Mass Effect with my grandson on Xbox but now I'm hoping to read the backstory.

I have recently got three of the ebooks by him and number four in the series is by (can't remember! - William Deitz I think)
 
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi. (Book 4 of The Old Man’s War series).
 
dannymcg said:
Now onto this one by Drew Karpyshyn

Mass Effect: Revelation
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I'm not really enjoying this book - something about the writing style is irking me.
I'm gonna save it with my other ebooks for 'some day' and have a good look through my TBR stack for a fresh delight
 
The Darkest Hour by Tony Schumaker

It appears, so far, to be similar to SS:GB, in that we are with a policeman in a Britain that has lost to Nazi Germany.
 
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dannymcg said:
The Darkest Hour by Tony Schumaker

It appears, so far, to be similar to SS:GB, in that we are with a policeman in a Britain that has lost to Nazi Germany.
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Waaay too dark and depressing!
I'm gonna try a bit of first contact sci fi instead...
Not Alone by Craig Falconer
 
I finished At Freddie’s, by Penelope Fitzgerald last night. It was very well done; beautifully-drawn characters and a subtle plot. What I’ve come to expect from Fitzgerald. I’ll comment more in due course on the Fitzgerald thread, once I have more than a phone on me.

Camping with family, I brought too few books away with me - what shagrin - so while I feel like reading some more SF, unfortunately I’ve no more with me, so I’ve hunted around and will now read the only book that’s really to hand, Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons.
 
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Bick said:
I finished At Freddie’s, by Penelope Fitzgerald last night. It was very well done; beautifully-drawn characters and a subtle plot. What I’ve come to expect from Fitzgerald. I’ll comment more in due course on the Fitzgerald thread, once I have more than a phone on me.

Camping with family, I brought too few books away with me - what shagrin - so while I feel like reading some more SF, unfortunately I’ve no more with me, so I’ve hunted around and will now read the only book that’s really to hand, Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons.
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so, you're camping and have cold confort... yep, i think it fits
 
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