December Reading Thread

[Elentarri]

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett. I listened to the new Penguin audiobook released this year.

 

[williamjm]

I read Morgan Stang's Murder at Spindle Manor. I saw one review describing it as 'fantasy steampunk Poirot' and I think that's mostly an apt comparison, although I don't remember Poirot being so heavily armed. The protagonist is a Huntress, employed to track and kill dangerous magical creatures. She tracks a shape-shifting monster to a remote inn, but her mission becomes more complex after one of the inn's other guests is the victim of a more conventional murder. In classic murder mystery fashion all of the travellers at the inn have dark secrets of their own and potential motives to wish each other dead. The twin mysteries are both well constructed and although the book almost entirely takes place in one building the bits of world-building about the wider world are interesting. The characters are memorable, although there's not a huge amount of depth to any of the characterisation. I think it could have sometimes done with a bit more proof-reading since there are some awkward sentences.

I thought it was an enjoyable story and I will pick up the sequel at some point.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Short intro to SPINOZA.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THE CASE AGAINST REALITY, Donald D.
Hoffman, 2019.
He has a popular Ted Talk speech.

 

[Vertigo]

One small complaint: the story actually ends almost sixty pages before the end of the edition that I’ve got, which then contains a short story, an interview with the author, three pages of acknowledgements and two chapters of the sequel. This is fine, but I think there should have been some warning that it was about to stop. Perhaps the additional pages could have had darker edges, as I’ve seen done in other stories? This was slightly annoying.

I really hate when books do this. There you are thinking there must be another twist coming along to fill all those remaining pages and then suddenly there isn't. I never read the sneak peak chapters of the next book because if the first was good enough I'll read it anyway and second, if that's the case why would I drop myself into an inevitable cliff hanger for a book that's probably not written yet. Just NO.

And regarding this book, thanks for the review. This book has kept catching my eye recently and though I don't really read much in the way of fantasy these days I thought this might be enough of a zany spoof that I might enjoy it but it doesn't really sound that way from your description so it's probably a no for me.

 

[Elentarri]

This last week I finished:

Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher

Fantasy, Romance. I do not read romance novels... unless, apparently, they are set in the World of the White Rat. I love the world building and will put up with romances to spend more time in the world. Starts off slowly, with almost insa-lust (it's an improvement over insa-love!), some spying, avoiding of assassins and the search for a particular artificer. There is also a clever demon involved. A fun, cozy-fantasy.​

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
Fantasy. Nothing much to say here. I love Vimes and I like the new Penguin audiobooks of this series.

The Spiritual Power of Masks by Nigel Pennick

Nonfiction. The book reads like a draft version of a book/thesis. This is a collection of interesting European folk beliefs and cultural practices/customs about masks, costumes and anything vaguely related but lacking a proper, detailed analysis and overarching narrative to tie everything together. I would have loved to read the book described in the blurb. It is not, however, this book! Some of the end chapters would have worked better closer to the beginning of the book, with the remaining chapters as examples. An editor would have been exceptionally useful (aka the urge to get a red pen and start marking up the pages was exceptionally distracting!).​

 

[Toby Frost]

I really hate when books do this.

Because all the books I read are physical copies, I expect there to be more story to fill the remaining pages, so it's always a disappointment when the story just ends. Often the extra material, while interesting, isn't as good as the main story, so it can feel like padding.

I wouldn't describe Legends & Lattes as a zany spoof. It's more a small-scale story without much violence, set in a magic-heavy world.

 

[AE35Unit]

Legends and Lattes (2022):
One small complaint: the story actually ends almost sixty pages before the end of the edition that I’ve got, which then contains a short story, an interview with the author, three pages of acknowledgements and two chapters of the sequel. This is fine, but I think there should have been some warning that it was about to stop. Perhaps the additional pages could have had darker edges, as I’ve seen done in other stories? This was slightly annoying.

Maybe just see it as bonus extras?

 

[HareBrain]

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C S Lewis. Might not have read this one since I was a kid. Decent amount of imagination on show, prose and characterisation (apart from Reepicheep) seems a bit weak now. You can pack absolutely everything Edmund says and does and is into the three words "a decent sort".

My "Big 4" fantasy authors as a pre-teen were Tolkien, Lewis, Cooper and Garner. Lewis seems to be the only one who hasn't really stood the test of time (or my ageing).

 

[Randy M.]

Having finished The Stoneground Ghost Tales by E. G. Swain (very enjoyable). I'm now I'm about half-way through Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot, a reissue of a 1940s mystery playing around the edges of the supernatural, with a medium and a magician with a reputation for uncovering the tricks mediums use in the mix of characters. So far, it's better than I expected.

Rim of the Pit turned out to be a solid mystery novel from the 1940s, though that also includes some 1940s era stereotypes baked in, notably the number of times a character's racial heritage -- French and Native American -- is called into play to justify his having superstitions.

Next up ... dunno.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Up next SUTTREE ,by Cormac McCarthy, 1979.Roger Ebert liked the book a lot.

 

[Extollager]

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C S Lewis. Might not have read this one since I was a kid. Decent amount of imagination on show, prose and characterisation (apart from Reepicheep) seems a bit weak now. You can pack absolutely everything Edmund says and does and is into the three words "a decent sort".

My "Big 4" fantasy authors as a pre-teen were Tolkien, Lewis, Cooper and Garner. Lewis seems to be the only one who hasn't really stood the test of time (or my ageing).

Coincidentally, I reread Dawn Treader within the past few weeks, and loved it, a real work of poetic imagination.

 

[Extollager]

I'm currently reading A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

That's really better than a lot of people suppose.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've always loved A Christmas Carol, ever since I was very young, and through many readings as an adult came to appreciate it even more. It's Dickens and so it occasionally gets a bit over-the-top with the sentimentality (which is not a complaint so far as I am concerned) but there is also a great deal of depth and subtlety.

Because of TV adaptations and parodies, the cartoons, and even the movies (excellent though some of those are), most people feel like they know the book, but unless they have read it they really don't.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

On another note, I just finished reading The Fragile Threads of Power, by V. E. Schwab, a sequel to her Shades of Magic trilogy, but at the same time the beginning of a new series.

There are several viewpoints, and many flashbacks , some of them there in order to fill in what happened in the period between this book and the first series, and because there were a lot of distractions going on in my life as I read it, so that I had to read it in small bits, I found this disorienting at first. Normally, I have no problem with flashbacks, but there were such a lot of them here. But as the story continued and the different plot lines began to converge, the action became more exciting, the challenges more complex and twisty, and the story more compelling.

I especially liked the two new main characters: Kosika, the young queen in White London, working and sacrificing to revive the magic and restore her world, and Tes, a young girl in Red London who possesses powers we haven't seen before, abilities so rare that they could be dangerous if she fell in with unscrupulous people (of which there are no shortage in Red London), and therefore a constant danger to her.

Meanwhile, we get to see how familiar characters like Kell, Rhy, Delilah, and Alucard have moved on in their lives.

So, in the end, I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next book.

 

[kythe]

Coincidentally, I reread Dawn Treader within the past few weeks, and loved it, a real work of poetic imagination.

I still have a softness for the Chronicles of Narnia, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantastic adventure story. I have re-read the series several times and I still find the magic. My values have changed and I may not always see eye-to-eye with the Lewis' intents, but nothing tops the imagination, wonder, and possibilities in these stories.

 

[Elentarri]

Jingo by Terry Pratchett.

 

[Pyan]

16 Ways To Defend a Walled City - K I Parker

Can't think how I've missed this before. Didn't realise the author also wrote as Tom Holt, either.

Finished and enjoyed this, breezed through the sequel, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, and currently half-way through the third of three, A Practical Guide to Conquering the World.

Engineer Trilogy next, I think.

 

[AE35Unit]

That's really better than a lot of people suppose.

Its a wonderful and quite scary, story

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. I found much of the book almost comically silly, though there are a few choice strange bits that I enjoyed.

Currently reading Sheridan Le Fanu's Through a Glass Darkly. I've read Carmilla several times so I figured I should read the rest of the collection. So far it's great and I can see how MR James and Arthur Machen were influenced by these stories.