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| SFReader Forums > SF Fiction and Art > Right Now I'm Reading.... > 2007 Reading List for Members Discussion | Forum Quick Jump
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Swashbuckler
One-man sword-and-sorcery machine
      
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 1231
| Posted 5/1/2007 12:23 AM (GMT -4) |   | | | |
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ScrewMoonshine
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 852
| Posted 5/1/2007 2:57 PM (GMT -4) | | Jeff Stehman said...Suuran Songforge said...
Ahoy, Jeff, I couldn't help but note that you read Six with Flinteye this April...dare I ask what you thought? It seems to have magically vanished (a clever ploy by your publisher to reuse copies?) so I can't get specific. I often found the robot more interesting than Flinteye, who seemed to only have three or four discrete emotions and/or modes of operation and nothing inbetween. Every now and then something about the writing would strike me as amateurish. The one example I remember is how the physical description of Flinteye was worked into the first story, which I thought was poorly done. For the most part, though, the writing was good. I can't wait to see what your writing is like at 30.
I must protest! The opening scene(with Flinteye's physical description) was very gripping and pulled me right into the book. And while not blindingly original, I found Flinteye one of the most compelling and well-defined characters I've read in recent years. I'd count him among those characters who seem to have taken on a life of their own. Axten is actually the one I find to be without a whole lot to his behavior or motivations; he moves the plot along, but doesn't add anything of interest to me.
Oh, and just in case I haven't been contrary enough, "Flinteye and Okeron" was one of my favorite stories in the book. Sean actually had me repeatedly wondering how the heck Flinteye and Axten were going to get out of that mess.
Robert Orme
Out now:
"On the Tree Top" in Ultraverse vol.3 #5 (www.ultraverse.us)
"The Scab, the Man, and the I.V." in Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review #3 (www.mountzionpress.com)
Coming soon:
"More Than One Way to Protect" in Lords of Justice (www.carnifexpress.net/blogs/)
"And Afterward" and "Candy Lover" in Flashshot, April 30 and May 23 (www.gwthomas.org/subscribe.htm) | | Back to Top | | |
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Bill Ward
Biblioholic
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1635
| Posted 6/18/2007 4:38 PM (GMT -4) | | xiaotien, what translation of 'red chamber' are you reading? (assuming you aren't reading it in chinese). How are you enjoying the Golden Compass?
STForster: how'd you like Block's 'Telling Lies?' I love the guy, you should check out his mysteries if you haven't already.
bleached: nice job with the ratings, you've reminded me to track down a copy of 'Jennifer Government'
Nicholas, thanks for the warning re: Map, I think I've read enough about rock strata for the time being.
Daniel A.: how's the Algebraist in comparison with Bank's earlier culture stuff? (assuming you've read it), is that Jay Lake title his novel? How well did he transition to the long form?
Sean: Did Rothfuss live up to the hype? | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel Ausema
Acolyte
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 298
| Posted 6/18/2007 5:40 PM (GMT -4) | | WD, for Banks, the only other thing I'd read was his The Bridge, which I loved. It's marketed and usually classified as mainstream, which seems a stretch, though at the same time it wouldn't fit comfortably within SF or fantasy really either. So I can't compare it to the other Culture novels...though it did make me very curious about them. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, though at the same time I don't think I'm quite the target audience...and I'm having a hard time defining why. It might be that while I enjoy space opera (as I enjoy all variants of the speculative genres), I didn't grow up reading tons of it. So it's probably best enjoyed by those who read lots of that kind of story back in high school but feel a bit embarrassed about digging out those same titles that they'd enjoyed back then. (As for myself, Martin fills that role--an epic fantasy that I'm not embarrassed to read like I would be for some of the things I liked in my early teens.) It may also be that I had set my expectations too high because of Banks' reputation. I've had that before with other works, where I expect so much from a book or story that there's little chance it will live up to it.
That makes it sound like I didn't like it, which is certainly not true--it was intriguing and full of wonder and well written.
The Jay Lake book is the novel from Nightshade that came out...this past winter? late last year? Something like that. (He has a new and apparently very different book from Tor that I just saw a review for on someone else's blog.) Again you're catching me at a bit of a disadvantage--I've been reading a lot of short fiction for the past couple of years, but before that little, and there's still so much to try to keep up with. So I'm only positive that I've read one Jay Lake story (from TextUR written with Ruth Nestvold, which I reviewed for Tangent...and thought was one of the best in the anthology), though I feel that I've read one or two others (has he had something in Subterranean? or maybe I read the story he posted for the Technocrat Peasant whatever that was a month of so ago?). So I'll just give my brief thoughts on the book. Comparisons to his short work I'll leave for others.
I enjoyed the book. I felt like it was definitely aimed at the New Weird audience (leaving aside for the moment whether there really is or ought to be such a defined subgenre, I think it's fair to say that at least there is an audience for that)...and sometimes it felt like he was stretching to make it as grotesque as he could rather than grotesque for the purpose of the story. At the time I read it I felt like within those books marketed at that audience, it fell about the same place Swainston's books about Jant and the Circle fell for me--enjoyable, but not something that's clamoring for me to reread. Not that the stories are really at all alike, despite both being marketed at times as New Weird. In some ways I think it was stronger than those, in others weaker...and at the moment it's those weaker aspects that seem to be rising to the surface when I recall it. For me, Bishops' Etched City keeps rising the farther I get from reading it, making me want to reread it perhaps even before I'd reread Mieville's books, though I wouldn't have guessed that at the time, while Jay's book and the Jant books just kind of rest there as pleasant enough memories. There were some very cool moments in the book though, and after reading the review of Jay's new book (which seems to be a steampunk-ish story and very different from the one I read), I definitely want to read it to see how it compares.
BTW, Jennifer Government is great fun. Lots of laughs, lots of sarcastic wit, skewering corporate culture. (Eminently worthy of some skewering, in my opinion  ) I'd like to hear about Rothfuss's book too--I've been seeing lots of praise for the novel (including the review today on Strange Horizons).
Twigs and Brambles (my writing blog) | | Back to Top | | |
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xiaotien
Adept
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 562
| Posted 6/18/2007 5:49 PM (GMT -4) | | wd, i *wish* i could read it in chinese!
you've heard of the book? if so, i'm impressed.
i am reading the five volume translation by
david hawkes. it was initally published in
the 70's. i believe he was a professor at oxford.
the translation is a bit funny in that
he uses english slang a lot, like "bloody"
and "blighter", etc.
since i am writing from a setting of an
ancient china like kingdom, i get called a lot
on use of modern words or phrases.
i can understand this, and hawke's use
of english slang sort of puts me out of
the environment.
having said that, i can see how it is
a very difficult book to translate. lots
of puns, double meanings, riddles and
poetry in the original text.
i posted a blurb about the golden compass
on my blog, which i'll paste here :
...
i finished pullman's
the golden compass in
less than two days this week.
it was an easy and entertaining
read. i would say that it drew me
in quicker than the one e moon
book i read (once a hero).
but then, it may be that sci fi
really isn't my thing.
i rarely read YA, either.
but bought this one as a 3
for 2 deal at the bookstore.
london has these deals all the
time, and it was nice to see it
here, at american prices.
i think the golden compass was
strong in that the author had
good storytelling along with a
nice heroine of only eleven years.
i was pleased to see all the
"cliche" elements of the tale :
1. heroine is an "orphan" at the
start of the book.
2. she is part of a "prophecy".
3. there is a magical object that
helps her.
4. she is meant to "save the world".
all very been there done that elements.
but hey, the book was still a success
and will come out as a film later this
year. it just goes to show, good storytelling
trumps all. fortunately, the author is
a pretty good prose writer as well.
i also liked that one of the heroine's
strong traits was fibbing. =)
cindy p.
a little sweet, a little sour.
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Bill Ward
Biblioholic
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1635
| Posted 6/18/2007 7:34 PM (GMT -4) | | @Daniel, The Etched City is one I've been looking forward to reading for a while, think I'll read it soon. Thanks for the input on the others, I recommend you try Bank's The Player of Games if you want to give the Culture another whirl, I think its his best of the few that I've read. Consider Phlebas is also good, Use of Weapons less so but he has some fun with the story structure that was interesting. And his non culture 'mainstream' novels The Wasp Factory and A Song of Stone are must reads imo. I regret to say I never got though The Bridge, something about the beginning just irritated me enough to close the book.
I didn't expect a comparison with his short fic (especially as I don't know enough about his shorts to benefit from one!), I just wanted to know if he could write a decent novel. Doesn't sound like it exactly rocked your world 
@Xiaotien, I've read an abridged version, but I'm unsure of the translation. One thing I liked was that some of the puning and word play was translated to some extent in the translations of the characters names, ie. rather than giving a chinese transliteration for the main character he was called Magic Jade, the same with the others. I've always wanted to read it again, but it'll have to be after I read Three Kingdoms and Water Margin (Outlaws of the Marsh) in full unabridged translations, which I've been putting off for far too long.
Pretty sure my translation used 'Red Mansions' rather than Chamber as well, so it may have been slightly newer ... it may have actually used p | |
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