The guy from the Dragonmount website reviews The Gathering Storm.
Looking forward to it!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Recent Reading
Still stuck on Robin Hobb and C. J. Cherryh lately.
Without giving away plot details, I'm going to give a quick recap of what I've read and what I think.
I finished the "Realm of the Elderlings" books. The Tawny Man trilogy concludes that nine book series, and it was excellent. Everything I mentioned about her previous books holds true with these ones as well. Also, it does a great job tying up loose ends from the Farseer and Liveship Trader trilogies.
I've also read the "Alliance Space" omnibus which contains Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Merchanter's Luck. Again, really like Cherryh's writing. Forty Thousand in Gehenna especially was very interesting. It dealt largely with human interaction and adaptation to a new environment and alien intelligence very different from our own.
All these are keepers...
Without giving away plot details, I'm going to give a quick recap of what I've read and what I think.
I finished the "Realm of the Elderlings" books. The Tawny Man trilogy concludes that nine book series, and it was excellent. Everything I mentioned about her previous books holds true with these ones as well. Also, it does a great job tying up loose ends from the Farseer and Liveship Trader trilogies.
I've also read the "Alliance Space" omnibus which contains Forty Thousand in Gehenna and Merchanter's Luck. Again, really like Cherryh's writing. Forty Thousand in Gehenna especially was very interesting. It dealt largely with human interaction and adaptation to a new environment and alien intelligence very different from our own.
All these are keepers...
Books by the same author
Since I don't go into a lot of detail about specific books, and I tend to read several books by an author back to back, I'm thinking that I'll leave detailed reviews to the first book book I read by an author. Subsequent updates about books by a specific author will be shorter unless there is something that warrants a longer review.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Farseer Trilogy – Robin Hobb
Books in the trilogy:
Assassin's Apprentice
Royal Assassin
Assassin's Quest
I really enjoyed these books. Once I got into the first book of the trilogy, I literally couldn’t put it down until I finished the third one. I spent almost every spare moment reading them. Since I finished them a few days ago and haven’t wanted to start reading anything else yet. It’s almost as if I’m worried that whatever I start on next just isn’t going to be as exciting and interesting to read.
The Farseer trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest) are the first three books in Robin Hobb’s “Realm of the Elderlings” and chronologically take place before her Liveship Traders trilogy. I read them a bit out of order by reading the Liveship Trader books first. Oh well. The story lines of the two trilogies only overlap in the background and history of the world, and not so much in the characters. There were a few aspects of the magic system that probably would have made sense more quickly if I had read them in order, and so I would recommend reading the Farseer trilogy first. Really, it wasn’t too big of a deal as both series are excellent by themselves.
What stood out most to me are the highly believable characters and the way I could almost feel their emotions as my own. Also, she does a great job of keeping you guessing what’s going to happen next. In a way it brings to mind George R. R. Martin’s books in that I was never certain that good things would happen to the “good guys”. In fact, some pretty awful things happen to the main character right from the start. In the first chapter for example, you learn that he’s a bastard child of the king to be and he’s being abandoned by his mother at the age of six. That said the books are not nearly as dark as Martin’s, and Robin Hobb can bring a trilogy to an end without expanding it into seven books that may never get written (ouch!).
I would recommend these books to anyone interested in the fantasy genre. They aren’t quite as accessible as something like The Wheel of Time, but there are less of them and the characters are more gritty and realistic. Along with the Liveship Traders (which I’ve already lent out to someone), these will definitely stay on my bookshelf to be read again at some point. Soon, I’ll be looking to purchase the books of the “Tawny Man” trilogy - sequels to the Farseer books chronologically set 15 years after the end of the trilogy and not long after the end of the Liveship Traders.
Right now, I’m going to pick back up on some C. J. Cherryh, with Downbelow Station.
Assassin's Apprentice
Royal Assassin
Assassin's Quest
I really enjoyed these books. Once I got into the first book of the trilogy, I literally couldn’t put it down until I finished the third one. I spent almost every spare moment reading them. Since I finished them a few days ago and haven’t wanted to start reading anything else yet. It’s almost as if I’m worried that whatever I start on next just isn’t going to be as exciting and interesting to read.
The Farseer trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest) are the first three books in Robin Hobb’s “Realm of the Elderlings” and chronologically take place before her Liveship Traders trilogy. I read them a bit out of order by reading the Liveship Trader books first. Oh well. The story lines of the two trilogies only overlap in the background and history of the world, and not so much in the characters. There were a few aspects of the magic system that probably would have made sense more quickly if I had read them in order, and so I would recommend reading the Farseer trilogy first. Really, it wasn’t too big of a deal as both series are excellent by themselves.
What stood out most to me are the highly believable characters and the way I could almost feel their emotions as my own. Also, she does a great job of keeping you guessing what’s going to happen next. In a way it brings to mind George R. R. Martin’s books in that I was never certain that good things would happen to the “good guys”. In fact, some pretty awful things happen to the main character right from the start. In the first chapter for example, you learn that he’s a bastard child of the king to be and he’s being abandoned by his mother at the age of six. That said the books are not nearly as dark as Martin’s, and Robin Hobb can bring a trilogy to an end without expanding it into seven books that may never get written (ouch!).
I would recommend these books to anyone interested in the fantasy genre. They aren’t quite as accessible as something like The Wheel of Time, but there are less of them and the characters are more gritty and realistic. Along with the Liveship Traders (which I’ve already lent out to someone), these will definitely stay on my bookshelf to be read again at some point. Soon, I’ll be looking to purchase the books of the “Tawny Man” trilogy - sequels to the Farseer books chronologically set 15 years after the end of the trilogy and not long after the end of the Liveship Traders.
Right now, I’m going to pick back up on some C. J. Cherryh, with Downbelow Station.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Cyteen - C. J. Cherryh
OK, first real post.So many authors out there... I've noticed Cherryh's books in bookstores for as long as I've been reading outside the children's section (a little less than 20 years). Mostly, I've bypassed her books until now because the covers of the Chanur books tend to have cat people on them. For some reason, this kept me from reading any of her books. Well, you know what they say about judging a book by it's cover. So, after recently looking around for a new author to start on, I picked Cherryh, and after a little more looking around it seemed like her most notable book was Cyteen (plus no cat people!).
After reading, I'd have to say I'm thoroughly impressed. The book was a very political sci-fi story, similar in complexity to the Dune books. Unlike Dune, the technology was at least somewhat believable, which is always a plus for me. At times, it could be a little hard to follow, but I feel like that was my problem and not the book. It also seems to be set in a very interesting and well developed universe. The book stood by itself, but reading two of her earlier books 40,000 in Gehenna and Downbelow Station might have made reading it even more interesting (or so I've heard from Amazon reviews, etc.). Those two books are going to be read sometime soon.
I'd have a hard time recommending this to people who are not into political sci-fi books already, but it's now one of my favorites. This books a keeper, I'm sure that I'll pick it up again in a few years. The characters and the way the author pulled things together are what will bring me back - complex characters dealing with complex issues. It's definitely the type of book where I enjoyed what was happening almost more than I wanted to find out what was going to happen next.
Overall, Cyteen gets a solid "excellent" on a scale of terrible to excellent.
First
The title makes it pretty clear what this blog is for.
Specifically, I'm doing this both to provide a short of review of recently finished books and to help me to keep track of what I've read and what I liked about it. I'm going to give a short blurb about the book and try to hit the below categories in some form.
Specifically, I'm doing this both to provide a short of review of recently finished books and to help me to keep track of what I've read and what I liked about it. I'm going to give a short blurb about the book and try to hit the below categories in some form.
- Why did I read it?
- Would I recommend it to someone? AND what type of person I would recommend it to?
- Would I read it again (AKA, is it staying on my bookshelf or is it going on paperbackswap)? AND why?
- What did I like or hate (without giving away what the book is about)?
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