Recreational Literary Endeavors

[grant]

Simon R Green has a book for a new series, the Ishmael Jones mystery. This first one, well I think it has some good points but I also think that it's got missed opportunities, some annoying developments and something close to a deus ex machina (alright, you could infer that it might happen, but no way could you be at all sure). Sadly, since it's a sci fi mystery I can't really even go into what I think those are and it seems to me that the villain really caused their own disaster by being plain dumb.

But hey, maybe some new approaches will be good for him as he adjusts to the new format and so far no obvious constant references to the Drood.

Did you like The Man with the Golden Torc? I got it when it was staff recommended by my local bookstore a while ago, and as a result I don't even bother to look at their recs anymore.

I actually haven't read the Drood books, partially because I'm not that in to his works and partially because I just got really, really annoyed when he kept mentioning the Drood in his later Nightside works. The Drood are not a factor in Nightside stories, they're talked about to remind people he has other books.

Really Green makes me think of a talented beginner. You can see that he has ideas and can make a sentence, but you also see that there are mistakes and he might have been better served using characters in other ways.

 

[AJ_Katon]

Finished up Spice and Wolf 1. Pretty good overall. Can't wait to dive into vol 2.

 

[Amaranth]

Am I the only one excited for the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard book?

 

[Emerald Oracle]

Nope. Looks interesting to me too. I'm kinda sad the Kanes aren't likely to get more love, but meh. I came to the works of Rick Riordan oddly anyway.

 

[Amaranth]

I just hope Annabeth doesn't get involved as a main character but sticks around to hear that Norse gods are real. I mean, how will a daughter of Athena take the idea of Norse gods existing?

I'll be even more impressed if she attempts to use her dagger to fight a Muspel (Flame giant) and either brings it down or celestial bronze happens to be harmless to them...

And even more so if she meets one before taking her leave. Also, here's hoping that Magnus isn't the only Norse half blood.

 

[Emerald Oracle]

I'll be interested to see if the inhabitants of Vanaheim and Jotunheim are just treated like other tribes of godly beings. The Vanir at least are treated like that explicitly in the myths we have, but the Frost Giants are as well. There's a lot of intermarriage between them and the Aesir, and a lot of cultural similarities and so on and so forth. They come across as a rival tribe more than an inherently antagonistic faction.

 

[Amaranth]

I'll be interested to see if the inhabitants of Vanaheim and Jotunheim are just treated like other tribes of godly beings. The Vanir at least are treated like that explicitly in the myths we have, but the Frost Giants are as well. There's a lot of intermarriage between them and the Aesir, and a lot of cultural similarities and so on and so forth. They come across as a rival tribe more than an inherently antagonistic faction.

In a way, I think the Jotnar are less like Kronos army and more like the Olympic faction of Titans during the first Titan War (Rhea, Helios, Selene, Leto and so on...) and will probably be more about criticizing the Aesir than anything. However, the Vanir have been known to be rather mysterious, so the possibility of them cooking something up shouldn't be discarded...

I just really hope Magnus is not an anomaly and there are more Norse demigods out there...

 

[grant]

Cosmic horror story called The Sick Land. Since the last post gives away what happens, I suggest scrolling down to the earliest entries and starting from there. All in all, pretty good and sort of what At the Mountains of Madness might have been if written today with modern prose.

Three quibbles however. I don't get the entire 'three people at this base with no one else around them', there needed to be a bit more explanation of some things, even if not everything, and after a while it was increasingly hard to believe that the main character could keep the blog going. Some kind of quick explanation for the last one, like that the site had been blocked and eventually they had managed to get it unblocked would have been a good idea.

However it's a nice read and I wonder if the person who made it has done anything else.

 

[Watashiwa]

Just sat down and read the entirety of Armada, the new book by the guy who wrote Ready Player One. In this book, a young man discovers that the conspiracy his father was obsessed with 20 years ago is all too real, and the aliens that inspired the world's most popular space combat MMO are entirely real and have finished war preparations. And he's just been recruited to fight for humanity.

It's... uh. The first book played with your expectations, you never knew what was going to be referenced or discussed in loving detail next. The plot twists were twisty. Armada plays your expectations of it completely straight. The big twist is that everything in the book turned exactly how the protagonists (and thus the readers) thought it might, from the start.

There were some interesting implications in the aliens designing everything because they knew it would make the humans react just so, and other things in that vein, but it was all left 'til the very last pages and nothing came of it. I'm half suspect the book was written to be made into a movie. Kinda disappointed tbh.

 

[Christopher Robin]

the aliens that inspired the world's most popular space combat MMO are entirely real and have finished war preparations. And he's just been recruited to fight for humanity.

Are you sure you weren't reading The Last Starfighter?

 

[Watashiwa]

the aliens that inspired the world's most popular space combat MMO are entirely real and have finished war preparations. And he's just been recruited to fight for humanity.

Are you sure you weren't reading The Last Starfighter?

Name dropped and the direct inspiration. Like I said, it's going to make for a great movie.

 

[da_fox2279]

Finally got around to reading World War Z. Very well done. Given how the movie turned out, I wish we had gotten a WWZ tv series instead.

 

[AJ_Katon]

I have begun my forway into Worm.

First 3 of the first Arc have given a pretty good idea of Taylor and I kinda am curious to see what she can do with her powers.

 

[seitora]

Reading Book 7 of The Dresden Files, Dead Beat. Good stuff, 2/3 through, reading on my night shifts. Got the only edition of the Book 8/9 omnibus hardcover in the province on request, so hopefully I get that in before my next set of shifts.

 

[seitora]

Finished off Dead Beat, satisfying ending. Maybe we won't have to put up with twenty pages of Harry going 'o im so poor' every book from now on. Gonna have to wait until probably at least the end of the week for the omnibus to get in.

Also read Six-Gun Tarot, it's...weird. Very weird.

 

[AJ_Katon]

Finished off Dead Beat, satisfying ending. Maybe we won't have to put up with twenty pages of Harry going 'o im so poor' every book from now on. Gonna have to wait until probably at least the end of the week for the omnibus to get in.

Also read Six-Gun Tarot, it's...weird. Very weird.

Cool to see a fellow fan. Gonna be getting back into White Night soon.

 

[seitora]

I read the first six books couple of years ago. It's only now that I work night shifts in a control room with little to do that I'm getting back into original fiction recreational reading

 

[Watashiwa]

I like Dresden, and Dead Beat is the high point of the series. Changes was nifty so it's not all downhill from here.

Actually, I've been reading the previews for Butcher's new series. It's magicpunk, airships and skypilots and floating islands. I wonder if this is Butcher deciding 4th edition Forgotten Realms sucked and doing his own.

 

[seitora]

Finished Proven Guilty, at that. More gore and stuff, I love it. That attack on Winter is sure to have consequences later on. I see that, after the whole White Council - Red Court war, we've got something that seems to be tying the whole series together thus far, and will probably take several more books to resolve.

 

[seitora]

And White Night as well now. Totally thought this was gonna revolve around a Neut Blanche festival, but I guess instead it was about the White Court instead.

But damn, Harry and Lash in this book. DAMN!

 

[seitora]

Gone through Small Favor as well.

I wonder what the reproduction rate of faeries is, either among pure faeries or changelings. With the amount of faeries that Harry's killed over the last several books, including some of the bigger guys, I wonder if he's making an actual noticeable dent in faerie populations, or if Summer and Winter kill more of each other on a daily basis.

Also, that shipping bait at the end of the book. Too bad it's Harry Dresden, which means something bad must happen to his woman in the next few books.

 

[seitora]

And finished Turn Coat as well.

Spoiler

Seems to me that Jim Butcher is going for the whole overarching plot set-up with villains retreating to the background for a few books and then coming back to the front again, but in the process the monster-of-the-book is losing its glamour. The villains of the first few books got retconned to have someone else behind them and everything, but they were terrifying in their own right. As Harry gets more experienced, either the monster-of-the-week becomes some two-bit actor that's just there for a distraction from a greater plot, or has to be some sort of terrifying millenium-old monster that gets a beatdown, but runs away before it's killed for good (though the one gruff is a subversion of this).

It seems to me at this point he's a bit terrified of adding any new big-name actors, let alone killing off the existing ones (which is weird, since he's had little hesitation in offing some of the bigger good guys or permanently incapacitating them). Their power bases are certainly dwindling - the Fallen lost two coins in Small Favor and many of the coins they have will have to be given out to inexperienced hosts, as well as incurring the wrath of the Accords if it ever gets out they kidnapped the Archive, the Winter and Summer Courts must have lost tens of thousands of fae over the years and Mab is down to her last favour from Harry. The Black Council lost their main mole (but maybe got a new one in place) and the Red Court must have taken a beating, but the whole Red Court war has been going on since book 4. The Black Court has been said to be the smallest of the three Vampire Courts, but I think it's been like seven or eight books since we've seen them do anything outside of Mavra blackmailing Harry into finding the Word of Kemmler.

Still, these things are definitely enjoyable reads, so barring some sort of extremely stupid plot point I can't get over, I'll continue reading.

 

[Emerald Oracle]

And finished Turn Coat as well.

Spoiler

Seems to me that Jim Butcher is going for the whole overarching plot set-up with villains retreating to the background for a few books and then coming back to the front again, but in the process the monster-of-the-book is losing its glamour. The villains of the first few books got retconned to have someone else behind them and everything, but they were terrifying in their own right. As Harry gets more experienced, either the monster-of-the-week becomes some two-bit actor that's just there for a distraction from a greater plot, or has to be some sort of terrifying millenium-old monster that gets a beatdown, but runs away before it's killed for good (though the one gruff is a subversion of this).

It seems to me at this point he's a bit terrified of adding any new big-name actors, let alone killing off the existing ones (which is weird, since he's had little hesitation in offing some of the bigger good guys or permanently incapacitating them). Their power bases are certainly dwindling - the Fallen lost two coins in Small Favor and many of the coins they have will have to be given out to inexperienced hosts, as well as incurring the wrath of the Accords if it ever gets out they kidnapped the Archive, the Winter and Summer Courts must have lost tens of thousands of fae over the years and Mab is down to her last favour from Harry. The Black Council lost their main mole (but maybe got a new one in place) and the Red Court must have taken a beating, but the whole Red Court war has been going on since book 4. The Black Court has been said to be the smallest of the three Vampire Courts, but I think it's been like seven or eight books since we've seen them do anything outside of Mavra blackmailing Harry into finding the Word of Kemmler.

Still, these things are definitely enjoyable reads, so barring some sort of extremely stupid plot point I can't get over, I'll continue reading.

Dude... shit goes down. All I will say is that the next book in the series you've got is aptly named.

 

[Watashiwa]

So last week I got through my roommate's copy of Shadows of Self, the newest Mistborn book.

I honestly wasn't a big fan, it very much suffers from Middle Book Syndrome. HOWEVER, the last two or three chapters retroactively make The Alloy of Law even better, so I recommend everyone immediately read it.

Moved on to John Scalzi's newest, after which I plan to finish reading The Martian. After that? Saturn Run!

 

[seitora]

And finished Turn Coat as well.

Dude... shit goes down. All I will say is that the next book in the series you've got is aptly named.

And so it did.

Spoiler

As soon as the whole bloodline curse was mentioned, I figured out how the ending would go. I just thought that it would wipe out a large part of the Red Court though, not all of them. I was thinking the King was going to be the one to get killed and it would go down all his blood children and anyone he had personally turned, leaving only a few small fragments of the Red Court, but instead it killed everything. I imagine Lara Raith will be happy. That just leaves mainly the White Court left, along with the very few remaining Black Court vamps.

But holy fuck, Martin! The guy sets up a gambit basically two centuries in the making. That's commitment!

That ending way at the end, though, damn son. But there's three more books currently out, and the next one is called Ghost Story, so I have an inkling of what will happen.

Of the things I expect and/or hope to happen, hopefully Harry talks to Uriel sometime in the future to see what his genocide of the Red Court does for his afterlife chances, and maybe Molly gets picked up by Ebenezar while Harry's gone, as Molly is his apprentice's apprentice.