I'm gonna be fast because I read most of those books ages ago

Rusalka by CJ Cherryh
Russian flavoured fantasy: a cynical party boy / dilettante must flee the city when he's accused of sorcery when the husband of the wife he was seeing dies suddenly; and enrols the help of a young hotel stable boy who has a reputation of ill luck and fears being a sorcerer himself. Out in the forest, they encounter quite a bit of sorcery.
There's some great ideas and flavours to the story, and I liked the characters' dynamics. I thought the pacing and plotting overall was much weaker though. Anyway, if you like Cherryh's other fantasy story - especially Forterss series, you'll probably like this one.

The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold
Fawn, Dag and Fawn's brother go on a boat trip.
This volume has more plot than the previous ones, and as a result I rather liked it more. I also liked the setting, the use of the river, and the new characters of this book (especially the female boat captain who had a name which I forgot). On the other hand, I still don't like Fawn and Dag all that much and consider this series one of Bujold's weakest, so you know...

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
When his family gets murdered, and toddler escapes to a cemetery and gets adopted by the ghosts who live there, as well as the resident Undead. Each chapter cover a different stage of his childhood as he grows up.
Very nice story about growing up, transformations and the relationship to death. Great writing, pacing and characterisation.

The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip
Many years ago, on a battlefield at the gate of Pelucir, something horrible rode in and spread death because of the magic of the great wizard Atrix Wolfe, although nobody knows it and he has been hiding since, and the ghosts of the event still haunt the area. Nowadays, the young prince of Pelucir is studying magic when he finds a strange book written by Atrix Wolfe.
This is a gorgeous, wonderful, subtle and awesome book and you should read it.

The Two Pearls of Wisdom by Alison Goodman
In a chinese flavoured fantasy world, Eon is, despite a lame leg, a candidate for the position of Dragoneye, one of the 12 people channelling the powers of the Dragons of the Chinese Zodiac in order to ensure prosperity and good weather to the empire. Eon is also a girl in disguise, a secret which would cost her direly if it was discovered. But when the ceremony when the dragon of the year, the Rat one, chooses which candidate will connect with him, nothing happens as Eon and her master had foreseen.
A pretty good story, with nice plotting and solid characterisation. I really liked Eon as well as one of the main secondary character, Dela, a transwoman and Emperor's favourite, and who is pretty kickass. The book ends on a cliffhanger for a second volume which is not yet out.

Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow
Boring by-the-number paranormal romance. I think that was the last chance I was giving to this genre.

The Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Third volume after Night Watch and Day Watch, this is probably the best of the series so far, with all three stories of the volume being very solid and well tied with one another. Excellent plotting full of twist, tying threads in unexpected ways, and many interesting ideas as well as many interesting characters, both old and new. One of the things I love about this series is how the writer sets up a very manicheist world in theories, then keeps on playing with the concept of Light and Dark thus defined in ways that bring a whole lot of greys and ambiguities until they are near undistinguishable.

Jhegaala by Steven Brust
Vlad Taltos walks into an Easterner village, trying to find out about the background of hi mother's family. The villagers eye him warily. Then the bodies and mysteries start piling up. Poor Vlad Taltos.
A very good Taltos story in the style of Taltos stories. I was missing the sarcasm, it had been too long.

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
Tied to the Howl & Sophie stories, but not really a sequel. Young book-loving overprotected girl is charged with looking after the house of her distantly related Great Wizard of an uncle. Hijinks ensue.
Not my favourite Diana Wynne Jones story by a lot. Not really bad either, but the beginning was fairly slow and I kinda got annoyed at all the awkwardness, but not a bad story overall.

I've been reading a little bit more. Woot!

Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells
( Read more... )

The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
( Read more... )

Powers by Ursula K Leguin
( Read more... )

Old Tin Sorrow by Glen Cook
( Read more... )

Deliverer by CJ Cherryh
( Read more... )

Three Days to Never by Tim Powers
( Read more... )

Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh
( Read more... )

Brazyl by Ian McDonald
( Read more... )

Cartomancy by Mary Gentle
A collection of short stories with very varied themes and settings but which have one thing in common : they almost all feature a female warrior or soldier character. ♥
"The Logistics of Carthage" is a novella set in the same world as my favourite novel by this writer, the Book of Ash. Set in a slightly altered version of our middle age where Carthage is still a big power, and set some time before the series, it talks about the day to day life of a band of mercenaries, amongst which is a women, with some consideration about the way women fighters get erased from (the official) History, through the refusal of the local people to bury one female soldier, and another of the female soldiers insisting for them to do that. It's a very interesting story, though oddly paced and not quite conclusive; and a pretty interesting addendum to the Book of Ash.
"Kitsune" is relatively short and straight forward paranormal/horror romance story between a woman who practice kendo and a female kitsune. Some time ago I had a discussion with apapazukamori about the complete absence of lesbian relationship as the main romance of the story in Fantasy, so I had this in mind when I read this short story as a cool example of just that. On the other hand, I was a little ill at ease with the treatment of Japanese culture which seemed to be to very shallow.
"The Road to Jerusalem" is another story with a uchronic treatment of History, giving us a modern day warfare where the knights Templar are involved; and revolving around the trial of a woman templar soldier for possible war crimes. It's an interesting look at the nastiness of war; confusions and petty power plays between factions involved at all scales and soldier's life. A solid story.
"Orc's Drift" is a short and silly story in the same style as Grunts!, that's to say high fantasy parody; and it's not a very funny one at that.
"The Tarot Dice" is a atmosphere story about revolutionaries, conspiracies and forbidden oracular tools. It's very prettily written and evocative, but left me quite confused as far as what the fuck is going on in terms of plot. So I have mixed feelings about it.
"The Harvest of Wolves" is set in a distopic future of the UK and is a huit clot conversation between an old woman who still dreams of forbidden freedoms and cynically comments on the present and the young man charged with monitoring her. While not the strongest story of this kind I've ever seen, it had an appealing brand of cynical twist at the end that made it work.
"Anukazi's Daughter" is a fantasy story about a female warrior and the betrayals she makes in order to be recognised as one. Thematically, I'd compare it to Abercrombie's First Law trilogy, it's an interesting look at what the usage of violence makes of us. One of the best story of the collection.
"What God Abandoned" is set in the Renaissance during a siege of Prague and features (among other things) a young Descartes and considerations about Rosicrucians. It also shows that relationships aren't always easy for genderbending metapmorphs. This made me feel like there was a setting worth exploring more; but I didn't care that much about the story as such.
"The Pits Beneath the World" is a pretty classic Social/Anthropological Science Fiction. Well done but of the been-there-read-that many times already.
"Cast A Long Shadow" is a nice horror story about a divorced mother having to deal with the creepy things her son is doing, with a help of a female friend. Gentle describes it as a comic book story, and I agree it sort of felt like a Sandman short stories in places. It's not a great story, but it does some nice stylistic things.
"A Sun in the Attic" is set in a steampunk-ish world, slightly uchronic, revolving around intrigues and the question of forbidding sciences that can have dangerous results. I didn't think it did a very good job at exploring those themes, but my favourite thing about this story is that the main characters are a polygamous family of one female head of the family and her two husbands who are brothers.
"A Shadow Under The Sea" is set in the same world as Anukazi's Daughter, and deals with similar themes of betrayal, but putting the character at a higher social position. It's almost as good as Anukazi's Daughter.
"Human Waste" is a short story of horror SF, and it does what it was meant to do very well, that is to say slap you in the face. It's kind of darkly funny, but it will make you feel bad for thinking so.

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
This is a take on the Mahabharata through the women's eyes, and in particular Draupadi who married five husbands and was the cause of the war that put an end to the third age of man.
Knowing next to nothing about Hindu mythology, I can't really provide much of a commentary on what kind of spin it gives to the original material; but a a story I can say I really, really loved it. From the beautiful and woven writing to the characters and the stories within stories storytelling and the drama of the war and the texture of the world. I was swept in and mesmerised and loved every minutes of it.

The Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Urban fantasy were the forces of the Light and the forces of the Dark have made a peace agreement, and the Light magicians of the Night Watch try to fight against the Dark ones of the Day Watch while keeping the peace.
There are three tied in stories in this book, and all three are pretty good, solid read, although I found the third one slightly less good than the other (nothing much really happened). If you accept the manicheist setting, this is a pretty fun exploration of it, with solid world building and good plotting. Nothing very deep or mind breaking, but nicely entertaining with a few interesting characters. I'll probably try to read the sequels soon.

I'm lazy and didn't really summarize any of them...

( Black Man aka Th1rt3n by Richard Morgan )

( Dust by Elisabeth Bear )

( The Dreaming Tree by CJ Cherryh )

( The Beginning Place by Ursula K Leguin )

( Black Ships by Jo Graham )

( Claudius the God by Robert Graves )

( Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey )

Next time, I'll have to do the reviews right after I finish the books, not wait a month and a half in some cases, it makes for sucky reviews... >_>;;

Yeap! I've been reading books again! yay! Sadly my fanfics reading suffered from it *looks sadly at the fanfic pile TBR* *cough* so

( Moon Called, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs )

( I, Claudius by Robert Graves )

( Acacia by David Anthony Durham )

I finished reading Abercrombie's Last Argument of Kings last week, and been mulling over it a bit since then.

Overall a good book, and a great conclusion to the series, definitly on par with the quality of Before They Are Hanged. There were a few details on which the book was less strong, or which disapointed me, but he reading itself was delightful, and the series is definitly thought inducing.

First flaw is that compared to the shiny-prettiness of the previous covers (seriously, the things are gorgeous) LAoK was kinda ugly, and I really disliked the font, very overdone. Also, can't look at the title without chuckling remembering the lame pun from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, "they will hear Reason" ;p

( some spoilers )

My computer's down. Again. Fuck that, anytime yo fix any one thing, another thing breaks down. Entropy's a bitch. Expect me to be scarce online.


Been reading Last Argument of King. 'Tis pretty good so far.

Finished reading Shadowplay right before which was painfully slow and sometimes unintentionnaly funny; but yeah, Tad Williams still can write Fairies - if it's the only thing he can write. Got quite a disturbing trend of female victimization to this book though, I think it's intentionnal but it still comes out as disturbing. Then again, maybe I've just become more sensitive to this things.

So many books I must review before the new year ^_^;;

( The Book of the Jhereg and the Book of Taltos )

( Fortress of Ice )

( Voices )

( Avaryan cycle )

Okay, it's been, like, months since I last did reviews of books read, and I actually read a fucking lot of books recently, so I'll try to do them all by bits and pieces before the end of year. Crossover conversations will wait, I'm afraid. (so will drabbles). Sorry.

Soooooo some of those books :
( The Limbreth Gate and Luck of the Wheels by Megan Lindholm )

( The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson )

( Vellum by Hal Duncan )

( Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan )

That's all for today!

Finished reading Before They Are Hanged, second book of The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. If I thought the first one was pretty good but wasn't entirely sold on the brillance of it, then picture me sold. This series is bloody awesome.

( long review of the book )

Finished reading Kushiel's Justice. The Kushiel books are funny, you know. I enjoy reading them, very much, the language is pretty, and the characters likeable, and I love Carey's sense of world building mixing real historic references with a sort of fantasy uchrony. Very, very pretty and shiny. And then I close the book and I think : there wasn't any plot in there.

There wasn't any plot in there. It's time passes sex scene travel travel time passes climax sex scene travel travel time passes travel climax travel travel travel travel the end. With two climaxes in the book the only two moments where something actually happen.

There were even less plot than in Kushiel's Scion, which was already pretty low on the plot quota.

Also Imriel is way too broody for my taste. Sweet kid, but he broods way too much. The book was lacking in Lucius, and too little of Mavros.

And it was still very enjoyable to read and made me feel much better.

Weird, heh?

Previous Kushiel books reviews : Kushiel's Scion, Kushiel's Avatar.

Need I say SPOILERS? Totally spoilers.

( Read more... )

Finished reading Reaper's Gale by Stephen Erikson (7th in the extremely epic, energetic and over-the-top Malazan Book of the Fallen series) this week end. Overall I'm pretty happy with it but with some criticisms/disappointment. Although I think a lot of what I didn't like was because it's really starting using plot threads from way back and I've never re-read those books and I only very vaguely remember who the characters/plot devices/setting info involved were.

( more about Reaper's Gale, with spoilers )

Some of my friends still haven't read those, so I'll do a bit of introduction to them. I believe most of
you would love it.

Currently it's one of the books I re-read the most often. They're comfort reading, but they're also incredibly smart and occasionnally deep albeit not in a flashy way. They're extremely fun to read both in term of comedy and adventure. The characters are all extremely loveable. There's action, intrigue, witty lines, romance, investigation, political and societal satire, good sf ideas, great characterization... so they're overall extremely well rounded books.

In case you worry about getting onto a huge, seemingly unending series, don't worry about that. Each book is a standalone and a self contained story which can totally be read separately.

The series also have a small but active fandom which features gen, het and slash (err, mostly slash I think).

( Read more... )

Okay, now, go ahead and read them.

It's been too long since my lattest review of books ^_^
so there we go :

( Phoenix Guard and Five Hundred Years After by Stephen Brust )

( Scavenger trilogy by KJ Parker )

( Spin by Robert Charles Wilson )

( Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip )

( A Feast of Souls by CS Friedman )

So instead of using the holliday to read Reaper's Gale like any sensible fan of Erikson who just bought to book would do (or, for that matter, Feast of Souls, which I finally found), I've been reading a book called Devices & Desire by KJ Parker which I had bought on a whim several months ago and which I only started reading a couple of days ago for the maion reason that it's a paperbook that actually fit into my handbag to read on the subway which, of course, neither Reaper's Gale nor Feast of Souls do. (I hate hate hate hardcover and the fact I'll still buy them because I have no patience, and I hate hate hate people who like their books heavy, pretty and overpriced who makes the making of such books saleable when it would be so much better having a nice, flexible, small book that fits into a bag for anytime you have a free moment to read!)

That book is brillant.

( Device & Desire (no spoilers) )

( Spiderman 3 (no spoilers) )

I'm not in the mood to read fanfics at all, so I hadn't read your lattest gorgeous story, that's why. Not because I hated it.
And apparently Tonks' a Hufflepuff, wtf? (not that I dislike Hufflepuff, i think they're awesome and fearsome, but Tonks' a lazy, individualist ass, if there ever was one)

I had a long week end. 1st of May is Labour Day and a Holiday in France, and my work had given us the Monday free to make a "bridge" (not a free, free day, it's a free day among a specific number of free day we're supposed to have anyway); and I'm depressed because I didn't manage to do anything much during this time.

I went to the movie theater, though. We went to see "Life of Others" which was really, really good. Though I found it was slightly self-indulgent in parts, and I was a little bit uneasy about the thing about women, but overall a great movie.

By the way, the Earthsea movie was just as bad as expected. I didn't hate watching it as much as I should have because I read the books so long ago I was half remembering throughout without being able to compare, and because I love watching animation even when it's subpar, but it was really not that great.

And Sunday, I missed out Bog's game because I was trapped at a friend's house by a thunderstorm, but we finished watching all of Slayers : Next, which was great. (I'm in Xelloss withdrawal as I speak ^^)

While looking for Slayers fic to remedy to my withdrawal, funnily enough, I found a Snupin fic by amanuensis1 (of all people), and an mpreg fic at that, and I loved it, and I'm not a big mpreg lover.
Here it is : Random drabble
Read it and then don't kill me.

And I tried writing, but I don't think I managed to write more than two lines in one specific fic. No very much inspired.
I've been looking at all files of half-finished fics too. It's amazing the number of started-never-finished fics I have out there. (well not amazing, I s'ppose, but given how ot prolific I am...). I even found a Kotori fic that looked finished, and a Salazar/Godric preslash fic. And lots of other stuff I never finished... it's a bit depressing.

I didn't even manage to clean a bit. My sink is getting so dirty molds have civilizations building skyscrappers in it. I shall not mention my bathroom.

Otherwise I've been reading The Princess Bride. Wached the movies many times, but had never read the book before. It's pretty good. I like... how he talks about the way we look back at stories from our childhood. How they become mythical, you know. Filled with some sort of glamour and meaningfulness, but then if you look back at them later on, they're often not that much (or they are, sometimes, but you have to squint a little bit ^^) I've got books like that, of course. Well I had the Last Unicorn, except not the book, the movie, except not even that. I had a postcard of the movie, with the castle and the redbull and the unicorn and the big wave with little tiny unicorns on it. It belonged to m sister. I don't know - don't remember - if I actually watched the movie when I was little, but probably not. Even though I was obsessed with that postcard, with the story I wove from it. I was drawing unicorns everywhere (i know, not that's outstanding from a little girl), and to this day I feel this is part of the reason why I got into fantasy, science fiction, and mythology, and everything (it was much later when I was a teenager that I actually watched the Last Unicorn and realized I hadn't dreamed the whole thing! before nobody else had even heard of it, and TLU? doesn't even need squinting). There's also all these cartoons I used to watch younger (we ha some real good cartoons in the 80's in France, mostly Japanese and a couple of Franco-Japanese ones), stuff like the Mysterious Golden Cities, and Ulysse 31 (space opera + greek mythology, two great tastes that go well together), and Les Mondes Engloutis, and Cobra (not the one from GI Joe), and many others. Loved these stuff, growing up.
What was your own mythic story when you were growing up? The one that still fills you with nostalgia?

It also got me thinking (okay, this is going very very far from The Princess Bride), about one trope I've always loved, the one about the relationship between a young kid and an ambiguous adult figure, one who's half a mentor or a protector, and half an ennemy. You get that in the Mysterious Golden Cities, with Mendoza (who's one of the most kick ass ambiguous character from a children's cartoon ♥) and Esteban, and you got that in that Japanese cartoon version of Treasure Island (I don't remember if it was as strong in the book) with Long John Silver and Jim. And I was wondering how it related with the Snape/Harry ship. Because it's not relationships I particulary wish to sexualize, generally speaking, but I do find them pariculary fascinating, and I remember really loving them as a kid. I wonder, is it at least a little bit of a trope, generally speaking? Does it play a role about why I like Snarry (when I do like it)? Anyone has any imput about these kinds of relationships (wether sexualized or not)? (ASOIAF gets that in a way, with Arya and her various unsavory protectors : Jaqen H'Gar and Sandor Clegane, and Yoren a little bit. Arya really got a "boy's story", I think, I love that about her).

Anyway, to go back to the Princess Bride, I loved how the book played - even more than the movie - with the way we interprete things that we read. There's something very fanficcy about it. Take the good parts, and write around the missing ones, y'know. Except of course the aesthetics are very different.

There were some stuff I didn't like in the book, but they were mostly the stuff I didn't like in the movie, except in a way even more disturbing in reading them. You know, Buttercup's general uselessness. Part of the parody, but still get me meh. Did love the additionnal background about most characters though.

Oh, and, last Changelings : the Lost soon to be released cover. I'm so excited!

I've been a bad, bad reader who hasn't posted any review of the books read in the last months. Let's see how much I remember :

( Fall of Ile-Rien )
( Throne of Jade, Black Powder War )
( Harrowing the Dragon )
( Harpy's Flight, Windsingers )
( Cartomancy )
( Beguilement )

I've finished reading the Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch today. Lies appears to be the new book all the cool kids read. Since I rather loved previous books similarly hyped (see Erikson' Malazean Book of the Fallen and Bakker's Prince of Nothing), I was rather expecting to be blown away.

Well, I was disappointed.

Lies is a pretty good book, enjoyable and fun to read, but that's all it is.

My biggest grip with the story was characterization. I could never feel much empathy and liking for the characters, either Locke Lamora (who is supposed to be a charming, clever rogue who could talk the sun out of its shine), his friends, enemies, dupes or mentors. Mostly they came across as dull and lacklustre and I couldn't care much whether they get away with their ingenious tricks or not.

Sadly it so happens that characterization is the thing I prize most while reading so my enjoyment of the book too a heavy blow. Charisma is the least one should expect from a anti-hero, damnit!

On the plus side, this is a good story. The plotting is clever and twisty enough, the setting has just the right amount of ambiance, originality and classical stuff and sheer gustos to work for it. The writing is good and occasionally very amusing. The various swindle, lies and double-crossing one would expect are well pulled off and compelling to read. The tone didn't shy away from some grittiness when necessary though I seldom felt that it gave it the gravity necessary, resulting with a lightness of tone too similar to a shallow action movie (where the heroes are always right no matter what horrid thing they do because they're the hero)

Recommended if you're a big fan of Jack Vance and that kind of old school fantasy with clever tricks and glib fast talking, definitely. But maybe worth waiting for the paperback.

When I was 13 or 14, I picked up the Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny. It was recommendation from my dad. At that time I did not know much of fantasy. I had read LotR, of course, and stuff like Bradley's Avalon cycle, and several good SF classics out of father's library - Van Vogt, Asimov, Vance, Sturgeon.... - and quite a few Stephen Kings. But not a whole lot of fantasy, and Amber was to me a very big shock.

I fell in love.

( Read more... )

I've finished reading The Thousandfold Thoughts by Bakker, third volume of the Prince of Nothing serie, which closes that trilogy but not the serie as the writer still plans two duologies. Grrr.

TTT closes two plots lines : the Holy War between the two main religions of the setting, and Kelhus' mission to find and kill his father. Which leaves us with an impeding Second Apocalypse to deal with.

I was very unsure at first whether I liked or not these books. They are very well written, the characterisation of most characters is deep, complex and coherent. The world building is extremely good and intricate, exotic and believably, with a rich and intriguing history and interesting magic metaphysics. The plotting could be at time made more smooth but is overall a very masterful epic story.
The Prince of Nothing's flaws are not so much flaws as features. Rather than recommend it, I'll describe it to you so you can know whether it's your cup of tea, or not.

( some spoilers if you're very wary of them, but nothing we don't learn in the beginning of the first book )

I haven't done a proper book-post in too long, I have a huge list to catch. I'll try to see how much I remember :

Let's start with

Shaman's Crossing, Robin Hobb
( Read more... )

A secret atlas, Michael A. Stackpole
( Read more... )

Kushiel's Scion, Jacqueline Carey
( Read more... )

The Oracle Queen, Lynn Flewelling
( Read more... )

Temeraire, Naomi Novik
( Read more... )

Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner
( Read more... )

River of Gods, Ian McDonald
( Read more... )

Pfff, that's all I remember reading recently. Well, and Crown of Shadows but that was only the fourth time :) (Karril's still a darling, Damien's still awesome, Tarrant's still an ass, Narilka still kicks ass etc., etc.)

I realize I haven't done a book post in a long while. Yet I'm craving for book talk. So all memes with wait. Book it is !


( Book of Ash )

( Dragonsbane )

( Iron Dragon's Daughter )

It for now, good night.