What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

[SKJAM!]

Quite a

 

How many books does that dude crank out every year?

Three or four.  It seems like more because he actually had several books published before he got tapped to do Wheel of Time, and they've been re-released now that Sanderson is a known name.

[Grailknight]

Really looking forward to the two Mistborn sequels coming out in the next 9 months. He got so into the characters voice's he wrote them together.

[Old Man]

Aw man, if I hadn't known about that then I wouldn't have to read them. You, you--

[SKJAM!]

Not a book, but Analog Science Fiction and Fact just reached its 1000th issue!

 

http://www.skjam.com/2015/05/27/magazine-review-analog-science-fiction-and-fact-june-2015/

 

Or you could just run out and buy it.

[pinecone]

The Quantum theif. I liked it quite a bit. Heck Charles Stross gave it a nice intro. I checked it out of the Library. I recommend it.

[csyphrett]

Read Foxglove Summer by Aaronovitch. Constable Peter Grant is asked to help find two missing girls in the country. That's when Princess Luna, bees, changed kids, and his on again, off again girlfriend Beverly wanting to restart the RIver Lugg really start causing him problems.

CES 

[Pattern Ghost]

Finished The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy the other day. Not great. Murphy's prose was good, some good imagery, but trite ideas and themes, which kind of kills it as lit fic, and a lot of cardboard characters, including the main characters. On the other hand, it got nominated for a few awards, so maybe people who have more tolerance for lit fic than me would like it better. If it were a short story or novella, it would have probably held up better (I picked it up b/c I remembered liking some of Murphy's short fiction in the 80s), but it lacked the substance needed of a novel.

[Sociotard]

A Monster Calls.  Actually, I'm not sure it is fantasy.  Either the boy is visited by a monster (urban fantasy) or he's having a psychotic break (no fantasy), and I'm not sure which.  Kind of like the book version of K-PAX in that regard.

 

Anyway, it was juvenile fiction, but very well written and so beautifully illustrated. Would recommend to anyone, unless you have a cancer trigger.

[FrankL]

Finished D. Rus' AlterWorld and The Clan. I bought them both on the strength of the reviews and most regret that the return time expired before I had begun the second. I will not read the next. I left 1-star reviews on Amazon for the interested. To put it simply: there is no struggle in the books. The Main Character gets things handed to him and just ascends through the ranks. His love interest has more struggles than he does. I did read the Look Inside of book 3 because book 2 ended in a cliffhanged. Knowing that Rus will not leave Max in danger, I estimated resolution quickly. I was right!

 

On the other hand, One Bright Star to Guide Them rocked!

[Grailknight]

Finished Dead Ice, LKH's newest Anita Blake story.

 

Overall pretty good read. Much more like the earlier books( only two sex chapters out of 500+ pages) but with a mellower Anita.

[mhd]

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. A less funny King Ralph scenario, where the whole Elvish royal family gets wiped out in an airship accident and the 18 year old half-goblin son has to come out of exile to become Emperor, having to struggle against court intrigue and prejudices.

The elves & goblins are not what we're used to, more a way to get some racial tension into it, no immortals or squatting hordes here. The court seems rather baroque, tech seems advanced enough (clockwork & airships), without become to annoyingly steampunk.

 

What I really liked about the books was that you as a reader are thrust into this unknown setting along with the main character. All people have weird names & titles and it takes you a while to get all of that sorted out.

 

Don't expect any Game of Thrones and/or Gormenghast shenanigans here, it's more focused on character development than courtly intrigue and there are plenty of nice lords & ladies around. Actually, at times I found things a bit too far into that direction, approaching Eddison/Lackey territory. (It seems fantasy these days either goes into this YA/Disney group hug territory or tries to emulate Martin/Abercrombie torture fests.)

[Spence]

 (It seems fantasy these days either goes into this YA/Disney group hug territory or tries to emulate Martin/Abercrombie torture fests.)

 

I hear you there.  There has been a huge drift in most fiction directly away from what I find interesting.  There is obviously a good following for it otherwise it wouldn't be selling and we would see it going away rather than seeing more of it. 

 

But for me personally, it is harder to find a "good" book to read.  I am really concerned that scifi/fantasy may be going the way of comics, with what I find to be a good read becoming extinct.

Edited June 13, 2015 by Spence

[csyphrett]

Read Charming. monster hunter on the run teams up with a weird group and saves the day from a group of vampires. I read it at the bookstore and don't remember the author's name.

 

Read Lilith Saintcrow's Trailer Park Fae. When the villain is revealed, what happens to him as karmic payback will still make you wince in sympathy. 

 

CES

[sinanju]

FOURTEEN by Peter Clines.

 

Didn't actually read it, I listened to it. My wife has an Audible account and stumbled across this book and really, really liked it. And convinced me to try it, and man, it was gloriously entertaining.

 

Nate Tucker is a 30-something working as a data entry clerk in Los Angeles. His life is going nowhere, and he's perpetually strapped for cash. Then an acquaintance recommends a place to live--a nice, but cheap building. Really cheap. As in what's-the-catch cheap. No catch, it's just...a little weird. Not everyone finds it comfortable to live there. But Nate takes a look, and signs on the dotted line immediately. He moves in and finds the building as advertised: cheap, moderately nice (very nice for the price) but with a few quirks.

 

Other the course of the novel he meets and interacts with many of his fellow tenants, who all have their own stories of oddities about their rooms. Like, every single apartment in the building is laid out differently. And what's with the elevator that has never, ever worked in the 23 years Oscar the building manager has lived there? And why are a couple of the apartments locked up tight (with padlocks, even)?

 

Nate (and some of the others) begin investigating, and everything they uncover points to still deeper mysteries. My wife described it as a "horror procedural" and she's right. It's very slow build, with no overt threats for a long time, but a growing sense that something really weird and potentially dangerous is going on. The characters are distinctive and interesting, and interact entertainingly, and they're smart--and at least a couple are very pop culture-savvy, frequently quoting Ghostbusters among other things. By the time they (and the reader) discover what's really going on, the worst is yet to come.

 

I highly recommend this book.

[CaptnStrawberry]

Sounds a little like the apartment complex in Big Bang Theory, lol.  But interesting.

[SKJAM!]

The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu.

 

Sequel to The Lives of Tao.  Tao is a non-aging alien who must piggyback on native lifeforms to live in Earth's atmosphere.  He and his fellow Quasing arrived on Earth millions of years ago, then a long while later began guiding the protohumans to develop a civilization capable of letting the Quasing get off this hellhole.

 

Some time back, the Quasing split along philosophical lines--are humans just very bright animals to be used by their Quasing gods, or full sentients who should be treated as equals?  Tao chose the second path, and now he and his human partner Roen Tan must battle the majority Genjix in a secret war.

 

In this sequel, Roen and Tao have discovered most of the puzzle pieces to the latest Genjix plan, one that could mean the end of independent human existence.  http://www.skjam.com/2015/07/25/book-review-the-deaths-of-tao/

[csyphrett]

Read Veiled by Benedict Jacka. Alex Verus joins the magic cops. This book will make you long for the Wardens way of doing things from the Dresden Files before you get to the end.

 

Read Shotgun Arcana by RS Besher. I picked this book up last year sometime, read half of it and put it down for months before picking it up again. Parts of this were so slow. I think what killed it for me is this is part of a set and subplots were bound in, but had no effect on the main plot. I didn't care enough about those subplots and they killed the action.

CES  

[SKJAM!]

Birthright: Book 1 of the Temujin Saga by Adam J. Whitlatch

 

Iowa farm boy and his cool allies battle a clone of Genghis Khan (who has alien superpowers).  Young adult boys' adventure/wish fulfillment.  The hero has a twin brother who exists because the alien scientist who created him tried to cram too much awesome into one body.  Seriously, that's the twin's origin story.

 

http://www.skjam.com/2015/08/26/book-review-birthright-book-1-of-the-temujin-saga/

[death tribble]

I succumbed and finally bought The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan.

And now I have read it. We have a female protagonist who is kept down not by her sex but by her social status which is a good angle. I liked the story enough to be interested in the sequels.

[tkdguy]

I just finished a set of Doctor Who short stories, one for each Doctor except for the War Doctor. Neil Gaiman wrote the story for the 11th Doctor.

[Lord Mhoram]

The Martian.

 

I liked the trailer and decided to read it before the images from the movie cement themselves in my head as the "correct" version. Very good, and very highly recommended.

[bigbywolfe]

I just listened to Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides.  Pirates, voodoo, treachery, sea battles, and puppets; what's not to love?  If you like pirate stuff or voodoo stuff, or historical fantasy in general this is worth a read.
I really do like Powers' writing style, and the reader of the audio book was superb.  I need to read more of his work, Drawing of the Dark is an old favorite and I remember really liking Anubis Gate even though I don't recall the story very well. 

[Ranxerox]

I been intrigued by the trailer for Syfy's The Expanse, so I read the first book of series it based on, Leviathan Wakes.  It's a good page turning read and I would recommend it to any fan of science fiction.  The authors (James S.A. Corey is the pen name for team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) describe it as working man's science fiction.  They have tried to make the book with enough science as to not pull the reader out of engagement with obvious mistakes but if they don't have to explain how something works scientifically, they don't.  This is an approach that worked well for me, and there was only one place in the book that I read something and thought 'that's wrong'.  

 

I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in the series and to upcoming TV show, though I wish that they were doing it through animation rather than live action.  There are scenes in the book that they are never going to be able get right on the special effects budget of a TV show.  Heck there is stuff that would be hard to get right in a big budget movie.  Still, I'm interested in seeing how they tackle them and hope that it won't be too painful.

[Enforcer84]

NPCs by Drew Hayes

 

Like I've said, I likes me some escapism. This is a book that looks at what happens to our game worlds when the PC's TPK.

 

Good cast of characters, some nice inside jokes for gamers.  

[Grailknight]

Wearing the Cape: Ronin Games,  Astra has a problem. The dreamworld that her adversary Kitsune uses to communicate is trying to tell her something. And its starting to do this by pulling her in while she's awake.  She needs to find Kitsune, but that'll require sneaking into Japan and facing ghosts, yazuka, kaiju attacks and trickster spirits while dodging Japanese government supers.

 

An excellent addition to the Wearing the Cape Universe.