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


Bozimus

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

 

I finished Anasi boys about 2 days ago.

It's a great example of humourous/thriller/action/fantasy. But then, Gaiman is a talented puppy. It's no wonder that it was a NYTimes Best Seller.

 

The book is technically a sequel to American Gods, but really, it's more of a shared universe thing. I loved it.

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

 

Although it isn't quite Fantasy...

 

The Count of Monte Christo

 

I finally got around to reading this, and all I can say is "oh my god!" this is one of the most amazing books I have read in my life. Now I know why people have been reading it for nearly 200 years. I sooo want to run a post-Naploleonic-era campaign after reading this, I can't believe people don't mine this period to death for games. The level of detail for Europe of the period in this book is astounding. (Although this isn't surprising when you consider when it was written it was set in "current day".)

 

Rob

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

 

I just read Heinlein's Starship Troopers which I'd somehow managed to miss until now. Well written but just begging to be spoofed. I think I'll track down the movie again and watch it in this new light.

 

The powered armor suits were a letdown, I must confess, after I'd heard them built up so much.

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

 

I just read Heinlein's Starship Troopers which I'd somehow managed to miss until now. Well written but just begging to be spoofed. I think I'll track down the movie again and watch it in this new light.

 

The powered armor suits were a letdown, I must confess, after I'd heard them built up so much.

 

Well... they are nigh on to 60 year-old designs. :D

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

 

I finished Anasi boys about 2 days ago.

It's a great example of humourous/thriller/action/fantasy. But then, Gaiman is a talented puppy. It's no wonder that it was a NYTimes Best Seller.

 

The book is technically a sequel to American Gods, but really, it's more of a shared universe thing. I loved it.

I finished Anansi Boys last night. It was very good and had a good mix of humor thrown in with the rest of the story. It has almost nothing to do with American Gods other than the premise of gods having mortal avatars on modern earth. Both characters grow in expected ways, but its still a nice treat.

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

 

And what sort of axe does Hawk have anyway? A magical one? It cuts through chain like it was cloth' date=' never gets dull and never gets damaged.[/quote']

 

Actually, it /was/ a magical axe. Hawk and Fisher are actually Prince Rupert and Princess Julia, from two different kingdoms on the other side of the Great Rift to the south. The axe was a gift from the old court wizard who served Rupert's father.

 

To cut a long story short, they were both useless and redundant younger kids of their respective royal families, on the opposite sides of a war, both set up to die by their respective family patriarchs, and ended up meeting each other and running away from home.

 

How two bright & idealistic Young Romantic Heroes ended up as the bitter, burnt-out city guardsmen Hawk & Fisher is a much longer story, much of it off-stage and revealed only in flashback. (_Blue Moon Rising_, to be exact... the novel where they finally have to go /back/ home.)

 

OTOH, it also (somewhat) explains why they're complete badasses compared to most of the other Guard... they both grew up with the sort of high-end training that royalty can pay for (and given that this was frontier royalty, not the useless court nobility that "the Quality" in the big city is, we're talking honest fighting), and /then/ they ran away from home to have a 15+ year career as adventurers in all sorts of rough places, to further refine (as Cohen the Barbarian would put it) The Art Of Not Dying.

 

They're still much with the Combat Luck, admitted, but heck, if I had the points, I'd buy it too. Hero'ing is dangerous enough without it. :)

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

 

I just finished Barsoom Project by Larry Niven and thatotherguy.

 

Mostly, I enjoyed it, though it kept skipping back and forth between the fantasy roleplaying world and reality, and it felt a bit disjointed. I kept having to flip back to figure out who characters were.

 

But I really liked the heavyset psycho redheaded main character. She was keen. ^ v ^

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

 

Fraser is an incredible author.

I also heartily reccomend The Steel Bonnets

Such charming people they had around the borders in those days didn't they ? The edition that I read (of "The Steel Bonnets") had a poem in the back, "The Ballad Of Kinmont Willie". Try reading THAT out loud some time !

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

 

Anyone finished "Anansi boys" by Neil Gaiman?

I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up; I'm just trying to decide if I "Must have it now!" or if I can wait until Paperback.

I've been hearing good stuff about it. All the reviews I've read are positive, and Stephen King had precisely one word to say about it: "Excellent."

 

I want to read American Gods first.

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

 

Such charming people they had around the borders in those days didn't they ? The edition that I read (of "The Steel Bonnets") had a poem in the back' date=' "The Ballad Of Kinmont Willie". Try reading THAT out loud some time ![/quote']

Yeah the Border Marches were a pretty, ahem, interesting place :D

I don't have as many issues with wrapping my head around the dialect as most folk do, largely from singing traditional music (including quite a few border ballads) and because my reenactment group had a large contingent of Armstrong borderers for several years, so as the boss I had to have some idea of how to wrap my head around the speech patterns.

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

 

I just finished Neil Gaiman's "American Gods." I can say that I was pleased at his range and use of multicultural deities. He even includes mythological and folkloric creatures as well; he really did his homework. His style has developed beautifully since "Neverwhere," which I just started reading a few days ago. Not as good as "American Gods" IMO. I'd say "American Gods" has a lot of the "Sandman" flavor to it while maintaining its own unique identity, if that makes sense.

 

I'd give it a 9 out of 10. :thumbup:

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

 

I finally finished all 1200+ pages of The Great Book Of Amber. Man, the difference between the first 5 and the last 5 is like night and day. Corwin was interesting, Merlin is more than a bit of a jacka ss. And the cross plots were so crossed I realized I had no interest in what was going on. And boy did stuff drag.... The writer is far more fresh in the first 5 Amber books and seems less sure of itself in the next 5. Of course, the crappy proofreading on the volume doesn't help (I found a lot of errors!). I'm going to keep the volume, but any re-reading will be books 1-5 and that's it. OTOH, I have learned that Zelazny wrote several "prequel" stories as well, and may look them up.

 

Next on my list is 'Salem's Lot which I picked up today in a new, illustrated edition. It also has "deleted scenes" (Basically stuff cut from the novel and/or initial drafts of scenes.) and contains the short stories One For The Road and Jerusalem's Lot. Normally $35.00, I picked it up for 30% off and am replacing my old SFBC edition (which was in ratty shape). I will say this, it is an excellent vampire story and is one of King's best, if not the best novel he's written.

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OTOH' date=' I have learned that Zelazny wrote several "prequel" stories as well, and may look them up.[/quote']

DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

 

Zelazny wrote a few short stories also set in Amber.

 

His son, May His Name Be Cursed, wrote a few prequels with some hack ghostwriter, primarily with the effect of completely destroying any lingering appreciation of the Amber series that fans may have kept.

 

Zelazny's son and Frank Herbert's son are foul pustules on the face of Sci-Fi. They need to just go away. Forever.

 

Christopher Tolkien, while mining his father's trashbin for years, at least never violated the corpse of his father's work.

 

However, Paul Edwin Zimmer -- Marion Zimmer Bradley's son -- was actually a pretty decent writer.

 

I haven't dared read any of those new Pern books by McCaffery's son, though. McCaffery herself was such a hack writer that it seems like a bad gamble to make.

 

Anyway: do NOT go read the Amber prequels!

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

 

*whew*

 

Ahh... here is the list:

 

Short stories

These short stories have been collected in Manna from Heaven (2003).

Prologue to Trumps of Doom (limited edition of Trumps of Doom, 1985)

The Salesman's Tale (Ten Tales, edited by John Dunning, 1994)

Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains (Wheel of Fortune, edited by Roger Zelazny, 1995)

The Shroudling and the Guisel (Realms of Fantasy, October, 1994)

Coming to a Cord (Pirate Writings, Number 7, 1995)

Hall of Mirrors (Castle Fantastic, edited by John DeChancie and Martin Greenberg, March 1996)

 

Found here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Amber

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

 

Ahh... here is the list:

 

Short stories

These short stories have been collected in Manna from Heaven (2003).

Prologue to Trumps of Doom (limited edition of Trumps of Doom, 1985)

The Salesman's Tale (Ten Tales, edited by John Dunning, 1994)

Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains (Wheel of Fortune, edited by Roger Zelazny, 1995)

The Shroudling and the Guisel (Realms of Fantasy, October, 1994)

Coming to a Cord (Pirate Writings, Number 7, 1995)

Hall of Mirrors (Castle Fantastic, edited by John DeChancie and Martin Greenberg, March 1996)

 

Found here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Amber

 

On a slight tangent, as a big fan of the Amber novels, and a lot of Zelazny's other work, I really liked Lord Demon, his last book. Tho, as an unfinished work, Jane Lindskold did a pretty good job of polishing it and finishing it in his style.

Reminded me more of his Amber books than a LOT of his other writings.

Roadmarks, Eye of Cat and Damnation Alley still hold special places in my heart tho, right after the Corwin series.

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

 

Roadmarks, Eye of Cat and Damnation Alley still hold special places in my heart tho, right after the Corwin series.

 

I really like Roadmarks and Damnation Alley. I also need to re-read my copy of A Night In The Lonesome October and see if it is worth keeping.

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

 

I really like Roadmarks and Damnation Alley. I also need to re-read my copy of A Night In The Lonesome October and see if it is worth keeping.

 

I have very good memories of A Night In The Lonesome October from a gamer's POV; would have made a great campaign setting.

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