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


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

 

“The Initiate Brother” and “The Gatherer of Clouds” by Sean Russell

 

Set in a fictional eastern setting closely resembling Imperial China they are in my opinion Sean Russell’s best works since they are well paced and feature characters who act like real people rather than stereotypes. They aren’t the greatest books ever written but are a solid read that have the additional benefit of taking place in a believable “Eastern” setting, which makes for a nice change of pace.

 

I really liked these two books. I also started casting them. Jet Li as the young brother and Toshiro Mifune as the old war lord.

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

 

The Magickers by Emily Drake- Jason Adrian is invited to a camp where it turns out the kids are supposed to learn how to be magicians.

 

A Harry Potter type book basically.

 

The one thing that stood out to me is how blind the counselors are to what's going on in the camp. The kids hid the fact that one of them was a were bear for like two months as an example.

CES

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  • 3 weeks later...

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

 

“The Initiate Brother” and “The Gatherer of Clouds” by Sean Russell

 

Set in a fictional eastern setting closely resembling Imperial China they are in my opinion Sean Russell’s best works since they are well paced and feature characters who act like real people rather than stereotypes. They aren’t the greatest books ever written but are a solid read that have the additional benefit of taking place in a believable “Eastern” setting, which makes for a nice change of pace.

I loved these books right up to the end, when it seemed like he got writers block, panicked and the whole thing fell apart. Aside from the ending it was great fun.

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

 

1635: The Cannon Law by Eric Flint and some other guy ;)

 

Continuation of the overall entertaining 1632 series.

 

An OK read, but not very satisfying. Took a lot of book to accomplish very little. Think I would have preferred picking up the latest associated short-story collection instead. 2 out of 5.

 

For those who like the series overall but don't want to waste their time with this particular book, I'll tell you all the important stuff from this book that will be referenced later.

 

 

Sharon goes to Rome as USE ambassador. She and Ruy get married. Frank and his Italian wife move there too to start a Committee of Correspondence. The Spanish Cardinal Borja schemes to take over Rome and invades with a force of Spanish troops. Frank and wife are captured, USE embassy gets out of town and helps rescue the Pope before he can be caught/killed and now the Pope/USE are effectively allied against Borja. Spain's king did not approve, especially as it upsets his apparent plans to attack France, but unsure how Spain will react to the whole thing.

 

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

 

Cell by Stephen King- I don't know if I would exactly call this book the Stand with cell phones, but it is an end of the world story, and the telpathic, telekinetic zombies are caused by cell phones, but I liked it.

 

About a hundred pages into Cursor's Fury, it's looking okay so far. Liked the scene with Bernard and the senator in charge of finaces.

 

"Call my barbarian friend a lier one more time, I will rip your tounge out of your head."

CES

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

 

The Hammer and the Cross by Harry Harrison the first in a trilogy (the other books being One King’s Way and King and Emperor). The stories are alternate history and the question on the back of the book sums things up very nicely: “What might have happened if the gods of Asgard challenged the God of the Christians for the soul of mankind?”
That sounds like fun ! I'm a sucker for "Alternate History" at any time and that sounds like an interesting one. I've just started "The Mighty Orinoco" by Jules Verne. More "adventure" than S F, but it fits in nicely with my love of Pulp style adventure stories !
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Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

 

That sounds like fun ! I'm a sucker for "Alternate History" at any time and that sounds like an interesting one. I've just started "The Mighty Orinoco" by Jules Verne. More "adventure" than S F' date=' but it fits in nicely with my love of Pulp style adventure stories ![/quote']

 

The Mighty Orinoco wasn't bad, but not what you usually think of when you think of Verne.

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

 

Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen Series; Gardens of the Moon & Deadhouse Gates.

 

Steven Erikson

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

 

Malazan Book of the Fallen

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

 

 

 

Cheers

 

QM

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

 

Next, by Michael Crichton. A remarkable musing on biogenetics and bio-ethics (and bio-legalisms) in the next few years. Very well written, as you would expect from Crichton, and in places somewhat alarming. I quite enjoyed it.

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

 

Finished Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher- The First Aleran is the first regiment to be assembled from every city of the realm. It's not supposed to see action. Tell that to the ten thousand wolf men who just invaded from across the sea.

CES

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  • 4 weeks later...

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

 

I've been reading while using the recumbent stationary bike. 30 minutes every morning (and I've lost 10+ pounds over the past 4 weeks or so).

 

Anyway... I've read:

The Atrocity Archives: Modern day Delta Green-ish stuff in which our hero works for the Laundry, an occult (British) governmental bureau charged with keeping England safe from mystical threats. uses a lot of mathematics and IT concepts to explain the "magic." Rather entertaining.

 

2061: A Space Odyssey: Pretty forgettably sequel to 2001 and 2010. It seems to be an extended set-up for the following 3001 novel. How ever, it isn't as bad as Rama II, which was horrid.

 

The Darkest Hours: Jim Butcher Spider-Man novel. It was a lot of fun and a great read.

 

Master and Commander: I'm about halfway through and am so glad this is a book exchange book that's going back into the bins once I'm done. It's readable, but slow and (IMO) too wordy. I'm not seeing the attraction for the series and won't be looking at any others.

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

 

I finished the Riddle-Master trilogy by Patricia McKillip. Parts were certainly interesting, but the characters seemed to be wandering around aimlessly most of the time, and there was too much focus on moments where absolutely nothing happened.

 

It was a satisfying enough trilogy, and I liked the characters, but I felt like the second book was the only one where people knew what they were doing. There was an actual goal, instead of, "I don't wanna! I don't wanna!" from the first book, or "Well, that didn't work . . . I'm going to go hide away where no one can find me now" of the third.

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

 

Next' date=' by Michael Crichton. A remarkable musing on biogenetics and bio-ethics (and bio-legalisms) in the next few years. Very well written, as you would expect from Crichton, and in places somewhat alarming. I quite enjoyed it.[/quote']

 

I wouldn't be too alarmed, since the excerpt I read proved pretty conclusively that Crichton knows little about modern biology and less about modern patent law.

 

cheers, Mark

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

 

Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles. His first book in the Doctor Who AU which includes The Enemy (anti timelords), a future time war, the Celestis (what the CIA - the Celestial Intervention Agency becomes) and Faction Paradox (ex-timelord terrorist cult).

Not bad - the main plot is an auction by various time-superpowers over a relic interspersed with a chapter about each of the representatives for each superpower. Introduces some interesting ideas about Conceptional Space and some of the near-supernatural powers in the Doctor Who universe. Also introduces Cousin Justine who figures heavily in the radioplays on Faction Paradox.

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

 

I just picked up Proven Guilty' date=' book 9 of The Dresden Files.[/quote']

 

I liked it. But I'll wait until you finish reading before I say why :D

 

White Knight, book 10, comes out in April.

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

 

I liked it. But I'll wait until you finish reading before I say why :D

 

It finally came out in paperback!

 

Oh, and I'm hoping Harry wakes up and hands Murphy the Holy Sword already!!!

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

 

Finished The Last guardian of Everness by John C. Wright a week ago. It's a bit hard to get into at first, but a little patience rewards the reader with an interesting, eclectic cosmology and and action-packed conclusion. The book involves a lot of dream-logic but it is handled very well. It reminds me of a cross between Phil Pullman's Golden Compass and the epic, violent multiverse of Elric. No armored bears, though.

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