AmadanNaBriona Posted December 27, 2007 Report Share Posted December 27, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... But "The Stand" counts as apocalyptic(religious) in my opinion...and I read it years ago. I read "Damnation Alley" recently. Although I am a BIG fan of Zelazny, I didn't like it. Kinda looking for a "Jitterbug" type of book, but better. I am considering McDevitt's "Eternity Road". I wish he would write a book like "A Talent for War" again... But thanks for the recs anyway, Susano. I may give "Lucifer's Hammer" another try! The Postman by David Brin is also a good read. Lucifer's Hammer is still my all time favorite apocalyptic novel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted December 27, 2007 Report Share Posted December 27, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Drew Karpashyn's "Mass Effect: Revelation." Oddly not as good as some of the Halo books I've read; very brain candy, a set up for the game. It leads the way nicely. Strong beginning, strong ending, flabby middle. A 200 point book. Too many disads (and too many crappy gunfights). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dholcrist Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Drew Karpashyn's "Mass Effect: Revelation." Oddly not as good as some of the Halo books I've read; very brain candy' date=' a set up for the game. It leads the way nicely. Strong beginning, strong ending, flabby middle. A 200 point book. Too many disads (and too many crappy gunfights).[/quote'] I enjoyed the book for what it was, much like most of the Star Wars books I read. They're just nice, short, turn off your brain and enjoy books. What I liked about the ME book was the setups of the background, which is pretty fantastic I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theron Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The most recent one I've finished was Steven Erikson's Deadhouse Gates. Two-thirds of the way into Gardens of the Moon, I'd resolved to finish it, but not read the rest of the series because it wasn't doing much for me. < *sigh* > Now, I own the series through Bonehunters and am about 200 pages into Memories of Ice. Oh, and Deadhouse Gates is quite good. Better than the first book by a significant margin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... So how is your automobile insurance? (Sorry' date=' I can not even begin to tell you how frustrated I got with some of Jordan's tropes before I gave up on the series for my blood pressure.)[/quote'] Heh. I do see what you mean. The dream thing is driving me up a freakin' wall, and I'm VERY disappointed in the friend who told me this was a female-positive story. (Misogyny in fantasy literature doesn't particularly bother me, but, when I was set up to expect something else, I'm left rolling my eyes.) And the pages and pages and pages of droning on about wind or hills or shadows or grass . . . AUGH! There have been a few interesting moments, but, had I been reading a paper version of this . . . thing, I'd have a dent in my wall by now from throwing the dratted thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diamond Spear Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... "The Fall of Reach" The first HALO novel. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It's not the best book I've ever read but for a based-on-a-video-game book it was above average. It covers the events leading up to the first video game and I will say is that the author made many fewer mistakes than most people who write about the military. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoneDaddy Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... There have been a few interesting moments' date=' but, had I been reading a paper version of this . . . thing, I'd have a dent in my wall by now from throwing the dratted thing.[/quote'] This is not a book to be cast aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. (Dorothy Parker, likely misquoted.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoneDaddy Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... It's all proud women getting spankings! I hadn't heard about that. Heck, I'd almost read it for that... Almost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I enjoyed the book for what it was' date=' much like most of the Star Wars books I read. They're just nice, short, turn off your brain and enjoy books. What I liked about the ME book was the setups of the background, which is pretty fantastic I think.[/quote'] And then critically fails to deliver in the game; I think I was just expecting more. And I would have preferred to keep the ambassador from the book, even though it's 20 or 30 years later, she was a FAR superior choice to the jack-bag they had in the position for the plot. The six hour long RPG plot. Still bitter! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... oh, wow. seeing as holidays constitute my heavy reading period, this may take a minute... first, The Watchmen! not my first tryst with this book (but the first time i've owned it and read it!). if you haven't read it and you like supers RP i think its a must. however, this is the book (in my opinion, at least) which transforms the bronze ange into the iron age, so not all tastes will be happy. still, WONDERFUL! 4.7 out of 5 second is books 1 and 2 of the Otori trilogy by Lian Hean. fantasy series that takes place in a medival not-Japan. the story of a young boy of confused (at first) heritage, who finds himself adopted into an important clan of warriors, and desired by the Tribe, with his loyalties split between them, and his own religious feelings in the way for both. add in a conflicted female secondary lead, who seems to bring trouble with her wherever she goes, and it makes for an entertaining read. it has its ups and downs, as the characters are pretty good, and the plots are decent enough at portraying the Japanese literary mindset, however its obvious she is a young author and they get a little cookie cutter at times. has the unfortunate plot point of a silly prophesy in the second book, and the author, for whatever reason, decided call samurai warriors, katanas swords, and ninjas the Tribe. still a good action read, and the 3rd book is currently entertaining me. 3.7 out of 5. next we have Cloud of Sparrows, by Takashi Matsuoka. Another fantasy novel about Japan, this one set in the Victorian period (around the time of Last Samurai, actually) and deals with a young lord, blessed with a hereditary ability to see the Future. he struggles with this and the pressence of three American missionaries, while fighting for the life of his clan as the times are changing and the plots of old grudges come to fruition. being half American, half Japanese really helps the author portray the events of the novel, as he explores the cultural differences of the two peoples. he does this by baseing most of the Japanese characters on Western archetypes (authority bucking young man, prostitute with a heart of gold, self made man, etc), and all the American characters on Japanese archtypes (the wondering ronin, the innocent preistess, etc). unfortunately the characters suffer from "larger than life" itis, in that they are all a bit to extraordinary to truly exist. however the plot is well crafted and simply drips with jidai-geki type plots and schemes. truly a great book, and its sequel Autumn Bridge is equally as good. 4.5 out of 5. lastly we have Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Noriko Ogiwara, is another Japanese fantasy, this time by a true Japanese author (apparently not a popular genre in the country, at least not for authors). it is a good story, again set in a not-Japan, it is the story of two young people, one a child of Darkness, one a child of Light, each destined for great things. their stories get intertwined and they are off on a mission that will alter their land forever. pretty good, if a bit simplistic, as it is written for children, but it feels to me to hold a similar position as The Hobbit does here, as being a child's gateway into bigger and better things, but is still awesome in its own right. there are two sequels, but they are Japanese only, at the moment. 3.9 out of 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted December 28, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... "The Fall of Reach" The first HALO novel. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It's not the best book I've ever read but for a based-on-a-video-game book it was above average. It covers the events leading up to the first video game and I will say is that the author made many fewer mistakes than most people who write about the military. The author, Eric Nylund, is a very capable writer IMO. I didn't finish "The Fall of Reach" but I greatly enjoyed two of his other books, "Dry Water" and "A Game of Universe". Soon his "Mortal Coils" book will be released. I may read it if it sounds interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dholcrist Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... "The Fall of Reach" The first HALO novel. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It's not the best book I've ever read but for a based-on-a-video-game book it was above average. It covers the events leading up to the first video game and I will say is that the author made many fewer mistakes than most people who write about the military. I've been wanting to read this, maybe I will once I go through the pile I already have. If you enjoyed that though, I'd highly recommend Karen Traviss' "Republic Commando" series, based off the Republic Commando Star Wars game. She's a former military journalist, so she knows how to write a book that's about clone commando's fighting in the clone wars. And she's obsessed with Mandalorians, going as far as to invent their entire culture and a primitive language for them. Awesome stuff. And then critically fails to deliver in the game; I think I was just expecting more. And I would have preferred to keep the ambassador from the book, even though it's 20 or 30 years later, she was a FAR superior choice to the jack-bag they had in the position for the plot. The six hour long RPG plot. Still bitter! I know exactly what you mean, the book somewhat raised my expectations as well. And yes, that ambassador was so extremely good at what she did, it was one of the only times I've enjoyed reading about a politician in fiction. She was awesome. The one in the game on the other hand? Completely lame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I finished Grave Peril by Jim Butcher on December 31st just shy of New Year. I'm just not sure if at the end Bianca is still alive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Reading through Lisey's Story by Stephen King. Still wondering what's going on. CES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadmaster Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... World War Z by Max Brooks I liked it, it is written in the style of many military history books that are largely based on interviews of those involved. World War Z or the Zombie war, is written just as the nations of earth are eliminating the last pockets of the zombie infestation. Fun book hope they make it a movie. The format used for Band of Brothers would work well (although it cold probably be shorter the BoB's 10 hours. ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... World War Z by Max Brooks I liked it, it is written in the style of many military history books that are largely based on interviews of those involved. World War Z or the Zombie war, is written just as the nations of earth are eliminating the last pockets of the zombie infestation. Fun book hope they make it a movie. The format used for Band of Brothers would work well (although it cold probably be shorter the BoB's 10 hours. ) Finally bought & read this one myself. Enjoyed the heck out of it. And yes, it's already being made into a movie I liked the offhand references to The Zombie Survival Guide. Other books absorbed in my recent binge... all of the Laurel K Hamilton Merry Gentry (Unseelie Mary Sue extraodinaire) books through Mistral's Kiss Finally got started on the Dresen Files, and am currently reading Gemmel's Legend, because I've heard so much about his stuff on here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted January 5, 2008 Report Share Posted January 5, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Unnatural Inquirer by Simon Green: John Taylor has to get back a recording of the afterlife for a tabloid. CES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GothKidSamurai Posted January 5, 2008 Report Share Posted January 5, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished up the Blood Bowl Omnibus based on the fantasy themed football game. It was awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted January 7, 2008 Report Share Posted January 7, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... not a book, per se, but I just spent the last few days slugging through the whole archive of Schlock Mercenary. Funny funny webcomic. Makes me want to do SH conversions. *****Ommmmnioussssss Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm****** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted January 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Have you ever read a book in the distant past (in this specific case, first read in the early 90's) and remembered enjoying the experience to such an extent that you longed for years to re-read said book? Then you become immensely disappointed upon actually re-reading it? So disappointed, in fact, that you wonder if Frankensteinian gremlins had secretly switched out your brain for a totally DIFFERENT brain one late evening, somewhere in time after your first reading but before the re-reading took place? This happened to me recently when I finished "Carpe Diem" by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Years ago, I was thrilled when a triology of books titled "Conflict of Honors", "Agent of Change", and "Carpe Diem" were released in an omnibus edition called "Partners in Necessity". I had read "Agent of Change" in the early 90's and loved it! I had started "Carpe Diem" but never finished it, which is fairly typical for me. I often become distracted by new, highly anticipated books and fail to finish current books through no fault of their own. During the years, I lost both books in a series of moves. To make a long story short, these books were notoriously hard to re-acquire until this omnibus was made available. Being a completist, I decided to start at the beginning of the triology and read them in order. "Conflict of Honors" was painful to read...full of sickly-sweet romance and other filler material. As I had with "Carpe Diem", I put it down at page 130 or so. But my desire "to get to the good stuff" compelled me after a several year lapse to finish it. Like a good little trooper, I waded through the fluff. Alarm bells started to faintly tingle at this point. How could the same authors who created such a fine book as "Agent of Change" also put out this sub-standard fare? I pushed these thoughts aside and began to reap my reward, the actioney goodness known as "Agent of Change"! Only one problem...upon finishing "Agent of Change", I still didn't get my non-stop action fix. It was better than "Conflict of Honors", but it wasn't the remembered thrill ride that I had lusted for these many years. I started to doubt the fact that I had, in fact, read "Agent of Change". Maybe it was "Carpe Diem" that I had first? Maybe "Agent of Change" was the book I had failed to finish the first time? I know that many of you (those that haven't nodded off by this point) are saying, "Bozimus, surely you can remember if you read a book or not especially once you've re-read it?" Well, one must remember that I wait until the specific details of a book have been forgotten until I attempt a re-read. All I remembered about "Agent of Change" (or was it "Carpe Diem"?) was the impression of virtual non-stop space-opera themed actioney goodness. All that touchy-feely love crap must have been suppressed. So, after finishing book 2, "Agent of Change", I began to entertain the fact that maybe my action payoff will happen in book 3, "Carpe Diem". Having trudged through 846 pages of text, I ended up with maybe 15 pages of actioney goodness and approximately 830 pages of diabetes-inducing love fluff. The Bozimus has been tricked by his failing memory! And worse yet, I must now take insulin! I give these books 2 stars out of 5. If you like romantic fluff, you should read them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternal_sage Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... i know how you feel. i read the first 3 books of the Dark Tower (by Stephen King) and really liked it. that was 10 years ago or so (right after the 3rd book came out). never could find the 4th book, and eventually stopped looking and lost interest. picked up the shiny new collection now that the series is finished and HATED IT pretty much after the first book. got about halfway through the 4th book and simply dropped the whole thing. i was totally bummed, especially since i just shelled out 50+ dollars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Raven Swordmistress of Chaos by Richard Kirk. Simple and undemanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... First, a confession... As much as William Gibson is revered by folks of the Cyberpunk (a phrase he coined) genre, I've never brought myself to read his stuff. Not Neuromancer, not Burning Chrome. I have a copy of All Tomorrow's Parties sitting around which I haven't cracked open yet. With the purchase of my Amazon Kindle, I downloaded Pattern Recognition, a book of Gibson's that I once owned and never read before it disappeared. First off, for anyone who hasn't read Gibson, it can at times be a challenging read. He's got quite the vocabulary. While I'm no genius, I tend to know most of the language used by authors, rarely looking anything up. With the Kindle I was able to select a line of text and have it give me definitions of the prominent words on the line, so every few chapters I'd look something up using the device and found that regularly the dictionary didn't track that word! In at least one case I'm certain it's a "coined" word (like Cyberpunk), but in several others I think he just outsmarted the built-in dictionary. A brief hopefully spoiler-free synopsis follows... Cayce Pollard (pronounced Case) is a woman able to determine from looking at a new logo or design to inform the designer whether it's esthetically correct. A sideline for her is "cool hunting" (Hanging out in clubs and social areas looking for that next thing that a company can turn into a commodity and sell to the public, that "cool" thing that hasn't broken free yet). We learn that 9/11 had a significant personal impact on her life, and that she's not attached to anyone at the moment and that allows her to travel for her jobs. She's also a "footagehead". The bulk of the book surrounds mysterious footage that appears online in increments. People just stumble across it and it seems to be devoid of time period, marketing labels, or anything to indicate who the author is or why it's out there or even if it's a linear story. Cayce and many others wait with baited breath for the next clip to surface and discuss it endlessly in an online forum. So it becomes very tempting that Cayce is enlisted by one of her contractors to find out about the footage's source, if it's intended as a marketing tool, and how this can be implemented in the future. Cayce's own proclivities surface a lot, particularly a strange allergy to branding, that I'll not explain, and Gibson does a great job of showing the character's internal monologue without just resorting to first person writing. The trip through Gibson's world is fascinating, even though it IS our world. His descriptions of London, Tokyo, and Moscow are vivid and engrossing. This isn't the semi-far future of Neuromancer, this is Gibson writing in our current world, but a side most of us don't see every day. Ultimately, I'm not sure that the payoff is as good as the voyage, but I got hooked enough to read the last 1/3 of it last night (right through the Steve's hero chat). Gibson does a good enough job of raising your paranoia-meter high enough to have you questioning nearly every person Cayce comes across. It certainly has me wanting to finally break out All Tomorrow's Parties. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted January 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... There are two authors that spring to mind each of which broke my heart (in a purely literary fashion). William Gibson and Frank Herbert. Herbert's "Dune" is my all time favorite book...bar none. Each book in the Dune series after that disappointed me in the extreme. Gibson's "Neuromancer" was once a favorite book of mine but "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive" sucked worse than a Barry Manilow's greatest hits album. I almost added Tim Powers to this list of heartbreakers, but he puts out a good book every now and then. Kinda hard to top "The Anubis Gates", but at least "On Stranger Tides" and "Last Call" reminded me of why I like Powers' writing style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... First, a confession... As much as William Gibson is revered by folks of the Cyberpunk (a phrase he coined) genre, I've never brought myself to read his stuff. Not Neuromancer, not Burning Chrome. I have a copy of All Tomorrow's Parties sitting around which I haven't cracked open yet. With the purchase of my Amazon Kindle, I downloaded Pattern Recognition, a book of Gibson's that I once owned and never read before it disappeared. ...SNIP... It certainly has me wanting to finally break out All Tomorrow's Parties. I didn't like Pattern Recognition at all. However, I really liked All Tomorrow's Parties. But... before you read it, you need to really start with Virtual Light and Idoru. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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