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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've just read "Full Moonster" by Nick Pollotta. Fun' date=' but hardly award winning stuff. Almost reads as if it should be a RPG adventure ("Horror Hero" ?) with the "secret government organisation" taking on werewolves (although they weren't in London, and there is no sign of Warren Zevon !);)[/quote']

 

Bureau 13. The RPG that inspired a set of novels. I haven't read any of those in a long time.

CES

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

 

Illium was the last one I finished' date=' I believe. By Dan Simmons.[/quote']

 

I am about 60 pages in on "Ilium". Since "Hyperion/Fall of Hyperion" by the same author rates as my #2 favorite science fiction book of all time (I know, these are two books in reality, but I think of them as a single large book) I have high hopes.

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

 

This one's a re-read, but as it has been reprinted at least once since the films...

 

Bored of the Rings (A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings")

by the Harvard Lampoon

 

My copy of a slim little Signet paperback that I'd thought was a more recent printing, but the publication info in the book notes it as a 1st printing and carries a © date of 1969; 160 pages (ISBN #0-451-15902-0).

 

This is a book I consider well worth one's time—and it doesn't require much. Here we are, 39 years after it first smote the bookshelves, and it is still a fun read. The story covers the quest to destroy the Ring of Power (of course), but in a very silly version of Middle Earth—Lower Middle Earth, to be specific.

 

One of the "reviews" that are quoted on the first page says it all:

 

"A slightly more liberal reading of the leash laws would keep books like this off the stands. I don't know how you'll fare, but my copy insists on long walks around suppertime, bays at the moon, and has spoiled every sofa cushion in the place."

Wilmot Proviso

The Rocky Mountain Literary Round-Up

 

From what information I can find, this should still be in print, which is doing extremely well for a parody.

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

 

This one's a re-read, but as it has been reprinted at least once since the films...

 

Bored of the Rings (A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings")

by the Harvard Lampoon

Ah yes, the adventures of Frito Bugger. I remember it well. The book was written by committee, with the first half drastically different in style from the second half. Still, a fun read.

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

 

I stayed up really, really late to finish Elantris by Brandon Sanderson last night. It's about a once-beautiful city that, when it fell, fell hard. The people, usually beautiful and luminescent, turned a splotchy black, and the beautiful marble of the city started to decay rapidly, and it all became covered in this black sludge. Now, people undergoing the change to an Elantrian are considered dead, and dumped into the city to live out their days. The book opens with Prince Raoden waking one morning to find he's become one of them. After he's dumped into the city, his fiancée arrives, and she finds, due to a stipulation in the wedding contract, she's now a widow, without ever having met her husband.

 

Meanwhile, a religion dominant in other areas of the world is plotting the religious takeover of their region, and the man in charge of this decides the easiest way is to demonize the Elantrians. The princess decides it's her mission in life to thwart him.

 

It's a bit predictable, in that you just KNOW that, when the main characters set out to do something, it's going to come to fruition eventually. Knowing how it'll wrap up is the fun part; what kept me going until 6 AM this morning was the frustration of thinking what they were doing was hopeless, but knowing they had to succeed, but HOW?

 

Sanderson is, incidentally, the author who's filling in the gaps in the final Wheel of Time book. This convinces me that he could do the story justice. In fact, he's definitely the superior writer, between him and Jordan. He touches on a lot of the same notions as Jordan, but he does so far more masterfully, and in a lot fewer words.

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

 

Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher of Harry Dresden fame. This is a kind of rags to riches series with a boy who starts out being held in contempt by those around for being the only one in the entire country who can't do magic manages to rise through the ranks of society through his hard work, resourcefulness and luck. I'd rate it as somewhat above average but unremarkable.

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

 

I just finsihed the first book in the Dresden Files. It was a fun read and I guess I'd give it a 7.5/10. There were a number of rather Mary Sue-ish things in it but it did a good job of keeping me entertained and I'll pick up the rest of the series.

 

Next up is Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison.

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

 

I just finsihed the first book in the Dresden Files. It was a fun read and I guess I'd give it a 7.5/10. There were a number of rather Mary Sue-ish things in it but it did a good job of keeping me entertained and I'll pick up the rest of the series.

 

The Dresden Files are all fairly good reads and a lot of fun.

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

 

I just finished reading Blaze of Glory by Michael Pryor a YA (young adult) specfic lent to me by a friend who is reviewing it for some YA award or other.

 

I liked it - it's a more plain speaking kind of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with more pulp adventurishness.

 

The main character starts off dead. Well, the story soon explains how he got that way - and he managed to cast enough spells to stop his soul being sucked off into the afterlife, and maintain a tenuous connection to his body instead. This does mean he has problems with situations of extreme stress or physical exertion, however - as he tends to lose his connection which causes extreme pain and requires immediate spell maintenance.

 

He's constantly looking for improvements in spell research to keep himself alive - it's a fairly new academic branch, only recently coming out of the dark ages of superstition and becoming something studied in universities.

 

It's an alternate Earth type planet - England is Albion and Germany/Prussia is Holmland.

 

Anyhow, I liked it and look forward to the rest of the series. Especially as the next book involves an escape from a zeppelin that's on fire (according to the cover and what I've heard).

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

 

I've just finished You Suck by Christopher Moore, which is the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, and it happens at the same time as A Dirty Job. It only overlaps a couple of times, but it's enough that it gives further context to that book.

 

It was hilarious. I found myself giggling aloud quite a bit. The humor is mostly the wry, sardonic, absurd-ish kind, but that works for me. The greatest laughs came from the diary of Abby Normal, a goth girl whose biggest flaw is that she's too cheerful and perky. She's just switched from an anime obsession to one with death, 18th-century poets and brooding.

 

As this starts where Bloodsucking Fiends ended, don't read the below unless you've read Bloodsucking Fiends, or don't mind spoilers.

 

 

The core of the plot is that Jody, the newly-fledged redheaded vampire of the first book, has just turned her boyfriend-cum-minion, C. Thomas Flood, into a vampire. As he was also her food source, they're faced with the prospect of hunting for new blood. Literally. They recruit William, the homeless guy with the huge cat, for the occasional nibble, and Abby, the aforementioned goth girl, as their minion. The cat, Chet, also plays a role in providing nutrition, but only after he's been shaved. He goes around the rest of the book in a red sweater that shrunk in the wash.

 

Meanwhile, the Animals, Tommy's former co-workers, return from Vegas with a blue-skinned hooker, appropriately called Blue. They've spent all the money from hawking the old vampire's paintings on her. Blue finds out about Tommy's status as a member of the undead, and decides she wants in on that racket.

 

Elijah, Jody's sire, was encased in bronze at the end of the last book, and remains that way for about half the novel. When he gets out, he resumes trying to frame Jody for his own kills.

 

 

I did find the ending a bit anticlimactic, and wondered if Moore is setting it up for yet another sequel. Overall, though, I found it a hilarious parody of vampire novels, with some surprisingly poignant observations hidden within.

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

 

I just completed SM Stirling's The Sky People, an alternate universe novel set in a world where Venus and Mars are inhabitable...and inhabited. The story is set on Venus, which is more or less the old pulp Venus - with Dinosaurs, Megafauna, Neanderthals and Stone Age People (plus a few Bronze Age folks who have started up the civlization track).

 

Thing is, this isn't parallel evolution. These really are Neanderthals et al. And the fossil record of venus only goes back 200 million years.

 

I won't spoil the surprises, but I will say it's an excellent little adventure story mixed with some reasonably hard science, and quite enjoyable.

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

 

I just read Promises to Keep by Charles de Lint, which is about Jilly Coppercorn when she was younger. It's a really quick, fun read, and it clarifies a lot of points, though it doesn't mention anything new. I got through it in two days.

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

 

I've just finished "Land Of Mist And Snow" By Debra Doyle and James D Macdonald. Alternate Civil War naval history, fantasy, magic , romance. This is SO my kind of book !(Well, yeah I could have done with less romance !) Great fun . Now I want to find more "nautical fantasy" (I've read "On Stranger Tides" by Tim Powers, and some of William Hope Hodgson's work, but little else).

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

 

I just finished “Woken Furies”, the third Takeshi Kovacs’ novel by Richard K. Morgan. I loved the first novel in the series, “Altered Carbon”. That book was chocked full of action-packed goodness! The second novel, “Broken Angels” was a huge disappointment, mainly due to the long lulls in action. I am happy to report that “Woken Furies” is better than “Broken Angels”. While not quite as good as “Altered Carbon”, this third book was an enjoyable read.

 

I give it a “7” out of “10”.

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

 

Finished Clive Barker's latest, Mister B. Gone. It has a cute gimmick in the storytelling: The book begs you to burn it.

 

The main character, Jakobok Botch, is a demon who has been transformed into the words in the book and from the first line begs the reader to burn the book and kill him. He bargains with the reader by offering his confession, of sorts, in exchange for fire. Like I said, it's a cute gimmick.

 

The life story itself didn't excite me much, though. It wasn't bad, I just never really got into it. (Honestly, that may be me. This book cemented a feeling I've had creeping in for some time: I just don't enjoy fiction that much anymore. I think I would have loved this one a few years ago. Perhaps my tastes have changed. Perhaps I've become too hard to impress.)

 

Still, it is an above average horror piece. Some of the details can get truly grotesque and horrible, as you would expect from Barker, but not frightening. The world he creates, in which the layers of Hell are an actual place beneath the surface of the Earth, is intriguing, and I would have liked to see more of that.

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

 

World War Z, An Oral History Of The Zombie War, by Max Brooks.

 

I'd give it a very solid 8 out of 10, perhaps even an 8.5. Very well told tale of the Zombie war as done through the stories of the survivors. Excellent and compelling read, and Brooks shifts "voice" very well. You don't find yourself thinking that the Doctor from China sounds like the National Guardsman who was fighting in Yonkers.

 

Perhaps the most telling point for me was, that when I finished the book, I was very disappointed that there wasn't any more. Not that it needed it, mind you, just that I wanted more. More detail, more stories, more characters; just more.

 

Some times when I read books emblazoned with "New York Times Bestseller!" I wonder how. Not this time. Great read, very entertaining, and the storytelling style of the narrative is a huge plus.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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

 

Still digging through the Jack Reacher books I have. Waiting on Small Favor by Jim Butcher and On stranger Tides by David Drake. Saw a bunch of Doc Savage books I'm getting when I get money to pay for them.

CES

 

Ahhh... Tim Powers wrote "On Stranger Tides"... unless Drake wrote a different book with the same title.

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