Enforcer84 Posted May 30, 2011 Report Share Posted May 30, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Dead in Dallas. The second of the True Blood books. Unlike the Anita Blake books the sex between heroine and vampire can be discrete and take up more of the book than the plot. I'm going to assume you meant "not" take up more of the book. Or do you really like Vampire porn? Lloth would be so embarrassed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted June 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished "Devil's Cape" by our own Rob C. Rogers. This is a book set in a fictional Louisiana town that serves as a battleground between super heroes and super villains. It is hard to believe that this is Rob's first book. "Devil's Cape" was a very fun read with well-rounded protagonists and believable villains. The pacing was "spot on"...Rob seemed to spend just the right amount of time on characterization/setting before tossing in a little action to appease the action junkies (like me). Bonus for HERO fans...as the fight scenes progressed, I kept thinking about various HERO powers that were being displayed by the combatants. I could see how this might have been a long-running FTF Champs' game. In short, I devoured this book to the point where I neglected two other books so I could read more "Devil's Cape". Good job, Rob! I have only one minor quibble.... WHERE IS THE DANG SEQUEL? BOZI WANTS SOME MORE DEVIL'S CAPE! I want to thank Enforcer84 for suggesting this excellent book. Without your recommendation, I might have passed up reading this fine book. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. A barbarian princess is summoned to the imperial capital where she is named an heiress to the empire and unwillingly thrust into a power struggle between gods and men. I'm usually leery of picking up books that have been nominated for awards (the Nebula and Hugo, in this case), because they're sometimes very weird, and my tastes run to more mundane plots. This story is a little weird, certainly, but relatively easy to follow for a book that involves Shakespearean palace intrigue among omnipotent deities and their warped mortal servants. Jemisin's writing style is key; she is very good at the exact things I know I'm bad at--internal exposition, and describing the incomprehensible. I'm not sure if it's encouraging or discouraging that this is a debut novel. The book was a little hard to get into for a couple of chapters, but after that was a compelling read. Highly recommended if you're into politics and intrigue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burrito Boy Posted June 5, 2011 Report Share Posted June 5, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I had forgotten why I never finished Dune as a kid and decided to give it another go. Now I remember why I put it aside - Frank Herbert is boring. This is not to say Herbert isn't a brilliant, clever, sophisticated milieu-world buildier. He had a wonderful grasp of the possibilities. The first fifty pages leaves you in awe of it as a creation - as a line by line vision - and carries you on in sheer amazement. But the problem is that it goes on like that. Line by line. Building new worlds, social orders, political systems, ecologies... and doesn't do much else. The plot is drearily paced and the characters are wholly unsympathetic. Its a grandiose tapesty lacking any reader-investing humanity and drama.. Obviously the book's enduring popularity and legion of fans means people have enjoyed them, but I find them too technically clever by half and too difficult to persevere through from a narrative perspective. Other writers in speculative genres break you in gently and explain their creations bit by bit - but Herbert starts by smashing you with it and never lets up. My wife tells me his son did a better job on a story-level. I just don't have the patience to slog through the quagmire of Arakis the father created before getting into the son's books. I find Herbert much the way I do JRR Tolkein - a visionary world-builder, but not much of a STORY teller. Heresy, I know. And fans (more power to them) will likely be offended. But I just can't force myself through it. Yech. I agree completely. I read the first Dune book and had the same impressions but tried reading the second book anyway because I had the first three and thought I should read them so my money wouldn't be wasted. (Not that they cost me a lot. I got them for fifty cents apiece.) I'm not sure how far I got in the second book but I don't think I finished it. Yech is an understatement. And yet what you said about world-building is true. Dune is a fascinating place that I would love to visit myself. But then I grew up in New Mexico so I'm obsessed with the desert. Any desert, even one with huge sand worms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 6, 2011 Report Share Posted June 6, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I'm going to assume you meant "not" take up more of the book. Or do you really like Vampire porn? Lloth would be so embarrassed. Spelling her name wrong gets her really upset. I mean would you like be facing a horde of her spiders without your pants on ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
csyphrett Posted June 8, 2011 Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Read Dead Waters by Anton Strout. This is the fourth book in a series with the hero working for a department of paranormal police. Like the other three it has an A plot and a B plot. The A plot is the main mystery in this case the death of an old friend of the head of the department. He drowned in a locked room. The B plot is the hero's girlfriend suffering through a curse put on her by the person they think killed the old friend. All of the b plots are about the girlfriend being held hostage in some way. Maybe that will change now that she is a vampire and a technomage. CES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RexMundi Posted June 8, 2011 Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finsihed over the last few weeks..... John Ringo's Live Free or Die, and Citadel (books 1 and 2 for the Troy Rising stuff) Christopher Golden's Daredevil: Predators Smile Madeleine E. Robins Daredevil: The Cutting Edge David Baldacci's The Whole Truth and Deliver us from Evil Robert McCammon's The Wolfs Hour and Stinger Buncha Short Story anthologies as well..... All well worth the time to read. Good Stuff. ~Rex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted June 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished C. J. Cherryh's "Downbelow Station". This is the first "foundational" novel of her "Alliance-Union" space opera series. This is NOT the first book in the series (that would be "Heavy Time"). According to the author, these books (with a couple of exceptions) can be read in any order. From her website... "The novels in this universe, except Hellburner and Heavy Time, and Cyteen and Regenesis, can be read completely out of order...just like real history." Having enjoyed her "Chanur" series and (more recently) her "Foreigner" series, I was well-acquainted with Cherryh's style of writing. As some of you know, I am a chronology nut. I prefer to read books in their proper order. But "Heavy Time" and "Hellburner" (the two books set chronologically before "Downbelow Station", are set many years prior. I felt that DS would be the proper litmus test that would determine if I should invest in the other books. After all, DS won the Hugo award, and is considered one of Cherryh's finest books. If it failed to impress me, odds were good I would abandon the "Alliance-Union" series. With this in mind, I started with "Downbelow Station". It started a little slow (which lead me to stop reading on several separate occasions over the years) but I made a promise to myself to finish it. Before long, a vicious three-part conflict erupted that kept me riveted for the rest of the book. The ending was a little too neat/tidy for my tastes, but this is a very minor quibble. Cheryyh has a writing style that is hard to explain, but frequently succeeds. Her "Foreigner" series exhibits the most fully developed alien culture I have encountered in Science Fiction. I am glad to have started another of her series. This really scratched the space opera itch I had developed. I will probably read "Merchanter's Luck" in the near future (but not before I read another of her "Foreigner" books). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Cross Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished The Coming of The Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock. It's an Eleventh Doctor story,but I personally didn't like it as much as I thought I would - I don't think it's one of Moorcock's better works. Well worth reading, but it didn't feel like a Doctor Who story to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted June 15, 2011 Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Small Favour by Jim Butcher In which wizard Dresden has to do a favour for Mab, Queen of Winter. Thus encurring attacks by the forces of Summer. And he has to find Marcone who has disappeared. Throw in the Knights of the Cross, The Denarians, Murphy, Thomas, Mouse, Warden Captain Luccio, Molly Carpenter, Kincaid and the Archive and stir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Agenda Posted June 15, 2011 Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished Sidhe Devil, byAaron Allston. Could someone help me out remembering a novel I read in the seventies? It was a paperback, poorly edited, but it had an interesting concept of the protagonist having much of his tissue replaced with silicon-based analogues. I vaguely remember some kind of additional power-up later in the book. My brother wants to find it and I cannot remember any more details. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted June 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished Sidhe Devil, byAaron Allston. Could someone help me out remembering a novel I read in the seventies? It was a paperback, poorly edited, but it had an interesting concept of the protagonist having much of his tissue replaced with silicon-based analogues. I vaguely remember some kind of additional power-up later in the book. My brother wants to find it and I cannot remember any more details. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Sorry, my google-fu is weak...I failed to find your book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted June 15, 2011 Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished Sidhe Devil, byAaron Allston. Could someone help me out remembering a novel I read in the seventies? It was a paperback, poorly edited, but it had an interesting concept of the protagonist having much of his tissue replaced with silicon-based analogues. I vaguely remember some kind of additional power-up later in the book. My brother wants to find it and I cannot remember any more details. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster had that premise, but it was released in the mid-eighties and and not poorly edited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Democracy Posted June 15, 2011 Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished Sidhe Devil, byAaron Allston. Could someone help me out remembering a novel I read in the seventies? It was a paperback, poorly edited, but it had an interesting concept of the protagonist having much of his tissue replaced with silicon-based analogues. I vaguely remember some kind of additional power-up later in the book. My brother wants to find it and I cannot remember any more details. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Ooh! ooh! was this one of the Piers Anthony ones - the battle circle stuff?? Sos the Rope etc?? Decades since I looked at them but is that not the premise of those books?? Doc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Agenda Posted June 15, 2011 Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Nope, not Sentenced to Prism or Piers Anthony. A little worse than those, if one of the few things I remember about it is spelling and grammar issues. I appreciate the effort. I hadn't even thought of it in years and years until my brother brought it up. I know the book he means but I read so damn many and the main thing it had going for it was a cool concept. Cool concept books are a dime a dozen (maybe I should check to see if there's a Dime a Dozen SF rack at the used book store). Maybe it had Gold or Golden in the title? I remember the protagonist would have been impressed with a much smaller STR boost than he got, like a 10% improvement would have been pretty good. Maybe more will surface, I suppose it's in my brain somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gewing Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Read Legions of Fire by David Drake and Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballentine and Tee Morris. Legions of fire is set in Carce in ancient Rome. Magicians and spirits are battling using cats paws because of situations they got themselves into. There is also some time meddling going on. I know it makes for some exciting stuff to have the heroes sent to other places in the hopes they die, but is it too much to ask for the villain to just hire some guys to stab the hero. The set up is similar to the Isles books where the heroes have a problem and then quest for the answer. Phoenix Rising is a book set in an alternate Victorian England where the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences battle hidden societies for the fate of the world. Agents Books and Braun decide to investigate an old case and find themselves chasing a mad scientist building robots. CES I just read Phoenix rising. Not great, but fun. I also just read "From Hell with Love" by Simon R. Green. NOt as much fun as most of his... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gewing Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Small Favour by Jim Butcher In which wizard Dresden has to do a favour for Mab, Queen of Winter. Thus encurring attacks by the forces of Summer. And he has to find Marcone who has disappeared. Throw in the Knights of the Cross, The Denarians, Murphy, Thomas, Mouse, Warden Captain Luccio, Molly Carpenter, Kincaid and the Archive and stir. One of the better ones, Imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casualplayer Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Picked up The Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card from the library Tuesday evening and finished it this morning, as a commentary on how I enjoyed it. Devoured it in fact, in a way I haven't in some time. It's a Gods-Among-Men, young adult novel or I should say it's a novel about a young adult. It has an intriguing premise that would make an amazing game setting using Mage rules. An awful lot of stuff just-happens but that is part of the premise. It is probably too blatantly an attempt to get some of that Harry Potter/Percy Jackson booty. It's no Ender, Bean or Alvin Maker but then how many times can lightning strike for OSC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted June 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... It is probably too blatantly an attempt to get some of that Harry Potter/Percy Jackson booty. I didn't know Orson Scott Card was in NAMBLA!!!! (just kidding) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casualplayer Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Picked up The Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card from the library Tuesday evening and finished it this morning' date=' as a commentary on how I enjoyed it. Devoured it in fact, in a way I haven't in some time. It's a Gods-Among-Men, young adult novel or I should say it's a novel about a young adult. It has an intriguing premise that would make an amazing game setting using Mage rules. An awful lot of stuff just-happens but that is part of the premise. It is probably too blatantly an attempt to get some of that Harry Potter/Percy Jackson booty. It's no Ender, Bean or Alvin Maker but then how many times can lightning strike for OSC?[/quote'] Whoops! It is The Lost Gate, the entire time I was reading it I was wondering why it wasn't titled The Gate Thief. Must be another book out there with that title or it was too close to PJ & Lightning Thief. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... It's not SF or F, but I just read True Grit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... ... And? C'mon, spill! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... ... And? C'mon' date=' spill![/quote'] Okay, the 2010 movie is really, really close to the novel's story. It's a good read, with some fun lines (as seen in the 2010 film) and the dialogue has a strange tone to it (for starters is uses a lot of 1870s terms and is a 40 year-old woman remember something that happened 25 years ago. The 'writer' (i.e. Maggie Ross) talks to the reader and gives some fun advice and comments on events. Well worth the $6.95 I paid for the trade paperback. Now to get the 2010 movie.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Agenda Posted June 21, 2011 Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Finally remembered:Titans of the Universe http://www.amazon.com/Titans-Universe-James-Harvey/dp/0532153715 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozimus Posted June 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2011 Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I just finished "Midnight Tides" by Steven Erikson. This is book 5 of "The Malazan Book of the Fallen" series. It took me nearly 5 months to finish it. This book is hard for me to judge...sometimes I wanted to hurl it against yonder wall. At other times, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. This is the first book of this series that has afflicted me in such a manner. Why did it take me 5 months to finish this book? The problem revolves around two central characters Tehol Beddict and his manservant Bugg. I do not like it when scenes of absurd humor are frequently interlaced throughout a story of dark fiction. It is rather like having syrup-laden muzak stick its unwanted voice into my favorite Tool song. It doesn't belong (IMHO) and it ruins the mood. I found myself wishing that someone (ANYONE) would kill these characters (and all their attendant silly retainers) and remove them with extreme prejudice. Of course, when it looked like a bunch of Tiste Edurs were going to grant my wish towards the very end of the book, I found myself saddened by Tehol's (apparent) ignoble demise. I still don't want the "Tehol and Bugg" show to continue in other books, but I wouldn't wish for Tehol to be treated in such a fashion. Strange how these thing work out, huh? I guess I became more fond of the Tehol character than I had realized... In summary, this was my least favorite book (of this series) thus far. Don't get me wrong, this book had some awesome fights with some spectacular sorcery battles thrown in for good measure, but the frequent comic relief made me enjoy it less than the other books in this series. I still recommend this series for those that appreciate dark fantasy. Although I may change my mind in the future, I still rank this series as in the top 5 of fantasy series I have read to this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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