And I have currently started on Five get in trouble

And having read The Martian, and enjoyed it immensely, I've continued on my sci-fi bender.

I'm currently reading Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton.

A little volume called "Ace of Tales," volume 4, the which features work by seven writers, including at least two who have some connection to Chorrol- a certain McBadgere and the woman who was to become Mrs. McBadgere...

Oh, that sounds cool! McB actually has been published?

At 1558 this afternoon I finished Henryk Sienkiewicz's Fire in the Steppe as translated by W.S. Kuniczak, thus ending my reading of The Trilogy. The translator opts to forgo Sienkiewicz's lengthy (?) epilogue, but does extract from it was little is told of the fate of several of the Trilogy's fictional characters. (Historical figures are left to historians.)

The books were good reads, made more appealing by covering an aspect of history I was not at all acquainted with, 17th century Poland and its struggles against formidable foes both within and without. The one knock against them is price. Being out of print, they tend to list for a pretty penny. There is an older English translation that can be had much more cheaply, but all I've read suggests that it is markedly inferior and not worth the bother.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 25 2016, 01:19 AM

At 0415 this morning I finished Andrew J. Offutt's 1979 The Iron Lords, volume one of Wars of the Gods on Earth. This was my fourth reading of the work, the first having occurred Oct 1988, the most recent Jun 2002. This is 'old school' fantasy, with much in common with Conan and some of Moorcock's 'heroes'. Not the sort of fantasy I'm likely to buy nowadays, but entertaining enough for occasional reads. I'll continue on with the series, beginning volume two, Shadows out of Hell, by day's end.

I'm working my way through The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

Damn good books.

Finished blitzing The Farseer Trilogy, and I pretty disappointed in all honesty. The first book was great; setting up a promising story, some interesting elements and characters, and established things nicely. Book two kind of gets lost partway through; develops one part of the story at the expense of another(and several characters, in the worst possible way), and goes downhill fairly quickly. Book three threw just about everything from the first book(the initial threat, and everything surrounding it) out the window in favour of following the main character on a personal and not particularly interesting tangent, before apparently remembering what it's supposed to be tying up right at the end to resolve things in a rushed and unsatisfactory manner.

I mean, you've got implacable foes with a mysterious power, betrayals and intrigue, sacrifices, interesting types of magic, and a few good characters.

But the motivation of the implacable foes, and their leader, are never dealt with directly. The betrayals and intrigue(and the bulk of the main plot, including the ending) rely on everybody involved being both spectacularly fortunate and mind-numbingly stupid, often at the same time. The sacrifices felt more like they were hammered into the plot, which warped to fit them, rather than being actually integral to the plot. And the shift of story in the third book removed most of the characters, or rendered them insignificant to the story that was actually being told. And the way it's written in the 1st person, and the circumstance behind that, remove 99% of the actual tension in the story.

I don't think I'm even going to consider reading any of her other books.

At 2019 this evening I finished Shadows Out of Hell, volume two of Andrew J. Offutt's War of the Gods on Earth. With some hesitation, I will likely continue on with the the concluding volume, The Lady of the Snowmist.


I am having a reaction akin to yours with War of the Gods on Earth, though in my case volume one was nothing special. Volume two starts out in just about the worst way possible, with the main character bemoaning his lot in life aloud to his fellow shipmates for over thirty pages, in a not even thinly disguised recap of book one. Thirty-plus out of a total of only 165 pages I might add. We then continue on with your typical old-school fantasy quest . . . group of nordicesque adventurers led by our hero sail to an island inhabited by stunningly beautiful scantily clad women, to steal a sacred object as directed by their goddess. The writing is pretty simplistic, indeed primitive at time. I assumed this was the author's chosen style. or that he was not overly skilled at his craft. Then, out of the blue, well into the story, our hero dreams of or is visited by an otherworldly presence. It and he proceed to engage in deep philosophical discussions, during which the presence expounds on such things and the big-bang theory, creationism, good and evil, black & white vs shades of gray, and so on. The hero wakes. We're back to our simplistic narrative for the remainder of the novel.

There are a number of erotic escapades thrown in, described in more graphic detail than is apt to be present in more recently published fantasy. I am not surprised to learn, via the author's Wiki page, that Offutt wrote a good many erotic novels under several aliases. (The eroticism doesn't bother me in the least, but I'm not prudish in such matters and would not consider it worth mentioning were it not so rare in fantasy these days. Leastwise not in those I read.)

At 1612, just prior to preparing supper, I finished Andrew J. Offutt's The Lady of the Snowmist, volume three of War of the Gods on Earth. Unlike volumes one and two this was its third complete reading. I almost threw in the towel early on, but am glad I stuck with it. Despite a rocky start this book proved the most interesting of the three. I enjoyed it enough to wonder if the series had continued. So far as I can tell, it didn't.

No idea what I'll read next. I'm guessing another fantasy novel or series, but we shall see.

I have decided to reread Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, and am now a few pages into volume one, The Shadow of the Torturer. This will be its fourth reading. The first occurred 1988, the third 2002.

I am also reading The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones at the kitchen table during lunches and suppers. I bought the book some time last year but discovered that it is too big and heavy for me to read in bed. Since my serious pleasure reading occurs only while in bed or during meals, I at long last admitted to myself that it will never be read unless I devote mealtimes to the task. (I own a sturdy desktop book stand so that bulk and weight are not an issue.)

Always nice to read something while eating

This post has been edited by mirocu: Mar 9 2016, 09:34 PM

Recently, for the first time in years, I've actually gotten back to reading some of my Star Wars books. Read some from the Clone Wars era, and now I've started the X-Wing series of books.

I am preparing for the end of the world.

Metro 2033.

But the npcs are dying in different ways to the way the game does it. It is doing my head in.

The atmosphere and back stories are very cool to read. Books are always the best medium for that. You can almost taste their fear of a plague sweeping the metro.

An update that is in a sense no update. For whatever reason I have not been able to read lately. Not for lack of effort. I've been plugging away at Shadow of the Torturer, which I like a lot, since the 8th or 9th. In all this time I've managed to reach page 18. Just can't maintain focus. Admitted, I devoted a lot of time to movie watching during the period in question. Most of that was stolen from my online and music-listening times rather than reading sessions.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

I've never gotten around to reading the Foundation books before, not sure why.

What do you consider to be the "Foundation books"? There's the initial Trilogy, written to be a complete three-part story, but he also revisited it later and wove it into the Robots series, so there's a number of later novels to bridge the two.

And now I'm tempted to reread "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" which may have been the first thing of his that I read.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Mar 16 2016, 06:49 PM

Well, I've got the trilogy, and another one that seems to be a part of the series, but it's pretty academic now. I've bailed on them partway through the second book.

They were just boring. The premise just seems so self-defeating as a story, it just stopped being interesting.

So now I've ended up going back to my Warhammer 40K books, starting with Eisenhorn

Oh my goodness!! Is this volume available to the public?!

Quite recently finished A Storm of Swords by GRRM...WOW is all I have to say. excellent book.

This post has been edited by Tellie: Mar 18 2016, 12:08 AM