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[Decrepit]

At 1322 this afternoon I concluded my third reading of Robert Jordan's Crossroads of Twilight, book ten of The Wheel of Time. This is the volume I've, in previous readings, considered the series' weakest. I suppose I still do, though I believe I enjoyed it more this time round. For those who might not remember (or never knew) it covers the "progress" of several separate groups of people from soon before to not long after Rand's struggles to cleanse saidin at the climax of book nine, Winter's Heart. Crossroads is mostly plot development with no great battles or magic duels to speak of. As is so often the case in these mid series books, my favorite section was Mat's, near the end.

Next up, Knife of Dreams, in which Jordan largely redeems himself, producing the most exciting volumes in some time. It is also the final entry written before his death and the beginning of Brandon Sanderson's involvement with the concluding books. Leastwise I've considered it Jordan's redemption in the past. We'll see how it goes this time round.

[Decrepit]

At 1238 today I concluded my third reading of Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams, book eleven of The Wheel of Time. This is Jordan's swansong, his final self-completed series entry prior to an untimely death. It's the volume that, during prior reads, I considered the series' recovery from what I then felt was a mid books slump. This time round I don't so much see those of middle books as lesser quality but rather a deliberate change in tone, less humorous and heroic than their predecessors. Knife merely returns us, to an extent, to the tone of early volumes. Or so I now believe. (OK. Not so far as humor is considered. Knife remains pretty bleak.)

I like pretty much every sub-plot in Knife, Egwene - White Tower. Mat - Tuon and so on. As usual, Perrin - Faile held the least interest for me, and even it had its moments.

Next up, the first Jordan-Sanderson combo, The Gathering Storm. From here on these will be second readings.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Dec 6 2017, 08:21 PM

[ghastley]

I've been reading the Flinx books by Alan Dean Foster. He wrote them as a series of about four or five, and then went back and filled in the time-line with more later. To further confuse things, there are non-series books set in the same context - same planets, some of the same characters. I read a lot of them when they came out in paperback, so in the order they were written. This time I'm reading in the story's chronological order. I don't have a number of the ones he wrote later, and I've just paused at the point where I don't have the "next" one.

I already have the next four books of Discworld downloaded to my Nook for the Christmas holiday travel reading, but I don't want to start on those, or I might have to watch the awful movies on the plane.

[Uleni Athram]

A throwaway line in Rogue One had me looking up the Legends version of the Darksaber. End result is me now reading it with a bunch more on my list; it was a rabbit hole for other post-RotJ (EU/L) books. Like, a truckload more. WHEW

[Callidus Thorn]

I'm reading Dragon Wing, the first book of The Death Gate Cycle Not too far through it yet, but it's off to an interesting start.

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: Dec 13 2017, 09:03 PM

[Decrepit]

At 1251 today I finished my second reading of The Gathering Storm, book twelve of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, the first of the final three books Brandon Sanderson completed following Jordan's 2007 death. In his forward, Sanderson states that no one could write the book as well as Jordan himself could have. I was reminded of this time and time again while reading Storm, especially early on. That said, Sanderson does a commendable job. In particular his treatment of Egwene and the White Tower, a focal point of the book, does Jordan proud. Rand is, I think, quite well handled too, though by this stage he is so utterly transformed that comparisons with his former self are largely meaningless. On the other hand Aviendha's brief appearances, she receives almost no coverage here, don't ring true for me.

This book reinforces my newfound belief that the series does NOT slump in the middle but instead merely undergoes dramatic change in "tone." I in no way see this as a bad thing, though I can understand why some of those drawn to the series by the early books' heroics, sense of wonder, and humor might not appreciate what they later morphed into.

I will almost certainly begin book thirteen, Towers of Midnight, by day's end. I doubt I'll finish it before the turn of the year. If so, Storm will be my twenty-first and final completed read of 2017.

[Decrepit]

My year of reading - 2017:

This past year is a tough one for me to report on. First off, though as a retiree I've more time to read than in years past, and indeed devoted a fair amount of time to reading, it must be admitted that my thinking processes aren't what they once were, and I was never an overly fast thinker. In consequence, I completed a grand total of only twenty-one novel length books during 2017. Not shabby, but nothing to write home about.

My "favorite new read of the year" is, as only rarely happens, not fantasy but rather a factual book on an aspect of US politics. It shall remain nameless for fear of stirring up discussion of the sort rightly frowned on in this forum.

I read only one fantasy novel new to me last year, though it is by no means a newly published work: "Illusion" by Paula Volsky. It also happens to be the first book I completed in 2017. I enjoyed it, but not to the extent of considering it my "favorite new fantasy read of 2017," an honorific which will remain vacant due to lack of contenders.

My "best re-read of the year" is also a tough call. I re-read both "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Wheel of Time" this past year, not yet quite finishing WOT. I'm inclined to give the nod to Wheel, as I feel I've gotten more out of the books this time round than ever before, even changing my stance on its 'mid-books slump,' which as of this reading I no longer believe occurs.

My "disappointment of the year?" No outright winner there either, again due to lack of competition. The novel I enjoyed least was a third reading of Julian May's "The Many-Colored Land." But that's somewhat unfair, as I'm just not much into books with strong sci-fi elements, which Land has/is.

There you have it. I believe the above takes into account every book read during 2017, with the exception of one factual political work.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 1 2018, 06:13 PM

[Decrepit]

At 2102 this evening, 1 Jan 2018, I completed my second reading of the penultimate volume of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, Towers of Midnight. As with the preceding book, at times I felt Sanderson's handling of certain characters' speech and thoughts not quite in total sync with how I envision Jordan handling them. Despite that, I find Towers a strong series entry. Too, I do not know what writing is pure Sanderson, what pure Jordan, and what a combination of the two. It would be ironic indeed should I learn that the writing I find not quite Jordanesque enough is actually that of the master himself!

My favorite scenario in Towers might well be Aviendha's revelations at Rhuidean. I found Mat and the gang's "visit" to the Tower near book end a bit of a mixed bag. That said, one section of that excursion had my eyes misting, for me a sure sign of a great read.

I'll likely begin the series' final volume, A Memory of Light, shortly. Due to it being near bedtime, I doubt I'll get far before nodding off.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 2 2018, 05:07 AM

[Callidus Thorn]

As it's been some time since my last attempt, I'm taking another stab at reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series again

[Decrepit]

As it's been some time since my last attempt, I'm taking another stab at reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen series again.

Good luck. Popular as that series is, I couldn't make myself continue on past book one, with which I struggled mightily to finish. Just not my thing. An obviously minority stance, but there it is.

As for myself, I'm still slugging away at A Memory of Light, slowed greatly by having become utterly addicted to the game Mashinky, which consumes almost my entire existence, to the abandonment of almost all else. With this reading of Memory more so that the last, I bemoan Jordan not being able to finish the series on his own. Sanderson does fine work, but too often as I read I am reminded that he's no Jordan, as he himself admits in the preface to The Gathering Storm, the first series entry he brought to completion.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jan 17 2018, 12:27 PM

[mirocu]

Currently flipping through a Japanese dictionary. Quite advanced for my level but it is interesting to look through it and being able to read (and understand) a few things here and there.

[ghastley]

Currently flipping through a Japanese dictionary. Quite advanced for my level but it is interesting to look through it and being able to read (and understand) a few things here and there.

What order is it in? My understanding of Kanji is that for purposes of things like phone directories, there's an order to the glyphs that relates to the number of strokes to draw it, but the Unicode binary sequence may or may not have duplicated that, and is the most likely to get used in on-line things.

With a stroke-count order, the basic concepts (the easy words) are at the beginning, so you think you're understanding a higher proportion than you really are.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jan 19 2018, 10:48 PM

[Decrepit]

Just saw that Urula K. Le Guin had died at 88. Her Earthsea trilogy was an early fantasy read for me. I later read its initial follow up, and much later read her several late add ons to the cycle. Good stuff. Maybe it's due another reading once I finish The Wheel of time. We shall see.

Speaking of Wheel, I'm at about the halfway point, progress slowed by devoting much of my time to the game Mashinky. For me, this volume more so than the first two Sanderson contributions suffers in comparison to those books Jordan was able to complete before his demise. It has to do with character portrayals I think. Jordan was a master character writer. Sanderson, in comparison, not so much. Still, I don't want to dis on Sanderson, who does a commendable job overall.

[Decrepit]

At 1501 today, 25 Feb 2018, I completed my second reading of A Memory of Light, final book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. First read I felt it one of the series’ weaker entries, mostly due to what I saw as short-sheeted conclusions to some long standing plot lines. This time around I still consider it weak, but for a different reason. It now seems to me that many character have lost something of their unique colorful personalities, which Jordan was so good at depicting in those volumes he completed on his own. Be that as it may, I credit Sanderson with doing a satisfactory and often more than satisfactory job of wrapping things up in the three final books.

Took me nearly two months to read Memory. No good reason for that. Yeah, I was ill during part of that time, and hooked on a game for much of it. But I’ve been in those situations before and still been able to finish books in what I consider “reasonable” time for my slow reading pace.

I’ve tentatively started a re-reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Earthsea Trilogy, reacquainting myself with the recently deceased author.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 26 2018, 12:54 PM

[Decrepit]

At 1712 today, at the tail end of supper, I finished my fifth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, book one of The Earthsea Trilogy. Earthsea is one of first novels I read following my conversion to fantasy in the mid 80's. I liked it then. I like it now. I will of course continue on with book two, The Tombs of Atuan.

[Decrepit]

At 1323 yesterday afternoon, 14 Mar 2018, I concluded my fifth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan, book two of The Earthsea Trilogy, and am already some way into the final volume, The Farthest Shore. A fine series I'm glad to become acquainted with again. (It's been nearly fourteen years since their last reading.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 15 2018, 02:02 PM

[ghastley]

A few days ago the power was out for 24 hours, so during the hours when I had natural light, I read Poul Anderson's "Satan's World" - all about a rogue planet of ice that's passing close to a giant star and warming briefly, before the hyberbolic path takes it back into open space. With the snow outside, it was just the right story.

[Decrepit]

At 0006 this morning (I was already up for the day! ) I concluded my fourth reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Farthest Shore, finale volume of The Earthsea Trilogy. I'm now 68 pages into Tehanu, the Last Book of Earthsea.

[Lopov]

I'm reading H.P. Lovecraft's Great Tales of Horror for the second time, for the first time I couldn't get into Lovecraft and I found some stories boring, even hard to understand at times, but the more I read, the more I liked them, so now I'm reading them for the second time, finding even those I had found boring before, to be great. In the coming week I should receive his complete fiction, ordered from the UK. The delivery is free worldwide, but even if I had to pay for the delivery, the book still costs much less as if I bought it in Slovenian stores.

[SubRosa]

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has a ton of Lovecraft stuff for sale, including his entire works on audio book. They did a few movies - The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, which are both stellar. The Dark Adventure Radio Theater episodes are awesome.