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What are you Reading Now?

Nimue

Auror
Recently tried Goodreads and had the worst run of recommendations - four very watery books, two trad pub and two indie. Interestingly, all of them came to a non-ending that was meant to get you to read the sequel. I'm always a little puzzled about how not ending the first book is supposed to give the reader faith that a satisfying ending is forthcoming...at some point. (This may also be why I don't watch much TV.)

I am loving Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts, though, or at least the beautiful writing and worldbuilding. Not entirely sold on the plot, at halfway through... Particularly interested in this one because I have a steppe-based world revolving in the back of my mind--I was a little worried that I'd read it to find she'd taken all the good ideas already, but it's very different from what I'm hoping to write...someday?

Also finally got around to Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber - it's fascinating how a book that isn't my cup of tea (fast paced, spartan writing, archetypal world) can still be completely compelling when it comes from a masterful author. Case study on hooks and intriguing characterization. Now, that book also didn't have a complete ending, but it had resolution. Close the chapter, if not the story.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Also finally got around to Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes in Amber - it's fascinating how a book that isn't my cup of tea (fast paced, spartan writing, archetypal world) can still be completely compelling when it comes from a masterful author. Case study on hooks and intriguing characterization. Now, that book also didn't have a complete ending, but it had resolution. Close the chapter, if not the story.

One of my favorite series! I even named one of my kids after the MC, Corwin. :)
 

Nimue

Auror
One of my favorite series! I even named one of my kids after the MC, Corwin. :)
Hah! Isn't that the end-goal of fantasy readers, to find a character that we could get away with naming a kid after? Corwin is a lovely name. :D Starting The Guns of Avalon today!
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
And my daughter-in-law is named Amber. New author success measure: number of kids named after characters in your books!
 
Started Turtledoves Sentry Peak book and therefore the rest of the series and also read the first Steam Wars comic. Surprisingly good for a steampunk version of Star Wars.
 

Mytherea

Minstrel
Just started The Waking Fire by Anthony Ryan. Never read any of his stuff before, so I'm hoping to avoid the "it's not like his other series" complaint that seems most prevalent on Goodreads. So far, I'm liking the merging of an almost steampunk-Victorian technological level, magic, secondary world fantasy, and dragons.

I tried reading From Unseen Fire by Cass Morris but found it... hard to get into. A lot of names, a lot of similar sounding names introduced with very little context, plus I was suffering from point-of-view whiplash (I think three PoV characters were introduced in less than twenty pages? I prefer a little more time to get attached to PoV characters before it switches on me--also, some serious white-room issues, imo. Very little scene or character descriptions, which made it yet more difficult to get attached to the PoV characters).
 

Mae Lee

Acolyte
Anyone like Chinese fantasy? I've been reading Battling Records of the Chosen One by Xiao Jinyu on novelspread. it's fantasy novels with an intriguing start. The MC was completely on his own with his cultivation, a special way to make himself stronger. because his adopter was killed by some mysterious power. And, the most intriguing part is that before their parting, his adopter imparted something about his parents who were in fact killed by someone hidden in an empire called Ziyao (no idea what it means, though...) so he went to the empire with two treasures that were meant to bring him luck and power......
Seems like i've written too much about the plot. Anyway, just wanna say that Chinese fantasy is kind of addictive. when you start a book, it's really hard to stop.
Ah...if you happen to have also read some similar novels, please let me know. I've read some comments say that WDQK is also great, so i guess that'll be my next. but if you got something else to recommend plz...
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Anyone like Chinese fantasy? I've been reading Battling Records of the Chosen One by Xiao Jinyu on novelspread. it's fantasy novels with an intriguing start. The MC was completely on his own with his cultivation, a special way to make himself stronger. because his adopter was killed by some mysterious power. And, the most intriguing part is that before their parting, his adopter imparted something about his parents who were in fact killed by someone hidden in an empire called Ziyao (no idea what it means, though...) so he went to the empire with two treasures that were meant to bring him luck and power......
Seems like i've written too much about the plot. Anyway, just wanna say that Chinese fantasy is kind of addictive. when you start a book, it's really hard to stop.
Ah...if you happen to have also read some similar novels, please let me know. I've read some comments say that WDQK is also great, so i guess that'll be my next. but if you got something else to recommend plz...

I'm afraid I couldn't find any information on the novel you mentioned. I tried googling it by title and by author but couldn't find it.
 

Mae Lee

Acolyte
I'm afraid I couldn't find any information on the novel you mentioned. I tried googling it by title and by author but couldn't find it.
lol...sorry, i read it on Novelspread, a site that i stumbled across on Facebook, it directs me directly to the site. But i just googled it, didn't find it either...only find it when i type the site's complete name. Perhaps it's new site.
I tried to send a link, but not allowed to...so i guess you have to input it yourself...that is novelspread with 3Ws before and a 'com' after it...never told anyone a site like this. Funny experience...lol
 

Mythopoet

Auror
lol...sorry, i read it on Novelspread, a site that i stumbled across on Facebook, it directs me directly to the site. But i just googled it, didn't find it either...only find it when i type the site's complete name. Perhaps it's new site.
I tried to send a link, but not allowed to...so i guess you have to input it yourself...that is novelspread with 3Ws before and a 'com' after it...never told anyone a site like this. Funny experience...lol

I see. So it appears to be a website dedicated to translating Asian web novels. Some of those things become monstrous, I hear.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
Just go my hands on "The Russo-Japanese War: Global Perspectives" which I kind of thought that I would never see. So I hope I'll manage to finish it before I must return it.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Reading The Midnight Sea by Kat Ross. Leaving aside the story and the writing, I find I'm oddly bothered by the setting. It's clearly pseudo-Persian with some elements of Bedouin and Arab mixed in. It's done well enough and that may be the problem. When she refers to Eskander, she's talking about Alexander, and suddenly I'm thinking about him instead of the character she's invented. When she mentions the wine-dark waters of Bactria, I get the Homeric reference and I'm instantly thinking of the Odyssey rather than Afghanistan.

This is unexpected for me, who writes nothing but alternate historical fantasy, but it goes to something I'm keenly aware of: we cannot know what associations will form in the mind of the reader. We can be pretty sure, however, that those associations will not match ours. It's like being a painter and someone comes along and says "oh, she looks so sad" and the painter thinks "no, she was supposed to look thoughtful!" The composer writes a symphony about summer and someone in the audience thinks it's about factory life.

It's unnerving, this surrendering of the work to the mercies of the audience.
 

Mae Lee

Acolyte
Oh, I meant monstrous in length. Hundreds of chapters and such. Sorry, that was a bit ambiguous.
Yeah...some even with thousands of chapters. But that doesn't matter to me. I like long stories with cultivation details and different worlds. The only thing that i dislike is the repetition of plots in some novels, which is really annoying.
 

tbaron

Acolyte
I just started reading the Harry Potter books. I flew through the first one and am looking forward to reading the rest. I have seen the first four movies years ago but ony just now started to read the books.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Well, I've been reading Arthur Machen's work lately (a "weird fiction" writer before and after the turn of the 20th century). Finished off with what some critics call his masterpiece, "The Hill of Dreams". Wow, what a horror fever dream of a story. Very, very effective. Like the MC, I felt as if I was going mad toward the end.

Definitely needing a break after that so rereading a nice, comfortable favorite for now. The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Reading E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. I know--dull old history. But the better historians--and Thompson was one of that clan--know how to use the primary sources to illuminate the human condition. This is the story of England in the first half of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution was re-making the English countryside. Anyone who thinks the Victorian era was all about romance and corsets and duels should have a look. Grimdark ain't got nothin' on this.
 
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