What are you reading at the moment?

[mikeprice]

But... if you're going to the Zoo and you see an M word, why can't you say the M word if what you're seeing is a Monk*SMACK*

 

Did you get the number of that donkey cart?*

 

You may have had to have played the 1995 Discworld game to get that reference

 

Well I was alive in 1985 - but I was working all day programming on computer terminals (yup terminals - not these new fangled PC thingies)

so when I got home - often at silly times - spending more time on a computer was not a priority - especially as work had an annoying habit of ringing me up most evenings (which - by the way - made me a fortune - wonder what I spent it all on???)

 

so - no - I didn't play the 1985 Discworld game

[Norphy]

Well I was alive in 1985 - but I was working all day programming on computer terminals (yup terminals - not these new fangled PC thingies)

so when I got home - often at silly times - spending more time on a computer was not a priority - especially as work had an annoying habit of ringing me up most evenings (which - by the way - made me a fortune - wonder what I spent it all on???)

 

so - no - I didn't play the 1985 Discworld game

 

1995, not 85 [emoji4]

 

It’s well worth looking up, it works in SCUMMVM and has an absolutely stellar voice cast including Eric Idle and Tony Robinson.

[mikeprice]

1995, not 85 [emoji4]

 

It’s well worth looking up, it works in SCUMMVM and has an absolutely stellar voice cast including Eric Idle and Tony Robinson.

 

Are you implying that I should READ the posts before replying to them?????????????????????

 

 

the rules on this site just get more and more complicated!!!!!!!

 

(e.g.

read the damn post before replying

don;t replace apostrophes with semi-colons

no political stuff

don't wind up electric vehicle and Linux enthusiasts too much)

 

It just goes on and on

 

)

!!!!!!!

[simpsonj]

On a YA front (and YA is really good, don't ever believe anyone who tells you its inferior--it has different aims in its plotlines, but if anything its a more competitive market than adult fiction, and even higher quality) I really enjoyed Naomi Novak's Temeraire series. It's a retelling of the Napoleonic wars... with dragons. A British ship captain accidentally comes into possession of a rare egg being sent from the Chinese to Napoleon, and inadvertantly becomes a dragon rider. Marvellous stuff.

 

Other good fantasy: Joe Abercrombie for yer new fangled grimdark fantasy; Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora is exquisitely constructed; Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear are gorgeously written. Although it's now been a five year wait for book three, and still no sign, so, er, maybe not one for those of you fed up with GRRM's workrate. (Fun fact: Pat Rothfuss was a WotF winner about ten years back, and I discovered, during an anecdote related by Kevin J Anderson, that Rothfuss already had the trilogy finished then; he's just been revising it since... )

 

Really enjoyed the Locke Lamora trilogy.

 

And The Doors of Stone, Patrick Rothfuss' third book, should be out in August!

[simpsonj]

I was re-reading the first wheel of time book when this pandemic kicked off.

Just finished book 3 last night. The aim being to have them all done before the tv series airs, hopefully towards the end of the year.

 

They're awfully good books and on the re-read you notice all the little events/characters Jordan set up early on that pay dividends towards the end.

 

Superb stuff.

 

Jumped back in at no.11 (couldn't face rereading 9 and 10...). Just finished 12, and it's a revelation! Really enjoyed The Gathering Storm, a real return to form, and the best book in the series since 6. Aiming to get 13 and 14 finished before Doors of Stone is released.

 

Also worth looking at the Wheel of Time Reread

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Jumped back in at no.11 (couldn't face rereading 9 and 10...). Just finished 12, and it's a revelation! Really enjoyed The Gathering Storm, a real return to form, and the best book in the series since 6. Aiming to get 13 and 14 finished before Doors of Stone is released.

 

Also worth looking at the Wheel of Time Reread

It really picks up the pace once Brandon takes over.

There's a real sense that he want to start pulling all these myriad threads back together.

[simpsonj]

It really picks up the pace once Brandon takes over.

There's a real sense that he want to start pulling all these myriad threads back together.

 

Absolutely, and it was needed to save the books from collapsing under their own weight. To me, the books begin to spiral out of control starting with 7, and by 10 there are so many threads (pun not intended), that nothing progresses. Thankfully Jordan/Sanderson realise this, and start to pull it back together again. Also, the clarity that Sanderson brings to the series is very welcome.

 

Someone mentioned Robin Hobb, and I highly recommend the Liveship Traders trilogy. You don't need to have read any others to understand whats going on, and I found that trilogy very enjoyable. You can read it as a standalone set, or use it to launch into the other books set on that world.

[mikeprice]

I'd forgotten about Robin Hobb

 

they were some of the books I read when I had a contact in a bookshop - Good reads!

[Andrew_C]

Mrs C and I read the Robin Hobb trilogies after we ran out of dragons in Westeros.

 

All good stuff, if a bit padded out.

[LeMarchand]

Just finished The Binding by Bridget Collins.

 

In a slipstream Thomas Hardyish world a young farmer's son is apprenticed to a book binder and discovers the cause of the strange blackouts he has been experiencing.

 

It's a bit hard to talk about without giving too much away, and if you are interested: do not read the blurb on the back of the book! The blurb (in some way understandably) gives away the novel's USP, which is a fascinating idea, but the book is structured as a mystery. It's a bit like the opening of Predator 2 where the team are trying to solve the "mystery" of the killings, when the audience know from the title of the film. So we spend the first third of the book waiting for the protagonist to catch up with us. The next third then leaps back in time to give us the why, but this is so telegraphed that we're again waiting for events to catch up. The final third swaps POV but is somewhat of a thematic retread of the first two thirds. The central romance was also unconvincing. Maybe the author was trying to subvert stereotypes, but to me it felt fairly one sided with the other party being somewhat predatory. Maybe I've read too much Thomas Hardy!

 

So a great idea, but poorly implemented.

[pete]

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells.

 

"I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It has been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure."

[simpsonj]

Finally finished Wheel of Time!

Absolutely epic ending, that I hope George R. R. Martin has read and taken notes...

Now debating whether to re-read Name of the Wind and A Wise Man's Fear before the last book is released, or going for a nostalgic re-read of the Dragons of Autumn Twilight series, followed by the Twins series (both Dragonlance).

[ICTDirect_Dave]

It's a cracking conclusion eh?

 

The change of pace for the last couple of books really ramps up and the finale does a great job of weaving all those threads together.

[mikeprice]

Hmm - gave up on the wheel of time ages ago - can';t remember why - think I was getting fed up with them

 

maybe I should have kept going

[simpsonj]

Hmm - gave up on the wheel of time ages ago - can';t remember why - think I was getting fed up with them

 

maybe I should have kept going

 

Not gonna lie, the middle section (books 8-10) are a bit of a slog, but I would argue that the pay off is worth it. Also, the first book has more than a few echoes of LotR about it, but Jordan breaks away from that and creates his own style soon enough.

 

It's a weird series, I completely understand why some people dislike it, but if it gets your hooks in you, it's truly one of the best fantasy series I've ever read.

[TechMonkey]

1995, not 85 [emoji4]

 

It’s well worth looking up, it works in SCUMMVM and has an absolutely stellar voice cast including Eric Idle and Tony Robinson.

 

Can play online if you wish

[LeMarchand]

Just finished Embers of War by Gareth Powell.

 

The reviews I read made it sound like "Thunderbirds...IN SPACE!!!", but it's more like a Red Cross with sentient ships than Interstellar Rescue. Worth a read if you fancy a bit of the old space opera.

 

Also read Boom Studios' The Magicians 5-issue spin-off mini-series. Not awful, but not recommended.

[HarryMonkey]

Just finished re-reading The Stiehl Assassin ahead of the final Shannara book being released in the Autumn. This has been an epic series and I will be sorry to see it finish. I can always start it again I suppose

[Andrew_C]

Just finished Vivian Shaw's "Dr Helsing" trilogy. A bit Ben Arronovich, but with a medic to the undead rather than a copper.

[mikeprice]

currently reading the whole 'Wheel of Time' by Robert Jordan - all in one massive DOC file - currently at 18% and 135 hours left to read according to Kindle

 

 

but this seems like a wide ranging book to try next

 

[StevieM]

currently reading the whole 'Wheel of Time' by Robert Jordan - all in one massive DOC file - currently at 18% and 135 hours left...

 

Wheel of Time? Oh, the irony!

 

[pete]

The Obelisk Gate by N.K Jemisin (Book 2 of the Broken Earth trilogy).

 

Synopsis (for trilogy): A post-multiple apocalypses earth(?) is plagued by seismic activity after someone destroyed or relocated the moon. That leads to long periods every few decades / hundred years where food is scarce, cannibalism is accepted as a means of surviving and the social structure is largely based around surviving the next apocalypse.

 

Magic users are blamed for all of the above by the general populace, treated as second-class citizens and murdered if they look at anyone funny. However society depends on those magic users to quell/minimise seismic activity in order to not die in volcanic eruptions so they use selective breeding to have a stock of magic users for that task.

 

The protagonists are those magic users.

[sonofsanta]

The Obelisk Gate by N.K Jemisin (Book 2 of the Broken Earth trilogy).

 

Synopsis (for trilogy): A post-multiple apocalypses earth(?) is plagued by seismic activity after someone destroyed or relocated the moon. That leads to long periods every few decades / hundred years where food is scarce, cannibalism is accepted as a means of surviving and the social structure is largely based around surviving the next apocalypse.

 

Magic users are blamed for all of the above by the general populace, treated as second-class citizens and murdered if they look at anyone funny. However society depends on those magic users to quell/minimise seismic activity in order to not die in volcanic eruptions so they use selective breeding to have a stock of magic users for that task.

 

The protagonists are those magic users.

 

 

The Broken Earth trilogy is phenomenal. The trick it pulls in the first one with POV is staggeringly clever, and had me shouting OH SUGARPUFFS* out loud in my car as I realised what N. K. Jemisin had done. Brilliant ending to the whole trilogy, too.

 

I just finished listening to her newest one, as it happens, THE CITY WE BECAME, which is more urban fantasy--five strangers suddenly become the avatars of the five New York boroughs, and find themselves under attack from a mysterious Woman in White who is in the habit of attacking cities as they awaken. Less heavy going than Broken Earth, though not without its share of commentary. Lot of fun in audio too.

 

 

 

*may have been another word that I can't use on EduGeek

[pete]

^ Yeah, I tried to be vague so as not to spoil surprises.

 

I should also mention that in the society of the trilogy it's considered perfectly acceptable (if not an actual requirement) to murder your own children if they show signs of being a magic user.

 

It's a very Joe Abercrombie-style world rather than a hopeful one.

[simpsonj]

Sounds interesting, picked up the first book