SF and Fantasy wot I ave been reeding

[Mister Six]

If you enjoy the first one, don't bother with a second, by the sound of it.

I put this in the "big giant fuck-off book" thread, but I guess it fits here too:

I'm about halfway through Alan Moore's 1,200-page opus Jerusalem. It's divided into three "books" (literally separate volumes in the paperback version, due to the size), and it was only towards the end of the first that reading the thing went from a gruelling exercise in bloodymindedness to a genuinely enjoyable experience.

The first book, a bit like his previous novel, Voice of the Fire, is composed of short stories set across various centuries in Northampton, each focused on a different protagonist - a prostitute obsessed with Princess Diana, a black American settled in the UK, a ghost ambling around town, a medieval monk on a mission - that cross over and link together in unexpected ways.

Unfortunately, unlike in Voice of the Fire, the stories are all obscenely long, frequently packed with tedious detail about how this chip shop burned down in 1962 and that row of houses was knocked down to make a block of flats and so on and so on, and mostly lack the compelling twists and dramatic shifts that made each of the Voice stories so compelling.

Then, towards the end of book one, things take a turn for the more openly fantastical, and the story starts to move in tight chronological order with a focus on one particular character and his little entourage, and it really takes off. I've yet to see how some of the chapters in book one (particularly the three chapters  "Modern Times", "Blind, But Now I See" and "Atlantis") actually weave themselves into the grander design, but it's hard not to feel at this point like Moore could quite easily have shaved 300 pages at least off the total count.

It's a bloody tiny font with slim margins, too.

[touchingcloth]

If you enjoy the first one, don't bother with a second, by the sound of it.

It's just bad luck on the two particular pairs of books I've recently read, I think. The Culture novels are deliberately not sequels so I was ready for differences in style and quality, but the Atwood one is part of a trilogy with Oryx and Crake so I wasn't expecting it to be as dissimilar from the first novel as it is, which is different from The Testaments where even though none of the characters from The Handmaid's Tale were the same, the style of the books were basically identical. I didn't particularly enjoy The State of The Art, but with Atwood one it's more that I'm enjoying it less than the first book.

I think I posted earlier in the thread about reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, and I ripped through them as if they were a single unbroken novel.

[Mister Six]

If you want to go back into The Culture, I reckon Surface Detail is probably the best of them. Not necessarily the most cleverly structured (that would be Use of Weapons) or anything, but a lot of fun, albeit rather dark in several places.

[touchingcloth]

If you want to go back into The Culture, I reckon Surface Detail is probably the best of them. Not necessarily the most cleverly structured (that would be Use of Weapons) or anything, but a lot of fun, albeit rather dark in several places.

I haven't written The Culture off at all. Consider Phlebas is a couple down on my to-read list on Good Reads, with Surface Detail a couple behind it. Would you flip them?

[MojoJojo]

Yes. Consider Phlebas is a bit weird in many ways - it's technically the first culture novel, but the pov is from someone outside the culture and doesn't really introduce the culture very well. Basically Bank's still learning his craft.

Caveat here it's at least 15 years since I read either.

[touchingcloth]

They are switched. Amen.

[Mister Six]

If you're planning on reading them all, maybe save Surface Detail to last, because it's such a romp and it's fun to end on a high (although actual last Culture novel The Hydrogen Sonata is pretty good and works as a capper too, thematically, and it's a good 'un, to boot) and there's a fun Easter egg if you've already read Use of Weapons.

The only really wank Culture book, I reckon, is Matter. And even then there's a lot of fun stuff in there. Inversions is a bit middling and Consider Phlebas a rather unfocused and episodic, but decent.

I'd say, in descending order of preference:

Surface Detail
Use of Weapons
Excession
The Player of Games
Look to Windward
The Hydrogen Sonata
Consider Phlebas
The State of the Art (novella)
Inversions
Matter

[mothman]

I'd pick that top five too; maybe not in that order. I really hated Matter.

It's a curious thing that there isn't really a novel about the Culture from the perspective of the Culture.

It's either from the POV of someone from outside visiting the Culture, working for the Culture, fighting the Culture. Or somebody from the Culture who's left it, whether temporarily or permanently.

I've probably missed out some combination of the above! And yes there are examples of internal Culture stories or plot lines, but they're few and far between given the size of the canon.

[Mister Six]

Actually I might put Excession above Weapons, just because it's so fun to read. But I appreciate what a clever bugger Banks was, and Weapons is a fine example of that.

I've probably missed out some combination of the above! And yes there are examples of internal Culture stories or plot lines, but they're few and far between given the size of the canon.

I think Banks acknowledged that's because for most of the people in the culture, life is just an endless flow of hobbies, drugs, sex and gossip. Which would be amazing to live, but incredibly dull to read about.

[Zetetic]

Look to Windward makes that very clear, I think, in fairly gentle way.

[touchingcloth]

I think Banks acknowledged that's because for most of the people in the culture, life is just an endless flow of hobbies, drugs, sex and gossip. Which would be amazing to live, but incredibly dull to read about.

It's a bit like if the machines in The Matrix had found a way to keep their human subject completely content with and unaware of their situation, and then making a film which is within the matrix but which doesn't know it is within the matrix. Raging Bull or Mrs Doubtfire, for example.

[touchingcloth]

I decided that the Banks derailment (and the separate thread for The Culture) meant that I should try a quantitative rather than qualitative approach to picking the next book to read.

I added the scores for each book on Goodreads together and then divided by the 10, and decided I would pick the book with the score closest to the mean average.

Only problem is, that gives me the "only really wank" book of Mister Six - Matter.

[mothman]

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Honours by Tim Clare - Fantasy horror set in 1935 where a young teenage girl comes up against supernatural creatures after her father is committed to a sanitorium. Clare's prose is superb, and though it perhaps takes a little too long to finally reveal the answer to the mystery it sets up in its first few pages these are characters and a setting that I found gripping, and the ending was very satisfying too. 4.75/5

I just quit the follow up, The Ice House, after 140 pages, which is frustrating and then some due to how much I liked the first book. But the second is a real misfire, set seventy odd years later but with the same protagonist, though this time it visits the world the supernatural creatures came from and it's a massive disappointment, very similar to our world in many ways and the characters are just as petty and annoying. The worst thing is how much time he spends describing every single tiny element in a room or street, and on almost every page there are three or four words that I'd not heard of before, and I don't want to sound egotistical but that very rarely happens with other novels, and it feels like he's constantly gone on thesaurus.com to make the descriptions as convoluted as possible. Even worse is that a lot of the writing feels clunky, and his similes and metaphors are often weirdly rubbish, plus the structure annoyed me too as it flits between one character arriving in this world and another who has been here centuries, but with her story jumping backwards each time instead of forwards, all of which adds up to one of the worst sequels I've ever (partially) read.

[Glebe]

Rereading Lord of the Rings, Shelob's children are described as 'bastards', which I didn't remember... actually swearing in Tolkien!

[Alberon]

A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie. The start of the second trilogy in the First Law world and the seventh book overall.

It's thirty years on from the first trilogy and this new series features the next generation, virtually all of whom are children of major and minor characters from previous books. There's Prince Orso intelligent but living a wastrel's life; Savine a mercenary businesswoman who is the daughter of crippled former torturer Glokta; Rikke, from the north and daughter of the Dogman, she is cursed with visions of the future; Leo, popular if rather vapid Governor in the north; Stour Nightfall, arrogant son of Black Calder. And Bayaz, the long-lived sorceror is back manipulating everything as always.

As the book opens the industrial revolution is in full swing and the satanic mills are rising across The Union bringing even more hardship and change to the poor. This book is mostly about introducing the characters and moving them into place. That's not to say there isn't action with Stour and Leo facing off in another of the North's unending wars and Savine being caught up in a brutal uprising by the Burners and the Breakers revolting against unrelenting oppression by smashing machinery and lynching factory owners.

It feels like this trilogy will bring a close to the First Law world as it marches remorselessly towards a modern day very much like ours. As ever, being a returning character is no guarantee of safety and it'll be interesting to see what happens to the new cast as their worlds are upended.

[MojoJojo]

Savine a mercenary businesswoman who is the daughter of crippled former torturer Glokta;

Spoiler from the first trilogy

Spoiler alert

I'm assuming she's not really Glokta's daughter, given how the first trilogy ended. Does that come up?[/quote]

The ending of the first trilogy was too much of a downer for me to be interested in following it up.

[close]

[sprocket]

Spoiler from the first trilogy

Spoiler alert

I'm assuming she's not really Glokta's daughter, given how the first trilogy ended. Does that come up?

The ending of the first trilogy was too much of a downer for me to be interested in following it up.

[close]

The spoiler is a significant driver of the plot for the second trilogy.

[Famous Mortimer]

"Gideon The Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir

As everyone else who's ever mentioned this book must, here's the one-line description of it from Charles Stross - "lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" I read an interview with the author, and she said it was a tribute to herself as a "dirtbag lesbian" teenager, a group that is under-represented in fiction. I like it so far (hundred pages or so), and am intrigued to see where the story goes.

[Zetetic]

Previously discussed here:
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,79537.msg4411685.html#msg4411685

Mild vague spoilers.

[Famous Mortimer]

Good to know I've got some folks to discuss it with when I get to the end (plus, there are sequels, which I didn't realise til right now).

[Famous Mortimer]

I just finished "Gideon The Ninth", and rather enjoyed it. I largely agree with the things written last year - there are a few too many characters, and it doesn't get going til the herd is thinned out somewhat.

But I liked the writing style. Tamsyn Muir gives Gideon the sort of dialogue she no doubt used at the same age, and if we accept they're not from the same world as us, it makes as much sense that they talk like that than  like olde tymey knights and ladies. We know they're in a world with magazines, so...

Anyway, excellent stuff.

[Famous Mortimer]

I just finished House Of Earth And Blood, and I'd recommend it. You'll be able to see roughly where the plot is going, but it's a lot of fun and the 800 pages fly by. Interesting world the author has built, too.

It looks like we'll be getting a part 2 next year.

https://ew.com/books/see-the-cover-for-sarah-j-maas-next-crescent-city-novel-house-of-sky-and-breath/

I have zero interest in reading any of her more obviously YA-romance novels, but I liked her first adult book. Now she's got the world buildling out of the way I hope this one will settle down a bit, be a bit less "hey, look at all the weird creatures who live in this city". It's nice to dip your toe into something a bit new - modern fantasy with a lot of sexy times in it is definitely that for me.

[Famous Mortimer]

Next up is "The Luminous Dead" from Caitlin Starling. The comparisons the back cover gives us are all to books which were turned into movies ("Gravity", "The Martian" and "Annihilation") so I'm expecting a good old thriller, but in a cave in space.

[Zetetic]

if we accept they're not from the same world as us, it makes as much sense that they talk like that than  like olde tymey knights and ladies. We know they're in a world with magazines, so...

But we do also know that

Spoiler alert

Gideon and Harrow are the only people aged under maybe 25 on their whole planet and that either of them are really in contact with

[close]

. But I'm not fussed about rationalising it in the logic of their world anyway, even less so in the context of the sequel.

[Famous Mortimer]

Next up is "The Luminous Dead" from Caitlin Starling. The comparisons the back cover gives us are all to books which were turned into movies ("Gravity", "The Martian" and "Annihilation") so I'm expecting a good old thriller, but in a cave in space.

This starts off with one of my fantasy / sci-fi bugbears - the map. Like, am I going to be expected to know this later? The only map I ever paid attention to was in A Song Of Ice And Fire, and that was only to shout at Daenerys to stop pissing about on the other continent and crack on with the plot of the books, please. Looks like GRRM gave up on finishing the series, though. Probably for the best.

So far, so good, with "The Luminous Dead", though. Well written, interesting ideas.

[Alberon]

Ravencry and Crowfall by Ed McDonald are the last two books in the trilogy.

As with the first book this is largely set in and around the Misery and follows a captain in the service of one of the near-godlike sorcerers called the Nameless fighting another set of ancient near-godlike beings called the Deep Kings who, while seeking to takeover and transform humanity, are only slightly worse than the beings nominally on our side.

Reasonably entertaining series, but for some reason the worldbuilding never seems to really convince. I was surprised, and fairly disappointed that the

Spoiler alert

finale of the third book did not resolve the trilogy, but instead largely restored the status quo and indeed reset something that seemed irrevocable that happened in the final volume. Leaving the series open for future novels does hurt the ending here.

[close]

In short, not great, but not bad. It's okay.

[VelourSpirit]

Thinking of getting into The Black Company because I really love the cover but from reading about it I'm not really parsing the premise of it, or the setting. What's it about?

[Famous Mortimer]

Just finished "The Luminous Dead", and it's fine. You can tell it's a first novel, I think, and I don't regret reading it, while at the same time not being bothered to read anything else by her.

Next up, thanks to the library, is "Harrow The Ninth", the sequel to the book I mentioned earlier.

[Alberon]

The Fallen by Ada Hoffmann. This is a sequel to her novel The Outside. I picked up that because I was hoping it explored the idea of something from outside our reality pressing into it. If the universe really is just a Brane, one of possibly an infinite number, drifting in a higher dimensional space then what else could exist out there?

Sadly, The Outside didn't really scratch that itch and The Fallen moves further away.

Set in yet another future where the AIs are in charge this mixes in magic, as many books these days do. The AIs depend on the souls of humans to keep them sentient.

In the first book the outside was unleashed on a fifth of a human colonised world warping and changing the land and it's inhabitants. The ruling AIs try to control and contain this changed world whilst a small band of humans fight back.

Like the books of Tamsyn Muir many of the characters and indeed the author is neurodiverse and this features more heavily in the sequel. I didn't feel this was dealt with as interesting or as in depth as Gideon the Ninth and its sequel.

I can't blame the two books for not being what I hoped it would be, but ultimately I ended up skipping through the last part as it didn't engage.

In fact, not a lot really happen in The Fallen and I don't think I'll be picking up the third in the series when that inevitably arrives.