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More recent reads

June 14th, 2006 (Visited 5924 times) Tags:

I’ve noticed that I don’t read nearly as much science-fiction as I do fantasy, and much of the fantasy I read is not the giant endless series of hack n slash adventures. I am many volumes behind on the George R. R. Martin books, for example, and I have completely given up on the Robert Jordan ones. I often enjoy urban fantasy, stuff that draws from mythology, and stuff that crosses over a bit into magical realism.

So a lot of the recent books read are going to fall into that category, along with a few other oddballs from here and there. There’s also one massive swath of reading of one author.

Dream-maker’s Magic appears to be the last in Sharon Shinn‘s juvie trilogy that I have praised here before. It’s a decent ending to the set, if a little less satisfying than the other two because of an overly pat and rushed ending. The real virtue of these books lies in their worldbuilding, where flashes of real originality come through. In earlier books in the set, we learned about safe-keepers, who are people who are compelled to keep secrets, and about truth-tellers, people who always tell the truth (whether or not they even know the facts of the situation!) and know when someone else is lying. In this case, it’s all about the one person who is blessed with the ability to make other people’s dreams come true, passively, just by being around them. But their own life must be one of pain — and Shinn doesn’t stint on that, either. One scene features a boy with a disease that weakens the bones being beaten and left alone miles out in the woods, to crawl home on his elbows.

Widdershins is the latest Charles de Lint novel. Like many other of his books, this one is set in the fictional city of Newford, a town that has a mystical presence on both the Native American and Celtic sides (the latter are immigrants, naturally). This book is mostly about settling the long-simmering romance between Jilly Coppercorn and fiddler Geordie Riddell — while a war is brewing between the two sorts of spirit worlds that inhabit the city. If anything, de Lint is at his strongest when he doesn’t delve too deeply into the complex mythology and backstory of his fictional creations; many of the individual stories in Dreams Underfoot need not be ashamed in the company of Allende or Marquez. Here, as in many of the longer Newford books, the complex tangle of characters from other novels detracts. The best single Newford novel is still Memory and Dream, so if you have never sampled his work, maybe start there.

The Silver Bough is a rather enjoyable outing from Lisa Tuttle. Tuttle is clearly of the same school as de Lint, with incursions of magic into the real world. Her last book featured a fairy kidnapping; this one is the same writ large. The small town of Appleton has a long tradition of electing Apple Queens, used to tgrow truly wonderful apples on its peninsular shores, is attached to the mainland of western Scotland by the barest of causeways, and doesn’t feature on older survey maps. Might it be Avalon turned into a seaside tourist trap? Fate drives a series of strangers to the town, where they dig into the history and the mystery. Although some of the wrap-ups to the stories end up being somewhat unsatisfying, the ride is enjoyable. There is one startling scene involving endless shrunken grandmothers and great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers stuffed in closets that while being wonderful and unsettling and manic, is really jarring because it has a darker tone than much of the rest of the book.

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is apparently a business classic. Since I am doing a lot of negotiating recently, I figured I had better read it. It’s chock-full of eminent good sense, most of which could be summarized as “don’t stake out arbitrary positions, and instead try to find the real problem to solve that underlies the discussion, and tackle that. Both negotiators should be working on that, rather than on each other.” I think this is probably one of those books that anyone, whether in business or not, should probably read — many of its examples are business-driven, but that’s not really what it is about. Rather, it’s about negotiations and agreements in all facets of life.

The Clan Corporate is the third, but alas not the final, volume in Charles Stross’ alternate-world fantasy. Not nearly as mind-bending as his SF, this features an industry reporter for a biotech magazine who finds she has the ability to walk between worlds, and that in the other world she’s nobility. What ensues is in the same vein as classics like Lest Darkness Fall, with the drama of bringing differing levels of technology to civilizations not quite ready for them. But in this case, add in a healthy dollop of poliical intrigue and Mafia-like dealings. It bugs me that this isn’t the final voilume only because the plot is fairly thickened at this point, and that means I have to wait to see how it all turns out…

A Hymn Before Battle is a book by John Ringo with a garish Baen cover featuring soldiers charging into some sort of military sci-fi hell. That basically means that I would probably never have picked it up in the bookstore. But when I got my new phone, one of the things I tried out on it was eBooks. And if there’s one thing that Baen does right, it’s the Baen Free Library: a large collection of freely downloadable eBooks in a variety of formats. I recalled seeing this one on a designer’s desk at SOE Austin way back when, and leafing through it, so I figured why not? Well, it was enjoyable enough that I’ve now downloaded the sequel too. A complex Galactic civilization with less than pure motives shows up and tells Earth’s leaders that a ravenous alien race called the Posleen are going to swarm over the planet and basically eat everyone, unless they are fought off. The largest military recall in history then happens, aided by Galactic rejuvenation tech. The story follows a few soldiers here and there throughout the conflict — some get written out entirely and unsentimentally (usually with dismemberment) after a large amount of time establishing their characters. It took me two months to read it in three-minute snatches on my phone, but I was glad to have it around.

I think I have mentioned the work of Tamora Pierce before, another popular juvie author. I had previously read several of her books about the fantasy world of Tortall, which is a frankly fairly generic fantasy world, with girls who run away from home to be warriors for the king and turn out to have wondrous powers. Yes, yet more echoes of Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey. But derivative doesn’t mean unenjoyable, and after trying out a few, I went ahead and got more, and then more. Pierce writes them in quartets, usually, but seems to be branching out into single books and in the case of the two “Trickster” books, just a pair.

Her non-Tortall fantasy world is far less derivative, and the quartet that introduced it is called “Circle of Magic.”

In these books, four assorted orphans, around ten years of age, are collected by a mage seer and brought to Winding Circle, a religious rereat and center of study. Each of the four is gifted with unusual magic. This is a world where magic gifts are common, and there are schools for those who wish to follow the “academic mage” route to learn to use their talents. But these four kids have “craft magic,” which means they relate to magic in special ways, rather than in the abstract. One weaves and spins, another has an affinity for plants, a third smiths, and the last uses the weather. Early on, the weaver manages to weave the four of them together magically — hence the title of the series — and thus magnifies and merges their powers.

Pierce doesn’t pull punches just because she’s writing for a younger audience; we have pirates who butcher people, we have a serial killer, we have an arsonist, drug addiction, caste systems and prejudice, a lesbian relationship, abused wives, marriage by rape, pleasure districts, and so on. Some of these don’t show up until the second quartet, when the kids are sixteen and each is traveling a different part of the world, away from the others.

What currently appears to be the final book, The Will Of The Empress, is just out in hardcover, and reunites the friends, all of whom have grown apart and independent during their world travels. It’s somewhat jarring to see them refuse to talk to each other over simple issues, and in at leats one case, there’s a huge chunk of unexplained backstory that took place during the travels but does not yet appear to feature in any book (according to Pierce’s website, some of those details will surface in future books).
The texture and variety of this world, with its diverse cultures and unique magic, make it a really interesting setting, beyond the norm of dragons and elves. It carries with it significant inspiration from historical cultures and time periods, adding verisimilitude. Although at times incidents are rushed (Pierce doesn’t seem to like to dwell on conflicts even when they are the pivotal climax of the book), the character development in between is worth it.

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mmplay - Massively Multiplayer Online Games wrote on June 14th, 2006 at 10:00 pm:

[...] Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is apparently a business classic. Since I am doing a lot of negotiating recently, I figured I had better read it. It�s chock-full of eminent good sense, most of which could be summarized as �don�t stake out arbitrary positions, and instead try to find the real problem to solve that underlies the discussion, and tackle that. Both negotiators should be working on that, rather than on each other.� I think this is probably one of those books that anyone, whether in business or not, should probably read � many of its examples are business-driven, but that�s not really what it is about. Rather, it�s about negotiations and agreements in all facets of life. Es scheint mit meinen Vermutungen bei seinem Ausscheiden von Sony Online Entertainment lag ich relativ dicht dran. Link: Raph’s aktuelle BuchtippsWeitere News zum Thema: Blizzard dementiert… aber was eigentlich? VSoH: Betaanmeldung f�r Gilden Neue MMOs von Blizzard WoW: Blizzard erlaubt Handbuch f�r Goldfarmer VSoH: Neue Screenshots vom 8.6.2006 Diskussion im Forum:Raph Koster mit neuem MMO? [...]

Faith wrote on June 15th, 2006 at 4:41 am:

[...] Comments [...]

mmplay - Massively Multiplayer Online Games wrote on June 15th, 2006 at 5:56 am:

Nathan said on June 14th, 2006 at 7:46 pm:

It seems odd to me that you say “I’m not big on hack and slash” and then immediately refer to the Song of Ice and Fire books. The SoIF books are about as “low” fantasy as you can get (at least until magic begins to re-enter the world in obvious ways, somewhere in book two) and is more about court intrigue and characters discovering themselves than it is ever about “hack and slash adventures.”

So, now that I sound like a total fanboy, I will conclude with “Maybe you should give those books another chance.”

Raph said on June 14th, 2006 at 8:14 pm:

You’re right, the Martin books aren’t hack and slash at all. I read the first one long ago and enjoyed it, but just haven’t gotten back to it, in large part because waiting for years for the next installment isn’t something I am willing to do much anymore.

Jordan, on the other hand, has lost me completely. Once I realized that one of the books (was in number seven?) literally ended with everyone and everything exactly in the same position as it had been on the first page of chapter one, I quit cold turkey.

Janey said on June 14th, 2006 at 9:05 pm:

For about a year now, I have been reading B the ASOIAF series out loud, one chapter at a time, just before bed (Are you sleeping? / No. / Are you sure cause you’re breathing like you’re sleeping. / No I’m okay; keep reading. / Oookaaay… / *snore*). We’re about four chapters from being done with the most recent installment, and wondering what we’re going to do next. Mego suggested The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb; BigEd suggested Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson. We still haven’t settled on anything.

Anyway, I’m glad you write about books. Gives me additional ideas.

Dellaster said on June 15th, 2006 at 12:09 am:

Thanks for the book recommendations, Raph. Although I love a good, light fantasy, I’ve always been hesitent to delve into the juvenile section. How does one know it’s a well-crafted juvenile and not a puerile hack-job? I’m going to have to try Tamora Pierce.

I think you must have quit Wheel of Time after the sixth book, Raph. Some things did happen in The Fires of Heaven (book five). You’ve missed little since then. Yes, I’m a masochist (I play MMORPGs, natch) and I’ve read all of them. Book 6-10 could be condensed into one pretty decent novel. Surprisingly, Jordan’s latest volume (11) comes back on track, quickly and concisely wrapping up dozens of loose ends. It looks like he may actually finish the epic in book 12.

I’ve enjoyed George RR Martin’s writings since his Tuff’s Voyages stories in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine (late 80s I believe). Nevertheless I decided not to buy further Fire & Ice novels after the third. Not until they’re all finished. He’s got definite signs of the Jordan disease (Jordanitis?). Feast of Crows confirms it for me: the fourth installment in the epic was too big for one book so it’s split in two, with the second part covering the same time period with the left-out characters coming out later this year.

Again, thanks for the list. I should bookmark this. (Just did so.)

Lobosolitario said on June 15th, 2006 at 2:26 am:

I read through all the available Song of Ice and Fire books while I was in Italy and didn’t have internet access, and regretted having done so afterwards. While there are interesting characters and the series has a quite uncompromising attitude to character death, I found that over about five or six books there had been pretty much no plot development other than a huge amount of deaths, and lands switching hands only to switch back again. At first it was interesting, but after the third or fourth book, it just felt like the same story rehashed with slightly different characters…
Jordan is feeling the same way at book four, that is, there’s definite plot development, but it seems to have been dragged out over ten times the number of necessary pages. What’s the opinion on later Wheel of Time books?

Lobosolitario said on June 15th, 2006 at 2:27 am:

(having read Dellaster’s post)

Ah well, I guess that answers my question…

Lobosolitario said on June 15th, 2006 at 2:40 am:

Both Steven Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and his Gap series are great reads, if you can get past his sometimes heavy handed use of invective, and the (almost)constant self-pity of his characters.

A new author I’ve read recently is Richard Morgan, writing along a Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk(ish) theme. His first novel, Altered Carbon, is a good read, as is his set-in-the-near-future Market Forces. Overall I’m still making my mind up as to whether he’s a great author or just an ok one, but certainly worth looking at.

The Rout of the Ollafubs, by Katharine Greville Lethbridge, is a children’s story, but I’d reccomend it to anyone who hasn’t read it, as a beatiful work of old-fashioned fantasy. If you can find it, of course, since it’s now out of print in most places.

Lobosolitario said on June 15th, 2006 at 2:54 am:

The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices. But so long as the “gap” between the price of a legal product and a stolen one remains both small and, in the eyes of most people, a legitimate cost rather than gouging, 99% of them will prefer the legal product.

(Eric Flint, Baen Free Library)

While looking at the page you referenced, Raph, I came across this comment, and thought it applied rather well to an industry somewhat closer to home

Nathan said on June 15th, 2006 at 3:48 am:

He lost me around the same time. I remember it was a book where the female characters were like, let’s go find this… thing! It was a bowl, I think? So they go to the city and I think, okay, they’ll find it in a couple chapters. Instead I got an entire book of “We don’t know where to look. Still don’t know where to look. Yep, still sitting around. Dum de dum, oh, here we stumble on it randomly at the last page.” And the book was full of that stuff. That’s when I quit.

I found that over about five or six books there had been pretty much no plot development other than a huge amount of deaths, and lands switching hands only to switch back again. At first it was interesting, but after the third or fourth book, it just felt like the same story rehashed with slightly different characters…

I think it feels that way because the plot is mostly about the politics of the nobles, and that contains a lot of very slow maneuvering… and many things that happen in the background aren’t really going to see fruit until the end. For example: littlefinger’s plots are going somewhere, but it’s hard to see how far he’s trying to go.

Hmm, I was about to give a bunch more examples, but I had a thought. The odd thing about that series is that the most important plot, the return of magic to the world and the Others coming south is almost entirely in the background. It’s a force that moves all these characters around. Some of them react to it directly, some of them try to ignore it, but it’s there and they’ll have to react to it sometime.

It’s an interesting approach. Me though, I mostly read for Jamie, Bran, Brienne, and Tyrion. I want to know what happens to them next, dang it!

Dellaster said on June 15th, 2006 at 5:40 am:

Hmm, Nathan’s mention of the Bowl of Winds meandering in book 5 causes me to reconsider. The Fires of Heaven probably was when Jordan jumped the shark. It’s a measure of how slow books 6-10 were that I looked back at book 5 and thought it was better. So, okay, condense books 5-10 into one novel and make a pretty decent book. Or wait until book 12 (2008), which Jordan swears will be the last even if it has to be 2000 pages, and read summaries for 5-10. Wikipedia’s summaries will do.

Rereading my previous comment it seems hypocritical of me to stop reading Martin while continuing to read Jordan. Oh well. I guess I can only stand grinding through one such epic series and Jordan’s was first to grab me. Thank Heaven book 12 is the end; I vow never to endure this kind of pain again.

Lobosolitario said on June 15th, 2006 at 7:16 am:

Me though, I mostly read for Jamie, Bran, Brienne, and Tyrion. I want to know what happens to them next, dang it!

If I were to bet on what’s going to happen to them, I’d give fair odds on them being six feet under, along with everyone else, before the end

Call Cruncher said on June 15th, 2006 at 9:37 am:

I appreciate your review of the “Circle of Magic” series by Tamora Pierce. I had a friend recommend them to me and have been wanting to read them. I guess I will have to give it a try. I have read some other books by Tamora Pierce and thought they were pretty good.

Stefan Hayden said on June 15th, 2006 at 1:59 pm:

These are all great tips and I think I will have to look in to a lot of them.

I’d also like to suggest His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman which is a great trilogy.

I’m also in love with The Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve. It’s a series about giant mobile cites that eat each other through a process called Municipal Darwinism.

Has anyone else come across these 2 gems?

Morgan said on June 15th, 2006 at 2:38 pm:

According to Robert Jordan’s blog, he has cancer.

If this information is right, though, I just jumped from a median life expectancy of one year to a median expectancy of six years.

I met him at Comic-Con 2005 in San Diego when I attended the panel Is That Your Sword or Are You Just Unhappy to See Me? Writing Fight Scenes for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Robert Jordan has a remarkable history prior to his years as a writer and uses his military combat experience to effect his literary vision. I think he talked about writing fight scenes from the emotional and personal perspectives of the characters involved in the fight. Robert Jordan talked about equipping armor and attempting to fight and move around in order to get a sense for what fantasy knights might experience. He also mentioned that knights were often deformed after heavy usage of armor and that falling from a horse usually meant death due to the impact and the resulting immobility. He seemed to stress emotional communication as far more important than visual imagery.

Prokofy Neva said on June 15th, 2006 at 3:08 pm:

I’m wondering if you ever read C.S. Lewis’ trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

Orrey said on June 15th, 2006 at 6:15 pm:

I you havent already read them ( they’ve been around a while , but a new one this summer ) I cant recommend Steven Brust’s Vladimir Taltos series enough. And since they are availible in 3 omnibus editions now its even better. These are not your usual fantasy settings and style, they have a voice all their own. His other 2 series that tie into the same world are exceptional also.

Raph said on June 15th, 2006 at 9:27 pm:

Yes, I’ve read the Perelandra books and the Vlad Taltos books (though the latter did not click with me — I liked The Phoenix Guards a lot though) and the Pullman trilogy as well.

Haven’t ever heard of The Hungry City Chronicles. Those sound interesting.

StGabe said on June 16th, 2006 at 10:14 am:

To all those who have enjoyed George RR Martin or Stephen Donaldson I highly recommend checking out Steven Erikson. His work has redefined what I expect from a fantasy novel. His series, The Malazan Books of the Fallen, is gritty, dark fantasy with lots of magic/gods and features an amazing cast of complicated and deep characters. Erikson was an anthropologist and it shows. The cultures in his worlds are fantastic and are represented in a very matter-of-fact manner that could care less about good guys and bad guys. He also seems to be publishing at a very steady clip. There are 5 books out now for the series with a 6th book hopefully within the year. I really can’t say enough good things about his writing. I should probably offer some caveats to let you know what you’re getting into if you do check him out. His books are long and he has a lot of stories to tell. Usually the next book in the series won’t pick up with exactly the same story right where the previous book left off. Also, there are a lot of characters and cultures and he often doesn’t explain all the details. Just charge on through anyway and you’ll make sense of it as you go along. Later you can, if you want, go through and reread them all and you’ll pick up some details that you missed.

I also really like Steven Brust — both the Taltos books and the Phoenix Guards. I think he is one of those writers that you can really see mature throughout their writings. The first Taltos books are a bit stilted and immature IMO but he gets a lot better. I still think he presents romance in a very “geekish” fashion (which is somewhat funny for a protaganist who is such a badass). If you like Brust and you haven’t read the Amber series by Roger Zelazny then you really should do that (and read the rest of Zelazny’s fiction). Zelazny was a big influence on Brust and it shows. Zelazny’s fiction is similar in that it is very epic, high-fantasy stuff and almost always features a cocky, badass protaganist that usually (but not always) gets away with it. Zelazny also writes great, witty prose.

Another writer to check out if you like more gritty fantasy is Glen Cook. I’m 3 books into his “Black Company” series and it’s pretty good although not quite as grabbing as Erikson or Martin.

Erin said on June 16th, 2006 at 3:07 pm:

Hey Raph. It’s neat to see someone pitching Tamora Pierce’s books. I picked up SQUIRE awhile ago because it had a gryphon on the cover (I’m a sucker) and rather enjoyed it, though some parts bothered me. I’d be curious if you’ve read that one, or others in the PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL series, and how you thought they compared to the others.

A quick google search of your site reveals that a mention of Diana Wynne Jones is absent — have you read her work? She’s fantastic.

Steven Brust did a couple of books with Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm, which seems like a killer combination to me. I have GYPSY sitting at home but haven’t started it yet.

Raph said on June 16th, 2006 at 3:50 pm:

Eri, I’ve read all of Pierce’s books. The first quartet I read was the Protector of the Small. I like it better than the Alanna quartet, and about on par with the Immortals quartet and the first set of the Magic Circle ones. The second set of Magic Circle ones I think are a cut above.

The only Diana Wynne Jones I have read is Howl’s Moving Castle.

I have read most of Brust and most of Lindholm/Hobb, and have read Gypsy too, which I recall as being pretty good.

Orrey said on June 16th, 2006 at 4:50 pm:

I can understand the Vlad Taltos books not clicking Raph, I think I was lucky to read the Phoenix guards and 500 Years After first. They made such a world background that the Vlad books especialy Morrolan, Sephra and the crew had more impact.

Lobosolitario said on June 17th, 2006 at 5:45 am:

Glen Cook’s second Black Company book (Shadows Linger) is one of my favorite reads, where he seems to get things just right. The other books in the series, including the new ones, are still good reads, but sometimes don’t seem to quite click – I get the feeling this may have more to do with my reading them in French though, where the translation seems to lose a lot of the style of the original.

Another great read, along similar gritty lines, is Peter Morwood’s Aldric series (Horse Lord, Demon Lord, Dragon Lord, War Lord). One of my favorite series, although the last two books start to diverge rapidly from where he started.

David Reim said on June 18th, 2006 at 5:27 am:

I just finished Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge and, in addition to being a decent story, I enjoyed it for the ideas that it stimulated about virtual cooperation and even MMOs. I’d strongly recommend it for the tech speculation.

A bonus is that it is set in San Diego in 2025 and much of it takes place on the UCSD campus. Having spent a portion of my undergrad crawling around the exact tunnels that the author references, I enjoyed the nostalgia. Raph you might enjoy the San Diego setting too.

Raph said on June 18th, 2006 at 10:57 am:

David, you might want to click on the Reading category on the sidebar — I do these book review articles preiodically, and Rainbows End was actually the lead review last time.

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