9/18/2009

  1. prelude

    small and i must say rather rowdy meeting tonight. but we gonna get
    her done, you betcha. most importantly, we welcome a lord and two new
    ladies of lore, and without further ado...

  2. sophie: laurell k hamilton. the anita blake series (guilty pleasures through skin trade).

    1. verdict: ++
    2. review:

      this is the 17th book. she read all 17. the series began in 1993 and
      is ongoing. sophie now intends to return this book, since she's done
      with it. (the lords of lore do not condone this behavior.) anyway, the
      series features anita blake, who is a necromancer, vampire hunter and
      animator. extensive plot summarization with spoilers follows. i
      suppose most of this is available online. suffice it to say sophie
      loves loves loves these books. highly recommended if you like romantic
      vampire soap operas. (wow, i guess she at some point becomes a federal
      marshal? amazing.) sophie "likes learning about different cultures."

  3. megan: kim harrison. the hollows series (dead witch walking through white witch, black curse).

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      eviently they started around the same time as anita blake, these are
      in some sense a competing series. spoilers ensue. oh, and these all
      take place in cincinnati. similar to anita blake, sounds like,
      hodge-podge of mythical semi-humans living in the workaday world,
      legalized vampires, witches and lycanthropes, etc. "it is not an
      erotic journey of self-discovery." whether that's an improvement
      probably depends on your point of view. anyway she gets excited every
      time a new book comes out.

  4. adam: joe abercrombie. best served cold.

    1. verdict: +
    2. review:

      really did not enjoy this as much as the first law trilogy. this is a
      vengeance novel. "this is the most nihilistic novel i think i have
      ever read." by the end, you just feel beaten down. (oops, it comes out
      that chad compared brandon to "the effete poisoner," which is
      apparently even more considerably insulting than it sounds. oh well,
      all seems to be forgiven.) "it was almost just too dark." but
      honestly, it sounds like he really appreciated this book. he didn't
      really like that so many of the characters were from the first
      law. "it very much impacted me."

  5. chris: steven erikson. deadhouse gates.

    1. verdict: ++
    2. review:

      ok, so we heard a bit about this last time, and as i recall, the jury
      was still out. now he's a bit farther, and he has a bit more
      background. evidently the world was an rpg setting for years before he
      wrote the first book, which explains how hard it was to
      understand. you all said the joe abercrombie was brutal, well, it was
      nothing. the first book chronicles the exploits of a massive empire on
      one continent, while the second book moves to their action on another
      continent, where the oppressed have risen up in a holy war or
      whatever. he has the third and fourth ones already and he's looking
      forward to the rest.

  6. chad: china mieville. the city and the city.

    1. verdict: ++
    2. review:

      "china mieville is a dude, right? i'm always thinking of chynna
      phillips. i mean, literally always." well, so says brandon. anyway
      this is a "fantasy" set in the present day, but halfway through chad
      realized well shit, maybe it's not fantasy at all. i guess this could
      really happen. (ed: so that means it's not fantasy? whatever, i guess
      that's a rat hole.) set in some eastern european city, maybe supposed
      to hungary or something. it's a detective story, and it's really good.
      there are two cities which occupy the same geographical space, but are
      completely separated by social convention (chad guesses?). anyway,
      chad was reminded of borges, which is a good thing from any point of
      view. highly recommended.

  7. coda

    no coda tonight, i gotta get going.

  8. that's all, folks.