9/18/2009
- 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...
- sophie: laurell k hamilton. the anita blake series (guilty pleasures through skin trade).
- verdict: ++
- 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."
- megan: kim harrison. the hollows series (dead witch walking through white witch, black curse).
- verdict: +
- 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.
- adam: joe abercrombie. best served cold.
- verdict: +
- 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."
- chris: steven erikson. deadhouse gates.
- verdict: ++
- 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.
- chad: china mieville. the city and the city.
- verdict: ++
- 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.
- coda
no coda tonight, i gotta get going.
- that's all, folks.