1/09/2011

1. prelude
   
   in which nikko attempts to fool us, but fails, chad seeing through her
   ruse in a matter of seconds. she's reading peter pan.
   
   
2. chad: the name of the wind. patrick rothfuss.
   
   
   1. verdict: ++
      
   2. review:
      
      liked it a lot excited for the next one. "i didn't cry during the lute
      scene, but i almost cried during the other lute scene." he loves how
      good rothfuss is at the emotional impact, and wishes the whole thing
      was like that. he wishes the book didn't seem so obviously like a
      series of d&d adventures, and expects the secondd book to be better
      balanced, maybe.
      
   
   
3. matt: zero history. william gibson.
   
   
   1. verdict: unsure
      
   2. review:
      
      only halfway through with this so far. it's about menswear.
      
   
   
4. chris: the hundred thousand kingdoms. n k jemisin.
   
   
   1. verdict: +
      
   2. review:
      
      this book's been getting a lot of buzz on the internet, was on
      amazon's top-ten list and lots of others. chris believes this is a
      debut novel, and it's pretty straight-up fantasy. a synopsis follows,
      sounds cool enough. it's good and a fast read, it's the start of a
      series and chris would like to read the next.
      
   
   
5. lyle: marooned in realtime. vernor vinge.
   
   
   1. verdict: +
      
   2. review:
      
      from 1984, nominated for a hugo but didn't win. takes place ten
      million years into the future, this is the book that invented the
      singularity. no bullshit. they've invented "bobbles," (stasis
      chambers, more or less), so a few people retreat into these bobbles
      and the rest more or less die. it ends up being basically a murder
      mystery, which is pretty cool. the detective story doesn't matter that
      much, the characters don't either, basically the book is about big
      ideas.
      
   
   
6. jen: kraken. china mieville.
   
   
   1. verdict: +
      
   2. review:
      
      may have liked this better than the city and the city, in the end, but
      stalled out a couple of hundred pages in and had a lot of trouble
      getting motivated. but then it came back together and was a lot of
      fun. (we seem to have found a kind of consensus on this.)
      
   
   
7. adam: perdido street station. china mieville.
   
   
   1. verdict: +
      
   2. review:
      
      first thing adam's read by mieville, it was entertaining but he felt
      that it was maybe a bit too sprawling and ambitious. hated the
      steampunk spellings. felt like a first novel even though it wasn't,
      will read more by mieville.
      
   
   
8. adam: a game of thrones. george r r martin.
   
   
   1. verdict: ++
      
   2. review:
      
      "the scale of this story, already, is ridiculous." well paced, well
      written, just generally really good. he wished the characters were
      better developed, but the scope is so vast that there's still plenty
      of time. close behind name of the wind as a favorite for the year, and
      adam is clearly super pumped to read the rest.
      
   
   
9. jeff: boneshaker. cherie priest.
   
   
   1. verdict: -
      
   2. review:
      
      cheesy and entertaining enough, but "the whole time i was reading it i
      was rolling my eyes." he makes it sound pretty cheesy, in fact he
      "thought at first that it would make a good movie, but by the end [he]
      thought it would make a better syfy original." high praise. it's a
      steampunk novel which also turns out to be a zombie novel. it's
      nonstop fan service for steampunk nerds. airships: check, goggles:
      check, mechanical arms: check. lyle adds "don't believe the hype."
      
   
   
10. lyle: 18 days. grant morrison.
    
    
    1. verdict: +
       
    2. review:
       
       a new graphic retelling of the mahabharata, in morrison's view
       "psychedelic lord of the rings and star wars." incredible, in this
       editor's view. this book is actually the "story bible" for an animated
       series.
       
    
    
11. lyle: pathfinder: bestieary 2. the pathfinder team.
    
    
    1. verdict: +
       
    2. review:
       
       this is the pathfinder monstrous compendium, basically. pathfinder is
       basically the forked d&d 3.75, released by paizo. looks awesome.
       
    
    
12. chad: the great god pan. arthur machen.
    
    
    1. verdict: ++
       
    2. review:
       
       this is a novella by and old golden dawn dude, heavily influenced
       lovecraft and everybody. like all of them, this is basically
       psychological horror. creeping dread was pretty much their thing, and
       at least in this case, it's very well done indeed.
       
    
    
13. that's all, folks.