10/4/14

10/4/14

sophie: swallowing darkness, divine misdemeanors, a shiver of light. laurell k hamilton.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  "so did you read them?" "yeah." "so do you wanna tell us about them?"
  "well... the only thing i remember really is... so this is what
  happens..." merry gentry is an exiled fairy, maybe a descendant of the
  fertility gods, the "whole goal of the series is for her to get
  pregnant." "well, does she wanna get pregnant? i mean, is she down?"
  "this is kinda like a duty... -ish." (ok god please forgive me that i
  can't just type this entire thing verbatim. i've never regretted not
  getting into stenography more than i regret it right now. -ed.) "like
  a jackelope? are you talking like, about an imp? like an imp?" "they
  look like manta rays but they have tentacles. they're... this is
  TRADITIONAL. the lord sholto is the king of the sluagh." anyway she
  thought it was twins but it ended up being triplets. they're trying to
  protect the babies from the uncle. there are sort of two fathers for
  each kid and they're trying to figure it out. anyway these aren't as
  heavy as the anita blake ones, lots of politics, sophie keeps saying
  she doesn't like these as much, in fact she says she's kind of losing
  it with the series. but clearly she loves the genre, and she feels
  like she's out of options.
jeff: the republic of thieves. scott lynch.
1. verdict: ++
2. review:
  
  he liked the first two quite a bit. thought of it as a bit like a
  fantasy ocean's eleven, always a caper. in republic of thieves, you
  get to learn a lot about the bondsmagi, and also the girl he's always
  pining after ("sedona? sephora?" "sonora? sonoma? stimutac?"). thiso
  other girl turns out to be the falconer's mother. wtf? the falconer? i
  dunno, something about elections (this is the third volume of an
  obviously stupid epic, what do you want from me? -ed.) anyway, the
  bondsmagi try to control locke lamorra using his name, but BAM it
  turns out to be an assumed name rather than his true name and so
  etc. etc., but there's also some interesting details about lamorra's
  past. "it reveals a lot of things you've been wondering." well now
  that sounds like a real endorsement to me.
chris: the way of kings. brandon sanderson.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  "ok, this is already on the list. but this time i finished it, and
  unlike last time, i didn't think it was that bad. ok. i can see why i
  got frustrated last time..." the first thing chris talks about is how
  sanderson signed a contract to write 10,000 pages. "it gets
  interesting basically immediately after i stopped last time." this is
  tightly contained for an epic, nowhere near as many characters as
  "that stack of books over there" (read: grrm. -ed.) sanderson is all
  about the magic systems, so he tells us a bit about that. storms that
  recharge spheres ("just think of them as magical batteries.") there's
  some serious doubt being fomented here about the economics of all this
  ("what about inflation? chips of crystal? what about currency
  debasement?") anyway. ok, we're getting down to it. the
  pedestrian. that's what attracted chris to this because it seems so
  absurd that he could really write this much. but he's into it! how!
  "he's not good at writing, but he's good at telling a story." he is
  clearly enjoying the second one.
adam: the alloy of law. brandon sanderson.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  "this is exactly what chris said it is. it's basically mistborn gone
  steampunk." first sanderson he's read in a couple of years. a striking
  difference in writing style from abercrombie, who he read just prior
  to this. but once you get used to the workmanlike writing, he's a
  master of pacing. it's all plot. (suddenly we're hearing about
  sticking shit in your arm vs ingesting it, in relative terms of
  magical potency, "ferrochemical" magic, etc.) this is not a
  life-changing book, but you know. "it passes the time in a very
  enjoyable way." he sets up a system, he pushes a bunch of shit through
  the system he's set up, and, you know, the systems are good.
jason: the wheel of time. robert jordan and brandon sanderson.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  "this is just a brief comment. i'm not going to go on and on about the
  wheel of time." seriously, yep. the whole thing. well, we talked about
  this for awhile. no notes. he liked it. no wasted moments.
jason and chad: ice trilogy. vladimir sorokin.
1. verdict: ++
2. review:
  
  "so this meteor crashes in siberia..." bro. his name is sasha, maybe,
  but he has a bunch of names. all aspects of this seem open to
  interpretation, but in general one is attracted to the stasis imputed
  to astronomical observations and finds the overall dynamic mess of
  terrestrial existence oppressive and abominable. (understandably, but
  i guess this is about to be heavily problematized. -ed.) well anyway,
  the last book has "a number of things going on." i'm not really
  capturing this, obviously, but this sounds pretty great. the writing
  is supposed to be pretty stylistically excellent. checkhovian in the
  beginning but sliding into this more contemporary but still very
  affected style. questions about how much of this was transported
  through translation.
matt: annihilation, authority, acceptance. jeff vandermeer.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  i talked here, so i didn't write.
chris and jason: ancillary justice. ann leckie.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  won the hugo and the nebula. space zombies. maybe a little bit raw,
  but they both liked it and want us to read it. there's a galactic
  empire with these giant ships with vast intelligences, iain m banks
  style (and may he rest in peace).
jeff: the prince of thorns. mark lawrence.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  ("just real quick.") it's about a little kid who fucks a bunch of
  people over. it's in the future in a post-apocalyptic earth where
  everybody lives in castles. somehow magic has come back into the
  world. liked, would recommend.
chris b: george r r martin completionism.

various short stories and novellas. some better than others.
matt: a song of ice and fire, 1-5. george r r martin.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  see above.
adam: the heroes, red country. joe abercrombie.
1. verdict: +/+++
2. review:
  
  the summer of abercrombie! reread the first law, skipped best served
  cold ("because it was so dark, so nihilistic, i just skipped that
  one."), and went on to heroes and red country. this time around, the
  pacing in the first law trilogy was less impeccable than he
  remembered, and the heroes is a far more consistent novel. yet somehow
  it was adam's least favorite of all the abercrombie. adam is SUPER
  into red country, and recapitulates every single point made in our
  prior review dated jan 2013. "it was awesome." "THE MAYOR IS
  WHAT'S-HER-FACE, RIGHT? FROM DAGOSKA OR WHATEVER?"
adam: rogues. george r r martin and gardner dozois, eds.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  i admit, this one got away from me a bit. "my favorite one was the
  rothfuss, which was like a day in the life of bast." (your humble
  editor begs leave to doubt this in the strongest terms.)
adam and chris b: saga, vol 3. brian k vaughan and fiona staples.
1. verdict: +++
2. review:
  
  raving and raving. everybody loves these 100%. adam is no
  exception. the execution here is incredible, as good as
  anything. "surprising. just perfect." (he really loves these.)
that's all, folks!