What we're reading, the SFF edition

So, recently I read The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break. It's an awesome magical realism story set roughly the modern world. I felt the author did a great job building a connection between the reader and the Minotaur.

But, I want to talk about books I haven't read. Maybe I'm just incredibly picky, but over the last few months I have read a sample from, but ultimately put down:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (N.K. Jemisin) It felt like I was reading an outline.
Hard Magic (Larry Correia) had a promising start, but there was a lot of telling rather than showing
A Throne of Bones (Vox Day) The author spends the prologue/first chapter establishing the world, then seems to stop describing things.
On Basilisk Station (David Weber) It feels like a good science fiction, but the hero is just too perfect. I have picked this one up again, and might continue, but I'm looking for something better.

I just finished Robin Hobbs Tawny Man & Farseer trilogies. Both are good standard fantasy type stuff. She makes some excellent characters but you really have to be into introspection rather than action. I find her style plot-light but character development heavy. You can get a whole chapter of someone's internal turmoil for example. And she can get very repetitive, always backtracking with exposition to remind you of things. That habit I found very annoying as I read all 6 books in a matter of weeks, not years so all that information was still fresh in my mind.

Some aspects of her stories seemed a bit worn out for me but then these books were started 20yrs ago so perhaps the idea's were fresh in their time. Never the less, they are still good reads and she is masterful at writing characters that you come to care deeply about even when you don't agree with them and what they do. From that point of view alone she is worth reading.

I picked up Lev Grossman's The Magician King and instantly fell into and out of love with this author's style. I love the witty use of modernisms, the casual language and the very real internal dialogue. Yet I struggle to get past the first 10 chapters. As delightful as the prose is, the story just doesn't grab me at all. I find the characters a bit shallow and same-ish, it is the author's voice which is strong not the characters. So despite loving the fresh angle to writing fantasy I just couldn't engage with the plot and characters overall and will be returning the book unread to the library.

I would have once aspired to a similar writing style but now that I realise how off-putting it can be (and tiresome to read at points) I don't think I will now. I can see why many authors try and fade to the background in terms of voice to allow the characters and plot to shine instead of the author's unique balance of words.

Finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This wasn't my usual type of fantasy read, and I struggled with it at first. The third-person present tense took some adjustment, and the story started out slow.

By the end, though, I connected with the characters and story and really started enjoying it.

harmonyisarine said:

Glad to know it's not just me who couldn't get into Sanderson. I liked Elantris, but it felt like a freshman effort. The story and magic system of Mistborn got me through that series but I wasn't as into the writing itself. I started the sequel to the Mistborn trilogy and just couldn't do it. To his credit, he does have some of the most creative magic systems that I've seen.

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Yeah. Elantris was obviously a debut novel in many ways. But I really loved the way he had the magic system integrated into the world itself. That's something I consider necessary to have a truly spectacular magic system. I though Allomancy was fun to play around with. It's like a puzzle game figuring out how to get what you want done, but it was very much a standard artificial magic system which gets overlaid on the world externally, rather than being inherent to the world itself.

Neverwhere said:

I just finished Robin Hobbs Tawny Man & Farseer trilogies. Both are good standard fantasy type stuff. She makes some excellent characters but you really have to be into introspection rather than action. I find her style plot-light but character development heavy. You can get a whole chapter of someone's internal turmoil for example. And she can get very repetitive, always backtracking with exposition to remind you of things. That habit I found very annoying as I read all 6 books in a matter of weeks, not years so all that information was still fresh in my mind.

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I have that problem with series a lot. Because a majority of a books sales are often in the first few months after it comes out, many publishers see fit to favor the person reading the books as they come out, years apart, over the later reader who is likely binge-reading a series. I'm not sure it's fair to blame Hobb for that. Especially in her older series, written when that technique was more common. But it can definitely be irritating.

Some aspects of her stories seemed a bit worn out for me but then these books were started 20yrs ago so perhaps the idea's were fresh in their time. Never the less, they are still good reads and she is masterful at writing characters that you come to care deeply about even when you don't agree with them and what they do. From that point of view alone she is worth reading.

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I had the same issue, although I read most of them like five years ago. They do seem rather dated in terms of style and subject compared to more modern fantasy.

I picked up Lev Grossman's The Magician King and instantly fell into and out of love with this author's style. I love the witty use of modernisms, the casual language and the very real internal dialogue. Yet I struggle to get past the first 10 chapters. As delightful as the prose is, the story just doesn't grab me at all. I find the characters a bit shallow and same-ish, it is the author's voice which is strong not the characters. So despite loving the fresh angle to writing fantasy I just couldn't engage with the plot and characters overall and will be returning the book unread to the library.

I would have once aspired to a similar writing style but now that I realise how off-putting it can be (and tiresome to read at points) I don't think I will now. I can see why many authors try and fade to the background in terms of voice to allow the characters and plot to shine instead of the author's unique balance of words.

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I only read the first book in that series. I really liked it, but more for the high concept behind it and the fact that it had college-aged characters than for the quality of the story or the style of writing.

Just finished reading the Princess Bride by Morgenstern.

Really, really good. Laughed out loud a lot. Actually, it was almost like reading the movie, so many lines in the movie were straight from the book and the plot was almost parallel. Which I think is the greatest luck and joy a writer could have. I can definitely see myself re-reading this. Great book to learn how to write comedy and satire.

TheRob1 said:

On Basilisk Station (David Weber) It feels like a good science fiction, but the hero is just too perfect. I have picked this one up again, and might continue, but I'm looking for something better.

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If you're looking for the MC to become less perfect... you might want to put the book down again and save yourself some time and potential aggravation. (Part of me wonders of Weber was writing a straight-faced parody that I just didn't get...)

The last SF/F book I finished was Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett. An illiterate novice is chosen as the next prophet for the great god Om... because, after three thousand years of often-brutal conquest, nobody else in the entire Omnian religion truly believes in their god anymore. Fun and thought-provoking in that way that only Pratchett seems capable of consistently pulling off.

Currently, I've just started Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. Still getting a sense of the universe, which has a very peculiar magic system based on color and "Breath" drawn from living beings. It has promise, but it's too soon to tell just what I think of it.

Finished The Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes. This one doesn't appear to be that well-known, but I thought it was pretty good. It was a bit hard to get into because the author throws you into the thick of things with no pause to explain anything (kind of like the Malazan books in that regard). But once I adjusted and connected with the characters, I started enjoying it, especially the second half.

Just started Ender's Game.

*Please don't hit me *

Just started Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword, about which I had been very excited. So far it is as good as I'd expected!

John Ayliff said:

Just started Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword, about which I had been very excited. So far it is as good as I'd expected!

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One of my friends lives in the same town as Leckie, and scored signed copies from a talk she gave. I had to get an unsigned copy.

Finished Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan (the followup to Blood Song). At first, I wasn't so sure about it. Ryan added extra POV characters, and it took me a while to warm to them. Once I did, though, the story was great. I'd say I enjoyed it slightly less than Blood Song, but it's difficult to judge because they're quite different books.

Blood Song follows a format like The Name of the Wind, focusing on one character. Tower Lord goes to a more standard epic fantasy format, with four POV characters (plus the historian from the first book). It's a great book in its own right and probably a bit heavier on the action than Blood Song. Just don't go in expecting more of the same.

Just finished reading John Scalzi's Lock In. There were parts of it I really liked, and parts of it that... made me a bit uncomfortable. Such as having the primary argument for many disabilities not needing a "cure" coming from the main villain who later turned out to be a bit of a hypocrite.

Hoplite said:

Just started Ender's Game.

*Please don't hit me *

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Wouldn't dream of it.

This one's been on my "maybe" list for years - is it any good?

rwm4768 said:

Finished Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan (the followup to Blood Song). At first, I wasn't so sure about it. Ryan added extra POV characters, and it took me a while to warm to them. Once I did, though, the story was great. I'd say I enjoyed it slightly less than Blood Song, but it's difficult to judge because they're quite different books.

Blood Song follows a format like The Name of the Wind, focusing on one character. Tower Lord goes to a more standard epic fantasy format, with four POV characters (plus the historian from the first book). It's a great book in its own right and probably a bit heavier on the action than Blood Song. Just don't go in expecting more of the same.

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Thanks for the warning. I was looking forward to reading the sequel to Blood Song. Now, not so much, but at least I'll be over my disappointment by the time I start it.

PeteMC said:

Wouldn't dream of it.

This one's been on my "maybe" list for years - is it any good?

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I'm only a few chapters in, but it's interesting and gripping so far.

Finished Sealab, am still working on Night Land. Also reading The Only Thing to Fear by Robert Morgan.

PeteMC said:

is it any good?

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I thought it was worth reading, but hardly anything to turn into a career. Of course, I think the same about "Dune," so my opinion might not be worth much.

Dave Williams said:

Of course, I think the same about "Dune," so my opinion might not be worth much.

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Actually I'm with you on that one. I like Dune a lot but have no time for any of the sequels.

Strongly recommended - Bonnie Rozanski's The Mindtraveler, time travel romance, to be published early next year. My Goodreads review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1078594389

Currently trying to get started on Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy. IT sounds so cool. But I keep finding reasons to put off picking up the first book(I bought the trilogy, though, so I'm kinda stuck giving them a shot.).

Just started volume I of The Image of the Future by Fred L. Polak, a sociological history of how cultures perceive the future and how that perception effects the process of history. Also am about to start The Ithaqua Cycle, a Chaosium anthology centered around the titular deity.

Finished Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon (the first book of the Deed of Paksenarrion). It was a good read, but a bit on the simple side. I liked the second half better than the first. If you'd like some military fantasy that isn't in the dark, gritty style of authors like Cook and Erikson, this might be worth a read.

There's still a lot of death and violence, but it's clear in this one who's good and who's bad.

I'm reading The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects by Edward J. Ruppelt and Thongor in the City of Magicians by Lin Carter.

I've finished Cherryh's Chanur novels.
Unfortunate as it may be, I think this is one of those series that I liked out all the way through . . . until the end.
The ending(s) leave me just so . . . meh. This is very disappointing to me.

I'm about halfway through Kameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire. Awesome worldbuilding, but apparently I've lost my ability to navigate epic fantasy, at least when sleep-deprived. I spent nearly a full chapter reading about one character and confusing him for another. :/ (No, the names weren't similar. Not sure how it happened.)