SF/F Books: Chapter Two - What Are You Reading?

[Mistral]

Sadly, most series get repetitive as they go on. I cite Xanth as a primary example of, "the author should have quit while he was ahead" syndrome. The authors of a series tend to keep beating the horse for the money of loyal fans-yet they rarely deliver the decent product those fans are coughing up hard-earned cash for...

I don't know when Piers Anthony was ahead, but Xanth should have been the first six books at most.

Ogre, Ogre . Laughed my catastrophe off! Never even snickered at another one of his Xanth books again.

 

[Steve Roby]

Sadly, most series get repetitive as they go on. I cite Xanth as a primary example of, "the author should have quit while he was ahead" syndrome. The authors of a series tend to keep beating the horse for the money of loyal fans-yet they rarely deliver the decent product those fans are coughing up hard-earned cash for...

I don't know when Piers Anthony was ahead, but Xanth should have been the first six books at most. And The Apprentice Adept should have been zero. God, that man pumps out some dreck these days.

'Twas ever thus. I read the first three Cluster books back in the late '70s; I must have liked the first because I read two more, but I remember I found them a chore to get through.

As for Xanth, I still liked epic fantasy back when that started, and there wasn't much of it to be found in the 1970s. I read the first book and didn't like it. Haven't read anything by him in the last 30 years or so, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

 

[Brian]

I read the orignal Xanth trilogy and loved it. Then the next trilogy and liked it. Then I picked up the next book or two and finally realized I was reading mass-production volumes of fan-submitted puns and never read another one again.

 

[Stevil2001]

I loved Xanth when I was twelve. Not so much since...

 

[DanTheGrey]

^ I never got into Xanth, I was more of an Incarnations of Immortality fan

 

[Brian]

I loved Xanth when I was twelve. Not so much since...

LOL, that probably had something to do with my progression from love to like to can do without, too.

 

[Klaus]

I haven't read any Xanth since the Reagan administration.. apparently my instincts were right on!

 

[Gov Kodos]

Recently picked up Murry Leinster's "The Brain Stealers" in a used bookstore. Good old fashioned tin foil hat fun.

 

[stj]

A Spell for Chameleon was charming. The rest? Not so much, and without any novelty at all.

I've found all of Piers Anthony to be quite uneven, to say the least. On a Pale Horse was another delightful fantasy but the rest of the Incarnations of Immortality were merely readable.

And most of the rest of his works are simply unreadable. Curiously one of the most fun of his books (i.e., the few that I can actually read) was about a dentist out in the galaxy, Prostho Plus.

The 1632 series and Eric Flint's Rivers of War series have devolved into military sf set in a made up past. Military sf is generally boring to me. And the made up parts now lack cohesion and believability.

 

[Mistral]

A Spell for Chameleon was charming. The rest? Not so much, and without any novelty at all.

I've found all of Piers Anthony to be quite uneven, to say the least. On a Pale Horse was another delightful fantasy but the rest of the Incarnations of Immortality were merely readable.

And most of the rest of his works are simply unreadable. Curiously one of the most fun of his books (i.e., the few that I can actually read) was about a dentist out in the galaxy, Prostho Plus.

The 1632 series and Eric Flint's Rivers of War series have devolved into military sf set in a made up past. Military sf is generally boring to me. And the made up parts now lack cohesion and believability.

I haven't said anything about the Rivers of War because they hold zero interest-but the 1632 series is still pretty vibrant and alive. If it seems militaristic right now, its because-in the timeline-there's a war on. Nevertheless, it manages to tell other stories besides war stories.

 

[Maestro]

I need a new book to read. Torn between Lawhead's Patrick, the Raymond Bensen James Bond Union Trilogy, and the second book of the Westerfeld Risen Empire.

 

[Brian]

I finished Anything Goes! (John Barrowman's autobiography).

I've just started the second Star Trek MU omnibus, Obsidian Alliances.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Gwyneth Jones: White Queen

Difficult book, but interesting nonetheless. Mainly because of the exploration of the questions how human society would be seen through the eyes of alien visitors and how human society would react to alien visitors.

 

[Mistral]

Re-tackling The Watchmen. Amazing how well it holds up.

 

[Starbreaker]

The Forge of God by Greg Bear

 

[Candlelight]

Current:
The Temporal Void by Peter F. Hamilton

Planned:
Harry Potter 7
The Lord of the Rings 1, 2 & 3

 

[Stevil2001]

Finished The Shadows of Mindor, now I'm speeding through the newest Star Wars: Legacy TPB, and then it'll be the S.C.E. collection Wounds. Gotta catch up on my tie-ins so I can get back to some original stuff.

 

[S. Gomez]

I picked up a bunch of adventure fiction at the library to read along with the Conan collection.

A short story collection by Murray Leinster (whom I had never heard of before) headlined by The Runaway Skyscraper. H. Rider Haggard's She, which I'm looking forward to immensely. And there are two volumes of stories featuring the pulp hero The Spider; to be honest, after checking out the first chapter of one I'm not sure if I'll read them.

I'm also planning on Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars at some point in the near future, and probably one day I'll check out Howard's Kull stories after hearing some different voices.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Paul of Dune

 

[Demiurge]

Just finished Scalzi's Old Man's War. Read the first three books, Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and the Last Colony. Still have to track down Zoe's Tale.

Good stuff, often compared with Heinlein, won the best new author award. Light and quick but still inventive and with a good techical base. Recommended to anyone who likes military scifi.