So what are you reading now? (Part 3)

[Greg Cox]

I picked up Seven Deadly Sins and the Rihannsu trade at my local Barnes & Noble today. I actually saw the Rihannsu book on the shelf months ago (I'm assuming it's probably still the same copy, it's pretty beat up). I've been wanting to read the Rihannsu books for ages so I'm really happy I actually managed to find a copy. SDS has stories from three of my favorite authors (Ward & Dilmore, KRAD, and James Swallow) and David McIntee who I believe is a poster here.

I think most of us are posters here. Hope you like the book!

Yeah, sorry about that, I was actually pointing him out because I've never read anything he's written before. Well, other than his posts here, and I think possibly some articles in the Star Trek magazine.

No problem. I'm looking forward to reading David's story, too.

 

[Thrawn]

Just finished Emissaries From The Dead, by Adam-Troy Castro, on a recommendation. Pretty solid space-opera, with one of the best main characters I've seen in a while. Recommended.

Now: Seven Deadly Sins.

 

[Christopher]

Just finished Emissaries From The Dead, by Adam-Troy Castro, on a recommendation. Pretty solid space-opera, with one of the best main characters I've seen in a while. Recommended.

Yeah, that was pretty good. There's a second book in the series, The Third Claw of God -- and they're both sequels to an Analog novella, "Unseen Demons" (available in a collection called Tangled Strings), which depicts the pivotal event in the main character's past as described in Emissaries, although Castro made some slight tweaks to the continuity between the story and the novels.

 

[Thrawn]

Yeah. Third Claw of God is probably next after Seven Deadly Sins, while I wait for the two other Trek books this month to be Kindle-available next Tuesday.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Currently reading: 'Superman: Red Son'

Very interesting....

 

[Reanok]

I started Strangers from the sky and then plan on reading StarTrek Inception by S.D. Perry.

 

[NurseChapel39]

I just watched Relics on the SyFy channel so now I am reading The Future Begins.

 

[S. Gomez]

I finished Hollow Men today. It wasn't bad, but I was a bit disappointed. Someone made some very strange editing choices when it came to intercutting the various plot threads. One very important scene towards the end was almost totally ruined when a paragraph of one of the other stories cut in just when it wasn't supposed to. I also had a lot of problems with some of the dialogue; little of it sounded true to the characters. On the whole, it was interesting, but not quite what I was expecting.

 

[Steve Roby]

Huh. I remember really enjoying Hollow Men.

Currently reading A Devil for O'Shaughnessy/Three Way Split, two old pulp noir novels by Gil Brewer in one trade paperback.

 

[elaithin]

Same here - I also don't remember the random paragraph you're talking about. What page was it on, do you know?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Just finished Tony Hay's The Killing Way, the first of a series of mysteries set in Arthurian Britain.

 

[DevilEyes]

I'm about two thirds through Song of Kali by Dan Simmons. I'm not sure if it's really that scary as the blurbs on the cover will have you believe, but it is dark and interesting. I am really interested to see where it goes and if it plunges fully into fantasy or if it retains a semblance of realism as it has had so far (though the fact it's the winner of the World Fantasy Award suggests the former). In any case, I don't believe this book has inspired many tourists to visit Calcutta!

 

[Steve Roby]

Just finished Tony Hay's The Killing Way, the first of a series of mysteries set in Arthurian Britain.

How was it? Hadn't heard of it before now, but it sounds like something both Laura and I might find interesting.

 

[S. Gomez]

Same here - I also don't remember the random paragraph you're talking about. What page was it on, do you know?

So I don't spoil the plot for anyone who hasn't read it...

Spoiler: Hollow Men

On page 295, Sisko comes into the room where Roeder is holding Garak prisoner. Page 296 opens with a short section (technically more than one paragraph) on the runabout being stolen from the station, then it's right back to the scene with Sisko and Co. When I read it, I was incredibly annoyed that such a pivotal scene in the Earth storyline was interrupted just to tell us a runabout was getting stolen from DS9. That information could have easily come elsewhere. I also felt the rally scene was split up unnecessarily. Up until the first punch gets thrown at Garak, it should have all been an uninterrupted chapter.

I found the intercutting throughout the book threw off the pace of all the plot threads, and consequently I couldn't really enjoy any of them. I think if there had been longer blocks of each storyline, it would have felt much smoother.

On the plus side, I liked the opening bit: "Some men go on a journey. Some strangers come to town." That was nice writing.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Just finished Tony Hays' The Killing Way, the first of a series of mysteries set in Arthurian Britain.

How was it? Hadn't heard of it before now, but it sounds like something both Laura and I might find interesting.

I'll write up something more detailed on my blog in a few days (comparing it to the other Arthurian mystery series from J.W.C. Blair, most likely), but for the nonce...

I liked it. It's an attempt at an historical Arthur, so imagine an environment not unlike Bernard Cornwall or Jack Whyte's Arthurian series, and with a murder mystery on top of that. A serving girl is murdered on the eve of the election of a new High King, Merlin is blamed, and a former soldier of Arthur's army is entrusted to solve the crime. The back cover copy compared it to The Name of the Rose, but it's not really similar at all. (The jacket blurb compared it to CSI meets Brother Cadfael, which is probably closer.)

I didn't outthink the mystery (unlike the first book of Blair's series, which had a bloody obvious murderer, only it took Merlin another 250 pages to catch up), but there are some other non-mystery plot elements that are painfully obvious. There's also a red herring that I expected to go somewhere, only it didn't. Characterizations are a little thin. It reads fast, the prose flows decently well and doesn't call attention to itself. It's your basic historical procedural, albeit one set in the misty 6th-century CE.

All in all, it was a decent first book in the series, and I'll probably pick up the second book, The Divine Sanction, when it comes out next month. That one's supposed to involve St. Patrick, the Abbey at Glastonbury, and the Pelagian heresy.

You can get it in hardcover for $4.99 here.

 

[Sci]

I'm currently jumping back and forth between The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlett, People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts by Robert Bolton, and Issac Asimov's Foundation.

Also have to read the script to Brigadoon for a production I'm assistant directing.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I finished Sorrows of Empire (expanded) by David Mack last night, and I really enjoyed it, far more so than the original which really is saying something since I enjoyed the original immensely.

I'm looking forward to seeing the next story regarding Operation Omega. Will it be the semi-mythical Rise Like Lions???

I'm still reading Jeff Mariotte's CSI novel Brass in Pocket, but the next Star Trek book on my list after that is Inception by S. D. Perry and Britta Dennison.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Zipped through my first Dr Who NSA- The Deviant Strain by Justin Richards. Wasn't interested in the NSAs, but when I saw it in a charity shop for 40p (next to a volume of Lone Wolf and Cub I was missing) I thought "what the hell". Being Justin it was a fun traditional runaround (heavily influenced by original series stories), but the reduced word count and target age did show. In the end, though, it kind of felt like a Target novelization of an episode I haven't seen, which gave me kind of a nostalgia kick. The other thing it did was make me really wish there were more Eccleston episodes...

Now I just started Elmore Leonard's Maximum Bob.

 

[S. Gomez]

I've decided to dive into one of my bigger tomes, The Landmark Herodotus. It's an edition of the Histories with extensive footnotes and maps throughout, as well as several essays in the back as appendices. I've read Herodotus before, but this is a different translation, so I'll see how I like it. There are a couple other titles in the Landmark series, too.

To counter the weight of intelligence this will no doubt add to my brain, I plan to concurrently read somewhat lighter material...beginning with an anthology dubiously titled Chicks 'N Chained Males, one of a fantasy series with stories about warrior women. So far it's a lot of fun!

 

[UncleRogi]

I've been re-reading the Crucible books, simply because they are so well interwoven, I find myself cross referencing, then breaking out the episode for a quick insight. Wonderful books.

Out side Trek, I'm re exploring the later Pern books, as well as Foundation series beginning to end.