Currently Reading

[Alan]

Maybe if you donate to his patreon it'll help.



Yes he has a fucking patreon.

[Drarok]

Jesus christ, and it's not like it's just a dollar a month, either! https://www.patreon.com/grrm

Shameless. It's not like he even needs the money, just pure greed. Do some work if you want money, you bastard!

[Animalmother]

The Edwin apparently makes about $25 million per year!

[Sly Boots]

I'm definitely interested in seeing how Martin ends his series (hopefully with significant differences to the show), but I'm not exactly on the edge of my seat with anticipation.

[Raid]

I suspect I probably would have picked one of the books up by now had the TV series ended well, but perhaps unfairly the whole franchise feels tainted now. I can't imagine I'm the only one feeling like this, and I dare say seeing the reaction to that disaster may have affected GRRM. We don't know how much influence he had on the show's ending, for all we know it was based on his notes for the final book.

[Sly Boots]

The books are absolutely fantastic, incidentally, don't let the S8 of the show put you off reading them!

[Animalmother]

Yeah they're really well written and there's a huge amount of stuff from the books that never made it into the show.

[Maturin]

Yeah, the first 3 books especially are definitely worth a read. Personally always felt he lost his way from the 4th book onwards, it all got rather bogged down, but it doesn't take away how good the first 3 were.

[Drarok]

I just can't get invested in a story that will almost certainly have no ending.

[Alan]

That’s why I haven’t started them. They’re all there on the bookshelf but I’m holding off with some hope. I’m sure we’ll get the next book in a year or so but the final one….. You might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper.

[Alan]

Uh so lets see....

Holly - Stephen King
Other than End Of Watch which is probably the worst thing King has ever wrote I quite enjoy the Bill and Holly books. They're just fun little easy reads with some dumb stuff and this is more of that. The politics did annoy me a bit though. I'm pretty much with King on all counts but man it feels forced in here. The anti-antivax, anti trump etc.. and whenever a black character gets in a car someone says "dont get shot by the police". I know its something black folk in America have to deal with and yeah its important to put spotlights on such bullshit but man it feels amateur the way he does it over and over again here. It was fine, a wonderfully silly villain and good enough.

Making It So - Pat Stewart
The audiobook was quite delightful, especially hearing it in his own voice. The only downside is its quite skeezy when it comes to the women in his life and maybe a bit delusional at times. When filming Lifeforce his character was originally supposed to kiss a naked Mathilda May, when this was changed he told her how he regretted it and she told him she had wanted to kiss him too. It sounds like he tells almost like its a brag. Sure Pat, Mathilda May, drop dead beautiful 20 year old was just heartbroken at not getting to kiss your 45 year old married ass. Then the oh so cute anecdote (it seems, in his mind) about how he sent people to corral his now wife as she left his show and bring her to his dressing room. It just feels icky. I suppose we can say it was a different time and leave it at that but it left a bad taste. Really enjoyed everything else. I feel he does embellish a lot but fair enough. Not nearly as much as Brian Blessed did but also not nearly as fun either.

Life Ceremony - Sayaka Murata
Ok I love Murata. I'm half way through this collection of her short stories and I love it. Shes so weird and wonderful. Loved her previous 2 novels and this is more of that. I'm sure shes not for everyone but whatever she gets translated into English going forward I'll read.

“The membrane covered fleshes leaned towards her.”

[Alan]

Shattered Sea trilogy
Yep, my fears for it being YA were unfounded. Very enjoyable! Still very much of the same seed as the First Laws except the main players skew more to an early twenties than the grizzled vets but still the same feel. Good characters, good twisting plots, good violence, good treachery and plenty of laughs.

If I was to have criticisms it would be that maybe we’re getting too many repeating character archetypes in his books where a lot of Shattered Sea characters could be directly lifted from First Law universe but most authors are guilty of this and usually much more glaring to be honest. I’d also prefer things were left slightly more ambiguous, I felt some of the underhanded deeds were obvious enough without a Basil Exposition. Why yes I did do the naughty thing, aren’t I smart and naughty?

Small quibbles overall. Very much enjoyed them!

[Sly Boots]

Yep, same.

I'm working my way through some Anthony Ryan epic fantasy at the moment, started with Blood Song, which I think was his first, which was excellent, but then felt like the 2nd and 3rd books of that trilogy became a bit of a slog. Basically because he went from one character perspective with an interest story in the first, to half a dozen, less interesting ones, in the following books and the main character of the first became a bit of a side-note, which was a shame.

However, I then started his Covenant of Steel trilogy, halfway through the second book at the moment, which I'm enjoying hugely. He's kept it to the same character perspective (and in first-person too, which works well here) throughout, and without such a vast cast of secondary and tertiary characters, which honestly was another factor that bogged down his first trilogy (it got to the point where I couldn't remember who half the people were lol).

But yes, would recommend his Covenant of Steel series based on what I've read so far.

[Snowy]

I found the Blood Song trilogy to be the same, I enjoyed the first book massively but the change in perspective and the bringing in of swathes of largely forgettable characters killed it. I stopped reading after book 2.

I have enjoyed a few recently:

- We are the Dead by Mike Shackle - a very dark and bleak trilogy with a whiff of the Nazi atrocities of WW2 to the bad guys, but still a very good story in its own right. Enjoyed is a hard word for it as it is really dark, but was a good read.

- Just recently I have been reading J V Jones Sword of Shadows series, which is an absolute belter. The books have been out for ages but I hadn't come across the author. Since starting, I have come to know that the author has had some kind of challenges irl which have impacted her writing, and her books were being viewed as abandonware almost in a similar vein to Patrick Rothfuss or GRRM. Four of the series are available though and are really good fantasy with some clever twists I haven't seen before. The fifth and penultimate book is due for release this year too, so there is light at the end of the literary tunnel.

- Finally the second volume in the utterly fantastic Empire of the Vampire series by Jay Kristoff came out last month. I loved the first and have read it three times now and have a signed hardback of the second in the series, Empire of the Damned, ready to read when I get to the end of the J V Jones books. I can't recommend these highly enough, based upon the first. Don't think Twilight or Anne Rice, do think 30 Days of Night and you have a vague handle on the vampires in this book. Brilliantly written, buy these books.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, I read a Jay Kristoff series last year, Nevernight Chronicles I think, and enjoyed it a lot, so will check that out when I finished this current series