Amph What are you reading right now?

SotE or SotME? There's a big, big difference

Although your current reading choice is better than either one

I've started OS Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series... interesting premise certainly, though so far the execution has been only average. The first book didn't real feel like a complete story - decent set up to a series, but not a complete story in itself.

Also flying through the Drizzt books... will finish Passage of Dawn today.

 

Shadows. It'll be a while until I force myself to read Splinter.

 

Outside of the big, controversial, wallet-busting 9-book series era, there have been some great smaller works that have a far lower profile so I'd recommend for anyone looking for something a little different from that which exasperated them:

Coruscant Nights & Death Star - The team of Reaves-Perry is great for DS and Reaves has built himself a neat little microverse, in the way of X-Wing.

Luke Skywalker & The Shadows of Mindor - It's Stover, with everyone, what can go wrong? Answer is nothing.

Approaching the end of Honour Of The Queen, got Bk 2 of The Dwarves series - a really good commute book, it's light, easy and fun.

 

I love that so many of you guys are reading Simmons.

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm loathe to read anything by Greg Bear since he authored the one and only Star Wars book I was never able to make it all the way through.

 

Finished Cast a bright shadow tonight. Now on to First Lord's Fury since I finally found a copy at the library a few days ago.

 

Ooo, what's that one about?

I have heard good things about Mindor.

Has anyone read A Reliable Wife? I just got a copy - it's supposed to be really popular, and I'm hoping it's good.

 

I must be the only person out there who didn't like Mindor.

 

Mindor was ok, but I didn't think it was as good as some of Stover's other SW work.

I still need to read his non-SW works, but haven't gotten to it, yet.

 

Your only 1 of 2 lol. I generally dont back track read with Star Wars.

 

I didn't like Mindor either. Fair enough, I enjoyed the parts with Han and Leia, but I thought Stover made Luke far too nihilistic.

 

Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks. I liked the first one. Reminded me of Mistborn.

 

Everyone likes Weeks - I've heard nothing but good reviews here. I need to check him out.

 

I think that Mindor is really quite good. Stover does a great job with the Big 3 and Lando in the book.

 

Finished Honor Of The Queen and it was awesome, why? Well spoiliers follow:

Honor's squadron of cruisers is now halved from the 4 ships it was and it turns out the other Havenite ship posing as a Masadan vessel is a battlecruiser that can easily take out both ships remaining! There's a lot of mystery around just what ships Haven send to Masada and this is why, so that the revelation is a big deal and it works very well.

Honor's one advantage is that the Masadans take over the ship and that gives her far more a chance than she otherwise would have, but even allowing for that it's still a titanic and very vicious set of battles that can only end in her death unless....

Well, unless something was to happen.... As it happens, the 3rd ship, which was smashed and out of action, was used to ferry the wounded back to Manticore. The captain of that broke every rule in the book by blasting it home as fast as possible, folowing which reinforcements are despatched, under the command of one of the Admirals. It is great seeing a fleet taking a threat seriously. When White Haven's fleet of 16 battlecruisers plus escorts jumps out, it's a 'wow' moment - that is a crapload of ships and firepower, they ain't messing around.

Yet, they get there too late. Fearless has taken too much of a pounding, they're too far away and the comms are out. There is no way the ship will survive the final set of exchanges, so White Haven orders missiles launched from out of range. As Fearless draws near her enemy, about to go out, 6 of the 100 missiles launched ambush and blast the hell out of it! Caught off-guard, its commander makes a fatal error by exposing its weaker flank, enabling Fearless to blow it to pieces!

Weber's ability to make this a tense, exciting and totally engaging battle is quite incredible; eve though you know Honor survives, the how eludes you until the final moments and then you're cheering. And I've 10 more of these books to work my way through! Going to have myself quite a time I reckon. Besides, how many other books do you know that has a 6" 2', female lead who you immediately back and like, even when she's making an arse of herself by defying the doc?

 

It's not the best novel ever written in the Star Wars universe (that would be Traitor), but it's the best "Star Wars book" ever written, in large part because of how Stover nails all the main characters.

 

Finished Black Hills. On the whole I thought it was good, but I was glad I hadn't bought it in HC. I thought it dragged in a few places and I found the chronological hopping around a bit confusing in spots (I had to go back to the chapter page to see what year it was) but the good parts outweighed the annoying ones.

 

Stover rights the characters very well, with the possible exception of Luke.

I just hated the plot and him bringing back his favorite characters from Shatterpoint.

 

Finally finished Bleak Seasons, moving on to She Is the Darkness. (Books 7&8 of the Black Company)

 

I just started a non-fiction book I found on the '3 for 2' table at the local Waterstones yesterday. It's No Way Down by Graham Bowley. It's about events on the mountain K2 in August of 2008 when a large group of climbers were trapped by a falling glacier as they descended from the top. One of the cover blurbs compares it to Into Thin Air, which I really enjoyed. I don't climb but I do enjoy stories of this nature.

 

Re-read: Still on Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books ...up to Sea of Storms now, then I'll read the last two Sellsword books, then the last two Drizzt trilogies (and then the Cleric Quintet). At the rate I'm going, I'll finish these early in February

New: One more book left in OS Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series... its definitely gotten stronger along the way, and its really impressive how much actual history he works into the series... such as Denmark Vesey. Somehow, after one point in the series had me thinking that William Henry Harrison would probably never make it to become president in this alternate history... he ended up getting elected about 20 years too early. Still died a month into his term, though

Got a couple more Card books lined up after I finish this series, including Hidden Empire, which is finally in paperback.

 

I remember that the narrative style took some getting used to, and I was somewhat dissatisfied with the ending, but it's a great book. I still think The Terror and Drood are much better, though.

 

Finished Ilium today and started Olympos. Ilium was great but sometimes it feels that Simmions dosent give much descricption in places. I was very confused at the end.

 

RJ: HOW is it that you?re already farther in ?what, your third time through? ? than I am in my first Also: Poor WHH. Guy never catches a break

JS: Let me know how it goes. Has the Kurtz book arrived?

 

Yep I got it. I was suprised at how small it is. If I like it during the half way mark I ll go ahead and order 2 & 3. My BAM dosent have this set by her for some reason.

 

Just the second time through for me. But yes, I'm a fast reader, and for the first time in a while, I only have two books going at a time.