The Books We're Reading: New Edition

[Palanan]

So, after a long lapse, this seems like a good time to once again pose that essential question: what books are you reading right now?

For my part, I'm just finishing Before Scotland, an absorbing survey of the cultures and landscapes which occupied the deep prehistory of Scotland. In this book, the Romans are latecomers and the Picts are positively arriviste; much of the book is taken up with the story of far earlier peoples, whose names are all but unknown, apart from a few lingering traces in ancient roots and place-names.

Since almost all of the book deals with prehistory, much of the story is told through inference from archaeology and related sciences; even marine geology contributes with insights on the drowned terrain of Doggerland. From Skara Brae to Hadrian's Wall, the story wanders lightly through lost millennia, along the way touching on curraghs and crannogs, hillforts and horse archers, the sacrifices in bogs and the ancient totems of Highland clans.

It's a fascinating and often meditative book, as the author often presents possible (if tenuous) links between ancient beliefs and echoes of customs which have survived to the present day. Alistair Moffat has written a longer and denser book, The Sea-Kingdoms, an exploration of Celtic history in Britain and Ireland. I've made it partway through that book, which is lyrical and quietly evocative; but its richness in writing wants time to absorb. Before Scotland is a lighter and quicker read, although more than rewarding in itself, and definitely worth the time for anyone interested in the windswept shores of prehistory.

[kraftcheese]

I'm about a third of a way through Years of Rice and Salt, which is an alternate history where The Black Plague killed almost everyone in Europe, leaving East and South Asia, Africa and the Islamic world relatively untouched.

It's been really interesting so far; each group of chapters ends with the characters dying, being judged and going through a reincarnation cycle, and they're all wound up together in each life they come back in (but they don't remember their past lives until they're back in the limbo between lives).

It's been really enjoyable so far.

[random11]

Trying "Drenai saga" by David Gemmell, currently on book 1, "Legend".

Saw someone write about it in a thread, and decided to try.

[Algeh]

I'm re-reading my old collection of GURPS books (mostly 3rd edition and from the 90s), because I've been feeling nostalgic for my old gaming groups from the 90s and early 2000s. Right now, I'm in the middle of "GURPS Swashbucklers", which I'm pretty sure went into more detail on swordfighting than any group I played in ever actually used.

[factotum]

Just started "Game of Thrones" (as in the first book of the "Song of Ice and Fire"). If the TV series is anything like the book I can understand why it's got a reputation for nudity and gore!

[kraftcheese]

Just started "Game of Thrones" (as in the first book of the "Song of Ice and Fire"). If the TV series is anything like the book I can understand why it's got a reputation for nudity and gore!

I always felt there was less nudity and gore in the books...but I did read them a few years back so I might be mistaken.

[Tom Tearcamel]

Just finished up the new Expanse book. (Babylon's Ashes) It obviously was pretty good, but reminded me heavily of A Dance With Dragons. (Fits that one of the writers was GRRM's Assistant for years) It seemed full of political machinations instead of action and with a ton of viewpoints from characters that we don't care about. I'm super excited for the show to start back up in Feb though.

[russdm]

Just started "Game of Thrones" (as in the first book of the "Song of Ice and Fire"). If the TV series is anything like the book I can understand why it's got a reputation for nudity and gore!

You have my Pity and deepest sympathies. Don't forget to have a quantity of brain bleach, and not end up liking many if any characters.

Have you read any of the Fifty Shades of Gray? Having read that will really help when reading the "Game of Thrones" books. As well as watching soap operas. Mainly Spanish ones.

[Lethologica]

Just finished the Naamah trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it's easy reading to get me back in the game after an unfortunate amount of time not reading books. I like Carey's characters, and her environments, and her magic, and her expressed views on love and religion. Pretty much all her fantasy-Earth cultures are heavily romanticized, but that can be nice too. The sex doesn't suit my, er, particular tastes the way it did in Phedre's trilogy when Kusheline intrigue played a bigger role, but by now that's not the main attraction. However, I do miss the intrigue itself--the plot has become much more predictable in the series' later books.

Now I'm crawling through Burning Chrome, the William Gibson proto-cyberpunk short story collection. It's interesting (though perhaps not entirely fair) to place Gibson's early work as part of a reaction to science fiction full of normal people interacting with weird technology and aliens, by writing science fiction where technology makes the people themselves weird. And of course there are lots of fun ideas being tossed around, because it's Gibson. I suspect the short story is a more natural habitat for him than the full-length novel. Neuromancer aside, others of his books can leave the impression that the plot is merely a distraction from poking into all the chromed-but-dirty corners of the future; in his short stories, though, the dirty corners are the point.

(There's also a textbook on film criticism I'm assiduously failing to read. Sigh.)

[GloatingSwine]

Just finished up the new Expanse book. (Babylon's Ashes) It obviously was pretty good, but reminded me heavily of A Dance With Dragons. (Fits that one of the writers was GRRM's Assistant for years) It seemed full of political machinations instead of action and with a ton of viewpoints from characters that we don't care about. I'm super excited for the show to start back up in Feb though.

After what went down in Nemesis Games I don't think you could reasonably expect Babylon's Ashes to be anything other than continuing to process the fallout.

On the other hand, I think the series is about ready to return to dealing with the alien weirdness plot from Cibola Burn.

It did have a hell of a lot of viewpoints this time though. (Though one of them was Avasarala which always helps, pity they toned her language down for the TV version).

[random11]

Trying "Drenai saga" by David Gemmell, currently on book 1, "Legend".

Saw someone write about it in a thread, and decided to try.

Finished the book and started the second.

As for the first, it was a pretty good war story book.
The flaws of the book were in the love story that felt both forced and rushed. Also some magical items from destiny came out of nowhere and could easily be discarded without harming the plot or the result of the battle.
All things considered, I would recommend it.

While I'm just starting with the second book, I unfortunately encountered exactly the same flaw right from the start, a forced rushed love story that came out of nowhere, and even the way it started kind of reminded me of the exact scene in the first book.
I'll postpone my rating for later, but I really hope it improves and that it will deliver something new.

[Morph Bark]

I finished Fables Vol. 2 this weekend and am currently reading Dishonored - The Corroded Man.

[Yora]

I am currently reading The Copper Promise, Time of Contempt, and The Sea Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories. And I just finished Hellboy and will move on to my second reading of B.P.R.D.

Legend was an interesting book,but nothing I'd want to read more of right after it. Read it last year and I want to try Waylander next one.

[warty goblin]

It's arse cold, and I'm two weeks away from finishing a profoundly boring internship. Time to reread Dragonlance Chronicles for the umpteenth time. You may say I have no taste. And I'll totally agree with you.

[russdm]

It's arse cold, and I'm two weeks away from finishing a profoundly boring internship. Time to reread Dragonlance Chronicles for the umpteenth time. You may say I have no taste. And I'll totally agree with you.

I didn't know that Dragonlance Chronicles had a reputation for being lousy.

[warty goblin]

I didn't know that Dragonlance Chronicles had a reputation for being lousy.

I wouldn't say it's lousy, really. I'd say it's a series a person is less likely to enjoy if they first read it as an adult, but may well like a great deal if they encounter it as a bored and isolated 14 year old. Since that was pretty much my trajectory, I remain very fond of the entire deal.

I actually thought about doing a reread thread for the Chronicles a while back, but figured nobody would be interested. Was I wrong?

[rooster707]

Just finished a lengthy archive binge of Girl Genius. Now I'm going to try Discworld, since I keep hearing how good it is.

[Knaight]

I wouldn't say it's lousy, really. I'd say it's a series a person is less likely to enjoy if they first read it as an adult, but may well like a great deal if they encounter it as a bored and isolated 14 year old. Since that was pretty much my trajectory, I remain very fond of the entire deal.

It does have a reputation for lousiness though, albeit no more than any other D&D fiction (or really game based fiction in general). Does it suck? Yes. Does it suck worse than the Halo novels or similar? No.

[factotum]

Just finished a lengthy archive binge of Girl Genius. Now I'm going to try Discworld, since I keep hearing how good it is.

There are forty-one Discworld novels, where are you going to start?

[rooster707]

There are forty-one Discworld novels, where are you going to start?

Good God. Well, uh... the first one, I guess?

[Lethologica]

After the obligatory debate over whether The Color of Magic is a better starting point than Mort or Guards! Guards!, you'll end up reading TCoM first anyway. Might as well bow to the inevitable.

Finished Burning Chrome (well, finished a first read, I'll reread most of the stories over the holidays). I'm sitting on Peter Beagle's urban fantasy anthology, and also Accelerando by Charles Stross, which is apparently composed of interconnected short stories, and also Second Foundation in case I need more short stories. (Or maybe Asimov kicked the habit after the Mule showed up, I don't know yet.) Short story city over here. Maybe I'll start reading Wheel of Time afterwards for a larff.

[Douglas]

Second Foundation in case I need more short stories. (Or maybe Asimov kicked the habit after the Mule showed up, I don't know yet.) Short story city over here.

Second Foundation is all one big story as I recall, and the time skip between it and the next book is the last one in the series - all the books after it form a single cohesive story together following the same characters with little skipped time.

[Lethologica]

Second Foundation is all one big story as I recall, and the time skip between it and the next book is the last one in the series - all the books after it form a single cohesive story together following the same characters with little skipped time.

Good to know. Maybe I'll use the series to space out the short stories.

[tantric]

i'm rereading the Pliocene Exile by julian may. i'm still convinced it's the epitomal science-fantasy series. it's just *crafted*.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by warty goblin
Time to reread Dragonlance Chronicles for the umpteenth time….

I wouldn't say it's lousy, really. I'd say it's a series a person is less likely to enjoy if they first read it as an adult, but may well like a great deal if they encounter it as a bored and isolated 14 year old. Since that was pretty much my trajectory, I remain very fond of the entire deal..

I read Dragons of Autumn Twilight my senior year in high school, after a friend all but pushed his copy on me. I thought it was barely mediocre at best, and I think I read the next two books just in the hope they might get better. Apart from Raistlin's hourglass pupils, and his use of a featherfall spell, I don't remember much else.

But I can understand how it would be great for someone at the right age. I read the original Pern trilogy when I was eleven, and the Harper Hall trilogy when I was a couple years older, and I have that same warm nostalgia for them.

Originally Posted by Algeh
Right now, I'm in the middle of "GURPS Swashbucklers", which I'm pretty sure went into more detail on swordfighting than any group I played in ever actually used.

Found this on Amazon and it looks great, although sadly a little pricier than I can justify on a whim.

I've never looked into GURPS, and I have no idea how the system works. How much of the swashbucklers material could be easily transferred to Pathfinder?

.

[Algeh]

Found this on Amazon and it looks great, although sadly a little pricier than I can justify on a whim.

I've never looked into GURPS, and I have no idea how the system works. How much of the swashbucklers material could be easily transferred to Pathfinder?

.

I haven't played Pathfinder, so I'm really not sure (I played in a several-year 2nd edition AD&D campaign once, but almost all of my gaming, and all of my GMing, was in GURPS). A lot of the overview/setting information (places, people, timelines, suggested adventure/campaign ideas, terminology) would transfer just fine, but the details on things like how to model different characters learning swordplay from different fighting schools within the GURPS skill system would of course not transfer nearly as well.

(Broadly, GURPS is a level-less, classless point buy system where characters are built from Attributes (ST/DX/HT/IQ), Advantages, Disadvantages, and Skills. Most GURPS characters in campaigns I've played in have a giant wad of skills in various things, and Swashbucklers presents some ways to add complexity to the sword fighting skills so as to make different sword-using characters who trained in different schools fight differently rather than everyone just rolling against their Rapier (or whatever) skill a lot. I have no idea how well any of that works in practice because my groups were always pretty combat light and didn't ever use those rules.)

I feel like it's also trying to serve slightly too many different campaign ideas within the book because it's trying to handle Three Musketeers-flavored games and pirate-focused games in the same book. It doesn't cover everything from that broad historical period (barely touches on, say, Gustavus Adolphus or large-scale battle tactics in those eras), but does try to cover campaigns that focus around European political intrigue as well as campaigns set in the Caribbean. It's focused on two different settings where PCs could reasonably be expected to swing dramatically from something, land on their feet, and wave a sword around, but I found the linkage less strong on a "settings I'd want to know about at the same time because they'll both come up in my next campaign" level than a "settings I might want to consider choosing from if my players want a game about swordfighting" level, if that makes sense. (I have the Third Edition, first printing, which came out in 1999. I have no idea how much the book may vary by edition - some GURPS books vary a lot by edition and some very little, depending on whether they decided to expand what was previously one book into several or similar.)

It does cover ship-to-ship and multi-ship battles, but using a very abstract and "what happens to the PCs" based system that is not detailed enough for really tactical play of naval engagements. It probably would have worked fine for my story-focused players (I don't remember us ever actually having any naval combat), but wouldn't really be much use to someone who is a fan of the type of books where a lot of time is spent explaining why a certain ship's sail plan allowed it use a certain tactic to set up a certain type of engagement.

It also is designed primarily to support games set on historical Earth rather than a fantasy world, and spends maybe a single sidebar on things like magic (suggesting that it may not mesh well with the flavor of a swashbuckling campaign and thought should be used before allowing it) and doesn't consider the idea of fantasy races or other typical fantasy setting details. If I were trying to run a game about generic fantasy world pirates rather than one set on historical Earth or a romanticized movie/TV/book version of historical Earth (it does a good job of highlighting which things from the book best support each of those things), I'd probably only use about a chapter of the book.

I don't think it would be a violation of the forum rules to post information from the table of contents (as opposed to wholesale text from the "meat" of the book), so if you're curious what the various chapters and such are I could type up a summary of how many pages they spend on what.

[Feytalist]

As always (for the past 2 years, at least), I'm reading Malazan. Finished the first series, finished the second series, started on the first prequel series, about to start on the second prequel series. Honestly, if I get to read Malazan for the rest of my life I'd be pretty content.

The Kharkanas Trilogy (a.k.a. the 100,000 year prequel) has been described as a Shakespearean tragedy, and it really kinda is. Lots of young protagonists, trapped in ennui, lamenting their tragic life. It's a bit of a slog, but the prose is really good as always, and the backstory (endlessly hinted at in the first two series) is fairly interesting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as I'm about two thirds through the first book, and that's usually when the **** show starts.

The Path to Ascendancy (a.k.a. the 20 year prequel) has also now started, and it's apparently really bloody good. I've got the first book... just have to dive in.

Oh, and I'm also reading Principles of Financial Economics. But that's less fun.

While I'm just starting with the second book, I unfortunately encountered exactly the same flaw right from the start, a forced rushed love story that came out of nowhere, and even the way it started kind of reminded me of the exact scene in the first book.
I'll postpone my rating for later, but I really hope it improves and that it will deliver something new.

Honestly, that particular aspect isn't ever going to get any better. But that's okay! Gemmell isn't about the love story anyway. It's about that classic pulp adventure. It's never very high-brow, but it's some of the most fun books I've read. You might want to give Waylander a go, or some of his stand-alones. Dark Moon, or Knights of Dark Renown.

I didn't know that Dragonlance Chronicles had a reputation for being lousy.

Not lousy, really. Just pulp. Like most DnD books, it's a lot of fun when your'e younger, but doesn't age well. The later works do apparently suffer from a dip in quality (never read them myself), but the first couple of books are not bad, if you go into them with the "it's a DnD book" mindset. More of a nostalgia trip, really.

After the obligatory debate over whether The Color of Magic is a better starting point than Mort or Guards! Guards!, you'll end up reading TCoM first anyway. Might as well bow to the inevitable.

Yeah, start with The Color of Magic anyway. The series only really hits its stride 3 or 4 books in, but the first couple are fairly fun, and funny, and parodic on their own, and they're short, so it's hardly a chore.

[Palanan]

So, while I decide on further titles for Dark Ages Britain, I've started reading The Age of the Vikings by Anders Winroth. There's a lot of overlap with the Dark Ages, not to mention some direct and prolonged contact in the British Isles. Plus I've just started watching Vikings (and its rather superficial little brother, Real Vikings) and wanted to get a sense of the historical context.

I'm also reading stories from Agents of Treachery, which sounds like another Marvel TV series, but in fact it's a recent collection of short spy fiction by people who are supposedly top writers in the genre. I'm not familiar with the scene or its conventions, and the first one I read, by Lee Child, left me more confused than anything. But it was extremely well-written, and so was the next, so I'm enjoying the stories despite my general lack of clue.

And I should mention that thanks to a recommendation from an earlier reading thread, I now have a copy of Laura Rowland's Shinjū waiting its turn. Once I work through the Scandinavian and British Dark Ages, I'll see if I can get into a samurai mood.

[DraPrime]

I'm currently reading The Last Stand of Fox Company. It's umm...kind of fiction, kind of non-fiction? The book is about an actual historical event, from when a company of U.S. Marines held a hill against the Chinese offensive during the Korean War (near the Chosin Reservoir, if you know your history/geography). Fox Company and the men in it were all real, but the book is narrated exactly like a novel. It details the events from the perspectives of dozens of different individuals, which is not surprising, because the authors actually interviewed many of the survivors of the battle. It might not be the most academic way of telling the history of the battle, but it's more about the story than providing an exact historical account, so I'm fine with how it's done. Overall, it's a good story of a really horrible battle that doesn't get remembered much, because the Korean War didn't have the massive political controversy of Vietnam, or the enormous scale of WWII.

[Palanan]

I'm sixty pages into The Age of the Vikings and about ready to quit.

Most writers tend to develop a sympathy for their subjects, if they didn't start out with it, but in this case the author's bias is not subtle. He's an apologist for brutality, as long as it's committed by Viking warbands, and he uses one incident from Charlemagne's reign to demonstrate that (in his view) state rulers of the time were equally barbaric. This may be true, but the author glosses lightly across passages in which Scandinavian invaders almost certainly exterminated native populations--and then suggests "maybe they just moved" with a straight face. The first chapter in particular is suffused with this sort of thing.

He also has a habit of setting up straw men and boldly demolishing them, without ever giving any real evidence for his assertions. Likewise he dismisses written documents when they disagree with his notions, but never provides anything to back up his counterclaims, not so much as a footnote. He's an established historian and presumably knows his sources, but he doesn't always want to mention them. His previous book is billed as a "radical reinterpretation," and while he's nowhere near radical here, there's more than a tinge of righteous jousting at false preconceptions.

So far the book is a little breathless and all over the place, and it's hard to know who he's writing for. It often feels just on the edge of superficial, and while the writing isn't truly awful, it can be awkwardly phrased, as if this was a second or third draft that hadn't been completely polished. And there are some cringeworthy editorial mistakes, such as the statement that "the waters outside Greenland team with fish," which is an obvious case of someone relying on a spellchecker rather than doing a careful read. (And waters are usually off a landmass, rather than outside it.)

I'm a quarter of the way through the book, and for the moment I persevere. I'm hoping it'll pick up once he moves past the political self-interest of chieftains (evidently a favorite theme of his) and gets more into ships and trade.