recent books
I recently finished Howard L. Myers's A Sense of Infinity, which is a collection of 3 of his short books which were themselves collections of short(ish) stories. It seems that along with the stories in The Creatures of Man, these make up the entire collection of his published works. This is a true shame as he was a very gifted storyteller. While many of his works were a tad unpolished, almost all of them had the spark which shows true talent. Perhaps his greatest weakness in the current market is that he didn't write long novels. Also a seeming difficulty in producing sequels. Still, his ideas of a sane humanity are definitely interesting and I would like to see other authors try doing something along those lines.
Currently, I'm reading R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before. A high fantasy full of war and politics, and sorcerers and prostitutes and emperors and generals. The world is developing rather more quickly than usual and is more diverse than usual as well, but at the cost of tons of characters and plot lines. I would like it better if the characters were more sympathetic; so far I detest most of them, even the interesting ones. I'll finish this book and probably read the sequels too, as long as the plot advances by the end of this book. Too many other series build up in the beginning, but leave the main plot to the last half of the last book (rushed) and betray expectations. Pacing is key. Assuming all this, though, I may recommend it to others later.
Currently, I'm reading R. Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before. A high fantasy full of war and politics, and sorcerers and prostitutes and emperors and generals. The world is developing rather more quickly than usual and is more diverse than usual as well, but at the cost of tons of characters and plot lines. I would like it better if the characters were more sympathetic; so far I detest most of them, even the interesting ones. I'll finish this book and probably read the sequels too, as long as the plot advances by the end of this book. Too many other series build up in the beginning, but leave the main plot to the last half of the last book (rushed) and betray expectations. Pacing is key. Assuming all this, though, I may recommend it to others later.