Bibliophile
Moving is a chore. Carrying 50,000 pounds of books up three flights of stairs tested even my stamina and endurance not to chuck the whole lot in the nearby (and at ground level) dumpster. I think it's time to invest in some sort of e-reader, so I've begun re-reading my library to see what goes and what stays.
Currently Reading:
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife
Mercedes Lackey: The Mage Wars trilogy (Black Griffon, White Griffon, Silver Griffon), Sword of Ice and other Tales of Valdemar, Vows and Honor (HC with Oathbound and The Oathbreakers), By the Sword, Brightly Burning, Exile's Honor, Take a Thief, Exile's Valor, The Lark and the Wren (Bardic Voices), Owlsight, Winds of Fate, Storm Warning, Storm Rising, Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar, The Last Herald Mage (HC with Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, Magic's Price), Queen's Own (HC with Arrows of the Queen, Arrow's Flight, Arrow's Fall)
Kept: Queen's Own trilogy, The Last Herald Mage trilogy, Take a Thief
Read Before You Die: The Last Herald Mage trilogy
Die Before You Read: The Mage Wars trilogy, Brightly Burning
Note: Both Queen's Own and Take a Thief are autographed by Mercedes Lackey. I don't know why I didn't have her inscribe The Last Herald Mage, as its by far my favorite of anything she's written. I've become signicantly less enamored of the series over time, simply because I think I need my heroes to be slightly more flawed, which I think *is* executed well in Vanyel's books but less so in everything else. But since Heralds are, by definition, paragons of good... yeah. Doesn't mean I still don't look for the new titles at the bookstore, but I'm wary of buying them anymore.
Richard K. Morgan: Altered Carbon, Broken Angels
Note: I got drawn in by Altered Carbon, which is... alright. I think I like the concept better than the execution. Broken Angels was a letdown once I finally found a used copy.
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, The Hallowed Hunt, The Sharing Knife
Kept: The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls
Note: Both The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are autographed. The Hallowed Hunt, which is set in the same "world" as Chalion and Paladin, but is not a sequel to one or the other, just never grabbed me - which is a shame because I like the other two.
Richard Adams: Watership Down, Tales from Watership Down
Kept: Watership Down, Tales from Watership Down
Read Before You Die: Watership Down
Note: The animated movie made a tremendous impression on me - especially Blackavar for some reason - but I haven't watched it in years.
David Adams: Den of Thieves
Note: Another book premise I should have loved. Thieves! Stealing stuff! Except everything felt very predictable. Malden, our main character, a mediocre thief, steals something more valuable than he knows. Obviously, once he's in over his head, our bumbling crook must also encounter a lady fair who needs rescuing, too, while trying to make everything right. Having learned my lesson (see Night Angel, below), I did not continue on to the other two books in the series A Thief in the Night and Honor Among Thieves. I can't pinpoint whether or not I think the characters felt too one-dimensional or whether the story felt too uninspired. OR overly compicated, because not only do we have the stolen, magical crown (erk, spoilers) but we've also got the Ancient Blades running around, carrying weapons of demon-killing potential, except there aren't any demons around anymore. Except the human kind. So, some remain paragons of virtues and others become sellswords. And there's bound to be conflict. All in 300 pages! Again, though, I do have to give credit for a bit of the worldbuilding - the city where Malden lives is the last "free" city. In other words, if you step outside its gates, any lord can enslave you as a serf, or what have you. Which makes the city just as much a cage as taking a risk you can find yourself a bit of land and live freely. In that respect, I do feel the book succeeds in sticking Malden in an untenable position - does he stay where he's barely subsisting or does he go into something potentially worse. Too bad I never really end up caring about his decision one way or the other.
Torchwood (various authors): The Torchwood Archives
Kept: The Torchwood Archives
Note: I have several of the Torchwood books in audio form: Border Princes, Hidden, In the Shadows, Everyone Says Hello and The Sin Eaters. I also have the audio adventures: Asylum, Golden Age, Lost Souls and The Dead Line. I love me some audio adventures (Big Finish has my heart), so I fully recommend them. Burn Gorman's reading of Everyone Says Hello is brilliant and if you were to purchase one audio book, it's the one I'd recommend. The Torchwood Archives is autographed by John Barrowman, who is love.
Watch Before You Die: Torchwood
Carole Nelson Douglas: Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit
Note: The Midnight Louie series is a guilty pleasure for me - I really enjoy Temple Barr, Midnight Louie and Electra (I am significantly less taken with Matt, Max Kinsella and Detective Molina. Midnight Louise I can take or leave). The problem I've had with the later books is the significant number of pages devoted to the romantic triangle between Temple, Matt and Max. I'll stick with M - for Murder. I had, at one time, the first half of the series, but they seem to have made their way to Powells - or I haven't found them in the stacks yet.
Chris Bunch & Alan Cole: The Far Kingdoms, The Warrior's Tale, Kingdoms of the Night
Kept: The Far Kingdoms, The Warrior's Tale, Kingdoms of the Night, The Warrior Returns
Read Before You Die: The Warrior Returns
Note: I met Chris Bunch prior to his death in 2005 at a surprisingly low-attended book signing at Powells. This series was one of the first I ever read - long before George R.R. Martin became a household name - where I consciously thought, "This would make a brilliant movie/TV series." I didn't necessarily feel obligated to pick a favorite, but I think I did like The Warrior Returns the best of all four. However, I don't recommend reading the books out of order as they contain significant spoilers.
Blake Charlton: Spellwright, Spellbound
Note: I met Blake Charlton back in September 2011, at a book signing a Powells. Mr. Charlton is an extremely affable author - dyslexic, he's written a very linguistically oriented pair of books which, as a premise, I liked very much. However, I was not a tremendous fan of Spellwright, but took the plunge with Spellbound anyway because I (nominally) wanted to see what happened to the characters. Unfortunately, I found the second novel even less to my taste (as in, I disliked it. Quite a bit, actually. It was something of a trial to finish).
Brent Weeks: Night Angel (HC with The Way of Shadow, Shadow's Edge and Beyond the Shadows)
Die Before You Read: Anything he's ever written
Note: I don't know that I have words for how much I disliked the Night Angel trilogy. On its surface, it has everything I should like - assassins! But the books themselves were terrible and I'm absolutely baffled by the number of high marks the series receives in reviews. Kylar has to learn how to skillfully use every weapon ever created, ever, in order to be an effective assassin. Maybe if this book spanned 100 years and Kylar never aged or dies (he doesn't, oops, spoilers) that'd be realistic, but it doesn't. For being an assassin, he kills almost no one - good thing, because he's still mastering the battle axe back on page 138. And then Beyond the Shadows is devoted mostly to his relationship with his girlfriend (who he's loved for his ENTIRE LIFE) and alternating between them calling each other 'Honey' (literally, the only term of endearment they apparently know) and them fighting. Thankfully, she dies. This book almost made me wish I'd die in the middle of it, but when you pay $17 for something, you feel obligated to see it through to the end. Like a bad movie, you know you've already sunk your $12 into it, and you know that the theater isn't REALLY going to give you your money back, so you might as well sit there and finish your popcorn which is already cold and you know the guy put butter on it in the midddle even though you said "No butter," but you didn't want to be a dick and make him dump it out when you saw him doing it, so now it's just sort of this oily stuff on your fingers and you just want to get through that layer to the next layer except it's soaked through ruining the rest of the box you overpaid for - and you didn't even get the large drink for .25 extra. It's like that. Don't buy these books. Don't buy anything he's ever written. Ever.
Walter Jon Williams: Ten Points for Style (HC with The Crown Jewels, House of Shards and Rock of Ages)
Note: Ten Points is currently in my 'maybe' pile. I enjoyed Crown Jewels and House of Shards but disilked Rock of Ages. Why do so many sci-fi writers seem enamored of making Elvis a deity in the far future? Not that I dislike Elvis. It just seems predicable. WJW hasn't written any other Maijstral novels since 1995 so I don't expect there'll be a surprise follow-up at any point either. Given that I like so few science fiction books anyway, it might be worth it for me to pick up another couple of his books, to see if it was his style I liked or more the subject matter (Drake is a professional thief). As a side note, The Crown Jewels is available on the Kindle (and perhaps other ebook options, I'm unsure) for .99, and for that price, I definitely recommend it.
Roberta Cray: The Sword and the Lion
Alan Dean Foster: The Deluge Drivers
Robert Aspirin: Phule Me Twice
Douglas Niles: A Breach in the Watershed, Darkenheight, War of Three Waters
Note: Douglas Niles is better known (supposedly) for his contributions to the Dragonlance universe - none of which I've ever read. I read this trilogy out of order, after being sucked in by the amazing cover art for Darkenheight (Ciruelo Cabral, be very very proud). This is another book I remember liking more when I originally read the series (pretty sure I cried when ________ ________ died) and less so now on the re-read. I'm noticing a lot of flaws in the plot that bother me enough to want to question the author as to the thought process involved, out of sheer irritation. "How is it that a non-martial culture like the Faerines didn't think to employ magic against the minions of Duloth-Trol, ever? Not once do they ever attack magically, despite their entire society being built around the hallowed position of Auramaster. Why didn't they block these open passes in the Watershed, rather than leaving them with undermanned garrisons?" Yes, I realize without some (all?) of this, there wouldn't be much of a story but... credit where credit is due, though, I do like the worldbuilding. Oi, and the pacing is terrible in the third book too. Authors take note - tack a timeline up somewhere and figure out how long (realistically) it takes to physically traverse areas and be consistant. If an army is travelling from A to B, and Jack and Jill are walking from point C to D and the Red Shirt characters are sailing a ship to meet the army, Jack and Jill at E, everyone does not luckily arrive at the same time. It just doesn't work like that. And three children cannot sail a huge ship by themselves. You cannot handwave at me and just say, "Magic!" because sailing a ship isn't something just anyone can wake up in the morning and do. Okay, obviously you can tell these three went into the rage-resale box.
Anthologies: Catfantastic II, The Cat that Wasn't There, More Whatdunits
Currently Reading:
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife
Mercedes Lackey: The Mage Wars trilogy (Black Griffon, White Griffon, Silver Griffon), Sword of Ice and other Tales of Valdemar, Vows and Honor (HC with Oathbound and The Oathbreakers), By the Sword, Brightly Burning, Exile's Honor, Take a Thief, Exile's Valor, The Lark and the Wren (Bardic Voices), Owlsight, Winds of Fate, Storm Warning, Storm Rising, Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar, The Last Herald Mage (HC with Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, Magic's Price), Queen's Own (HC with Arrows of the Queen, Arrow's Flight, Arrow's Fall)
Kept: Queen's Own trilogy, The Last Herald Mage trilogy, Take a Thief
Read Before You Die: The Last Herald Mage trilogy
Die Before You Read: The Mage Wars trilogy, Brightly Burning
Note: Both Queen's Own and Take a Thief are autographed by Mercedes Lackey. I don't know why I didn't have her inscribe The Last Herald Mage, as its by far my favorite of anything she's written. I've become signicantly less enamored of the series over time, simply because I think I need my heroes to be slightly more flawed, which I think *is* executed well in Vanyel's books but less so in everything else. But since Heralds are, by definition, paragons of good... yeah. Doesn't mean I still don't look for the new titles at the bookstore, but I'm wary of buying them anymore.
Richard K. Morgan: Altered Carbon, Broken Angels
Note: I got drawn in by Altered Carbon, which is... alright. I think I like the concept better than the execution. Broken Angels was a letdown once I finally found a used copy.
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, The Hallowed Hunt, The Sharing Knife
Kept: The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls
Note: Both The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are autographed. The Hallowed Hunt, which is set in the same "world" as Chalion and Paladin, but is not a sequel to one or the other, just never grabbed me - which is a shame because I like the other two.
Richard Adams: Watership Down, Tales from Watership Down
Kept: Watership Down, Tales from Watership Down
Read Before You Die: Watership Down
Note: The animated movie made a tremendous impression on me - especially Blackavar for some reason - but I haven't watched it in years.
David Adams: Den of Thieves
Note: Another book premise I should have loved. Thieves! Stealing stuff! Except everything felt very predictable. Malden, our main character, a mediocre thief, steals something more valuable than he knows. Obviously, once he's in over his head, our bumbling crook must also encounter a lady fair who needs rescuing, too, while trying to make everything right. Having learned my lesson (see Night Angel, below), I did not continue on to the other two books in the series A Thief in the Night and Honor Among Thieves. I can't pinpoint whether or not I think the characters felt too one-dimensional or whether the story felt too uninspired. OR overly compicated, because not only do we have the stolen, magical crown (erk, spoilers) but we've also got the Ancient Blades running around, carrying weapons of demon-killing potential, except there aren't any demons around anymore. Except the human kind. So, some remain paragons of virtues and others become sellswords. And there's bound to be conflict. All in 300 pages! Again, though, I do have to give credit for a bit of the worldbuilding - the city where Malden lives is the last "free" city. In other words, if you step outside its gates, any lord can enslave you as a serf, or what have you. Which makes the city just as much a cage as taking a risk you can find yourself a bit of land and live freely. In that respect, I do feel the book succeeds in sticking Malden in an untenable position - does he stay where he's barely subsisting or does he go into something potentially worse. Too bad I never really end up caring about his decision one way or the other.
Torchwood (various authors): The Torchwood Archives
Kept: The Torchwood Archives
Note: I have several of the Torchwood books in audio form: Border Princes, Hidden, In the Shadows, Everyone Says Hello and The Sin Eaters. I also have the audio adventures: Asylum, Golden Age, Lost Souls and The Dead Line. I love me some audio adventures (Big Finish has my heart), so I fully recommend them. Burn Gorman's reading of Everyone Says Hello is brilliant and if you were to purchase one audio book, it's the one I'd recommend. The Torchwood Archives is autographed by John Barrowman, who is love.
Watch Before You Die: Torchwood
Carole Nelson Douglas: Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit
Note: The Midnight Louie series is a guilty pleasure for me - I really enjoy Temple Barr, Midnight Louie and Electra (I am significantly less taken with Matt, Max Kinsella and Detective Molina. Midnight Louise I can take or leave). The problem I've had with the later books is the significant number of pages devoted to the romantic triangle between Temple, Matt and Max. I'll stick with M - for Murder. I had, at one time, the first half of the series, but they seem to have made their way to Powells - or I haven't found them in the stacks yet.
Chris Bunch & Alan Cole: The Far Kingdoms, The Warrior's Tale, Kingdoms of the Night
Kept: The Far Kingdoms, The Warrior's Tale, Kingdoms of the Night, The Warrior Returns
Read Before You Die: The Warrior Returns
Note: I met Chris Bunch prior to his death in 2005 at a surprisingly low-attended book signing at Powells. This series was one of the first I ever read - long before George R.R. Martin became a household name - where I consciously thought, "This would make a brilliant movie/TV series." I didn't necessarily feel obligated to pick a favorite, but I think I did like The Warrior Returns the best of all four. However, I don't recommend reading the books out of order as they contain significant spoilers.
Blake Charlton: Spellwright, Spellbound
Note: I met Blake Charlton back in September 2011, at a book signing a Powells. Mr. Charlton is an extremely affable author - dyslexic, he's written a very linguistically oriented pair of books which, as a premise, I liked very much. However, I was not a tremendous fan of Spellwright, but took the plunge with Spellbound anyway because I (nominally) wanted to see what happened to the characters. Unfortunately, I found the second novel even less to my taste (as in, I disliked it. Quite a bit, actually. It was something of a trial to finish).
Brent Weeks: Night Angel (HC with The Way of Shadow, Shadow's Edge and Beyond the Shadows)
Die Before You Read: Anything he's ever written
Note: I don't know that I have words for how much I disliked the Night Angel trilogy. On its surface, it has everything I should like - assassins! But the books themselves were terrible and I'm absolutely baffled by the number of high marks the series receives in reviews. Kylar has to learn how to skillfully use every weapon ever created, ever, in order to be an effective assassin. Maybe if this book spanned 100 years and Kylar never aged or dies (he doesn't, oops, spoilers) that'd be realistic, but it doesn't. For being an assassin, he kills almost no one - good thing, because he's still mastering the battle axe back on page 138. And then Beyond the Shadows is devoted mostly to his relationship with his girlfriend (who he's loved for his ENTIRE LIFE) and alternating between them calling each other 'Honey' (literally, the only term of endearment they apparently know) and them fighting. Thankfully, she dies. This book almost made me wish I'd die in the middle of it, but when you pay $17 for something, you feel obligated to see it through to the end. Like a bad movie, you know you've already sunk your $12 into it, and you know that the theater isn't REALLY going to give you your money back, so you might as well sit there and finish your popcorn which is already cold and you know the guy put butter on it in the midddle even though you said "No butter," but you didn't want to be a dick and make him dump it out when you saw him doing it, so now it's just sort of this oily stuff on your fingers and you just want to get through that layer to the next layer except it's soaked through ruining the rest of the box you overpaid for - and you didn't even get the large drink for .25 extra. It's like that. Don't buy these books. Don't buy anything he's ever written. Ever.
Walter Jon Williams: Ten Points for Style (HC with The Crown Jewels, House of Shards and Rock of Ages)
Note: Ten Points is currently in my 'maybe' pile. I enjoyed Crown Jewels and House of Shards but disilked Rock of Ages. Why do so many sci-fi writers seem enamored of making Elvis a deity in the far future? Not that I dislike Elvis. It just seems predicable. WJW hasn't written any other Maijstral novels since 1995 so I don't expect there'll be a surprise follow-up at any point either. Given that I like so few science fiction books anyway, it might be worth it for me to pick up another couple of his books, to see if it was his style I liked or more the subject matter (Drake is a professional thief). As a side note, The Crown Jewels is available on the Kindle (and perhaps other ebook options, I'm unsure) for .99, and for that price, I definitely recommend it.
Roberta Cray: The Sword and the Lion
Alan Dean Foster: The Deluge Drivers
Robert Aspirin: Phule Me Twice
Douglas Niles: A Breach in the Watershed, Darkenheight, War of Three Waters
Note: Douglas Niles is better known (supposedly) for his contributions to the Dragonlance universe - none of which I've ever read. I read this trilogy out of order, after being sucked in by the amazing cover art for Darkenheight (Ciruelo Cabral, be very very proud). This is another book I remember liking more when I originally read the series (pretty sure I cried when ________ ________ died) and less so now on the re-read. I'm noticing a lot of flaws in the plot that bother me enough to want to question the author as to the thought process involved, out of sheer irritation. "How is it that a non-martial culture like the Faerines didn't think to employ magic against the minions of Duloth-Trol, ever? Not once do they ever attack magically, despite their entire society being built around the hallowed position of Auramaster. Why didn't they block these open passes in the Watershed, rather than leaving them with undermanned garrisons?" Yes, I realize without some (all?) of this, there wouldn't be much of a story but... credit where credit is due, though, I do like the worldbuilding. Oi, and the pacing is terrible in the third book too. Authors take note - tack a timeline up somewhere and figure out how long (realistically) it takes to physically traverse areas and be consistant. If an army is travelling from A to B, and Jack and Jill are walking from point C to D and the Red Shirt characters are sailing a ship to meet the army, Jack and Jill at E, everyone does not luckily arrive at the same time. It just doesn't work like that. And three children cannot sail a huge ship by themselves. You cannot handwave at me and just say, "Magic!" because sailing a ship isn't something just anyone can wake up in the morning and do. Okay, obviously you can tell these three went into the rage-resale box.
Anthologies: Catfantastic II, The Cat that Wasn't There, More Whatdunits