Finished two books over the last weekish.
The first was The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I have some mixed feelings about this book. It starts off much slower than previous books i've read from them. I feel like they have a great imagination and their prose is most top notch but there was A LOT of buildup to where the book was going. Also, my personal opinion is that they spent too much time focusing on the less interesting parts of the book. I assume there was supposed to be a connection with the otherness and how we treat people right here and now and I can sort of see it but my expectations weren't in the right place for it and i don't think the book draws the line cleanly enough. I didn't enjoy it as much as Children of Time and if i hadn't committed myself to finishing it, i might have given up at the half way point. It has a strong finish though and again, i think it sets up an incredible world.
The other book i finished is the first in a series called The Thousand Li by Tao Wong. I enjoy Xianxia and this is a pretty strong book for that genre. I feel like there are many things i don't quite grasp because it's outside my cultural perspective. There are some set ups that don't pay off they probably would have in a western novel. However, the pacing is fairly good and the stakes don't elevate too fast.
If you enjoy Xanxia, I highly recommend the Cradle series by Will Wright. They are giving phenomenal. They are on Amazon Kindle unlimited as well.
i've done a few reads on teh series and need to do another one after finishing Reaper :biggrin:
Oh man I can't believe someone else here has read them! I know he said he wanted the Cradle series to be 12 books but I really hope he just takes the core group into the abbidan. 2 books does not feel like enough time to finish up all the threads he has hanging unless he rushes things.
So I’m reading the latest Alastair Reynolds that came out this week: Inhibitor Phase. It’s a welcome return to his Revelation Space setting, and I re-read Revelation Space and a couple of its sequels to get me in the mood for it.
It’s pretty good so far, but something about it was bothering me and I finally figured it out: it’s first person and not third person. The change in perspective isn’t exactly ruining the book, but it definitely detracts. Most of Reynold’s best characters are seriously weird and/or unlikeable and the extra FoV that third person provides is really helpful in capturing that.
I don't know if I like Volyova but I do know that I like her
I just got this, super excited to get back into Revelation Space, and then friggin' Leviathan Falls comes out, too. It's like double Winds of Winter, space opera style, vying for my attention. Embarrassment of riches!
Finished two books over the last weekish.
The first was The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I have some mixed feelings about this book. It starts off much slower than previous books i've read from them. I feel like they have a great imagination and their prose is most top notch but there was A LOT of buildup to where the book was going. Also, my personal opinion is that they spent too much time focusing on the less interesting parts of the book. I assume there was supposed to be a connection with the otherness and how we treat people right here and now and I can sort of see it but my expectations weren't in the right place for it and i don't think the book draws the line cleanly enough. I didn't enjoy it as much as Children of Time and if i hadn't committed myself to finishing it, i might have given up at the half way point. It has a strong finish though and again, i think it sets up an incredible world.
The other book i finished is the first in a series called The Thousand Li by Tao Wong. I enjoy Xianxia and this is a pretty strong book for that genre. I feel like there are many things i don't quite grasp because it's outside my cultural perspective. There are some set ups that don't pay off they probably would have in a western novel. However, the pacing is fairly good and the stakes don't elevate too fast.
If you enjoy Xanxia, I highly recommend the Cradle series by Will Wright. They are giving phenomenal. They are on Amazon Kindle unlimited as well.
i've done a few reads on teh series and need to do another one after finishing Reaper :biggrin:
Oh man I can't believe someone else here has read them! I know he said he wanted the Cradle series to be 12 books but I really hope he just takes the core group into the abbidan. 2 books does not feel like enough time to finish up all the threads he has hanging unless he rushes things.
I know Will has expressed he wants to write some other things so even though i share the same feelings i'm pretty sure he is going to wrap it up in two or three at the most books. I could see it being next book = dreadgods, final book = the rescue and then denouement.
I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in 3 volumes. It was when they published the softcover version of To Green Angel Tower that the book was too long to hold together with a paper binding so they had to publish it in two volumes. The hardcover release was just one thick-ass-brick.
Also: I don't recommend trying to re-read that series if you have fond memories of it from a couple decades ago. I tried and didn't make it 10% of the way through The Dragonbone Chair. The writing is....not good.
Yeah, that often happens with megadoorstopper books in paperback. Every single one of the Night's Dawn Trilogy were split into two parts in paperback.
I've also seen it a lot in books published overseas. Books that are normally one volume here in the US will wind up as two volumes when translated and printed elsewhere.
So, re: the Nona the Ninth thing -
(speculation based on the first two books)
Given that Harrow's last name is "Nonagesimus", I'm guessing this one's about her? Possibly (another) altered version of her now that she's aware of what happened to her? I don't actually remember exactly what was going on with her at the end of Harrow the Ninth.
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
0
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in 3 volumes. It was when they published the softcover version of To Green Angel Tower that the book was too long to hold together with a paper binding so they had to publish it in two volumes. The hardcover release was just one thick-ass-brick.
Also: I don't recommend trying to re-read that series if you have fond memories of it from a couple decades ago. I tried and didn't make it 10% of the way through The Dragonbone Chair. The writing is....not good.
That's crazy talk. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn remains the high-water mark for that era of heroic fantasy, and William's prose work is leagues better than any of his contemporaries in the genre not named Kay.
I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in 3 volumes. It was when they published the softcover version of To Green Angel Tower that the book was too long to hold together with a paper binding so they had to publish it in two volumes. The hardcover release was just one thick-ass-brick.
Also: I don't recommend trying to re-read that series if you have fond memories of it from a couple decades ago. I tried and didn't make it 10% of the way through The Dragonbone Chair. The writing is....not good.
That's crazy talk. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn remains the high-water mark for that era of heroic fantasy, and William's prose work is leagues better than any of his contemporaries in the genre not named Kay.
His current sequel series is excellent as well.
Dragonbone Chair is from 1988. I remember reading it back in the 90's, not long after To Green Angel Tower came out (since it was still in hardcover when I read it), and thinking the whole trilogy was amazing. I guess it's probably more the fault of my having read a lot of fantasy since then and the genre and writing styles evolving over the last 3 decades, but I couldn't get through Dragonbone Chair again. Things that maybe were original back then felt pretty well-worn and obvious and the writing seemed incredibly blunt.
I used to love Williams and eagerly ate up the Otherland books as they came out but I fell off around Shadowmarch. It felt very Standard Fantasy Trope-y and I didn't care about any of the characters enough to want to find out what happened next, so I think I may have finished that book but not gone on to the next in the series. Had no idea he was even doing a sequel series to MST. Maybe I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.
I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in 3 volumes. It was when they published the softcover version of To Green Angel Tower that the book was too long to hold together with a paper binding so they had to publish it in two volumes. The hardcover release was just one thick-ass-brick.
Also: I don't recommend trying to re-read that series if you have fond memories of it from a couple decades ago. I tried and didn't make it 10% of the way through The Dragonbone Chair. The writing is....not good.
That's crazy talk. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn remains the high-water mark for that era of heroic fantasy, and William's prose work is leagues better than any of his contemporaries in the genre not named Kay.
His current sequel series is excellent as well.
Dragonbone Chair is from 1988. I remember reading it back in the 90's, not long after To Green Angel Tower came out (since it was still in hardcover when I read it), and thinking the whole trilogy was amazing. I guess it's probably more the fault of my having read a lot of fantasy since then and the genre and writing styles evolving over the last 3 decades, but I couldn't get through Dragonbone Chair again. Things that maybe were original back then felt pretty well-worn and obvious and the writing seemed incredibly blunt.
I used to love Williams and eagerly ate up the Otherland books as they came out but I fell off around Shadowmarch. It felt very Standard Fantasy Trope-y and I didn't care about any of the characters enough to want to find out what happened next, so I think I may have finished that book but not gone on to the next in the series. Had no idea he was even doing a sequel series to MST. Maybe I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.
Another one of the spinoff books is out soon too.
0
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
edited December 2021
Oh yeah, he's definitely not trying to reinvent the wheel. It's all very consciously in the Tolkien-esque mode of fantasy epics, and is much slower-placed than modern fantasy. Which whether one finds that appealing may just be a matter of personal preference.
But the language and execution is absolutely first rate. It's one of those series that, like with Kay or Wolfe, I know when I'm done I won't be able to read genre fiction for a while because the writing will seem amateurish by comparison.
So, re: the Nona the Ninth thing -
(speculation based on the first two books)
Given that Harrow's last name is "Nonagesimus", I'm guessing this one's about her? Possibly (another) altered version of her now that she's aware of what happened to her? I don't actually remember exactly what was going on with her at the end of Harrow the Ninth.
Harrow the Ninth Spoilers with some speculation:
IIRC she is curled up in the sarcophaguses that held Alecto, which was the Tomb the the Ninth House was established to guard. It is unclear if she is now haunting the place as a spirit or if it is a little slice of The River that she has imprinted and held onto to like Palamedes had done with the room where he died. Gideon was last scene piloting Harrows body physically into the River which is probably very ungood for somebody who is completely un-Necromantic. Where she ends up is a damn good question.
The Epilogue shows some folks who seem a fuckton like the Sixth House living on a Blood of Eden world while caring for somebody who is clueless about things like "Don't eat burning food" while also not seeming to be damaged by doing that.
So we're left with the Tomb, does it still contain a body?
Is the Body kicking around that BoE world Harrows?
Who/what is piloting that body? Alecto's swapped in spirit? Some greatly reduced portion of Harrow and/or Gideon? What's powering it's apparent Lyctor-ish healing? Gideon? The Emperor?
I just finished The City We Became, by NK Jemisin. It was a really enjoyable read! I have chosen to live in cities since I graduated college (not NYC--but I do like NYC a lot) and so it gave me a lot of good feelings about the nature of cities.
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I just finished The City We Became, by NK Jemisin. It was a really enjoyable read! I have chosen to live in cities since I graduated college (not NYC--but I do like NYC a lot) and so it gave me a lot of good feelings about the nature of cities.
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I absolutely loved the reveal of the identity of the "enemy". Which made 100% sense in hindsight but was definitely something I didn't consider as I was reading it.
I just finished The City We Became, by NK Jemisin. It was a really enjoyable read! I have chosen to live in cities since I graduated college (not NYC--but I do like NYC a lot) and so it gave me a lot of good feelings about the nature of cities.
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I absolutely loved the reveal of the identity of the "enemy". Which made 100% sense in hindsight but was definitely something I didn't consider as I was reading it.
I haven't read any lovecraft other than like the first 50 pages of The Mountains of Madness, which was very boring and didn't get into anything eldritch in said 50 pages. So while I recognize R'yleh as a Lovecraft thing, I actually am not totally sure of the significance, so it didn't have a huge huge impact. I mean she definitely does have people explicitly talk about lovecraft a lot, so even if it's not something you can recognize, you're still oriented towards it. But for me the reveal was not particularly impactful. The Woman in White was rather chilling just as she was without the reference.
I just finished The City We Became, by NK Jemisin. It was a really enjoyable read! I have chosen to live in cities since I graduated college (not NYC--but I do like NYC a lot) and so it gave me a lot of good feelings about the nature of cities.
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I absolutely loved the reveal of the identity of the "enemy". Which made 100% sense in hindsight but was definitely something I didn't consider as I was reading it.
I haven't read any lovecraft other than like the first 50 pages of The Mountains of Madness, which was very boring and didn't get into anything eldritch in said 50 pages. So while I recognize R'yleh as a Lovecraft thing, I actually am not totally sure of the significance, so it didn't have a huge huge impact. I mean she definitely does have people explicitly talk about lovecraft a lot, so even if it's not something you can recognize, you're still oriented towards it. But for me the reveal was not particularly impactful. The Woman in White was rather chilling just as she was without the reference.
Am not super sure knowledge of Lovecraft lore specifically is relevant to the novel. Some exposure to cosmic horror and understand of... the type of human he was and the themes of his writing are probably good enough.
I just finished The City We Became, by NK Jemisin. It was a really enjoyable read! I have chosen to live in cities since I graduated college (not NYC--but I do like NYC a lot) and so it gave me a lot of good feelings about the nature of cities.
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I absolutely loved the reveal of the identity of the "enemy". Which made 100% sense in hindsight but was definitely something I didn't consider as I was reading it.
I haven't read any lovecraft other than like the first 50 pages of The Mountains of Madness, which was very boring and didn't get into anything eldritch in said 50 pages. So while I recognize R'yleh as a Lovecraft thing, I actually am not totally sure of the significance, so it didn't have a huge huge impact. I mean she definitely does have people explicitly talk about lovecraft a lot, so even if it's not something you can recognize, you're still oriented towards it. But for me the reveal was not particularly impactful. The Woman in White was rather chilling just as she was without the reference.
Am not super sure knowledge of Lovecraft lore specifically is relevant to the novel. Some exposure to cosmic horror and understand of... the type of human he was and the themes of his writing are probably good enough.
I think.
Totally agree
By having characters explicitly discuss lovecraft (both lovecraft=eldritch, which, I think most readers would know, and lovecraft=racist, which readers might not know, but which I think Bronca talks about at the art center wrt the creepy dehumanizing painting) Jemisin fills in the audience on the relevant information, so no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy the theme
However I expect that someone who is more into lovecraft than I am would have a bigger moment when the name R’yleh is used, whereas my reaction was *shrug*, checks out, that’s an eldritch thing. Because Jemisin does build up to the reveal so that it feels more momentous to the reader (Aislyn teases it a couple times, like, ‘I know it starts with an R, I’ll call her Rosie’).
So prior knowledge is needed to really dig that particular reveal—but that’s fine; not every tiny moment in a book is equally appealing to everyone.
Oh I know what else I wanted to say about this book—the introduction chapter was published almost entirely unchanged as a short story some time ago. Does anyone know whether Jemisin has ever talked about whether she originally intended this to be a novel or whether she was struck by inspiration after she wrote what she thought was a self-contained short story? I’m always curious about someone’s creative process.
I also saw in the acknowledgements that because of the pandemic she didn’t actually get to go visit São Paulo while writing this, which is so sad. I was imagining a lot of fun global travel in the name of city research.
So far, which isn’t very far, it’s kind of boring. A ton of uninteresting detail and a kind of resentful, defensive tone whenever the subject of bull fighting’s objectionable nature comes up.
The Hugos are all awarded. I was surprised that Murderbot made off with best Novel and Series, if only because Novel had both Harrow the Ninth and the City We Became in it. For Series, it was not so much of a surprise there (given how much folks love Murderbot around here).
The other winners were mostly ones I voted for, like Empress of Salt and Fortune, the creepy and weird Two Truths and a Lie, and the T. Kingfisher short story (along with the Lodestar award for her YA book Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which was just a delight). Hades definitely deserved Best Video Game, but I was sad to see Spiritfarer not win that category because of just how emotionally intelligent and kind it is.
The Hugos are all awarded. I was surprised that Murderbot made off with best Novel and Series, if only because Novel had both Harrow the Ninth and the City We Became in it. For Series, it was not so much of a surprise there (given how much folks love Murderbot around here).
The other winners were mostly ones I voted for, like Empress of Salt and Fortune, the creepy and weird Two Truths and a Lie, and the T. Kingfisher short story (along with the Lodestar award for her YA book Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which was just a delight). Hades definitely deserved Best Video Game, but I was sad to see Spiritfarer not win that category because of just how emotionally intelligent and kind it is.
I didn't read the latest murderbot novel (I still have only read the first novella--bookshop.org doesn't have the second one in paperback for some reason)--but I'm flabbergasted that it would win over Piranesi, which is SUCH a high quality novel (and while potentially not as enjoyable as Harrow the Ninth or The City We Became, is tighter and more artistic and arguably more creative, which all to me mean higher quality.)
You keep mentioning Kingfisher and I gotta read this YA book just based on the title! I will write it down so I don't forget it again.
How likely is it a reader might like Piranesi if they didn't like Strange & Norrell? I read the latter without really hearing any hype, and I found it not to my tastes. I was often bored and felt it never really came together as a story, with many important aspects of the characters being barely fleshed out despite so much time devoted to them. I found out this was the minority view only after I had read it, so that didn't really influence me. Of course, now I'm a bit prejudiced against reading more of her work.
I'll also put in that I'm usually not that hard to please. I've enjoyed plenty of books that other people panned, along with the books that other people raved about. I've only severely clashed with one writer (China Mieville) and in four decades of reading, the number of books I've abandoned before finishing numbers in the single digits.
I've yet to read Piranesi (it's on my shelf, mocking me) but I've heard it's pretty dissimilar to Strange & Norrell. I enjoyed that one but it was very dry a lot of the time. I think I read it on a plane, which helped keep me going long enough to get attached to the characters.
Currently I'm reading A Deadly Education and hoping it improves at some point... I'm like 1/3rd or so of the way through and it's just very one-note. The narrator is lonely, feels like nobody likes them, and everything is an opportunity for death. I get it.
What I don't get, so far (spoilers for the first 1/3rd or so)
is why all the monsters even want to eat the narrator. I'm guessing maybe the answer is spoilers for later in the book, maybe? The explanation given for the monsters' desire to eat the young magicians is that the monsters eat mana, so as you get older your personal stores of mana increase and you attract more monsters, so you have to go off to monster school and learn to defend yourself. Except the narrator doesn't have any particular personal stores and has to harvest mana very slowly into gems for later use, unless they just suck it out of random nearby humans. So shouldn't the monsters have no interest whatsoever? Rather than having started attacking at an unusually young age?
But I also don't understand why the monsters don't ever seem to pick on Orion, which seems like something everyone around him would be intensely interested in figuring out instead of just brushing off as "Oh, well, he's Orion".
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
0
SurfpossumA nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered Userregular
How likely is it a reader might like Piranesi if they didn't like Strange & Norrell? I read the latter without really hearing any hype, and I found it not to my tastes. I was often bored and felt it never really came together as a story, with many important aspects of the characters being barely fleshed out despite so much time devoted to them. I found out this was the minority view only after I had read it, so that didn't really influence me. Of course, now I'm a bit prejudiced against reading more of her work.
I'll also put in that I'm usually not that hard to please. I've enjoyed plenty of books that other people panned, along with the books that other people raved about. I've only severely clashed with one writer (China Mieville) and in four decades of reading, the number of books I've abandoned before finishing numbers in the single digits.
For one thing, Piranesi is way shorter.
JS&MN felt like watching stuff through a frosted window; there's warmth behind it but it's distant and vague. Piranesi felt kinda like Myst, spiritually (I haven't played much Myst but I'm confident in my ignorance).
It's quite different and I would guess that it'd feel like a more "satisfying" story; I liked Strange and Norrell more but Piranesi was pretty interesting. I will also say that the start felt very meandering but I was ready to trust Clarke with my life at the time so I stuck with it.
The Hugos are all awarded. I was surprised that Murderbot made off with best Novel and Series, if only because Novel had both Harrow the Ninth and the City We Became in it. For Series, it was not so much of a surprise there (given how much folks love Murderbot around here).
The other winners were mostly ones I voted for, like Empress of Salt and Fortune, the creepy and weird Two Truths and a Lie, and the T. Kingfisher short story (along with the Lodestar award for her YA book Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which was just a delight). Hades definitely deserved Best Video Game, but I was sad to see Spiritfarer not win that category because of just how emotionally intelligent and kind it is.
I didn't read the latest murderbot novel (I still have only read the first novella--bookshop.org doesn't have the second one in paperback for some reason)--but I'm flabbergasted that it would win over Piranesi, which is SUCH a high quality novel (and while potentially not as enjoyable as Harrow the Ninth or The City We Became, is tighter and more artistic and arguably more creative, which all to me mean higher quality.)
You keep mentioning Kingfisher and I gotta read this YA book just based on the title! I will write it down so I don't forget it again.
I haven't read anything by T. Kingfisher until this year... until I found out it was the pen name of Ursula Vernon, and I've read a LOT of her books (she was my late wife's favorite author). She's delightful. T. Kingfisher is the name she uses when she wants to write stuff that doesn't fit under her typical "brand" (whimsical YA fantasy with furry creature protagonists).
Piranesi is more of a short fable and philosophical story than a full novel.
To me, this sounds more similar to Strange & Norrell, in that I didn't find it to be a "full novel" (despite its page count). It just never cohered for me.
Piranesi is more of a short fable and philosophical story than a full novel.
To me, this sounds more similar to Strange & Norrell, in that I didn't find it to be a "full novel" (despite its page count). It just never cohered for me.
Strange and Norrell is riffing on dense Victorian writing with multiple storylines, time periods and tons of characters.
Strange & Norrell felt more like a biography than a novel, which I think was the intent. The characters had arcs but the story didn't.
I watched some movie recently because my brother in law wanted to. I don't recall the title but it was Tom Hanks as a ship captain in WWII trying to keep German U-boats from sinking a convoy of supply ships crossing the ocean. At the end of the movie I felt like I'd certainly watched a film and it was definitely about something but that was all I could say for it. There was no story, really, and the characters, in as much as they existed, were just sort of there, doin' stuff, until they'd done all the stuff and then it was over.
Strange & Norrell felt a lot like that, except I enjoyed it more because there it had magic and elves and such.
Piranesi reads as if it is written by an entirely different author than Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I would say it is likely that your enjoyment of one is not relevant to your enjoyment of the other.
Piranesi starts out with a painting --that is, the author spends about 70 pages showing you pictures of an eerie landscape--with some hints of what the story will be, and evolves into a very tight story. It is SHORT and very compelling and it feels profound for reasons that are hard to articulate, because there is not a particularly direct allegory/symbolism but a lot of Things feel Significant (and different readers will certainly focus on different themes/aspects)
I mean that's a little extreme, I suppose--knowing that Clarke wrote both novels, you can see some topics of interest, and facility in describing the fae and damp and grey, and hm some other topics that feel like spoilers to say what they are, actually--but the style is just SO different that I wouldn't guess the same person had authored both
I think it's really impressive when an author can masterfully produce in radically different styles and it makes me very impressed with Clarke
I've yet to read Piranesi (it's on my shelf, mocking me) but I've heard it's pretty dissimilar to Strange & Norrell. I enjoyed that one but it was very dry a lot of the time. I think I read it on a plane, which helped keep me going long enough to get attached to the characters.
Currently I'm reading A Deadly Education and hoping it improves at some point... I'm like 1/3rd or so of the way through and it's just very one-note. The narrator is lonely, feels like nobody likes them, and everything is an opportunity for death. I get it.
What I don't get, so far (spoilers for the first 1/3rd or so)
is why all the monsters even want to eat the narrator. I'm guessing maybe the answer is spoilers for later in the book, maybe? The explanation given for the monsters' desire to eat the young magicians is that the monsters eat mana, so as you get older your personal stores of mana increase and you attract more monsters, so you have to go off to monster school and learn to defend yourself. Except the narrator doesn't have any particular personal stores and has to harvest mana very slowly into gems for later use, unless they just suck it out of random nearby humans. So shouldn't the monsters have no interest whatsoever? Rather than having started attacking at an unusually young age?
But I also don't understand why the monsters don't ever seem to pick on Orion, which seems like something everyone around him would be intensely interested in figuring out instead of just brushing off as "Oh, well, he's Orion".
To your spoiler.
Adult mages can rip apart most monsters without trying hard. The school was developed for particular reasons, I am unsure as to how much you'd like me to say. It is in there eventually
That part about Orion comes up too and there's a lot of reasoning behind monster targeting in the school. The second book also goes a lot more into the cursed life of Orion.
I've yet to read Piranesi (it's on my shelf, mocking me) but I've heard it's pretty dissimilar to Strange & Norrell. I enjoyed that one but it was very dry a lot of the time. I think I read it on a plane, which helped keep me going long enough to get attached to the characters.
Currently I'm reading A Deadly Education and hoping it improves at some point... I'm like 1/3rd or so of the way through and it's just very one-note. The narrator is lonely, feels like nobody likes them, and everything is an opportunity for death. I get it.
What I don't get, so far (spoilers for the first 1/3rd or so)
is why all the monsters even want to eat the narrator. I'm guessing maybe the answer is spoilers for later in the book, maybe? The explanation given for the monsters' desire to eat the young magicians is that the monsters eat mana, so as you get older your personal stores of mana increase and you attract more monsters, so you have to go off to monster school and learn to defend yourself. Except the narrator doesn't have any particular personal stores and has to harvest mana very slowly into gems for later use, unless they just suck it out of random nearby humans. So shouldn't the monsters have no interest whatsoever? Rather than having started attacking at an unusually young age?
But I also don't understand why the monsters don't ever seem to pick on Orion, which seems like something everyone around him would be intensely interested in figuring out instead of just brushing off as "Oh, well, he's Orion".
To your spoiler.
Adult mages can rip apart most monsters without trying hard. The school was developed for particular reasons, I am unsure as to how much you'd like me to say. It is in there eventually
That part about Orion comes up too and there's a lot of reasoning behind monster targeting in the school. The second book also goes a lot more into the cursed life of Orion.
Knowing they do address it eventually helps. Hopefully the plot opens up a bit more soon.
Posts
I’m not sure how no one noticed the book without a spine label though. My eyes would have locked onto it whenever I went into the row.
Oh man I can't believe someone else here has read them! I know he said he wanted the Cradle series to be 12 books but I really hope he just takes the core group into the abbidan. 2 books does not feel like enough time to finish up all the threads he has hanging unless he rushes things.
PSN:Furlion
I just got this, super excited to get back into Revelation Space, and then friggin' Leviathan Falls comes out, too. It's like double Winds of Winter, space opera style, vying for my attention. Embarrassment of riches!
I know Will has expressed he wants to write some other things so even though i share the same feelings i'm pretty sure he is going to wrap it up in two or three at the most books. I could see it being next book = dreadgods, final book = the rescue and then denouement.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
(Tweet: Tor Publishing announcement that Nona the Ninth, sequel to Harrow the Ninth is now available for preorder)
After doing a bit of research, Alecto has been pushed back to 2023, and Nona will be a full-length novel
So the planned trilogy has become a quadrology
More books! Good thing! I think!
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
And uh
Thorn part 2
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I read Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in 3 volumes. It was when they published the softcover version of To Green Angel Tower that the book was too long to hold together with a paper binding so they had to publish it in two volumes. The hardcover release was just one thick-ass-brick.
Also: I don't recommend trying to re-read that series if you have fond memories of it from a couple decades ago. I tried and didn't make it 10% of the way through The Dragonbone Chair. The writing is....not good.
I've also seen it a lot in books published overseas. Books that are normally one volume here in the US will wind up as two volumes when translated and printed elsewhere.
They were all one volume here in the UK. Enormous, heavy things you could use to bludgeon burglars or atomise intruding wasps.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Even the mass market paperback?
(speculation based on the first two books)
That's crazy talk. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn remains the high-water mark for that era of heroic fantasy, and William's prose work is leagues better than any of his contemporaries in the genre not named Kay.
His current sequel series is excellent as well.
Dragonbone Chair is from 1988. I remember reading it back in the 90's, not long after To Green Angel Tower came out (since it was still in hardcover when I read it), and thinking the whole trilogy was amazing. I guess it's probably more the fault of my having read a lot of fantasy since then and the genre and writing styles evolving over the last 3 decades, but I couldn't get through Dragonbone Chair again. Things that maybe were original back then felt pretty well-worn and obvious and the writing seemed incredibly blunt.
I used to love Williams and eagerly ate up the Otherland books as they came out but I fell off around Shadowmarch. It felt very Standard Fantasy Trope-y and I didn't care about any of the characters enough to want to find out what happened next, so I think I may have finished that book but not gone on to the next in the series. Had no idea he was even doing a sequel series to MST. Maybe I'll give that a shot and see how it goes.
Another one of the spinoff books is out soon too.
But the language and execution is absolutely first rate. It's one of those series that, like with Kay or Wolfe, I know when I'm done I won't be able to read genre fiction for a while because the writing will seem amateurish by comparison.
Harrow the Ninth Spoilers with some speculation:
The Epilogue shows some folks who seem a fuckton like the Sixth House living on a Blood of Eden world while caring for somebody who is clueless about things like "Don't eat burning food" while also not seeming to be damaged by doing that.
So we're left with the Tomb, does it still contain a body?
Is the Body kicking around that BoE world Harrows?
Who/what is piloting that body? Alecto's swapped in spirit? Some greatly reduced portion of Harrow and/or Gideon? What's powering it's apparent Lyctor-ish healing? Gideon? The Emperor?
I loved the way magic is set up in it--as I mentioned in the chat thread, it is THE MOST World of Darkness Mage-feeling book I've ever seen. I love the way magic works in that game, and to see a book very much capture the feeling of doing magic through a particular paradigm or metaphor that's connected to the real world was just delightful.
I thought the book got a--well, not *slow* start, because it starts with 80 pages of action scene, but a start where I was interested in what was going to happen but not emotionally connected or invested, because a lot of time is spent on describing action rather than personal interaction--and because the first avatar you spend a lot of time with has amnesia so you don't connect right away. Once we got into the art center with Bronca though, I was absolutely all in and very much invested in the outcome and characters.
I think.
By having characters explicitly discuss lovecraft (both lovecraft=eldritch, which, I think most readers would know, and lovecraft=racist, which readers might not know, but which I think Bronca talks about at the art center wrt the creepy dehumanizing painting) Jemisin fills in the audience on the relevant information, so no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy the theme
However I expect that someone who is more into lovecraft than I am would have a bigger moment when the name R’yleh is used, whereas my reaction was *shrug*, checks out, that’s an eldritch thing. Because Jemisin does build up to the reveal so that it feels more momentous to the reader (Aislyn teases it a couple times, like, ‘I know it starts with an R, I’ll call her Rosie’).
So prior knowledge is needed to really dig that particular reveal—but that’s fine; not every tiny moment in a book is equally appealing to everyone.
Oh I know what else I wanted to say about this book—the introduction chapter was published almost entirely unchanged as a short story some time ago. Does anyone know whether Jemisin has ever talked about whether she originally intended this to be a novel or whether she was struck by inspiration after she wrote what she thought was a self-contained short story? I’m always curious about someone’s creative process.
I also saw in the acknowledgements that because of the pandemic she didn’t actually get to go visit São Paulo while writing this, which is so sad. I was imagining a lot of fun global travel in the name of city research.
So far, which isn’t very far, it’s kind of boring. A ton of uninteresting detail and a kind of resentful, defensive tone whenever the subject of bull fighting’s objectionable nature comes up.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
The other winners were mostly ones I voted for, like Empress of Salt and Fortune, the creepy and weird Two Truths and a Lie, and the T. Kingfisher short story (along with the Lodestar award for her YA book Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which was just a delight). Hades definitely deserved Best Video Game, but I was sad to see Spiritfarer not win that category because of just how emotionally intelligent and kind it is.
I finally got motivated to order those first two books for myself, I know what I will be reading in a next weeks.
Coincidentally, Hades has won for best videogame, a Hugo category they just created this year (and as of now isn't an ongoing category).
I didn't read the latest murderbot novel (I still have only read the first novella--bookshop.org doesn't have the second one in paperback for some reason)--but I'm flabbergasted that it would win over Piranesi, which is SUCH a high quality novel (and while potentially not as enjoyable as Harrow the Ninth or The City We Became, is tighter and more artistic and arguably more creative, which all to me mean higher quality.)
You keep mentioning Kingfisher and I gotta read this YA book just based on the title! I will write it down so I don't forget it again.
I'll also put in that I'm usually not that hard to please. I've enjoyed plenty of books that other people panned, along with the books that other people raved about. I've only severely clashed with one writer (China Mieville) and in four decades of reading, the number of books I've abandoned before finishing numbers in the single digits.
Currently I'm reading A Deadly Education and hoping it improves at some point... I'm like 1/3rd or so of the way through and it's just very one-note. The narrator is lonely, feels like nobody likes them, and everything is an opportunity for death. I get it.
What I don't get, so far (spoilers for the first 1/3rd or so)
But I also don't understand why the monsters don't ever seem to pick on Orion, which seems like something everyone around him would be intensely interested in figuring out instead of just brushing off as "Oh, well, he's Orion".
JS&MN felt like watching stuff through a frosted window; there's warmth behind it but it's distant and vague. Piranesi felt kinda like Myst, spiritually (I haven't played much Myst but I'm confident in my ignorance).
It's quite different and I would guess that it'd feel like a more "satisfying" story; I liked Strange and Norrell more but Piranesi was pretty interesting. I will also say that the start felt very meandering but I was ready to trust Clarke with my life at the time so I stuck with it.
To me, this sounds more similar to Strange & Norrell, in that I didn't find it to be a "full novel" (despite its page count). It just never cohered for me.
Strange and Norrell is riffing on dense Victorian writing with multiple storylines, time periods and tons of characters.
Piranesi is sparse, stripped down and brief
I watched some movie recently because my brother in law wanted to. I don't recall the title but it was Tom Hanks as a ship captain in WWII trying to keep German U-boats from sinking a convoy of supply ships crossing the ocean. At the end of the movie I felt like I'd certainly watched a film and it was definitely about something but that was all I could say for it. There was no story, really, and the characters, in as much as they existed, were just sort of there, doin' stuff, until they'd done all the stuff and then it was over.
Strange & Norrell felt a lot like that, except I enjoyed it more because there it had magic and elves and such.
Piranesi starts out with a painting --that is, the author spends about 70 pages showing you pictures of an eerie landscape--with some hints of what the story will be, and evolves into a very tight story. It is SHORT and very compelling and it feels profound for reasons that are hard to articulate, because there is not a particularly direct allegory/symbolism but a lot of Things feel Significant (and different readers will certainly focus on different themes/aspects)
I think it's really impressive when an author can masterfully produce in radically different styles and it makes me very impressed with Clarke
To your spoiler.
That part about Orion comes up too and there's a lot of reasoning behind monster targeting in the school. The second book also goes a lot more into the cursed life of Orion.
Knowing they do address it eventually helps. Hopefully the plot opens up a bit more soon.