And I don't know but Use of Weapons rubbed me the wrong way, It is a better written book than a couple I put ahead but in the end as a character study is too vague I think.
it just leaves it as SC been SC and we can't do much with the information in the book and in the series.
I suppose that is my problem, it never ascends to the brilliance it should and Player of Games gets to the same point with a more definitive conclusion.
Haven't taken Spanish in 15 years (high school), so I'm reading through this book. Surprisingly easy to parse out meanings of words I don't understand.
Once I'm "comfortably" done with that, I'm hoping to be able to read through The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho over the summer, but the Spanish version.
If all goes well, I'll give learning Italian a try for the latter half of 2019.
Finished Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, the first book in the Ketty Jay series. It was decent enough for me to want to continue the series but not quite up there with other books I've read this year. No shame in that though. Steampunk Firefly is an apt description (you can definitely see the inspiration) although it never hits the heights of the show in terms of character/crew interaction and dialogue. I'm sticking with it because it's still a fun read and moves quickly. The latter generally works in its favor but there are times when it becomes more tell than show and some developments feel unearned or rushed as a result. Gave it a 3/5 rating on goodreads.
Finished Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, the first book in the Ketty Jay series. It was decent enough for me to want to continue the series but not quite up there with other books I've read this year. No shame in that though. Steampunk Firefly is an apt description (you can definitely see the inspiration) although it never hits the heights of the show in terms of character/crew interaction and dialogue. I'm sticking with it because it's still a fun read and moves quickly. The latter generally works in its favor but there are times when it becomes more tell than show and some developments feel unearned or rushed as a result. Gave it a 3/5 rating on goodreads.
Yeah. I'm the same. Rare for me to drop a series. Often I put them on the backburner always intending to get back to them eventually. Sometimes years later than intended. It's usually due to something in the writing constantly pulling me out of the story, which this one avoided.
It's pretty good! Well-thought out world-building, decent prose and characters, and the central idea is more interesting than even the summary tells it - it's a lot like the magical equivalent of computer code?
I'm a bit of a teaboo, so I read a lot of British fantasy (among other genres from other countries, but British fantasy is a popular choice for me), and The Ninth Rain is my most recent read.
The Ninth Rain focuses on wars between the dream-stalking Eborans and the worm-esque alien invaders Jure'lia. The Eborans, on each invasion, enlist the help of their tree-god Ygseril, who unleashes a rain of its own sap which desecrates the Jure'lia forces, but upon the Eighth Rain the tree had died, sacrificing itself to kill the queen of the Eborans' enemies.
No longer able to sustain itself on their god, the Eborans turned to human blood as the only viable substitute. Thus, war broke out between humankind and those who had used to be their saviors.
It was a great read; it could've fallen into every trap of triteness and cliche in the book, but after The Copper Cat, Jen Williams again displays absolute mastery of the craft. A cohesive timeline of an intriguing history, grand story-telling and prose that flows. I can speak no ill of The Ninth Rain.
Though, something my teaboo-ness helped me discover is my genuine passion for the classic British-styled crime novel -- whodunits, the school of mystery writing accentuating above all else the puzzle aspect of the crime, focusing on providing the reader with all information needed to solve the crime, but presented in a manner where it is a challenge (albeit a fair and structured one) to do so. I've been reading quite a good number of these.
Beyond the obvious choices like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn (not a fan), Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey and John Dickson Carr's Dr. Gideon Fell, I've also been reading Michael Innes's Detective John Appleby, Anthony Berkeley's Roger Shermingham, Freeman Wills Crofts' Inspector French and so on.
My last read here was Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery and it was grand. Anthony Berkeley continues his theme of criticizing the rules and standards of the detective fiction genre without explicitly going out of his way to break them in ways that make his novels barely recognizable as a detective story.
Finished Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, the first book in the Ketty Jay series. It was decent enough for me to want to continue the series but not quite up there with other books I've read this year. No shame in that though. Steampunk Firefly is an apt description (you can definitely see the inspiration) although it never hits the heights of the show in terms of character/crew interaction and dialogue. I'm sticking with it because it's still a fun read and moves quickly. The latter generally works in its favor but there are times when it becomes more tell than show and some developments feel unearned or rushed as a result. Gave it a 3/5 rating on goodreads.
Oh wow! I haven't heard of Chris Wooding in a looooong time. I really enjoyed the Broken Sky series by him in elementary school; I was obsessed with the covers at the scholastic book fair.