Books Read 2021

[Jaddison]

Christine - Stephen King

Had only ever seen the movie. This isn't the best King writing but is still pretty good. Other than the names of characters and Christine the book is much much different than the movie. Christine is not an evil possessed car, her first owner is so full of rage he transcends death and basically lives on in the car. Well worth the read and the ending is much much different.

[Zarathud]

I read Christine while keeping the car warm on Christmas Eve as my dad was on his rounds playing Santa. Nothing like a silent night all alone in the car….

[Hipolito]

Christine was my first Stephen King read. I saw the movie later. Both were pretty cool.

[Hipolito]

Solanin by Inio Asano (paperback): this manga is about a young office assistant and her aspiring rock musician boyfriend. They struggle with their mundane lives in the bustling city of Tokyo. For the boy, music gives life meaning; for the girl, the boy's aspirations give her life meaning as she has no aspirations of her own.

The plot is a bit of a mess with its confusing flashbacks and iffy comic relief. In the end, though, it's a wise and emotional story about young people trying to find their way. The climax is a beautifully drawn concert of joy and pain both on the stage and in the audience.

After reading the book, I watched the live-action film adaptation for free on YouTube. While it has good music, it's as messy as the book and its direction lacks energy.

6 out of 8 boxes of vegetables mailed to you by Mom.

[hitbyambulance]

i really enjoyed that one for the art, and for its general low-key nature. i like narrative works that can make everyday happenings interesting without making them unrealistic in one way or another.

[ChaoZ]

I blasted through Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary in two days. If you liked The Martian, this is Weir's return to form. It starts off as pretty thematically similar to The Martian but develops in its own way to be a pretty memorable tale. Definitely a good beach read.

[Rumpy]

So, better than Artemis then? I think the major aspect I didn't like about that book was just how unlikeable the main character was.

[ChaoZ]

So, better than Artemis then? I think the major aspect I didn't like about that book was just how unlikeable the main character was.

Unfortunately I did not read Artemis. This main character in PHM is rather likeable, but maybe not quite as likeable as Watney in The Martian.

[Rumpy]

Oh ok. When you said 'return to form' I thought maybe you meant it was better than Artemis.

[Jaymann]

Some people complained about Artemis, mostly because they found the protagonist to be unlikable. I read it but didn't dislike it, it just wasn't that memorable.

[Hipolito]

The Burning, Book 2: The Fires of Vengeance by Evan Winter (hardcover + audiobook) has "middle book syndrome." It recovers from the events of the first book, and sets things up for the next book, but doesn't have enough of its own power. It has extensive lore exposition which, to be frank, was more interesting than the foreground plot which is mostly traveling and talking.

Still, you get a few brutal battles and some beautifully written dialogues about revenge and grief. There are provocative debates about caste that I understand a lot better now that I've read Caste. In one chapter titled "Fraction," a character has a mathematical epiphany that could give his side an edge in battle (and I wonder how many readers figured it out before he did). But the best chapters are the few from an antagonist's point of view; they brilliantly flip the script.

The audio narrator does an even better job this time in portraying a variety of voices. While I wish this book were better, the next book could be the best yet in the series. 4 out of 8 handmaidens.

[Scuzz]

A World Undone by G.J. Meyer

This is a history of the causes, fighting of and effect of World War 1. It is easily one of the better histories of the war I have read, although it does suffer from what I think almost all history books of this type suffer from and that is a lack of maps to illustrate all the battles and fronts the author talks about. Every author, or book editor perhaps, assumes the reader has a complete knowledge of geography. It is one of my pet peeves.

Meyer does a very good job with the subject matter considering how much of it there is, and his "Background" chapters are great reads on their own in many cases. The book is "only" 714 pages and it covers the entire war so it does lack some info and I would have preferred more info in some cases, but I also realize a one volume history has to have limitations. It is easy to recommend this book though, and based on the subject of some of Meyer's other books I will probably read more by him.

[jztemple2]

I thought people reading this thread might appreciate the poster I saw today in a Goodwill Bookstore:

[jztemple2]

Oh, I guess I ought to post my books read list for 2021, I've neglected to do this. By the way, I read pretty much all non-fiction history nowadays. Post if you have any questions about the books on the list.

1. The Star Captains: Frigate Command in the Napoleonic Wars by Tom Wareham
2. The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh
3. Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution (Early American Studies) by T. Cole Jones
4. George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway by John McCabe
5. The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime by Jason Turbow
6. The Book of the Continental soldier: Being a Compleat Account of the Uniforms, Weapons, and Equipment with Which He Lived and Fought by Harold Leslie Peterson
7. Manhattan '45 by Jan Morris
8. Gateway to the Moon: Building the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex by Charles D. Benson & William B. Faherty
9. Moon Launch!: A History of the Saturn-Apollo Launch Operations by Charles D. Benson & William B. Faherty
10. Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations by Charles D. Benson & William B. Faherty (Kindle) (started 2021.01.12 done 2021.01.25)
11. Fort Laramie: Military Bastion of the High Plains (Frontier Military Series) by Douglas C. McChristian
12. British Submarines in Two World Wars by Norman Friedman
13. Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year by David Ewing Duncan
14. Enlightening the World: The Creation of the Statue of Liberty by Yasmin Sabina Khan
15. Tommy Atkins: The Story of the English Soldier by John Laffin
16. Domesday Book Through Nine Centuries by Elizabeth M. Hallam
17. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto
18. Killer Colt: Murder, Disgrace, and the Making of an American Legend by Harold Schechter
19. A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times by Donald Hill (aka D. R. Hill)
20. The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway by Doug Most
21. The Sinking of the Prince of Wales & Repulse: The End of the Battleship Era by Martin Middlebrook & Patrick Mahoney
22. The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Redike
23. Minuteman: A Technical History of the Missile That Defined American Nuclear Warfare by David Stumpf
24. The Emperor Charlemagne by E.R. Chamberlin
25. Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars - Horsecars, Cable Cars, Interurbans, and Trolleys by Frank Rowsome Jr.
26. Trails of the Smoky Hill: From Coronado to the Cow Towns by Wayne C. Lee
27. Rush: Revolution, Madness, and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father by Stephen Fried
28. Mars Gets New Chariots: The Iron Horse in Combat, 1861-65 by Lt Col Alan Koenig
29. Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages by Alex Wright
30. Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving by Trevor Norton
31. Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins
32. We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific by David Lewis
33. Strange Fatality: The Battle of Stoney Creek, 1813 by James E. Elliott
34. America's Master Dam Builder: The Engineering Genius of Frank T. Crowe by Al M. Rocca
35. To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology by Marina Belozerskaya
36. Into the Jaws of Death: British Military Blunders 1879-1900 by Mike Snook
37. How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman
38. A. G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport by Peter Levine
39. Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle: The Little Big Horn Reexamined by Richard A. Fox
40. The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost by Daniel Allen Butler
41. Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made by Robert F. Dalzell
42. Paradise for Sale: Florida's Booms and Busts by Nick Wynne and Richard Moorhead
43. Sinatra: Behind the Legend by J. Randy Taraborrelli
44. Steam, Politics and Patronage: The Transformation of the Royal Navy, 1815-54 by Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard
45. Shakespeare's Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects by Neil MacGregor
46. A Tribble's Guide to Space by Alan C. Tribble
47. The Pound: A Biography by David Sinclair
48. Henry Bradley Plant: Gilded Age Dreams for Florida and a New South by Canter Brown Jr
49. Taming Liquid Hydrogen: The Centaur Upper Stage Rocket 1958-2002 by Virginia P. Dawson and Mark D. Bowles
50. Washington's General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution by Terry Golway
51. Wellington Bomber by Edward Bishop
52. Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865 by Margaret Leech
53. The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire by Lawrence Keppie
54. The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism by John U. Bacon
55. Freeing the Baltic by Geoffrey Bennett
56. Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin
57. The Great Arab Conquests by John Bagot Glubb

[Hipolito]

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (paperback) is an acclaimed novel about young, middle-class Nigerians who emigrate to the West. It's rich with insights on human nature, race, class, politics, and love. Its observations on the immigrant experience ring very true to me. I highlighted a lot. But I have difficulty recommending it for pleasure reading. At 588 pages, it's a bit too long for what it is. And its characters don't grow much. They mainly observe things, go through stuff, and serve as mouthpieces for the author's views. 5 out of 8 blog posts.

[Jaymann]

Oh, I guess I ought to post my books read list for 2021, I've neglected to do this. By the way, I read pretty much all non-fiction history nowadays. Post if you have any questions about the books on the list.

I haven't read any of those and probably never will, but I was hoping The Trolley Car Treasury was about the Trolley Problem, then I would have read it for sure.

And John Bagot Glubb is one of the most badass names ever.

[Isgrimnur]

It's no Zebulon Scoville.

[Scuzz]

The Siege of Eternity by Frederik Pohl

This is book 2 of The Eschaton Sequence trilogy. For a second book it is pretty good, much of it being more interesting tan the first book. The trilogy is all about aliens who abduct some humans, and then tell of a war going on in the universe between various alien races to decide who will rule. But it is who will rule the afterlife, or heaven if you will.

[Hipolito]

Worldshifter by Paul Di Filippo (ebook, LibraryThing Early Review): This sci-fi novel is about a big, loveable lug named Klom. He is a shipbreaker. Although this story takes place in the future and the ships are starships, shipbreaking is still done on water and is still a dangerous, low-paying job. While exploring the corridors of one especially ancient and massive ship, Klom finds an alien space dog and adopts it as a loyal pet. He soon learns this is no ordinary alien space dog and is forced to go on the lam. The author uses some impressive vocabulary, both established and invented, to create a universe of diverse technologies and peoples. The story has the pace of Total Recall (and I did imagine Klom to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger). It's a breezy, reasonably fun buddy caper that ends too quickly. 5 out of 8 matter modems.

[hitbyambulance]

RZA - _The Tao of Wu_ : did not expect to ever get around to reading a 'self-help memoir', much less coming from the founder of Wu-Tang Clan. still trying to formulate my opinion on this - it was certainly full of entertaining contradictions and wise advice mixed with some _rather dubious_ insights (the numerology applications coming off more like full-flight OCD than anything in actuality).

[El Guapo]

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama

Took me awhile, but I finally finished this. This book is by this interesting author Barack Obama - very indie, not sure if anyone here has heard of him. Anyway, this is recounting his life story essentially up through the end of 2010 - 2011 (he wraps things up with the recounting of the Bin Laden raid decision, I suppose to end on a triumphant note). There's going to be a second volume which presumably will run through the end of his presidency and likely the Trump era I would imagine.

The book was good. Obama's a good writer, and obviously a thoughtful guy. There weren't any real bombshells or shocks here, and I was mostly familiar with the general arc of his presidency and the key events, so no major revelations here. But it was still enjoyable to read. Interesting to get his take on GOP behavior - he kind of blames Max Baucus in particular for how much time got wasted during the ACA process trying to get buy-in from at least a couple Republican senators. It was a bit hard to avoid the sense that there was some hindsight bias and mentally smoothing out / rewriting some of the rough edges, though that's probably unavoidable even if you're trying to be fair.

Anyway, good and a solid read though it didn't blow me away or anything.

[Isgrimnur]

The Jedburghs: The Secret History of the Allied Special Forces, France 1944

Red Platoon: A True Story of American Valor
- The defense of COP Keating in 2009, written by Clinton Romesha, Medal of Honor recipient.

[hitbyambulance]

Solanin by Inio Asano (paperback): this manga is about a young office assistant and her aspiring rock musician boyfriend. They struggle with their mundane lives in the bustling city of Tokyo. For the boy, music gives life meaning; for the girl, the boy's aspirations give her life meaning as she has no aspirations of her own.

The plot is a bit of a mess with its confusing flashbacks and iffy comic relief. In the end, though, it's a wise and emotional story about young people trying to find their way. The climax is a beautifully drawn concert of joy and pain both on the stage and in the audience.

After reading the book, I watched the live-action film adaptation for free on YouTube. While it has good music, it's as messy as the book and its direction lacks energy.

6 out of 8 boxes of vegetables mailed to you by Mom.

just finished Inio Asano's _Nagijahara Holograph_ ... this one is incredibly disjointed and scrambled, and requires a lot of concentration to navigate (timelines will suddenly shift, narrators will be unclear... and to me, characters were hard to differentiate). it's supposed to be tangled, but i still don't 'get' it, other than this is a work about multiple traumatized individuals suffering from the afflicted town itself? might also state there are *multiple* trigger warnings involved. can't say i enjoyed reading this

[Hipolito]

Sounds like Asano was going for a horror vibe and it didn't quite work. The other Asano manga I'd read is Goodnight Punpun, I hear it's very good.

Oh, and your earlier post inspired me to listen to Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. I'm still early in the story but really enjoy the narration.

[El Guapo]

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry (audiobook)

This is (another) book about the 1918 influenza pandemic. It's heavily referenced in Michael Lewis's book about COVID, and was read by George W. Bush during his presidency, scaring him enough to boost pandemic preparation efforts. It's a very good book - very Michael Lewis-like in style, in that it follows the Spanish Flu pandemic primarily through the eyes of a few individuals, mainly the scientists who were studying it and responding to it at the time. I will say that reading this made me feel better about the government response to COVID, because the response to the 1918 pandemic was (if you can believe it) much much worse. For one, since it broke out around the entry of the U.S. into WW1, there were lots of people being gathered together in close quarters and then shipped around the country and then to Europe. In addition, Woodrow Wilson put the country on a total war footing and suppressed anything that might damage "morale", which very much included coverage of the pandemic, which meant that people knew very little about what to do and how to keep themselves safe.

This is really very well written and very comprehensive in terms of the 1918 pandemic, so if you're looking for a book to read about the Spanish Flu, I'd strongly recommend this. My one criticism of the book is that the story of the Spanish Flu is bookended by very lengthy life stories of various scientists involved. The first part is heavily focused on the shift to modern medicine in the U.S. in the couple decades leading up to the pandemic (heavily focused on the founding of John Hopkins as essentially the first modern medical school in the U.S.). This stuff was interesting but a lot of it was pretty tangential to the Spanish Flu, so I wish it had been a little more condensed and streamlined.

[Rumpy]

^ Currently reading that one. Quite a fascinating read.

[hitbyambulance]

Nikos Kazantzakis - _The Saviors of God_ : an attempt to create a 'spirituality for atheists'? the translation by Kimor Friar is quite absorbing. the Nietzschean influence is very strong here.

[Jeff V]

an attempt to create a 'spirituality for atheists'?

What's his case for believing this is even necessary?

[Scuzz]

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry (audiobook)

This is (another) book about the 1918 influenza pandemic. It's heavily referenced in Michael Lewis's book about COVID, and was read by George W. Bush during his presidency, scaring him enough to boost pandemic preparation efforts. It's a very good book - very Michael Lewis-like in style, in that it follows the Spanish Flu pandemic primarily through the eyes of a few individuals, mainly the scientists who were studying it and responding to it at the time. I will say that reading this made me feel better about the government response to COVID, because the response to the 1918 pandemic was (if you can believe it) much much worse. For one, since it broke out around the entry of the U.S. into WW1, there were lots of people being gathered together in close quarters and then shipped around the country and then to Europe. In addition, Woodrow Wilson put the country on a total war footing and suppressed anything that might damage "morale", which very much included coverage of the pandemic, which meant that people knew very little about what to do and how to keep themselves safe.

This is really very well written and very comprehensive in terms of the 1918 pandemic, so if you're looking for a book to read about the Spanish Flu, I'd strongly recommend this. My one criticism of the book is that the story of the Spanish Flu is bookended by very lengthy life stories of various scientists involved. The first part is heavily focused on the shift to modern medicine in the U.S. in the couple decades leading up to the pandemic (heavily focused on the founding of John Hopkins as essentially the first modern medical school in the U.S.). This stuff was interesting but a lot of it was pretty tangential to the Spanish Flu, so I wish it had been a little more condensed and streamlined.

I read that several years ago. It is a very good book about something that until recent events not many people probably knew about.

[Scuzz]

The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie.

This is book 2 of the Age of Madness Trilogy. After reading the first book and being almost overwhelmed with the number of characters and Abercrombie's need to throw plot lines around I didn't know what to expect from this book. The first book was typical Abercrombie in his treatment of the characters but he introduced a "new" updated world and at least in my mind a greater fascination with the sex lives of his characters. But this book is that rare instance of the second book in a trilogy being better than the first. Characters evolve, plots swim around and events happen. This book is, in my opinion, classic Abercrombie. When it ends you are left wondering what he can do to top the last couple hundred pages, and I have enough faith in him to think that he can get better.

[Jaymann]

It is a pleasure to witness a master writing at the height of his craft.

[Kasey Chang]

Finished "The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni"

I first encountered Robert Dugoni via his mystery novel "My Sister's Grave" but he has since gone on to write excellent spy thrillers and now, a literary novel? It's quite good. It's a coming of age story about a kid named Samuel Hill, who has red eyes due to ocular albinism. He gained two misfit friends in school, and he was endlessly hazed by bullies, but he persevered. Years later, Sam is an eye-doctor away from his friends and his hometown. He started looking back, on what he missed, and maybe he can finally see what truly mattered...

Don't expect good to always prevail and bad always punished, but perhaps, that is God's will, is what seem to be the message in the book... that one will eventually figure out one's purpose in life. 6.5/8 tentacles.

[hitbyambulance]

Howard Mohr - _How to Talk Minnesotan [revised for the 21st century]_ : i have seen the Minneapolis Public Television production of this several times since it came out in the early 90s. highly recommended, you bet:

https://video.tpt.org/video/tpt-documen ... innesotan/

but i have never read the book, with yet more examples of how people behave in this state, and it’s funny because there are so many truisms in here. as a few reviewers have rightly pointed out, this is more central/south Minnesota-isms (prairie and farm) and not so many from the nort’ (Iron Range). also, a guy could take a pass on this new ‘revised’ edition, since it’s mostly tacked on bits and they aren’t nearly as funny as the 1987 original entries.

[Scuzz]

The Far Shore of Time by Frederik Pohl

This is the third book of the Eschaton Sequence trilogy. Pohl narrates each book from a different perspective, although from the same characters, but I don't want to spoil anything. This book starts in a different place with a "different" character who eventually solves the problem of earth being either invaded or destroyed by an evil alien race whose main interest is preparing the universe for the end of the world, and for a time when they will rule the afterworld. I saw the answer to this book about half way thru but it didn't spoil it for me. A really good ending to a good trilogy.

[El Guapo]

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War, by Malcolm Gladwell (audiobook)

This is Malcolm Gladwell's latest, about the eponymous "Bomber Mafia", a group of army air force officers leading up to and during the Second World War who were focused on the concept of high altitude precision bombing. Basically their response to the carnage of the First World War was to focus on air power as the response, with the hope that if you could hit precise targets from high altitudes (out of air defense range) you could cripple an enemy's war effort by destroying a few targets of strategic value (e.g., tank factories, munitions facilities, etc.) and thereby win a war without having to have millions of soldiers on both sides slaughtered.

Unfortunately the technology wasn't really there yet to do this kind of bombing. The irony of sorts being that as the Bomber Mafia failed to make much out of this type of precision bombing, air leadership got replaced with new leadership that then proceeded to carry out widespread firebombing of Japan that leveled entire cities, culminating in the dropping of the atomic bombs.

Anyway, the book is mostly focused on telling the stories of the key individuals involved, mixed in with interesting discussions of concepts of morality in war. Gladwell does a good job telling stories, and this is per his usual very well done and executed. One of my favorites from him so far. Also I'd recommend listening to this on audiobook as I did - Gladwell narrates it himself, and interestingly it was created as an audiobook first and then adapted to print as well.

[hitbyambulance]

Various - Stories: All New Tales : an anthology from 2010 curated by Neil Gaiman and Al Sorrentonio, with a surprising number of well-known authors contributing short stories specifically for this volume. a few really good, some good, many 'meh' and a few not-so-good..

* worth reading: Joe R. Lansdale, Jeffrey Ford, Carolyn Parkhurst, Neil Gaiman (if you haven't already read "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains" elsewhere by now) and the first half of Walter Mosely's contributions. maybe also Roddy Doyle and Joyce Carol Oates, some others...
* Elizabeth Hand's story has this particular quality of 'slice of life' detail i have always liked. i might even seek out more of her works.
* Joe Hill's was more an atmospheric morality tale with a gimmicky typesetting layout (that i didn't mind)
* Jeffery Deaver's contribution was kinda corny, but somehow i still got into it.
* expected more out of the Richard Adams, Gene Wolfe and Diana Wynne Jones stories, but they were all pretty old when they wrote these, so i'll give them a pass. (i think this was DWJ's last published work while she was still alive...)
* Michael Moorcock's rambling biographical piece about one of his (ex?)friends who committed suicide was really long, but i couldn't stop reading it.
* surprisingly laughed at the Chuck Palahniuk one (in parts).
* the Joanne Harris entry was the only one i hated and very nearly abandoned; it came off as an aggressively unimaginative Gaiman knockoff.

[ImLawBoy]

It was a doozy, but I finally made it through The Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. Published in 2010, it covers the prior 100 years (not just the 20th Century) and it contains around 40 stories, many of them quite lengthy. In the introduction Ellroy makes it clear that you can't just call old detective stories "noir". Noir books and stories are bleak with characters lacking much in the way of redemptive traits. Typically the stories end poorly for all involved. Detective stories that people often associated with noir, on the other hand, typically contain a flawed but ultimately heroic main character who is driven to seek justice, even if he does so through unconventional means. In noir, the characters are driven by lust or greed or some other base motivation.

That said, the stories don't always adhere strictly to the definition of noir. There are occasional "good guys" mixed in, but the overall trend of the book is very bleak. This is not something you read to pick up your mood, unless you're looking to read about characters whose lives are worse than yours. The stories contain a lot of variety, starting out with the story that was the inspiration for the classic movie Freaks and incorporating everything from child killers (both people killing children and children killing people) to consciousness hopping entities (bit of a sci-fi twist to that one). It might have been better to read it in stops and starts, but I made it all the way through and enjoyed much more than I didn't.

Up next is Infinite by Brian Freeman, which is a Kindle freebie. It's apparently a psychological thriller that hinges on the theory of infinite parallel universes.

[Jeff V]

Up next is Infinite by Brian Freeman, which is a Kindle freebie. It's apparently a psychological thriller that hinges on the theory of infinite parallel universes.

Have you read any Freeman before? This seems like a departure from his normal stuff...crime thrillers usually set in Minnesota (which are well done).

[Jaymann]

I just finished reading The Licanius Trilogy by James Islington, an "epic" fantasy series of three 800+ page volumes. Overall it held my interest enough to finish (sunk cost fallacy), but...I had a large time gap between reading volumes 2 and 3, which leads me to some of my gripes.

Excellent authors are somehow able to keep you engaged and informed without a huge "what has gone before" recap. Not so here. I figured I remembered enough of the story to pick it up where I left off. But I found dozens of characters thrown at me that I didn't remember, and didn't care about enough to go look up, many of them with similar sounding names. So every time the protagonists were confronted with an Asha, or Alesha, or Alrec, or Altena, or Alatar (you get the picture), I just relied on the expedient of: If they hugged they were a friend/lover, if they tried to kill they were an enemy.

And a huge example of lazy writing was

Spoiler:

A protagonist was surrounded and outnumbered by a hostile army. When they made a desperate last stand and were down to only a few, the hero was knocked down and about to succumb when...he was miraculously saved by...another enemy force that had not been mentioned anywhere in the previous 700 pages. Why? Because they wanted concessions from the hero.

Another comical example, of near braid pulling level, was every time someone stopped running they "stuttered to a halt." Couldn't every fourth or fifth time they stumble, or skid, or slip? Apparently not. This is the type of thing that drops you right out of the story when you start thinking about it. And where were the editors at Orbit on stuff like this? Hilariously, I had just seen another example and determined to mock it, when 3 or 4 pages later it popped up again.

This is one of the differences between an acclaimed author like Islington and a master like Abercrombe.

4/8 stutters.

[ImLawBoy]

Up next is Infinite by Brian Freeman, which is a Kindle freebie. It's apparently a psychological thriller that hinges on the theory of infinite parallel universes.

Have you read any Freeman before? This seems like a departure from his normal stuff...crime thrillers usually set in Minnesota (which are well done).

I don't think so, but it's always possible. This one is set in Chicago and he's actually doing a pretty good job of nailing the geography. It's still a bit of a crime thriller, just with a supernatural/psuedo-science twist on it. I also see that he's the official author to continue to the Bourne series, as designated by the Ludlum estate.