What are you currently reading?

[Umiushi]

I'm currently on chapter four of On Stranger Tides (1987), by Tim Powers. This is the book that formed part of the inspiration for the computer game Monkey Island, and the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl--and to a lesser extent, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. So far, so good. Having read Powers before--The Anubis Gates and Expiration Date--I'm expecting a fun and exciting read.

[Q-man]

I recently came across the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, so I'm reading through all of those stories and listening to the commentary.

[hallsofvalllhalla]

I'm currently on chapter four of On Stranger Tides (1987), by Tim Powers. This is the book that formed part of the inspiration for the computer game Monkey Island, and the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl--and to a lesser extent, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. So far, so good. Having read Powers before--The Anubis Gates and Expiration Date--I'm expecting a fun and exciting read.

So how are The Anubis Gates and Expiration Date? what is a good book to start with this author?

[Umiushi]

So how are The Anubis Gates and Expiration Date? what is a good book to start with this author?

The Anubis Gates would be an excellent first book for Tim Powers. It was mine, and it sold me on him. It's also a standalone. Expiration Date was quite good, but it's the second book in a trilogy that I happened to read out of order.

[Umiushi]

I'm on a bit of a manga kick, right now. I've finished The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan, The Untold Adventures of the SOS Brigade, Volume 3 and K-On! Volume 3. Currently, I'm rereading the first volume of Aqua, the precursor to Aria, one of my favorite series. I recently read a categorization of Aqua as "utopian science fiction." That's fair, and how often do we actually come across something like that, these days? However, my description of it is "a fairy tale that happens to be set in the future instead of the past." In any case, along with Iain Banks' Culture and the brightest parts of the Belle Epoque in Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, the gentle, flowing world of Aqua and Aria ranks among the best in terms of fictional settings I would love to live in.

[nijineko]

manga, lots of it. i've glanced at a over couple of thousand at this point. yes, really. i used a calculation tool to figure it out. basically i'm going through two different manga sites, and reading everything that catches my interest, skipping the ones that don't. of the ones i've actually read, call it a few hundred all the way through, a few hundred more however many chapters they've released up to date, and another few hundred more just the first few chapters and lost interest. the calculation is only from one of the manga sites, however. i didn't include the numbers from the other... probably add another hundred or so.

[Umiushi]

I finally picked up Jhegaala again, part of the Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust, and finished it. I have a bad habit of sometimes setting aside books I'm enjoying "for a rainy day." The story reminded me a bit of both Athyra and Teckla, my two least-favorite novels in the series. Fortunately, it was better than either of them, and had a nice, satisfying ending.

I'm currently a third of the way through the next book, Iorich, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'll unabashedly admit that my favorite parts of the series are when Vlad gets together with his high-level, aristocratic friends, to annoy and be annoyed by them; and Iorich, so far, is replete with that sort of goodness.

The only real drawback to a Vlad Taltos novel is that the author is on par with Tolkien in liberally discussing the protagonist's meals. In fact, Tolkien tends to forget about what his characters are eating once he wades into the thick of the narrative, but Brust never lets up. Actually, I love this sort of thing, but after getting a few chapters deep, I start feeling like I want to add another meal to my day!

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

The Pirate King

[Umiushi]

I took a break from Iorich to finished volume two of Toradora and volume one of Kannagi.

[Dark]

Any good?

[Umiushi]

They were all good in their own ways. I am already familiar with the stories told in Toradora and Kannagi, but it was fun to see the manga's take on each. Iorich, which I just finished a couple days ago, was great!

It's up there with my favorites from the series: Jhereg and Yendi. I already mentioned a fondness for the stories where Vlad involves himself with the nobility: Morrolan, Aliera, Sethra, that crowd. This one was really satisfying because he got to get them all mixed up in Jhereg business, too; it's good to see characters like Kragar and Kiera the Thief show up again. That's the sort of gratuitousness that keeps me happy with the series.

At the risk of a very small spoiler, I had a good laugh at a throwaway line involving Vlad landing "in a Tim Powers novel," since I'm still making my way through On Stranger Tides.

Now that I finished Iorich, I've finally caught up to Brust's latest novel in the series: Tiassa. With that title, I was reminded that the main characters of the Khaavren Romances are both Tiassas. I wasn't disappointed. There appears to be a great deal of intersection between the two series in this novel, and since the middle section is labeled "Whitecrest," it's a bit too out in the open to be a spoiler.

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

I just started reading Brisingr again. In preparation for the fourth book that is out in a couple weeks.

[Malruhn]

Spellwright, by Blake Charlton

It is a GREAT new magic system (not really playable in RPG's), and the characters are believable. I am 75% done and can't wait to finish it. VERY nice - and I'm REALLY jaded.

[Umiushi]

I finished Tiassa a while back. It's probably my favorite since Issola, and definitely my favorite among his unorthodox novels in that series. In any case, it was very satisfying.

I finally tackled Dances with Dragons. All I hear are complaints, but I was quite happy with it. I suspect that some people are just upset because they were writing the series in their minds, and what they got was too different from what they were expecting. After four books of this sort of thing, I'd have thought they'd catch on. I was happy with Martin's decision to continue on with some of the threads from A Feast for Crows, too. I really didn't want to have to wait until the next book to wrap that up.

Now that Martin's out of the way, I'm reading the latest offering from an even less prolific author! Vernor Vinge finally came out with Children of the Sky, the third book in the Zones of Thought series, a good twelve years after the last one, and nineteen years after the book that this is a direct sequel to.

Vinge is dean of the school of authors that contend you can write good space opera without having to throw all the science out the window. I went into Children of the Sky looking for some riveting space opera, but so far it's been quite the planetary romance. It's been more like Alastair Reynold's Redemption Ark or David Brin's Brightness Reef than the other Zones of Thought novels. However, one glance at the map in the front of the book, and I'm pretty sure the space opera's coming.

Despite the planet-bound chapters I'm going through, the story is interesting as ever, and the applications of technology, an area where Vinge truly shines, are as eye-opening as they've always been in his books, whether they are successes or failures. Also, as a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, it's no spoiler that the book is set on Tines World. The Tines are among my favorite aliens, probably second only to the Spiders from A Deepness in the Sky. The book is full of Tines, and that's nothing to complain about.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

In the Beginning: Age of the Zombies Series (Volume 1), by Dave Frizzell.

My plan is to begin it today. I have no idea what to expect, but I hope it doesnt disappoint.