finnished Night of Knives and hav to say i couldnt put it down it was just action action action i dont think there was a dull moment in the entire book which is rare cause usually there is some boring parts to any book but this was from start to finnish wonderful.
now im about to start mistborn but im a bit hesitant cause there are some big test coming up this week for me and im afraid i'll end up reading instead of studying :P

Night of Knives was great, I agree. I was a little wary at first to how good it would be, but both Steven Erikson and Ian Cameron Esslemont are very talented writing styles, both with a great style that compliments each other. The great thing about the book, other than the pacing, was how you could tell he understood the world of Malaz just as much, or could pen that understanding just as well as Erikson.

Just finished Ken Scholes' Lamentation.

With cool concepts, endearing characters, and a panoply of plotlines, Lamentation is a strong debut. Not in the same category as Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, or Naomi Novik, but a quality read nonetheless.

It's too early to tell just how good a fantasy series The Psalms of Isaak will turn out to be. But based on the potential displayed by Lamentation, it shows great promise. Only time will tell. . .

Check the blog for the full review. . . :)

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

i work at a bookshop, and the switch for recommendation-mode is broken, sorry:D

reading now a thriller for change - Mo Hayder's "Birdman", and it is creepy and gorey and good.

I've hardly been reading anything since I came back from Sardinia - apparently, I read far too much there, for lack of anything else to do. Yesterday was the first time for about a month that I just sat down and read a whole book in one go - "Der Brenner und der liebe Gott" ("Brenner and the dear god", though it sounds stupid in English) by Wolf Haas. I don't expect anyone except sisterdew and me to know him, he writes the most hilarious Austrian crime stories. It's lucky I'm writing in English now, not in German, because every time I've read one of his books it becomes incredibly hard not to talk/write the way he does. I don't remember if I've read this somewhere, or if it's something a classmate back in grammar school said during her book presentation, but I think it's true: "It's like you're sitting in a café with him and he's just telling you the story."
In any case, it was just as entertaining as I expected. Even more so than the rest of the Brenner books because it involved an apparently houseplant-crazy lady, and another character shares the name of one of our family friends.

What else have I read lately?
Mooey's "Dragontails", of course, which was cute. I even managed to read it slowly, just a story or two a day. I especially have to think of the last story every time I think about having to learn how to drive.
And then I re-read the Half-Blood Prince, but the movie was so very wrong that it wasn't even fun to complain any more (and I wasn't in the right company, either).
Two houseplant books, both of which were good, and made my wishlist grow to monstrous dimensions.
And one or two random historical crime stories that have been at the bottom of the TBR pile forever. I'm too lazy to even look up titles/authors.

sisterdew wrote:

ah yes, the new Haas. i'm not so sure if i want to read it, i thought the last one really was the last one

Didn't we all? I was really surprised to read about it on Thursday - Mama and I both went, "how come nobody told us this sooner?!"

I'm taking advantage of the free WiFi at Starbucks to get online and try to catch up - like that is really a possibility. ;-D

In the last two weeks, I've finished the Abercrombie I was reading and polished off "Fledgling" by Octavia Butler and "Elantris" by Brandon Sanderson, and I'm currently reading Sanderson's "Mistborn". So far I can't complain (much) about any of the books although I think "Elantris" was the weakest of the batch. Loved the concept but I thought the execution was a bit off but I enjoyed it anyway. I'm liking "Mistborn" much better.

finnished mistborn while ago, just finnished The Well of Ascension and on to Hero of Ages all by brandon snaderson, im realy enjoying them, cant put the books down, i dont hav much time to read realy but i finnished well of ascension in 5 days somehow. when im done with this im going back to the Co-created world of Malaz with The Return of the Crimson Guard by ian esselmont, cant wait, i just dont think i've come across a story in any form that has such epic worldbuilding and story background that just fits together so perfectly as you read, hopefully by the time im finnished those Dust of Dreams will be out by Steven Erikson, the other malazan world writer, after that though i got nothing......

...any suggestions?

Last edited by LeighfromAUSSIE (2009-09-07 05:13:50)

Just finished "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer - absolutely amazing.

Working on "The Bell Jar" (was inspired by an album that came out recently that had Plath as an enormous inspiration) and David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" - that one's a bit tough, given the fact there's a 60-page essay about grammar and usage. =P  Still, I adored "Infinite Jest"...

Just finished Brisingr this morning (the third Eragon book). Now I go back to the Malazan series by Erikson. I finished two of the books during my holiday.

I finished "Fall of Thanes" before the holiday, and although it took me so long to finish the third part, all in all it was a darn good book/series. The ending had me gasping, and i had to read certain parts ("NO. He didn't really do that, did he?") twice. Very surprising.

during the holiday(mostly on the train, really)i read Jo Graham's "Hand of Isis", which isn't really fantasy, but historical fiction with a mystic touch. It tells the story of Cleopatra and her(fictional, i guess) half-sisters Charmian and Iras, Charmian being the narrator, her rise to glory, her involvements with Caesar and Marcus Antonius and her fall. What i like about it is that it's both highly entertaining as well as educating. I learned a lot about ancient Egypt and the mythology and science and arts back then. All while reading a great tale about friendship, love, passion and power and duty and war. Highly recommendable!
(does contain 2 or 3 explicit sex-scenes, they are not all over the place or even out of place, but as i said. explicit)

Next up is "The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro(yes, the guy who made "Pan's Labyrinth", one of the best movies i've ever seen), a horror- fantasy kind of book that just came out in HC. The blurb says del Toro "tips his hat to Bram Stoker", sounds interesting enough to give it a try(plus, it's del Toro, i wonder if he can write books as good as most of his movies)

I finished The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. Very interesting. Certainly wasn't expecting a theological treatise.

Next up is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Rereading Joan Vinge's World's End and Summer Queen for my trip (already reread Snow Queen a couple of weeks ago).  I think I can make both of them last over two ten hour plane rides and a week in Europe, but if necessary, there's always the bookstore in Amsterdam... hehe.