Karsa Orlong

Right, I'm on it. Might take a while ...

Aw, shucks - right back atcha, K I was genuinely intending to read less sf this year, but since Frankie made me do my TBR list I've realised I have to get through some of them before buying loads more Ditto for me! Speak for yourself - me, personally, I'm terrified

Right, I'm going to start my own list now At least I'll know I've read all of them

Well, at least you still have a choice I don't think you're the only one - that's why I feel like I'm talking to myself most of the time - and judging by my TBR list it's not going to change any time soon Maybe it's better that way - when I talk about them on sf/fantasy forums people just disgree with me anyway!

I'm about halfway through Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss. It's pretty good. When I initially typed that first sentence it came out as "I'm about hlafway through Non-Strop by Brain Aldiss". I can see today is going to be a good day!

I'm sure I've seen those lists somewhere else ...

And you've still got more than me! Impressive lists. I've read 4 of Frankie's and 8 of Kylie's. I read way too much sf and fantasy - or you guys don't read enough of them

Spartacus 2x01

The White Rose by Glen Cook The White Rose and the survivors from The Black Company are surrounded by the Lady's armies on the Plains of Fear. There they intend to wait the long years until the great comet returns ot mark the time where The Dominator, The Lady and her Taken can be defeated. As the enemy forces grow near, Croaker, medic and historian for the Company, starts to receive messages that tell of the history of the wizard Bomanz, and how his magic brought The Lady back to the world in the first place. Soon Croaker realises that The Dominator is also on the verge of return from his imprisonment beneath The Barrowlands, and that even The Lady may not be able to defeat him. This is the third of Cook's 'Black Company' novels, and the last of the original 'Black Company' trilogy. Cook's writing style is very different from other fantasy writers. Where the likes of Erikson, Martin, Hobb et al are too verbose (and probably need stronger editors!), Cook goes in the opposite direction: his sentences are terse and laced with a knowingly dry wit. It reminds me of James Ellroy's American Tabloid, although not as brutal. In fact, Cook doesn't really deal in violence. Sure, it's there, but where other writers spend pages and pages describing battles, Cook's writing style demands that you read between the lines and use your imagination, otherwise it's gone in a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of way. In the same manner, I find that if I'm not fully concentrating it is very easy to miss very important pieces of information that are concealed within very few words. At times I love this style, at others I find it a real pain, having to re-read sections because they have been written in such a deliberately obtuse manner. It's so unique though, conjuring fantastical images, and the characters are drawn so wonderfully and with such economy, that it's hard to knock it. Even the 'bad guys' are given such dimension that it's difficult to actually consider them bad at all. Still, this may be my favourite of the, ahem, Cook books I've read so far. I think this is largely down to a narrative trick that he uses: the letters that Croaker receives from an unknown source, the reading of which allows Cook to switch viewpoints and from his usual first person to third person. The tale of Bomanz the wizard is probably the best part of the story, at least until Croaker and The Lady renew their acquaintance, and it is witty and quite exciting. I did find that the novel lost a bit of its drive in the latter stages, probably due to the writing style which races through major events like they happen every day, but it was enjoyable. Cook revels in being unpredictable and, as the final book in a trilogy, where you might expect it to be told on a huge scale, he goes for the weird instead. Ultimately, if talking menhirs, walking trees, flying whales and manta rays, a tree that might be a god, and storms that physically alter anyone and anything in their path are your kind of thing, then give this a go. 7/10

I read Shadow of the Wind last year - and loved it - but I haven't got The Angel's Game yet. I want to read it but with 90 books on my TBR list it might be a while before I get it ...

Supernatural 7x11 - cracking episode, I thought

Now this is more like the England I know and love

I haven't as yet. I've got The Way of Kings on my Kindle, though. Just my opinion on Mistborn, of course - I know a lot of people love them, so I hope you enjoy them, Michelle

Must admit, my opinion didn't change much in the end from my post above. The first book was good, the second and third pretty yawnsome. I think it's another one of those cases where the story was spread too thin just to get a trilogy out of it. Two books would have told the tale much better, imo.

If you're looking for action, adventure, big guns and mad sentient robots, then Neal Asher's your man. For galaxy spanning space opera try Peter F. Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds. But rather than list all my faves again, have a look at the list I posted here: http://www.bookclubf...post__p__283614 If you are looking for something like Firefly, try Chris Wooding's 'Tales of the Ketty Jay' series, starting with Retribution Falls: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Retribution-Falls-Tales-Ketty-Jay/dp/0575085169/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327745521&sr=8-1

I vividly remember reading the Enid Blyton books, and I remember my dad giving me my first Biggles book, and I've loved reading pretty much ever since. But then, in those prehistoric days, there was no Playstation or Xbox or pc/laptop or mobile phone etc etc, and we only had one tv in the house.

Great, isn't it? Your pic is way better than mine If you turn mine sideways it makes it look like the people behind me are standing normally beside a window and I'm crouched on it in a Spider-Man pose The thing that freaked me out was that there was a bunch of kids there jumping up and down on the glass floor somewhere behind me. No, no, no - don't do that!!

About to start Fringe 4x09

Porcupine Tree - Hatesong

I'm about 80 pages into Glen Cook's The White Rose.

Well, I've had my Rush t-shirt insulted before now, but calling it a dress is going too far!

Added my oustanding treebooks to the TBR list. A couple of thoughts spring to mind, first and foremost: holy rainforest, Batman, I've got about 20 more treebooks to read than I thought I had, and 86 to read in total (including ebooks). That's over a years worth! Secondly, I don't think my plan of reading less sf and fantasy this year is going to work if I'm to eat into that TBR list at all Thirdly, what is it with these authors and their middle initials? EDIT: 86?? I can't add up, lol. It should say 91.

I do like spending other people's money for them I hope you enjoy it, Ruth. I wrote a review of it when I read it last year: http://www.bookclubf...post__p__268843 Actually, I think I put the same review up on Amazon as well

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson Without giving too much of the plot away (because there isn't a lot of it, to be totally truthful), Chrissy awakes one morning believing she's a young woman only to find that she's in her 40s, with no recall of the intervening years, and no memories of the man in the bed next to her. Each day her husband, Ben, explains to her that she was in an accident and is suffering from amnesia, and each night she goes to sleep and her memory is wiped again. A doctor encourages her to write a journal each day, and the bulk of the book is taken up with her journal entries, as she writes down everything she has learned each day, reads it the following morning, and gradually begins to piece together her life and what has happened to her. I found the writing style quite stilted and uninvolving for large chunks of the book. Whether this was intentional or not, I'm not sure, but I found it difficult to connect with any of the small number of characters in the book as a result. Chrissy herself is problematic because she is not sure who she is for 90% of the story. Watson keeps the repetition to a minimum, thankfully, but there were a lot of times where I felt the answers were obvious but the characters weren't seeing it - it was almost like the author was making them deliberately obtuse just to pad the story out a bit. To my mind, it may have worked better as a short story or novella. I thought it really got going at about three quarters of the way through, for spoilery reasons which I shan't mention here, and even though the final couple of twists were obvious from much earlier in the book, they were handled pretty well when they eventually came to happen. For a thriller it maybe lacks a few thrills, but it's enjoyable enough. And as a debut novel this isn't bad, but I do think the hype-machine has worked against it, at least for me. 6/10

Oi, giant! Put Alan Tracy down!!