Timstar Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Great review, I am looking forward to starting Weeks, just hope he's better than Peter V. Brett. Not too keen on the tagline that's on the front cover, sounds very generic 'crime-thriller-y' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 he's better than Peter V. Brett. I can see it on the cover of his next book now: ""He's better than Peter V. Brett" - George R. R. Martin" Talk about damning with faint praise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Great review, I am looking forward to starting Weeks, just hope he's better than Peter V. Brett. Not too keen on the tagline that's on the front cover, sounds very generic 'crime-thriller-y' Well, it's neither. It's pretty straight-up fantasy, but the magic is unique and I think the characters are interesting enough to set it slightly above a lot of the other stuff that's been out recently. I enjoyed it, anyway. I can see it on the cover of his next book now: ""He's better than Peter V. Brett" - George R. R. Martin" Talk about damning with faint praise That's almost as bad as his quote on the front of Mark Lawrence: "on a par with Conn Iggulden". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 11, 2013 Author Share Posted December 11, 2013 Review: 'John Dies at the End' by David Wong I bought this book for £2 from a charity shop a few days ago. This is not really a summary, but it’s from the back cover: STOP. You should not have touched this book with your bare hands. No, don’t put it down. It’s too late. They’re watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you’ll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it’s too late. You touched the book. You’re in the game. You’re under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me. The important thing is this: · The drug is called soy sauce, and it gives users a window into another dimension. · John and I never had the chance to say no. · You still do. Unfortunately for us, if you make the right choice, we’ll have a much harder time explaining how to fight off the otherworldly invasion currently threatening to enslave humanity. I’m sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: NONE OF THIS IS MY FAULT. Yeah. John Dies at the End is unlike anything I usually read (and probably also unlike anything I will ever read again). It’s weird. It’s about a young man named David and his friend John (who doesn’t actually die at the end . . .) who become accidentally involved in a battle between good and evil. After taking a drug called ‘soy sauce’ they find they can see things that most people can’t – such as shadow people and electric jellyfish – and must try and protect their friends from the forces of darkness, which are trying to infiltrate earth. In the process of saving the world they must fight meat monsters, murder possessed policemen, make dogs explode, and travel through a portal to another world which they nickname ‘Sh*t Narnia’. The whole book isn’t so much a story as a mixed satire on several genres – namely science fiction, crime and horror – and as such it feels rather hodgepodge for most of its duration, more like a series of sketches or skits than a cohesive novel. That said, it did make me laugh, though I did tend to find that a lot of the American humour and references went over my head. I’ve been a fan of the humour website Cracked.com for years (of which the author is the editor-in-chief), and as such am familiar with David Wong’s particular brand of humour. I think that helped me to overcome the general ‘WTF?’ experience this book instils in the reader. I think I would have appreciated this book more if I were more familiar with the genres it pastiches. I personally felt it to be a sort of mash-up of the content of Stephen King’s more terrible stories and Kurt Vonnegut’s odd writing style, but the blurbs on the back compare it to Douglas Adams, Philip K Dick and Hunter S Thompson, none of whom I’ve read. I’ve read all 466 pages of this book and I’m still not sure whether to recommend it, take it back to the charity shop, or burn it. Perhaps I’ll compromise and do all three. My rating: 3/5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marie H Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 I’ve read all 466 pages of this book and I’m still not sure whether to recommend it, take it back to the charity shop, or burn it. Perhaps I’ll compromise and do all three. My rating: 3/5 Now that is intriguing..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devi Posted December 11, 2013 Share Posted December 11, 2013 (edited) Wow... I don't know what to think about that book Edited December 14, 2013 by Devi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 11, 2013 Author Share Posted December 11, 2013 Me neither! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 It sounds like an interesting premise of a book! If I had found it in a charity shop I probably would've bought it too. Sorry to hear you didn't like it too much (though you still gave it 3/5). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 16, 2013 Author Share Posted December 16, 2013 (edited) Review: 'Malice' by John Gwynne The Banished Lands have a violent past where armies of men and giants clashed in battle. An uneasy peace reigns, but now giants stir once more, the very stones weep blood and there are sightings of gigantic wyrms. Those who can still read the signs see a prophecy realized: sorrow will darken the world, as angels and demons make it their battlefield. Young Corban watches enviously as boys become warriors and yearns to join them, determined to make his family proud. It is only when everything he knows is threatened that he discovers the true cost of becoming a man. As the kings look to their borders, and priests beg answers from the Gods, only a chosen few know that the fate of the world will be decided between two champions, the Black Sun and the Bright Star. And with their coming will be a war to end all wars. Malice is the debut novel of fantasy writer John Gwynne, and is the first book in his new series The Faithful and the Fallen. Despite being fantasy, the book has a Celtic, almost historical feel, with character and place names such as Dun Carreg, Cywen, Gwenith, Mordwyr, Dath etc., and with its use of dialect, such as ‘aye’ and ‘bairn’. I actually really liked this: it creates atmosphere and helps when imagining both the setting and the character accents, and also makes the story feel more real. At the same time, however, the book also has a strangely dystopian feel, being set in desolate lands in an era following an apocalyptic event known as the Gods-War. It’s an interesting combination. I found Malice to be a little slow to begin with: there are times when it felt like I was reading every little detail of everything that happens, particularly to the children, and I felt that this made it a little bit repetitive. However, it picks up after a while, and by the end I wanted to start straight away on the next book (which unfortunately isn’t available until next year). The characters are interesting as well as ambiguous, and the way the author switches between different points of viewcreates tension and pace very effectively, often reminding me of A Song of Ice and Fire in this respect. Another aspect of the novel that I felt was reminiscent of GRRM was the characters themselves, several of whom are morally ambiguous. Yet most of them are likeable, or at the very least sympathetic, and it’s really interesting to see them change, particularly those who are being subtly manipulated. The characters are all very different – we have the blacksmith’s son Corban (my personal favourite PoV), his fiery knife-throwing sister Cywen, the skilled archer and former brigand Camlin, the gentle giant-hunter (and unwilling noble heir) Kastell, and finally Veradis, the first-sword and blood-brother to an unwitting servant of Asroth. All these characters are very different in their own ways, and it’s not immediately clear how they relate to one another, but as the plot unfolds we begin to see how they each might be involved in the grand scheme of things. The Faithful and the Fallen is clearly intended to be a sweeping epic series, with conflict spreading across the entire world and involving gods and monsters. However, there are some nice personal moments that stand out in my memory, namely involving Corban, such as the naming of his horse (Shield) and his defence of the wolven cub Storm. It would be nice to see more of these, and perhaps more character-driven scenes within battles, which are often described in ways that give more of an overview than a one-to-one account. Malice won the Gemmell Morningstar Award for best debut novel earlier this year, and although I haven’t read any of the other books that were shortlisted for this one, I can understand why this one made the list. Slow to start with, but intriguing, and improving in pace and intensity with every chapter. As Conn Iggulden announces on the cover: it’s a ‘hell of a debut’. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. My rating: 4/5 Edited December 16, 2013 by Signor Finzione Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Glad you enjoyed it in the end I think I'll wait for a couple more books to come out in the series before I think about reading it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Great review, it sounds like an interesting book ! Like Steve, I usually wait with starting a series until it's completed (unless it's huge or special, such as A Song of Ice and Fire.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Thanks for the review! I had heard of this before but hadn't read any reviews, I added it to my wishlist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 17, 2013 Author Share Posted December 17, 2013 Yay, Tim! Steve and Gaia, I usually prefer to do this too, and I actually thought the next book was already out! I went on Amazon to order it as soon as I'd finished reading and was disappointed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Awww that's not nice at all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Incidentally, David Gemmell also did the whole Celtic approach with his Rigante series, and I really liked it, so that's a good sign Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 17, 2013 Author Share Posted December 17, 2013 Incidentally, David Gemmell also did the whole Celtic approach with his Rigante series, and I really liked it, so that's a good sign Oh, good. Gwynne has said he's been strongly influenced by Gemmell, as well as Tolkien and Cornwell. I'm looking forward to reading the first Rigante, hopefully sometime after Christmas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 22, 2013 Author Share Posted December 22, 2013 Review: 'Suldrun's Garden' by Jack Vance Lyonesse is one of the ten kingdoms of the Elder Isles and Casmir, its ruthless and ambitious king, is at the centre of intrigue as their rulers contend for control. Casmir’s beautiful but otherworldly daughter, Suldrun, is a key element in his plans: he intends to cement alliances by arranging a marriage. But Suldrun defies him. She is confined to her beloved garden, where she meets her love, and her tragedy unfolds. I’ve had a very mixed experience with this book, which wasn’t entirely unexpected given that I’d heard glowing reviews about it from some people and less-than-glowing ones from others. When I was around a hundred pages into the story I was very tempted to put the book down: I felt that the plot was all over the place, the characters were shallow and uninteresting, and the prose was very dry. But I stuck with it, and thankfully ended up enjoying the final third of the book almost enough to make up for the weak (or so I felt) beginning. Suldrun’s Garden is an interesting historical fantasy mash-up, set in the fictional realm of the Elder Isles (now sunk beneath the sea, but once located near France and Britain). At the beginning the story is mainly concerned with establishing the conflict between the lands of Lyonesse and Troicinet, but this eventually becomes more of a backdrop to the main events of the story. As well as the overall war we have long-lost princes, rebellious princesses, talking mirrors, magicians, Arthurian references, curses, ogres, torture, rape, torture-rape, curse-rape-torture, ogre-rape, and fairies. I found the fairy-story aspects of the novel interesting, but over-used and occasionally irrelevant. Sometimes the descriptions felt very Tolkien-esque and twee, while at other times they were as gleefully violent as a Grimm fairy tale; the inclusion of the latter do help to give the novel its pervasive undertone of dark threat (which was sometimes a bit heavy-handed, particularly with regard to the continual misfortunes that befell many of the characters). I felt that the semi-historical element of the setting was also interesting, and nicely balanced out the inclusion of the fae world, but was used so minimally that it may as well have not been mentioned at all. I don’t know if it becomes more prominent in future novels, though. I realise that my criticisms might be a bit controversial, as it seems Vance is revered as one of the forerunners of modern fantasy. Speaking personally, though, I didn’t enjoy his writing style very much, at least not at first. I found the way he related events to be very dry and dull, and felt that the characters were not developed as thoroughly as they might have been. Since this is very much a plot-driven story, I felt disconnected from events in a way that I don’t when I’m reading more modern, character-based fantasy. Modern fantasy authors I’ve enjoyed recently (particularly the likes of Joe Abercrombie, George RR Martin, Mark Lawrence, John Gwynne, Brent Weeks, Patrick Rothfuss, Steven Erikson, etc., etc.) engage the reader by persuading us to invest in their characters just as much as in their stories, which is something I felt was lacking in Suldrun’s Garden. For instance, we’re often told that a character is doing something, but we’re not always shown their thoughts and motivations for doing so; similarly, we may be told that a character is angry, or sad, but are shown very little of their behaviour or their reasoning. In this way it reminded me a little of Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy, with a lot of unnecessary elements and prolific use of narration rather than storytelling. (Yes, there’s a difference. In my mind at least.) It’s this sense of distance from the characters that kept me distanced from the book, at least for the most part. The other issue I had was with the writer’s use of language. Characters don’t seem to have distinguished voices – the adults speak in mostly the same way as the children, and vice-versa: for example, when insulting and threatening the press-ganged/enslaved Aillas, the overseer uses the word ‘fiddity-didjet’ to describe his behaviour. For me this jarred with both the situation and the other events in the book: a lot of it is quite dark and tragic, yet the language in no way reflects this. One more minor criticism I have is plot-related. I found that characters were doing elaborate and irrelevant things simply for the sake of doing them. An example of this would be when the magician Shimrod is coerced into entering a dangerous magical realm and having to complete an arbitrary set of tasks, all as part of a ruse so that someone else could go to his house and steal his “magical stuff”. This style of writing put me in mind of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which also tends to slot in events simply because the author wants to. This works for a lot of people, but not for me. Criticisms aside, I found myself enjoying the book quite a lot towards the end. Once the author focused on two or three main characters and gave each one a clear sense of purpose the story became very engaging. If the majority of the book had been like this I would have given it 4 out of 5; as it is, I’ll be giving it 3, but may look into the rest of the Lyonesse series in the future to see what it’s like. My rating: 3/5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted December 22, 2013 Share Posted December 22, 2013 That's one big, awesome review ! Interesting points! I'm glad you liked the book, though it's a shame it wasn't as good as you'd perhaps hoped. I plan to read one of Jack Vance's books eventually, but I've never seen them much available in print. If I run into one at the charity shop (in English) I'll buy it, but it hasn't happened yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 22, 2013 Author Share Posted December 22, 2013 That's one big, awesome review ! Interesting points! I'm glad you liked the book, though it's a shame it wasn't as good as you'd perhaps hoped. I plan to read one of Jack Vance's books eventually, but I've never seen them much available in print. If I run into one at the charity shop (in English) I'll buy it, but it hasn't happened yet. Thanks! I realise that I've rambled on a lot, and it seems like I've made a lot of complaints about the book, but I did end up enjoying it in the end. I bought it second-hand off Amazon for a penny! (Plus delivery, which was about £2). It does seem like it's hard to get hold of on its own - the only time I've seen it in shops is as part of the massive hardback three-in-one Lyonesse trilogy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted December 23, 2013 Share Posted December 23, 2013 Great review, i'm not completely sold on Jack Vance yet, I felt a similar disconnection when reading The Dying Earth. I do have Suldrun's Garden as well as Emphyrio on my TBR pile. DId really enjoy The Blue World though. On a different note Malice by John Gwynne is £1.49 on Kindle today so I snapped it up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 23, 2013 Author Share Posted December 23, 2013 Great review, i'm not completely sold on Jack Vance yet, I felt a similar disconnection when reading The Dying Earth. I do have Suldrun's Garden as well as Emphyrio on my TBR pile. DId really enjoy The Blue World though. On a different note Malice by John Gwynne is £1.49 on Kindle today so I snapped it up Ooh, great! It's definitely worth £1.49. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! The second book, Valour, comes out next year, and I'm hoping it'll be even better - Malice is a bit clunky and slow in places, but improves as it goes on, and I'm hoping its teething issues will be completely ironed out in the new book. I'll probably give Vance another go in the future if I see his books cheap somewhere, and I'll keep my eye out for The Blue World. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted December 24, 2013 Share Posted December 24, 2013 Really interesting review Signor Finzione! I do agree with what you have said, but the reasons that you didn't enjoy parts are the very same reasons that I really did! I think it is because I like a fantasy to to be a fantasy and not like real people stuck in a more or less medieval world, which is what I find modern fantasy to be about. I do hope that you will read the other two books though! The Blue World has much stronger characterisation, it is my favourite stand-alone Vance story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 26, 2013 Author Share Posted December 26, 2013 Cheers VF, it's funny how we can all read the same book but have such different experiences of it. I can definitely see why you drew parallels between Vance and JSaMN, though. And I'll keep my eye out for The Blue World, seeing as that's two positive recommendations in as many days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted December 26, 2013 Author Share Posted December 26, 2013 Hope everyone had a great Christmas! I did! I got a whole bunch of books I wanted. They are: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Nail Gaiman Sword in the Storm by David Gemmell Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon Hawkwood and the Kings by Paul Kearney The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper The Merchant of Dreams by Anne Lyle The Belgariad: Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell Drakenfeld by Mark Charan Newton The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas I was so excited I even took a picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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