Timstar Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Great review Laura, I have seen Myke Cole pop up on my twitter a lot, probably from Peter V. Brett but haven't looked into any of his books. It sounds like an interesting why to approach fantasy. Did you get the sequel as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 Great review, it sounds like an interesting read . I might have to keep my eye on it. Does it have some sort of an ending or does it end on a cliffhanger (please without spoiling, of course)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 Great review Laura, I have seen Myke Cole pop up on my twitter a lot, probably from Peter V. Brett but haven't looked into any of his books. It sounds like an interesting why to approach fantasy. Did you get the sequel as well? Thanks Tim. Yeah, I've since seen him mentioned a lot on Facebook by Brett and Lawrence. It was certainly different than any fantasy I've ever read. I did buy the second one, yes (3 for £5 in the Works) and I believe the third one is released this year, so I'm looking forward to reading it fairly soon. I'm reading The Dragon Masters at the moment! Great review, it sounds like an interesting read . I might have to keep my eye on it. Does it have some sort of an ending or does it end on a cliffhanger (please without spoiling, of course)? Thanks Gaia, it is pretty interesting. It's strange at first, since the language is so much more American than British, but once you get used to it it's fine. My new years' resolution is to stop accidentally spoiling stuff, remember? It does have some sense of resolution, which is good - it's sort-of a cliffhanger, but really it wraps up the first one and sets up the next one without making you feel like you HAVE to read it right now, which I liked, since there's other stuff I want to read first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 I'm reading The Dragon Masters at the moment! Hope you enjoy it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 My new years' resolution is to stop accidentally spoiling stuff, remember? So you're just going to spoil things intentionally from now on, then? Control Point sounds interesting. There are so many of these mash-ups around these days. Peter Cline's Ex-Heroes is another one that's intriguing me at the moment - it's been going down a storm over on the Malazan forums. Super-heroes versus zombies, what's not to like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 4, 2014 Author Share Posted February 4, 2014 Hope you enjoy it! I'm about halfway through and I'm enjoying it thanks! I like things with monsters in. Control Point sounds interesting. There are so many of these mash-ups around these days. Peter Cline's Ex-Heroes is another one that's intriguing me at the moment - it's been going down a storm over on the Malazan forums. Super-heroes versus zombies, what's not to like? That sounds amazing. Added to wishlist! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 That sounds amazing. Added to wishlist! Ditto! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 (edited) Review: 'The Dragon Masters' by Jack Vance Coralyne is close . . . the Basics are coming . . . I was a bit unsure going into this one, since my first brush with Jack Vance didn’t exactly win me over. But since Tim was kind enough to send me this one, and since it’s so tiny, I thought I’d give it a go. It turned out to be just what I needed. I’ve been struggling a little bit with my reading mojo at the moment, and I think being able to read something so quick and easy has helped somewhat, as I’m now eager to read more of the same – that is, fantasy mixed with SF. I’ve been wanting to try SF for a while now, and I think The Dragon Masters was a nice way of easing me into it. The story itself is fairly simple: far into the future, on a distant planet named Aerlith, the last of humankind live on a world where dragons and monsters are commonplace and are used in warfare, either as mounts or as soldiers. Every few generations, a star called Coralyne burns brighter than usual, and this always coincides with the arrival of the Basics, an alien race who turn up in spaceships and kill and capture hundreds of humans before leaving again. The leaders of men must find a way of defeating the Basics, and of appropriating their technology in order to seek out any other remaining colonies of humans in the universe. I liked the story, and I liked the setting and fantasy elements, especially the Sacerdotes and the different types of dragons. I also liked how it posed questions, such as who is really the more barbaric out of the humans and the aliens. I did struggle to empathise with the main character – as I did in Suldrun’s Garden – but with a story as short as this one it feels pointless to gripe about such things. All in all, I had fun with this one. Thanks Tim! My rating: 4/5 Edited February 5, 2014 by Signor Finzione Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devi Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Added it to the wish list! Sounds awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Yay! Glad you enjoyed it You're very welcome Fantasy mixed with SF. I’ve been wanting to try SF for a while now, and I think The Dragon Masters was a nice way of easing me into it. I thought it might be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 (edited) You're right, that is a nice cover! ETA: I wonder how much it influenced Anne McCaffrey, cos they sound very similar. Edited February 6, 2014 by Karsa Orlong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 Added it to the wish list! Sounds awesome. And it's only 120 pages long! I thought it might be Ahh, it was part of your grand plan to get me reading SF? You're right, that is a nice cover! ETA: I wonder how much it influenced Anne McCaffrey, cos they sound very similar. That was one of the first things I thought when I saw the cover. I've looked at her stuff before but never actually read any. Have any of you guys? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 Ahh, it was part of your grand plan to get me reading SF? Yep, ease you in with Dragon Masters then hit you with Dune for the Reading Club... which I assume you're participating in?? That was one of the first things I thought when I saw the cover. I've looked at her stuff before but never actually read any. Have any of you guys? I haven't but I have her Dragonriders of Pern sern on my TBR pile but no where near the top at the moment. Glad to see Retribution Falls being read, you enjoying it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 Yep, ease you in with Dragon Masters then hit you with Dune for the Reading Club... which I assume you're participating in?? Of course! I'm hoping to start it in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it! Glad to see Retribution Falls being read, you enjoying it? I only managed a few pages last night, but I'm looking forward to getting into it already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Laura, great review ! The book sounds quite good. I might have to add it to my wishlist too . x That was one of the first things I thought when I saw the cover. I've looked at her stuff before but never actually read any. Have any of you guys?x I've read a few of her books, though not all of them yet. I've been working my way through them over the years (I have most of them) but I haven't read any in a while (I'm not sure why really). I love the first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series, Dragonflight in English, I own it in Dutch called Drakenvlucht. That one's my favourite. I also love some of the other ones in the series, such as The White Dragon and Dragonsdawn. Others I liked a lot but they weren't as brilliant as the ones I love the most. There was also one book I didn't care for so much, which was Nerilka's Story / The Coelura. Here's a list of the ones I own. I've read The Dragonriders of Pern numbers 1-9 and 11. I started to read them when I was a teenager and found a few in the library. Anne McCaffrey - Crystal Singer 1-3: The Crystal Singer Omnibus Anne McCaffrey; Margaret Ball - Acorna 1: Acorna: The Unicorn Girl Anne McCaffrey; Elizabeth Ann Scarburough - Acorna 3: Acorna's People Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth A. Scarborough - Acorna 7: Acorna's Triumph Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth A. Scarborough - Acorna 9: Second Wave: Acorna's Children Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye - Doona 1-2: Doona (Crisis On Doona & Treaty At Doona) Anne McCaffrey - Get Off The Unicorn Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough - Twins Of Petaybee 1: Changelings Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 1: Drakenvlucht Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 2: Drakentocht Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 3: The White Dragon Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 4: Dragonsong Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 5: Dragonsinger Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 6: Dragondrums Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 7: Moreta: Dragonlady Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 8: Nerilka's Story / The Coelura Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 9: Dragonsdawn Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 10: Renegades Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 11: All The Weyrs Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 12: The Chronicles Of Pern: First Fall Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 13: Dolphins Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 14: The Girl Who Heard Dragons Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 15: Dragonseye Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 16: Masterharper Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 17: The Skies Of Pern Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 18: A Gift Of Dragons Anne McCaffrey; Todd J. McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 19: Dragon's Kin Todd McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 20: Dragonsblood Anne McCaffrey and Todd J. McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 21: Dragon's Fire Todd J. McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern 22: Dragon Harper Here's a (grainy) photo I just made: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 Wow, great collection! I love the vintage-looking covers, very nice. I'll keep my eye out for Dragonflight in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 Thanks ! I hope you like the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I've read two and a bit of them. I read The White Dragon many moons ago, and quite enjoyed it. I read Dragonflight soon after she died and thought it was okay. Then I recently tried to read Dragonquest and gave up on it pretty quickly cos it wasn't doing much for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted February 8, 2014 Author Share Posted February 8, 2014 Aw, is she dead? I seem to be reading a lot of dead people's books lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yeah she died a while ago . Her son wrote a few books in the series too, perhaps he still does, I don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 (edited) I haven't posted much lately - here or anywhere - as I've been quite busy and don't seem to have had much time for anything. I'm only managing to read on the train at the moment, so my reading progress is frustratingly slow! I'm currently about a third of the way through Dune, which I'm really enjoying (I only hope I actually finish it in time to participate in the reading circle . . .) and I finished Retribution Falls a couple of weeks ago (only just got around to writing the review, which I'll post below). I did also start reading Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan, but have put it on hold for the time being. I was really quite disappointed by what I read of it: considering that the whole series has had rave reviews, it all felt rather dull and derivative. I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point though . . . I do so hate abandoning books! Edited March 2, 2014 by Signor Finzione Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Signor Finzione Posted March 2, 2014 Author Share Posted March 2, 2014 Review: 'Retribution Falls' by Chris Wooding Frey is the captain of the Ketty Jay, leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of layabouts. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, avoiding the heavily armed flying frigates of the Coalition Navy. With their trio of ragged fighter craft, they run contraband, rob airships and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo freighter loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck. Until the heist goes wrong, and the freighter explodes. Suddenly Frey isn't just a nuisance anymore - he's public enemy number one, with the Coalition Navy on his tail and contractors hired to take him down. But Frey knows something they don't. That freighter was rigged to blow, and Frey has been framed to take the fall. If he wants to prove it, he's going to have to catch the real culprit. He must face liars and lovers, dogfights and gunfights, Dukes and daemons. It's going to take all his criminal talents to prove he's not the criminal they think he is . . . I’ve been going through a bit of a reading slump lately, probably due to working full time again, and I haven’t had much time for reading or reviewing. I read Jack Vance’s The Dragon Masters recently, which pulled me out of my slump a little bit; and then Retribution Falls pulled me the rest of the way and restored my reading mojo. It’s a light, fun tale of adventure and action, which I generally enjoyed reading it. Retribution Falls (book #1 of the Ketty Jay series) is fantasy with a few SF elements to it, which is once again quite adventurous reading for me (I don’t usually wander outside of swords ‘n’ sorcery/medieval-type fantasy). I think the fact that it was different really helped my enjoyment of it, as I’ve found a lot of the ‘traditional’ fantasy I’ve been reading has started to feel a little stale. I read a lot of this book on my commute to and from work, and other books I’ve read recently have suffered for this, partly because the structure of the story doesn’t stand up to being read in little chunks. Retribution Falls was actually great for this kind of reading: the characters spend a lot of time hopping from place to place, never doing any one thing for too long, and as such there are lots of short sequences and well-structured chapters that made it easy to just pick up the book and carry on from where I left off. The characters were a bit hit and miss for me, and I didn’t feel like I engaged with them as much as I’d hoped too. I’d pretty much expected ‘Locke Lamora on an airship’, so it’s no wonder Wooding’s characters didn’t quite live up to my expectations (then again, even the last Scott Lynch book didn’t live up to my expectations, so maybe the problem lies with me . . .). The main character here, airship captain and smuggler Darian Frey, is likeable enough, but not quite as roguish or interesting as the blurb suggests, and I actually found myself more invested in the secondary characters, mainly Crake and Jez, than in Frey. Even they didn’t feel fleshed-out enough, though. I think all the characters were lacking depth in one way or another: it felt to me like I was playing an RPG, and the characters were ‘companions’ who eventually revealed something about themselves depending on what you said to them. I also found it highly unbelievable that Frey had spent so much time with these characters before the events of the book, yet was only now starting to care about them enough to take an interest in them. Criticism aside, I enjoyed reading the book, and am looking forward to getting hold of the second one in the series sooner rather than later. My rating: 4/5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 I did also start reading Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan, but have put it on hold for the time being. I was really quite disappointed by what I read of it: considering that the whole series has had rave reviews, it all felt rather dull and derivative. I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point though . . . I do so hate abandoning books! Me too! But I've come to the conclusion now that life's too short to keep forcing myself to finish books I'm not enjoying Pretty much agree with you about Retribution Falls - I didn't get into the characters as much as I thought I would. I'll probably still go back and read some more at some point in the future, though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Great review, Laura ! I'm glad your reading mojo is coming back a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Shame you didn't like Theft of Swords, it's one of those books I keep seeing, either in the shop or on my Amazon suggestions but I have never properly considered reading it. The generic cover always put me off as well. I agree with your Retribution Falls review, however I LOVED the second book! Thought it was a vast improvement, especially with the characters, they are fleshed out a lot more (even the cat!) and some of their dynamics are expanded on. Hope you can find some more time to read soon, it's such a shame when trivial things, like life, get in the way of reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.