What Book Are You Reading?

[myuserid Lantern Hex Find all posts View Profile Close myuserid]

Started this tonight with my daughter. We're reading a chapter a night before bed.

[Jeff Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Jeff]

Damn, I gotta get caught up to date with this. Since my last post, I have read:

Dead Meet by David Brookover

This is interesting in a sort of "your best friend is telling you this story as it happens" narrative. Imagine vampires, Werewolves, and the like as everyday part of life-you have the basis for this. The plot gets a a little convoluted with a very mixed up history of "who did what and when" towards the climax, but otherwise, a decent story.

Fragment by Warren Fahy

Scientific gobbledie gook in a somewhat suspenseful setting. The science part is way over my head; unless it was your major in college, I doubt the average joe (like myself) would be able to understand it 100%, but it was still worth reading. Somewhat akin to the basic idea of Jurassic Park but without the gene splicing.

Pandemonium by Warren Fahy

Sequel to Fragment, it takes character drama to the next level from its predecessor. Very interesting ideas going back to the time of Stalin with the sophistication of a new species discovery that carries over from Fragment.

Dinosaur Lake III by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

The first two weren't bad; I grew fond of the characters, but this one lacks the emotional context to what is actually happening in the world. Imagine The Walking Dead but with Dinosaurs.

Return to the Deep by Michael Bray

Very good story. Sequel to From the Deep, which was also excellent. My only complaint was that it was only 208 pages. I like 300 or more. Lining up for the next sequel, and we are left hanging on the edge.

The Fall by Michael McBride (Book One of the Gods End Trilogy)

This is part of a very early works-re-release for one of my favorite authors, who wrote a forward basically saying "in my early stuff, I tried being Stephen King. After a few books, I just wanted to be Michael McBride." As a big fan, I most definitely see the difference in style and articulation. We all gotta start somewhere. As for the story itself, just think "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Sometimes it drags on in certain places, but you are still getting a most excellent story.
I'm just starting Book Two tonight.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Damn, I gotta get caught up to date with this. Since my last post, I have read...

Geez. Since my last post I finished two of the theology books I posted here, but still haven't finished Conan vol. 1 let alone start something else. Somehow, I don't think I'll be making the 2015 reading challenge.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Just finished:




When I first read a Warhammer 40,000 story, it was "Cadian Blood" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, the first story in the Honour Imperialis anthology. The bad guys in it were the XIV Legion, the Death Guard, plague-stricken Space Marines. I'm not much into rot and decay and grotesque things, but I thought the Death Guard were cool bad guys, and after reading the Warhammer 40,000 wikia's overview of the Horus Heresy, I decided I absolutely had to see the XIV as heroes before their fall to the service of the Chaos God Nurgle, Lord of Decay.

This novel starts some time before the Horus Heresy kicks off, despite being fourth in that saga. Death Guard Battle-Captain Nathanial Garro, an Earth-born Space Marine of honor and courage, fights the Emperor's Great Crusade, killing aliens and securing space for the Imperium of Man. While doing so, he is given a chilling warning, a prophecy that all he holds dear will be destroyed. Dismissing it, he continues to follow orders until Horus and several Primarchs (super-warrior generals who command the various Legions) betray the Imperium and slaughter many loyalist Marines.

Horrified, Garro and his frigate manage to barely escape from the battle, but in doing so they encounter a glimpse of their ultimate enemy, Chaos itself. Desperate to deliver news of Horus's betrayal to the Emperor, the captain and his allies take chance after chance, but the risks grow greater as the stakes rise, and their own fellow warriors may not be ready for the stunning truth Garro carries.

If you are unfamiliar with Warhammer/40,000, the novels are lengthy but often well-written. They do not skirt violence, though, and you will often find yourself reading brutal fight scenes, wherein combatants are cut open, torn limb from limb, set ablaze, infested with plague and insects, and more. These are war stories, because as the saying goes, "In the 41st millennium, there is only war." While this novel takes place in the 31st, it is still fairly graphic, though you will find that the scenes depicting such are not outnumbering the more ordinary violence of gunfights or character introspection.

The characters are very well done, and you can connect with both the factual and secular Garro, who does not have time for gods or superstition and his servant Kaleb, who believes that the Emperor is a living god and that worshiping him is the right thing to do. By the book's end, you see that there are false gods and real ones, and the consequences of losing faith in the genuine article and the rewards of holding true to your spirit.

If you want a novel about space-faring super-soldiers who find out their leaders aren't all they thought they were and that true horror awaits them if they fail to fight the good fight, but who also find themselves stronger in the face of adversity, then this novel is for you.

[myuserid Lantern Hex Find all posts View Profile Close myuserid]

So, I've never read this series, and I noticed the other day it's free to borrow on Kindle. So here we go.



I'm reading this again and I would highly recommend it. Plus, the movie is coming out in November.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

I'm reading this again and I would highly recommend it. Plus, the movie is coming out in November.

Sounds intriguing. I just put a hold on it at the library. Unfortunately 200 other people had the same idea, so with the 34 copies they have, it will be a few months.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

So, I've never read this series, and I noticed the other day it's free to borrow on Kindle. So here we go....

Give a progress report here, please. There are a bunch of Potterheads here. I came late to the series myself. I was only reading them when the 6th movie came out. If you're not hooked by the end of #1, you probably won't be interested in the rest, but I'm guessing you'll dig them.

[myuserid Lantern Hex Find all posts View Profile Close myuserid]

Sounds intriguing. I just put a hold on it at the library. Unfortunately 200 other people had the same idea, so with the 34 copies they have, it will be a few months.

If you have a Kindle or use the Kindle app, PM your Amazon login e-mail address and I'll let you borrow it.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

If you have a Kindle or use the Kindle app, PM your Amazon login e-mail address and I'll let you borrow it.

Nah, my son's got the Kindle. I don't think I could pry it away long enough to read a whole book. Thanks, though. I'll get it eventually from the library.

[myuserid Lantern Hex Find all posts View Profile Close myuserid]

Nah, my son's got the Kindle. I don't think I could pry it away long enough to read a whole book. Thanks, though. I'll get it eventually from the library.

No problem.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Finished Dead Mean Walking by Steve Lyons, the third novel in the Honour Imperialis anthology.

Overall, I found it better than worse, but I didn't like it quite so much as I did the first two. Granted, the first story (Cadian Blood by Aaron Dembski-Bowden) has a planet-wide plague genocide and all, but it ends on a slightly better note than Walking because, despite the horrible losses, the protagonists do win.

In Walking, they lose. Horribly. The protagonists are by and large the Death Korps of Krieg, who are almost-wholly dehumanised soldiers (they identify by number and not name, they wear gas masks at every possible moment, they only care about dying for the Emperor), and while they are very well-done characters, they are flat-out cold-hearted bastards, almost as nasty as the necrons they're fighting.

I'm also not a huge fan of the necrons to begin with. Basically, take SkyNet/The Terminator and actually make it dangerous. A HELLUVA lot more dangerous. The Korps can barely handle themselves against the perfect killing machine-race, and the Korps are utterly fanatical soldiers (basically Spartans only without any human appeal). They have disintegration beams and ghost-robots and can endlessly revive. You wish they were as piss-weak as SkyNet and it's precious Terminators.

The tone of the novel is fairly close to the Blood, a mixture of action and horror. This one, though, has a lot more despair in it, because of the Pyrrhic victories the Korps has to take in order to one-up the necrons, who always come back even more powerful than before, resulting in the Korps suffering what amounts to catastrophic casualties.

The ending is actually very fitting, because we circle back to one of the main characters, who was a mine overseer dating the governor's niece in secret, and then he gets drafted, becomes more like a heartless machine-soldier than a normal person, and then after the crushing defeat he comes to terms with everything, donning Krieg gear and walking to his death. Very dark, really.

I did really like it, overall, but I'm still not a fan of either side in this story's conflict.

This is the Krieg:




Necrons:

[ns2 Your Clash At Demonhead Find all posts View Profile Close ns2]

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

My LCS finally received Vengeful Spirit, and my ordered copy of Betrayer also arrived at home in the mail today. Reading the latter, since Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a goddamn master of words.

[Jeff Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Jeff]

Necrons:

When I first saw that image, I immediately thought of General Grievous clones.

[Mister Ed Horse of a Different Color Find all posts View Profile Close Mister Ed]

Currently reading this (a Christmas gift):