Grand unified books thread

[Malthus]

Most of the way through "Ungrateful Daughters" by Maureen Waller. Pretty decent and I like that about half the book is spent discussing the viewpoints and backgrounds of William III, Mary II, James II and Anne.

Any hot Sarah Marlborough-Anne lesbian scenes? 

[Sheilbh]

Finished Flash for Freedom and Flashman in the Great Game.  I think the Great Game was the best, but they're all recommended.

I also read Wilkie Collins' No Name which was disappointing after the superb fun of The Woman in White (read it! I've forced this on two friends now, they both loved it) but it still has some great moments.  Captain Wragge and Mrs Lecount are particular favourites.

Pale Fire by Nabokov.  I loved this.  There are moments in this which are about as good as prose gets.

[Josephus]

Almost done Yann Martel (Life of Pi)'s newest book Beatrice and Virgil. This will be the most talked about book of the year. A holocaust novel without Nazis, war and Germany. Instead the two protaganists are a donkey and a howler monkey.

[jimmy olsen]

Almost done Yann Martel (Life of Pi)'s newest book Beatrice and Virgil. This will be the most talked about book of the year. A holocaust novel without Nazis, war and Germany. Instead the two protaganists are a donkey and a howler monkey.

How does that work?

[Josephus]

Almost done Yann Martel (Life of Pi)'s newest book Beatrice and Virgil. This will be the most talked about book of the year. A holocaust novel without Nazis, war and Germany. Instead the two protaganists are a donkey and a howler monkey.

How does that work?

allegory.

It's quite good. Martel is good at this stuff. His last book was a fable about the power of faith in which the two main characters were a young boy and a bengal tiger stuck on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean together.

[jimmy olsen]

Almost done Yann Martel (Life of Pi)'s newest book Beatrice and Virgil. This will be the most talked about book of the year. A holocaust novel without Nazis, war and Germany. Instead the two protaganists are a donkey and a howler monkey.

How does that work?

allegory.

It's quite good. Martel is good at this stuff. His last book was a fable about the power of faith in which the two main characters were a young boy and a bengal tiger stuck on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean together.

I heard about that one.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

In the gooey midst of China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station". The dense prose can be slogtastic at times but the imagery is worth the work. It's starting to get gripping 150 pages in or so.

Finished off the Scalzi-verse books with Zoe's Tale, last week. Fun light stuff that is a quick read and pretty funny to boot.

I wouldn't mind seeing a decent movie set in that universe or an SGU style TV show. Though it wold likely end up crappy.

[garbon]

Any hot Sarah Marlborough-Anne lesbian scenes? 

No although there was Sarah accusing her of homosexual relations.

[grumbler]

Finished the first 5 of the "No 1 Ladies' detective Agency" series by McCall Smith.   Fun books and a great, exotic locale.  Highly recommended, though I don't recommend you get them all.  They start to run out of steam by #5 and I really don't feel any pressing need to go on right now.

[Malthus]

Any hot Sarah Marlborough-Anne lesbian scenes? 

No although there was Sarah accusing her of homosexual relations.

Introducing Anne to a hotter, younger and less bitchy (and less whig-y) relation wasn't a good move on Sarah's part. 

[Josephus]

Finished Beatrice & Virgil. Excellent. Might review it here, once my NDA is lifted, which I think is tomorrow.

[Grallon]

Currently reading the "Well of Echoes" quartet by Ian Irvine : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_of_Echoes

Comprised of :

Geomancer
Tetrarch
Alchymist
Chimaera


-----

Plenty of interesting takes on magic (here it's powered by crystals and the natural forces - geomancy being the most powerful version of what the author calls 'The Arts') and the general setting is nicely fleshed out (a XIXth century machinist society powered by the (crystal) focused forces we know as electromagnetism, gravity, strong and weak forces). 

The Well of Echoes is set 207 years after The View from the Mirror and the events to happen at the end of that time are directly affecting the Three Worlds now. It is set on Santhenar, which is ravaged by war between the old humans and the lyrinx.

The lyrinx escaped from the void when the Forbidding was broken, the war began 50 years after their arrival on Santhenar.

The terrible Council of Scrutators has control of the world and hides the fact that it is the war itself that gives them power and so refuses to allow it to end. Though the people believe the Council (mancers all) to be the ones to control the world it is in fact the Numinator who pulls their strings, though he or she takes no active part in day to day life.

Tiaan, an artisan from Tiksi, has a strange crystal dream and soon discovers that it is no dream at all. It is the Aachim of Aachan crying out for aid, their world is being destroyed by worldwide volcanic activity. Tiaan sets off to Tirthrax to ask for the help of the Aachim of Santhenar, but is captured by Ryll the lyrinx and is forced to help in the lyrinx's frightful flesh-forming efforts.

-----

The main problem with these books is the weak writing; beginning with the very irritating naming scheme the author chose.  In fact there's none I can discern - he seems to patch up together sounds without thought for coherence or plausibility.  Anyhow that's relatively minor.  What's really bothersome is that he screws up his carefully plotted arc by constantly falling into to the tropes of his (mostly) 2 dimensional characters.   And by the overuse of the deus-ex device.  In the 3rd book one of the main characters keeps doing the same stupid shit as he was doing in the 1st book - despite the author assuring us he had grown and was mature...  And let's not even speak about the villains - a uniform lot of screechy pompous fools given to histrionics.  *sigh*

Anyhow the best element of the books are the secondary characters whom the author seem to have spent more time fleshing out than the main ones.  Ullii, Irisis and Scrutator Xervish Flydd.

All is all the books are interesting for some of the ideas developed but can chafe your nerves rather early.




G.

[Kleves]

Has anyone read Massie's Peter the Great? If so, is it any good? If not, does anyone have any suggestions for a good book on the Great Northern War or Russia during that time period?

[Ed Anger]

Has anyone read Massie's Peter the Great? If so, is it any good? If not, does anyone have any suggestions for a good book on the Great Northern War or Russia during that time period?

Yes. I enjoyed it. Should be dirt cheap too.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I'm up to book 4 in the Dresden Files, Summer Knight. I had planned to stop after book 3, due to the increasing number of annoying plot holes, but since book 3 ended with the start of a story arc, I'm willing to keep going. I'm a sucker for interesting story arcs.

Also, I'm looking for a good, interesting and not difficult to read history book that I can buy at Amazon's Kindle store. Suggestions are welcome. I'm not picky about what history, as long as it's a "page turner".