Ahira's Hangar

Recommended Reading: 2006

Fantasy novels


The Thousandfold Thought, R. Scott Bakker (Penguin Canada; Overlook Press)
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier (Murray; Pantheon)
Ilario, Mary Gentle (Gollancz; Eos - 2 vol)
Forest Mage, Robin Hobb (Voyager; Eos)
Majestrum, Matthew Hughes (Night Shade Books)
The Blood Knight, Greg Keyes (Ballantine Del Rey; Tor UK)
Lisey's Story, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner (Bantam Spectra)
Trial of Flowers, Jay Lake (Night Shade Books)
Solstice Wood, Patricia A. McKillip (Ace)
The Virtu, Sarah Monette (Ace)
The Vengeance of Rome, Michael Moorcock (Jonathan Cape)
The Last Witchfinder, James Morrow (Morrow)
The Tourmaline, Paul Park (Tor)
Three Days to Never, Tim Powers (Subterranean Press; Morrow)
The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross (Golden Gryphon Press; Ace)
Shriek: An Afterword, Jeff VanderMeer (Tor UK; Tor)
The Demon and the City, Liz Williams (Night Shade Books)
Soldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe (Tor)
Fugitives of Chaos, John C. Wright (Tor)

First novels

The Blade Itself, Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz; Pyr)
A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham (Tor)
The Patron Saint of Plagues, Barth Anderson (Bantam Spectra)
Crystal Rain, Tobias S. Buckell (Tor)
Scar Night, Alan Campbell (Tor UK; Bantam Spectra)
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Gordon Dahlquist (Bantam; Viking UK)
The Stolen Child, Keith Donohue (Cape; Doubleday)
The Green Glass Sea, Ellen Klages (Viking)
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (Gollancz; Bantam Spectra)
Temeraire: His Majesty's Dragon / Throne of Jade / Black Powder War (Del Rey; Voyager), as Temeraire: In the Service of the King (SFBC)
The Burning Girl, Holly Phillips (Prime Books)
Summer of the Apocalypse, James Van Pelt (Fairwood Press) *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>

Clearly, I have been reading the wrong books.

What the heck am I doing in this forum??

Oh, yeah, I'm the moderator.

****

To get serious (but only a little ), how does Locus magazine make its selections? I am just curious, because I don't read that mag. "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?"<i></i>

Haha, the few that I've even heard of have been because of conversations here or at the Watch. Haven't read any of them.

--A ____________________________________

A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>

You can vote for any of these books, and others that aren't on the recommended list, on the .
That is, if you've read any of them. I've read The Thousandfold Thought by Scott Bakker, and Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer. I own but haven't yet read Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake, and Temeraire by Naomi Novik. I also have Liz Williams' The Snake Agent, to which The Demon and the City is a follow-up.

Of those, I've read The Thousandfold Thought, Soldier of Sidon, and Forest Mage. Only TTT was an improvement over the books that preceded them. Forest Mage was incredibly draining and unrewarding. Soldier of Sidon was good, but definately shows the time gap between the books.

I consider the Bakker trilogy which culminates in The Thousandfold Thought to be a masterpiece.

While I enjoyed Soldier of Sidon, I did not like it as much as the previous two books in the Latro series. The ancient Egyptian setting gave me the creeps (it was like spending Halloween night in a genuinely haunted house), and somehow, Latro himself had changed in ways I cannot quite put my finger on (but Syl might know of which I speak and be able to put it in a few pithy words, as that is his gift. )

While I have not read them, I have heard a lot of buzz and good things about the new fantasy series by Paul Park (I think Tourmaline is the second book) - and also truly great excitement about Lies of Locke Lamora, which I am hoping to get to one of these days. Lately I have also been hearing a lot of good things about Scar Night. Well, actually I hope to read all three of these authors, simply based on all that I have heard.

I love the Temeraire books by Novik; they are fun adventure stories, with moments of great charm. They are in an alternate earth set during the Napoleanic wars where Britain and France have dragon mounted Aeriel Corps to go along with the armies and navies.

I also loved Buckell's Crystal Rain, a fine first science fiction novel. I loved the dialog - set on a planet populated by people of Afro-Carribean descent, the dialog just sang in my mind as I was reading the story. A bright new voice and vision in science fiction.

Syl, you summed it up well.


Soldier of Sidon spoilers:


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The rift between Latro and the black man really hurt. The black man is the best friend Latro - or anyone - could ever ask for. He has always been there through thick and thin and always supportive and loving and loyal - and never asked for anything in return other than friendship. And Latro messed up something that precious and didn't even seem to care.

There is a word for someone who messes up a relationship as special as that friendship and doesn't care about it - and the word has seven letters and starts with an "a" and ends with an "e".

And even though I know that these are fictional characters, it still really bothered me to see someone I liked so much in the first two books descend to the depths of being an A*****E.