#445

It’s not one of his most coherent, but I still really like it and as always it’s got tons of ideas packed into it. It’s really a bunch of set pieces loosely connected together and I always find the last 50 pages a bit of a letdown, but I like Sharrow as a character, I do feel she holds it together. Just about.

#446

It’s an early book, written before Consider Phlebas and (I think) even The Wasp Factory. I don’t know how much of a rewrite it got before publication, but you can tell it’s not as accomplished as his other stuff.

2 Likes
#447

Oh yeah, the last 50 pages were very disappointing. I had some hope of it having some kind of nice ending, but then I realised that wasn’t happening and I just wanted it over with.
I did like Sharrow, but mostly whenever any of the characters died or something happened to them then I wasn’t that fussed. Actually, I quite liked the android!

But they just made lots of ridiculous decisions, and not that scared of the consequences, and the special connection that all five of them were supposed to have didn’t actually do anything or make them noticeably any different from anyone else.

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#448

That’s really interesting. I hadn’t considered it was an old one he got published later.

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#449

The wiki page links to this Epilogue he wrote btw, not in the book

https://web.archive.org/web/20160305011808/http://culturelist.org/cdr/article.cfm?id=142

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#450

Watched The Vast Of Night last night. Was pretty great. Has a lovely 50s americana feel to the whole thing, coupled with some clever and effective cinematography. It’s a relatively slow burn over its 90 minutes, spending almost all of its runtime with the two central characters. Supposedly based on two real life UFO events, would recommend this as a charming low key period sci-fi :+1:

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#451

Well up for this, cheers

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#452

Started in on Gardens of the Gods, Malazan vol 1 @kenako

Reading with a podcast that’s moved from weekly to monthly on account of their kids getting older, so only prologue and chapter one into it (about 8% through).

Anyway, really loved what I read. Such easy prose to read and yeah, no exposition, but it didn’t feel like it mattered.

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#453

Gardens of the Moon.

I’m currently in the second half of volume 10 (The Crippled God) for the second time. Amazing series, I think t has become my favourite book series ever.

I’m going to start reading the other Malazan novels after this, starting with Esslemont’s Night of Knives.

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#454

Ah yeah sorry my brain went into a fart there! The Garden of the Gods is the third Gerald Durrell novel about his childhood on Corfu which I had on audio book out of the library many many times as a kid and so is burned into my brain!

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#455

God these current LotR covers are properly dull aren’t they?

image
image523×807 46.2 KB

@ericVII

(Nice fonts though.)

#456

About as exciting as the books. :man_shrugging:

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#457

image

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#458

Nope.
Rubbish, boring books. It’s a hill I will die on. I was hoping the films would be less shite but I guess they don’t have Tom fucking Bombadil in them.

Bah!

I am really grumpy today, I think I should get off the site for a while

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#459

Hey no worries, my straight red was probably a bit harsh, everyone is allowed to slag off the things they don’t enjoy (the music board doesn’t have a monopoly on that).

does the hill you will die on have any barrow wights living beneath it by any chance?

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#460

hey hey, let’s focus on the real crime here: Theo posting about fantasy books in a sci-fi thread

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#461

I’m not sure, but there are some dodgy looking chancers hanging about.

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#462

I’m fully with you on this.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: incredible world building, but lumpen, grinding prose and stodgy storytelling.

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#463

looks like some sort of wh smith’s bestseller about a mystery of a young girl who disappeared or something. ‘the secret in the lake’

btw did i tell you i have a noted tolkien artist doing the cover art for the new dawnwalker album? :mage: :smiley:

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#464

Is it Magali Villeneuve