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[Cthulhu]

I picked up The Rise of David Levinsky and a double from 1969, ancient as far as I'm concerned, especially since it's scifi.  The introduction to the first book, actually a collection of short storiesn talks about how the writer started out like many introverted and overintellectual teens, reading and loving scifi, then moving on to capital-L Literature, before returning disillusioned to scifi.  It's interesting because it fits me to a tee, and his book happens to be the first in my return.

The story itself is very good, and completely different from what I expected.  Given the medium, and the name, "Final War," I was expecting pulp military action and got a surreal, dreamy, often absurd story in the vein of Apocalypse Now or The Hurt Locker.  The story repeats, without much attention to strict chronology, three perspectives on the same story, of a company of soldiers fighting back and forth over a stretch of land.  While the basic story is the same, details are markedly different beyond what could be attributed to perspective, which helps to give it a hazy dreamlike feel.

Not counting it yet, though, I'll add it to my list when I finish the collection of stories.  Just putting down my thought about this old story nobody's heard of.

[vagel7]

Spoiler: 5/52 (click to show/hide)

1.A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin - 959 pages
2.Diamonds are Forever - Ian Fleming - 304 pages
3.A Rakvere novel(Rakvere romaan) - Jaan Kross - 372 pages
4.The Good Firm(Hea firma) - Armin Kõomägi - 150 pages
5.The Cossacks - Lev Tolstoi - 167 pages

Next up is a dual project, The Prince by Machiavelli and a book from the "Berti päevikud" series. The series is a fun collection of books about the life of a comedic teenager.

I must add, I definitely enjoy Tolstoi's style and will pick up another one of his books as soon as I can.

[Doomblade187]

Spoiler:  So far: (click to show/hide)

The Way of Shadows (Brent Weeks, 645 pages)
Ghostmaker (Dan Abnett, 288 pages)

The Way of Shadows was a reread which I enjoyed at least as much the second time around as the first, with a nice gritty, dark tone to it, and Ghostmaker was an excellent read, with great action and characterization in my opinion.

[Flying Dice]

Caves of Ice
Sandy Mitchell
31/1/13


This is what happens when I have free time. Also, huzzah for palindrome dates!

[Cthulhu]

Spoiler: 3/52 (click to show/hide)

The Octopus - Frank Norris
House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Final War and Other Fantasies - K.M. O'donnel

The collection of stories is pretty hit or miss.  For one, it's old as hell for science fiction; like I mentioned it was published in 1969 and some of the stories were written way before then.  Final War is probably the best, and there are a few other gems.  Some of them are referential, or parodies of magazines that I've never read, or just so old they're weird. 

EDIT:  Tried to read the other half of the double, a pulp novel called Treasure of Tau Ceti.  Can't do it.  It's so pulpy the pulp has pulp, and not in a good way.  It's bad, is what I'm trying to say; it reads like fanfiction.

[i2amroy]

And book 7 is done. Rhapsody: Child of Blood comes in at 656 pages and is a fairly good book, plus it's been so long since I read it that I'm seeing all sorts of things I don't remember from the previous reading.

Spoiler: Books Finished (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon

Total Pages: 3388

[vagel7]

Spoiler: 6/52 (click to show/hide)

1.A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin - 959 pages
2.Diamonds are Forever - Ian Fleming - 304 pages
3.A Rakvere novel(Rakvere romaan) - Jaan Kross - 372 pages
4.The Good Firm(Hea firma) - Armin Kõomägi - 150 pages
5.The Cossacks - Lev Tolstoi - 167 pages
6.Berts befrielse - Sören Olsson and Anders Jacobsson - 160 pages

I just love these books. They are these anecdotal stories of the life of an average teenage boy in Sweden. The stories come with all of the difficulties that a teenage boy experiences.

[Simmura McCrea]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Three Musketeers - 520
Summer Knight - 405
Look to Windward - 403
Player of Games - 308
Death Masks - 408
A Memory of Light - 909
Harry Potter 1 - 288
Harry Potter 2 - 319
Harry Potter 3 - 408
Harry Potter 4 - 684
4652 pages total

10 finished. I think I'll manage 52 in the year at this rate, unless I run out of books.

[i2amroy]

Book 8 falls. An Artificial Night comes in at 354 pages. It's an October Daye novel, which I believe somebody else in the thread said they were planning on reading, and so far the series has been better then I originally expected it to be. I guess I'm just a sucker for the investigative human+magic PI novels.

Spoiler: Books Finished (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire

Total Pages: 3742

[fqllve]

It turns out my novel for the week was only 35,000 words. I'm going to count it though because although the story itself was shy, the book came with two introductions of at least 5000 words each, and because it's a bit late for me to read something else.

-- Week of Jan. 27th

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole [7/10]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Considered to be the first gothic novel, Otranto does indeed lay down many of the conventions of the genre. Walpole said his was an attempt to merge the too fanficul romance with the realism of the modern novel, and I feel he did an adequate job. There is a good amount of suspense in the story, however many of the supernatural elements seem more out of place than seemlessly merged. The giant helmet appears from nowhere with no explanation until late in the novel, the walking portrait seems similarly thrown in, although I must admit that the mere suggestion of ghosts was a significantly more effective element than any other. The plot moves along quickly, at the beginning far too quickly in fact, where every paragraph seems to introduce a major plot point, but as the novel progresses Walpole's skill in structuring it does as well, though his prose does not improve and casts the novel as one of the most didactic I've ever read.

The ending is bittersweet, mixing the tragic death of the most sympathetic, most virtuous, character with the revelation of the true hero's lineage and his union to a more realistically flawed, yet still kind, character. The villain ends in tragedy that destroys even those of his house, no matter how great their innocence, and the false hero is deprived both of his true desires, one of which was so great he was willing to forsake his honor. Thus, the novel ends justly, according to some ideas of what is just, with a hint of tragedy that leaves the reader properly unfulfilled, which indeed will become a staple of gothic romances. All told the book was quite good, especially for being so early a novel, and the biggest flaw I can see is the major mid-plot retcon that occurs at the beginning of chapter 3 and is presented as a twist. It's easy to forgive though, and perhaps even justify as a fault of inadequate foreshadowing, considering how burgeoning was the format when the book was written.

[i2amroy]

I'd like to report finishing book number 9, having just been reading since my last post here. Late Eclipses, the sequel to my previous book is finished and comes in at 372 pages. Not bad for three and a half hours eh?

Spoiler: Books Finished (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire

Total Pages: 4114

[Muz]

2/26

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be - Jack Canfield
2. Mastery - Robert Greene
3. The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg
4. Man Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - John Gray
5. The 50th law - 50 Cent/R. Greene
6. Android UI Fundamentals - Jason Ostrander
7. The Paleo Solution - Robb Wolf
8-26: will figure it out later

Kinda seems slow, but I'm switching several books simultaneously

[palsch]

Book 8 falls. An Artificial Night comes in at 354 pages. It's an October Daye novel, which I believe somebody else in the thread said they were planning on reading, and so far the series has been better then I originally expected it to be. I guess I'm just a sucker for the investigative human+magic PI novels.

Yeah, I read this series a couple of weeks back at about one a day. Not my genre at all, but I really enjoyed them. Then again, I already knew I liked the author and had heard a lot of good things about them.

Stalled a bit this last week. Really enjoying Blue Remembered Earth but just not finding as much time for books since I reinstalled Planetside 2.

Updated complete reading list;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Charles Stross
Merchant Princes series ;
1 - The Family Trade
2 - The Hidden Family
3 - The Clan Corporate
4 - The Merchant's War
5 - The Revolution Business
6 - The Queen of Trades
From the Laundry Files series;
The Apocalypse Codex

Seanan McGuire
October Daye series;
1 - Rosemary and Rue
2 - A Local Habitation
3 - An Artificial Night
4 - Late Eclipses
5 - One Salt Sea
6 - Ashes of Honor
InCryptid series;
Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special (March 2013)
Newsflesh series (as Mira Grant);
Blackout (re-read with Mark Reads to laugh at him)

China Mieville
New Crobuzon series;
Iron Council
Others;
Embassytown
Kraken
Railsea
The City & the City

Alastair Reynolds
Blue Remembered Earth

Iain M. Banks
The Hydrogen Sonata

Richard Morgan
A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy;
The Steel Remains
The Cold Commands
Others;
Market Forces
Black Man (AKA Thirteen)

Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon
Snow Crash
Baroque Cycle;
Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World

Karl Schroeder
Ventus

David Foster Wallace
The Pale King

[Ancre]

Finished another one, Belfast Confetti, by Ciaran Carson.

I read most of it while sick, so I don't really know what exactly I have read. I left it with a general impression of violence, miscomprehension and lack of communication, the author clearly talks about Belfast and the Troubles I guess. It looks like a good book. I should read it once more, when I can concentrate better.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jean Giraudoux - La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (the Trojan war will not happen)
Jean Giraudoux - Electre
Jean Giraudoux - Ondine
Ciaran Carson - Belfast Confetti

[Kansa]

3/52

Gardens of the moon by Steven Erikson

I really need to start reading some shorter books if I want to be able to finish this challenge

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Dune
2. Consider Phlebas
3. Gardens of the moon