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It's the shortest month, so read faster....

What are your reading in February?

I'm hoping to finish up:
, and

Then I also plan to read:
, and maybe

Finishing the Obelisk Gate and the first World of Tiers novel. Starting to check out Leigh Brackett. Some other stuff on 17th century Protestant mysticism.

Currently reading Untouched by Human Hands by Robert Sheckley. The earliest collection of Sheckley short stories.

G33z3r wrote: "It's the shortest month, so read faster...."

Hahaha. Not sure it works like that, but we can try!

I have just started a re-read of Shaman's Crossing, which I am enjoying very much, more so than the Tawny Man or Liveship Traders trilogies. I loved the Farseer trilogy but got bored with the subsequent series with everything set in the same world, so this is a nice change of pace.

I'm also planning on continuing with my re-read of TWoT series: A Crown of Swords is up next.

I'm awaiting delivery of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld the anthology Rogues and The Feline Plague. I'm also going to see what's in the library this weekend, and what I need to reserve! So lots of good book reading to look forward to :)

Currently around 200 pages into The Well of Ascension so the only real concrete reading plans I have for this month is finishing this and The Hero of Ages.

After that I have other books in mind to read but will depend on my mood and availability. If The Girl in the Tower is available around here in paperback then that will probably be next, but if I can't find it then maybe Null States will come next.

¡°Blood Song¡± - Anthony Ryan
¡°King¡¯s Dark Tidings¡± - Kel Kade

Been reading a lot from female authors lately. Now interested in reading more books by male authors. Because both are equally AWSOME!

is going a little slowly but I'm enjoying it.

Duskfall by Christopher Husberg really impressed me. It's not often that I find an epic fantasy that has such a new story line any more & isn't just weird. It's his debut novel, which is even better. I gave it a 4 star review here:
/review/show...

Finished up The Master Mind of Mars by Burroughs, found the title kind of funny seeing as the previous book was about minds without bodies but this book didn't have anything to do with that. This is book 6 and Burroughs still hasn't run out of interesting premise to drop his characters into, in this case what happens if you had the ability to transplant brains into other bodies.

I dug through my eReader to see if I had anything Dragon related, found a self-published one that I had downloaded for free some time ago so figured I'd give it a go - Rise of the Dragons by Morgan Rice It has a ton of positive reviews but there are a lot of very negative reviews, so will see how it turns out.

The Underground Railroad, Between Riverside and Crazy, Stiletto and finishing (yuck) Skitter.

Right now, Caine's Mutiny

Gonna continue with Theft of Swords, hopefully get into the next one.

Reading Rogues for variety.

Getting into Neverwhere like I haven't gotten into a book in a while.

I normally don't mention any manga I might be reading but since someone had recommended it on my dragon thread I'm trying out Ë®Éñ¤ÎÉúÙ— 1 Suijin no Hanayome 1 , it looks very cute. I'm debating if manga counts as a graphic novel for my bingo challenge, after all they are shelved differently in stores/libraries but are usually next to each other. I do have a real non-dragon graphic novel in my to-read list though so might just stick with that one.

Dark Side of the Moon by Jeramey Kraatz

It's going to be a Brandon Sanderson month for me. When I'm finished with Iron Gold by Pierce Brown, I might start on Edgedancer, then Warbreaker and finally Oathbringer. Someone mention in another group discussion that I should read certain books by Brandon Sanderson before Oathbringer beside the obvious WoK, WoR. I'm still not sure which book they are so I'm guessing.

Finally starting the 3rd book in The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors. It's been almost 4 years since I read the 2nd book so I made a quick refresher trip to Wikipedia and off I go to post-apocalypse America.

Will finish The White Dragon tonight, definitely one of my favorites, Ruth is so sweet. Also for those that wondered how the current natives of Pern managed to forget so much of their origins, it gets explained more here as they start finding all the old artifacts that remained behind, and also explained why there weren't that many artifacts to find in the north.

My next dragon book will be Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. I'd heard about it when it first came out so when I saw it in the library decided to give it a try. Of course I'm supposed to be reading books I already own, not picking up even more books...but I couldn't resist. The Pern books are proving to be on the fast and short side so I can squeeze in a couple extras :)

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn is a thin murder mystery plot laid in a post environmental collapse world. Mostly it wants to explore the sustainable (mostly agricultural) society that's sprung up after the Fall, a sort of voluntarily controlled world that has near total central planning (that you can opt out of if you want to be universally shunned.) I found that society totally unconvincing, unless the die-off only killed the stupid, greedy, violent and Catholic (birth control is mandatory unless you earn a "banner" proving you have the resources to raise a child.) (I'm still using it as my Genre-Blender :)

The Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone was the 6th and the most difficult of his Craft novels for me to grok. Couldn't wrap my head around the twin cities sharing the same location in some sort of parallel dimensions triggered by your belief. (Brings back an older Kai from Full Fathom Five and and an older Tara from Three Parts Dead & Four Roads Cross.)

Just finished Magician: Apprentice and moving on to the second part of it Magician: Master hoping to finish the whole Riftwar series. My commute to work is quite long so I finish books relatively quickly.

I'm in the middle of reading the short story "The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" by Catherynne M. Valente in a short story anthology. I feel like my brain is about to explode. I have to put the book down every couple paragraphs and walk away because she crams so many ideas and so much imagery into each paragraph that it's hard to take in. Several paragraphs I've re-read, some more than twice, and I keep finding new ideas or descriptive phrases that I somehow missed the first time through. I'm completely blown away by this. Has anyone else read it?

If you want to read it free, it's available here:

Part 1 -

Part 2 -

Also, has anyone else read anything by Valente? If I was going to pick up one of her books, where would be a good place to start?

Randy wrote: "I'm in the middle of reading the short story "The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" by Catherynne M. Valente in a short story anthology. I feel like my brain is about to explode. I hav..."

Radiance is one of my very favourite books, and probably the most brain-explodey that she wrote. Palimpsest is also very good. I also loved the short story by her we read earlier this year, "The Future is Blue".

Brendan wrote: "Radiance is one of my very favourite books, and probably the most brain-explodey that she wrote."

I'm going to move Radiance onto my "must purchase and read soon" list. Actually, that list didn't exist until just now. I'm going to invent it just so I can put one of her books on it.

Schooled in Magic by Christopher G. Nuttall

Finished The Well of Ascension and moving on to The Hero of Ages later today. Rated WoA 4/5 mostly cause it was a bit too heavy on the romance for my tastes but otherwise was a quite awesome book. Sanderson definitely doesn't fall into the trap of doing what he leads the reader to expect him to do. As much as I was becoming "suspicious" of certain things happening in the book (view spoiler)[ (After Sazed reads about the Holy First Witness/the ska start calling him that I had the urge to back re-read the prophecies from earlier but never did) (hide spoiler)] that ending was just mindblowingly awesome. As someone who gets annoyed when things don't add up in a way that makes logical sense or just seem like they come easy...have to say Sanderson did an amazing job. Love the way everything is so intricately woven together. It's genius.

Randy wrote: "I'm in the middle of reading the short story "The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" by Catherynne M. Valente in a short story anthology. I feel like my brain is about to explode. I hav..."

I've read In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice These are books of short stories with an overarching connection between the stories. She is a wonderful writer who creates a beautiful strange world. I highly recommend both books.

Kivrin wrote: "I've read In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice These are books of short stories with an overarching connection between the stories. She is a wonderful writer who creates a beautiful strange world. I highly recommend both books."

Thanks for the recommendations. I really like her style.

Randy wrote: "Kivrin wrote: "I've read In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice These are books of short stories with an overarching connection between the stories. She is a wonderful writer who c..."

I also love Valente. Deathless is one of the best books I read last year.

Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen ¨C millennia in the future, the universe is populated by dozens of uplifted mammals from Earth, but their creator humans are gone. The Fants (bipedal Elephants, like Babar with opposable thumbs) have a technique for speaking with the dead.

Kind of odd, and at first I was disappointed the "alien" Fant seemed so human, until I learned they were human creations. (I'm claiming it as non-human PoV Bingo :)

Wish I'd known at the start there was a glossary at the end.

I started The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman, the last part of the trilogy His Dark Materials, if I read faster as some suggest I¡¯ll try to finish more than this trilogy, there¡¯s more than one that i just have one more book to go.

G33z3r wrote: "Wish I'd known at the start there was a glossary at the end. "

Many times I've wished SF books had a glossary. With all the unfamiliar names, races, locations, weapons etc. it's hard to keep track. I've taken to making my own glossary as I go along, especially with longer books.

Garyjn wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Wish I'd known at the start there was a glossary at the end. "

Many times I've wished SF books had a glossary...."

I remember making notes while reading Hurley's The Mirror Empire, only to belatedly discover the Glossary at the end!

In Barsk most of the uplifted species are referred to with shortened forms of their latin scientific classifications. So uplifted Sloths are called Bradys (for Bradypus variegatus), uplifted Yaks are Bos. (Cans for Dogs and Urs for Bears are at least terms I knew of, others I was looking up on Wikipedia to make my cheat sheet, only to find it all laid out at the end of the book.)

With eBooks I just never notice what's at the back.

Finished reading this month:

G33z3r wrote: "I remember making notes while reading Hurley's The Mirror Empire, only to belatedly discover the Glossary at the end! .."

I normally make it a point not to consult maps or glossaries in books, but that was a tough one.

Must admit jumping around an e-book is painful so I don't bother.

Talking of glossaries, just finished reading Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. That was a really good book, I enjoyed it very much, I expected it to be more fluffy as a middle grade book but it's more along the lines of Uprooted in complexity. The worldbuilding was excellent. And it had the most amusing glossary ever. I don't have the book with me here, but to paraphrase it best I can from memory (note the odd name of Samsam is a geographical region):

Seraphina - our illustrious protagonist
scrawny sackbut player - exactly as described
Regent of Samsam - the regent of samsam

It went on to give humorous or tongue-in-cheek descriptions of almost every character, though the book itself is quite serious.

Time to return to Pern now and finish the Harper Hall trilogy with Dragondrums

My plan is to read through the King Killer Chronicles. Already finished up the last two books of the Lightbringer series.

Finished Rise of the Dragons by Morgan Rice...as a concept it was ok but it had so many lesser flaws that could have been resolved by just reading through the book, plus there's a YA character that thinks the world should revolve around her, that, well, I just couldn't like it very much. Given that this author is as prolific than Mercedes Lackey, maybe I'm not surprised that the quality suffers (I've never read Lackey but I'm actually assuming she's good, but not everyone can be like her). So won't be continuing with the series. Oddly it has a lot of positive reviews, perhaps YA readres are less discerning of the writing quality, having less experience with better books? And whining YA female characters are pretty common in very popular books too, but they just make me cringe. Especially as I read Seraphina at the same time, so I know sensible YA girl characters are possible.

Now back to Barsoom with A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs which has yet to fail to be a fun read.

I'm halfway through The Graveyard Book and it's awesome! I'll probably finish Protector of the Small quartet in February, also enjoying it very much :)

Provenance by Ann Leckie was a fun read. Set in a new area of her Ancillary Universe, I might even call it a subtle comedy of manners if it didn't keep killing characters.

I'm Bingo-ing it as Set in Space.

Huh...weird. So in publishing order (and I checked my actual books since I wondered if GR got it wrong) The White Dragon comes before Dragondrums in the Pern series. But it's clear the events in Dragondrums come first, The White Dragon even refers to them. My guess is McCaffrey actually wrote them at more or less the same time but one came out a year before the other :)

Since I really enjoyed Seraphina, reading Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

G33z3r wrote: "Provenance by Ann Leckie was a fun read. Set in a new area of her Ancillary Universe, I might even call it a subtle comedy of manners if it didn't keep killing char..."

Sounds interesting! I¡¯ll have to check it out! :)

I just finished some dystopia ¡ª The Machine Stops and Parable of the Sower ¡ª both good, even if they reinforce my pessimism for the future...

My next sci-fi reads for the month with be The Lathe of Heaven, The Time Machine and Broken Angels, perhaps in that order. :)

I finished reading Murder by Munchausen by M.T. Bass(Murder by Munchausen Mysteries Book #1). I am reading Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive 2.5). I plan to read The Darknet: Murder by Munchausen Future Crime Mystery by M.T. Bass (Murder by Munchausen Mysteries Book #2) next.

Forging Hephaestus by Drew Hayes

Yea. Feb is a beautiful month. Reading always makes me feel alive.

Currently, I am reading -

The Denial of Death - Ernest Becker

You're Born an Original, Don't Die a Copy - John Mason

:-)

I am reading The Great Zoo of China

with a different cover, from the library. I brought this home and gave it to my husband saying "Jurassic Park with dragons." He got maybe quarterway before handing the book back to me and saying, "you were right, Jurassic Park with dragons." Now I am reading, and it is indeed Jurassic Park with dragons, except much less well written.

It stood on a crag. It was the biggest specimen she had seen and it appeared to be intelligent. It was black and red.
It glowered at them.

Not actual lines but close enough. The author seems to have written by dictation to page, has many one-line paragraphs of description, and has a bad case of it-itis. In fact the whole book is infested with crawling its.
Even as an obvious derivative, the book could have been made enjoyable and awesome by a good writer. Next time I would suggest allowing an editor to edit (what do they do any more?) and doing a search for 'it' before submitting to a publisher.
The body count is already high. Do I keep reading?

Andrea wrote: "Huh...weird. So in publishing order (and I checked my actual books since I wondered if GR got it wrong) The White Dragon comes before Dragondrums in the Pern series. But it's clear the events in Dr..."

The Harper Hall trilogy is Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums. Prior to these, Dragonflight and Dragonquest are the original volumes. The White Dragon ties all the books together by blending the characters and locations, and like the Harper books is written with a younger main character. No doubt in my mind that it was the last-written of those six, but as it happens this was the book I read first. Anne said that the cover art was what sold TWD.

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb was as disappointing as his Soldier's Son trilogy. Great world, interesting magic system, but his writing doesn't do a thing for me. I gave it a 3 star review here:
/review/show...

Jim wrote: "Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb was as disappointing as his Soldier's Son trilogy. Great world, interesting magic system, but his writing doesn't do a thing for me. ..."

Minor point, since it does not affect your enjoyment of the books: Robin Hobb is a lady, who also writes prehistoric fantasy as Megan Lindholm.
I've read the three Assassin books and my main complaint is that they are too long. Could do with editing to keep on track. Not enough 'wins' for the reader through the telling and a bit rushed at the end.

Thanks, Clare. Tough to know the sex with Robins. I agree with your complaints.