The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 147

Speak of the Devil. Woke up to the announcement of the on sale date for Book 4-6 of Malazan books (August 29th). They're doing a discount of 10% for returning purchasers to bring the total to 135GBP. Very excited to get these books. The artwork is so much better than any other Malazan books.

 

thanks for the call out! I have to email them due to buying them second hand to get on an access list.

 

I much prefer the Sub Press Malazan covers to the BB versions

 

the naked hardcovers on the TBB ones are the best. Simonetti is a master

 

I will always have a soft spot for this terrible cover. Picked it up circa 2009 in a used bookstore on a whim based on the cover

 

all of the talk about the cover art is kinda funny to me, because I think the awesome cover artwork is a huge part of what drew me to trying these books in the first place

but I was always someone who completely went for books based on their covers, especially when I was younger

 

speaking of good covers, all the work Jeff Brown has been doing for TBB are some of my favorite covers ever. MS&T, 3BP, Rift War

 

Has anyone read these? They were on sale at BnN and I really liked the cover + pretty sure I saw positive TikTok reviews for the first one.

 

I went to visit family and they had a local bookstore and two story Barnes and Noble nearby. I got these. Peter Straub has written with Stephen King, so I’ll probably like him. And I’ve seen the other two recommended a lot in a group I’m in.

 

I haven't read any Straub but the other two are both really good.

 

Piranesi ruuuuuules.

I have heard nothing but good thing about This is How You Lose the Time War.

 

Straub’s Ghost Story is one of my favorite books. He was brilliant.

 

man seeing all the photos from people at Worldcon this past weekend gives me mad FOMO and I didn't even know the event existed until like 4 days ago

 

Mr X/ Peter Straub rules. His extremely dry writing can take some getting used to but its worth it

 

On book 4 (of 10) of the Matthew Corbett series from Robert McCammon, The Providence Rider, and I absolutely love this series so far. I read Speaks The Nightbird a couple of years ago and for whatever reason, after LOVING the book, I didn't continue until a couple of months ago. If you even remotely love historical fiction, especially during the colonial times, with a lot of mystery, excellent world-building, and top notch action set pieces, I'd highly recommend. It's a shame that McCammon isn't talked about more. I've yet to read a bad book from him.

 

What can anyone tell me about Naomi Novik?

 

I find her writing style is not for me. I recently read her The Scholomance YA books (I read Temeraire back in the day) and it's a lot of internal monologue/exposition that drags on for longer than it needs to. I also found that she was quite repetitive with said internal monologues.

 

started reading Will of the Many, very into so far

 

I know everyone loves that book but I wasn't huge on it. I'll absolutely be reading the 2nd book but only gave the first a 3.

In other news, I should have my hands on an ARC of the new Matt Dinniman, Operation Bouncehouse, pretty soon here. Very excited to dive in.

 

I finished my reread of The First Law trilogy. Absolutely loved it, just like I did the first time, based on Abercrombie's strength as a writer. Grimdark usually isn't my thing, and I definitely did not remember any of the overall story of the trilogy, so this was almost like reading them for the first time. I mainly remembered the characters, but even then, there was so much that I had forgotten about.

 

the characters truly are unforgettable

 

I've forgotten literally all of them.

 

the one that blew my mind was Bayaz - I remembered him as a character and the fact that he wasn't going to be just a straightforward typical wise fantasy wizard guy, but I had forgotten almost all of the details of his arc

 

oh you hate First Law? name 5 things you hate

I'll attempt to name 10 WoT characters if you can

 

I didn’t hate First Law. Just didn’t like it enough to read any more Abercrombie. I gave the trilogy 2, 3, and 3 stars according to GoodReads.

But five books I actually hated, in no particular order, would be, choosing from my GoodReads 1 stars:

1. Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man’s Fear
2. Donna Tartt - The Secret History
3. Rebecca Yarros - Iron Flame
4. Jeff VanderMeer - Dead Astronauts
5. George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo

And probably most controversially in this thread, Malazan 9.