What are You Reading Right now?

Just finished Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan. This is my first non-Sanderson book that I've finished since Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray LAST YEAR. It was long overdue.



I like Brian's work. In many ways, it was my introduction into the Flintlock Fantasy genre.* I remember seeing The Promise of Blood in a bookstore and thinking "that's cool." I didn't buy it for another year, until after I had discovered Sanderson and saw the recommendation on the front. From there, I read the entire Powder Mage trilogy, and have followed Brian's career with great interest. Long story short, I bought this book at launch (a day early actually!) in 2019, and only started reading it yesterday. I had forgotten many things, characters, and even plotlines, but I remembered them as the book went along. Two solid reading sessions later, and the book was done.

This book was a very solid conclusion to the Gods of Blood and Powder trilogy. It wasn't a perfect conclusion, or even a fist-pumping one, but it was a satisfying one. I wish Brian would write more books** in this world, but he's written almost exclusively in it for most of his career, so I understand the burnout. His next book, In the Shadow of Lightning from his Godglass trilogy, should come out next year. Outside of Mistborn 7, that may be my most looked forward to book of 2022. (Coming in at about 235k words, it's McClellan's longest book of his career...and a little over half the size of Oathbringer and Rhythm of War. But size doesn't make a book great!)

Weirdly enough, I felt like Brian could make a decent replacement for George RR Martin if he wanted to. Brian knows his warfare very well, and is great at writing brutal action scenes. His politicking, while not as good as Martin's or the show's, is leagues better than Sanderson's in my opinion. And his use of magic is both well-defined and esoteric. I think Brian needs to work on making me feel his characters' emotions though. Those moments don't happen as often as I'd like, and ASoIaF is FULL of moments that thrive off of the characters' emotions.


*Fantasy books defined by their use of flintlock guns and rifles. No revolvers or anything above about early 1800s tech here. Other writers in this genre include Brent Weeks (Lightbringer series), Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns series), Anthony Ryan (Draconis Memoria Trilogy), Peter V Brett (I can't remember any of his works), and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn: Wax & Wayne skirts the line, but is still considered to be a part of this genre)
*Brian has a plethora of novellas set in the world following characters like Tamas and Ben Styke and more. But I'm not a big novella-reader. Until they make a collection of the novellas, they'll sadly stay unread to me.

 

Well I finished Death Troopers, it wasn't great but it was kind of fun if only for the novelty of it. I decided to go ahead and knock out the prequel while I was on the subject but so far it's awful.

 

The entire thing does sound like a bloody weird premise.

Thanks mate, I always love to proxy-experience the books you read

 

Been a long long time since I read the Star Wars Hand of Thrawn Duology books.

Currently I'm re-reading Vision of the Future

 

Finished Thrawn: Treason a few days ago, almost finished with Lost Stars now... Will read Tarkin next.

 

books im reading in July

Fall of Hyperion
Wheel of Time: Dragon Reborn.

just started reading Fall of Hyperion but went back to re-reading some stuff in Hyperion to refresh my memory. Reading the priest's tale backstory in Hyperion for now. Then get back into Fall of Hyperion

 

I won't inflict this one on you bro. I'm not even sure where to start or what I could say because there might be children reading. If the first one was a kind of lazy mashup of two things that was slightly entertaining this one is just a guy throwing lots of different movies and books he's watched into a blender. He's even ripping off Taken in this one, even having a character giving a speech to a bounty hunter who abducted his sister that he possesses a "very special set of skills" to hunt him down with. Then just in case that was too subtle for you the girl who was abducted tell the flower that she can talk to through the Force (yes that's a thing apparently) that "We've been abducted.... Taken". It was like he wanted his character to do the trailer lines for a different franchise. The only bright side is that I hate most of the characters so much that I can not wait for the zombie apocalypse to wipe out this so-called Sith Academy. Which feels more like a Hogwarts for Emo juvenile delinquents. Sorry, I guess I did inflict this one on you Having said all that it's still not the worst book I've ever read or even the worst Star Wars book. At least not yet, I'm reading it pretty slowly as I can't get too excited or stay into it.

 

Reading Perry Rhodan series from the very start...

Issue #1

 

Even though I am quite busy reading Wheel of Time Dragon Reborn this entire month, im also reading these

the newest recent issue of Horror Hound
Children of Dune or try to start reading Winds of Dune
Mistborn Sequel Trilogy starting with Alloy of Law

 

I actually got a chapter or two into this a while back but ended up stopping. Not because there was anything wrong with it but a bunch of stuff happened and I was away from it for several days then didn't really remember what I'd read or feel like picking it back up so I just set it aside to start over at a later date. It's pretty good though, I've read quite a few books about the Stones over the years and another book by this author about the '85 Chicago Bears (he got to see them win the Super Bowl at 17 and tour with the Stones writing for Rolling Stone magazine straight out of college, lucky punk) and as is usually the case any books with quotes by Keith Richards, the model for Jack Sparrow, is sure to be entertaining. His own book is one of my favorite non-fiction books.

 

Finished reading the last 100 pages or so of Wheel of Time Dragon Reborn earlier today.

Now Im going to be reading Wheel of Time Shadow Rising

 

annihilation

 

Enjoy the saga! Journey Before Destination! Wait, wrong series...

 

I've read the majority of the Bond novels but unlike the films I don't find the novels to be binge material. They're not great but I enjoy them though once I'm done with one I usually feel like something else and move on for a while. This book is a stand-alone thing not really tied in with the other novels and has its own continuity. There are several continuities actually. The original Fleming timeline, the John Gardner one (I think the Benson series belongs in that one) and some that have their own continuity. Right around the time they rebooted the film series they sort of did the same with the books and went back to Fleming's original timeline so now they mostly take place in the 50s and 60s in-between the original novels. This one brought things back to the present (or 2011 when it was published at least) though it doesn't fall in the movie continuity either. Bond is clearly not Daniel Craig, M is a man (when Judi Dench was playing her at the time), Q is from India and Bond works for some fictional new organization that is outside of MI6. It's not bad so far though, but when these books usually fall apart it's about halfway through and I'm not there yet.

 

That's a pretty bold choice for somebody who doesn't normally like to read sci-fi But seeing as how you like Murder Mystery and Historical Fiction, it's probably a good one for you actually. There's a lot more plotting and intrigue, assassinations and power plays than there is zipping around through space and dog fights. And a lot of it, particularly the first book, reads a lot like historical fiction/non-fiction from the future.

 

animal farm

 

Finally getting around to this after meaning to for years. I figured I knew most of it from almost 40 years of being a Star Wars fan and it probably has a lot I don't care much about. Plus while I adored him as a kid as we both got older my feelings about George grew more complicated so it wasn't the MUST READ book it would have been for me at one time. But I still find him interesting and appreciate his work so I'm sure I'll enjoy it I'm only in the first chapter now though.

 

Currently reading Wheel of Time Fires of Heaven along with Children of Dune.

earlier this summer i was on the ball with reading the first 4 books of Wheel of Time but i noticed ive been a bit slow with reading Fires of Heaven. need to finish reading it so i can start on books 6 and 7 of Wheel of Time.

anyone read Winds of Dune by the way? i was sort of planning on getting that book before i started on re-reading Children of Dune but Winds of Dune with just the mother Jessica its pretty much a side story of what she was doing during Paul of Dune and Children of Dune. So I dunno if i even want to spend money and time on Winds of Dune or not next month