Metal Reviews

neither, sorry! the Abercrombie one sounds great though.

can't get myself to finish Stardust. ugh. dunno why. just so boring.

Still reading The Name of the Wind and Path of Daggers (#8 Wheel of Time). The Abercrombie bibliography hasn't arrived in my mail yet so I thought I'd start The Hero of Ages (#3 Final Empire) by Brandon Sanderson. Anyone read?

Started a Dance With Dragons. So nice to read a Tyrion chapter again.

finished Stardust out of loyalty to Neil Gaiman. it's ok, but nothing special. i think he's much better when he's grabbing our world and making it magical, rather than when he's making it all up from the start. it's like a succession of random fantasy elements with little actually binding them together.

now reading Pereira Maintains, in Portuguese, it's written by an italian but takes place in Salazar's Portugal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereira_Maintains

Finished Zadie Smith's White Teeth today. It was good, managed to find a nice balance between serious and fun, although at times it had an obvious drum to beat.

Starting Katherine Kurtz' Deryni Rising today, get mah fantasy on.

Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence
Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

Golden Apples of the Sun; Ray Bradbury
The Road To Serfdom;Friedrich Hayek
Children of the Jedi;Barbara Hambly
Brave New World; Aldous Huxley

I do not love that Star Wars trilogy.

Yeah, definitely not starting off very good. I took a break from it and am finishing Revelations int he LOTF series.

Mildly tempted to finish the Yuuzhan Vong stuff, but sorta wanting to convince the old lady to start reading expanded universe after she loved the newest television series a whole bunch.

The Vong material is expansive, comics/novels. It'd take me a while to finish I have to finish Revelations, then Dark nest, and then I'll start that maybe. The early NJO stuff like the Jedi Academy stuff has been the best so far.

Sir Terry Pratchett has died. :(

Star Wars: Balance point
Star Wars: Dark Nest III: The Swarm Wars
Max Stirner-The ego and his own

Currently reading:

Before They Are Hanged (The First Law #2) by Joe Abercrombie
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (current BBC TV adaptation is terrific)
Ovid - Metamorphoses

Just started:

Education of a Traveling Man - Louis L'amour
My Bloody Roots - Max Cavalera

Star Wars Fate of the Jedi series (Vortex)
HP Lovecraft The Thing on the doorstep and other weird stories
Freud; The future of an illusion

Just started this one and so far, so good. Picked up a nice copy for a decent price in spite of it being out of print in the States.

I should dig that out, was a good read. Not enough metal books around...

Started Don Quixote yesterday after years of putting it off.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit Stealth

read a few books recently:
Marcelo Rubens Paiva - Feliz Ano Velho ("Happy Old Year") - at age 20 he jumped headfirst into 50cm of water and became paralysed from the neck down, it's his account of the accident and the year after. a bit boring in parts, all his sex stories and stuff about his friends that i don't care about, it's quite good at the end when he's come to terms with what happened to him and is about to begin physiotherapy, but too little, too late.

MRP - O Homem Que Conhecia as Mulheres ("The Man Who Knew Women") - loved this one. first half is a collection of his articles, stories about stereotypical Brazilian characters and such, second half is the actual novel about "the man who knew women". it's pretty cool, and he manages to take a swipe at Brazil's kafkaesque bureaucracy while he's at it.

Andy Weir - The Martian - loved it. check it out.

R. Scott Bakker - The Prince of Nothing book I - recommended by MR.com's own Brahm K. amazing. didn't like the chapters from the female perspective (the prostitute and the chick Kellhus is nailing), the other ones were excellent. going to read the other ones in the series.

Ernest Cline - Ready Player One - loved the world-building, but hated some parts and especially his cardboard characters

Chico Buarque - Benjamin - pretty weird book, probably went over my head. but do check out "Budapest" by the same author, it's fantastic!

went 3/4 of the way into Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera in Spanish, didn't like it at all. loved 100 years, didn't like Chronicle of a Death Foretold, this one was too long. will probably finish it but don't feel tempted to read more from him after this...

also started Marching Powder (about a prison in La Paz, Bolivia), it's so poorly written i just had to stop reading it, and Nothing to Envy (about life in North Korea), which was quite good until some douchebag stole my fucking ipad. ugh.

now trying to read L'Élégance du Hérisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) in French, let's see how that goes.