What book are you reading right now?

[Scary Faery]

Just started reading James Patterson's Max Ride: School's Out Forever. Lab report will be left to the last minute again. :roll:

[The Curious Orange]

Originally Posted by Iain Gibson

[...] science fiction stories with lots of inaccessible concepts and fantasy stories with lots of made-up names don't exactly help either genre escape from the ghetto.

As a reader, I agree with you. As an aspiring author, I wonder what to name the characters in my fantasy stories. While calling them Yatt'akhar and Cresseiawe may alienate some readers, calling them Kevin and Sharon will alienate more.



Anyway, finished the excellent Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. What an amazing book, and a worthy Hugo winner. Big, old-school SF concepts used as a background of a character-driven human drama. This is everything SF should be, and one of the best genre books I've read for many a year. Can't wait for the inevitable sequel.

Currently reading: Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb. Hobb writes the most beautiful, evocative prose, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the first two Tawny Man books, especially after the roller-coaster ride that was The Liveship Traders. I'm hoping this one pulls it's socks up a little.


And yeah, I have that problem in Waterstone's 3-for-2 sales as well. Although being half term, the Waterstone's on Oxford Street was more like a creché than a bookshop yesterday lunchtime. I went in, then came straight out...

[umopapisdn]

Originally Posted by Iain Gibson

Marcus Sedgwick's The Book of Dead Days, which I happened across in the adult section of WH Smith in Oxford Street, despite it appearing to be a 'children's' book (but who can tell the difference these days with all the adults reading Lemony Snicket or JK Rowling).

Nice cover design, blurb led me to believe it might be interesting, and neither let me down. Very readable - definitely high up in my recommendations of juvenile fantasy thus far.

I found the sequel to that in a charity shop recently and picked it up on spec; I've just been looking out for a copy of TBDD to read first. Adult section eh? No wonder I couldn't find it....

[staticgirl]

Richard Morgan 'Woken Furies' which is good but...

Having trouble getting through it because it really needs me to sit there and dive deeply into it and get caught up in it for hours and I haven't had hours to spend on it the last couple of weeks and it hasn't been an addictive enough read to force me...

(which reminds me must renew my library books as I've still got 10 to go...)

[Sass1]

Originally Posted by umopapisdn

The Big Over Easy. I got as far as the kitten-headed haddock and thought, "That isn't funny. Hang on, I haven't laughed yet. Not once." I'm about three-quarters of the way through now and still haven't laughed. A couple of snorts, and I liked Spongg Castle, but I can't see myself bothering with the Nursery Crime series again.

I'm with you on that score - I can't understand how someone who started out so promisingly, with The Eyre Affair, has fallen so far from ihs starting point...

Originally Posted by umopapisdn

Sounds rather Thomas Burnett Swann-ish - have you ever read any of his? Day of the Minotaur is a good comparison point if you haven't.

I haven't read TBS... The books are actually a reversal of Rick Riordan's funny and witty "Percy Jackson" series, but without the fun or the wit... :shock:

Anyhoo, next up will be Jeanette Winterson's new Young Adult book, Tanglewreck - which I'm totally curious about !

[Sass1]

Originally Posted by umopapisdn

I found the sequel to that in a charity shop recently and picked it up on spec; I've just been looking out for a copy of TBDD to read first. Adult section eh? No wonder I couldn't find it....

Sedgwick is a fantastic new writer for Young Adults - I thoroughly recommend his debut novel, Floodland, which is more SF than fantasy and is an assured first novel... Also highly recommended is his The Foreshadowing which is an historical-fantasy novel (it's fantasy but set in WW1) - and is very well researched (says the girl with a History degree in WW1 !) I also thoroughly enjoyed Witch Hill... I've got a couple more of his books here, waiting to be read, but the Dead Days two titles were out on loan *again* this morning - I may have to resort to reserving them in order to get hold of them.

[umopapisdn]

Originally Posted by Sass1

I'm with you on that score - I can't understand how someone who started out so promisingly, with The Eyre Affair, has fallen so far from ihs starting point...

Got cocky, perhaps. Oh well....

Originally Posted by Sass1

I haven't read TBS... The books are actually a reversal of Rick Riordan's funny and witty "Percy Jackson" series, but without the fun or the wit... :shock:

Which I haven't read, I'm afraid.... Swann is well worth tracking down (as I said in Pendragon's obscurities thread); sort of Romantic pastoral fantasy often written from the point of view of nymphs or Minotaurs or what-have-you dealing with human invaders or incomers.

[Sass1]

Originally Posted by umopapisdn

Got cocky, perhaps. Oh well....

Or lost the plot ?

Originally Posted by umopapisdn

Which I haven't read, I'm afraid.... Swann is well worth tracking down (as I said in Pendragon's obscurities thread); sort of Romantic pastoral fantasy often written from the point of view of nymphs or Minotaurs or what-have-you dealing with human invaders or incomers.

I recommend Rick Riordan's books... I'll look out for Swann in the new year - I've got so much to read between now and then that I don't want to add someone else to the towering piles of books TBR !

[umopapisdn]

Originally Posted by Sass1

Or lost the plot ?

It's got plot, it just doesn't seem to have much else. Remarkably uninvolving!

Originally Posted by Sass1

I recommend Rick Riordan's books... I'll look out for Swann in the new year - I've got so much to read between now and then that I don't want to add someone else to the towering piles of books TBR !

OK - I'll keep an eye open for him!

[Iain Gibson]

Originally Posted by The Curious Orange

As a reader, I agree with you. As an aspiring author, I wonder what to name the characters in my fantasy stories. While calling them Yatt'akhar and Cresseiawe may alienate some readers, calling them Kevin and Sharon will alienate more.

There are several ways around this. The one that I've been using for one of the comic books I've been writing is to use words that describe a character in some way as names. So from off the farm I have Thatch, Bull and Goose. Then I have Kat (a thief), Cage (a sheriff), Keyes (the sheriff's deputy) and Ward (a bodyguard). It's a bit of an obvious method, but it avoids the dreaded apos'trophe n'ames.

The other main method is to use classical names. There are certain names that are still in use that can work in a lot of fantasy fiction - names with Biblical, Greek, or Latin roots in particular.

There's nothing wrong with using a made up name per se, but they're usually better when they're mixed with the other methods - and made up names often benefit from some connection to a language - Tolkein and his Bagginses and Gandalfs didn't do too badly with that (not to mention that he has a Sam and a Tom in with the mix).