Fantasy Book Club discussion

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you had a good 2017 and that 2018 is going to be even better!

As it´s custom, share your reads in this thread. Will leave December 2017 open for about two more days, or until I come back on.

Happy New Year all.

My Jan plans are to finish Neuromancer and read Persepolis Rising

My January reads for right now is A Game of Thrones, The Princess Bride, Magician and then the Empire Series.

I'm working on the Fatemarked Epic Series by David Estes. I just finished book 2 and am thoroughly hooked. I hope to finish the rest of the series before the end of the month.

I plan to read Malice for the group read and 'Salem's Lot for another group read.

Happy New Year to everyone!
I'll start 2018 with The Princess Bride in audio and the French translation of Luftslottet som sprängdes.

Still reading King Hereafter, which looks like it'll take up a fairly significant part of my month.

I started Lotus Blue but pretty much stopped reading when I had flu. However, I did start listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora and can't believe I've left it so long. It's great.

Happy New Year everybody
My plan for this month is to finish A Fortress of Grey Ice (the holidays have delayed my progress on this)
I'll probably join in the group read next.
I was kindly given The Corefor Xmas so I plan on finishing up the month with that.
However..
Has anyone read this? I read the first 4, one after the other, about 18 months ago. I don't recall them as being particularly intricate but does anyone advise a re-read before i go into 5?

Happy New Year all, I've been a member here for over a year and often seen books I would like to read with you but so many are series and I'm a stickler for enjoying getting lost in a single series from cover of book 1 to cover of book x so I haven't yet, aiming to in 2018 though! So vote for standalones ;)

I'm currently working through The Dark Tower series and really enjoying it!

Daniel wrote: "Happy New Year all, I've been a member here for over a year and often seen books I would like to read with you but so many are series and I'm a stickler for enjoying getting lost in a single series..."

Unfortunately, everyone wants to write series' these days. Every now and then we might have a good strand alone. I think it would be great if Goodreads had a Best Stand-alone Fantasy category in their year end book awards. The good thing about our group is we do have a series challenge so you can join in that.

Rereading Gardens of the Moon

Trying to power through Death's Mistress... man, what a slog. I'm 100 pages away from the end and it can't come soon enough.

Afterwards though, The Princess Bride and finishing a Laini Taylor book, so that makes me happy.

Daniel wrote: "Happy New Year all, I've been a member here for over a year and often seen books I would like to read with you but so many are series..So vote for standalones ;)."

I enjoy reading good standalones as well. If you nominate a title for consideration in the group poll you may be surprised.

BTW, here's a list I found on Goodreads "Best Standalone Fantasy". I've only glanced through it, but it could be promising.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

FYI...anyone can add titles to this list.

I keep refusing to start new series but fail miserably.

Oh but our Group Read is a stand-alone :)

Helen wrote: "Oh but our Group Read is a stand-alone :)"


Next months also.

Finished my first book for the year City of Stairs and loved it. Here is my review for it.

Finished my first book also. A Game of Thrones. It was really good but it wasn't a 5 star. First book was almost identical to the first season of the show. Not sure if I'm going to continue the series.

Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen is a fantasy set in a post apocalyptic SF world, a nice blend & a precursor to his 'Swords' series. I haven't read it for years & thought it aged very well. I gave it a 4 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Finished my first book, The Princess Bride. An entertaining tale full of silly characters, but the 'autobiographic' passages annoyed me. A good book, but I heard so much about it (and the movie) that I was expecting more.

Now on to Norse Mythology in ebook and Last Argument of Kings in audio!

Hope the New Year is bringing everyone goodness. My Jan plans is to finish Old Man's War and read Armada.

My first fantasy read this year has been A sorcerer rises by Guy Antibes. I enjoyed the magic system and the school side of it was a bit different although I do seem to be reading a lot of main character goes to school books lately. The character development and dialogue were a bit stilted though. Not sure if I liked enough to read any more. I might wait until the author finishes the story😀

Helen wrote: "I started Lotus Blue but pretty much stopped reading when I had flu. However, I did start listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora and can't believe I've left it so long...."

The Lies of Locke Lamora has been on my list for a long time.

I'm off to a limping start. Have been dealing with lots of car trouble. But enjoying Small Gods and will read The Princess Bride after.

I finished The Princess Bride. I know this doesn't happen very often but the movie was better than the book. Rated it 3 stars and all I have to say is "Life is not fair but it's more fair than death". On to Magician.

Tnkw01 wrote: "I finished The Princess Bride. I know this doesn't happen very often but the movie was better than the book. Rated it 3 stars and all I have to say is "Life is not fair but it's more f..."

That was fast!

Helen wrote: "I started Lotus Blue but pretty much stopped reading when I had flu. However, I did start listening to The Lies of Locke Lamora and can't believe I've left it so long...."

I've been wanting to read The Lies of Locke Lamora for a long time as well. I heard the audiobook is particularly good. Is that the case?

It is excellent, I enjoyed it so much. I’m planning to listen to the next one.

Just started The Traitor Son Cycle by Miles Cameron.

Finished A Fortress of Grey Ice.
Now on to the group read....

Finished The Edge Chronicles 1: The Curse of the Gloamglozer: First Book of Quint and Last Argument of Kings in audio.

I'm almost through The Last Unicorn as well, and just started The Black Company in audio.

All 4 books count toward my sub-genre challenge! Muhahaha

Virginie wrote: "Finished The Edge Chronicles 1: The Curse of the Gloamglozer: First Book of Quint and Last Argument of Kings in audio.

I'm almost through The Last Unicorn ..."

OMG! So your going to have challenges completed in a very short time. Great job.

I am over halfway through Oathbringer Stormlight Archive Book 3 by Brandon Sanderson, right now. I plan to finish the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordon, The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, The Belgariad by David Eddings, and The Dragonriders of Pern. Of course, that may change as the year goes on.

Oh, and I almost forgot The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie

Brilliant series all of them in very different ways. You have a great year of reading to look forward to

I have just started Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage which is brilliant so far

I started and finished Saga, Vol. 8, it was good, but I thought it was a little underwhelming compared to the previous ones.

I was going to dig into a shorter stand alone, but after finishing way of kings - those last few chapters had me hooked, I had to start Words of Radiance

I finished The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter last night. It was great.

Now I've started Ready Player One. Been meaning to read it for a long time, and with the movie coming out, now's the perfect time.

Finished King Hereafter and started Frankenstein (the 1818 edition; somehow, I've never quite read this before).

Finished Magician and now am reading Daughter of the Empire. They are really quite different. Magician was really good. It was nice to read an older fantasy classic that I hadn't read before.

Finished Persepolis Rising (fantastic) so now reading Moon Over Soho and given they are pretty small I think ill get through Whispers Under Ground as well. On the side I am also reading The Massive, Vol. 4: Sahara

I finished the Fatemarked Series by David Estes. Great story! Then moved on to Empire of Dirt: which is book 2 in his series. I'm anxious to see what happens in book 3, but it won't be out for a while.....so alas, I will wait.
Now, I'm contemplating The Ankhs: Red Marks The Child that was recommended by a friend.

Finished Death Masks in audio and Sunshine in ebook.

I'll start American Gods in audio to accompany my workout, and Legend in ebook tonight.

And again, all 4 books count towards my sub-genre challenge. 5 more books (including the two I'm starting) and I can claim the title of challenge-slayer! MUHAHAHAHA

(also the "craziest in this group" title, probably)

You really are a challenge slayer!! Great job.

Finished Frankenstein and am going for something completely different with The Book of Swords.

Also, I'm not going to add it to my official list, but I recently picked up a copy of The Reader: War for the Oaks, which might be of interest to some folks ... It's a sort of picture book showing photographs of people reading War for the Oaks in some of the actual locations from the book.

Finished Daughter of the Empire. Great story. Gave it 5-stars. Going to take a break from the Empire Series to work on the sub-genre challenge with Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights. Thanks Liam. I'm looking forward to reading this.

Finished Legend, and starting yet another long series with His Majesty's Dragon.
But how can I resist? There's dragons. DRAGONS! :D

Virginie wrote: "Finished Legend, and starting yet another long series with His Majesty's Dragon.
But how can I resist? There's dragons. DRAGONS! :D"

The first one's great. I'm going to read them also.

Finished Princess Bride. Gave it 3 stars. Will comment more in the other thread. All I'll say here, is that if this wasn't a group read book i probably wouldn't have ever read it. Then I would have never met Fezzik which would have been a great shame! Thanks FBC
Now onto The Core

So I believe the way I'm going about the three challenges this year is to read one book a month off the sub-genre and the book list and concentrate on the series challenge. Plus our monthly reads if I participate. I believe I can get them completed best by doing it this way.

Tnkw01 wrote: "So I believe the way I'm going about the three challenges this year is to read one book a month off the sub-genre and the book list and concentrate on the series challenge. Plus our monthly reads i..."

A battle plan, nice! It should go smoothly since you already chose all your books for the challenges :)
For my part, I think I'm going to finish slaying my subgenre challenge, slowly but steadily work my way through my author challenge, start a bunch of series for the bookshelf challenge and despair at the impossibility of finishing all my incomplete series the rest of the year.

Just finished Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights. Now I see why Liam loves Terry Prachett. Rated it 5 stars. If you like funny fantasy you'll this book. Now on to Servant of the Empire.