Deed of Paksennarion actually is an omnibus of the three books, starting with Sheep Farmer's Daughter. I agree with you that it was standout in its treatment of the protagonist as being tough, gritting, and looking to make her own way.

Well, I finished The Count of Monte Cristo, which I think might actually be one of the best books I've ever read. I'll force myself to say no more than that, lest I end up rambling on about it.

I too am a fan of The Deed of Paksenarrion, having read the trilogy four times since 1988, with an additional reading of book one during 2014. I've also read most of her much later published Paladin's Legacy followups. I'm not, however, as fond of her related Gird books.

As for current reading, I'm now on page 528 of Sienkiewicz's The Deluge, volume 2, little more than half way done.

I am now reading The Deed of Paksenarrion. I do have to admit that whenever I see the character name Bosk, all I can think of is This...

Heh Heh . . .

This morning I ordered a used copy of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Fire in the Steppe through Amazon. I shouldn't have, the book being far more expensive than my meager budget allows. But I've grown rather fond of the series and want to see it to conclusion. With my luck it'll go back in print for half what I paid a week or so after my order arrives. Or a more reasonable used copy will materialize. A fool and his money . . .

As to The Deluge, volume 2, I'm now on page 750 of 919.

Don't mind me, I'm just here in this corner, writing all of the books you guys've read in a "To Buy Later" list. I'm looking to expand my collection and I figured this could be a gold mine for some really good titles

At 0823 this morning I finished Henryk Sienkiewcz's The Deluge, volume 2 as translated by W.S. Kuniczak. I don't except Sienkiewicz's Fire in the Steppe to arrival for a week-and-a-half to two weeks. Not sure what I'll tackle in the interim.

Do you still do your reading with actual books, or have you moved to E-books? Lately I do all my reading on the Kindle for PC. It's a free download, the books are cheaper, and you get them downloaded to you the instant you buy them. Most of all my not-so-young-anymore eyes find it easier to read the print on a lit up computer screen than off a printed page.

Total paper bookage for me. I've never been one to do lengthy 'serious' reading at the computer. Nor do I want to associate novelesque reading with computer usage. I spend too much time sitting in front of a computer screen as it is. (Not that I begrudge doing so.) In any case, I do most of my reading in bed, though I do read at the kitchen table during lunch and supper. (I also carry whatever I'm currently reading with me for rare sit-down restaurant meals.) I find printed books easier on my eyes for long reading sessions, except when printed text is tiny as sometimes happens.

As for what I'm currently reading, I settled on Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven, a novel set in a fictional world based on China's Tang Dynasty. As I might have mentioned before, Kay is my favorite currently active 'fantasy' author. What's more, Under Heaven is a favorite Kay work. (I read it not quite six years ago.) At over 500 pages, it should tide me over until Fire in the Steppe arrives.

Read this book some time ago, too. Loved it, for so many reasons, the first one being that the main character is pursuing penance through a very strange but fitting task. It has a permanent place on my bookshelf (the wooden kind, as the book is paper and glue, not digital).

I do most of my reading at work, with my laptop. But when I am at home or sitting in waiting rooms for doctor/vet visits, I read on my tablet. One of the reasons I bought the latter was so that I could read e-books anywhere.

I recently discovered a cache of E. C. Tubb's pulp sci-fi series about a space traveler, Earl Dumarest, trying to return to Earth after years of moving from one world to another in a heavily populated universe. Earl is a hard man, prepared to fight for survival whatever it takes.

The worlds are often hostile to outsiders, especially those who can't pay. This makes for a dangerous underworld fringe that prey upon each other. Earl sometimes finds himself with extreme wealth and often facing extreme poverty. Throw in a mix of wildly diverse environments, competing rulers, guilds, factions, arena battles, and exotic lovers. On each world, one can find the Brotherhood; devoted to bringing peace to all mankind and the Cyclan; a secretive organization of men surgically altered to feel no emotion and selected and trained to use their powers of deductive intellect to rule the universe by subverting worlds.

Written in the 60s, I first read these in the 70s. There are 32 books in the series. I have obtained 23 and have read 3 of them in rapid succession. I will probably go slower with the remainder in order to savor them.

I'm reading The Girl Who Played with Fire

I've read the first one, thought it was good, but kind of weird. But there are two things about the books that bugs me: Mikael Blomkvist(he's just irritating), and something I've never really come across in books: product placement. At one point in the first book he even provides a link to some piece of software. It gets kind of irritating when he goes into that kind of detail.

Well, I finished the Millenium Trilogy, and I wasn't impressed. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was great, the two that followed it I thought were fairly mediocre at best. Only one of the characters was really any good, and the author spent the last two books basically pissing on her by making her such a victim. I spent more time wondering where the woman from the first book had gone and who this apparent impostor was than anything else.

At the moment I'm reading some old Mechwarrior books I picked up from somewhere, to tide me over for the moment. I'm about to go on something of a Kindle spree, planning to get some fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, and cyberpunk novels, since I've pretty much run out of books I haven't read.

Don't know exactly what I'm gonna get yet, but any recommendations would be most welcome.

And I just finished the Famous Five book about the kidnappers. Really heavy stuff, I tell ya..

It has been a very long time since I read them, but back in the day I really enjoyed the Grey Death Legion trilogy by William H Keith jr. They were Decision at Thunder Rift, Mercenary's Star, and The Price of Glory.

Fire in the Steppe arrived with today's mail. Caught me by surprise. I didn't expect it until mid next week at the soonest so hadn't bothered to track the package. I will finish Under Heaven, in which I am currently at page 366, before tackling Steppe.

At 1530 this afternoon I finished my second reading of Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven. Bearing in mind when my last progress report was posted, I read the final 200 pages in just over a day. That's quite a feat for me, slow reader that I normally am. Then again, if any one author can keep me spellbound enough to allow such marathon reading sessions it's Kay.

I will likely begin Fire in the Steppe during supper, unless I allow myself the rest of the day to savor the aftertaste of Under Heaven, as I often do with especially engrossing books.

Started reading the first of my new ebooks today: The Martian

I picked it up because I'd read some good things about it while looking for recommendations, and because it was only £1.99.

It's a damn good book. The main character is hugely entertaining, though in a rather amusing failure of the adverts for the film, in my head it's Mark Wahlberg rather than Matt Damon.

I've had real difficulty putting it down.

And I have currently started on Five get in trouble

And having read The Martian, and enjoyed it immensely, I've continued on my sci-fi bender.

I'm currently reading Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton.

A little volume called "Ace of Tales," volume 4, the which features work by seven writers, including at least two who have some connection to Chorrol- a certain McBadgere and the woman who was to become Mrs. McBadgere...

Oh, that sounds cool! McB actually has been published?

At 1558 this afternoon I finished Henryk Sienkiewicz's Fire in the Steppe as translated by W.S. Kuniczak, thus ending my reading of The Trilogy. The translator opts to forgo Sienkiewicz's lengthy (?) epilogue, but does extract from it was little is told of the fate of several of the Trilogy's fictional characters. (Historical figures are left to historians.)

The books were good reads, made more appealing by covering an aspect of history I was not at all acquainted with, 17th century Poland and its struggles against formidable foes both within and without. The one knock against them is price. Being out of print, they tend to list for a pretty penny. There is an older English translation that can be had much more cheaply, but all I've read suggests that it is markedly inferior and not worth the bother.

At 0415 this morning I finished Andrew J. Offutt's 1979 The Iron Lords, volume one of Wars of the Gods on Earth. This was my fourth reading of the work, the first having occurred Oct 1988, the most recent Jun 2002. This is 'old school' fantasy, with much in common with Conan and some of Moorcock's 'heroes'. Not the sort of fantasy I'm likely to buy nowadays, but entertaining enough for occasional reads. I'll continue on with the series, beginning volume two, Shadows out of Hell, by day's end.

I'm working my way through The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

Damn good books.

Finished blitzing The Farseer Trilogy, and I pretty disappointed in all honesty. The first book was great; setting up a promising story, some interesting elements and characters, and established things nicely. Book two kind of gets lost partway through; develops one part of the story at the expense of another(and several characters, in the worst possible way), and goes downhill fairly quickly. Book three threw just about everything from the first book(the initial threat, and everything surrounding it) out the window in favour of following the main character on a personal and not particularly interesting tangent, before apparently remembering what it's supposed to be tying up right at the end to resolve things in a rushed and unsatisfactory manner.

I mean, you've got implacable foes with a mysterious power, betrayals and intrigue, sacrifices, interesting types of magic, and a few good characters.

But the motivation of the implacable foes, and their leader, are never dealt with directly. The betrayals and intrigue(and the bulk of the main plot, including the ending) rely on everybody involved being both spectacularly fortunate and mind-numbingly stupid, often at the same time. The sacrifices felt more like they were hammered into the plot, which warped to fit them, rather than being actually integral to the plot. And the shift of story in the third book removed most of the characters, or rendered them insignificant to the story that was actually being told. And the way it's written in the 1st person, and the circumstance behind that, remove 99% of the actual tension in the story.

I don't think I'm even going to consider reading any of her other books.

At 2019 this evening I finished Shadows Out of Hell, volume two of Andrew J. Offutt's War of the Gods on Earth. With some hesitation, I will likely continue on with the the concluding volume, The Lady of the Snowmist.


I am having a reaction akin to yours with War of the Gods on Earth, though in my case volume one was nothing special. Volume two starts out in just about the worst way possible, with the main character bemoaning his lot in life aloud to his fellow shipmates for over thirty pages, in a not even thinly disguised recap of book one. Thirty-plus out of a total of only 165 pages I might add. We then continue on with your typical old-school fantasy quest . . . group of nordicesque adventurers led by our hero sail to an island inhabited by stunningly beautiful scantily clad women, to steal a sacred object as directed by their goddess. The writing is pretty simplistic, indeed primitive at time. I assumed this was the author's chosen style. or that he was not overly skilled at his craft. Then, out of the blue, well into the story, our hero dreams of or is visited by an otherworldly presence. It and he proceed to engage in deep philosophical discussions, during which the presence expounds on such things and the big-bang theory, creationism, good and evil, black & white vs shades of gray, and so on. The hero wakes. We're back to our simplistic narrative for the remainder of the novel.

There are a number of erotic escapades thrown in, described in more graphic detail than is apt to be present in more recently published fantasy. I am not surprised to learn, via the author's Wiki page, that Offutt wrote a good many erotic novels under several aliases. (The eroticism doesn't bother me in the least, but I'm not prudish in such matters and would not consider it worth mentioning were it not so rare in fantasy these days. Leastwise not in those I read.)

At 1612, just prior to preparing supper, I finished Andrew J. Offutt's The Lady of the Snowmist, volume three of War of the Gods on Earth. Unlike volumes one and two this was its third complete reading. I almost threw in the towel early on, but am glad I stuck with it. Despite a rocky start this book proved the most interesting of the three. I enjoyed it enough to wonder if the series had continued. So far as I can tell, it didn't.

No idea what I'll read next. I'm guessing another fantasy novel or series, but we shall see.

I have decided to reread Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, and am now a few pages into volume one, The Shadow of the Torturer. This will be its fourth reading. The first occurred 1988, the third 2002.

I am also reading The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones at the kitchen table during lunches and suppers. I bought the book some time last year but discovered that it is too big and heavy for me to read in bed. Since my serious pleasure reading occurs only while in bed or during meals, I at long last admitted to myself that it will never be read unless I devote mealtimes to the task. (I own a sturdy desktop book stand so that bulk and weight are not an issue.)

Always nice to read something while eating

Recently, for the first time in years, I've actually gotten back to reading some of my Star Wars books. Read some from the Clone Wars era, and now I've started the X-Wing series of books.

I am preparing for the end of the world.

Metro 2033.

But the npcs are dying in different ways to the way the game does it. It is doing my head in.

The atmosphere and back stories are very cool to read. Books are always the best medium for that. You can almost taste their fear of a plague sweeping the metro.

An update that is in a sense no update. For whatever reason I have not been able to read lately. Not for lack of effort. I've been plugging away at Shadow of the Torturer, which I like a lot, since the 8th or 9th. In all this time I've managed to reach page 18. Just can't maintain focus. Admitted, I devoted a lot of time to movie watching during the period in question. Most of that was stolen from my online and music-listening times rather than reading sessions.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

I've never gotten around to reading the Foundation books before, not sure why.

What do you consider to be the "Foundation books"? There's the initial Trilogy, written to be a complete three-part story, but he also revisited it later and wove it into the Robots series, so there's a number of later novels to bridge the two.

And now I'm tempted to reread "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" which may have been the first thing of his that I read.

Well, I've got the trilogy, and another one that seems to be a part of the series, but it's pretty academic now. I've bailed on them partway through the second book.

They were just boring. The premise just seems so self-defeating as a story, it just stopped being interesting.

So now I've ended up going back to my Warhammer 40K books, starting with Eisenhorn

Oh my goodness!! Is this volume available to the public?!

Quite recently finished A Storm of Swords by GRRM...WOW is all I have to say. excellent book.

It's a very good book. I only wish the second one lived up to the high bar that 2033 set.

Right now I'm reading Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. Only about 40 pages in but so far it is excellent. Very intricate descriptions and naturally flowing dialogue.

Yes, Red Storm Rising. Those early Clancy's were very tasty. I loved RSR and Hunt 4 RO.

I have now grown bored with Metro (the character was just going on and on about which stations he would navigate through, not once but 50 times in internal dialogue). It drove me crazy. Plus I never related to the Nazis and Reds thing. Yes, it makes sense, but for some reason it bores me.

Now I am reading Fire Starter (Stephen King). Great characters. Depth. Feeling. Much better!

oh I like a bit of Stephen King. I've just bought a compendium of his shorter stories that I found in a second-hand book store, looking forward to starting it.

I have challenged myself to read 24 books this year and I'm slightly ahead of schedule, currently on my 11th book of the year, Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. It's creeping me out a bit with the age of one of the characters. Just feels a bit... wrong. I can see how this has influenced a lot of vampire books since though.

I think the reason Artyom details so many stations is to help build the lore of his universe. It's the same reason there is a station map in the first few pages. I still think 2033 was excellent.

The Nazis and Reds are presented as more of a commentary on why their systems of government are broken than anything else.

Yeah I also bought Hunt for Red October and Executive Orders with RSR but haven't so much as opened them yet.

At 1045 this morning, during lunch, I finished my fourth reading of Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer, volume one of The Book of the New Sun. Took me bloody long enough, nearly an entire monthly to wade through 260 pages. In ye olden days I might have polished it off in two days, surely no more than a week. Be that as it may, I intend to continue on with volume two, The Claw of the Conciliator. Gotta love that name.

I've started reading Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six which I picked up dirt-cheap a while back. I'm not far into it, but it's good so far.

At 1534 I finished my third reading of David Stenn's Clara Blow: Runnin' Wild. The lady certain lived an 'interesting' life to say the least. It's easy to feel a great deal of sympathy towards her, especially up until the end of the silent film era. On the other hand I find it hard to empathize with her. Past a certain point in her life even sympathy often flies out the window. She was all too often her own worst enemy. Many situations she frequently found herself in could easily have been avoided by a more savvy, astute person. That said, the deck was stacked against her from the beginning. She deserved more happiness from life than she received. Or so I feel.

I became hooked on the book while searching for books relating to the silent film era some years ago. Amazon.com (US) allows us to read much of its opening chapter. For good or ill those pages set the tone for what is to come.

I've not yet decided whether I'll now return to The Book of the New Sun or move on to something else.

Well, that went badly.

I bailed on Rainbow Six about three-quarters of the way through. Damn, was that book a mess. On so many levels. Id say more, but I'd probably just end up ranting about it

Edit: And I've now started reading The Silmarillion

Since I'm heading for his home town on a business trip, I started reading the Bloodsong trilogy by C Dean Andersson, an ex-colleague of mine - his day job was writing technical manuals for the software I develop.

And then I started reading Wikipedia to follow all the Norse mythology it borrows from. Found Ratatoskr, who might be related to someone here.