Val's Random Comments

Moxyland - Lauren Beukes

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:54:06 PST

Lauren Beukes’ second novel Zoo City drew a lot of attention last year. It was nominated for a bunch of awards and raked in rave reviews by the dozen. I wasn't quite as lyrical about is as some bookbloggers but is was certainly an interesting work. Moxyland is Beukes’ first novel. It has received its share of attention in the wake of all the attention for Zoo City but I hadn't gotten around to

Tau Zero - Poul Anderson

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:36:33 PST

I decided to sign up for the 2012 Grand Master Reading Challenge, organized by World Without End. The goal is to read and review a work by a different Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award winner every month. I decided to start with Poul Anderson, who was honoured with the award in 1998. Tau Zero (1970) is one of his better known works. It was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1971 but lost to

Aces High - George R.R. Martin

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:48:50 PST

Aces High is the second mosaic novel in the long running Wild Cards series. It is one of four volumes published in 1987, this series certainly got off to a flying start. Contributing authors to this volume are Lewis Shiner, Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Victor Milán, Pat Cadigan, John J. Miller, Walton Simons and George R.R. Martin himself. The edition I read is a

Direct Descent - Frank Herbert

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:20:40 PST

One of the projects I've been working on pretty much from the start of this blog, is reading and reviewing all of Frank Herbert's novels not set in his Dune universe. Last year, for reasons not quite clear to me, I didn't get around to reviewing a single one. Very strange considering the trouble I went through, to acquire some of the less well known novels. Direct Descent (1980) is one of the

Reading Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:32:10 PST

I don't usually participate in these kinds of things. I like to pick my own reads as much as possible and keep the content on Random Comments varied. One of the things I mean to do is read more SF classics this year and the 2012 WWEnd Grand Master Reading Challenge seems to fit that resolution perfectly. The goal is to read one book by one of the authors who has been awarded the Damon Knight

Wizard of the Pigeons - Megan Lindholm

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:28:45 PST

This is the ninth out of ten books Lindhom wrote under this pen name, before moving on to her Robin Hobb alter ego. The tenth, Cloven Hooves (1991) is unfortunately out of print so I have no idea when, or if, I can get my hands on that. There is a fairly recent Dutch translation but I would rather read the original. Wizard of the Pigeons (1986) is still available as mass market paperback. I got

City of Light & Shadow - Ian Whates

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:06:51 PST

City of Light & Shadow is the third volume in The City of a Hundred Rows. As with the second volume, City of Hope & Despair, I got an ARC though publisher Angry Robot's fabulous Robot Army. I'm not entirely sure how many volumes Whates means to write in this series but it may be more than three. This one certainly provides a measure of closure for some of the story lines started in the previous

Saints Astray - Jacqueline Carey

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:51:09 PST

Jaqueline Carey's novel Santa Olivia was one of the surprises of 2009 to me. Published in 2009 between Kushiel's Mercy, the final volume in her Imriel trilogy, and Naamah's Kiss, the first in the Moirin trilogy, it broke away from the rich fantasy setting of the Kushiel series and introduced a bleak, near future setting with a distinct post-apocalyptic feel to it. A break from fantasy clearly

Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:42:39 PST

A new year, that means new year's concert by the Wiener Philharmoniker, ski jumping in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and an Alastair Reynolds review on Random Comments (for no other reason than that I say so). I'm afraid I missed the first two (anybody know who won the ski jumping?) but I thought I'd make it one out of three at least. Pushing Ice (2005) is a standalone novel. It is not set in the

I Caved and Created a Twitter Account

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:16:59 PST

I'm not a great fan of this particular service but I guess it is time I get dragged into the new decade before it is over. For those of you who like that particular social medium, I can now be found on Twitter (http://twitter.com/valashain). No followers looks a bit sad so please help me get rid of that dreaded zero ;) I promise to keep it updated :P I'm afraid I haven't overcome my aversion to

2011 in Review

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:05:53 PST

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre was the last review of 2011 so I guess it is time to write the yearly overview. On the personally level, 2011 was a quite turbulent year for me, to be honest I'm glad to see this year go, so the numbers won't be quite as impressive as last year. I think I managed reasonably well considering the circumstances. Accounting I've read 84 works in 2011, which is seven

Dreamsnake - Vonda N. McIntyre

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:01:06 PST

Dreamsnake (1978) by Vonda N. McIntyre is another novel that won the Nebula and Hugo double, something that happened more often than not in the 1970s. Although slightly less common since the mid-1980s it is still surprising to see how many of these novels are joint winners, especially since the nominees don't overlap that much. Apparently SF-writers are fans of the genre at heart. Dreamsnake is

Planesrunner - Ian McDonald

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 07:47:07 PST

Ian McDonald is one of my more recent discoveries. Ever since reading his collection Cyberabad Days (2009), I've been a fan on his work. I very much enjoyed the kind of near future, technologically and culturally complex stories he creates as well as the beautiful prose he uses to tell this stories. His work as fanned my interest in more recent science fiction and caused a notable shift in the

Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name - Edward M. Erdelac

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:44:34 PST

The Mensch With No Name is the second volume of the collected tales of the Jewish gunslinger and mystic known as the Merkabah Rider by Edward M. Erdelac. It contains episodes 5 - 8 and is a continuation of the story of Tales of the High Planes Drifter, which I read earlier this year. Looking at those titles, Erdelac also has an appreciation for the Western genre in cinema as well as in

Journeys - Ian R. MacLeod

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:26:55 PST

I always have trouble not giving too much of the plot away when reviewing short fiction. This review is no exeption, it may be a bit spoilerish. Journeys by Ian R. MacLeod is one of the books I received when I bought one of Subterranean's book bags earlier this year. So far I have only read two others of that stack: John Scalzi's The God Engines and Caitlín R. Kiernan's The Ammonite Violin

The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:55:34 PST

After his brilliant novel Rendezvous with Rama (1973), The Fountains of Paradise (1979) is the second novel of Arthur C. Clarke to win the Hugo and Nebula double. It is also something of a dividing line in Clarke's oeuvre. Most of his output after The Fountains of Paradise are considered lesser novels and a lot of them were co-written by other authors. The majority of novels by Clarke I have

Bron - Rik Raven

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:54:14 PST

In October I reviewed De Achtste Rune, the latest novel by Dutch author Adrian Stone, which turned out to be an enjoyable read. I ended that review with the conclusion that I really should read more Fantasy originally written in Dutch. This is something I tell myself every year but somehow I never manage to do it. After posting a link to the Stone review on the Pure Fantasy forum, a place where

Seed - Rob Ziegler

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:12:09 PST

Rob Ziegler is another début novelist being introduced Night Shade Books. The seem to have an eye for new talent there, earlier this year I read Stina Leicht's Of Blood and Honey, which is probably going to make my best of 2011 list. Rob Ziegler's début Seed comes with a bonus recommendation from Paolo Bacigalupi, one of my favourite authors of the past few years. Not a book to pass up on,

The Hermetica of Elysium - Annmarie Banks

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:55:15 PST

The Hermetica of Elysium is the first novel in Banks' Elysium Texts series. I haven't been able to find out how many books this series is projected to be, but a second volume, titled The Necromancer's Grimoire, is scheduled for publication in September 2012. The publisher has named it a medieval fantasy. I think it is set a bit too late for that but it is definitely a historical novel with a

A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:32:26 PST

The third volume of George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire is a book with quite a reputation. In the previous two novels, Martin had already made it clear that characters are not save and nobody should count on their favourite character making it to the end of the seven projected volumes. In A Storm of Swords, Martin takes it to a whole new level and many have named this book

Tritcheon Hash - Sue Lange

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:52:47 PST

I first noticed Book View Cafe in 2008, as one of the more interesting attempts to deal with the upheaval the introductions of large numbers of e-books in the market is causing. It is a consortium of authors that publishes backlist works to which the authors have retained the rights for e-books or which are out of print. Some new work has recently appeared in their catalogue as well. Book View

The Bonehunters - Steven Erikson

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:17:21 PST

The Bonehunters is the sixth book in Erikson's sprawling Malazan Book of the Fallen series and the only one I haven't reviewed yet. Like the previous five books, it is absolutely huge. In fact, it may be the biggest book in the series up to this point. My mass market paperback contains well over 1200 pages. It wasn't a favourite of mine when I first read it in 2007, hemmed in as it is between

Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:15:20 PST

Kushiel's Chosen (2002) is the second novel in Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. This series started with what is arguably one of the most successful débuts of the decade and one of my personal favourites, Kushiel's Dart (2001). The ninth and most recent volume, Naamah's Blessing came out in June. It's been six years since I last read Kushiel's Chosen and back then, I wasn't nearly as impressed

Things Will Be Slow This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:39:08 PST

I just got out of hospital where I had surgery on my foot on Tuesday. I tried to get this week's review ready on Monday but it is still only half finished. It will show up one of these days but right now, I don't feel up to finishing it yet. I expect that normal service will be resumed next week.

The Valley of Horses - Jean M. Auel

noreply@blogger.com (Val) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 05:24:05 PDT

Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children is one of those series of which people often say you should stop reading after the first book. I'm generally too curious about the sequel to follow that advice, so naturally I've read all six. Most of them are entertaining at some level but none of them are anywhere near as good as the first book. After the huge success of The Clan of The Cave Bear (1980), Auel