What are you currently reading?

[Lanko]

Finished Mark Lawrence's Red Sister. A mediocre book that offers a lot of originality and lets you down time and again with worn out tropes and unlikable characters. I felt stuck with them, the world-building being the most interesting aspect of the book, and even then not anything to crow over.
The prose was often painful, and the dialogues were bad.
I'll rate that 2/5 in GR. I skimmed through the last 1/4, focusing on "interesting moments", so as not to DNF it out of rage.

Now I feel like re-reading something of quality. Anything to break this vicious circle of mediocrity I've been caught in recently.

Try Wolf Winter by Cecilia Eckback!

Meh. Sounds like historical crime/thriller. Sorry but I'm barely reaching time when the sun rises when I do, yet is still setting or set when I leave work, so I'm not inclined on reading about the long winter just now.

There's a murder but there's no detectives. And yeah, the author did an excellent job in portraying the atmosphere of the place, so hmm...

Maybe The Last Witness by K.J.Parker? One of my favorites of 2016. It's also a novella, so it's short and gets to the point.

Some books that I haven't read but heard a lot about: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (was in the top 10 of GR), The Dagger and the Coin or Long Price Quarted series by Daniel Abraham (GRRM's apprentice and writes The Expanse with another pen name), Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (winner of FF list and also very well regarded around. If I remember right you didn't exactly like Locke Lamora, and this has a similar feel but with adult, really aged characters).

[J.R. Darewood]

So Bradley, the burning questions I have: did you find the book useful or interesting? And: did you support your neighborhood Gandalf?

Very glad I read it!  Thanks for the recommendation.

By way of a more detailed review, I have to say Le Guin blew everything else out of the water, but I did find his approach to debates in part 1 refreshing.  I had a research scholarship to do neurobiological research for my undergrad, so I had some mixed responses to the whole neurobiology section (science often strips down layers of complexity that I think we need as artists) but I still found it interesting.  It was a good book.  I skipped through the monomyth just b/c I'm sick to death of hearing about it, but the next chapter was a nice refresher on Jungian archetypes, and I like the idea of building on an existing index of archetypes in your reader's mind in order to add a new and exciting twist to the familiar, so I've been trying (not necessarily successfully) to apply that approach.

I unfortunately didn't have any cash on me, but while I was waiting for the light to change we did exchange compliments with each other.

[Nora]

Finished Mark Lawrence's Red Sister. A mediocre book that offers a lot of originality and lets you down time and again with worn out tropes and unlikable characters. I felt stuck with them, the world-building being the most interesting aspect of the book, and even then not anything to crow over.
The prose was often painful, and the dialogues were bad.
I'll rate that 2/5 in GR. I skimmed through the last 1/4, focusing on "interesting moments", so as not to DNF it out of rage.

Now I feel like re-reading something of quality. Anything to break this vicious circle of mediocrity I've been caught in recently.

Try Wolf Winter by Cecilia Eckback!

Meh. Sounds like historical crime/thriller. Sorry but I'm barely reaching time when the sun rises when I do, yet is still setting or set when I leave work, so I'm not inclined on reading about the long winter just now.

There's a murder but there's no detectives. And yeah, the author did an excellent job in portraying the atmosphere of the place, so hmm...

Maybe The Last Witness by K.J.Parker? One of my favorites of 2016. It's also a novella, so it's short and gets to the point.

Some books that I haven't read but heard a lot about: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (was in the top 10 of GR), The Dagger and the Coin or Long Price Quarted series by Daniel Abraham (GRRM's apprentice and writes The Expanse with another pen name), Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames (winner of FF list and also very well regarded around. If I remember right you didn't exactly like Locke Lamora, and this has a similar feel but with adult, really aged characters).

Detested the Long Price Quartet, so won't give Abraham another chance, no interest in the musical aspect of Kings of the Wyld. Also disliked Lock Lamora so not into anything Lamora-esque right now.
I own The bear and the nightingale and will get to it eventually.
KJ Parker's blurb don't appeal to me, saddly. I'll take up more Dan Simmons before I try him

Thanks for your suggestions though! 

I started Pegasus by McKinley, even though I know I'm setting myself up for heartache since she's only published the first third and has spent the last 7 years doing a total Rothfuss on us.
Still loved everything she wrote so far and Pegasus is no different atm.

[ScarletBea]

I've stopped giving recommendations to Nora, her tastes are VERY different from mine
(except for Lady Trent - so actually, you might like Anthony Ryan's The waking fire, because I'm finding many similarities)

[Nora]

I've stopped giving recommendations to Nora, her tastes are VERY different from mine
(except for Lady Trent - so actually, you might like Anthony Ryan's The waking fire, because I'm finding many similarities)

Actually have had that book in my line of sight so I may crank it up my tbr pile.

[swan]

Currently making my way through the Witcher book series. Absolutely loving it thus far.

[Elfy]

I finished The Red Knight by Miles Cameron earlier. I liked it. It was a bit of a struggle at the start - lots of short disconnected segments from different viewpoints - but as it started to coalesce into a single story it became quite gripping.

Found the same thing with The Red Knight, but I did like it, enough to keep reading and I'm currently reading the 3rd book in the series; The Dread Wyrm.

[Ryan Mueller]

I finished The Red Knight by Miles Cameron earlier. I liked it. It was a bit of a struggle at the start - lots of short disconnected segments from different viewpoints - but as it started to coalesce into a single story it became quite gripping.

Found the same thing with The Red Knight, but I did like it, enough to keep reading and I'm currently reading the 3rd book in the series; The Dread Wyrm.

I liked the first book overall, despite too many viewpoints. But I've tried at least twice on the second book and quit within a hundred pages. Something about it just isn't working for me.

[xiagan]

Finally finished the City of Blades! Great read, I can't even say which I liked more, City of Stairs or this one.
Won't start the third in a while because Wexler's Infernal Battalion and Pierce's Tempests and Slaughter (and maybe Ryan's Waking Fire) will be first.

[Elfy]

I finished The Red Knight by Miles Cameron earlier. I liked it. It was a bit of a struggle at the start - lots of short disconnected segments from different viewpoints - but as it started to coalesce into a single story it became quite gripping.

Found the same thing with The Red Knight, but I did like it, enough to keep reading and I'm currently reading the 3rd book in the series; The Dread Wyrm.

I liked the first book overall, despite too many viewpoints. But I've tried at least twice on the second book and quit within a hundred pages. Something about it just isn't working for me.

Could be the setting, which is more Byzantine. I did finish it, but it was a struggle at times. I'm finding the 3rd book more enjoyable overall.

[G_R_Matthews]

I just finished Red Sister by Mark Lawrence and loved it... I can see similarities to Blood Song, Harry Potter and every movie/book where a child grows and trains... but the world is interesting, the action and pacing are good and the book is set up for the sequels.

Finished Tiger Lily and Where Loyalties Lie for the SPFBO this year... still more to go.

[Nora]

Finished Pegasus, which was good, but I was ready for it to end and move on.
Started Waking Fire by Ryan.

[S. K. Inkslinger]

I've just finished Death Masks (Dresden Files #5), and have to say that this book pretty much got on my nerves. Our favorite chauvinist Dresden got fooled by a pretty face thrice in this novel. Thrice is just way too much for the learning curve, I think.

There's also a repetitive and no-brainer morality issue Dresden had with Michael, which I had to skim through or otherwise I'll end up throwing the novel across the room. So you could say this is quite a poor installment in the series. I hope the next book, Blood Rites, will have some improvements. 

[Nora]

Put waking fire on the side for the moment.
Not a bad concept or anything, but what is it with authors thinking it's fine to be three chapters and 5% in the book and yet not offer a single interesting character to be invested in? It's a good concept but floating from pov to pov in a pretty dry delivery isn't the way to my heart.
Will try that later.

I've decided to give more chance to general fiction this month as a lot of expected sff comes out in April.

So currently reading In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami

[JRTroughton]

Bouncing off a lot of things at the moment. Dipping in and out of The Scar again.