I am currently reading Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History, which is an absolute monster of a book. At 1,100 pages of fairly small print in trade paperback, it's around the fourth-longest book I've ever read (after To Green Angel Tower, War and Peace and The Naked God) and it's fairly dense in places. It's also borderline genius, which is why I'm sticking with it. Approaching the two-thirds mark but it'll still be a good few days before I'm in a position to review it.
I'm still trying to digest the Lost season finale. That was completely crazy stuff and I need to rewatch it to try and make sense of it. Review to follow in a few days.
Pat Rothfuss will be doing a signing for The Name of the Wind in London at Forbidden Planet next Thursday and I'll probably attend. Looks like it could be fun.
Dan Simmons rips into Dan Brown with typical eloquence here. An interesting read.
Phenomenal book.
ReplyDeleteIt was originally published as 4 books.
Ash is depressing me - I got started on it about two years ago, and although I liked it a lot I had to lay it aside in the end because of uni pressures. By the time I got round to picking it back up I'd completely lost myself and can't force my way back in.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to keep giving it effort...
Anon, it was four books in the USA. The UK edition has always been one volume. That's probably why it's out of print at the moment, as it's too expensive to keep in print and it may be difficult to split it into less volumes so long after the original publication.
ReplyDeleteThanks for mentioning the tiny script. I've had this book on my To Buy pile, but small scripts don't make for a fun read any longer (some of the Malazan books I have are bad enough) so I'll pass on this or try to hunt the US edition.
ReplyDeleteI did not like how it ended, and it has some rough spots, but it is definitely worthwhile. :)
ReplyDeleteI checked out the first book from the school library months ago, and haven't gotten very far. I'm just at the point where she realizes who she's been pledged to marry. I had to stop from sheer boredom.
ReplyDeleteI'll continue on, since you say it's so good. Hopefully it'll be like the Deed of Paksenarrion-- the first 3/2 books were dead weight, but the remaining 3/2 made up for it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ReplyDeleteI'm not very good at math, but I'm pretty sure when it comes to fractions...you're doing it wrong.
Brilliant book!
ReplyDeleteoooooh I love the Book of Ash, looking forward to your review ^^
ReplyDeleteShane, you scared me for a second. What with me being a mathematician and all, it'd be shameful :)... the 3/2 refers only to The Deed of Paksenarrion, which was released as three volumes in the US. The first 1.5 books weren't nearly as good as the final 1.5.
ReplyDelete