Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

Early Riser is a fantasy novel by Jasper Fforde, set in an alternative history where the climate is much colder over winter and humans hibernate. The story follows the protagonist as he joins the Winter Consul Service who stay up through the winter to and keep everyone safe.

This is the second Jasper Fford novel I have read, after The Constant Rabbit, and I enjoyed this one even more. In fact, I think this is pretty high up my all time favourite fiction reads. Great storytelling and great world building in a place that feels very familiar but also intriguing. Well worth a read.

Ruins is the second novel in Orson Scott Card’s Pathfinder series. I went straight from the first book to this one and it is probably even better.

Card gives an introduction in which he says trilogies are often rubbish because the middle book/film is just filler. I think he is spot on: most trilogies would do better as two books. This one is more like an Asimov book. Stuff happens. Interesting stuff. And we get even more into the science fiction that was promised in book one.

Pathfinder is the first novel in Orson Scott Card’s series by the same name.

I loved the Ender’s Game books so I thought I would give this a try. I wasn’t sure at first as I was looking for science fiction and this started out more as a fantasy book. And it is, although it got more science fiction-y as time went on.

I’m glad I stuck with it. It turned out to be a great fusion of fantasy and science fiction involving time trial but with some good twists on the way time travel is usually presented. Rather than getting caught up in ensuring causality loops, Card just tells a great story.

The Graveyard Book is a fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman. It’s apparently written for young adults but I’m not sure I would have really noticed. It’s perfectly readable and entertaining for adults. Similar to Stardust and not-as-dark but otherwise similar to Netherwhere.

It follows the adventures of a boy who grows up in a graveyard with supernatural parents after his family are murdered. Well worth a read.

Stardust is a novel by Neil Gaiman. It’s in the fantasy genre and billed as a fairytale for adults. I enjoyed it. It’s not as dark as Netherwhere or American Gods but very much still an adults fiction book.

Blood of Elves is a fantasy fiction book by Andrzej Sapkowski. It is the first in the Witcher series and having a bunch of Audible credits I took a punt and bought the first three. I did not pay off massively, but it was an enjoyable read.

The audio is quiet which is annoying as I have to listen to it at maximum volume. The story is okay, but not as gripping as A Song of Ice and Fire which is the nearest thing I could describe to to in my admittedly limited reading of fantasy.

Vuelta a España is one of the four “grand tours” of cycling (three if you don’t count Tour de Yorkshire). It takes place each year in August/September and winds its way primarily through the mountainous regions of Spain.

It’s already been an amazing year for British cycling: in May, Chris Froome made an amazing comeback to win the Giro d’Italia and become only the third person ever to hold all three grand tours at the same time. Then, in July, Geraint Thomas won the Tour de France. The Giro was also notable because Simon Yates was leading the race for much of it, but then dramatically feel off a cliff towards the end of the race.

He had clearly learnt his lesson, though. Yates rode a much more reserved race and ultimately rode to victory. Meaning that three different British riders had taken three different grand tours. No other country has ever managed this.

More importantly, I had Yates in my fantasy team. I had no time trialists, so I got off to a very slow start. However, once we go into the mountains I was away. On the penultimate weekend, my team of Yates, Pinot and Lopez managed 1st, 2nd and 4th on Saturday and 1st, 2nd and 3rd on Sunday.

The take-home lesson? Never take Richie Porte on a three-week stage race.

Thanks to Mattpopovich for the photo.

It’s not been a strong start to the season for me. Sure, I knocked out my first metric tonne at the Flat n Fast 100, but at grand tour level, my performance has been lacking. My fantasy Giro team put up a mere 3,878 points compared to John’s 6,091. Despite me picking Froome and him taking Dumoulin.

Luckily, Le Tour has gone much better for me. I thought about taking Froome, but he consumed a huge amount of points. G, on the other hand, seemed rather undervalued given how good he is. Turns out that that was a good decision.

Armed with G and Dan Martin on GC, Kittel and Sagan in the sprints, and Gilbert, De Gendt and Barguil in the mountain break-aways, I set forth. Chad Haga and Wout Poels rounded off the team. In the end, it clocked in at 6,899 points, most of which coming from Thomas and Sagan.

And the racing was pretty good, too. Great to see a Welshman on the top step!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The second half of A Dance with Dragons from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire has been a long time coming. I use Audible for a lot of my function, including this, and to say Audible had some small technical issues would be an understatement.

Originally they published everything in two halves, hence why all my write-ups of A Song of Ice and Fire have also been in two halves. However, midway through listening to A Dance with Dragons they consolidated the two into one single audiobook.

The problem was that anyone who had bought the first half, could not longer buy the second half. Nor could you buy the new consolidated book because the system thought you already had it. Yet every time you tried to download it, it would give you only the first half again.

It took Audible months to sort this out. I was not tracking exactly how many, but my guess was it was in the three to six-month timescale. They had to roll out a software update to their app to fix it.

Of course, this small delay is but a taster of the delay I can expect to encounter while I wait for Martin to release The Winds of Winter and the book that comes after that.

Was it worth the wait? No, because Martin does what he always does and kills off my favourite characters. But, like a beaten puppy, I cannot stay away and keep reading regardless.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is a novel by Douglas Adams. It is the second book in his Dirk Gently series.

I tried reading the novel a few decades ago and never got very far, so it was nice to make a fresh (and successful attempt). In between a saw the BBC TV series, which was fairly entertaining.

I was so-so on the novel. The humour and wordplay was very good. I found myself laughing at several points. However, I was not as much of a fan of the story line. Why are gods suddenly wandering around? It seemed an odd combination of fantasy, detective and humour. It was okay, but no h2g2.