Debbie's Spurts

It's here!  The 24in48 Readathin has started!

"If you’re new to 24in48, this is the basic gist: beginning at 12:01am on Saturday morning and running through 11:59pm on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period. You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between, whatever you’d like."

Signup at the link which also explains:  

"If you’re new to 24in48, this is the basic gist: beginning at 12:01am on Saturday morning and running through 11:59pm on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period. You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between, whatever you’d like.  

 

And that’s it. The format never changes but it’s always an adventure."

Signup at the link which also explains:  

"If you’re new to 24in48, this is the basic gist: beginning at 12:01am on Saturday morning and running through 11:59pm on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period. You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between, whatever you’d like.  

 

And that’s it. The format never changes but it’s always an adventure."

Signup at the link which also explains:  

"If you’re new to 24in48, this is the basic gist: beginning at 12:01am on Saturday morning and running through 11:59pm on Sunday night, participants read for 24 hours out of that 48-hour period. You can split that up however you’d like: 20 hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday; 12 hours each day; six four-hour sessions with four hour breaks in between, whatever you’d like.  

 

And that’s it. The format never changes but it’s always an adventure."

Among my faves:

"I’ve done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by ‘the joy of strife’. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing."

 

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” 

 

"Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?”

 

“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.”

I'm still finding this amusing.  I'm not sure if everything I'm finding funny was intended to be.  So far, despite it being a booklikes book club read, I think I'm the only one reading this for the book club.

Some random snippets:

Feel free to join the booklikes Virtual Speculation Book Club read of Old Man's War at http://booklikes.com/book-clubs/50/virtual-speculation .

I'm hesitating to start a new book knowing the 24-in-48 Readathon starts after midnight.  I have a few to read that I know will be ass-in-seat-until-completed ones.

I could read more in the booklikes bookclub book that apparently I'm dud using just with myself -- but, I'm trying to space that out throughout the month in case someone joins in.

Not in the mood to read more shorts in some anthologies in progress.

Hmm...think I'll put in a bunch of requests to the librarians in order to clean up my shelves (it's been four years since I imported data when joining booklikes and I still haven't cleaned  up oddities) and to combine stray audio editions (if title and author do not match 100%, booklikes doesn't combine editions of a work and having a narrator listed often means the audio book doesn't appear as an edition of the work).

I will be reading the next book in this series—which is probably the best indication of how I felt about the read.  (No, this book did not end with a cliffhanger).

It's fairly usual for fantasy genre gone a bit dark with thieves, assassins, corrupt folk in high places, religions, magics and a whiff of larger worldbuilding with snippets of other countries and races.  Yet also orginal.

Frantic almost in the pacing and everything that happens.  Somehow managed to not be chaotic with all the new characters that show up.  Great story arc — something many first-in-series books miss.

Yet that "frantic" kept me from rating higher because it meant I was slower to get into specific characters and the worldbuilding stayed pretty light (for example, new magics show up with no explanation; kinda video game-ish because as soon as one character seemed too powerful *poof* here comes an opposing power).  Even the main character did not really get a great deal of "on stage" time.

I read the traditionally published (Orbit) reissue of the self-published book.  Lo and behold, I had actually downloaded and shelved the self-published one when free (partly because the series had several books in it but mostly because liked the sample).  I won't be curious to read the self-published version — but, the author added a note to the new edition about how the self-published one was even more frantic with even more stuff thrown in.  I'm having trouble imagining ...

Just in time for the 24in48 readathon this weekend.

Looks like I've gone and developed an unplanned reading list of booklikes bookclub books and library finds for the readathon.  Which I may lighten with some quicker books to clear book hangovers.

The Fate of the Tearling is the third book in The Queen of the Tearling which has hooked me completely even while sometimes losing all patience with the main character.

This is certainly building.  I like it more and more and am more and more drawn in.  A bit dark in places.

It's also unfortunately easy to set aside between chapters because each seems to switch off to other scenes or characters.  I have a feeling I will like this book and the series — but, not likely to binge read back  to back because have to know immediately what happens next.

I'm hoping to prove that last statement wrong by the end of this book (but this is almost the halfway mark so doubt it).

Plus whatever library ebooks I borrow (lots on waitlist which just brought me this A Dance of Cloaks while binge-ing some series) will interrupt regular reading schedule.

Another bookclub read of whatever TOR offers free has turned out to be  Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey;  the 24in48 readathon July 22-23 will also disrupt or remake plans.

—Joe Queenan

I'm not sure I'm going to able to write proper reviews of the individual books in this series -- this is one of those where the entire series likely needs to be reviewed.

Not really a cliffhanger ending to this one, but definitely not one to read as a standalone.  Mostly everything and everyone just progresses.  Oh, I really enjoyed the read because I'm invested in these people and this world.  I wouldn't say it moved the series that far along though.

Yet, hard to review without spoilers.  Let's just say I loved the book, the two brothers man-in-the-iron-mask got resolved, found out more about everyone, more about banes and wights, major reveal about the oldest Guile ... and yet and yet and yet clearly more to follow with nothing exactly resolved.

See?  Not a very good review to basically say "loved it and found out more."

This seems headed into becoming either a great fantasy genre series or levels of a video game (this character, X skills, y weapons, this allegiance ...).  

Potential is there, I'm enjoying the action so far, I think I could get invested in some characters (jumping POVs so don't really "know" anyone yet, definitely no pure-as-driven-snow ones), wisps of worldbuilding and magic, society a bit different (oligarchy? with three trade families but also a king), 

 A library borrow with rest of series also available (with a waiting list).

Plus whatever library ebooks I borrow (lots on waitlist which just brought me this A Dance of Cloaks while binge-ing some series) will interrupt regular reading schedule.

Another bookclub read of whatever TOR offers free has turned out to be  Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey;  the 24in48 readathon July 22-23 will also disrupt or remake plans.