Book # 15 - The Guns of Avalon (Chronicles of Amber #2) by Roger Zelazny.

So... Corwin escapes from the clutches of his brother Eric and runs off into the Shadows, trying to get to Avalon, where he spent some time it seems.

Ok, I admit, when it said Avalon, and he ran into Lance, I got pretty excited. To say that I love me some Arthurian Legends is an understatement. So I thought cool, lets see what Zelazny does with it... not much. I'm hoping that's not all. Lance kinda just... drops out of the picture, not much is done with the Avalon aspect. It just seemed like some namedropping in here and I was pretty disappointed.

There's some interesting set up though, and Corwin's travelling companion, Ganelon, is pretty interesting. This Black Road business is cool, and I like how we got to meet some more of the family. But this book really didn't pick up till practically the last few pages when Corwin actually reached Amber and a new, very unexpected threat, made itself known. I had been considering about not continuing through this huge tome, but now I think I will.

 Book #16: Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

This one is the third book in the Temeraire series and really all I can say here is... yeah, I`m done. The novelty of dragons flying around during the Napoleonic Wars has worn off for me and I`m not really interested in Will Laurence as a character or the continued efforts of Temeraire to emancipate the dragons of Europe. It was fun for a couple of books, but not enough to continue.

Book #4, Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

This is the second book in the Termeraire series. It's a fine sequel; nothing spectacular, nothing horrible. Basically it boils down to Laurence, Temeraire and crew go to China as a delegate from the Chinese Emperor have returned to take Termeraire back to China since he's a valuable Celestial and those are usually only given to members of the Imperial family.

So there's a freaking long sea voyage (with assassination attempts, storms, feasts, and of course, a battle with a sea serpent). They get to China (where there's assassination attempts, court intreguie, feasts and lots and lots of dragons).

Novik's world building is interesting as she portrays China as a place where dragons are treated as citizens. They have freedom to do with as they please, they are taught to read and write, they have jobs and are paid for doing these jobs. Temeraire of course notices this freedom and wonders why dragons back in England do not enjoy the same.

So I'm assuming next book we're going to have some dragon emancipation or something.

Oh, and people give GRRM a hard time about the over description of what his characters are eating? Novik certainly goes for that time honoured fantasy tradition as well in this book too.

Oh dear. I didn't even do an end of year post this time round. I have been SO caught up in re-reading the Song of Ice and Fire extravaganza again that I really didn't read many new books last year.

So for first post of this year, I have two new books done:

Book #1 is His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

This is one of those books I kept hearing about, that it was pretty good and I should check it out, but I just never got around to doing so. However, finding the first three novels bundled together for my e-reader made finally reading it simple.

So, the story of Will Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire (question for anyone else, how would you say that? Silent e at the end, or pronounce it so it's more like Temer-airy? Just curious), British captain and dragon during the Napoleonic Wars.

Yes, this is Sharpe meets the Dragonriders of Pern, and as I like both those things, I liked this book too. The plots not overly complicated or anything, but Novik has created a nice, parallel world where dragons are common place and used for war, complete with combat crews aboard them. It's fun. She writes a nice battle sequence, and has managed to not make Temeraire too precious, which is definitely a good thing.

I'm glad I have a couple more of these to go through, they're pretty popcorny.

Book #2 is Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie.

This is the second book of Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, so we're back with our main characters from The Blade Itself, but the nice thing here is that there's less introduction and the characters are knee deep in action this time round as the threat of the wars introduced in the first book explode here.

We follow Inquisitor Glokta (quite possibly an even more cynical character than Tyrion Lannister) to a doomed city as he tries to uncover a treasonous plot. Major, no sorry, Colonel West is far in the North trying to keep the ridiculous Union army from imploding on itself before they can meet the enemy in battle; and the strange group of Logen, Bayaz, Ferro, Jezal et all continue on their quest for a weapon of supposedly great power. So we have all the lovely trappings of a regular fantasy novel, but what Abercrombie does best is making these seemingly unlikeable characters quite likeable; as they grow on each other, they also grow on you. His dialogue is sharp and cynical itself, and in a lot of places, incredibly, darkly funny. This is some good stuff.