I read Water for Elephants during my trip to Phoenix. For how much praise that book got, there really wasn't much story to it at all. Mostly just a clip of life for a guy who bailed for the circus during the depression years. There there's this tacked-on happy-feely ending to it that didn't fit at all. Plus there were a bundle of places I had to skip past because of how graphic the sexual content got. I mean, just dumb to put that in this kind of book. Shock value stuff.
Reading House of Suns right now by Alastair Reynolds. This one is taking my forever (dense copy) and I can't say that I'm really pulled into the story, but at least there's a story and decent characters. Been getting sick of sci-fi fiction that forgets that fiction means there has to be a story in there somewhere.
Meanwhile, I've been gearing myself up for the "ultimate sacrifice". lol. Going to hit the first three Malazan books next. I've already been through the first one once, and tried the second one twice. Still, all these people just won't get off it and stop lauding praises of the series. Course it doesn't help that I've read a load of interviews with Erikson and the dude is really a decent guy. So, I'm going to hit em hard--one, two, three--give it my best go, and see where it all comes out on the back end. Of course, if I end up liking them, this isn't going to do very nice things for my TBR pile...
I'm finding this a...different...read as well.
I'm interested in seeing what you think about it in the end. Is there going to be an Elitist Book Review on this one?
...the binding is HORRID. It isn't stitched, and thus will fall apart after a few read-throughs of the novel. I'm really quite upset with Orbit for doing this.
My hardback cover of Name of the Wind split on me before I had even read it once. Man, I wanted to scream at that. Inferior binding on hardback books absolutely sucks.