Monday, February 9, 2009

Update

Now that I finally got that Kushiel's Dart review written, I've been working on a review of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. That was one of my "scary science fiction" books and I made it my challenge book for the month of January.

After that, I will be reviewing:

Inside Straight edited by George R. R. Martin
The Charmed Sphere by Catherine Asaro

I also finished Dead Witch Walking, the first Hollows book by Kim Harrison, last night. Although I'll be reviewing it, it will be over at The Book Smugglers a little later this month, since they dared me to read it. In return, I dared Ana and Thea to read and review one of my favorite books, Melusine.

In preparation for the movie next month, I've just started reading Alan Moore's Watchmen graphic novel, and I've been reading short stories from Storm Constantine's The Oracle Lips collection here and there.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My Update:

Kristen, I'm torn up. Upon the news of wotmania closing, I'm don't know where to go to keep the list of books I'm reading and talk about the books I've read. I suppose I could channel my energies and start writing semi-coherent reviews, either on Amazon or Goodreads. (I feel like reviews at Amazon have the most effect on what people choose to buy. Do you think so?)

Benjamin said...

Hey Kristen. I loved Inside Straight and I'm looking forward to your review.

Nephtis, you could try the A Song of Ice and Fire and Bookspot Central forums. Both sites have book forums where you can talk about any books you have an interest in. I visit both of them everyday.

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/
htt://www.bookspotcentral.com/forum/

Kristen said...

Nephtis - I know what you mean since I keep track of the books I've read over at Wotmania too. Guess I'll have to either keep it here or start a Word document for it.

In addition to Benjamin's suggestions, there are also a bunch of discussion groups on both Librarything and Goodreads. I don't know if you've checked them out before but Librarything has groups for SF fans, fantasy fans, and even feminist SF. (Nevermind, just looked up the feminist SF group to make sure I hadn't imagined it and I see you've already joined it.)

I would guess reviews at Amazon have the most effect on what people buy, too, since they are right there when trying to figure out what to buy. Now when I buy books its based on a combination of recommendations from friends, reviews on blogs I read, Goodreads reviews, Librarything reviews, and Amazon reviews, but before all that, I definitely relied on Amazon reviews.

Benjamin - Thanks! I enjoyed Inside Straight as well. Have you read Busted Flush yet?

Benjamin said...

Kristen, yes I have. I didn't think it was quite as good as Inside Straight, but it does have quite a bit more character development.

I had forgotten about LibraryThing and Goodreads. Shelfari is another site that I know of that might be good. For reviews, I tend to rely on bloggers as well as people on the ASOIAF forum. I usually don't bother reading Amazon reviews, but that's just me. :)

Kristen said...

Benjamin - That sounds good, I like lots of character development. Busted Flush is on my to read pile.

I can see why you don't read Amazon reviews that much. That's a very small part of what I pay attention to now, and I tend to go there to read the critical reviews or just to figure out the series order for books that are new to me. Bloggers are forums are much more helpful.