New Review: Barry Hughart's Eight Skilled Gentlemen
August 8, 2002 (1:33 AM) ( link )

ADDED a review of Barry Hughart's Eight Skilled Gentlemen. This is the third Master Li novel, and a much better book than The Story of the Stone (though not as good as Bridge of Birds).

Next up will be either Jack Vance's Dying Earth (printed in a miserably tiny-fonted pocket book edition), or Connie Willis's much larger Passage--her first full-length novel since To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'm going to look up reviews of Vance's short book to see if it's good; if it is then I'll likely try to get it out of the way before diving into Willis's tome.

The Dragon Never Sleeps is still really confusing--perhaps because I rarely read it in long installments. It has had the rare misfortune of being read concurrently with all of Hughart's Master Li novels, but nevertheless its ideas are so interesting that I still haven't gotten bored with it.

I think that next month, when the one-year anniversary of this site rolls around, I'll put up what I think are the ten best books I've read this past year. Of course my ratings basically give things away, but I think even some books from the 8 (or perhaps 7) category will make their way up to the top ten, since the books I found wonderful at the time may or may not be the books I would recommend highly to the casual reader.