I've wanted to pick up one of Kiernan's books for awhile. I'd love to hear if the shorts are good!

Slowly working my way through A is for Alien, a book of short stories by Caitlin R. Kiernan.

Just starting to re-read Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks for August's discussion.

Sandi wrote: "Ron wrote: "I'm halfway through "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross, which asks: If robots really were constrained by something like Asimov's Three Laws, how would they behave if humans became ex..."

I've been avoiding that book because of the cover. I really do want to read it though.

Coould I suggest, look at the other editions' covers here at Goodreads? They are much less lurid and silly than the American paperback cover. The novel itself may be lurid and silly, but not in quite the same way.

I had forgotten Tepper I would love to read more of hers. Thanks for the reminder

Because of all the great reviews, I started on The City & the City by China Miéville. It's very different from the other books I've read by him, but it's extremely good.

Ron wrote: "I'm halfway through "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross, which asks: If robots really were constrained by something like Asimov's Three Laws, how would they behave if humans became extinct? It's ..."

I've been avoiding that book because of the cover. I really do want to read it though.

I finished Mistborn The Final Empire yesterday afternoon, for next month's book discussion. I started reading Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein, and finished it overnight because I couldn't sleep. Yay insomnia. Then I started The Demon and the City by Liz Williams in the early hours of the morning, and am now almost finished with that one already. Insomnia definitely helps reduce the old TBR pile.

I'm reading The Court of the Air at the moment, though I haven't had a lot of reading time in the past few days. For a book with a hot air balloon on the cover, some graphic things have happened so far.

Diane wrote: "Reading The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper. Catching up on a the FeministSF reading list.

Reading Scardown by Elizabeth Bear ..."

I read "Gate to Women's Country" many years ago... it reminds me of how much I like Tepper (I loved "Grass") but I haven't read her in so many years. I should pick her up again (after I get through my huge TBR!)

what other fem SF lit are you reading? What about Joanna Russ (The Female Man)? that always comes to mind for me in femSF stuff.

Scardown would be tough to read out loud I think... good book though.

I'm almost down with the 2nd Cyteen book now... I've ran into some other issues which has kept me away from reading for a while. :-(

I'm halfway through "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross, which asks: If robots really were constrained by something like Asimov's Three Laws, how would they behave if humans became extinct? It's fast-moving, pretty much a spy-novel-style romp through the Solar System, and the characters are quite engaging. Stross' wit surfaces often; my favourite bit so far is when Freya, the heroine, is asked to transport an object from Mercury to Mars. The object is hidden in the base of "a profoundly ugly black model of an extinct airborne replicator [their term for "lifeform":] that preyed on other similar avioforms." That, my friends, is a ten-dollar description of the Maltese Falcon, if ever I read one. Nice to know the guy doesn't take himself too seriously, isn't it?

I just finished The Lost City of Z by David Grann, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33986...
It's the story of the Amazon explorer Percy Fawcett whom some say ARthur Conan Doyle used as a model for his adventurere in The Lost World. It's a true story that reads like high fantasy.

Finished Lost in a Good Book a few days ago - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/560... Just finished Assassin's Apprentice this afternoon - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/643...

Started reading Sabriel, The Hunger Games and started listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a CD audiobook during my commute to/from work.

I just finished reading Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books - the first 4 or 5. Vampires & werewolves, but her theme is that they're just people with a disease. Candy books with a good theme, I guess. Fun, quick reads.

Reading The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper. Catching up on a the FeministSF reading list.

Reading Scardown by Elizabeth Bear aloud to my husband. Not sure if it's a suitable read aloud book or not. There're a lot of thoughts that are in italics in the book. Doesn't come across when reading aloud. We'll continue for a bit and see.

Reading something non genre, Rocket Men The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson in celebration of Man's first visit to the Moon.

I've read the first chapter of The City & The City by China Mieville. It grabs you with a lot of interesting ideas, perhaps it is "nothing short of excellent" as noted above. I've also started Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks. I've read two of his thrillers, The Wasp Factory and Complicity, very hard edged psychological stuff, and one sci-fi, The Bridge. The sci-fi was a lot more kaleidoscopic, trying to throw in everything including the kitchen sink. Consider Phlebas appears to be that way also, plopping us down in the middle of a space opera right from the beginning.

Stefan wrote: "I started The City & the City by China Miéville this afternoon. About 100 pages in, it's nothing short of excellent. "

I picked a copy up at the library, but I haven't read it yet. It's pretty short, so maybe I'll take it to the gym tomorrow.

I started The City & the City by China Miéville this afternoon. About 100 pages in, it's nothing short of excellent.

Kathi wrote: "Finished Barrayar last night--review to be posted later.

Next up is The Warlords of Nin and then, Pulse, a book I received via the FirstReads giveaways."

I just finished a book that I won through FirstReads too. It was really good and I ended up comparing it to Dying Inside because it meshed so well with my "Is it Science Fiction?" question. The book was The Rapture by Liz Jensen.

Finished Barrayar last night--review to be posted later.

Next up is The Warlords of Nin and then, Pulse, a book I received via the FirstReads giveaways.

Re-reading "King Rat", China Miéville's first novel. The parallel city, theme of "Un Lun Dun" and "The City & the City" is at work in his first book too.

Reading the final Dune book, Sandworms of Dune. So far soo good. Been in Vegas for the last week so not much reading except on the Plane.

I just finished reading Dwarves by Markus Heitz. It was a quick read, I read it over the course of a day, and a refreshing change! I have a friend who teases me because I'm always looking for books with dwarves. I love their hard working, down to earth, and somewhat stubborn demeanor. However, I'm often sad that they are either under used or a comic relief caricature. This book was different. They were treated with respect and allowed to be proud characters. I also was immediately drawn into the history Heitz created for the dwarven culture. I'm looking forward to the sequel, and may pick up anything Heitz writes in the future. Highly recommended!

There is a graphic novel version of Coraline as well as a musical. I think it's off Broadway. The New Yorker didn't like it. Apparently it's an all male cast.

Barb wrote: "I enjoyed Good Omens and thought Fragile Things Short Fictions and Wonders was amazing!!!

Smoke and Mirrors Short Fictions and Illusions is also amazing. (Check o..."

I finished Warbreaker last night - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/568... I'm still working my way through Lost in a Good Book.

Ahh, what a creepy story! Thanks for sharing Barb, now I've got the chills! And I think I'm hearing his voice in my sleep as I listened to the audiobook of Neverwhere, which I am also doing with Fragile Things.

I enjoyed Good Omens and thought Fragile Things Short Fictions and Wonders was amazing!!!

Smoke and Mirrors Short Fictions and Illusions is also amazing. (Check out this YouTube video of Neil Gaiman reading Babycakes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6HxI3WqP...

I also really enjoyed Coraline & am looking forward to seeing the movie version.

I loved Stardust! Excellent fantasy! I'm in the middle of a Gaiman stint. I just finished Neverwhere, which was fun, and I started Fragile Things Short Fictions and Wonders and Good Omens The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, which is also my first Pratchett.

I just finished Dying Inside and started reading Stardust. I have had the movie Stardust on my DVR for a while and I like to read books before I see the movies based on them!

Nice, Nick! Well, maybe we'll be able to offer some suggestions when you get to the SF category...

I just read the first 40 or so pages of Zadayi Red by Caleb Fox. It looks like a prehistoric novel a la Jean M. Auel, but set in a native American setting. That genre is not my thing at all so I won't be reading on, but I wanted to mention it here in case some of you do like that style. It seemed very well written, especially for a debut, and I could see this author taking off quickly if the right people find his books.

Next up, I have SO many good books to chose from...

- The City & the City by China Miéville

- Mistborn The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson for next month's discussion

- To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts

... and it's hard to pick one!

I'm currently trying to clean up the books lying around my living room. Three months ago I was "challenged" to separate the books into categories and read one from each category. One of the "categories" I had was "mystery" -- but then I found that I could further subdivide the "mystery" category and come up with four more categories of pretty substantial numbers. So THIS month my "challenge" is to read one from each of the four categories of mystery. So far I've accomplished:

1) Gothic/Horror: "Vampyres of Hollywood" by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott. I hat to say it wasn't a great book, because I love Adrenne Barbeau as an actress, but it wasn't a great book. It did have its comical moments, though.

2) Detective: "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead" by James Burke is a much better book, and to be a hard-boiled noir thriller it achieves some genuine chill-up-the-spine tingles.

I have picked out, but yet to read 3)non-fiction: "The Lost City of Z' currently on the NYTimes bestseller list, and 4) "To Each His Own" by Leonardo Sciascia -- for some reason I have collected quite a few Italian novels in translation over the past years, and quite a few of them are mysteries; Sciascia is said to be one of the better of the Italian mystery writers, but I've not tried him out yet.

Naturally I would join a science fiction club in the middle of all this.

I'm reading Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. It's written like a hard sf novel but the core concept is that the science of the ancient Greeks is true. There are spontaneous creation farms for creating cows, space has air in it, and the ultimate goal of the main character is to steal a piece of the sun and drop it on an enemy city.

Thanks for the feedback Ron! I know I'll try to find it.

Kathryn wrote: "Ron wrote: "Just starting Paul Melko's "Singularity's Ring", and so far it's pretty good. Remember the telepathic canines from Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"? Separately they were only about as smart as dogs,..."

Oooo, that sounds really good! Let us know what you think when finished!


Okay, I quite liked it. Particularly for a first novel, it's very good. Melko writes well, the characters, especially the 'pods' (group personalities) and the people who make them up, are engaging and believeable, the villains are villains for good reasons rather than just because they don't like folks, the action is fast-paced and sustained (although there are a few cases of "Suddenly we found the very thing we were looking for...") and the ending is pretty good too. I would certainly read more of his work, even a sequel to this.

Ron wrote: "Just starting Paul Melko's "Singularity's Ring", and so far it's pretty good. Remember the telepathic canines from Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"? Separately they were only about as smart as dogs,..."

Oooo, that sounds really good! Let us know what you think when finished!

I'm reading The Chronlith's by Robert Charles Wilson. It's pretty good so far.

Just starting Paul Melko's "Singularity's Ring", and so far it's pretty good. Remember the telepathic canines from Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep"? Separately they were only about as smart as dogs, but when several got together the IQs shot up and personalities emerged? Now imagine if humans were something like that, functioning best not as individuals but as groups of three, four or five, each member with a special talent or endowment.
Cool idea, and he's making it work so far.

Stefan wrote: "Please let us know what other SF&F books you're reading! It's a fun way to pick up recommendations and discover new authors and titles."

Currently getting into TOOTH AND CLAW by Jo Walton, after an unsuccessful stint trying to reconnect with Flinx and Alan Dean Foster. I probably should have guessed that I'd outgrown something I was reading back in 1995...

So far, I am enjoying Grave Sight and hoping to finish tonight. I have only otherwise read Harris' Sookie books, which I love. And I try to keep a short story book going as well Stefan but The Essential Ellison A 50 Year Retrospective, which I am working on, is still packed since I recently moved. I need to find it. If I were to list all of the books I am in the middle of, as in picked up, started, and set aside for any number of reasons, it would be over ten. I do not have a problem keeping plots straight in my head, except with audiobooks. I had to restart Neverwhere.

I just finished Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro, which I received when she asked if anyone wanted a copy. I will be posting a review shortly.

Next up is Barrayar and book 2 in a trilogy by Stephen Lawhead, but the name of the book escapes me right now.

I only read one book at a time. I usually do some periodical reading, too, but I can't follow 2 books at once. My brain just isn't that agile, I guess.

Kathryn wrote: "Ditto on reading only 2 books at a time Sandi. I'm not counting graphic novels or my audiobook, so I guess I'm only reading Grave Sight. I'm listening to [book:Neverwhere A Novel|1449..."

I usually only have 2 books going at a time: one novel, and one short story collection. The short story collections can sometimes take me months to complete, because I only read a story here and there, between novels.

Kathryn wrote: "Ditto on reading only 2 books at a time Sandi. I'm not counting graphic novels or my audiobook, so I guess I'm only reading Grave Sight..."

Have you read any of her other series? If so, please let me know what you think of Harper compared to Sookie or Aurora. I didn't like this series as much. Harper was just too whiny & depressing. Very interesting premise/power she has though. The limitations & abilities it gives her make for interesting, twisted situations.

Ditto on reading only 2 books at a time Sandi. I'm not counting graphic novels or my audiobook, so I guess I'm only reading Grave Sight. I'm listening to Neverwhere A Novel and hoping to start Barrayar next.

Also, I cannot recommend Norse Code.

I'm reading Dying Inside, The Curse of the Mistwraith, Eve of Darkness, and Cordelia's Honor. I really need to get my actively-reading books back down to two.

I finished Dying Inside yesterday and The Thin Man last Friday. I'm still reading Warbreakear at home in the evenings and started Lost in a Good Book today during lunch.

I'm currently reading Bridge of Birds A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was. I'm waiting for my Sci-Fi book club edition of the first two Bujold novels to come. Then I'll read that.

I was going to jump right into The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan for this club.

But after the WOW-ending of The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts, I am going to have to tackle something lighter and less epic for a few days....

So, it's a re-read of Thinner by Stephen King. Quick, easy, not a lot of depth. Just what my brain needs while Mistwraith settles in....then it's on to Steel Remains......

It's quiet here lately! What's everyone reading?

I just finished The Curse of the Mistwraith by Janny Wurts, which was just excellent. I'll be posting a review once I get the chance to process everything. Next up I'll be re-reading Barrayar for the series discussion.

Say, whoever it was who recommended Thunderer by Felix Gilman, I owe you one! That book was great, the best fantasy I've read this year. Highly recommended.