Random Random’s Comments (group member since Apr 30, 2009)


Random’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Showing 61-80 of 1,272

Jun 13, 2025 07:51AM

16548 Finished Failure Mode
Wow, so that was the initial ending for the series? I'm not surprised he picked it up again. There are still a couple more books pending so now is a good time to take a break.

Started Foe this morning. CJ mentioned it in one of our QotW and it sounded interesting so I grabbed it.
16548 Wow, this year is going so fast and yet the work days are going so slow. :D

A recent question of the week reminded me that I had started a book but had put on pause for some reason I can't remember and I never got back to it.

For SF, I'm going to nominate Faller
I had been really enjoying the story and, as I mentioned, I have no memory of why I put it on hold. I suspect it was because I only have it in ebook form and 2017 wasn't a great year, including major health issues of multiple family members, and well, things just got crazy for a few years. I think I broke an ankle around that time period as well.

I'd really like to get back to it. I had been finding it fascinating. As the blurb mentions, the protagonist (Faller), and thus the reader, has no memory of who they are or what has happened, and reality has appeared to have fractured.

As the protagonist goes, memories start to return and we slowly build a picture of the past while Faller deals with the present.

I can't think of anything Fantasy at the moment, but will come back if I do.
Jun 09, 2025 07:59AM

16548 Rachel wrote: "Depends on the telling. T Kingfisher/ Ursula Vernon writes good ones (though sometimes barely recognizable)"

Now that you mention it, Nettle & Bone might have been kind of like a retelling. Though it seems more like taking fairy tale elements and doing her own thing with them.

I also thought of an exception last night. Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples. Its a twist on the Snow White story and I did enjoy that one.
Jun 08, 2025 05:20PM

16548 I'm not fond of retellings at all, though I couldn't really say why.
Jun 07, 2025 11:40AM

16548 Finished Match Game

Starting Failure Mode at some point today.

Failure Mode was initially the end of the series.. And while he picked it back up, the new stuff is not yet done, so this is a good stopping point for me for now until the new stuff is completed.
Jun 02, 2025 08:02AM

16548 Finished Fallout
That was quite the ending.

Starting Match Game

I got confused on what month we were reading the new Scalzi book, so continuing on with my marathon. :)
May 31, 2025 06:13PM

16548 I'm very similar to CJ. I don't have any hard and fast rules. I just stop when I find myself getting annoyed/frustrated/or even angry (depending on book).

I'll also sometimes stop because I find myself not reading at all instead of continuing on with the book. That's a definite sign that I need to move on to something else.

As for the timing, that can happen at any time be it stand alone or series.

I don't DNF many books. I tend to pick stuff I end up liking, but it does happen now and then.
QotW #144: Heat (6 new)
May 25, 2025 01:02PM

16548 I rather strongly dislike summer. It is my least favorite season by a large margin. In fact, the only appeal it ever had for me was because it coincided with time off school.

Give me weather with a range of about 50-70 and some daily drizzle. Now that is as close to perfect as it can get. :)

But, in the spirit of the question, a few that come to mind off hand
Dune
Jingo
The Last Continent
Pyramids

One thing this exercise has taught me. I actually have a horrible memory for the locations books take place in. I guess if its not significant to the plot, it just does not stay in long term memory.
May 22, 2025 07:38PM

16548 Finished Breakaway

I had planned to take a break here, but wow, what a cliff hanger.

Will be starting Fallout in the morning.
May 19, 2025 08:45AM

16548 Sitting at my desk sipping my first cup of tea this morning and trying to pretend I am not at work and having to play 20 questions in an hour with a PM on how something is supposed to work.

Do you prefer visual reading (paper or ebook) or audio reading (audiobook)?
Funny enough, I actually prefer text (in my case ebook) over audio. But, my life and schedule makes audiobooks much more practical if I actually want to get any reading done.

Would you rather read fantasy or science fiction?
Honestly it depends on my mood. I tend to enjoy both. So far, this year has been a SF year. primarily because I'm marathoning the Expeditionary Force series. Once I'm caught up, that might change.

Would you rather read a stand alone novel or a series?
Again, it depends on my mood or what has grabbed my attention. Stand alone books can be appealing because they are less of a commitment. The story is all there. I can read it, enjoy it, and be done with it.
But it can also be fun to immerse into a big series and know that I already know what the next X number of books will be.
Adding to that, a large series can be wearing after a while. Like I am looking forward to a break from my current series to read the new Scalzi book for next month's SF read. Once I have started a series, it can be difficult for me to break away from it, even if I am needing a break.

Dnf, or set aside for later?
I don't really differentiate between the two. If I do not finish a book, I usually just remove it from my shelves. I might or might not get back to it and that is fine with me.
I did create a on-hold shelf for books I paused for some reason with a plan of getting back to later. Looking at it, I see one book has been there for 5 years and another for 7. I still think I want to get back to them, but being a mood based reader means tossing intentions out the window.

Actually I was enjoying Faller and can't remember why I put it on hold in the first place.
I should probably make an effort to get back to it. Maybe I'll nominate it for a monthly SF read. :)
May 18, 2025 10:50AM

16548 Buy a book or borrow from the library?
Buy. Like Kathi, I don't like being time constrained on when I read something and how long I am allowed to be reading it. I also like to be able to revisit a book at any time if I so wish.
Plus, I just like owning books. I can happily live without a lot of stuff (in fact I prefer it that way), but books will never be one of them.

Reading in the early day or late day?
Late. I am not a morning person. My brain just doesn't function that well before noon. :)
May 18, 2025 09:28AM

16548 Wow, that's a lot of brain work for a Sunday morning :)

I'll toss out a couple, though I'm sure we've covered some of these in the past with our weekly questions.

1) Book or TV/Movie first?
yeah, I know, we've asked this one before but I was discussing the new Murderbot show with coworkers and the subject came up about whether they should read the novellas or just watch the TV show.

While I do watch TV, its not as common, and I almost always lean towards wanting to read the book first. But I am hoping some of them might like the show well enough to start reading the novellas. :)

Bonus points: Do you have any exceptions to this rule?
Mine: The Umbrella Academy. I enjoyed the show but I've never had any interest to go back and read the comic.

2) We recently had to have the fire alarm system tested in our office and many of my coworkers were just freaked out by the noise. I mean a lot more than I would have expected given we knew it was coming. Annoying, but expected and short lived. And this made me think

Would you rather read in an uncomfortable but quiet location, or a comfortable location that is noisy?

I go for the comfortable but noisy location myself. I'm the youngest in my family, the second youngest grandchild. Quiet was just something I never got much of and its amazing how much I can tune noises out. In fact the only noises I can't tune out are either the ones I can't identify where they are coming from or ones which signify a problem.

For example, there can be a big gathering of people with loud talking and laughter and I can tune that out with no problem. But the faint whine of a failing fan (in a piece of electronic equipment) will trigger alarm bells that I just cannot ignore.

Oh and overhearing my name being said will also trigger alarm bells even if I am successfully tuning out everything else. :)
May 14, 2025 06:57PM

16548 Finished Brushfire

Will be starting Breakaway sometime tonight or tomorrow.
May 09, 2025 07:38AM

16548 Finished Critical Mass last night and started Brushfire

Also grabbed When the Moon Hits Your Eye for next month's SF read.
May 06, 2025 08:44AM

16548 Dawn wrote: "Also a few of those tasseled ones, though all of them have lost their tassels. ."

Those tassels were the bane of my existence. They always ended up falling off, then I would try to repair it, and then the tassels never looked right again, But, at the time, almost all bookmarks I had access to had them, so crooked tassels it was. :)
May 05, 2025 08:06AM

16548 When I was a kid, I was obsessed with bookmarks. They had display stands of them at the book store I used most often and I would beg to get a new one every time I got a new book.

They were all those rectangular cardboard ones with a tassel on the top. I always bought ones that were fantasy related. When i was really young, they almost always included unicorns, dragons, or similar fantasy elements. They also had whatever saying sparked my imagination. :)

By my later teens I had stopped buying them, mostly because I already had so many.

And then, through multiple moves, college, etc, I think I lost them all. Not sure what happened, but I don't remember if that bothered me or not. Also didn't buy any new ones because I was paying for college, I had no disposable income.

I started using any random piece of paper that was handy. Receipts were common, as were bus transfer stubs. A favorite of mine was a paper insert that had come in a box of mints. I liked using it because it smelled nice.

Over the years that became less and less necessary, as I moved to ebooks and audiobooks, which is pretty much where I am now. When I read physical print books, I still tend to fall back to using whatever scrap of paper is handy and the right size.

I never dogeared pages. Like my aversion to writing in books, I never liked damaging the books.
May 02, 2025 07:01PM

16548 Finished Freefall

OMG I adore the Jeraptha, especially the ECO (Ethics Compliance Office). The ship names are great.
Parole Violation
Out on Bail
Plausible Deniability
Will Do Sketchy Things
We Were Never Here
It Was Like That When We Got Here
I'm As Shocked As You Are
I'm Aching To Give Somebody A Beat-Down And Today Is Your Lucky Day

Will be starting Critical Mass sometime this weekend.
Apr 30, 2025 08:30AM

16548 Nanny could be fun to party with, but I feel like I might never meet Granny's approval.

Maybe Miles Vorkosigan, though I suspect I might want to strangle him by the end of the day. :)

Maybe Piranesi (can't remember his real name). I think it could be nice to just be quiet with one another.

All of the animals from any T. Kingfisher book, especially Bongo (from The Twisted Ones).

Ofelia from Remnant Population. Her independent streak would be refreshing.

And maybe Indy from Road to Roswell.
Apr 26, 2025 08:51PM

16548 Justine wrote: "Shel I was just going to suggest you read the sequels, Interference, and Usurpation. All are different and equally excellent."

Do we know if Usurpation is going to be the last book? I've been kind of hoping to nominate it as series read once it qualifies.
Apr 25, 2025 08:07AM

16548 Finished Valkyrie
I was up too late trying to finish this book and the cliff hanger is torturous.

Especially since the next book Freefall is part of the Mavericks sub series and switches to an entirely different group of characters. Oh, and I started that this morning on my way into work.