What Else Are You Reading - October 2016

[Rob, Roberator]

So personally I'm not a big horror fan, but I may pick up a Stephen King book since it's now October.

How about you, what other books are you enjoying this month?

[John (Taloni)]

Plowing through the last of the Poseidon's Children books by Alastair Reynolds. Same reaction as the rest: Good space opera, good use of science, the PC checklist a little offputting. This one delves deeper into mysteries set up in the other two books. And we finally have a elephant villain!

[Stuart]

I am reading Me Before You byJojo Moyes

[Rick]

War Factory by Neal Asher and Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone are what I'm doing right now.

[Joseph]

Finished The Legend of Eli Monpress and am continuing on to The Spirit War, the fourth book in the series.

[ladymurmur]

Finished Leviathan Wakes (whoa...), and am currently enjoying The Purloined Poodle.

[Trike]

Flying home today, so hopefully I'll be able to finish Karen Memory. Or at least make a dent in it.

[David H.]

The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers: A collection of 6 short stories. Some of them were interesting but fell flat for me. I don't know. I'm going to try Anubis Gates from him soon, but if that doesn't work for me, I'll probably swear off Tim Powers...

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman: Another story in her Twenty Planets universe, about finding what is apparently the 21st planet. Very different from Halfway Human, this one looks like more a concept of blindness and consciousness.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Smoke and Shadow, Part 3 by Gene Luen Yang: Finally got my hands on the 3rd volume of this. Pretty nice--excited to see what happens in the next series.

[Rob, Roberator]

I finished reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to the second book later this month (My Review).

I also listened the rather short non-fiction book: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life. I liked it, but didn't love it (My Review).

[Stephen]

Doing the audio of Three Parts Dead, and dead tree reading Swords in the Mist, as a recent Reddit Fantasy question of most influential writer other than Tolkien on the field?, yielded not one mention of Fritz Leiber

[Kristina]

I just read Cold-Forged Flame as a I was waiting on my hold on this months pic. Super quick read and I enjoyed it... but now I have The Golem and the Jinni to jump into.

[Sumant]

Here is my review for The Emperor's Blades.

[Colin]

Discovered, with some horror, that I'm still reading everything I mentioned at the start of September. What on earth happened to the month?!

Anyway, I've decided to pass on this month's pick, so I hope to catch up a bit and have something new to write about next month.

[Trike]

Colin wrote: "Discovered, with some horror, that I'm still reading everything I mentioned at the start of September. What on earth happened to the month?!"

I've been there, brother.

[Dara]

Started The Lions of Al-Rassan. Slow going at the moment because life has me busy but I've been enjoying what I can read.

[Spiffjbug]

Just finished Ilona Andrews Magic Binds and I loved it.

[John (Taloni)]

Couldn't decide between finally trying to see what the hubbub is about for Old Man's War, and continuing with the not great but decent Galactic Center books by Benford. Decided to read book 3, Great Sky River.

Well, I was warned that this book took a side step...and how! Almost halfway through and all it is is humans on the run from an AI civilization that treats them as vermin. The slow reveal is so dull as to be annoying. It's not even good insomnia fodder since it isn't a pleasant read. The other two books at least had some redeeming cosmology and good use of spaceflight, but nothing here.

I hate to abandon a story, but it seems I have to get through two books of this to get back to the even mildly interesting other storyline. Bleah. Scalzi is next and as to my return to Galactic Center, unknown.

[Misti]

Just finished A Gathering of Shadows. Now I'm bummed I have to wait for the next one. Then I read both Darth Vader and Son and Vader's Little Princess. Both cute books. Now it's on to this month's pick.

[terpkristin]

Listening to Cloudbound, reading The Golem and the Jinni on Kindle.

Also have The Wall of Storms and The Blood Mirror this month that I really want to read. TOO MANY BOOKS CAME OUT THIS MONTH!

[[deleted user]]

I'm just starting in on the monthly pick. After that I'll move onto something for Halloween. I also just picked up SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome and The Obelisk Gate. Should be a good month.

[Trike]

Started TGATJ. Two chapters in, so far so good.

Also got Connie Willis' new book, Crosstalk. The premise is that we take the obsession of constant connectivity to its logical extreme, with hilariously unexpected results. The other Willis books I've read I've thoroughly enjoyed, so I'm looking forward to this.

[Lauren]

Death’s End is on my radar. I've been anxiously awaiting this one; it came out while I was on an international business trip and I had trouble purchasing and downloading it, so now that I'm finally back it's next up on my nook.

[Rob, Roberator]

I listened to Terms of Enlistment. It was good, but not great (My Review).

[Kevin]

I just finished Parable of the Sower. It is excellent. I was a bit disappointed with the last few books I've read (Six of Crows, Zeroes, among others) even though I enjoyed them. They were are all fun reads, with fun characters and all that, but they all felt a bit superficial to me and I was left a bit wanting. Parable definitely scratched that itch. It has been a while since a book grabbed me like that.

[Brendan]

Kevin wrote: "I just finished Parable of the Sower. It is excellent. I was a bit disappointed with the last few books I've read (Six of Crows, Zeroes, among others) e..."

Coincidentally I also finished reading Parable of the Sower and thought it was excellent. And I will probably start reading Six of Crows soon! Not because I think it will be good, but it is a group read for another group.

I also finished the group read for this month (average), and am continuing to read The Big Book of Science Fiction (excellent and educational).

[Kristina]

Just finished the pick for the month.. loved it. On to Crooked Kingdom

[Sumant]

Here is my review of Raft by Stephen Baxter

[Joseph]

On to the last of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress novels, Spirit's End.

[[deleted user]]

Matthew wrote: "I'm just starting in on the monthly pick. After that I'll move onto something for Halloween. I also just picked up SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome and [book:The Obelisk Gate|2622803..."

I was recently in Rome and delighted to see SPQR on the manhole covers.

[[deleted user]]

I'm trying to finish The Red Knight .I'm so torn about it! The author is clearly well versed in medieval history and forms of combat from the time period and combining that with monsters and magic should be awesome. But there are so many rapid point of view jumps that it feels like none of the characters get developed. I want to care, but I just don't. Basing the magic system on the mind palace idea is cool, but also frustratingly vague. The whole book is a mix of potentially cool things and alternately major and minor frustrations.

[Kristina]

Joseph wrote: "On to the last of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress novels, Spirit's End."

Loved those.

[Joseph]

Kristina wrote: "Joseph wrote: "On to the last of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress novels, Spirit's End."

Loved those."

They're a lot of fun.

[Trike]

I have the first Eli Monpress book in my TBR pile. I keep wanting to say the last name as "moon-press."

[Joseph]

Trike wrote: "I have the first Eli Monpress book in my TBR pile. I keep wanting to say the last name as "moon-press.""

Yeah, I had picked up the first omnibus years ago and it just sat on my Kindle until recently.

[TRP]

I've just finished The Quest by Wilbur Smith. This is the fourth of his Eqyptian books about an Ancient Egyptian eunuch called Taita. The series started as straight historical fiction with a realistic feel but The Quest heads towards fantasy in a big way.
It is not as good as the previous books in the series but if you want fantasy mixed with a well researched historical backdrop, it might be worth giving it a go.

[YEVA]

I am currently reading Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey and I have got next two volumes of Expanse series, Abaddon's Gate and Cibola burn.

[John (Taloni)]

Finished Slow Bullets, a novella by Alastair Reynolds. It's fairly good even though it is derivative of Fahrenheit 451 and a Niven short about a time-lost ship. There's the usual macabre flavor which some people love and some don't; I put up with it to get to the well-wrangled science. All in all a decent read.

Now on to Scalzi's Old Man's War. I haven't read Scalzi before and find his persona offputting. This is his most well known book so I thought I'd finally give it a try. Fairly decent through the first 10%, good story development and some well handled humorous situations. Not all the humor worked, though. I rolled my eyes at the fat jokes. Sure Scalzi, people who are fat are bad because they're fat. It's not enough to make me Lem the book, but I find it odd when people so dedicated to progressivism don't know their own prejudices.

[Silvana]

Rivers of London (Midnight Riot) by Ben Aaronovitch. Hoping it is entertaining!

[David H.]

John Taloni, I found the (view spoiler)[revelation of the unreliability of the narrator (hide spoiler)] to be the more interesting aspect of "Slow Bullets." I've always liked Reynolds best at the novella-and-shorter lengths...

[John (Taloni)]

David, I found it reminiscent (view spoiler)[of the narrator in Chasm City. The narrator perhaps might have actually been one of those most in need of redemption, with just a surface memory of Orvin, perhaps even a fake one. His status as war criminal might have been entirely faked, or he might have been covering for her. (hide spoiler)]

I wanted more. If he had decided to expand to novel length, like he did with House of Suns, I would gladly have read it.

[David H.]

Haha, I think I actually like Thousandth Night better than House of Suns (maybe because I wanted more of those thousand nights). At least he's going to be writing another House of Suns book!

[Rick]

Silvana - I liked that one a lot. I just finished The Neon Court by Kate Griffin which I quite liked.

[Kristina]

Flew through Crooked Kingdom....I really liked it. Age of Myth up next.

[terpkristin]

Listening to Cloudbound. I like the story but the narrator pronounces some things oddly.

[Phil]

Just finished The Golem and the Jinni. It was ok but not really my cup of tea.
Starting Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.

[Joel]

I've been listening to The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough. I've really been enjoying it, and Simon Vance has, of course, done a fantastic job narrating.

However, I think I have missed an important detail in the book, and rewinding the audiobook would be a lot of work to try to find the answer. So I was wondering if someone could answer the following question for me:

(view spoiler)[Why is Neil hiding his and Tanya's research about the possibility of a second alien ship from everyone? I don't understand why he needs to or wants to. (hide spoiler)]

If the question is answered in the sequel books, just let me know, and I'll wait to find out. Thanks.

[Eric]

The Magician's Land
Miss Fury Vol 1
Lovecraft's Monsters
Don Quixote

[YEVA]

I am reading Caliban's War by James S.A.Corey!!!

[Viola]

I'm having another go at The Caryatids.

[[deleted user]]

Currently reading, Heimskringla: or, The Lives of the Norse Kings. History, but plenty of swords. Some great stories. Like the earl who invaded England and killed a king there. Then hung his head on his saddle. The teeth scratched his leg, which got infected, and so he died too.

So far enjoying it very much. I'm reading the version from Project Gutenberg.