The Sword and Laser discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading - October 2016
Joel wrote: "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..."
It's been a while since I read this (I was actually in Darwin, Australia, when I finished it), but I think the answer to your question is straightforward: money and power. It's potentially the most valuable item on the entire planet. So in the spirit of "he who controls the Spice controls the universe", they don't want anyone to jump their claim.
There's a short story prequel to this book at the end of Zero World, called The Dire Earth: A Novella, which I found to be better-written than Darwin Elevator but ultimately pointless aside from completeness for completeness' sake. I haven't read any of the sequels.
Trike wrote: "Joel wrote: "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..."
Thanks!
Finished Spirit's End (the last of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress novels) and started Spirit's Oath, a prequel novella.
Finished The Lions of Al-Rassan. I enjoyed it but was left largely disappointed. I wanted more. My review. Now doing a re-read of Harry Potter. The news and this election has really crushed what remaining soul I had. I need something comforting.
Dara wrote: "Finished The Lions of Al-Rassan. I enjoyed it but was left largely disappointed. I wanted more. My review. Now doing a re-read of Harry Potter. The news and this election has really c..."I'm afraid to re-read any GGK books in case they don't hold up to my childhood memories of them.
Brendan wrote: "Dara wrote: "Finished The Lions of Al-Rassan. I enjoyed it but was left largely disappointed. I wanted more. My review. Now doing a re-read of Harry Potter. The news and this election..."I was disappointed because I wanted more of the story. It should have been multiple volumes instead of one. There's so much that could have been explored in depth.
I would be sick if I could not start on A Closed and Common Orbit today, so work is going to miss me!
Finished up Scalzi's Old Man's War. Decent bubblegum SF, nothing to write home about. The referrals to Starship Troopers were pretty clear, but it seemed at first that Scalzi was going for a parody tone. Later on he wanted to get serious, but was still stuck in the comedic writing style. It was like reading a Xanth novel. I was left with the impression that I'd just read a remake of Starship Troopers by Piers Anthony.
Scalzi's fiction tends to have a snarky, slightly humorous tone through much of it. Also, remember that Old Man's War was his first novel and in many ways, Ghost Brigades is a step up. One of the things I tend to like about his fiction is that the prose is easy to slip into and I'll find that I'm 50 pages from where I started before I know it. BTW, have you ever read any Neal Asher? You seem to read a lot of the things I do, so I'm curious.
Stephen wrote: "I would be sick if I could not start on A Closed and Common Orbit today, so work is going to miss me!"How did you get a copy? I can't get one anywhere.
The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst: Quite a fun novel, and I got to hear Sarah read from this at Capclave. But holy cow, what a body count, haha.Into the Wild and Out of the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst: Her first two books, following the daughter of Rapunzel who has--with other fairy tale characters--escaped from living & repeating those fairy tale lives (The Wild). Middle-grade books, but I enjoyed them.
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers: This took me almost two weeks to read, and when I finally finished, I was left feeling a little empty--there was a lot of cool things in here, but for whatever reason it didn't quite seem to work together. It might've just been an issue of mismatched expectations going into it. I'm probably not going to read anything else by Powers...
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How did you get a copy? I can't get one anywhere."
Not sure about him, but I got the eBook from Amazon.
I just finished Bright Smoke, Cold Fire by Rosamund Hodge. Her debut novel, Cruel Beauty, was marketed as a Beauty and the Beast 'retelling', but it's so much more than that. There's a lot of mythology and dark magic in there too, and I really enjoyed it.
Then Crimson Bound, inspired in ways by Little Red Riding Hood, was okay, but I didn't love it.
Now her latest I enjoyed pretty well, although I was NOT expecting it to cut off abruptly right when I thought things were coming to a head. Looking to the author's website I see that it's the first book in a duology, but nowhere in or on the book itself does it say that, which I find very odd. No 'to be continued' or anything.
I do plan on reading part 2 when it's released though, as I did like this one. It's got a Romeo and a Juliet from two rival families, but they fall in love before readers even join the story, and then have hardly any page time together. It's more like Runajo (Rosaline) with Juliet, and Paris with Romeo, fighting the living dead in an attempt to save what's left of their world. Lots of neat stuff here!
Finished Spirit's Oath, Rachel Aaron's prequel novella to the Eli Monpress series and, for no reason that I can articulate, started Mr. Meeson's Will by H. Rider Haggard, which (based on the first chapter, at least) looks to be a savage satire of the publishing industry as it conducted itself in the 1880s.I believe the phrase I'm looking for is "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".
I finished The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison, apparently this is from 2014 and won the Philip K. Dick Award, a post-apocalyptic novel that is a quick read and told partially through the journal(s) collected by the midwife. Her name changes throughout as she attempts to stay alive, but this one has everything - bisexual characters, Mormons, female-centered sex survival hives, etc.I'm currently reading The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen because I'm a lucky reader who scored a review copy. It is the final book of the trilogy and considering some of the elements introduced into book 1, who knows what this book will have in store!
Picked up Star Nomad - solid space adventure kinda I enjoyed it, but not great. I have good hopes for it in later books. 3/5Going through the audible garbage bin for space opera.
Dark Horse and oops it's a romance book, overall it's okay, the main problem I have with it is the world building has serious issues where I just can't believe many parts of the alien culture, mostly the issue with them loving music but they can't make it because vocal chords...come on this is an advance civilization couldn't they just do some vocaloid shit but like better? IDK I shouldn't complain about it too much I like the backstabby secretive AI and that plot but it's just clear I'm not the target audience for the book.
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I also finally finished (41 hours) listening to Lord of Chaos. Needless to say I'm glad I did the audio for the reread: My Review
Finished The Dispatcher super interesting premise...that should of been recycled into something else and not been published as is. It takes entirely too long explaining the rules of the world and even the loophole to the rule doesn't really jive right with me. Not to mention that about a decade later this cop still doesn't seemingly know about how this all works and that so many treat dispatchers as bad is just stupid, and makes no sense. The plot which they eventually get around to solving was terrible and by solving I mean having it dropped in the MCs lap. The plot ended with just (view spoiler)
Finished the entire Sword of Truth series with Warheart. Next year I will start on another of the major series I havn't completed. Malazan, Wheel of Time or Fire and Ice.
Has anybody read the The Atlantis Gene? Any good? (I know this thread isn't the perfect place for this query, sorry).
I'm interrupting my first read through of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Vorkosigan saga. (I'm at Cetaganda , going in internal chronological order) to read the just released Kantovan Vault:, third book in the Spiral Wars. I'm on a space opera kick apparently.
Rereading Caliban's War (James SA Corey) - probably my fave book in the series after Nemesis Games. Still looking for a Halloween read so I may try Joe Hill's The Fireman (it is not horror but it is the closest thing I have).
Starting Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits finished A Closed and Common Orbit and almost finished with American Gods , a great road trip read or listen in my case.
Finished The Last Days of New Paris, which was excellent. A partial return to his new weird style with a lot of bonuses for art history nerds thrown in.Also read Six of Crows for another group's monthly read. Found it formulaic and largely unimpressive. If you're the millionth book that uses "obviously X European Country with the serial numbers filed off" as your setting, you really need to hit it out of the park, and this did not.
Currently reading Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi and, for the third straight month, The Big Book of Science Fiction, though the end is almost in sight.
Brendan wrote: "Also read Six of Crows for another group's monthly read. Found it formulaic and largely unimpressive. If you're the millionth book that uses "obviously X European Country with the serial numbers filed off" as your setting, you really need to hit it out of the park, and this did not."I also wasn't as impressed by it as most people seem to be (it has a really high average score), but it did amuse me that the author used my native language, Dutch, to get things to sound all fantasy-like. First time I've seen that.
That is why I only read the two or three-star reviews and tend to distrust anything above four. YA ratings, for example, are way too skewed due to these "OMG this is da best book eva [insert annoying gifs]" ratings/reviews.
Finished Going Rogue, I couldn't wait for the audiobook any longer and grabbed it up and loved it, Drew Hayes is just so fun.Brendan wrote: "Goodreads scores are kind of a joke."
Epic Fantasy ratings are super overinflated I basically never see new ones below 4.5 no matter how trash.
Shad wrote: "Reading Crossroads of Twilight to get back to the Wheel of Time."
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Finished Age of Myth and enjoyed it. None of the characters were as much fun as Royce and Hadrian from his other books though. Thinking I'll start Time's Edge.
Read (well, listened to) Scalzi's The Dispatcher. Enjoyed it, but wished it could have been fleshed out a bit more. I'm not saying that it should have been padded out, just to meet a particular word count, but I wanted more explanation of the big back-story. As it stands, it's ambiguous whether this is some sort of Urban Fantasy or whether the maguffin is Science Fictional in nature. Perhaps it doesn't matter, but at least a part of my brain wants to be able to properly file it under either 'Sword' or 'Laser'.Currently reading City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis. Picked this up during last year's Hugo awards controversy to see what some of the nominations fuss was about, but never got round to reading it until now. I've read a few of the stories in the collection and so far it's been enjoyable enough and thoroughly inoffensive. His take on time travel is a bit bleak though - suggesting that it inevitably leads to awful behaviour. There's obviously room for all sorts of takes on the subject, but I think I prefer my time-travel reading to be a bit more upbeat!
currently reading Shadowfever and Magic Breaks this month i also read Something from the Nightside and Dreamfever.
Currently reading Shards of Honor by LoisMcMaster Bujold.
Ghost Brigades for me now. Scalzi's still throwing big huge chunks of plot down rather than crafting a story, but it is worth reading. The infodumps aren't even thinly disguised and the story is derivative, but it's an interesting take nonetheless.
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Listening to Gardens of the Moon by Steven Eriksson. I actually read the first three Malazan books years ago and could tell there was good stuff in it but I got lost in all the characters, unfamiliar settings, etc. Listening is a much better experience as I'm following it better.
Finished H. Rider Haggard's Cleopatra and jumped 130 years ahead to Kai Ashante Wilson's A Taste of Honey.
Silvana wrote: "That is why I only read the two or three-star reviews and tend to distrust anything above four. YA ratings, for example, are way too skewed due to these "OMG this is da best book eva [insert annoyi..."Aaron wrote: "Finished [book:Going Rogue|32064513], I couldn't wait for the audiobook any longer and grabbed it up and loved it, Drew Hayes is just so fun.
Brendan wrote: "Goodreads scores are kind of a joke."
..."
Yes, but you know all YA books reviews/ratings are like that, so you adjust expectations accordingly. And even then Six of Crows average rating is standout.
I personally only pay attention to individual reviews when a book I'm interested in has a lower average rating, just to see if what bothered other people is something that will bother me too or not.
Finally finished the The Golem and the Jinni. I liked it well enough. Just felt it was 300 pages too long. Going to read The Man in the High Castle next.
Misti wrote: "Finally finished the The Golem and the Jinni. I liked it well enough. Just felt it was 300 pages too long. Going to read The Man in the High Castle next."Yeah I felt the same way. It would have been a good story if it had been seriously cut down.
Misti wrote: "Finally finished the The Golem and the Jinni. I liked it well enough. Just felt it was 300 pages too long. "It came in off the library hold, day late and a dollar short, but I'm going to read it anyway. It will help knowing it's overlong. When I find I'm getting bored I'll just start skimming. The other option is to grit my teeth and grind through the dull sections, but if there's no payoff that can really kill a book for me.
I finished Magic Breaks and Dreamfever and Something from the Nightside. I would love to finish Shadowfever however I'm having to skim a lot for several reasons one being a phobia I have combined with an OCD trait I seem to have gotten over time where things that disturb me can loop in my brain -_-. Like I can be in the middle of sleeping or doing something else and then here comes the disturbing disgusting image. The horrible thing is its a book so its just my imagination and I should be able to just not make it look so disgusting right? oh well, I will eventually suck it up and read on despite it and prob continue trying to skip over anything that may add to the disturbance lol.
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I got Death's End and Ahsoka up next while waiting for Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel to show up on 11/16.
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The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Ahsoka (other topics)Death's End (other topics)
Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel (other topics)
Revenger (other topics)
The Blood Mirror (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Alastair Reynolds (other topics)H. Rider Haggard (other topics)
Kai Ashante Wilson (other topics)
Lois McMaster Bujold (other topics)
H. Rider Haggard (other topics)
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Finished Free the Darkness, I'm still deciding on how to rate it, I enjoyed it...but holy crap is it...trashy. The main character is such a blatent sue it's cringy but I generally like sues and this one is no exception, I still feel bad for liking it though, especially because there is no anti-sue or w/e they call it for him to fight really. I'm like 1/2 way though the second now though and still liking it.
About done with Dungeon Defense 3 던전 디펜스 and again it seems to save the best for the last couple chapters. The war "negotiations" were great with both of the actual people negotiating wanting war and spent the time playing very intense games of Go (think Chess), and ending with them basically trading tying off loose ends for one another. Them collaboratively killing the hostages they both brought inside to exchange then faking a clash for negotiations breakdown then burning the tent to the ground was particularly inspired.
John (Taloni) wrote: "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. "
As someone who has the same reservations about him, I do recommend you continue reading his stuff...well maybe stop after the 2nd old man's war book and go onto his one shots. But he is good and don't miss out for a dumb reason like his blog.