What Else Are You Reading - January 2017

[Rob, Roberator]

What's on your reading agenda for 2017 and the month of January?

[Stephen]

50 books this year, as I am determined to trim the " To Be read" pile of books. Started Have Space Suit—Will Travel in audio. I thank Charlie Jane Anders for the shout out in her book as it is a blast and the narration is done in the perfect vibe.

[Louie]

Stephen wrote: "Started Have Space Suit—Will Travel in audio. I thank Charlie Jane Anders for the shout out in her book as it is a blast and the narration is done in the perfect vibe."

Many, if not all, of Heinlein's "Juvenile Novels" are a lot of fun.

[Sandi]

I've been listening to The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. I don't know if I will finish it though. It's very long and doesn't seem to be going anywhere after nine hours.

I thought this month's book for my in-person group was The Girl with All the Gifts, so I started re-reading it. Turns out, it's April's book. This month is supposed to be Seveneves. I will just talk about that one from memory.

I'm having trouble settling on one book to read in text. I have been reading Fellside and just started The Long War. I think I've become overwhelmed by the number of books I have to read and listen to that I can't focus.

[John (Taloni)]

William Gibson wasn't a total loss. After lemming The Difference Engine I picked up Count Zero. I read Neuromancer decades ago and found it fair to middling. Kicking around the library listings I realized it had become a trilogy, with Count Zero the second book.

Count Zero was also fairly incoherent to at least the halfway point. Individual stories progressed but there was no overarching whole. The story eventually came together at the end in a fairly interesting fashion. Overall decent but not great.

What kept me from enjoying the story is the extended analogy of cyberspace to drug smuggling, even with higher level hackers "dealing" to lower level ones and then users. It felt like a futuristic version of Miami Vice. Probably that's a big part of the reason for the book's success. *shrug*

(view spoiler)[The emergence of the AI was straight out of "Adolescence of P-1". Nothing really new or interesting there. It was dressed up in grit and death, but otherwise unremarkable. Some interesting religious-adaptation bits perhaps, as the AIs manifest as voodoo deities. (hide spoiler)]

All in all too much grit, death and dirt for me to fully enjoy it. That's cyberpunk I suppose. Comes with the territory.

I'll continue on to the third book, Mona Lisa Overdrive.

[Rick]

I don't really do challenges etc so a lot of my reading will be focused on a couple of things.

First, grab books by authors I like. For example, Daniel José Older has a new book out on the 3rd and I like his work, so that will get bought. Second, try new authors who seem to be doing interesting things. This is hard because I've been reading SFF for 40 years, so I know most of the names. HOWEVER... there are always new authors and I'd like to find a better way to uncover these. For example, Stephen Renneberg's stuff is new to me but I like it a lot. Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace is excellent. Maybe I need to start a thread for suggestions...

[Elizabeth]

I like to have one fiction and one school-related non-fiction on the go at all times, and one audio book as well (which can be either fiction or non-). So, I'm aiming to continue that for this year.

At the moment I'm listening to Brandon Sanderson's Elantris and reading Christopher Tyerman's God's War: A New History of the Crusades.

I'm waiting for my library books to come in: I've ordered the rest of Jo Walton's Farthing trilogy (I've read the first), as well as her Thessaly trilogy (which starts with The Just City). And, of course, I shall attempt The Three-Body Problem when (if) it comes in in time. The other branches of my library system have a habit of not bothering to send ordered books.

[Melissa]

I'm finally making a dent in Babylon's Ashes. I'm enjoying it so far.

I am anxiously awaiting The Heart of What Was Lost, which is set in world of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I had been wanting to re-read MST, and when I heard a new series of books was coming out, it forced me to read MST again. You can really see the influence MST had on A Song of Ice and Fire. George even name some background characters Josua and Elias after the brothers in MST, in his own series.

[Silvana]

Finished with The Dragon's Path and I agree with Rob, this is a good series. I was even not paying attention to 'time left' in my Kindle and was rather miffed when it ended.

Now starting Epic: Legends of Fantasy - first anthology of the year. Read two of the novellas already, one by Hobb and one by Martin, both I love alot.

[Dara]

I'm currently reading Assassin's Quest.

[Rob, Roberator]

Silvana wrote: "Finished with The Dragon's Path and I agree with Rob, this is a good series. I was even not paying attention to 'time left' in my Kindle and was rather miffed when it ended. "

Cool. I think it gets better with each book too. The character development is some of the best I've read.

[Mary]

I'm currently rereading The Handmaid's Tale. I also just picked up Odd and The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. I cant wait to get into that next. (I usually have at least two books going at once- so these are at the same time I'm reading Three Body)

[Darren]

Maryb wrote: "I also just picked up Odd and The Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. I cant wait to get into that next. (I usually have at least two books going at once- so t..."

I enjoyed that one.

[Sean]

Just finished Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. If you remember the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon from the '80s, that's pretty much what this is: six folk sucked into a fantasy world are forced to become warriors and form a dungeon crawling party.

But with one major twist -- they all really suck at it. The first time they fight a lone goblin, it takes them an hour to beat it do death, with it screaming in pain and begging them to stop for most of it. And then it only has a few copper coins worth of loot.

Yes, it's Murder Hobos: The Series.

[elizabeth • paper ghosts]

One of my big goals for this year is to make a huge dent in series completion. I've started so many series and for whatever reason, just never finished them. I began yesterday with The Chemickal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist, the last in a trilogy. After that, I plan to pick up Three Body. We'll see if I get anymore in this month - I am a terribly slow reader, haha.

[terpkristin]

I'm continuing to listen to To Green Angel Tower. Originally published as two (long) books, I'm in the last 1/4 of the combined set. It's been good but clearly there's still a lot to go (8 hours or so).

[Rob, Roberator]

Here's my overall Review of 2016

Plus catching up on a big backlog of reviews from the end of last year:

Angles of Attack - (My Review)
Black Hawk Down - (My Review)
Chains of Command - (My Review)
The Rook - (My Review)
Attack on Titan, Vol. 21 - (My Review)
The Path of Daggers - (My Review)

[Ivy]

Listening to the audio of Stephen King's Wizard and Glass, reading Ghost Talkers at home, and getting though the e-book version of Dragonquest at work in-between patrons...slowly but surely. Sent my arc of The Bear and the Nightingale to the wrong device so I'm just waiting for it to be released at this point.

[Trike]

Waiting on 3BodPro from the library, I picked up non-SFF The Daily Show: An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests and the appeals-to-SF-fans Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond.

[Kristina]

Got a whole stack from the library! Working on the pick.. only a couple pages in.. not sure I like it though-but I'm not giving up yet. Also reading The Bird and the Sword which I think I got from amazon's goodreads awards sale. The I'll pick whatever off my pile... have Captain's Fury, Red Country, Time Salvager, and Warbreaker sitting here. I don't do the challenges, but I like to try to advance any series I haven't finished or revisit authors I really like in the first few months of the year.

[Joseph]

Finished Sagas of Conan and am starting Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 -- wasn't on my agenda, necessarily, but it was lent to me on New Year's, so here we go.

[Colin]

For the year as a whole I've set a Goodreads goal of 36 books.

I've already got about 10 books planned out that have release dates in the first half of the year. By the time I add in some or all of the Sword & Laser picks I'm not sure how I'm going to make any impact on the list of stuff I already own but haven't read yet!

First up is THE RIDER by Scott Sigler - the latest add-on novella to his Galactic Football League series.

[Keith]

I'm on to my second Duc de Richleau novel by Dennis Wheatley, The Devil Rides Out. The first one was a straight-forward espionage adventure novel. This one begins with, "Oh, did I also mention I have a long history of battling the occult?" and then we're off to the races and punching the Goat of Mendes in the face. I enjoy the heck out of Hammer's movie version of this, and my goal for 2017 was to read more source material for the (mostly pre-1970s) movies I love.

[Joseph]

Finished Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 (it read fast) and started an anthology: Fearsome Magics, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

[Rick]

Reading Daniel José Older's new book Battle Hill Bolero, the third in his Bone Street Rumba series. Excellent stuff.

[Rob]

I am reading Ian C. Esselemont's Stonewielder and am listening to The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team.

Both so far so good.

Technically I have also started John Dies at the End, but will come back to it after I finish Stonewielder. I am also reading The Federalist Papers bit by bit :)

[Stephen]

Finished Have Space Suit—Will Travel , a total Blast!!
Ripping through Theft of Swords and will get back to Death's End after I Listen to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress via my Amazon Prime/Audible channel thing,

[Maria]

I plan on reading Hamilton this month since I already read the pick. (Which I loved). It's absurd how obsessed I am with the Broadway Soundtrack so I decided to just go down that rabbit hole.

[terpkristin]

Maria wrote: "I plan on reading Hamilton this month since I already read the pick. (Which I loved). It's absurd how obsessed I am with the Broadway Soundtrack so I decided to just go down that rabbit hole."

The Hamilton Mixtape album is fantastic, too, if you haven't heard it.

[Dara]

Maria, the Hamilton biography is fantastic and made me love and appreciate the musical even more. It was my favorite book that I read last year. I hope you like it!

[Kittie]

I just finished The Wise Man's Fear and will start The Rook next as I didn't get around to reading along with the group in December.

[David H.]

Consigned to the Sea by Danielle Ackley-McPhail. The author gave this out as part of the Jack Campbell/Brenda Cooper Kickstarter, it's a collection of 4 of her short stories, 2 of which have a connection to each other. Enjoyable.

At the Sign of Triumph by David Weber. The 9th Safehold book. A bit of a chore to get through. I like Weber a lot, but the two he released in November have been a bit so-so.

[Kev]

I just binged a 4-book series called the Intrepid Saga (Outsystem,A Path in the Darkness,Building Victoria, and Destiny Lost) by M.D. Cooper. It's far-future Military SF, and it's a blast!

My one big problem with the series is that it's not over yet! I thought the 4th book would be the last and wrap up everything nicely. NOPE. It wrapped up the first four books and launched the story right in to another multi-book series. (I guess this isn't really a problem, as I get to live in that universe longer now.)

It's also self-published (Amazon), so there are some typos but nothing that detracts from the story.

But, as I've mentioned before, I often find self-pubbed stuff that's as good as, if not better, than traditionally-published books.

[Clyde]

Just finished The Invisible Library and Dragon's Teeth. Both are quite good (though very different genres).
Now reading The Rook and Babylon's Ashes.

Like some others here, this year I am hoping to read down my TBR pile a bit.

[Thane]

Listened to Red Rising and immediately went to the sequel. Golden Son Tim Gerard Reynolds is the narrator and really brings it to life. Amazing work.

[Sandi]

I am taking a break from The Years of Rice and Salt audiobook. I listened to The Things We Wish Were True (non-genre) and am now listening to Named of the Dragon.

In text, I finished A Dirty Job. I had started that one in October. I did decide to give Seveneves a re-reading. I had listened to the audiobook the first time, but my library had the e-book available, so I'm reading it in that format this time.

[Trike]

Thane wrote: "Listened to Red Rising and immediately went to the sequel. Golden Son Tim Gerard Reynolds is the narrator and really brings it to life. Amazing work."

I've been trying to read that for five years. I think I'm still only 1/3 through it.

[Kristina]

Dara wrote: "Maria, the Hamilton biography is fantastic and made me love and appreciate the musical even more. It was my favorite book that I read last year. I hope you like it!"


This has been hanging out in my "I should read that" mental list... you've convinced me to add it to the official To Reads.. :P

[Thane]

Trike wrote: "Thane wrote: "Listened to Red Rising and immediately went to the sequel. Golden Son Tim Gerard Reynolds is the narrator and really brings it to life. Amazing work."
..."

I wondered if I'd have enjoyed it as much if I'd just read it. I've also found some books I just can't follow if I'm listening. Too much techno-gobble or other things. Those I have to read.

[Dara]

Finished Fool's Quest last night. It was predictably great. My short review (I'm finding it increasingly difficult to review Robin Hobb's books. We're up to book 15 in the Elderlings universe so it's hard to discuss them without spoiling things or just gushing over Hobb's talents). I'm now reading Wishful Drinking. Anything I read after Hobb always suffers in comparison so I'm reading something totally different. And I miss Carrie.

[Keith]

My journey through Jack McDevitt's universe continues with Odyssey. So far, this is the most political of the Academy books, with the first hundred pages being taken up by debates about government funding for research and exploration, but it's all pretty good even if I sorely miss having Hutch in the pilot's seat rather than an office chair.

[John (Taloni)]

Finished up Peter Hamilton's "Manhattan in Reverse." It's mostly retakes of stuff already in Commonwealth books. Nothing earth shaking but some decent light reading. Hamilton seems to be in love with his detective character Paula Myo and thinks we are as well. I'm not - for me it's the Commonwealth itself. So i'm okay with the two Paula Myo stories but didn't love them. Then there's a piece about a past-to-future that assumes Rome developed centuries-long longevity. Interesting enough, but is odd in that it uses weights and measures that would never have happened in this new world. All in all a good, light read.

[Rob, Roberator]

I like Paula Myo a lot personally, but I'd agree it's the world that's the best part of Commonwealth.

[Trike]

I finally got Three Body Problem from the library. I'm really enjoying the Cultural Revolution stuff in the first chapter.

But now I'm going to see Hidden Figures. Or maybe La La Land. Whichever is laying first.

[Bruce]

Trike wrote: "I finally got Three Body Problem from the library. I'm really enjoying the Cultural Revolution stuff in the first chapter."

I'm interested to hear your views once you finish the book.

[Joseph]

Finished Fearsome Magics, which had some excellent stories in it, and am about half way through Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway, which is frankly brilliant.

[Rick]

Snake Agent was recommended on Charlie Stross' twitter the other day as a very different urban fantasy and boy is it. Very fun stuff so far.

[Joseph]

Rick wrote: "Snake Agent was recommended on Charlie Stross' twitter the other day as a very different urban fantasy and boy is it. Very fun stuff so far."

I read the first ... four? of that series years ago and yes, they were great. I should go back and read the rest.

[Dara]

I made quick work of Wishful Drinking (my review) and moved on to Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson.

[David H.]

I finished reading Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 124 earlier this week. Probably the first issue I really liked since I started seriously reading the magazine in October. I've always found magazines, anthologies, & collections to be pretty hit or miss in their stories, but this issue worked for me. I recommend "A Series of Steaks" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad.