What Else Are You Reading - February 2018

[Kristina]

Snuck The Armored Saint in this month when my preorder arrived. It's a quick read and I enjoyed it. Pre-ordered the next one.

[Allison]

This month I've finished

The City & the City - neat idea, but stretched too thin for me.
The Black Tides of Heaven- This was a ton of fun. So much to think about and bask in, though it was too short!
Everything I Never Told You - If you like depressing books about awful families...I still wouldn't likely recommend this one, but maybe for completeness' sake you could go for it. It's fast.
Annie Allen - Well out of my comfort zone, but I really enjoyed several of the poems! It was cool to read something that broke new ground in 1950.
A Man Called Ove - I liked it, especially for a novel of the depressing slice of life variety.

Lemmed Winter Tide. This was sort of like watching someone lock up during a performance. Started off great, missed a few beats, and then it was unrecoverable for me. I was bored and lost, and too busy to wait to be found.

Still reading The Dispossessed and just got The Three-Body Problem and The Invisible Library from the library. And kiiinda accidentally read about half of Dark Matter before I realized I'd taken on waaay too much this month and had to reel it in.

I um...didn't do a good job reeling. March is already way behind the ball.

[John (Taloni)]

Next opening, bring Invisible Library to the front. A great, and fun, read. I enjoyed Three Body Problem fine, but it's really serious.

[Allison]

John (Taloni) wrote: "Next opening, bring Invisible Library to the front. A great, and fun, read. I enjoyed Three Body Problem fine, but it's really serious."

Thanks!! I think I am going to read TIL first and then Three Body, like you suggest.

[Brendan]

Allison wrote: "Thanks!! I think I am going to read TIL first and then Three Body, like you suggest."

I thought TIL was awful, but I also 5-starred The City & The City so I should probably be ignored.

Currently I'm 75% of the way through The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin. Many of the stories are re-reads for me but some are new.

[Allison]

Brendan wrote: "Allison wrote: "Thanks!! I think I am going to read TIL first and then Three Body, like you suggest."

I thought TIL was awful, but I also 5-starred The City & The City so I should probably be igno..."

I've heard it's polarizing. But it's also a group read for me, and shorter, so I'll try to knock it out quickish. Or find I hate it and get to quit! Honestly, a couple lems wouldn't be amiss, this is an aggressive reading pace for me.

[Trike]

I don’t know why The Invisible Library would be polarizing. There’s nothing controversial about it, and it’s a well written adventure story.

The second book takes the premise even further afield by visiting yet another parallel world. It’s rather like a mash-up of the TV series Sliders with The Librarians. I’ll be reading the third and fourth installments this year for sure.

[Allison]

Trike wrote: "I don’t know why The Invisible Library would be polarizing. There’s nothing controversial about it, and it’s a well written adventure story.

The second book takes the premise even ..."

Yeah, I've heard "it's fun!" and "it's boring." in about equal measure. It has a fun premise, and I like mysteries/ capers by and large so I'm hopeful.

[Rob, Roberator]

Allison wrote: "Yeah, I've heard "it's fun!" and "it's boring." in about equal measure. It has a fun premise, and I like mysteries/ capers by and large so I'm hopeful. ..."

I came down somewhere in the middle.

[Vanessa]

I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean again so I went through a fair number of books (for me, at least) this month.

First up was A Wrinkle in Time, obviously, and then Air Awakens, which was the pick for Veronica's other book club :) The latter was a quick read, though the writing suffered from not having a good editor. AWIT was a reread, which I enjoyed; the only thing I remembered from the book was Aunt Beast. I wish I had an Aunt Beast.

I also read two Star Wars books: Lords of the Sith and Tarkin. I thought the story for Lords of the Sith was weak though it gave some nice tidbits of Vader and Palpatine hanging out. Tarkin I enjoyed much more; recommend it to anyone who's curious about what made Tarkin, Tarkin.

The Historian was a book I've been wanting to read for a long time. A nice take on the Dracula story, though it found it slow moving and it's flashback within a flashback setup was confusing at times.

I loved The Mad Scientist's Daughter and read it in one day, a rare occurrence for me. Best book I read of the month, I think, though the third Binti book The Night Masquerade was wonderful as well.

I also have never read anything by Kate Elliott so I read Black Wolves. A solid epic fantasy and apparently set a few decades after a trilogy of hers, which I'll likely try to read at some point.

Marchward!

[Richard]

This month, I got caught up on Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy. Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. Sometimes slow moving but I enjoyed the setting and the characters.

[Colin]

Finished Abaddon's Gate a couple of days ago. The storytelling's still really good and the cast and setting are very rich by this point, but I do sometimes wish the authors would just hurry up a bit? Approximately one third fewer words per volume would be ideal!

Anyway, that meant that I needed a new audiobook to listen to, so I got a slightly early start on An Unkindness of Ghosts. So far, enjoying it a lot more than I had expected.

[Shad]

Richard wrote: "This month, I got caught up on Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy. Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. Sometimes slow moving but I enjoyed the setting and the characters."

I enjoyed the series for the most part as well, but the parts where they were just driving along the surface got pretty slow.

[John (Taloni)]

^ I hated the ending so much I threw the book across the room. Have avoided KSR ever since.

[Trike]

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ I hated the ending so much I threw the book across the room. Have avoided KSR ever since."

Same.

[Silvana]

Wrapping up Children of Time - fantastic book.

Starting a much lighter read, going back to urban fantasy, Midnight Crossroad, and if I can finish both tomorrow I'll start my seafaring adventure with On Stranger Tides.

[Silvana]

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ I hated the ending so much I threw the book across the room. Have avoided KSR ever since."

Red Mars? I decided to abandon the trilogy but I quite liked the first book and gave it three stars. Looking forward to read his New York 2140 later this year.

[Clyde]

Reading Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel and listening to The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.
Enjoying both quite a lot.