SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading in 2019?
Nichelle wrote: "At the moment, I am reading ... ... ... ..."I recognize and appreciate that reading style! I'm currently reading:
Swords and Deviltry (I like the prose but find the gendering off-putting)
Men at Arms (Pratchett was great at telling stories that were set elsewhere but end up being about our world)
Going Postal (I've heard stories from people who work in the post office here, but not like this)
Artemis (not impressed by the start - seems YA/trite)
Dog Dish of Doom (in the car with the dog book - hope he doesn't get any ideas)
The Vela (gripping narration but brutal setting)
Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean (highly recommended if you're in a tidal area)
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World (or into trees, although this is highly anthropomorphized)
The Name of the Wind (I love the writing but the world and characters aren't pulling me in yet)
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (fun but best read in chapter-sized chunks)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (so far I'm thinking that the movie was better.)
Empress of Forever (I like the high concept SF parts but am unsure on the rest)
A Night in the Lonesome October (one more night!)
Raucous, now you have to disclose how you manage not to lose track of what you're reading.
Raucous wrote: "Nichelle wrote: "At the moment, I am reading ... ... ... ..."I recognize and appreciate that reading style! I'm currently reading:
Swords and Deviltry (I like the prose but find the..."
I agree with your point about Swords and Deviltry. I'm a little more forgiving of the gender portrayals in vintage SF than in contemporary reads, but it can be off-putting for sure.
I finally finished the chunkster I’ve been struggling with today! And in the end, I did really enjoy it. Downbelow Station. Now I’m reading:
The Farthest Shore, UKL (reread for me, reading to my 10year old, his first time)
A Night in the lonesome October, Zelazny (one more day - I’m kinda sad!)
Tentacles and Teeth (a YA ARC that I’m not sure I like very much)
Green Mars, Robinson
All Clear, Connie Willis
An Unkindness of Ghosts
I'm not quite as spread out as Raucous, but I'm not far behindLammas Night - I've been working on this for a while and I really don't like it that much - on my Fire
Black Sun Rising - enjoying - on my Paperwhite
Last Seen Alive - my car book - on my Voyage
Strong Poison - not bad, but a bit dated - on my Paperwhite
Complete Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs - John Carter books - on my Paperwhite
History of Food - quite interesting - paper version
The Lord Dunsany Compendium - bogged down - on Kindle for PC
the only two I have difficulty with reading at the same time are the Thanet and Lord Peter Wimsey books as they're both mysteries set in England near the same time period
mostly, I'm alternating between 2-3 of them at the same time. The key is to have them enough different from each other so you can keep the characters and the plot separate. It's not much different tan watching three different TV shows on the same night that are part of continuing series
Jacqueline wrote: "I agree with Chessie. I like to see what people think of the books here. I never click on the review link."Thirding what CBR and Jacqueline said, I really enjoy seeing the micro-reviews in this thread and try to provide a little something like that each time I finish a book (even if it's not germane to SFF).
I'll sometimes click through to a review, but almost never via an unadorned link unless I'm already familiar with the book.
Gabi wrote: "Raucous, now you have to disclose how you manage not to lose track of what you're reading."Like CBRetriever I try to make sure that I'm not actively reading two books that are similar to each other at the same time. If I get seriously pulled into a fiction book I'll spend more time on non-fiction books to maintain separation. If it's fantasy I might also be reading a science fiction book concurrently. Or it may be that one is audio and one is text. Those seem to occupy different spaces in my head. Sometimes I'll let a book sit for a few weeks and get hazy on plot points but since I mostly use e-readers now it's easy to refresh my memory with a search. Usually.
Read Ray Bradbury's Machineries Of Joy - reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027934766and
Tom Baker's Doctor Who: Scratchman - reviewed - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3027934766.
As I sit here waiting for the 3 trick-or-treaters to show up, I finished Velocity Weapon by Megan O’Keefe, a kinetic and cool Space Opera. It has so much neato-keen stuff in it: space battles, sentient spaceships, rough-and-tumble politics, secret societies, a hint of ancient aliens, smart and capable protagonists doing awesome space things... I was sure this was going to be a 5-star book. But then it just ends, leaving all of the multiple threads unfinished, which is completely unsatisfying. I’ll come back to it in 6 years when she finishes the tale.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Just finished After the Flood, which is basically “The Road meets Waterworld” and is less plausible than either of them. I don’t know if this was intended to be a realistic post-apocalypse story, but it fails on every front. Why do people dislike science so much?My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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If you DO NOT want the newsletter, please make sure your settings are such that you do not get messages from people who are not your friends.
It's once a month, I try to make it fun, and it contains links to all the threads containing official group shenanigans.
Sorry for the interlude, every month I get someone asking me about this, so I thought this time I'd try to pre-empt it. But if not, you may, as always, message me!
I love your newsletters Allison. Informative and fun to read!
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To bring this back on track, I"m about 40% into Midnight's Children now. It's a very fun way to learn history!
I enjoy the newsletters, too. It's fun to see what you come up with to spice it up each month. And it's always good to have a reminder of the many reads that are tucked away in the group threads!*
I've finally finished up my extremely leisurely listen-through of the Audible version of Mansfield Park. It's quite different from the other Austen novels I've read. It has a soothing cadence to it even as some pretty crazy life changes are going on, almost entirely thanks to its sweet, but not terribly interesting, point of view character. (review)
Next on the audio docket is Daisy Jones & The Six. I listened to the first half-hour of it last night and it seems perfectly suited to audio, since it's an oral history of a fictional band. The production company went all-out making this feel like a real documentary, even though it isn't. Fun!
I just finished an ARC for K.J. Parker upcoming book My Beautiful Life. Now i'm going to read All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The book became the Tom Cruise movie Live, Die, Repeat.
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Live, Die, Repeat....it was released here as Edge of Tomorrow. I was reading somewhere this morning that Bladerunner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was set in November 2019 so I decided that after I finish Rosewater I might actually start reading it. It will be my first PKD. I didn’t finish Something Wicked This Way Comes (which would have been my second Ray Bradbury) and picked Rosewater out of my Book Mobile TBR yesterday instead after Hubby returned to the Outback after two weeks holiday. The carnival was giving me nightmares and I have enough of them at the moment with real life so I decided to put it off until next October.
Rosewater is good so far. Might give it to my son next year for his birthday or Christmas once Hubby is finished with it.
Hubby has nearly finished all of his books that I left him at the Outback house and I think only has Red Sister and Fahrenheit 451 left under the bed out there. He said at first he wanted to take some murder mysteries home but ended up picking The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Ancillary Justice to take with him. I also threw The Martian (he did love the movie) and The Lost Man by Jane Harper (a Murder mystery) into the bag. He doesn’t leave any book unfinished so I know he’ll read them all. He didn’t like The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, he liked Good Omens (high praise from him because that’s about the best you get “it was good”), he thought Early Riser by Jasper Fforde finishes too abruptly after the buildup and The Art of Racing in the Rain was OK.
Interesting bit on Bladerunner vs reality today on the BBC site:https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-5...
Yeah that’s probably the same article I saw. Or something very much like it. Our version of the BBC (the ABC or Australian Broadcasting Commission) did the same story and someone shared it on Facebook. I didn’t read any of it other than the bit saying that it’s November 2019 and that we’re not wearing the coats. I didn’t want to spoil anything. Would you believe I’m 56 and I haven’t even seen Bladerunner.....it would normally be something I would have watched but I didn’t. Go figure.
Allison wrote: "A somewhat off topic note to folks--I send a monthly newsletter via messages. If you DO want the newsletter, please either make sure your settings are set such that you get messages from people who..."I stole your idea...
Jacqueline wrote: "...Rosewater is good so far..."I'm also reading Rosewater, for an IRL bookclub next week. Interesting start....
I've bookmarked the group discussion to return to when I've finished. :-)
I don’t have an IRL bookclub. Don’t have an IRL anything. I don’t have a life. Just me, my dog, my books and my 91 year old Father in law. Can’t commit to anything. One week I might be able to get away on a Monday and the next a Thursday. This is the best I can do and I usually can’t keep up with the reading here either lolTalking of the old fart I better get tea on so I can take it to him and listen to the same stories as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
Jacqueline wrote: "... and listen to the same stories as yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that..."We get a lot of that at the assisted living center where we take our therapy dog. At least we only hear each one once a week.
Yeah it’s an old people thing. Some days are better than others. The good thing is I can tell him all of my stories again and again and he can’t remember them lol I usually take my dog down too. Granpa isn’t a dog person but he actually does love Darcy so I suppose he’s sort of a therapy dog too. He doesn’t like the other dogs that his other kids have though. They all jump around him. He’s really unsteady lately and uses a walker. Darcy stays out of his way and watches him to make sure he’s ok. He always has actually. Right from when he was about 9 weeks old when I first brought him down here. He just knew to keep out of the way. Granpa even calls him over now and gives him a weird pat on the head. He also toilet trained himself of a night at 9 weeks. Which I might say is better than Granpa. He had to sleep inside the laundry and he didn’t like messes in his little area so he’d cry when he needed to go out. Now he sleeps with me and he’s a very good boy. He’s a Border Collie. Smart dogs. Right now he’s curled up asleep in my husbands lounge chair. It’s 3pm here. He’s had a game and now he’s tired again. He’s 1 next week. Still very much a puppy.
Being by myself of a night used to get to me and I was nearly going nuts some days so Hubby bought the dog for me last Christmas for company.
I’ve been between home and here for 7 years. The last 3 we have owned our own place and I have been staying here longer and longer each year. This year it’s permanent. His younger kid and his wife want to put him in a home. He doesn’t want to go so that’s where I come in. I have to feed him (not actually feed him but take him his meals) and keep an eye on him and take him to the neverending round of doctors. They’ve found serious problems in the last couple of weeks and this means that we have even more doctors to go to. I haven’t had as much time to read this year. He keeps me on my toes. And absolutely exhausted. Can’t see to read anyway and can’t concentrate on audiobooks. Sucks. And just for good measure my back has gone out this week. Yayyyy. And it’s getting harder and harder letting Hubby go back to his work in the Outback 9 hours away. He still has 12 months until he retires. Anyhoo.....
Back to your regularly scheduled program....
Sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations, Jacqueline. Have you tried audio books? You could listen in one ear, so that you can still hear what’s going on around you. That’s what I do, if the environment is not too noisy. Take care.
Yeah I have but I just can’t concentrate on them when I’m this tired and get lost. I have tons of them but I just don’t ever feel up to them. I’m a third of the way through one in the car at the moment and I haven’t turned it on for a month. And it’s really good too. A Gentleman in Moscow. Can’t focus. Can’t handle new TV shows either. I can’t remember anything about them when they’re finished. I’ve just been rewatching a lot of old stuff again. Hubby took his Dad to the local GP for me last week and she told him she was worried about me because I looked so tired. I’ll survive.
Thanks Diane :) He can’t walk very well since January for no reason (overnight went from walking without help to needing a walker to get anywhere and if he went any slower he’d be going backwards) and he did his best Humpty Dumpty imitation and had to go to hospital overnight a couple of weeks ago. Then when I took him to the Doctors and insisted that something is wrong other than his age they finally did tests and have found leaky heart valves and cancer on his kidney. So far. So we’ve been doing the rounds of the Doctors and medical imaging places. But since we live in the country these doctors and tests aren’t just down the road. They’re at least 100km away. We were lucky the other day. He went to the heart doctor 100km away and the guy filling in for his normal doctor was the specialist he would have had to go to in Sydney 600km away. Lucky. Have to go back to that same place for an oncologist on Monday.
And to top it off his youngest son is an arse who treats me like shit. Got told by his older bros to pull his head in last week. That was good. He’s not even my father. He’s my husbands father. I’ve been doing this for 7 years. 4 years were a week or two here and a month with Hubby and then 2 years were 3 weeks here and a week with Hubby and now for the last year I’ve lived here permanently and have only been to where Hubby works for probably 6 weeks all up. And most of that was when I was really sick in June/July and my eldest bro in law was here taking up the slack. He works though and can’t take a lot of time off. The youngest and his wife insist that I don’t live here because I’m always at my other house where my daughter lives. Yeah for a night or two every 3-4 weeks when hubby can get over there so I can see him. I reckon they only ring once a month if I’m always away when they call.
Anyhoo...I’ll be OK. Eventually. I just need to come to the end of these doctors appointments and whatever treatment they want to give him. Unfortunately, unlike my doctors appointments, I can’t read in the waiting room because I’ll have a little old man telling me all of his stories while were waiting. But that’s fine. I better make the most of it. I probably won’t get to hear them for much longer the way shit is starting to go down.
Anthony wrote: "I haven’t updated here in quite a while. I’ve read some really great stuff in the last couple of months, including my first encounters with the novels of some of the giants in the field...."You killed it with that post Anthony. I agree with your summations of the books that I have read, and now I'm more excited to read the ones I haven't read. I've got Blackout/All Clear coming up for me in the next few months, and some of the others are further down the pile for me.
I just started The Deep by Rivers Solomon. I got approved on Net Galley and the premise is so extraordinary that I couldn't resist starting as soon as I could.I just discovered the BR for The Deep! Yay!
Oh, I also recently read Nnedi Okorafor's memoir, Broken Places & Outer Spaces: Finding Creativity in the Unexpected. I was glad she shared a portion of her life with us. It was insightful.
I completed the masterful
The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky. I will start book six of the fun Archangel Project,
The Defiant.
I finished some pulp sci-fi and fantasy: 
The Bloody Crown of Conan by Robert E. Howard
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This is a collection of Conan stories from the early 1930s authored by Robert E. Howard who was the original creator of the character. The collection includes The Hour of the Dragon, also published as Conan the Conqueror, which is the only full-length Conan novel written by REH. The collection also includes some miscellaneous notes and story fragments written by REH, as well as an informative afterword which is a biography of REH's life during the time these pieces were written and gives some insightful information on the stories themselves. The Conan stories are often considered the birth of the Sword & Sorcery fantasy subgenre.
A Quest for Simbilis by Michael Shea
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This is an official-unofficial sequel to The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance, the second book in the Dying Earth series. Vance later wrote his own sequel, Cugel's Saga, but Simbilis is a fun look at how the saga of Cugel the Clever might have turned out.
And I started reading:
Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames
The sequel to Kings of the Wyld, a fun mix of music references and fantasy, not completely unlike the Jack Black video game "Brutal Legend." This time the story focuses on a female protagonist and the music vibe is a bit more 80s than 70s - there's even a Spotify playlist to accompany your reading, if you're so inclined.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A bit of the ol' ultra-violence, me Droogies!
Enders Game, Lightbringer Series, Wheel of Time,
I’m reading Dread Nation. Loving the author’s/main character’s dark sense of humor!
Empire of the Ants, from here on I'll look at ants totally different.Empire of the Ants
Bernard Werber
J D Robbs Indeath series, really good
Didn't get to do much reading this weekend, was hoping to finish up Pawn of Prophecy since I'm 80% through it. I'm really enjoying this one and will definitely carry on with the series. While I'm predominantly listening to it, I did grab the book from the library which also happens to contain the next two books. So no excuse for not jumping straight into the next of the series.My evening read is Paper and Fire which I am slowly getting through, depending on how sleepy I am.
I have downloaded Red Mars, Rosewater, Wool, and The Forever War onto my kindle in an attempt to complete my book club challenge of 12 bookshelf books. I only need 2 more after Pawn but wanted options.
I completed Six of Crows and have gotten in line for Crooked Kingdom; the wait should take me into the new year so that book will count for me in 2020.
Since I loved Scythe so much I went ahead and grabbed Thunderhead since book three should be coming out soon.
I have Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service sitting next to my computer, Gary Sinise's face on the cover staring at me, making me feel guilty that I haven't opened it up yet. I really need to dive into it since I need to fulfill my non-fiction quota for the year.
ETA: I forgot to count Six of Crows and The Princess Bride towards the bookshelf challenge so now I only need to finish Pawn of Prophecy to complete it. Whoop Whoop!
Hmmm. Karen, Gary Sinise’s book does sound interesting. I don’t care for him much as an actor (too stiff and one dimensional IMHO), but I’m always interested in how influential people help others and an actor who moves from self-absorption to altruism is fascinating.
I'm currently having A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge as my eye read and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell as audiobook. Both speak a lot to me, I would like to shove everything aside and just dive into them.I realised over the year that I'm more drawn to male SF authors than non-male and try to not feel bad about it. I still hope to find more non-male authors who convince me story-wise.
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I really want to read both of those books!! I'm glad you're enjoying them.
There's a lot to unpack in your realization though! You shouldn't feel guilty about what books speak to you! But I have to ask, do you mean that *this year* you've read more men authors and are hoping to find some women or NB authors to read? Or something else?
Gabi I am the same way- I have a tendency to be drawn to male authors in general, not just SF. I’m trying to be better about it without also feeling too guilty.
@Gabi I thought you also really enjoyed Connie Willis’s work? And Ursula K. Le Guin’s?
I've been reading Wine of Violence by Priscilla Royal, a historical mystery set in the reign of Edward III
Or Ann Leckie? I think there simply are more male SF writers so it’s not that unexpected that you would enjoy SF written by male writers more. Anyway, CLOUD ATLAS is fun but I think THE BONE CLOCKS is his best book.
Allison wrote: "There's a lot to unpack in your realization though! You shouldn't feel guilty about what books speak to you! But I have to ask, do you mean that *this year* you've read more men authors and are hoping to find some women or NB authors to read? Or something else? ..."So … I spent some time to get my Excel sheet up-to-date to answer your question correctly: My ratio this year so far is 53% male authors/ 47% women/nb authors. So I guess I can fairly say I read about equal amounts of both.
As Anthony said, there are female authors I adore (Willis, Le Guin, Butler, Vinge, Lynn), but since they are all older authors I thought it was more a problem that I simply like older SF ideas better than the ones the younger authors come up with. But then there are Tchaikowsky, Thompson or Miéville where I'm like take-my-money! - so I do like some modern SF. I simply can't seem to get into modern female SF authors. Most of the praised ones left me with a yeah-well-nice-can-I-now-please-read-something-that-wows-me? feeling.
So I'm not sure if it is really only a thing of the era.
Mod
I do, however, hope you find those books that aren't hyped and which do satisfy your interest!
Allison wrote: "So, it sounds to me like what you're saying is that you're frustrated that people seem to be hiding the modern SF you like by less-heard voices. And in that, I am with you :D..."
If this is the case, I dearly hope I find those hidden authors.
I am juggling a number of books. I'm reading (again) The Bible, Sell Your Book: 75 eBook Promotion Sites That Increase Amazon Sales by Greg Strandberg and a few fantasy novels.
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Now about to start Murderbot #1 - All Systems Red by Martha Wells.