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?
I'll agree with you there and I did not like the Otherland series, but totally enjoyed the Bobby Dollar books
I need to give Tad Williams another try. I loved the Otherland books, but getting through Dragonbone Chair legit took me ten years, and I quit the second book like 100 pages in. That was maybe a decade ago though so it's time for another shot.
I loved both, Shadowmarch and Otherland. Back then my partner and I spent hours upon hours reading both series aloud.@David: Thanks a lot for the information. I'm reading the second book at the moment, so that means I can take a break before the third one to get group reads/BRs in.
@Allison: I'm, too, starting Candle in the Wind in audio now.
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Gabi, I hope this one is more moving for you :)
I was intending on reading some of the books in my currently reading list so I picked up Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman and started it yesterday. And then finished it yesterday. I really enjoyed it. Yeahhhhh....one day I really have to work on finishing the approx 9-11 books I’ve already started but obviously yesterday was not that day. Today probably won’t be that day either. Maybe tomorrow will be.
Robert wrote: "I found a couple weeks ago that I'd read "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" years ago, and had only started "Through the Looking-Glass." I re-read the first and yesterday finished the other. I quit..."Great books :)
Joon wrote: "Just started The Mysterious Affair at Styles, my first Agatha Christie book. Wanted to breeze through one more book before the end of the month, and this one's surprisingly short."Love Agatha Christie! They're like potato chips -- bet you can't read just one ;)
I started reading The Secret Loves of Geeks last night. It's an inclusive collection of prose stories and short comics and so far, I've enjoyed everything I've read.
Allison wrote: "My goodness, it seems everyone is doing short stories and epic fantasy lately, how very trendy of you, Axel! Which is your favorite summary-provider for WoT?"I was recommended this one (but skips the commentary part) elsewhere. I just needed to refresh my memory of book 1-3 and I've read the summaries of book 1 now, and it does a good enough job of that.
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I was recommended thi..."
Nice! I've liked the Tor guides for Malazan so far, too.
Jordan wrote: "Finally finished The Bear and the Nightingale, which I've been reading since December. I ended up liking it a lot, it was just a really slow read for me because it seemed like the e..."I just finished The Winter of the Witch, and it was wonderful. I hope you continue with the series! In an Absent Dream is next on my list.
And before I know it I'm already halfway through Air Awakens (I have the kindle box set, estimating based on chapter count). In terms of pacing this is basically the opposite of Wheel of Time. The book is really fast-paced right from the start. And I'm really loving it so far. Will most likely write a more detailed review of this one once I'm done (which will go up on r/Fantasy)
Marie wrote: "Jordan wrote: "Finally finished The Bear and the Nightingale, which I've been reading since December. I ended up liking it a lot, it was just a really slow read for me because it se..."Oh, I'm definitely continuing the series! I've heard nothing but good about it and the first book was really intriguing.
Hope you enjoy In an Absent Dream, I really loved it!
I'm just starting on Alliance Rising: The Hinder Stars I and on audio Stars Uncharted. I expect to love Alliance since I've loved everything I've read by Cherryh. Stars Uncharted definitely sounds like my kind of thing and is narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, so I've got high hopes for it as well.
I’m almost done with In an Absent Dream - I think McGuire really hit upon a great thing with these wayward children stories. The subtexts in gender and identity make me happy (ish)
I read Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen, which was a pleasant surprise. I'm a bit cautious with time travel stories with emphasis on relationship, since they often tend to turn out too "tacky" for my taste. But I picked this one up, cause the author's name sounded Chinese (yeah … I know … ^^'). The story turned out to be a rather emotional (on my personal side of good emotional) narration of a very likeable character's strife to manage two lifes in two times. - And I would strongly suggest to NOT read the blurb, cause it gives away way too much of the story (I will never understand how folks can write such story-ruining blurbs).
Hi everyone! This morning I finally finished Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi on Audible and my oh my was it as great as everyone says. For those who enjoy YA fantasy, or just fantasy in general, I would really recommend it. I especially recommend it on audio because the great narrator helped me "see" the characters much better. I've been trying to read more AOC (authors of color) and it's refreshing to have a fantasy that's not set in the more traditional medieval-like world. The magic system is fascinating, too.Earlier this week I read Once Upon a River and I still can't get over what a perfect story it was. It had an enticing mystery at it's center, a fun cast of characters, and the magical realism made it feel like a real life fairy tale.
I'm currently reading The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and at only about a quarter of the way through, I'm 100% in. It's a mystery unlike anything I've read before. Honestly the less you know the better. I'm looking forward to staying in on Friday night, procrastinating cleaning, and finishing this book.
Finally read Fahrenheit 451, which is as good as everyone says. The predictions he makes are eerily prescient, especially the ones about TV and the anti-intellectual beliefs infecting society. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I read Fahrenheit 451 in August last year. My eldest son had bought himself a copy around then too and my 27 year old nicked mine after I had read it. It may have been written in the 50s but it is still relevant today.
It is scary. We see these as Dystopian fiction books but they are very much what our society has become. 1984 has been coming for a while. Big Brother is always watching. And I can just see the Ministry of Truth setting itself up to change the newspapers and books. It makes me happy that I live in the middle of nowhere in Australia.
Looking around right now I think 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World were written by soothsayers.
Yep.....That’s one I’m going to have to reread. I haven’t read Brave New World for around 40 years. I read it and 1984 in Year 10 at school and I have reread 1984 a few times but not Brave New World. I did buy it late last year so I could (my son bought it at the same time as Fahrenheit 451 actually along with 1984 because he wanted the 3 big ones in his collection and he has read them recently as well).
Reread Charles Frazier's Varina and am currently rereading Julio Cortázar's Blow-Up and Other Stories.
John wrote: "Indeed, the biggest difference between a sane conservative and a liberal is which direction each sees Big Brother coming from! The conservative frets about growing Orwellian control by snooty academics and faceless government bureaucrats. The liberal sees tyrannical oppression arising from conniving oligarch-lords and faceless corporations."Both are correct. The NSA is recording everything we say and do, and this week it was revealed that Facebook was intentionally spying on people who weren’t even connected to FB’s app, by getting teens to agree to share everything on their phones with FB. It was, essentially, corporate malware.
Then there was Apple’s FaceTime screw-up, which allowed people to secretly eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. But was it an accident? Some internal Apple scuttlebutt says this is a feature no one was supposed to know about.
The Russians meddling in US elections combines both of these things in a perfect storm of corporate-government collusion. If the Trump administration weren’t so hilariously incompetent, they might have been able to completely undermine American democracy the way Putin has done to Russia.
Read Jane Yolen's short story collection, Tales of Wonder and reviewed it -https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2683850898.
Also read Barbara Hambly's Those Who Hunt the Night and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2442804694.
I finished the sixteen book marathon that is the fantasy, The Elderlings Realms. I will start
Gold Digger, The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor. This a prerelease and my review at the author's request.
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I'm starting both the books of the month today (well, likely not at once. Probably I'll start Brown Girl first but we'll see how sassy I'm feeling).
I just finished Preludes & Nocturnes which was the sort of Gaiman I enjoy reading and Witches Abroad which I thought was really, really clever. Now thinking about my next audiobook. I'd have picked Deadhouse Gates, but I'm cherry-picking what sections of that I read which makes audio difficult.
For once, I’m going to post in a semi-timely manner. On Tuesday I finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Harry August is reliving the same life over and over, and he retains all his memories from his previous lives. This was my second book by the author, the first being Touch last summer. Of the two I preferred Touch slightly; I think it had a bit more depth and moral ambiguity. They were both really good though, and both give the reader things to think about. My longer review.
I’m currently about 150 pages into Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The author sure does like his similes, to a distracting degree, but the story is holding my interest so far and I’m curious to see where it goes.
YouKneeK wrote: "For once, I’m going to post in a semi-timely manner. On Tuesday I finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Harry August is reliving the same life over and..."
I love Claire North and I've got Harry August on my Kindle. I just need to make time for it. That's a great review.
I read snow crash a couple months ago, and had mixed feelings about it, but there were aspects of it I really liked a lot. It was definitely entertaining all the way through either way.
Thanks Bobby, I hope you enjoy Harry August also once you get to it! I suspect I may end up with some mixed feelings of my own on Snow Crash.
I liked the first part of Snow Crash a lot but, it got a bit confusing/slow towards the end. On the other hand, I loved Reamde.
Read book 3 of Barbara Hambly's James Asher series - Blood Maidens and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2442822767.
If you like Harry August I would strongly recommend THE BONE CLOCKS by David Mitchell which has a similar premise but I think implements it more compellingly.
YouKneeK wrote: "For once, I’m going to post in a semi-timely manner. On Tuesday I finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. Harry August is reliving the same life over and..."
If you enjoyed Harry August, I would suggest Replay which won the World Fantasy Award in 1988.
I read Snow Crash back in the late '90's and loved it. Not sure how it would hold up, but I still think about some of the concepts introduced to me there, so there's that.
My January recap (excluding current club reads):I finished two club reads from 2018 -- The Calculating Stars (4 stars) and The Consuming Fire (3 stars). I just noticed that they are both of the form "The [gerund] [noun]". Stars, to me, was the stronger of the two. At several points I got what millennials call "the feels" with that one although I'm not sure how much of it was unique to this story versus just being inspired that humanity has made it to the moon, NASA, etc. Still, it was well written and I enjoyed it overall. Fire was going to only merit 2 stars and was nearly a DNF early on for me as it had more violence than I prefer and felt more soap opera than space opera. I was encouraged to carry on and it did indeed pick up in the last third of the book to the point that there's a reasonable chance I read the next installment. What changed? I guess mostly just things happened and some new concepts were introduced (which is what I'm often looking for in SF).
I also finished Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World (5 stars). It provides brief (2-4 page) illustrated biographies of various women who led interesting lives. I felt like I learned a lot and I enjoyed the condensed format. Not sure I would have picked up a full volume biography of any one of these individuals' lives, so this was a nice way to learn the gist of their stories with a smaller time commitment.
I'm currently reading Salvation in my effort to catch up on 2018 published SF and The Hallowed Hunt in my quest to finish Lois McMaster Bujold's World of the Five Gods series.
Thanks MadProfessah and Christopher for the additional suggestions! I’ll keep them in mind for when I’m ready to circle back around to that theme. :)
To me there’s always a 50% chance that a Scalzi book is a DNF. Usually they are at the very least mildly entertaining and always a quick and light read.
YouKneeK wrote: "...I’m currently about 150 pages into Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson."Hiro Protagonist's name for the WIN!
Trike wrote: " If the Trump administration weren’t so hilariously incompetent, they might have been able to completely undermine American democracy the way Putin has done to Russia. ."They already succeeded 20-30 years ago when they seeded the America educational system with their socialist agendas:)
Christopher, I thought the MC in Harry August (view spoiler) Is there character growth in Replay?YouKneek - lol for "circle back around"
I believe there is some character growth, but to be honest it's been a few years since I've read Replay so I'm not 100% sure. What helped me make the connection between the two novels was Charles de Lint's review in the July/August issue of "Fantasy and Science Fiction which can be seen
here (it's the second review - he highly recommends it)
Excellent! Read the link. Replay sounds like fun. I will bump that one up my list. William Dufris is the narrator for the audiobook. Another plus.
I have The Bear and the Nightingale from the library, but I'm having a hard time working up the motivation for it.So I'm going to jump into Smoke & Summons, which I read the amazon preview for, and go back to BatN after.
Reading A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe but after this I need to get back to fantasy for a bit. I'd hoped to alternate this year but it hasn't worked out that way at all.
I started the Bear and the Nightingale in August and then something else shiny caught my eye and now it's February and I still haven't got back to it :( Really do have to finish it someday. I was enjoying it too. Today is not going to be that day though. I picked up The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared this morning. It's a giggle in places.
For me, I'm have my pile of owned books TBR that I use as my default and leave myself open to other books due to happenstance, recommendation, etc. I just have to make sure I jump genres or types within a genre to keep me from reading slump/grumps/burnout.
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SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
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Good series and one of my favorite authors"
A very good series but I think it's not on the same level with Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.