What Else Are You Reading - April 2019

[Joseph]

Finished Chanur's Homecoming and am on to Chanur's Legacy, the last of C.J. Cherryh's Chanur novels.

[John (Taloni)]

Finished The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. That's some quality Lovecraft. Randolph Carter sets off in the dreamlands to find a city he has glimpsed in dreams (Kadath) and encounters a wide variety of beauty and horror along the way. It's also a story about knowing yourself and finding your center. Many references to other Lovecraft stories along the way.

I'm probably the last person to realize that Lovecraft's "Dream Cycle" of Cthulhu stories influenced Gaiman's Sandman. Gaiman even wrote one explicitly Lovecraftian story in Sandman, the eighth volume titled "Worlds' End."

By today's standards there's a little bit of colonialism in one segment where Carter takes command of an army of ghouls, then is rewarded for doing...well, nothing good for them that I can see. A few too many references to stout black slaves for today as well. I'll forgive it because it was written in the 1920s. It's far less objectionable than other stories written about the same time, for instance the racism and justification for slavery in the Barsoom books. (I was never sure if Burroughs was reflecting his time or lampooning it.)

Anyway, the Cthulhu stories seem to be best read regular Mythos first, then Dream cycle, or at least I have enjoyed them that way. This book is 42K words long, and there's many shorts before and after. Best NOT read as a standalone, read the other stories before. All free on the Lovecraft site.

[John (Taloni)]

I also read The Consuming Fire. Didn't particularly like the first one, but Scalzi has written some hilarious stuff in the past, so I picked up the second just to see. I had fairly low expectations and it was even worse than I thought it would be.

The book starts off with a slam on organized religion. It reminds me of Heinlein's jaundiced take on the same subject in several books in the way that a grade schooler's essay reminds me of a Master's thesis on the same subject. Heinlein crafted well and made a good argument, even if I remained unconvinced. With this book it's more like "Religion bad, leaders use to control populace, hurr durr opiate masses." Then the character used for this slam drops off the face of the Earth (well, book) and only rates a passing mention later.

The first book included a transit system lifted from Alastair Reynolds and a character that liked to have sex with both men and women, and say "fuck" a lot. Early on this book introduces a bisexual woman who says "fuck" a lot to the point where I was confused if it was the same character. No, just not a lot to distinguish them.

Then there's killing. Lots of it. Apparently only the royals are important because people get killed around them on a depressingly frequent basis, and it's barely commented on. Am I supposed to think they are justified?

The book does pick up in the second half. There's a pretty well done exploration sequence and one decent believable relationship. However, the second half also includes a wildly ridiculous Deus Ex Machina moment. It reminded me of AIVAS in "All The Weyrs of Pern" who turned himself on just long enough to help the Dragonriders push aside the thread-carrying Red Star, then turned himself off. "Glad I could help, so long everybody, toodle-OOH! *click*"

Someone here - Trike, IIRC - said that Scalzi wrote this book in two weeks. I can believe it was rushed, although really any novel takes at least a month. Thing is I've enjoyed other works Scalzi has rushed through. The Locked In sequel showed signs of rushing, but also had the Scalzi trademark humor so I didn't mind. This one just left me cold. We are very far away from the delicious humor of Redshirts or even the grade school humor and geek jokes of Android's Dream.

Ships names are long and quirky, an obvious take on the AI minds in the Culture series by Iain Banks. Where those can be funny or insightful, these are just silly. One is even called "Your Princess Is In Another Castle," as if people would still be playing some version of Legend of Zelda thousands of years in the future, or would even know what it is. It's an anachronism that doesn't fit the story.

In fairness, the book is rated well on LA Public Library, exceeding a 4 star rating. I dragged it down a bit with a 2.

[Colin]

Recently finished reading Radicalized by Cory Doctorow. A good read; it collects four new novellas into one volume. They're all quite distinct in their subject matter, but nothing too far removed from the kind of topics you would expect if you follow his recent fiction and non-fiction output.

My favourite of the four was probably 'Model Minority' which 'borrows' a well known superhero as its protagonist, and puts him in a situation where his superpowers really don't help him. He may be given a different name, but he has a secret identity and a reporter girlfriend called Lois. You connect the dots!

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I recently finished an eARC of Mars by Asja Bakic, translated from the Bosnian. It's a set of short stories, all speculative in nature, but definitely not all set on Mars. I gave it a rare five stars, and my review is here.

I also recently read-skimmed an eARC of Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, all translated by Ken Liu. I found some of them to be much longer than short stories but I guess he never claims they are, I'm just now noticing. It's interesting how many of them interact with Chinese history, in alternate history and time travel ways. My review is here.

I just finished the newest graphic novel by Emily Carroll, Through the Woods, and it was delightful.

[Jumana]

Finished The Raven Tower. It's technically clearly well written and has a unique voice. But I'm quite upset about the ending.

Also read A Memory called Empire by Arkady Martine. Very impressive book. Its a space opera setting, but mostly written in the style of a murder mystery. The protagonist goes around interviewing various people and through the interviews we learn about the world, a different and very effective approach to world building. The best part is the protagonist's inner dialogue.

[Eric]

So far in April I've finished:

Wild Cards II: Aces High

Boss Fight Books - Kingdom Hearts II

Dead Man's Deal

and

Sirena.

Finally getting around to reading Ancillary Justice. I'm in the early part of super out there SF where I'm trying to understand the world (universe) and terminology. So far it's a very intriguing setup, but definitely requires a harder push early on than Sirena did - which caught me so hard, I read the whole thing in slightly over a day.

Also reading The Mongoliad: Book Two

[Sheila Jean]

Just finished Grey Sister and Holy Sister in audio. I almost wish I'd re- listened to Red Sister too, though i did replay the prologue and epilogue. A fantastic series.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Finally started The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. I saw the author read from it this past summer, at Shared Worlds in Spartanburg, SC.

[Keith]

Continuing my delayed march through the Duniverse, I'm on to Heretics of Dune. I like it much better so far than I did God Emperor, primarily because 1) the BeneGesserit occupy a large portion of the narrative, and I always thought they were the most interesting faction of the bunch, and 2) thank the Divided God, there's no Leto II to ramble on for 300 pages with his "college sophomore who just discovered Nietzsche and Robert Anton Wilson" philosophy.

[Seth]

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Finally started The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. I saw the author read from it this past summer, at Shared Worlds in Spartanburg, SC."

Please let us know how it works for you. For me, it fell pretty flat compared to All the Birds in the Sky, which I really liked. I'm trying to decide whether I really didn't like it, or whether I just wasn't in the right mood, or didn't have the right expectations.

[Ruth]

Jumana wrote: "Finished The Raven Tower. It's technically clearly well written and has a unique voice. But I'm quite upset about the ending..."

Oh dear - I’m reading The Raven Tower at the moment and enjoying it, I hope I’m not going to be upset about the ending too!

[Silvana]

Finished with The Silver Spike - surprisingly quite good. I love Toadkiller Dog.

Starting a nonfiction read but still relevant to the group: Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

[Jonathan]

Finished Red Sister and am about a third of the way through Grey Sister. Looking forward to starting Holy Sister next week.

[Julie]

My library holds for The True Queen and The Night Tiger just came in. Plus I'm in the middle of Descendant of the Crane.

[Geoff]

I just wrapped up my read of the Nebula award nominee novels! Witchmark is the one I just finished.

I enjoyed reading all of the nominees. If I had to vote, though (with the caveat that I am terrible at remembering _exactly_ how much I liked a book from a few months ago):

1) Spinning Silver 5 stars
2) tie Witchmark
2) tie The Calculating Stars

The rest (also good):
* Blackfish City
* The Poppy War
* Trail of Lightning

Anyone else read them all? What do you think?

[John (Taloni)]

Finished up the rest of the Cthulhu "Dream Cycle." Great stuff. There's two more stories featuring Randolph Carter which get into cosmic themes. The last one, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", touches on the construction of the universe and some of its major figures. The story ends on a fairly predictable note, but oh that middle third....

The three stories featuring Randolph Carter don't fully resolve at the end of the third story. I think Lovecraft would have written more of Carter had he lived. It's a shame. These stories started out good in the 1920s and got steadily better. What a loss Lovecraft's early death was.

[Brendan]

Jumana wrote: "Finished The Raven Tower. It's technically clearly well written and has a unique voice. But I'm quite upset about the ending."

I finished this yesterday and while I wouldn't go so far as upset i think the ending was slightly lame. Still a very good book, I liked it a lot.

Also finished The Light Brigade which I found to be excellent. Much better than other, lamer books in the same genre like Old Man's War, and a good modern update on The Forever War.

Currently reading: The City in the Middle of the Night and really liking it.

[Gary]

I finished reading Self-Publishing Boot Camp Guide for Authors, 4th Edition by Carla King, The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks, and Redshirts by John Scalzi. I am reading by One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence. I plan to read The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan next.

[Robert]

Yesterday I finished Theodora Goss' collection Snow White Learns Witchcraft: Stories and Poems. It contains both poems and short stories. I really liked the short stories. There were interesting takes on fairy tales and folklore, and they featured interesting heroines. I'm not that much of a fan of poetry, but I did find some of the poems intriguing as well. Well worth picking up.

[Silvana]

Finished with Neuromancer Yay finally I managed to finish it. Liked it even better than expected.

Starting Circe. Have high hopes for this one.

Brendan wrote: "Also finished The Light Brigade which I found to be excellent. Much better than other, lamer books in the same genre like Old Man's War, and a good modern update on The Forever War."

This.

[Ruth]

Finished Witchmark by C.L. Polk which was a little slow to get going but then came to an exciting conclusion.

[Joseph]

Finished Chanur's Legacy, and if anyone wants some really first-rate 1980s-vintage space opera, you could do MUCH worse than C.J. Cherryh's Chanur novels.

And I just started Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri.

[Rick]

I'm continuing the "TBR, what TBR, ohh shiny!" trend by buying... um.. 4 more books.

Bought Uncanny Collateral and read it last night (it's only 47k words) and it's well-written and fun.

I also grabbed How To Be Dead which, amusingly, also revolves around someone doing a deal with Death. Even shorter (2xK words...) and also rather fun though it took a few thousand words too long to get to the meat of the story. But, eh.

Finished Edges by Linda Nagata, a new book in her Nanotech Succession series (she did 3 books 20 years ago and has picked it up again now). NOT the place to jump into the series, but for those who read it and liked it, highly recommended.

Oh and finishing up The Raven Tower.

On deck: Fire Season

[Robyn]

Just finished Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor. My 6th Okorafor in the last 2 months. Hope we read her on the show soon

[Iain]

Just finished listening to Dark State which was a blast (and ended with yet another pseudo cliff hanger, damn you Charles Stross). Great characters and lots of interesting politics and family drama, great stuff.

Interesting counter point to Tiamat's Wrath which I am slowing through in dead tree form. In some ways they have very similar plots, (view spoiler)[clash of civilisations with powerful ancient ones waiting to make an appearance (hide spoiler)]. The Expanse is slowing down and this book is taking a lot longer to read than the earlier books.

[Silvana]

Finished with Circe. I liked it alot, yet I feel there's something missing or not as much as I want.

Starting The Ballad of Black Tom and the story that spawned it The Horror at Red Hook.

[Jessica]

After finishing The Raven Tower, I have started The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo. Her previous novel The Ghost Bride was a Vaginal Fantasy pick, one my of my favorites of the ones read after I joined the group.

[Scotto]

I'm on a bit of a Lunar binge right now. I'm just getting to the end of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Next up are Red Moon and Moon Rising.

For the rest of May I have The Light Brigade, A Memory Called Empire and Ancestral Night to get through and well as keeping up with my Analog and Asimov issues. Had to drop Galaxy's Edge and Clarkesworld due to lack of time. Too much good stuff to read out there!

[Dara]

Finished Tiamat's Wrath. It was fantastic. My review.

Reading Strange Dogs next because I've had it forever.

[John (Taloni)]

Finished up Rise of Empire & the third book hasn't come in yet. Not sure if I will buy Martian Chronicles again as the print on the paperback is way too small for me now. Also waiting on Timescape.

Guess I'll fill in with the remaining Lovecraft I haven't read. Seems to be about half a dozen short stories.

[Silvana]

Scotto wrote: "I'm on a bit of a Lunar binge right now. I'm just getting to the end of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Next up are Red Moon and Moon Rising.

For the re..."

You might also want to add The Moon and the Other to that list if you haven't read it.

[Erik]

Finished The Golden Compass. Definitely wish I had read this when I was younger. I enjoyed it and am excited to continue the series but I think middle school Erik would have LOVED loved it. Mostly just the same (fairly inevitable) YA type things that kind of drag for me now but that's just kind of bound to happen. I absolutely loved the daemon interactions and found all of the society around them fascinating. I like to think my daemon would be a lynx (Kingsley Shacklebolt style) but I'd probably end up with like a weird opossum or something, which I would still love.

Started Give Me Your Hand and still working through The Book of Delights

[Misti]

Just finished listening to Theft of Swords. I loved it so much that I'm downloading Rise of Empire right now. I can't wait to start listening to it.

Still trekking along with The Complete Robot, it's been slow going but I have just a litte over 100 pages left. Hopefully, I can finish it in time for The Martian Chronicles to arrive from Amazon.

[Stephen]

I was smart and put myself in the Hold Queue for the The Martian Chronicles during March Madness and it came in just in time. I too just went back and did the whole first trilogy by Michael J Sullivan because I could not stop. Heir of Novron had some great plot twists you will not see coming, Going to do the Martian Chronicle in audio and The Fated Sky in Ebook, a little compare and contrast experience.

[Jessica]

Scotto wrote: "I'm on a bit of a Lunar binge right now. I'm just getting to the end of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Next up are Red Moon and Moon Rising.

For the re..."

Wait, the third installment in Ian McDonald's Luna series is out? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?

I guess you just informed me, so thanks for that! Anxious to see how this one turns out, since I was blown away by the first one but thought the second was just okay.

[Erik]

Also just ordered Atlas of Remote Islands and am so pumped for it. Most places had it fairly expensive because it's hard to find but I was able to snag a near perfect one with just a dot on the upper left of the cover for $16 (that doesn't sound cheap until you search for this book)

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Erik wrote: "Also just ordered Atlas of Remote Islands and am so pumped for it. Most places had it fairly expensive because it's hard to find but I was able to snag a near perfect one with just a..."

I love that book!

[Rob, Roberator]

It sounds like I"m not the only one doing Rise of Empire.

I'm glad at least a few of you liked Theft of Swords to continue on.

I'll probably keep on going right to Heir of Novron when I finish up, which is still my favorite of all the Riyria stuff.

[TRP]

I've just started The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The author is, nowadays, famous for coining, what is thought of as, the worst opening sentence ( "It was a dark and stormy night" etc.) in his novel Paul Clifford.
I've already seen a few examples of iffy writing but the book is interesting as an early piece of Science Fiction (1871) and for the concept of Vril.
Vril was so compelling to people at the time that it even gave rise to a (still) popular British spread called Bovril (think beef-flavoured, non-vegetarian Marmite/Vegemite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril

[John (Taloni)]

Rob wrote: "It sounds like I"m not the only one doing Rise of Empire."

Yep, finished it and will definitely read the final volume. This is well out of my normal wheelhouse being much more Laser than Sword, but I am finding it entertaining enough. Definitely some unexpected twists and turns.

[Stephen]

Yes Rob!!! I kept on going. And of course my Pre-order of Age of Legend will be coming in July 9th so I will be doing a re-read of the previous books. If you thought Theft of Swords was okay but... Age of Myth is a much stronger series from the start. A girl and her wolf, an older woman, younger guy romance ( A rare occurrence in fantasy) and the snarky humor remains with loads of plot twists.

[Dara]

Started reading The Martian Chronicles but I'm struggling to get into it. So I added Shades of Milk and Honey to the mix. I need some female representation mixed in with Mars.

[Mark]

Dara wrote: "I need some female representation mixed in with Mars"

[Rob, Roberator]

Stephen wrote: "If you thought Theft of Swords was okay but... Age of Myth is a much stronger series from the start."

Agreed. I gave Age of Myth 5 stars. It's a much better book, but I'm still not sure how I feel about suggesting people read it before finishing the original Riyria series. And Suri and Meena are awesome.

[Sheila Jean]

Rob wrote:..."

Agreed. I gave Age of Myth 5 stars. It's a much better book, b..."

Rob, this is really bad but, (view spoiler)[I cant remeber who Meena is (hide spoiler)]

K. Thxs. I've read them all, but I have a bad memory....

[Stephen]

Hey my friend Sheila Jean, (view spoiler)[ Meena was the wolf (hide spoiler)]I had to do a lot of re-reads lately because I am getting all my series mixed up. More than one author has told me the best way to support an author is by pre-order , so I marked all my orders on a calendar with the intention of doing a re-read of all of them. Or at least a re-listen. May 1st Mark Lawrence has his first SF title One Word Kill which I think I will combine with Ann Leckie first foray into fantasy The Raven Tower.

[Sheila Jean]

Stephen wrote:

"...I had to do a lot of re-reads lately because I am getting all my series mixed up. "

I can usually reorient myself to a story in the context of reading or listening pretty quickly, but I have a really hard time with references and trivia if I'm not currently immersed in the book/tv show/movie, etc. Even then, I remember random things.

Example with potential spoiler for Hackers: (view spoiler)[
"You've seen Hackers, haven't you?"
"Is that the one with Angelina Jolie and the swimming pool?" (hide spoiler)]

[Colin]

Been struggling to find the time to read much this month, but managed to get through The Expert System's Brother - a novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky, bought after having been really impressed by his Children of Time when I read it last year. And it was really good until it just sort of petered out at the end. Can't help wishing that he had carried on for double the length and just done more with the world he had set up for us.

Feeling a bit stalled on my current audiobook (After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley) and thinking I'll give it a rest for a while and listen to Martian Chronicles instead.

[Rick]

Finished... Fire Season (excellent and no, being a necromancer isn't all fun and games...).

Starting.. hmm. I might finish Walkaway though I've read a few 'near future weird world' books lately (Autonomous,Afterparty) so I might wait on that. I could read... something from the TBR pile? Maybe.