What have You been Reading this July?

[Mike]

Noor, this is my first read of HP. I finished the films several years ago, but never even began the books till a year or two after completing the movies.

[Barbara]

Recursion by Blake Crouch

When a neuroscientist and her team (sort of inadvertently) develop time travel, there are unintended consequences. Good speculative science fiction with interesting characters. 3.5 stars

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Noor]

Mike wrote: "Noor, this is my first read of HP. I finished the films several years ago, but never even began the books till a year or two after completing the movies."

Nice! I re-read them frequently, but it's different reading them for the first time! Though I always read each book before the movie came out... I wonder, do you feel like part of the enjoyment is lost because you know "what's going to happen" from the movies or is it still enjoyable?

Hmmm... maybe it's time I went back for an HP re-read!

Barbara, that book sounds interesting, thanks for sharing your review! :)

[Barbara]

Noor wrote: "- Barbara, that book sounds interesting, thanks for sharing your review! :)

You're welcome. 😊

[Tony]

I finished The Distant Suns and read Flux, the short story that completes Sailing to Utopia. As volume 5 of the Chronicles of the Eternal Champion, none of the books in this volume really has anything to do with the Eternal Champion, but that was a convenient way to repackage all of Moorcock's books for re-release. I am rereading Lord Foul's Bane - intending to read all 10 Thomas Covenant books (although I expect I will take short breaks at times).

[Audrey]

I was pretty disappointed in The Book Thief and hated Strange the Dreamer. I’m too hard-hearted, I guess.

I love the LOTR movies, and I know there are differences, but I don’t mind. Blade Runner is quite different from the book, and I feel like they’re different stories, and I enjoyed them each for different reasons.

I listened to The Thin Man and Lock In on a road trip this last week. Lock In was really good. We also started Phasma, but it is not well written.

[[deleted user]]

Audrey wrote: "I listened to The Thin Man and Lock In on a road trip this last week. Lock In was really good. ..."

Since you listened to Lock In, did you listen to the Wil Wheaton or Amber Benson narration? (I assume that determined which gender you assigned to Chris. I liked the novel idea that since Chris was only ever present as a piloted "threep", Chris's actual gender was irrelevant. But when you make an audiobook with a 1st person narration, you have have to choose a narrator. :)

[Audrey]

I listened to Wil Wheaton. I didn’t even realize Chris’s gender was unspecified! Amber Bensen would be interesting to listen to.

[Mary]

Changeling by William Ritter

[[deleted user]]

Audrey wrote: "I listened to Wil Wheaton. I didn’t even realize Chris’s gender was unspecified! Amber Bensen would be interesting to listen to."

Yeah, it's easy to simply make a default assumption, and even with the ebook it takes quite a while to notice we really have no clue as to Chris's physical body. The 1st-person narration means there are no gendered pronouns needed to refer to Chris, and physical description is limited to the threeps. With an audiobook, your gender assumption is biased to the narrator's gender. When Lock In was first published (wow, that 5 years ago; time flies!), Audible offered both versions together for one price for pre-orders, so I've read the ebook and listened to both audiobook versions, more or less as an experiment in my own assumptions. (I didn't know the "trick" in advance, I just read the pre-order offer on Scalzi's blog and thought, "that's weird, why two audiobooks?" and decided to pre-order. Since I listened to the Benson narration last, I currently think of Chris as female. (And the point of the writing exercise is that with a robot body, gender is moot, so why must I assign one to Chris at all?)

The sequel, Head On also has Wheaton & Benson audiobooks. If you're planning on listening to it, you could reassign Chris's gender between books :) (I haven't listened to either the Head On audiobooks; Audible didn't repeat the 2-for-1 offer, so I settled for just reading the ebook; there are limits to my crazy.)

[Gary]

I finished reading Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow, Port of Shadows by Glen Cook, and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. I am reading The Rooster Bar by John Grisham. I plan to read Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey next.

[Barbara]

For anyone who's interested, The Redemption of Time became available on July 16.

This is a fanfiction 'sequel' to Remembrance of Earth's Past

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jim]

Audrey wrote: "I listened to Wil Wheaton. I didn’t even realize Chris’s gender was unspecified! Amber Bensen would be interesting to listen to."

Agreed. I listened to Wil the first time. Maybe I can find Amber's narration in a year or two.

[Garyjn]

Just finished the brilliant, IMO, Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin with Death's End. I'm switching over to fantasy now and will begin reading The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie.

[Andrea]

On my eReader I finished the last of L'Engle's stories that intertwined with The Time Quintet. So I've now read everything that ties in with a Wrinkle in Time. Didn't realize there was so much and thought they would be faster reads, but Wrinkle is actually one of the smaller books in the overall series.

Now I'm reading Elidor by Alan Garner

[NekroRider]

I just finished Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb and now moving on to Assassin's Fate...I can't believe I'll be starting the last Fitz book. I started reading the Realm of the Elderlings series almost a year ago (at the beginning of September 2018) and over the course of these 16 books have spent so much time with these characters I don't know what to feel. I sincerely find myself not wanting to leave this world...or Fitz as a character.

[Audrey]

G33z3r wrote: “Audrey wrote: “I listened to Wil Wheaton. I didn’t even realize Chris’s gender was unspecified! Amber Bensen would be interesting to listen to.”

Yeah, it’s easy to simply make a default assumption…”

Interesting experiment by the author. I’ll have to look at what the library has.

[Audrey]

Andrea wrote: “On my eReader I finished the last of L’Engle’s stories that intertwined with The Time Quintet. So I’ve now read everything that ties in with a Wrinkle in Time. Didn’t realize there was so much and …”

Was that An Acceptable Time? That’s the last one I’m aware of. The main series are the Wrinkle in Time series (sf/f) and the Austin family series (contemporary) but there are several characters who show up in both universes.

[Andrea]

Audrey wrote: "Andrea wrote: “On my eReader I finished the last of L’Engle’s stories that intertwined with The Time Quintet. So I’ve now read everything that ties in with a Wrinkle in Time. Didn’t realize there w..."

There are three related series, the Time one, the Austins and the Polly O'keefe quartet (Meg's daughter). I read Time in order but the rest I read in the order in which I found them (I had read a few of them before too). I finished with a couple Christmas short stories. Characters cross over all three series.

[Audrey]

I just figured Time and Polly were the same series.

[Andrea]

Audrey wrote: "I just figured Time and Polly were the same series."

Not really, there's no magic/SF elements in the Polly stories. The first one was more like a spy novel with teenagers, another a murder mystery, the next was a teenage angst coming of age tale...and yes forgot the last one is actually directly part of the Time Quintet and Polly time travels while visiting her grandparents (guess you had to be in that house for the weird stuff to happen)

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished


Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D.G. Compton

[Audrey]

Andrea wrote: “Audrey wrote: “I just figured Time and Polly were the same series.”

Not really, there’s no magic/SF elements in the Polly stories. The first one was more like a spy novel with teenagers, another a…”

The Arm of the Starfish is one of my top favorite books. It’s a little science fiction-y but just barely.

[⚘ Itz Lia the Bibliophile ⚘]

I have been reading
Also

[⚘ Itz Lia the Bibliophile ⚘]

I am about half way done with

After that this month I plan to read
Then....
Following

[Mike]

Noor wrote: "Mike wrote: "Noor, this is my first read of HP. I finished the films several years ago, but never even began the books till a year or two after completing the movies."

Nice! I re-read them frequen..."

It's still enjoyable for me as there's plenty of things that got left out of the movies, and even the things that got left in are well-written.

[Andrea]

Finished Codex Alera. Overall I enjoyed it, a slow start in the first two books but the rest were fun.

Back to my unicorns with the third Unicorn Chronicles - Dark Whispers by Bruce Coville. I'd read the first couple of books years ago, but this one was slow to come out and the fourth was published briefly but became impossible to find. But I found the fourth at a library so time to finish what I started oh so long ago :)

[L.A.]

Finding myself a bit picky these days and switching from one book to another, digging deeper into them only very sluggishly - does that happen to you sometimes? The last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick, short stories from Philip K, and Robert E. Howard's boxing series. Of those, Moby and the boxing series are on the lead. Hope I don't stumble into anything else!

[Allison]

This month so far I've read

Dawn - better for me than the other two books I've read by her but I think I am done trying to like her writing. It's obviously well done and important to scifi fans, but it's not for me.

Reread of The Once and Future King which is just as hilarious, wise and depressing as ever. New sections stood out to me as they intersect with current events.

Lud-in-the-Mist was a fun look back at fantasy before it became defined and to see where a lot of inspiration for beloved authors came from. Worth a read, but I didn't love it.

Becoming was as brilliant as I'd heard.

The Bone Doll's Twin was an overlong prologue/litany of horrors that I think will start a story about how to really mess someone up psychologically.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was fun--a Jemisinian take on the YA genre with a mythology I really loved.

The Book of M made no sense. An unromantic romance, a nonlinear road trip, a dreamlike nightmare told by someone who doesn't know how to keep the agonizing retelling of that dream short.

About to finish The Color Purple which is as brilliant and enraging as I'd imagined, and starting Royal Assassin as a palate cleanser/distance creator.

[Mary]

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

[Pierre]

I didn't finish reading The Temporal Void, I stopped about halfway in the book, I couldn't get interested in the story. This is odd, because I had liked The Dreaming Void, which I read a while ago. Perhaps I let too much time elapse between both books?
At any rate, I moved to Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey, first book in the Expanse series, and I find it good sofar.

[Noor]

I just finished reading Lost Lore: A Fantasy Anthology. A couple of excellent stories in there and some pretty good ones, there were a couple I just didn't like at all, but I think any fantasy fan can find something in there that appeals to them so I would definitely recommend checking it out!

[[deleted user]]

After ten days, I've reached the mid-point of The Priory of the Orange Tree. I've really had trouble getting mental traction on this 850 page fantasy novel.

[Mary]

The Unicorn in the Barn by Jacqueline K. Ogburn

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I started reading


The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve edited by Jonathan Strahan

[Saul the Heir of Isauldur]

I've been reading the Ranger's Apprentice series for most of June and through July. I'm currently on Book 7: Erak's Ransom

[Andrea]

Mary wrote: "The Unicorn in the Barn by Jacqueline K. Ogburn"

That's on my to-read list assuming I can find it in a library around here :)

I finished Dark Whispers and now reading the final Unicorn Chronicles book The Last Hunt by Bruce Coville. This book was nearly impossible to find, it was in print only briefly, some sort of issue with the publisher. I found it on OpenLibrary only to my dismay to find out it's only in PDF form...and for some reason in this sepia colour. It's entirely unreadable on my Kobo. Seems I may need to read it on my computer, all 600+ pages :P Fortunately it's a middle-grade book so even 600 pages will go reasonably fast.

[Mary]

Somewhither by John C. Wright

[Tony]

I finished reading Lord Foul's Bane which I always find a difficult read because the protagonist is so thoroughly unlikable, but still worth the effort because the world is so well-realised. I have started the second book in the series, The Illearth War

[Audrey]

I am also re-reading Rise of Empire and going through a big picture book about the Apollo missions (though it also covers Mercury and Gemini).

[Andrea]

Since I find I can't read The Last Hunt on my Kindle (at least it's not on my desktop) with the glowing screen for too long a stretch, I also started Dream Country by Neil Gaiman where I read one section a day, and The Unicorn Solution by John Lee

And seems I didn't mention that on my eReader I've been reading Spellhorn by Berlie Doherty which has a really interesting speech pattern for the fantasy people.

[[deleted user]]

Well, I finished, finally, The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is a much easier and enjoyable read in the second half. There's some interesting worldbuilding behind this "ancient evil rising again" plot; I especially liked how several different rival religions sprung from different viewpoints on millennia-old events. On the negative, too many PoVs and too frequent changes make it a real slog early on. (Side note: a few dragons here and there.)

[Luffy Sempai]

G33z3r wrote: "Well, I finished, finally, The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is a much easier and enjoyable read in the second half. There's some interesting worldbuilding behind this "ancient e..."

You must be very resilient as a reader. I couldn't complete a third of the book. Along with romance, most of fantasy and a lot of scifi is unpalatable to me. It's beyond my control, but I rue these limits.

[Tony]

After seeing the documentary Apollo 11 yesterday, I started reading the non-SFF Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond written by one of the mission controllers for both Apollo 11 and Apollo 13, which has been sitting on my shelves for some time.

[[deleted user]]

Luffy wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Well, I finished, finally, The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is a much easier and enjoyable read in the second half.
You must be very resilient as a reader. I couldn't complete a third of the book...."

I did consider dropping it a couple of times, but it came recommended by a friend. For me, reading something that hasn't grabbed my interest usually means I spemd less time reading. It took me 10 days to get to the half-way point, which is absurdly slow compared to my usual pace. OTOH, I binged a lot of streaming TV shows in the last 2 weeks. :)

[Audrey]

Tony wrote: “After seeing the documentary Apollo 11 yesterday, I started reading the non-SFF Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond written by one of the m…”

I read Jim Lovell’s account; that was also fascinating (if you like science stuff).

[Tony]

I had already started reading sci-fi by the time I watched the moon landing as a 10 yo (I recall owning The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet ) but that experience was one of the things that pushed me onto the path that led to a degree in physics (not that I have ever used much of it in my work life :) ). Had I been American I expect I would have aimed for a career in NASA.

[Kivrin]

I finished reading Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone trilogy. Didn't like it nearly as much as Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. Way to YA for me, but I did like seeing more of the Grisha world she's created. I still want to read her new one King of Scars because Nikolai was one of the characters I really liked in the trilogy.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

**ahem**

It is now August.

[[deleted user]]

RJ wrote: "**ahem**
It is now August."

If you insist on using the Terran calendar.