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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading - August 2019
Finished with The Fall of Gondolin. The battle was fantastic, the illustration were too few but awesome as usual. Was a nice farewell to Tolkien's published work. Starting again my reread of First Law World with The Heroes.
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First I listened to Aftershocks, which I really liked. I had been sort of losing steam on his Frontline books, and I thought this is the best thing he's written to date. - ★★★★☆ - (My Review)
Next I listened to The Wolf's Call. Given my disappointment with Queen of Fire I was a bit apprehensive about this one, but that turned out to be unwarranted. - ★★★★☆ - (My Review)
Finally I read The Poppy War, which I really enjoyed. I found the first part to be my favorite, but I still enjoyed the later parts enough that I plan to continue the series at some point. - ★★★★☆ - (My Review)
Oh gosh, I don't remember the last time I shared in one of these threads, but it's been a while. As far as SFF books, so far this month I've read Fox 8 (which qualifies only because: talking animals), and The Gilded Wolves. In July I read Machines Like Me and The Priory of the Orange Tree. In June there was The Tea Master and the Detective, Wicked Saints, and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. In May: Rosewater. In April: In an Absent Dream and The Night Tiger. There, I think I've caught up!
What an incredible capstone! Just finished Reticence by Gail Carriger. It's the final book in the "Custard Protocol" books and is really the final installment in the overall Parasol Protectorate books. Although (cross fingers) there may yet be novellas to come.The opener is so great that I give it five stars only because I can't cut them in half, plant them and grow them to ten stars. The book starts off with the hilarious introduction of a new character, then proceeds to an event where every person in the series to date either shows or gets a mention. Well, almost...I can spot a few that didn't (view spoiler)But good grief, the cut had to go somewhere!
We've got a romance trope turned on its head, a bigtime London social event with all the opportunities for misunderstanding, and then a Big Secret Mission. So the Spotted Custard is off once again, meeting new shifters in a Steampunk Edo so beautifully described it's almost painful to not be able to actually see it.
Also, depending on how you look at it, there's some positive representation for the Asperger's set. Or so it seemed to me and a few others.
The book brims with Gail's trademark wit and charm, turned up to 11.
The first 25% is so well done that it's a bit of a letdown to have the book descend to a *mere* 4/5 in a few spots. That's mainly because a few transitions happened a bit abruptly. But it was all in service of the overall storyline. People wound up where they needed to be at the right time in the story.
This book would be fun read as a standalone, but many of the references would seem to the reader as simple plot rather than a reference to a rich tapestry. Every one of the books got a reference, including the novellas.
And then...the epilogue. Plenty of reveals there, none of which I want to spoil. The Parasolverse is well and truly over, as the epilogue starts January 1 1901. Were there more stories it would no longer be the age of Steam and Victoria, but rather Dieselpunk and the Edwardian era. Well, there is still plenty of story to tell. Let us hope Gail Carriger will grace us with more.
John (Taloni) wrote: "What an incredible capstone! Just finished Reticence by Gail Carriger. It's the final book in the "Custard Protocol" books and is really the final installment in the overall Parasol..."Ima go ahead and call this one a rave review.
Joel wrote: "Listening to The Goblin Emperor. Is there a wiki or glossary for all the names? Hard to keep up sometimes. "Sorry I didn't see this sooner - you're probably done by now - but there is some explanatory notes on names in the back of the book which helped me. I don't remember a full glossary, but since it's ultimately a story with one real protagonist I never felt too inclined to be worried by the array of names. Maia himself was often mystified by the intricacies of court life, so I never felt put out that I sometimes didn't keep every name straight.
Still slogging through the chasm of The Way of Kings.Page 773. 516 (!!) pages to go.
FFS Brandon, get to the gd point.
Perhaps some judicious skimming, Trike? Or it might be time to Lem.Had a member of a reading group gush about Wheel of Time, so I tried it. Didn't grab me but wasn't terrible, so when the TBR was low I read another. They were, for me, increasingly bad. I got to the fourth book where I hate-skimmed 200 pages of stupid loss of Macguffin that really should have doomed their world and they should pay better freakin' attention. Of course they got it back and nothing else changed, the plot didn't progress, 200 pages of blah diddly blah chasing something that never should have been lost with no consequence. Well, 200 pages was enough for Niven to tell the entire story of Protector with room to spare.
Anyway, after the fourth I gave up in puzzlement. This is no way diminishes the reactions of others who love it. Just not for me. WOK may just not be for you.
FinishedThe Dying of the Light. It was another fantastic installment! Re-listening to A Time of Dread because Audible U.S. finally started making more of John Gwynne's books available. For the longest time you could only get the first book in his original series and the first book in his new series. He is a fantastic author and I really enjoy his books! Just picked up A Time of Blood on audible today and will start it when finished with the re-listen.
Anthony wrote: "I feel some of your pain, Trike."John (Taloni) wrote: "Perhaps some judicious skimming, Trike? Or it might be time to Lem.
Had a member of a reading group gush about Wheel of Time, so I tried it. Didn't grab me but wasn't terrible, so when the TBR was..."
I don’t hate it but lawdy he do go on and on.
Since starting this book I’ve now watched Avengers: Endgame three times plus the extras — so that’s 10 hours there. All of the second season of The Orville, another 10 hours, plus read Neil Gaiman’s Eternals. I started Storm of Locusts, the sequel to Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse
In short, I’m doing my best to avoid this doorstop. But I’ve decided I’m going to finish it. Eventually.
I didn’t hate it either, but I certainly didn’t fall for it the way that so many others around these parts seem to.
Trike wrote: "Still slogging through the chasm of The Way of Kings.Page 773. 516 (!!) pages to go.
FFS Brandon, get to the gd point."
Only nine more books to go 😂
Iain wrote: "Trike wrote: "Still slogging through the chasm of The Way of Kings.Page 773. 516 (!!) pages to go.
FFS Brandon, get to the gd point."
Only nine more books to go 😂"
This is why baby Jesus invented Wikipedia.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Had a member of a reading group gush about Wheel of Time, so I tried it. Didn't grab me but wasn't terrible, so when the TBR was low I read another. They were, for me, increasingly bad. I got to the fourth book where I hate-skimmed 200 pages..."It's been a couple decades since I read the series, but for me I remember it having levels of quality. The first was the best, the next 2 were close to the same quality. Then the next 2 or 3 were a bit lower, and then the next couple were a bit lower yet. It was as if when he got more popular, he was edited less and less. I kept reading because I had become plot addicted, but I actually stopped with Sanderson's first book. It was nothing against him, but the gap before his first book came out gave me time to move on from the series.
I never did look up what happened in the end, maybe I should sometime.
Me, I just finished one book that I did absolutely love and plan to gush about (Alastair Reynolds' Shadow Captain) and started another that I fully anticipate absolutely loving & gushing about (Elizabeth Bear's The Red-Stained Wings).
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I liked the first 2 books in the series, but Geez did Book 3 drag on forever :-?
With a bit of editing, it could have been condensed into 1 really good book ;-)
Current finishing off Hugh Howey's Silo books Shift Omnibus and Dust.I haven't been enjoying them as much as I enjoyed Wool Omnibus
I’m reading Sword of Destiny (Witcher book .75) by Andrzej Sapkowski and I’m really loving this first short story. It’s like The Hobbit meets the Hateful Eight. Very enjoyable.
Pausing The Way of Kings because Sanderson has lost his way. Authors breaking their own internal consistency is annoying, but especially after 800 pages. I guess he just lost track of what he was writing.Moved on to Storm of Locusts, the sequel to Trail of Lightning. It flows pretty effortlessly; already 60 pages in.
Yep, I took breaks recently too! While reading the initial "Dragonriders of Pern" material. Same total length, about 1300 pages, but the breaks I took were after what are known as "books." Six of them for the same page count as Way of Kings.I've never gotten into doorstopper books. Some people love 'em. I'm fine with "arc of arcs" but need at least an interim ending.
Finished my first book in 2 months (weird 2 months) with Meaty. I liked this a lot but by the end I felt like it was getting a bit repetitive. Irby's a great writer and a breath of fresh air and this collection is an extremely quick read for the length.
Also kind of finished a book by completing Wintertide. Going to be disappointed when I'm done with this series and will definitely have to get into the other related books.
Trike wrote: "Pausing The Way of Kings because Sanderson has lost his way. Authors breaking their own internal consistency is annoying, but especially after 800 pages. I guess he just lost track o..."Hey, I had no idea the sequel was out yet! I'll probably pick it up at some point.
I'm now reading White Stag. I got a lot of reading in when on break from my online school program, but class starts back up again next week, so I won't have as much time for leisure reading. Unfortunately I have a bunch of library holds that are finally being shipped my way now. Not Vessel yet, though, which I have been on the wait list for since it was announced as a S&L pick.
Listening to Halting State by Charles Stross. I'm enjoying it so far and not finding the 2nd person view too annoying or distracting. I am not sure what Stross was trying to achieve though
Is there anyway to listen to the S&L podcast discussion of Rule 34 (episodes 87-91)? My podcatcher won't go back that far and the file on the website is in a defunct flash player
TRP: If you go to the bottom of the episode page, there is a link to the audio file on archive.org. e.g. Link to #87
Jessica wrote: "Trike wrote: "Pausing The Way of Kings because Sanderson has lost his way. Authors breaking their own internal consistency is annoying, but especially after 800 pages. I guess he jus..."Books 2 and 3 are out.
Trike got further than I did. I stopped around the time we see Kaladin as a slave. I simply don't think any story takes 10,000 pages to tell and this is projected as a 10 book series.
The other reason I'm uninterested? Way of Kings was published in... 2010. Nine years, three books. That's actually a good clip, especially when you consider he's done other stuff in between... but it means the entire 10 book series is a 25 year effort and we have ~15 years to the end. Um. No. No, thanks.
Reading Neal Stephenson's latest book, "Fall." It starts out with the usual Stephenson overattention to detail, but he seems to be going somewhere fun. I thought idly that maybe he should be paying a royalty payment to Dennis E. Taylor as the underlying premise is the same as the Bobiverse. So far classic Stephenson. I don't like his books so much as appreciate them as, for instance, the whip/snake space launchers in Seveneves.Welp, at about the 180 page mark we take a step into an America that is so bizarrely stereotyped, so incredibly unrealistic as to be unreadable. I first thought that I might take a break and read something else. I'm doing a reread of the Pern books and could pick up one of those. A few pages more of Fall and I am considering lemming the book entirely.
Has anyone read this book all the way through? Does it get any better?
it gets different. I liked the beginning and the end much more than the middle.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Welp, at about the 180 page mark we take a step into an America that is so bizarrely stereotyped, so incredibly unrealistic as to be unreadable...."Does it have a president claiming to be The Chosen One? Kind of Israel? Second coming of god? Because if it's any tamer than that, I'm not sure 'unrealistic' is the adjective you can use.
Brian wrote: "it gets different. I liked the beginning and the end much more than the middle."Thanks Brian. Yeah, the opener wasn't bad, just long. Thinking back, Snow Crash addressed the Internet as well, and had bizarre social commentary, but wasn't slanted. This one...toothless rednecks who have to make day trips to a city for medical care because they can't afford lodging or food in a city. Despite being the people who grow the food. Aaaand the flaming crosses.
*squints at kindle...opens book...dips toe back in...*
I am trying to read The Poppy War but so far it hasn't really grabbed me. Maybe it would work better for me in audio, but in audio I have Nevernight going. It's yet another book with a kid going to a magical school, but this school seems more evil than many. I keep feeling like I should go to Kindle edition for this, because the cadence of the narrator reminds me of William Shatner and is kind of annoying. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be WhisperSync for Voice on this one (or if there is, it's not working for me), so...
Read The Test by Sylvain Neuvel, author of the Themis Files novels. It's a short read (novella? novelette? who knows?) but very good. Don't want to spoil the story, so I'll only say that there is more to it than is alluded to in the blurb. Should immediately be sold to Dark Mirror as a script idea.Also just finished The Hanging Tree, the 6th in the Rivers of London series. Another solid entry in the series. I'm trying to read everything in official story order, so this unlocks three more of the graphic novels for me.
Next thing I'm actually going to start reading, though, is Early Riser, a new(ish) one from Jasper Fforde.
Read The Ruin of Kings and I should have realized it wasn't for me a quarter of the way in, but I finished it anyway. It has a big, impressive, and diverse world, but a main character I didn't care about and a form that made things feel clunky (alternating two different flashback stories for no good reason).Started in on Libriomancer because I felt like something lighter.
I decided to keep August weird. Just finished Black Helicopters by Caitlín R. Kiernan, her even more ambitious follow-up to Agents of Dreamland. Now reading a double dose of lunatic "it's all true!" science fiction: The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time and The Shaver Mystery, Book One. So far, the writing in Montauk is terrible, but I am still enjoying reading it and it's messy blend of fact and fiction. And Shaver is a legendary golden age of science fiction boondoggle, though the story of it is definitely more fun than the story in it.
I so enjoyed Record of a Spaceborn Few. Next up, I'm reading Sabriel. I discovered I can read it for free on Amazon Prime. Huzzah!I've been trying to get caught up on the Audible originals that I've downloaded. Listening to the audio drama The Conception of Terror: Tales Inspired by M. R. James - Volume 1 now. There is about an 1 1/2 hours left. Then I'll start the new S&L pick.
Just finished Children of Ruin in audio form. This is terrific hard SF by an author at the top of his game. Adrian Tchaikovsky has obviously read and digested the greats of the field and come up with something fresh and inspiring. First Contact and Uplift all mixed together with absolutely terrifically conceived intelligent species (view spoiler)
Finished The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison and have mildly positive feelings about it.Others have said the the Jacobean style language used in the book is a problem but I've seen a heck of a lot of Shakespeare so I didn't find it difficult.
I could see the inspiration that Eddison got from the Illiad and Shakespeare (and possibly Norse Sagas) and also how he probably inspired Tolkein and others.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a well-thumbed copy of the book in George R. R. Martin's library
Announcement of the next monthly pick gave me the push I needed to finally finish A Conjuring of Light. It almost got lemmed back in April. I abandoned the kindle edition, but after a while I thought I could get through the rest in audio as a background listen. It did pick up to an exciting finish, but as a whole it didn't half ramble on a bit! Needed a brutal editing pass to lose about a third of the text, in my opinion.Next Audible credit spent on Trail of Lightning.
Finished with Wild Seed. Fantastic and will continue with the series.Starting Aftershocks. I hope this will quench my thirst for the next Frontlines book.
Another recently finished book was Star Cops by Chris Boucher.I can't really recommend this book (sexist attitudes, national stereotypes and really just 4 or 5 episodes summarised) but I loved the TV series on which it is based. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Cops
The TV series has shown up in-full on YouTube so might be around until someone notices the copyright violation.
Warning, like Star Trek: Enterprise, it had a controversial theme song, this time recorded by Justin Haywood of the 60s group The Moody Blues
I have a side group dedicated to reading golden(ish) age sci-fi, hardboiled, and weird fiction short stories, so I knocked out a couple of those recently: "The Brain of Many Bodies" (1940) by E.A. Grosser, which I found in the The Pulp Fiction Megapack: 25 Classic Pulp Stories; and The Horror in the Burying-Ground (1937), by Hazel Heald, revised by H.P. Lovecraft."Brain" was a fun slice of golden age scifi influenced by the growing specter of WWII and the American soul-searching over involvement, it being a story about a man suddenly in the position to overthrow a tyrant, but only if he becomes a tyrant. "Horror" is like southern Poe, being a tale of premature burial and madness.
Iain wrote: "Just finished Children of Ruin in audio form. This is terrific hard SF by an author at the top of his game. Adrian Tchaikovsky has obviously read and digested the g..."Is it the same narrator as the first book? I quite enjoyed the narration.
Read Vicious and Vengeful in quick succession - a good superpower concept and fast paced action, although I would have preferred a bit more focus on character development. Also V.E. Schwab has a weird attachment to the word ‘wicking’.On Audible I’m still on Jade War.
For my meatspace book group I’m reading The Stranger Diaries which is a crime novel with a gothic feel and references to classic literature.
Silvana wrote: "Iain wrote: "Just finished Children of Ruin in audio form. This is terrific hard SF by an author at the top of his game. Adrian Tchaikovsky has obviously read and d..."I believe it is the same (Mel Hudson) and she is terrific. I read the first in Dead Tree format.
Iain wrote: "Silvana wrote: "Iain wrote: "Just finished Children of Ruin in audio form. This is terrific hard SF by an author at the top of his game. Adrian Tchaikovsky has obvi..."Noted with thanks!
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The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (other topics)Trail of Lightning (other topics)
Storm of Locusts (other topics)
The One (other topics)
Blue Labyrinth (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Neal Stephenson (other topics)John Marrs (other topics)
Lincoln Child (other topics)
Douglas Preston (other topics)
Adrian Tchaikovsky (other topics)
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Allison wrote: "Do I...do I crave standalones?? No, that can't be right, can it?"
Standalones are awesome! I also like standalones in shared universe like Bujold's World of Five Gods, Mieville's Bas Lag etc.
Trike wrote: "Just started chapter 19 of The Way of Kings, which, according to my iPad, is page 368 of 1289 and it feels like nothing much has happened. How is that possible? Really becoming bored..."
Just count how many times Kaladin....never mind.