What Have You Been Reading This April?

[Gary]

I have two books going this month so far.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells 12% done

Imager by L.E. Modesitt Jr. 31% done

[Andrea]

Finished Cetaganda and Ethan of Athos and will be done with Labyrinth. That was quite the threesome of wildly weird and crazy books! Bujold likes to explore unusual societies and gender/sexual preferences.

In the first we have Miles for all intents and purposes getting himself in trouble just so he can prove he's smart enough to get out of it. Remember when we did the group read of Shards of Honor and we felt it was kind of YA'ish? That carried over here where Miles decided he had to save the world on his own and couldn't go to the "adults" for help. I put adults in quotes since he's an adult himself but that's usually a Middle Grade / YA trope.

The other book is in some way similar except I can't say Ethan wanted to have anything at all to do with the trouble he got himself into :) Interesting concept of an all male planet though.

And Labyrinth...Miles, our little short and physically warped protagonist having a love affair with an 8-foot tall teenage werewolf girl. Ah, interesting to say the least? LOL

But for all the ridiculousness of the storylines and that most of Miles' problems are caused by no one other than himself, the Vorkosigan Saga is huge fun to read. And they can be pretty deep too, getting into a lot of ethical questions along the way.

[Violet]

This far I've read Dawn, Oathbringer and Edgedancer, and I'm considering to start Elantris right away as a result of the Sanderson-obsession I'm going through right now...

[Mary]

Just finished Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 2. Starting Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 3

[Tony]

I finished There and Back Again, a delightful and thoroughly charming retelling of The Hobbit as a space opera. If you are a fan of Tolkien's work, you should enjoy this as a lovingly re-imagined version of his classic children's tale, and if you've never read The Hobbit, you can still enjoy this as a cracking good story. I regret that this was sitting in my TBR pile for so long.

[NekroRider]

I finished Descent of Angels (Book 6 of Horus Heresy) earlier today and rated 3.75/5 stars. Although the ending was definitely a 4 star or more ending! Very Lovecraftian conclusion with a very cool final battle! As much as I can understand why some people rated it poorly (the writing wasn't amazing, had awkward dialogue and some inconsistencies in some of the minor details) I personally still really enjoyed it a lot overall. A fun ride.

Continue to feel infected by the Horus Heresy bug so I decided to keep going with Legion

[Mary]

Just finished Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 4 and begun Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 5

[Tony]

I read the graphic novel Greenberg the Vampire, which is a somewhat unusual tale of a Jewish vampire who happens to be a best-selling horror author and suffering from writers block.

[Mary]

Gods of Pangaea by John C. Wright

[Tony]

I read the graphic novel Marada the She-Wolf. A fairly average writing effort from Chris Claremont, saved by the beautiful artwork from John Bolton.

[Tony]

I just read a very short (20-odd pages) and pretty confusing short story - WireShip Manifestation. The author, John Pirillo, is certainly prolific, but I haven't read anything else, so I don't know if this is representative of his work.

[Audrey]

Finished Torn and Zoe's Tale and Age of Empyre (typo hunting on that one).

I am almost done re-reading The Amulet of Samarkand and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the Stephen Fry audio, non-Americanized version).

[Tony]

I have started on Zero Limit

[[deleted user]]

The Renegat is Rusch's 8th novel in her Diving Universe series (plus a handful of novella.) This one sends a Fleet crew of expendables on a mission no one seriously thinks they'll return from. It has no tie-in to the "main" Diving Universe storyline, though I expect, as with The Falls, something will leak over in a future novel. :) I like Rusch's characters and deliberate pace (though I found the constant flipping between two timelines distracting to both storylines.) This is also twice as thick as her previous Diving Universe novels, though I read an ebook. (I was collecting the set in dead-tree editions, but after #5 the publisher decided to change the design and re-issue the first 5, making it impossible to extend the set I already had.)

[Tony]

G33z3r wrote: "I was collecting the set in dead-tree editions, but after #5 the publisher decided to change the design and re-issue the first 5, making it impossible to extend the set I already had."

I find that so irritating - and it happens so often with lengthy series.

[[deleted user]]

Tony wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "I was collecting the set in dead-tree editions, but after #5 the publisher decided to change the design and re-issue the first 5, making it impossible to extend the set I already had...

I find that so irritating - and it happens so often with lengthy series."

It was. But, I've been using ebooks for quite awhile, and I can't think of any physical books I've bought lately. KKR's Diving Universe had nice covers, so I was still doing that in dead-tree books until the publisher switched style (and physical size.)

My ebooks all match perfectly and line up on the shelves really well. :)

[Pierre]

I finished Shards of Honour and, thanks to the ease of purchasing e-books, I moved immediately to Barrayar. In my earlier post I noted that I had read those two books in their french translation some years ago. To the extent that Shards was a kind of re.read, it seems that I had missed a lot the first time around, At any rate, I am looking forward to being immersed in the Vorkosigan world for quite a while.

[Michelle]

I love that series, Pierre! I just re-read it recently.

[Andrea]

Re-read the first two books in the Mortal Instruments series, somehow the love interests didn't bug me as much the first time around and it is an interesting world. I'm rereading it because while the first couple of books were still clear, I'd forgotten what happened in the third and fourth books and I was planning to finish the series with the fifth and sixth. They are fast reads at least.

Taking a break and reading another Kathy Reichs book, her novella collection The Bone Collection: Four Novellas. Already done with the first two novellas.

[NekroRider]

Finished Legion last night and rated tentatively another 3.75/5 stars. Both that and Descent of Angels were tough to rate.

Now decided to go with some Agatha Christie. Started Sad Cypress last night and enjoying it so far!

[Andrea]

Not SF/F but I did grab all the free Kindle books from the World Book Day, not sure I'll get around to reading them all (though I'm interested in some of those historical ones and couple others) but since it was quick I squeezed into April a reading of Along the Tapajósby Fernando Vilela

[Norm017]

Just finished The Girl Who Wasn't There, good old fashioned YA sci-fi that got it's various messages across without seeming like it was preaching to the reader and the author showed he definitely had a sense of humor in some places. I hope the sequel is not too long in coming out.