What else are you reading - August 2020

[Rob, Roberator]

It's August already? Time has no meaning to me these days I guess.

So what are you reading this month?

[Mark]

Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection by Ben Aaronovitch which dropped on my Kindle yesterday. Fun stuff as always. Most of the stories were extras in the UK editions sold at Waterstones. One of the stories takes place in a Waterstones. I gather that Waterstones is a big chain like Barnes & Noble, except Ben Aaronovitch doesn't write short stories for Barnes & Noble editions of his books.

[Sheila Jean]

I finished American Demon by Kim Harrison last night. I think The Hollows is one of the first urban fantasy series I started reading and it was comforting to return and check in on them.

Now starting A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers. Will see if I finish before my check out expires. I also have the physical book for this months pick fresh from the library so that's up after.

Still going through last months pick in audio. About 65% through. No idea what I'll start next.

[Trike]

Currently reading:

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - nonfiction, 5 stars so far at ~20%

Morbius: The Living Vampire: The Man Called Morbius - comic, also 5 at 20

On deck:

Elysium in audio

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Volume 1

[Trike]

Mark wrote: "Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection by Ben Aaronovitch which dropped on my Kindle yesterday. Fun stuff as always. Most of the stories wer..."

I’m totally going to name a character Folly River. Or maybe a river that.

Edit: there already is one. Dangit, all the good names are taken.

[Silvana]

Stuck with The Sol Majestic - considering to DNF but we'll see.

Starting Dreamsnake.

[John (Taloni)]

Read a deliciously great alternate-universe book, What Mad Universe. A science fiction magazine editor from the 1940s winds up stranded in a universe much like his own, well, except for the routine appearance of aliens, air on the moon, and the appearance of his lady love in lurid SF cover garb. It's enough to get him shot if he reveals himself.

This book is a romp through pulp SF tropes, sending up so many I can hardly keep count. Perhaps the most hilarious one by today's standards was probably true then - that you could support yourself selling SF short stories, and could easily waltz into an editor's office and leave stories to read. IIRC the professional writing rate per word then amounted to about three times what it is today, so even though I laughed it's likely on the level.

Of course we have silly overwrought perilous situations, thieves with a heart of gold, and an existential issue that will wipe out the human race that only the MC can solve.

I came to this book courtesy of Robert Heinlein, who mentioned it in Pursuit of the Pankera which I recently read. Large parts of that book seem dedicated to refuting the "infinite universes" aspect of "What Mad Universe." Heinlein clearly thought about this a lot.

I've read this author (Fredric Brown) before with Martians, Go Home decades ago but don't recall reading any others. This one was well worth the read. Short too, in the manner of books of that day, about 200 pages. Quick, fast, fun read.

[Mark]

John (Taloni) wrote: "I've read this author (Fredric Brown) before with Martians, Go Home decades ago but don't recall reading any others. "

Brown also wrote some entertaining mysteries. My favorite is The Far Cry

[Joseph]

I started Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road.

[Misti]

I decided to get the Kindle book for this month’s pick since it is short. So I’m going to use my Audible credit on The Relentless Moon. Can’t wait to start listening to it.

[Ruth]

Misti wrote: "I decided to get the Kindle book for this month’s pick since it is short. So I’m going to use my Audible credit on The Relentless Moon. Can’t wait to start listening to it."

I’m listening to the audiobook of The Relentless Moon! Loving it.

[AndrewP]

Mark wrote: "Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection by Ben Aaronovitch which dropped on my Kindle yesterday. Fun stuff as always. Most of the stories wer..."

I hope there is going to be an audio book version.

[Mark]

AndrewP wrote: "I hope there is going to be an audio book version. "

From the author's newsletter:

Audio is scheduled for the 27th August – which is as soon as we can safely get the readers, Kobna of course for the Peter Grant stories, others TBA, in and out of a studio in a responsibly social distant way. I hope you guys enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

I’ve signed a deal with Subterranean Press for them to produce a limited collector’s edition of Takes From The Folly – this will probably be available in 2021 and we’ll let you know when it is.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

[AndrewP]

Mark wrote: "Audio is scheduled for the 27th August – which is as soon as we can safely get the readers, Kobna of course for the Peter Grant stories, others TBA, in and out of a studio in a responsibly social distant way. I hope you guys enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them."

Great, thank for the info!

[Joseph]

Finished Gentlemen of the Road and started In an Absent Dream, fourth in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

[Tommy]

Finished The Vanished Seas. After I finish this month's pick,Elysium, plan to finish the Quadrail series, reading Judgment at Proteus.

[Joseph]

Am now a good ways into Come Tumbling Down, fifth in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. I love these books!

[Maria]

Just finished Invisible Planets: Collected Fiction, a scifi short story collection by Hannu Rajaniemi.

Very versatile collection! Most stories were as mindbending as his work usually is, throwing the reader into the deep end to figure out scientific jargon and mindblowing concepts without too much explanation. This style is sometimes tiring, but these stories were short enough that it never felt like it. Also there were more simpler stories peppered in between, which didn´t take place in the far reaches or space or multiple dimensions but in seemingly more familiar or "normal" sceneries.

Many stories took place in Finland and had Finnish main characters, alongside with some cool Finnish mythology. I´m Finnish so it was a pretty unique exprience, having my homeland being the background for scifi stories. All those melancholic descriptions of endless barley fields with crooked barns and grey skies hit just right for me...

Overall, a very good read. Would recommend to any scifi reader.

[Joseph]

Harrow the Ninth! Harrow the Ninth!

[Jerimy]

Currently Reading:

Cepher Non-Fiction Bible (1,354 pages into it)

Bloodlines of the Illuminati Non-Fiction Conspiracy theory (71% through it, lots of spelling and grammar errors, but it is interesting. I would give it 2.75 stars.)

Games People Play Non-Fiction Psychology (will delve into it tomorrow)

[Geoff]

I just finished The Relentless Moon. I took me a little while to warm up to it but once I got about halfway through I really enjoyed it.

Harrow the Ninth just arrived for pickup at my local bookstore so that must be next. I'm really looking forward to it which makes me realize that Gideon the Ninth really stuck with me.

[Misti]

This month's pick is definitely not for me so I'm continuing the Binti series with Home.

[Richard]

I've been reading I call Him HIm by Scott Kimak it's pretty good so far

[Jonathan]

I finished A Time of Courage and loved it! I am listening to The Fellowship of the Ring.

[John (Taloni)]

Read Book 4 in the Dune series, God Emperor of Dune. Wow, what a talky book. Very little actually happens. Mostly it's Herbert spouting his philosophy. That worked well in small portions in Dune. Here it's overwhelming.

Some of it is just weird. Apparently armies are gay and made up of reproductive losers. Er...okay? I mean, just look at the US military, plenty of families and soldiers don't seem to hurt for dates. I'm having a hard time crediting anything in the book with whoppers like this.

I didn't exactly hate the book, but it doesn't do the legacy of the far better Dune any favors. I'm glad Herbert made some money.

(view spoiler)[The use of Leto is puzzling throughout. Herbert is obsessed with the concept of the Messiah. Okay, fine. Paul Atreides could have filled this role. Plus, we know and like Paul better. No need for the second generation.

There seems to be some kind of existential threat to humanity that both Paul and Leto are trying to avert. It's never specified. It isn't even strongly alluded to. With 10,000 planets in the empire, ALL of humanity is going to be wiped out? Give us a bone, Herbert! At least say it's for the greater good or a big disaster will be averted. The "motivation" is just a sop while taking off on lengthy philosophical tangents.

Leto's machinations take him in bizarre directions. He seems to be encouraging changes by forcing people to do the exact opposite of his stated goals. In the epilogue there's synthetic spice and prediction machines so that neither Dune nor the Spacer's Guild are needed any more. Humanity requires struggle instead of peace to evolve...okay...heard that one many times. We aren't covering new philosophical territory here.

One character takes the role of Judas and is specifically named as such in the epilogue. It's clear that Herbert considers Judas blameless, an essential part of the Messiah story, doing what he was asked.

I'm left with the feeling that if Herbert was so very interested in the Messiah, he could have gone to church. Karl Jung regularly sent people to study the religion they were raised in.

And the Duncans. When Duncan Idaho was brought back in the second book only to be killed again in the third, I asked myself "how many f***ing times is Herbert going to kill this guy? Well, apparently quite a few, since the book opens with Leto killing a Duncan and then ordering a replacement right off the ghola vats. Yay?

Much is made of Leto's sandworm body and how it makes him inhuman. The drop into the river makes the sandtrout flee, and Leto gets into a cave only to have the body slough off. So...he dies as a man. Um...okay.

I find myself wondering exactly what Leto intended to achieve and if his ending did that. Yes, there's a sop to the descendants being untrackable by probability senses. So, unpredictability is the answer? The Kwisatz Haderach was always a dead end? Seems an odd conclusion.
(hide spoiler)]

[Stephen]

Started Elysium in audio, then on to the final book in John Scalzi's Interdependency series The Last Emperox .

[John (Taloni)]

Read Dragon's Egg, a harder-than-hard SF book about life evolving on a neutron star. It's billed as a book that "out-Niven's Niven." Niven at least has relatable characters, so I found it more like "over-Niven's Niven."

The science is well locked down, but the story remains ho-hum. I found the first half dreary and full of unneeded setup. There's a riff on Jesus among the neutron star dwellers that fell fairly flat for me.

Some unintentionally amusing stuff in the first quarter of the book as we get a 1980 view on 2020. The Soviet Union is still around and the Ruble trades freely in currency markets as it never did during Communist days. Computer time is scarce and paying for mainframe access a burden. One data-crunching scene has me thinking any person in such a situation today would just load the data to their phone and run an app.

Larry Niven comes in for a name-check as both a JPL staffer and later his son are named for Niven. Why not the book was originally envisioned as a co-authorship with Niven, before he got involved with Lucifer's Hammer.

The creatures on the neutron star live a million times faster than humans for no particular reason, so there's a time-continuity issue. It's about the only part that provides a reason for decent characterization as both sides deal with it. Anyhoo, I have now read this minor classic of SF and it's done. I believe I will enjoy having read it (and knowing the concepts) than I did reading it.

Next up, Elysium. I had literally just bought it when my library hold of Harrow the Ninth came in. My cup runneth over!

[Trike]

I read the hot garbage that is Hell Divers. If you like my too-long rants about terrible books, here’s one for you: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Ruthifred]

I’m listening to Circe by Madeline Miller, I also just finished Gail Carriger’s The Enforcer Enigma.

[Ruth]

Trike wrote: "I read the hot garbage that is Hell Divers. If you like my too-long rants about terrible books, here’s one for you: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

I do like your rants so thanks for sharing this with us!

[Martin]

I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth & was looking forward to Harrow the Ninth but it’s driving me crazy. Jumping round in time, dreams sequences (which also jump around in time), blackouts & amnesia & different narrators all combine to have me lost. I’ll push on but only because I lemmed my last book (Man in the Empty Suit.)

[Erik]

Had a bit of reading fatigue so went with a narrator based pick for my next audio. I've come to realize more and more how much I enjoyed the narration of the The Invisible Library by Susan Duerden so I picked up The Masked City and this was exactly the type of easy listen I was looking for. I know the group was a bit split on her reading style but I'm definitely a fan. Also the day after I started listening to the second book I happened to watch an NCIS episode where Duerden has a bit role so that was a random fun add on.

[Geoff]

Martin wrote: "I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth & was looking forward to Harrow the Ninth but it’s driving me crazy. Jumping round in time, dreams sequences (which also jump around in ti..."

I'm about 100-150 pages and, and having a similar experience. I wouldn't say that I'm not enjoying it, but it feels like a lot of effort to read. I still have faith that it is going to come together into something coherent and compelling. The sooner the better, though...

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

I'm reading The Relentless Moon

I was initially disappointed that it wasn't an Elma story, but I got over than fairly quickly. Loving it :-)

[terpkristin]

Tassie Dave wrote: "I'm reading The Relentless Moon

I was initially disappointed that it wasn't an Elma story, but I got over than fairly quickly. Loving it :-)"

I finished that Friday and had all the feels. That book literally made me gag, cry, and laugh (separately).

[Ruth]

Tassie Dave wrote: "I'm reading The Relentless Moon

I was initially disappointed that it wasn't an Elma story, but I got over than fairly quickly. Loving it :-)"

I’m also reading this in audiobook- and I have the audiobook of Harrow the Ninth lined up ready for after I finish.

On kindle, I’ve just started Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. It has cat people. I was not expecting cat people.

And in dead tree edition, I’m reading Priest of Bones by Peter McLean which is a fun (in a grimdark sort of way) fantasy book about a gang boss in the aftermath of war. Who’s also a priest.

[Colin]

I've been trying to read Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's only short, but hasn't grabbed me yet and I keep getting distracted by other books.

In the meantime, I finished You Owe Me a Murder (neither a Sword nor a Laser read), which turned out to be a bit too YA for my taste, and also Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection which was much more to my liking.

[Trike]

Me:

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Serengeti 😡

[Joseph]

Finished Harrow the Ninth (which does, in fact, come together at the end) and decided it was time for some old-school sword & sorcery, so started The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by (of course) Robert E. Howard.

[Sheila Jean]

I finished this month's pick and started actually reading a book I took off the shelves months ago The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. I've read the first 2 chapters. I'm now in a time crunch because A Blight of Blackwings came back off hold, which I didn't finish before I had to return it, and I've got a physical copy of Harrow the Ninth waiting at the library. I've pushed pick-up for Harrow out as far as I can (next Sat) so maybe I can finish everything?

In audio I finished Limited Wish by Mark Lawrence which I think I liked a little more than the first book in the series. I've now started Peace Talks by Jim Butcher.

[Misti]

I enjoyed Home. Next up is Blood of Elves (I really need to start watching The Witcher Netflix Series soon).

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Joseph wrote: "...decided it was time for some old-school sword & sorcery, so started The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by (of course) Robert E. Howard."

Yesss

[Geoff]

I finished Harrow the Ninth. I got over (most of) the confusion and enjoyed it.

Next up is The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for my non-fiction book club. After that, I think The Tyrant Baru Cormorant but not totally sure yet.

[Stephen]

Finished both Elysium and The Last Emperox, so on to Anthony Ryan's The Black Song and Children of Ruin.

[Phil]

Just finished The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes, the "new" novel by Robert Heinlein that came out this year. It's an alternate version of The Number of the Beast that he wrote and never published. The first third is the same and the rest is different but I think better. At least it doesn't have all the bickering about who was in charge that the other did.
Although I enjoyed it I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a Heinlein fanboy/fangirl like I am. David Weber points out in the introduction that you have to keep in mind that Heinlein was born several years before WWI and was around 70 when he wrote this and some of his ideas and phrasing may not sit well with some modern readers. It also helps if you have at least a passing familiarity with the Barsoom series by Burroughs and the Lensmen series by Smith. That darn SF canon gets in the way again.

[Minsta]

I just read Hank Green's novel and highly recommend it!

I re-read the first book - I wanted to remember the details but then found that I enjoyed the re-read more than the first time I read it.

[Martin]

So, I finished Harrow the Ninth. What just happened?

[John (Taloni)]

^Me too! Lots to unpack. I found it quite confusing at first, but it slowly started to make sense. Just some random thoughts below. Anyone interested in a thread to discuss this book? There seem to be a lot of us who have finished it recently.

(view spoiler)[
* The beginning bit where Gideon is nowhere to be found was odd, until I realized that Harrow had done something to protect her. Which leads me to the next...

*This book is a love story! At least in part. Two women denying their love for each other and calling it "friendship" or some such. But Harrow loves Gideon enough to move Heaven and Earth to save her. And Gideon won't even consider bathing unclothed in Harrow's body until she has consent. (I can't even begin to imagine the fanfic for this book.)

* The reveal of Gideon's parentage is a little talky, but as data dumps go it's okay. Nicely set up.

*I frickin' cheered when the pinch-hit cavalier got his moment in the sun, summoning his hero. That's up there with "Butters becomes a Jedi." (hide spoiler)]

All in all a good second book. Can't wait for the third!

[Ruth]

Listening to the audiobook of The Relentless Moon and my eyes are inexplicably leaking 😭