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What Else Are You Reading?
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What else are you reading - October 2020
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Rob, Roberator
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Oct 01, 2020 06:34AM
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Really enjoying it so far. I don't want to say more than that for possible spoilers.
I picked up Finder, and am digging through my collection for any unread books appropriate for Spooktober.
And finishing up some novels for Banned Books week: Grapes of Wrath and Graveyard Book.
And finishing up some novels for Banned Books week: Grapes of Wrath and Graveyard Book.
I'll pick up Battleground simply because it's the back half of the story started in Peace Talks and even though I think Butcher phoned that one in, it's still entertaining enough. I didnt get to Elysium, so I think that's on tap.
Other stuff... The Archive of the Forgotten, the second volume in this new series (the first being about a library for books that were never written... located in Hell) and, I think Anomaly which showed up on Prime Reading and sounds interesting.
^ I decided to wait on Peace Talks while my wife started in right away. I mentioned that Battle Ground was in and she told me she hadn't even finished Peace Talks. She just found it boring.Hey, maybe Harry Dresden is drifting off to mediocrity. If it does, it's been a hell of a run. And at least Butcher can be bothered to finish his stories. *cough*GRRM*cough*
Peace Talks is fine, but some of what Butcher has been though (relationship breaking up, new one etc etc) shows a bit and it's pretty by the numbers... but I think the main issue is that it's one half of a story. Whenever I read the first book in a series and it's the kind of series where each volume ends on a cliffhanger, it feels like too much of the first book is setup for the whole thing. This isn't precisely like that because we don't need world building - we know this world. But a LOT of it is drawn out so that you only get the actual peace talks pretty late in book 1.
I liked the prior way of doing the series where things evolved over time but each book told a complete story.
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I'm tempted to remove a star from Peace Talks. I was probably being overly generous with my 5 star rating, but for me those are books I put aside everything else to read, and Peace Talks fit that bill.
I think Peace Talks and Battle Grounds would have been better as the 1 book he originally wrote it as, but I'm not complaining too much about getting 2 Dresden books in 3 months after waiting 6 years.
I'm still reading How Long 'til Black Future Month? - I leave it next to my computer for when I have strange down times. Does anyone else read short story collections this way? I've been dipping in and out of it for a few months. I also have started Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliot.
Rob wrote: "Personally I really enjoyed Peace Talks, but now that I've read Battle grounds it makes me realize how much weaker Peace Talks was than many of the past books. Battle Grounds, on the other hand may..."At my rate of approximately one Dresden book per year, I'll catch up with this conversation sometime around 2030 ...
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I'm still reading How Long 'til Black Future Month? - I leave it next to my computer for when I have strange down times. Does anyone else read short story collections this way? ."Yep.
Short story collections are like a bag of chips while novels are like dinners. Sometimes I eat the whole bag of chips and sometimes I just have a few. But when I sit down to dinner I tend to be there for a bit.
On a completely unrelated note, I’m suddenly hungry for some reason.
Harlan Ellison said that "Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small sh*t."
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Tamahome wrote: "Harlan Ellison said that "Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small sh*t.""Considering where most people read....
Well crap. I bought Battle Ground last night. Finished it at... 3am (why yes, I did have an 8am Zoom meeting...). Peace Talks was a 3 star read for me. This is 4 to 5. You can't read this without reading Peace Talks, but its worth it. My only criticism at the moment is that it has perhaps too much action and that went on a bit long. But it's 'realistic' in the sense that battles don't happen quickly, things tend to ebb and flow.
Read two novelettes by Travis Corcoran, "The Team" and "Staking a Claim." Both are side stories to his two-book Aristillus series, each of which won the Prometheus award for its respective year.The underlying work is very libertarian (well, no surprise) and includes the benefits of a free society along with its downsides. One of those is the difficulty of raising an army as the corrupt politicians on Earth decide they want what the Moon dwellers have. Corcoran also openly mocks several current social trends by extending them to extremes, and who knows if those might actually come about.
Uplifted dogs are among the major character of the two books. "The Team" tells the story of how those dogs were created in a genetic experiment and saved from destruction by a jaded special-ops military group. There's also a rather unusual other intelligence to save. Definitely Mil-SF with a fairly well thought out battle sequence at the end, including an application of scientific principles to provide advantage, so it isn't all just pew pew pew.
"Staking a Claim" is quite literal. A lunar prospector wants to stake his claim, if only he can determine exactly where on the Moon he was. Along the way the MC has to solve an engineering problem or, yanno, die. There's a scene with a lathe which I found particularly amusing as Corcoran goes on about lathing at his New Hampshire farm on his twitter feed. And of course a fight scene, can't all be libertarian philosophy and lunar living.
In last month’s WAYR thread Misti mentioned Ink & Sigil, so I got the audiobook today from the library.The story is a fun Fantasy Mystery, but the narrator, Luke Daniels, is *incredible*. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone do so many accents. The main character is a Scottish wizard, so there’s that, but he’s been cursed so he can’t hold conversations with people he’s in any kind of relationship with lest they die, so he has to use a text-to-speech app on his phone, but it only comes in a robotic British accent, so Daniels is doing that half the time, too. Then there’s an Irish fae, wizards from Central American, China and Australia, various other Scots, and the main character’s office manager from Nova Scotia.
He makes it seem effortless.
Just finished Abomination by Gary Whitta.It's a decent read but I found the historicity jarring.
It is supposed to be set around 900AD but armour (plate armour), buildings (large stone cathedrals) and titles (knights), amongst other things, seem to be closer to 1300AD or later.
Probably not noticeable to most people and I suspect that Gary Whitta took inspiration from many Arthurian depictions which also use an approximate 1300s setting
Read a few short novels recently.Goliath Stone is a Niven collaboration. It's more as if Niven sketched out some points on a cocktail napkin and passed it off. There's a decent setup with nanoprobes being sent to the asteroid belt and of course things don't go as planned. A derivation of those nanoprobes can be used to make humans young again. They can also be used to kill when a person thinks in a way the originator doesn't like. One of the things he doesn't like is when men treat women like objects, so poof! six hundred million dead and counting in the middle east and asia. They don't come right out and say it but that's genocide of Muslims. Now I don't like that particular aspect of Muslim culture either, but killing a billion of them to make a point is more ghastly than I want to imagine.
Besides the freaky sociological points, the book doesn't have much in the way of conflict. There's no stakes for the characters in the book or humanity itself. The genocide happens off screen and is dismissed quickly. Only give this a read if you're a Niven completist, otherwise stay far away.
Next up, two by Rob Kroese. I love Rob's Iron Dragon series, in which time-lost travelers have to create a launch vehicle in 9th century Scandinavia, starting from only local technology. These aren't quite up to that level, but still decent reads.First up, Schrodinger's Gat. This is a take on quantum mechanics and its effect on macro events. It starts off fast enough with a suicide attempt and mass shooting that either will or won't occur depending on small events. From there we get to a lengthy discussion of quantum mechanics. To Rob's credit the discussion flows well and is fairly understandable.
Problem is, events averted tend to anger the Universe. Is it an actual entity or just a law? Either way, they come back to affect you. There's an interesting character introduced early that we don't see much of until the end. The middle has a fair amount of muddle. Quite a bangup finish tho.
Next up, Starship Grifters. This is a straight up humor SF novel. It's two parts Spaceballs and one part Douglas Adams. The MC is a robot called Sasha not allowed full sentience in a riff on the Butlerian Jihad from Dune. Sasha follows Rex Nihilo in a series of misadventures. Think of Rex as Han Solo to the extreme of adventure seeking, but as a legit trader rather than a smuggler.
There's a death star that just can't function right, and a stand-in for the Jedi that make little sense. Black boxes at the core of spaceships that work 100% of the time, except for when they suddenly fail. A misunderstanding over currency exchange rates that has Rex selling an entire ship's worth of cargo for the equivalent of a pastry. A lighthearted, easy read.
Currently reading The Dawnhounds, winner of the Sir Julius Vogel Award (New Zealand's SFF Award) this year.
Just finished the print version of Daughter from the Dark which is a very odd story. I gave it three stars. Planning to read Vita Nostra next by the same authors (Sergey & Marina Dyachenko) unless another one of my library holds comes in by the weekend.In audio I started Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan when my hold on The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab came in and I switched to that. Somehow I think I managed to snag the very first borrow on the Addie LaRue audio book since I was able to check it out on release day.
I had to write something about my favorite book for work (one of the benefits of being a librarian) and that drew me back into starting Patrick O'Brian's series. Master and Commander: 20 Volume Set Then found an old Jo Walton article on Tor arguing that they can be read as sci-fi, which is more pretext than I needed to post that here: https://www.tor.com/series/re-reading...Anyway, they're great, and I'm moving through them while rereading Finder.
I had forgotten about Jo Walton's blog. I used to like reading it. She still does monthly recommendations: https://www.tor.com/author/jo-walton/
I just finished Hench. This was one of those books I couldn't put down. It grabbed me right from the beginning and wouldn't let me go. I thought I knew exactly where it was going, and it kinda sorta went there but not exactly, so I was pleased I hadn't guessed the ending.
Kev wrote: "I just finished Hench. This was one of those books I couldn't put down. It grabbed me right from the beginning and wouldn't let me go. I thought I knew exactly where it was going,..."
Good to know. I’ve had that on hold at the library for a bit.
Sheila Jean wrote: " The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab came in and I switched to that."How is it? I am curious but not yet committed.
I'm finally reading Michael McCollum's Gibraltar Earth that Steve Gibson has been recommending for years. It's like reading old Heinlein or Asimov.
Geoff wrote: "Sheila Jean wrote: " The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab came in and I switched to that."How is it? I am curious but not yet committed."
I'm about 20% in and so far it feels slow and deliberate. The timeline switches back and forth between the present and 300 years ago. It's felt pretty much like setting the scene.
I just started part 2 and I expect it's going to turn from all the world building/setup into the heart of the story and characters/relationships fleshed out... We shall see.
I’m well into my month of horror now and I just finished The Hunger by Alma Katsu. I thought it was very atmospheric and spooky. It reminded me a lot of The Terror. Then I read a couple of stories from Joe Hill’s 20th century ghosts and was really surprised at how good they were given this was his first book. Now I’m on to The Troop by Nick Cutter. As for audiobooks I’m just about to finish Tales From the Gas Station by Jack Townsend. Apparently this was originally multiple creepypastas from Jack Townsend which he adapted into a book. It was no great work of fiction but it was a creepy, fun read to kick off my month of horror. I think I’ll be moving on to some stories from Full Throttle by Joe Hill next and then on to finishing Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child that I had started this summer.
Off of reading Piranesi, I decided to re-read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I'm glad I did. So good.Next up I'm reading American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House for my non-fiction book club. I'm into it a bit, and finding some uncomfortable parallels to today's politics.
After that, the next SFF book I'll read is probably A Deadly Education, the new Naomi Novik book.
Jumped on Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliot whom I swear I've read before. This is imperial space opera with competing factions... only about 50 pages in but it's good so far.
Let me know how Unconquerable Sun is.I read Gibraltar Earth by Michael McCollum, which is very traditional science fiction like Asimov or Heinlein. I learned what the ecliptic and the Oort cloud is. Part 1 of a trilogy.
I also read a quick science fiction by Brandson Sanderson called Snapshot where cops go into a recording of a day to solve crimes, but there's a twist.
Just finished Stardust by Gail Gaiman on Scribd. He's definitely my favorite author-audio narrator. I'm a big fan of the movie and finally got around to reading the book.I have Sandman on my TBR and plan to buy it with my next Audible credit.
Finished up Finder this morning. I had listened to a Firefly book before this one. They complemented each other so well, I imagined them taking place in the same universe.I immediately started listening to Heaven's River. It's fun jumping back into the Bobiverse.
Rick wrote: "Jumped on Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliot whom I swear I've read before. This is imperial space opera with competing factions... only about 50 pages in but it's good so far."I'm reading that right now too, every once in a while. It took a while to get into the story but once I did I started to enjoy it.
After finishing The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford, I decided to go with something seasonal: Night Shift by Stephen King, which I think I last read sometime in the very early 1990s if not before.
Misti wrote: "Finished up Finder this morning. I had listened to a Firefly book before this one. They complemented each other so well, I imagined them taking place in the same universe.."I can see that. Lots of books are pitched, falsely, as “just like Firefly”, but no one ever tries for “Firefly-adjacent.” The universes don’t match up in detail, but in terms of feel, definitely.
Melina wrote: "Just finished Stardust by Gail Gaiman on Scribd. He's definitely my favorite author-audio narrator. I'm a big fan of the movie and finally got around to reading the book.I have Sandman on my TBR ..."
Neil Gaiman is now a woman!
I’m listening to The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk. At first the narratror’s interpretation of some secondary characters had been very irritating, but either I got used to them or they changed enough to stop bothering me. But I still want to strangle the father… ;-)Sheila Jean wrote: "Just finished the print version of Daughter from the Dark which is a very odd story. I gave it three stars. Planning to read Vita Nostra next by the same authors (Se..."
Vita Nostra is exclellent.
Ok, 300 pages into Unconquerable Sun. It's a slow burn novel (it's 700 pages) but aside from some description here and there it doesn't have a lot of fluff. The setup is basically this: Interstellar factions exist and as with nations, there's war between some, alliances between others.
Princess Sun is a ~ 18year old heir to the throne who strains at the restrictions placed on her and wants to do more.
Things are Not As They Seem. Things Happen.
This *is* SF... there's FTL, 'beacons' which are star gates, etc. But this isn't a technology driven story, at least not in the first half. Elliot is mainly a fantasy writer and this kind of shows through in the story so far; the frustrated heir, her companions, machinations both within and between various factions.
Rick wrote: "Ok, 300 pages into Unconquerable Sun. It's a slow burn novel (it's 700 pages) but aside from some description here and there it doesn't have a lot of fluff. The setup is basically this: Interstel..."
Did you catch the character with multiple lefts and rights?
Royalty often seems to make it to the stars.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Did you catch the character with multiple lefts and rights? ..."
Huh. No. Was reading in bed and tired though. Will need to re-read. I'm just at the point (view spoiler). Is it before that?
I do like that this could be (view spoiler)
Rick wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Did you catch the character with multiple lefts and rights? ..."
Huh. No. Was reading in bed and tired though. Will need to re-read. I'm just at the point [spoilers r..."
It is the (view spoiler)
Rick wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "It is the [spoilers removed]..."
Oh, I thought of them as [spoilers removed]"
It was just brought up so nonchalantly and I’m not sure yet but I’m around page 300 myself.
I’m in a serious slump with SFF at the moment. Tried to read both A Deadly Education and Harrow the Ninth and gave up on them both in rapid succession. I find myself drawn more towards historical and non-fiction right now. After finishing The Mirror & the Light I’ve just started on The Game of Kings, first book in the Lymond Chronicles.
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