The Sword and Laser discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What else are you reading - October 2020
Seth wrote: "Ruth wrote: "I’ve just started on The Game of Kings, first book in the Lymond Chronicles."I just had this recommended to me. Please let us know if it's any good."
I’m enjoying it so far - I’ve got the audiobook and the narrator has a soothing Scottish accent. I’ve been warned that it can get confusing, but I think I’m helped by the fact that I have literally just finished Hilary Mantel so my brain is ready-prepped for densely detailed Tudor-period historical.
@tamahome - Finished Unconquerable Sun and I'd recommend it. It's not perfect (what is) but it hit the 4 star mark from me as I not only finished it in 3 nights but kept wanting to read vs struggling etc. Caveats - it tells a complete story but it is the first of a projected trilogy so there's more detail here than is strictly needed for the story we get. It doesn't drag but if Elliot had wanted to tell just this story, it could be shorter. The writing is good. The plot and characters are, though, fantasy pasted into an SF motif. We have imperial politics, factional infighting etc. The SF trappings, though, fit.
Finally, Elliot has a lot of fun with the names of both characters and ships. DO pay attention to those... and this is one to read in ebook form if you are OK with that as it makes it easier to say "wait, what does that name mean" and get a definition. All of the names DO mean something. OH and there are indications that this is very far in a future Earth timeline... but I'll let you find those for yourself.
I liked it and will be grabbing the next book.
Hey thanks for this review! I have been sitting on the fence to try it.... shall have to now, by the sound of your review! ;0)
I’m now starting Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton and re-reading A Night in the Lonesome October as it’s a full moon at the end of the month...
Rick wrote: "@tamahome - Finished Unconquerable Sun and I'd recommend it. It's not perfect (what is) but it hit the 4 star mark from me as I not only finished it in 3 nights but kept wanting to ..."It feels so much like a fantasy novel, with the court intrigue and the large families/empires and the destiny vs. interest storylines (multiple multiple varieties) but in space, where you can have more types of beings. The space parts also make me think somewhat of The Expanse but only in setting, not in the way it is told. Arguably this novel could exist adjacent to that world... maybe, have to think about this more. The universe of the Elliott is much larger and more advanced as far as space travel but that is explained in the book.
I also think it could have been shorter and it took me a while to get into it but I think I enjoyed it. Not sure if I'd read the next one.
Ruth wrote: "I’m now starting Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton..."Soooo, truth in advertising, I had not heard of this book until recently. I'm now reading the latest Twilight book and Tooth and Claw comes up several times. I check the blurb and it's recommended by both Poul Anderson and Robin Hobb. Well then! I tapped it on LAPL Overdrive, should be about eight weeks. Long wait for it, no surprise.
Wasn’t tooth and Claw a pick a few years ago? Or was it in the tournament?
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I also think it could have been shorter and it took me a while to get into it but I think I enjoyed it. Not sure if I'd read the next one. ..."As a standalone it definitely could have been shorter. Some of the things we get here are setups for the series which, of course, would not be needed in a standalone.
I liked it, will look for the next one but from the library, not at $15 for the new release ebook. And yes, it's very much fantasy tropes in an SFnal world. Elliot's mostly a fantasy writer.
John (Nevets) wrote: "Wasn’t tooth and Claw a pick a few years ago? Or was it in the tournament?"Maybe it was in the tournament but the only Jo Walton book I think we've read was Among Others.
Mod
Neither. You may be thinking of Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe which we read back in 2011
Tassie Dave wrote: "John (Nevets) wrote: "Wasn’t tooth and Claw a pick a few years ago? Or was it in the tournament?"Neither. You may be thinking of Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe which we read back in 2011 "
That was it! It was the "and claw" that through me. And there is no way I would have thought that was 9 years ago.
Oh, and of course it was Tassie Dave, that would get that. And in a completely different note, I was thinking of you when I just found out about Hellfire potato vodka, made in Tasmania. I guess it is supposed to be very good.
Mod
Yah, after I wrote that, I looked it up. And yep it goes for almost twice what I typically pay for my "good" alcohol (and yes I figured the exchange rate). But on top of that, I don't believe they have a US importer, so I don't think I have much to worry about.
On a flight from London to LA, I got some New Zealand All Blacks whiskey. Was great. Never saw it again.
I too finished Battle Ground. Since I do all Dresden in audio, James Marsters, AKA Spike, is so good I can not tell if the book is good or bad, just great to be in the Dresden world again. Finished Finder which I really liked, a big thank you to all who nominated the book. Started The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey. I really like the audio narration by Theo Solomon . My first experience with narrator Theo , who I put on the same level as Kobna Holdbrook-Smith . Just a pleasure to have Theo in my head. Finally book two and three of Lisa Cassidy Tale of Stars and Shadow series. Book one was in SPFBO 5 and I really like the world . A Prince of Song and Shade is book two and A King of Masks and Magic is book three . Part of Kindle Unlimited , so if you have that service Lisa's 3 books are a fabulous read. Otherwise they are a nice price as an e-book.
Read The Last Emperox, the 3rd in the Interdependency trilogy by Scalzi. I liked the first book well enough, thought the second was even better and this... was a let down. As in the first book gets 3 stars, the second 4 and this... 2 stars. It starts out with Scalzi's trademark humor which I like and had me chuckling but a) it goes on too long, b) it drops some pretty big threads that the second book introduced and c) the ending, while clever is a rabbit out of the hat solution. He wrote this book quickly, right up against his deadline and it shows. It's not BAD... but its disappointing.
Finished Midnight Sun, the latest Twilight book. It's fairly well done. I'm not the core audience, but I went along for the pop culture ride about ten years back when my wife bought the quadrilogy.This one does a better job of setting up Bella as the queen she will eventually become, showing her emerging strengths. Her transformation on book 4 was just too abrupt. If I believe the internet accounts, Stephenie Meyer got sick of seeing her plotlines leaked and just fast-forwarded the end. Now she can take some time to use that undeveloped story.
It did get tedious reading the endless descriptions of Bella's skin, her throat, her blood coursing through her veins, the beating of her heart, blah diddly freaking BLAH. We get it, Edward's a vampire.
Meyers has been criticized for simplistic sentences. That criticism is warranted for as much as anyone in the audience will care. Way too much use of "was," and I could see the "to be" tree all over the page. My feeling is that I don't really give a hoot unless you're Ray Bradbury, and that requires a whole 'nother level of literature and mythology than this book would ever pretend to be about.
Plenty of vampiric silliness abounds. Fair plot. More about the Cullen family than we got the first time around. Earlier introduction of the greater vampiric world like the Volturi. I'm curious as to what Meyer will do next. I hope it isn't the next three books from Edward's perspective as that would get tedious. But there is still story left to be told. And man, those unctuous Volturi really deserve to be taken down a step, and here we are with a new extra-powerful vampire...
Got about 3% of the way into Stand on Zanzibar and found it an incoherent mess. Saw Soylent Green recently and decided to move on to the book it's based on, Make Room! Make Room!
Finished American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. It was pretty good; some definite parallels to today's US politics. Although you think things are contentious now; Andrew Jackson openly accused a Senator (George Poindexter) of trying to have him assassinated!Next up for me: A Deadly Education.
Mod
One of the few presidents worse than the present one and he looks like a vampire in his portrait to boot 😉
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 finished Addie last night. I wasn't going to finish the remaining 4 hours of audio before it expired back to the library, but my hold on the ebook came up and I was able to finish.
I haven't rated the book yet. I don't think it really connected with me to be honest. In my opinion the audio book did not add to the experience of the book and I might have been better off reading the entire book in text. (I'm not complaining about the narration, I think it was well done.)
Overall I felt the beginning was slow and an intro into the world as Addie lives in it. It got better after Part II when we meet Henry, but still slow. In the second half the surprises/twists didn't feel that twisty, surprising, or unexpected.
I can definitely see how this book would resonate with the right audience. There is a lot about being seen in this book beyond the fact that Addie cannot be remembered by those who meet her.
Finished Night Shift and started The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso, one of those that's been on my TBR for a while now.
Silvana wrote: "Reading Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Underwater magical creatures FTW"Finished with this - even though it is tagged as YA but I believe adults could also enjoy it very much.
Now starting Grass. I hope this could be read on its own since I don't have energy to start yet another series.
One of the few presidents worse than the present one and he looks like a vampire in his portrait to boot 😉It's complicated. After his presidency, he was thought of as one of the greats. IIRC Lincoln thought he was the second greatest president (after Washington). He did more to preserve the union and lay the foundation for abolition than any president before Lincoln. (While himself being a slave owner - it's complicated!). He likely forestalled the Civil War by 30 years.
On the other hand, his absolutely reprehensible treatment of the Native Americans, bordering on villainously evil. Charitably you could say they were doomed anyways due to impossible demographic factors working against them. But Jackson didn't do anything to help, for sure.
Anyways, interesting to read about him. A fascinating period of US history that you don't hear much about.
Mod
Yeah Jackson had some good points, but the attempted genocide of native americans is unforgivable, as was his support, and involvement, in slavery :-?
I’d also recommend How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country.My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I just finished A Deadly Education. It thought it was pretty good. It was more YA than other Novik works (which I love); not really my cup of tea in that sense. I thought the cultural sensitivity complaints swirling were overblown. I can see what people were complaining about, but I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't gone in forewarned. But I'm a middle aged white guy so YMMV.Next up is Storm of Locusts.
I'm considering starting Wayward Saint series. Thoughts. I found a couple comments on it. May do an audio book. It feels like a lot of books.
Finished Sword of Destiny book #.75 in the Witcher Series. The human monsters in these stories are way more interesting than the monsters Geralt the witcher hunts down. Next up is the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue with my coworkers book club. Interested to hear thoughts on this one if you've finished it recently.
Read The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, for the second time. First time was over two decades ago. I didn't quite get it then, finding it to be an overly facile presentation of Halloween rituals across the ages. On reread it is a subtle take on the feeling of loss and accentuation of death brought on by autumn. The specifics are cultural, but the emotions go back to the dawn of humanity.Bradbury presents it as a boy's adventure, but with a hard edge. Halloween plays at death but also includes real risk.
It's presented as a boy's adventure, riffing a bit on the themes from Dandelion Wine. I suppose that's part of why I didn't appreciate it the first time. This idyllic suburban-to-rural world of boyhood fellowship didn't exist for me. I don't know any of the, well, I called them "fellow aspies" altho I think the current term is "neurodivergent," kids felt anything like that. There's a reason I related to the bullying scenes in Rite of Passage even though I was an eight year old boy when I read it and the MC was a thirteen year old girl. So good on Bradbury for having this more normal boyhood, but I can't relate to it.
Tamahome wrote: "Finished Embers of War. Good sentient ship."I ended up devouring the entire series. TroubleDog and Murderbot would be BFFS.
I just finished Marko Kloos's Aftershocks. It's a pretty good military sf. But it's definitely the first book of a trilogy. I wish I knew what a gyrofoil was. It's either like a gyrocopter or something to do with "gravmags". I even downloaded the sample to Frontlines to search for gyrofoil but to no avail. Marko has left twitter; I can't even ping him about it.
Read Chilling Effect and thought it was OK, but not much more. It's definitely trying to capture the Firefly vibe (misfit crew, big stakes but tongue-in-cheek tone), but didn't really match-up in getting me to care about the characters.
Bought The Name of the Wind for 99c on kindle then took a year to get round to reading it. What a mistake, one of the best books I've ever read.
Now if only Rothfuss could get around to releasing the next book.
Brad wrote: "Now if only Rothfuss could get around to releasing the next book."He’s only 5 years late. That’s not too bad. Yet.
Harsh writing advice (mostly for newer writers). "Writer's block isn't real." I think she means it with love.https://youtu.be/rYqZjCsAJeg?t=218
Tamahome wrote: "Harsh writing advice (mostly for newer writers). "Writer's block isn't real." I think she means it with love.https://youtu.be/rYqZjCsAJeg?t=218"
It’s real if you get stuck on Mars.
Brad wrote: "Now if only Rothfuss could get around to releasing the next book."Have you read his short novella set in the same world / series?
The Slow Regard of Silent Things
Melina wrote: "Finished Sword of Destiny book #.75 in the Witcher Series. The human monsters in these stories are way more interesting than the monsters Geralt the witcher hunts down. Next up is the Invisible L..."
Yes, that is definitely a take-home point in all of Sapkowski's stories.
And true to life here now.
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The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Howl’s Moving Castle (other topics)Storm of Locusts (other topics)
Plain Bad Heroines (other topics)
Dead Lies Dreaming (other topics)
Grass (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Frances Hardinge (other topics)K.S. Villoso (other topics)
Frances Hardinge (other topics)
M.R. Carey (other topics)
Gene Wolfe (other topics)
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I just had this recommended to me. Please let us know if it's any good.