What else are you reading - December 2020

[Rob, Roberator]

The last month of this accursed year is upon us. What will you be reading this month to tide you over while we all hope for a better 2021?

[Louie]

I wanted to try this last year, but could not get a copy from the library early enough, but I plan on reading A Christmas Carol, as I believe Tom once said he tries to read it once a year in December.

[Carrie]

I a nice few lined up for the month, one of my most excited for reads is Promise of Blood

[Stephen]

My December reads are still my November 17th reads. Plus the BOM. Then I purchased all ten of the new Self Publish Fantasy Blog Off Contest finalists, SPFBO 6 . You can see them here:
https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/...
If you want to read more self published stuff in 2021, this is a good way to find some worthy reads. Plus most are available for free via Kindle Unlimited.

[Rob, Roberator]

Louie wrote: "I wanted to try this last year, but could not get a copy from the library early enough, but I plan on reading A Christmas Carol, as I believe Tom once said he tries to read it once a ye..."

I got the audiobook version for cheap read by Tim Curry, pretty excellent. I should do a relisten one of these years.

[Melanie]

I have this version: William Shakespeare's Christmas Carol

[terpkristin]

I'm into Part 2 of Rhythm of War. Meanwhile my friend is already done listening to it and is onto a second time.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

From the November thread:
Tassie Dave wrote: "The audible exclusive book that annoys me is Mount Fitz Roy by Scott Sigler which comes out on Thursday."

Colin wrote: Not sure about Aussie pricing, but you could take out a month-by-month subscription and then cancel again after getting the one book? That would surely get it under your $30 mark.."

Good suggestion. A 1 month subscription will cost au$16.95. But it worked out better than that.

Even though I have had an Audible subscription before and used the same sign-up details, Audible offered me the first month/credit free 😃

[Louie]

Rob wrote: "I got the audiobook version for cheap read by Tim Curry, pretty excellent. I should do a relisten one of these years."

The New York Public Library apparently has "the author's only surviving 'prompt' copy of the book, that is, Dickens's own annotated version used for live readings". In 2013, Neil Gaiman used it to do just that. And pretty much every year since the NYPL podcast posts it in late December. I finally listened to it last spring.

You can listen to it here → https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/12/19/...

[Tamahome]

Finished Peter F. Hamilton's Salvation science fiction trilogy. At the end he pulls out all the stops: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Geoff]

I finished Howl's Moving Castle. I enjoyed it; wish I had read it to my kids back when they were of that age.

Next I am reading A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town for my non-fiction book club. It describes a libertarian takeover of the town of Grafton NH, about 1/2 hour drive from here. I'm hoping for more humor, and less over-wrought political analysis, but we'll see what I get.

[Jonathan]

Finished reading Spellbound and Warbound and really enjoyed the series. currently reading Rhythm of War and listening to Wintersteel.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert E. Howard

[Joseph]

RJ from the LBC wrote: "I finished:


Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started r..."

Nice! On both counts.

I'm going to be finishing out the year (and beginning 2021) with Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, currently in Prince of Dogs, the second book.

[Rick]

Read Hot Lead, Cold Iron, the first in a series about Mick Oberon, a PI in 30s Chicago. As you might guess from his name, he's Fae. Marmel plays up the 30s vibe in the language (cars are flivvers, etc) and while I don't have any idea if it's accurate, it's amusing. I'd previously read the second of the series and they're fun UF reads.

Despite the "Magic PI in Chicago" thing, this is nothing like Dresden. Obviously there are some structural similarities to early Butcher in that our hero investigates a case that's More Than It Seems, but that's about it.

[Misti]

I'm reading The Story of Awkward on Kindle. I think it was a freebie I downloaded at some point. On Audible I'm listening to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. So far I'm enjoying them both.

[Jessica]

I'm reading Piranesi, and am completely in love with it so far.

[Maclurker]

I'm trying to finish The Dreaming Void, before starting the BOTM. I was hoping it would give some background to The Abyss Beyond Dreams, which I read earlier this year. Sadly it seems I should have gone further back & started with Pandora's Star? Is it me or Hamilton's writing? I'm really confused by all the various characters.

[Trike]

FLEX: 3 days in and I’ve already read SIX BOOKS!

...


Okay, yes, 5 were graphic novels and one is a novella-length book I started in November, but I’m counting them. :p

[John (Taloni)]

The Dreaming Void books take place within the Commonwealth universe, so in that sense it would be better to start with Pandora's Star. There are payoffs you won't get without reading those first. The story should be understandable tho. He just has a lot of characters that take a while to come together. They do come together, but it takes a while.

[Tamahome]

Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained are classic.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Joseph wrote: "Nice! On both counts.

I'm going to be finishing out the year (and beginning 2021) with Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, currently in Prince of Dogs, the second book...."

Thanks. And I swear I am going to get to that Kate Elliott series someday.

[Joseph]

RJ from the LBC wrote: "Thanks. And I swear I am going to get to that Kate Elliott series someday."

I admit it took me a long time to finally take the plunge, not least because it's seven very thick books. But now that I've started, I'm enjoying it a great deal.

Speaking of which, I moved on to the third book, The Burning Stone.

[Rick]

I read the first in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series and... yeah. It's a book. Every Heart a Doorway is fine but it's another "magical people in school for magical people" book and those kinda aren't my thing. I suspect if I were younger/female (the characters are pretty much all girls and women) or more into playing with portal fantasy tropes I'd really like this. It's well done, just didn't grab me.

[Sheila Jean]

Finished Starship Troopers. I'm not a fan. It just wasn't interesting to me, but I figured at 200 pages I'd finish and see. The last 30 pages were the most interesting, but ending strong is not enough to save it. I'm not opposed to make you think books but there just wasn't enough story/things happening.

I have The Burning God by R.F. Kuang and A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik checked out from the library so those are up next.

[Trike]

Sheila Jean wrote: "Finished Starship Troopers. I'm not a fan. It just wasn't interesting to me, but I figured at 200 pages I'd finish and see. The last 30 pages were the most interesting, but ending stro..."

It’s dry for sure but I found the ideas compelling. It was also mind-blowing back in the day when readers found out at the end that Rico wasn’t white. It was The Crying Game + The Sixth Sense of its day. I still only gave it 3 stars, but the atrocious movie adaptation makes it look like a towering work of genius by comparison.

[Silvana]

Finished with The House in the Cerulean Sea. I did not enjoy it as much as other folks. Yet another found family trope but way too long, with less than exciting plot and reveal. The cutesy stuff got old quickly. Eh, YMMV.

Starting The Bone Shard Daughter.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Rick wrote: "I read the first in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series and... yeah. It's a book. Every Heart a Doorway is fine but it's another "magical people in school for magical people" b..."

I consistently give those books 3 stars - part of it is the novella length, part of it is McGuire's writing style I think. I like the ideas she comes up with but she spends a lot of detail time on what I consider the "wrong things" and I keep waiting for her to explore what *I* am interested in... so I keep reading them to see what happens but not enjoying the experience. It's hard when a book is just not quite what you want it to be.

To be fair, I'm currently reading Murderbot novellas off and on just because I never have and I'd like to read the novel-length one that's come out, but I feel somewhat ambivalent toward them. I want to know what will happen but I think both with these and the McGuire I just want them to be longer so more stuff will happen.

[Rick]

"To be fair, I'm currently reading Murderbot novellas off and on ...but I feel somewhat ambivalent toward them."


GASP! I love Murderbot, but for me it's that I really like the character.

On the Wayward Children book...

At the end of the day it's one of those ideas that I actually think would be better, shorter. I mean the basic idea is cool:

Some kids really do go through portals to fantasy worlds. For various reasons, they're sent back here and the school is a place where guardians and parents send these kids to recover from what they think are mental issues... but the school knows that their experiences were real and tries to help them deal with being back. The kids often long to go back. Things happen.

[Tamahome]

16% in The Way of Kings. Journey before destination.

[Trike]

The first nor’easter 🌨 of the season hit yesterday so of course we lost power and my newly-refurbished generator didn’t work 😡 resulting in 12 hours of darkness, so I basically read non-stop.

Polished off The Trials by Linda Nagata (okay), followed by The Old Guard, Book Two: Force Multiplied (good), then the first issue of Six Gun Gorilla #1 (odd), short story Ark (eh), and restarted We Are Legion (We Are Bob), of which I had read about 1/3 before my Kindle was misplaced, but this is going to be a 5-star read if it keeps up.

[Ruthifred]

I’m reading some old S&L picks I never got around to before: Circe, Hogfather, Finder. I’m also hoping to finish The House in the Cerulean Sea.

[Geoff]

I finished two books. Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales, which was OK but there are better short story collections. Also A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town, (not SFF), which was interesting to me, in part because of local interest.

Next up is The Golden Wolf, finishing that trilogy.

[Trike]

Geoff wrote: "Also A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town, (not SFF), which was interesting to me, in part because of local interest."

I need to read that. I work at the Bedford TV station so we get all the candidates in for interviews and stuff and back in 2011 (I think) we had three Libertarians debate and they each asserted that their way to save America was the only true path. All of which basically boiled down to “deregulate MY industry but not these other guys’ businesses.” It was a hilarious display of unclear thinking.😂

[John (Taloni)]

Tamahome wrote: "Finished Peter F. Hamilton's Salvation science fiction trilogy. At the end he pulls out all the stops:"

I was curious about this because I saw it when I was at about the 30% mark. At that point I found the book a mediocre followup to a mediocre series. It then ramps up swiftly tho, and ends with one hell of a rollicking space battle. Definitely a good payoff, for me well above the less-than-average Hamilton effort to date in that trilogy.

Some oddities along the way:

* About the Neutron Star civilization: (view spoiler)[It seemed like a Deus Ex Machina to tech-up humanity so they could take on the Olyix civilization. (hide spoiler)] I suppose it's an object lesson that if you remove presuppositions then humanity will advance quickly. I just didn't buy it.

* The Muncs: They are barely mentioned in this book. It seemed like there might have been a tantalizing connection (view spoiler)[between the Quint bodies and the extensions-of-the-humans Muncs. I thought perhaps the Olyix would turn out to be time-lost humans, or perhaps that humans were following a planted suggestion to be more like the Olyix. Alas, none of that was explored. (hide spoiler)]

As for the ending, well, (view spoiler)[ it's not really, is it? There's more left unexplained. There's still the originators of the tachyon message to take on, either in their present or in the future. Plus, I'm not sure if Yirella is having Dellian's baby by way of some kind of cell scraping, or Immanueel. If it's Immanueel, then her clone self feels the same way. Perhaps she'll give Dellian his happily ever after for some length of human lifetime, then set off after her other self. (hide spoiler)]

Well, we can hope some of these get picked up. While not wide open for a sequel, there are tantalizing threads left untidied.

[Colin]

I ended up enjoying Dead Lies Dreaming after making slow progress at the start of the book. It really is only very tangentially related to the preceding ‘Laundry Files’ books and other than a few passing references could easily have been a brand new property - which is, I think, what Charles Stross is aiming for. A bit of a re-boot, if you like.

I think that the lack of any familiar character to hang the story on is what held me back at the beginning, but once the characters sorted themselves out a bit more clearly in my head I started to enjoy it more. The latter part of the book is basically a fun magical heist story, and I’ll happily read more stories with these new cast members.

[Melina]

Finished Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. That was a tough one to put down. I enjoyed the fast pace and multi-verse storyline.

Also finished the second novella in the Murderbot series - Artificial Condition. I enjoy the short length. It's a nice palate cleanser in-between longer novels.

[Trike]

Melina wrote: "Finished Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. That was a tough one to put down. I enjoyed the fast pace and multi-verse storyline.

Also finished the second novella in the Murderbot series ..."

I liked both of those as well.

[Kev]

Last night I started, and finished, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum. The claymation version was on TV yesterday while I was at work, and I had never seen it before that I remember. A bunch of the characters looked cool, and I saw in the credits it was based on the book, so I grabbed it from Project Gutenberg.
It was a cute book, definitely aimed at a younger audience. Parts of it felt rushed, especially the last few chapters and ending. I still enjoyed it though, and it's a cool world that could use some more exploration!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Joseph wrote: "RJ from the LBC wrote: "Thanks. And I swear I am going to get to that Kate Elliott series someday."

I admit it took me a long time to finally take the plunge, not least because it's seven very thick books. But now that I've started, I'm enjoying it a great deal...."

I am glad to hear that. Looking forward to hearing what you think when you're done with the series.

[Ivi_kiwi]

I have finished reading "THe CIty of the dreaming books"The City of Dreaming Books
by Walter Moers.
It was awesome.

Now i am reading the sequel "The Library of the dreaming books", which is starting kind of slowly but now is picking up speed and tension.

[Colin]

Finished the audiobook of Harrow the Ninth today. If it starts a bit slowly (and confusingly) it certainly finishes strongly. I am left with a bit of a feeling that I need an explainer of what just happened though! Still enjoyed the writing style, but it does suffer for the lack of Gideon's 'distinctive' voice when compared to the first book.

Started reading Last Stand in Lychford - fifth and final in a novella series I've been enjoying the last few years. Don't feel like tackling anything more substantial before Christmas is upon us!

[Tamahome]

I read the first Jesse Stone book in a day after seeing one of the Tom Selleck movie adaptions. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Maybe I should go back to finishing The Way of Kings...

[Iain]

Just finished my last Quarantine read Harrow the Ninth which was a blast (confusing as hell with a very unreliable narrator and some nice twists at the end). Looking forward to the last in the series.

Still working my way through Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow but less listening time with people around ;-)

New South Australian Library membership and I now have Network Effect on Hold........ Love a new library...

[Misti]

Finished up The Story of Awkward yesterday. It's a YA book about accepting who you really are. I really wish this book would've been around when I was a teenager.

Next up is Ready Player Two

[Trike]

Misti wrote: "Finished up The Story of Awkward yesterday. It's a YA book about accepting who you really are. I really wish this book would've been around when I was a teenager..."

Are you implying that you weren’t always the cool, collected, happenin’ modern woman we all know today? That seems hard to believe.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

For those who like their fantasy on the DARK side...

I finished:


Books of Blood: Volume Three by Clive Barker
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

which is part of the larger collection:


Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three by Clive Barker
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Books of Blood: Volume IV AKA The Inhuman Condition by Clive Barker

which is part of the larger collection:


Books of Blood, Volumes 4-6 by Clive Barker

Highly recommended for fans of horror or dark fiction. NOTE: graphically violent in just about every way you can imagine, and many ways that you probably can't.

[Melina]

Finished Ring Shout. As promised it's dark and gruesome and a quick read.

Currently reading the anthology A Phoenix First Must Burn. Includes 16 fantasy / sci-fi short stories. I'm not a big fan of the short story, but there's some very good ones in here which introduces me to authors I haven't read before.

[John (Taloni)]

Finished up the last Dune book, Sandworms of Dune. Well, that was trite. The final "book," split into two, contains a whole lot of exposition and not much in the way of plot. Vast numbers of characters get introduced in order to pretty much just stand around. The resolution has little to do with events that came before and is shoehorned into the last 50 pages. The four books could have been condensed into one occurring after God Emperor of Dune. Heck, the two could have been combined and left Dune at a quadrilogy. But, writers got bills to pay I guess.

(view spoiler)[It's ridiculous to see the entire major cast of Dune get resurrected to just sit around. We're led to expect that these "Uncanny aXlotl-Men" will actually mean something to the finale. Nope, they're there to offer a Happily Ever After for characters left to tragic ends in the first books. Instead it's the Duncan show. Again. Well, except for a silly-as-all-get-out knife fight between Paul Atreids and his Harkonnen raised double. See, *this* time Paul *loses* the knife fight - to himself! *barfs*

The robots have no relevant motivation. Why kill humans? Who cares? Oh gosh, the Honored Matres provoked them. What does that matter? They can back up memories and restore them in new robot bodies. Duncan has a "revelation" after assuming control of the robot empire, that robots can live on planets that humans can't use. Ya think? Gosh, I wonder if any tenth grader who'd read a modicum of SF could have determined that.

There's problems of scale all over this book. Apparently robots can't use Foldspace, so they have to stay in regular ol' spacetime. O....kay. So, how do they attack a galactic empire in real time? It's either point to point hyperspace, or nothing. The Duniverse doesn't have a warp drive. So the robots can't do what the book says they do. It's also silly because the Ixians have computer driven navigator replacements. TBH memory is dim if those come from the robot empire or not, but if a frickin' device can navigate Foldspace, WHY CAN'T THE ROBOTS??!!!???

And then the attack on the Robot capital city. So, Duncan goes charging out of the ship with Bene Gesserit who somehow haven't been trained in projectile weapons despite 20 years on the ship to do so. They go and attack some buildings in the capital city. Oh gosh, whatever shall a superpowerful robot empire spread over hundreds of planets to do? *thinks* Maybe drop a nuke and rebuild ten minutes later?

This book also undoes some of the more intriguing bits from the original books. It's "revealed" that the Baron Harkonnen was fat because of a disease that a Bene Gesserit had given him as he responded to her seduction by humiliating her in bed. That would be when Lady Jessica was conceived btw, she must be so proud. Anyhoo, the Baron wasn't fat due to a disease originally, but rather was more like "morally fat," a concept straight out of 100 Years Of Solitude. Remember that Alia started to gain weight when she communed with her inner Baron Harkonnen in Children of Dune. It had nothing to do with a physical disease.

And then the Seaworms. First, the interior of a Sandworm isn't hot because it's running on hot sand. It's hot due to previously undisclosed biological processes. But nope, this book throws that away. But it gets worse! Ultraspice comes from a gland that you have to kill the Seaworm to get. Has anyone forgotten that these are all portions of Leto II, and in that size they'd be sentient? So to get the Ultraspice you have to kill a sentient being. Bleah. And then the term "Ultraspice." Makes me laugh. I can't decide which is worse, humming the "Old Spice" theme, or flashing on Professor Farnsworth lamenting that he is too young now to watch Ultraporn, in the episode where spa tar turns the Futurama crew young. (hide spoiler)]

Welp, I was underwhelmed. Not much of a big-event series finale. I suppose I'll go back and read the Butlerian Jihad, mainly to get the memes that reference it. Dune books are at least familiar territory, but this one achieved less than I thought I'd see even with my lowered expectations.

[Joseph]

The whole (view spoiler)[reason Harkonnen was fat (hide spoiler)] thing was first introduced in one of the BH/KJA Dune: The Phantom Menace books -- House Harkonnen maybe? And it very much rubbed me the wrong way when I read it back then, not least because (view spoiler)[I don't have any desire to see young, hot Baron Harkonnen being action hero man (hide spoiler)].

Edit -- Sorry, apparently I didn't know the difference between italics tagging and spoiler tagging.