SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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What Else Are You Reading?
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What Else Are You Reading in 2021?
message 851:
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Gary
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May 30, 2021 01:20PM
Finished reading Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life by Elizabeth George and The Moon Maze Game by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. I’m reading Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells. I plan to read Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson next.
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Don wrote: "I really wanted to like "The Dwarves" by Markus Heitz. I've always though that as a mythical race Dwarves have gotten short shrift though they seem very interesting. Elves treated like mythical ro..."
I haven't read this yet, but I know that the dwarves are the focus: Forging Destiny. I've read two of his other series and enjoyed them.
Jacqueline wrote: "Don't know how many people botch up common sayings nowadays."Ha ha yes. Don't get me started. What about "Wala!" as in "Here it is!" Um, guys, it's 'Voila' from the French. Yeah.........
Sorry, back to our regularly scheduled programmes. I'm currently reading The Washerwoman's Dream: The Extraordinary Life of Winifred Steger 1882-1981. A woman who emigrated to Australia from England in the 1890s and went on to lead an amazing life. Winifred married a Muslim camel driver (yeah, that was a thing in early outback Australia). She ended up doing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1920s, and also spent time in India before returning to life in Australia. She wrote about her experiences in popular magazine serials of her day.
Jan wrote: "Jacqueline wrote: "Don't know how many people botch up common sayings nowadays."Ha ha yes. Don't get me started. What about "Wala!" as in "Here it is!" Um, guys, it's 'Voila' from the French. Yea..."
OMG yes lol I was in a shop the other day and heard a "Wala!" and it made me cringe. Then one of her friends corrected her. Don't think she believed her and will probably keep going with her Wala but I was happy that at least one person in the group knew the right word.
All good, I only meant that there’s no need to stop talking about language, since we have a thread for it and lots of people who are enthusiastic about the topic!
Yeah I know but sometimes things are just spontaneous.
Of course they are, and that’s exactly why I remind people of other threads we have 😊 Not to tell people to stop talking, but to invite everyone to keep talking!I know my tone probably comes across unfriendly a lot of the time, but I promise it should be very obvious when I’m frowning. Most of the time I’m just focused on organizing 😄 Also I hate to use it as an excuse, but it’s a fact that I’m Finnish and doing what I call American politeness and most people probably call normal feels deeply weird to me. I just want to relate the facts and not fret about all the frilly business. Sometimes I try to type something nicer sounding, cringe very hard, erase and go back to plain links.
I probably don’t need to say that I have never worked in customer service. I’m the deepest level nerd that needs other nerds between me and the customer.
So anyone who has ever felt like I scolded them, like the person who DMed me to apologize (!!!), please be assured that I’m pretty friendly and harmless most of the time 😊
(Unless you’re a thoughtless author/troll/spammer, in which case I probably wasn’t very friendly.)
I just finished Kraken, overall quite disappointed, Miéville's academic/cyberpunky writing doesn't really mesh with the Young Adult-style plot and worldbuilding. I had a similar sort of issue with Embassytown, where Miéville tried out a different genre and it didn't really work. I'd recommend Looking for Jake, Perdido Street Station or Neuromancer instead.
Kingdom of Shadow and Light #11 by Karen Marie MoningKMM wrote in this book that this is the end of her Fever series. I was less than pleased with many of the installments after the first five, but I'm glad that I had stuck with it.
My review - www.Goodreads.com/review/show/4026133786
I am only about 30% into Forgotten Soldiers, but I am completely engrossed. This was an unknown author for me, so I'm glad that I've given it a try. It was actually an Amazon recommendation which actually worked in my favor!
Anna wrote: "I’m Finnish and doing what I call American politeness and most people probably call normal feels deeply weird to me. I just want to relate the facts and not fret about all the frilly business."Finland now sounds like heaven to me. :)
And to keep this on topic, here’s an essay about what I’ve read in the last couple weeks. Longer and more detailed reviews are on my profile under the “Recent Updates” if you click on my name, so I’m not going to take the time to compile all the links. Most of these are from our group shelf.
Audiobooks
Soulless by Gail Carriger. This group has tricked me into reading a paranormal romance. Jerks. :p Actually, I enjoyed it more than I would have expected, if I’d known in advance what I was getting into. The romance was ridiculous, complete with the trope of an extended erotic scene in the middle of imminent danger, but the narrator was awesome and helped bring out the humor in the story. I probably would have liked it less in print, but light and funny seems to work well for me in audio. I don’t plan to read anything else in the series, though. 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for Goodreads.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. Loved the story and the characters, didn’t care for the multi-narrator style that had different people reading the same characters with different voices. The story gets a bit silly with all the characters getting paired off, but I didn't usually feel like the romance dominated the story too much, and I was unusually invested in one of the romances. (Although one of the others got on my nerves some.)
The tortured characters and the heist story really appealed to me. I plan to read all the Grishaverse books in print someday, starting with the original trilogy, but I’ll probably wait until after she’s published the third book she has planned for the Six of Crows trilogy, whenever that happens. 4 stars, might have rated higher if I’d read it in print.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab. The narrator voiced all of the characters wrong, wrong, wrong! Despite that, the story held my attention surprisingly well, so I figure it must have been good since I get frustrated easily when I don’t like the narrator. The idea of different versions of London in different connected worlds was fun. The story is maybe not the most logical thing I’ve ever read, and I almost had myself talked into lowering my rating by the time I finished writing my review, but I had fun listening to it and will probably follow up on the series in print someday. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads.
Just started The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett today. I've listened to less than 2 hours, but my impression so far is very good.
E-books
Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin. This is an omnibus of the first 3 stories published in the Hainish Cycle. Each story stands alone but they have some small connections to each other, and each story focuses on a different person or group of people stuck on an alien planet, facing some sort of adversity. Planet of Exile didn’t do much for me, but I liked the other two pretty well. However, I wasn’t very satisfied with any of the endings, especially not Rocannon’s World. City of Illusions is probably the story that held my attention the most consistently of the three. 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for Goodreads.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. I loved the world-building, it was a really interesting approach to discussing gender stereotypes, among other things. However, my interest in the story itself fluctuated. I enjoyed the second half more when Estraven played a larger role in it, because he was the only character from the alien planet called Winter that we really got to know in any depth. Genly Ai needed to go back to ambassador school, though. I felt like he was unrealistically bad at his job just so he could provide the story mechanism needed to introduce some of the gender stereotypes. 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for Goodreads.
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin. This is a very direct message about the exploitation of both indigenous peoples and natural resources. Captain Davidson is the most scummy character whose head you could ever hope not to spend much time in. The other POV characters were better and, as usual, Le Guin’s world-building is creative and interesting. It’s short and held my interest well, but definitely not subtle and (view spoiler). 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for Goodreads.
Started More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon today, to join in on the June science fiction pick. I’d wanted to join in on some of the other standalone picks over recent months, but my timing has been bad, so I’m glad to finally manage it this month.
Anna wrote: "Of course they are, and that’s exactly why I remind people of other threads we have 😊 Not to tell people to stop talking, but to invite everyone to keep talking!I know my tone probably comes acro..."
I know you're actually a nice person Anna. And you don't come across as anything else to me. Anyhoo I shall go back to what I'm supposed to be doing which isn't faffing around on a computer annoying moderators.
Jacqueline wrote: "I know you're actually a nice person Anna"My plan is working 👀
(Some of them are even planning to move to Finland. I must show them ads of beautiful scenery near my lair.)
😂🤣😂🤣😂Definitely not planning on moving to Finland no matter how wonderful it is. I’ve just found out that after this surgery next week I’m going to feel the cold. As in be freezing all the time. That’s bad enough here let alone in Finland.
Our houses have excellent insulation. Also saunas.I’m reading Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen, a Handmaid’s Tale in the UK. It’s a super quick read, or maybe I’m just getting back into this eye-reading thing!
Jumping on the "I've never seen you be anything but nice" train! But seriously: the struggle to sound friendly to Americans is real! I find myself phrasing things in a way that would sound sarcastic to Germans so that it will come out sounding right. E.g. if my brother ever asked me something like "could you please help me with this?" I would immediately apologize, assuming he was sarcastically using "please" to point out that I *should* have helped *ages* ago. If he added a "kindly" it would be particularly cutting! But my American friends say *not* using those words when asking for something is rude and demanding - the very opposite to how it would be here. Really odd!
I've finished Dragons of Winter Night 🥰 and still love it. Also one of the best main character death scenes ever. As a 13 year old, I was bawling my eyes out reading this under the covers after bedtime! This will definitely be a series I'll continue rereading.
Almost done with Beloved - listening to Toni Morrison's own audiobook narration, which is so beautiful. Heart-wrenching story, incredible prose and subtle characterization, sometimes goes a bit over my head in its dreamlike symbolism. I'm planning to watch a lecture on it on youtube when I'm done to help me understand it all.
Also read No Man Can Tame which is a fun romantic fantasy but a bit uneven (I constantly had the impression that I was missing crucial backstory, but it's the first book in the series so I don't know what I was supposed to read first). The Italian renaissance human society clashing with the subterranean, matriarchal dark elf warrior society was pretty cool and unique, and I liked the super happy ending (I kind of needed one after all the suffering in Beloved!), but it felt a bit too paint-by-numbers to me, without that special spark books have when the author writes them with all their heart.
I've been to Finland more than once by the way, and it was so charming and lovely! (Apart from the mosquitoes in summer, which we shall not ever speak about.) Especially cool: frozen seashore you can walk on! Moose! Lots of delicious fish! Enormous forests as far as the eye can see. And the language sounds like a clear mountain stream, really lovely.
Eva, exactly that! I can produce American politeness, but it sounds extremely passive aggressive to me 😄 And of course I then go into loops of but will they know it sounds that way to me and thus assume I mean it like that?! And no, I don’t assume Americans are being passive aggressive, but American customer service people are exhausting! This is my main reason for not wanting to contact Amazon support, it takes 15 minutes to get past all the ”I am here to serve you” bs. Finnish customer service, you’re lucky if you get a greeting or a thanks or a smile, never all three!That is all I wanted to say. I feel like I’m being neutral and informative, but people apologize, so naturally I assume they thought I was rude or unfriendly. But it just occurred to me that excess apologizing is also a form of politeness, and although I’m not British, I do it very well, but clearly can’t recognize when others are doing it.
This should probably be in the language thread, language is part culture and this is kind of both. I know you’re all tired of hearing about my laptop being in the shop, but it is, and I’m not gonna move this to another thread and link here, SORRY! If anyone else wants to continue this there, link above, please do, and I’ll thank you profusely (once I have my laptop) 😊
Thank you oh so very much, Eva! Sincerely! 😊Continues here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Anna wrote: "Thank you oh so very much, Eva! Sincerely! 😊Continues here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..."
You're welcome! 😊
Anna wrote: "Eva, exactly that! I can produce American politeness, but it sounds extremely passive aggressive to me 😄 And of course I then go into loops of but will they know it sounds that way to me and thus a..."on the other hand, when I was in France for immersive French, the woman I was staying with said i should demand tickets to something that was free for students and their guests. Americans don't, in normal conversation, demand anything. it's rude.
Later i found out that demand meant ask...
On the other hand, I found that American politeness went over well and was really helpful when I was in France, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain and Russia.
Back to reading: I finished Quantum by Patricia Cornwell and started Spin. The ebook formatting is terrible as the lines are all spaced too far apart (almost double spaced) but when I adjust the distribution of lines it goofs up all the rest of my books....
I have had a couple of ARCs that have had horrible messed up formatting, which really put a damper on my enthusiasm. Is it a regular ebook that has horrible formatting?
I finished
Furies of Calderon. I found it difficult to get into. The story did pick up about 2/3rds of the way through. Three stars. Various reviews say
Academ's Fury is better. I shall find out.
DivaDiane wrote: "I have had a couple of ARCs that have had horrible messed up formatting, which really put a damper on my enthusiasm. Is it a regular ebook that has horrible formatting?"yes they're both the regular book from Amazon
YouKneeK wrote: "Anna wrote: "I’m Finnish and doing what I call American politeness and most people probably call normal feels deeply weird to me. I just want to relate the facts and not fret about all the frilly b..."Left Hand of Darkness is still one of my favorite books, but Rocannon's World, which I first read way back in High School and remember really enjoying I have never been able to pick it up and re-read it. People change and so do their tastes I guess. I am glad that you enjoyed it.
It helps to be explicit about your politeness when you are dealing with people from another culture whose implicit politeness might not match yours. And when that's the normal condition, it gets ingrained.(This is also why Americans smile a lot more. Turns out that smiling a lot is a common human trait whenever you're in a place where you don't know the language.)
Thanks for that point, Mary Catelli! I paraphrased it (because I couldn’t copy and paste on the app!) and posted it to the “Now you’re speaking my dialect/language” thread.
I'm currently reading Wayward Soldiers, the follow-up to Forgotten Soldiers. The first one was upsetting, in that it reminded me of how our soldiers were treated when they came home from the Vietnam War, even though this is a fantasy setting. Maybe the author deliberately paralleled, I don't know. The second book's characters are still experiencing the fall-out, some PTSD, and some unexpected problems. The story has gone off in a completely different direction from what I had initially been expecting.
YouKneeK wrote: "Soulless by Gail Carriger. [...] The romance was ridiculous, complete with the trope of an extended erotic scene in the middle of imminent danger"You could fill in the "peril interrupted by lust" space for the "Clichéd Tropes Game" with this book!
Haha, yes, definitely! I suspect probably the "smells of ___ and ___" space could have been filled too, but I can't remember for certain.
I’m reading Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Lucien wrote: "I’m reading Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi"You'd already informed us about this in message 899, but you're not likely to receive replies if you don't tell us a bit about why you're reading it, or what your impressions are so far, what you're liking/disliking/appreciate about it, etc. - especially since it's not an SF or Fantasy novel, so we really need a bit more to get a conversation started. :-) My grandmother used to say "you need some butter with that fish!" (meaning add some juice to your dry information, please).
Eric wrote: "I finished Furies of Calderon. I found it difficult to get into. The story did pick up about 2/3rds of the way through. Three stars. Various review..."I didn't think he wrote more traditional fantasy as well as he writes urban fantasy. I might re-visit this series to see if I still feel that way, because I read the Calderon books when they first came out.
Michelle wrote: "I didn't think he wrote more traditional fantasy as well as he writes urban fantasy. I might re-visit this series to see if I still feel that way, because I read the Calderon books when they first came out."I am struggling with book two,
Academ's Fury. Jim Butcher is way too much into his evil "critters" and court intrigue. Seems juvenile to me. I may not go much farther into this. I predict a 'did not finish.'
Sorry to hear that, Eric! But I tend to DNF a number of books myself these days. I have less patience than I used to!
I'm a grit my teeth and read faster type of person. I even finished Live Free or Die which was one of the worst books I've ever read. I only DNF series (Stormlight Archives).ETA: Egads, I just looked at My Year in books for this year and The Jake Grafton Collection: The Intruders, The Minotaur, Under Siege, and The Red Horseman by Stephen Coonts was the highest rated book I've read. That was another terrible collection. Parable of the Sower Gideon the Ninth and last year's highest rated book: Heir of Novron
CBRetriever wrote: "I'm a grit my teeth and read faster type of person. I even finished Live Free or Die which was one of the worst books I've ever read. I only DNF series (Stormlight Archives).ETA: E..."
I loved Heir of Novron. Actually, I have enjoyed everything he's written. I think my favorite was The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter
yes, I like his books a lot (better than Stormlight Archives). I have his Legends of the First Empire series in my TBR pile, but it doesn't fit into any of the challenges, so I'm putting it off until I finish the challenges.
Don wrote: "...better I had myself fired from a canon..."Were we supposed to riff on canons here, or politely not notice the (ahem) purloined letter?
Anna wrote: "...hate to use it as an excuse, but it’s a fact that I’m Finnish and doing what I call American politeness and most people probably call normal feels deeply weird to me. ..."
Oh my goodness, I'm FINNISH! I thought I was an engineer!
Anna, you be you. We will catch on eventually!
Last week's reads:The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, a very intimate, melancholic, cathartic travelouge about a woman in her 50ies and her terminally ill husband who loose house and job and go on the Coastal Path with nothing but hope. I've walked part of the Cornwall section of this path with friends in my youth and so it was wonderfully nostalgic as well.
If finished Creative Surgery by Clelia Farris, a short story collection translated from Italian. I adored it! I won't say I understood everything (or even half of it), but the stories were perfectly weird, surrealistc and that kind of SF I'm longing for. A collection due for a lot of re-reads. A wonderful book I've found thanks to the group for SFF in translation.
Same goes for Terminal Boredom: Stories by Izumi Suzuki: a dark SF story collection translated from Japanese. Self determination and feminism put on paper by a tortured soul (the author took her life in the mid 80ies). A fascinating read, especially in the light of the patriarchal tropes usually connected with older Japanese literature.
Back to classical Fantasy I went with The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages to conclude the Mistborn trilogy. It turned into an epic creational narration that had me hooked! I wanted to finish some other Fantasy before getting back to the series, but after I tipped my toes into three other Fantasy books where I had problems to get into, I had to indulge myself with going back to Sanderson first. Master storyteller!
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky of course I had to read the second it was released - no help there :D. I was a bit cautious, cause space opera just isn't my cup of tea. But I shouldn't have feared, AT can pull off everything. Of course it has the typical space opera elements that are boring to me, but a wide diversity of characters/species, intersting worldbuilding and your usual FTL through unspace only navigable by special pilots this time actually served the plot and wasn't just one more detail. I'm very much looking forward to the next book. And since AT isn't one of the next-book-maybe-in-ten-years-time authors, I'm positive it won't be long till it is released.
We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker was a positive surprise. I didn't like her Nebula winning novel, so expectations were low (it was on storytel, so I went for it). But this one is ways better on every level. A very realistic view on a future where people are driven into getting their brains enhanced to cope with expectations of society. The cutting line goes right through a family whose 4 POVs shed light on various sides of the coin. Highly recommended.
I gave up on The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay and decided that I will count books for the SFFBC bookshelf as long as I at least tried. Refined his melodramatic prose is a revelation (as in Tigana which I can't praise highly enough), but here combined with a plot that wasn't apparent for the first 38% it killed me.
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon was the first time I actually read the elongation of his novelette "Baby is Three" (the middle part of the book). That one was a cathartic revelation in my youth, changed my view on life and everything and made the doesn't-belong-anywhere child that I was felt seen for the first time. No wonder Samuel R. Delaney pronounced it the second most important novel of it's time (the most important being "The Stars my Destination", if I recall his essay correctly)
Since this book was so important to me I won't be looking into the group read this month ^^'.
Currently reading 'Salem's Lot, but am here to seek help in deciding my next read; I have a number of sequels lined up, which should I go for first?1. Words of Radiance
2. Foundation and Empire
3. The Obelisk Gate
4. Summer Knight
Summer Knight is the lowest priority, since I JUST finished its prequel
Michelle wrote: "Sorry to hear that, Eric! But I tend to DNF a number of books myself these days. I have less patience than I used to!"Patience I think it is. For me, Jim Butcher's bizarre became banal.
Gabi wrote: "Since this book was so important to me I won't be looking into the group read this month ^^'."I know that feeling of dread that others will hate a book that I consider part of my being, in a way. (not this one specifically) I still look anyhow, because I'm a silly simian, and tend to be more amused than saddened by How Very Wrong people can be. ;)
Anybody else absolutely loving Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace? (Sorry, I’m new to this and can’t figure out how to add the links.) I tore through both of them. I heard someone describe them as ‘sci-fi diplomacy porn,’ which I guess is apt. There is a lot of intrigue and diplomatic maneuvering, but also action and some romance/sex. Perfect for Pride because an LGBT pair is center stage; I also found it to be comfortingly feminist, as the ratio of female characters to male is roughly the opposite of what it normally would be. Independent of all that, though, loved the characters, the worlds, the stories. I highly recommend them.
@Anne I read and very much enjoyed the first book, and have the second book on hold at the library. Glad to see you’ve enjoyed both!
Teixcalaan is a group/buddy read! Links to BOTM threads in the BR thread:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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