SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
What Else Are You Reading?
>
What Else Are You Reading in 2021?
Don wrote: "Holy Cow! let me get my Bujold on! "The Assassin of Thasalon" heck yeah."
Try saying that book title quickly three times. Ha ha ha.
The Bujold is great, long live The Bujold !
I'm reading the Complete Works of Francis Bacon
I'm reading The Complete Works of Francis Bacon. JCM SEDNA.
No one compares to the Mighty Bujold!!
Michelle wrote: "No one compares to the Mighty Bujold!!"I would be unqualified to make any comparison since I haven't read any. Any suggestions on a good starting point?
JCM wrote: "I'm reading the Complete Works of Francis Bacon"feeling a little polemic, are we? Of course, since I am picking my way through 50 Core American Documents I really can't say much snarky about it.
Dj wrote: "Michelle wrote: "No one compares to the Mighty Bujold!!"I would be unqualified to make any comparison since I haven't read any. Any suggestions on a good starting point?"
I first read her space operas, starting with The Warrior's Apprentice. As the series progresses, her MC matures and gets into some darned entertaining situations.
After those, I read a simpler fantasy series she wrote in four books, which began with Beguilement.
Currently, many of us have been enjoying her short Penric & Desdemona novellas. I think there's a dedicated thread for those.
DJ, Falling free is an excellent standalone Bujold. short and sweet.
My first Bujold was Beguilement, and I want more, so I'd call it a good introduction.(And by "first" I don't mean years ago, but this year. Also, it's a relatively short series, so not hard to get into.)
Oh! And how could I forget her Chalion trilogy?! That's the series which is an introduction to the Pen and Des stories. The first is The Curse of Chalion.I hope the three of us have helped, DJ :)
Reading Neuromancer by William Gibson. Which I thought I'd read, but it appears I have not. Or at least I have no recollection of it. Enjoying it so far, some parts hold up better than others.
So I am starting with Beguilement since it was about four dollars. Sometimes money has a weight all its own. Thanks, everyone for the suggestions.
Christopher, with "Neuromancer" was groundbreaking, influential and part of the popculture, maybe that's why it feels familiar. William Gibson is a visionary BUT his writing early on took some getting used to. I think his later efforts have a warmer writing style. I think some of the zing of Neuromancer is lost because the predicted technology has in part been in use for years now.
Don wrote: "Christopher, with "Neuromancer" was groundbreaking, influential and part of the popculture, maybe that's why it feels familiar. William Gibson is a visionary BUT his writing early on took some gett..."Interesting. I watched a show where they were talking about Gibson's effect on Technology. The thing that stood out most was when he wrote Neuromancer he didn't own a computer. He basically said that if he had he never would have written the book. He didn't realize how loud and cumbersome they were. Seems it might have been less prediction than wish fulfillment.
On the other hand his book did influence Engineers to emulate his writing since they thought it was a really cool idea. Kind of a chicken and the egg sort of deal.
Just completed "The Assassin of Thasalon" which I enjoyed as I have all other entries of the series. Currently rereading "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin".
Finished reading The Shadow Rising. Another great entry in the series. Gets 5 stars from me. Now, onto the next book in series The Fires of Heaven
Absolutely laughed my head off all the way through The Merry Band (I had an advanced copy...the book just came out today!). The series starts with The Disposable and is rollicking good fun! :) There's even a headless character (hence the joke I started this post with!) but beneath all the Terry Pratchett-esque hilarity is a great message about social justice. Showing how the "little guys" matter too and you really, really root for them as they fight for equal rights with the Royals and upper classes.
i finished cinder and now i need to finished the diviners and shadow and bone and wings of fire
I finished A Deadly Education, a brilliant, rather dark take on the wizarding school story. I enjoyed it very much.
Thank You Stephen Burridge. It don't take much to sell me the Naomi Novik I ain't read yet. Naomi shows up in treaded'ol tropes and make'em shine again.
This year so far:The Starless Sea - Pretty and mystifying, very creative world, but ultimately kind of lacking a story. Or at least, lacking the main character's story, because there *are* stories in there. Lots of great window dressing I suppose. Hard to recommend... if you see its description and think "wow this is the kind of book I would love" then it probably is.
Foundryside and Shorefall - Found these in my library's eBook collection and really loved them. Much more action oriented, these two, with a really interesting system of magic and magical technology. It does have a bit of the whole "main character has cool power no-one else has" thing going on, but with the interesting world building and history and solid action, it never detracted from the story to me.
The Blacktongue Thief - I think I found this on Goodreads trying to discover new titles actually. I really enjoyed this one. Fascinating world with an interesting cast of characters whose unique strengths and flaws keep both the action and story interesting. Glad I bought this one, and definitely waiting for sequels.
As for the rest of 2021, I've been meaning to finally get around to reading Branden Sanderson and Robin Hobb. Those are two names I've put off far too long.
Mod
Chris wrote: "This year so far:th..."Foundryside and Shorefall - Found these in my library's eBook collection and really loved them. Much more action oriented, these two, with a really interesting system of magic and magical technology. It does have a bit of the whole "main character has cool power no-one else has" thing going on, but with the interesting world building and history and solid action, it never detracted from the story to me.
I reaLLY enjoyed Foundryside as well, great ideas! I need to read Shorefall very very soon!
I just finished "Deadly Education" by Naomi Novik and I liked it. AND I recently was listening to a couple chapters of Patrick Rothfuss' book "The Name of the Wind" and thought to myself, self that Rothfuss'feller sure writes purdy but not often, or if he does write often he's not publishing it where I can see it.
I loved that book, Don! But I am not very confident about seeing the third.
I saw somewhere that he’d finished it but it wasn’t good enough so he’s making it better. He said it was only a 3 1/2 star book and that wasn’t good enough. I started reading A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. About half way through. Lovely little book.
Still making masks though which is taking up valuable reading time. We’re moving again and I won’t be taking my sewing machine so I’ll have more reading time soon.
It's obvious that Rothfuss is blocked on the one series. Using GRRM as an example, Martin was tired of The story of fire and ice and he worked on many other writing projects.
Rothfuss has done several side projects as well: The Slow Regard of Silent Things as well as the Rick & Morty series.
right now i am reading Norwegian wood and Kafka on the shore.
Aditya, you're reading two Murakami books at the same time? :o
Currently listening to Holy Sister, though admittedly I'm dragging my feet a little because I don't want it to end! I keep telling myself he's got another series set in the same world that I can go on to, but I'm so attached to these characters I worry it won't be the same. I'm also nominally reading The Library of the Unwritten and Realm Breaker, although eye-reading things just hasn't been working out for me lately. I do fine with audiobooks but I just don't have the attention span for concentrating on a printed book. I'm thinking of trying a thriller or something much faster paced to see if that will work for me.
I was reading that Stephen King suffered serious writers block when trying to finish "The Stand" and I see many Author's that seem to have similar issues. Do Authors talk amongst themselves about it, or is it like "The Yips" in golf, bad luck to even bring it up? I know this isn't the Thread for it BUT Anna does know the thread and she will magically make it appear! AbbraGaDabra! Thank You Anna.
I'm sorry but I don't have 100% of the author folder threads catalogued in my brain :( Only the member* side of things!* reader. I meant to say reader. Sigh, I need sleep.
if you're sleep deprived your hard drive will not operate a top efficiency. is it the high north summer?
Don wrote: "I was reading that Stephen King suffered serious writers block when trying to finish "The Stand""Considering that book is the size of a normal trilogy, I'm not surprised. I'm picturing him after page 1000, yelling, "Why won't this thing end?!"
The Joy of Erudition wrote: "Don wrote: "I was reading that Stephen King suffered serious writers block when trying to finish "The Stand""Considering that book is the size of a normal trilogy, I'm not surprised. I'm picturin..."
I somehow doubt that. He has a tendency to write really long stories.
DJ, I'll call your doubts and raise.After writing 500 pages, a full novel for most authors but less than half of the unabridged version of The Stand, Stephen King found himself trapped by writer's block. ... King recounts this journey in his non-fiction work On Writing, and seems amused that it took killing off multiple characters to save The Stand.Oct 29, 2020
Don wrote: "DJ, I'll call your doubts and raise.After writing 500 pages, a full novel for most authors but less than half of the unabridged version of The Stand, Stephen King found himself trapped by writer'..."
Oh, I don't doubt that he gets writer's block, just that he gets frustrated with how long the story is. But then I have yet to try and tackle the Stand.
In my made-up, cartoon version of Stephen King, I'm not necessarily imagining that he'd be frustrated by the length, but just the fact that he couldn't bring it to an end and move on to another book. At that time, he often seemed satisfied enough to just end them wherever he got tired of writing them. 😉(I say, as someone who enjoys many of his books.)
Thomas wrote: "I've just finished Light of the Jedi, a novel I've been looking forward to for ages. If there are any fellow Star Wars fans here, I suggest you read this one. I found it very entert..."I liked a lot of elements in Light of the Jedi, but the overall experience was worth three stars to me. Still, I will keep up with the adult novels in the High Republic series.
I am rereading the Legacy of the Force series for the first time since the first time in 2006-2008. The "whack-a-mole" feeling of each author's favorite characters and style popping up every third book is even more apparent when the reading is not separated by months.
In the Star Trek realm, I am reading for the first time In the Name of Honor by Dayton Ward. It bridges The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country with regards to Klingon peace talks, and it features Koloth and Gorkon in supporting roles.
The Joy of Erudition wrote: "In my made-up, cartoon version of Stephen King, I'm not necessarily imagining that he'd be frustrated by the length, but just the fact that he couldn't bring it to an end and move on to another boo..."I might be wrong but I believe that he is one of those authors that work's on more than one project at a time. Although to his credit if he does do that, not as bad as George RR Martin
With respect to Stephen King and very long books, his introduction to The Gunslinger (first of his Dark Tower books) talks about how he was inspired as a young writer specifically to write a very long story. That was at least partly the point, as far as The Dark Tower was concerned. As a reader I felt that the books reflected that — length for its own sake — and I gave up after a while, never finished the series. Having said that, I did read both versions of The Stand, and I really liked 11/22/63, also a very long novel. I guess sometimes it works for him and sometimes it doesn’t. (I’m not a huge King fan but I enjoy some of his work.)
I'm reading a lot of Ben Bova. he's becoming one of my favorite authors. right now I'm reading Mars. it's pretty good so far. I really liked Orion. that's my favorite by him so far.
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Shadow Rising (other topics)Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (other topics)
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (other topics)
Leviathan Falls (other topics)
The Jekyl Island Club (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Brent Monahan (other topics)Stephen King (other topics)
James S.A. Corey (other topics)
Robin Hobb (other topics)
Susan Palwick (other topics)
More...
"The Assassin of Thasalon" heck yeah.