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What Else Are You Reading?
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What else are you reading - May 2021
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John (Nevets)
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May 16, 2021 04:21PM
Finished up Peace Talks. And the hold on Battle Ground looks like it is a ways off. Oh, well. I actually liked where PT left off. I do think I liked the first half of the book more then the last. I know it is not, but with the inclusion of so many elements from previous Dresden stories, it almost felt like a penultimate story. You know the walk down memory lane before the big showdown in the last story.
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I finished Gods of Jade and Shadow, which I thought was excellent.Now reading Sabriel. I've really enjoyed the Sir Hereward and Fitz short stories by Garth Nix, and I'm trying to get the same flavor in novel length. There's a bit of that in Sabriel, but it might be a little too YA for me (speaking at about the 25% point). We'll see what I think at the end.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Rick wrote: "Hexarchate Stories. The novella Glass Cannon is outstanding and some of the other stories are quite good."Yeah, when I was done I thought, "there's enough worldbuildi..."
My reaction was similar; that was fine, but mostly it just made me want more Hexarchate novels.
Read The Burning City, a Niven / Pournelle coauthored book. Puzzlingly bad for the first two thirds, then rises to the level of mediocre towards the end.The books is billed as the sequel to The Magic Goes Away. That book is a pleasant Sword and Sorcery romp. It's got a sorcerer, a barbarian, and plenty of other magical tropes. The hook is that magic (Manna) is a finite resource and will eventually be used up. (Of course we live in the future where it is used up.) There's even a trademark-Niven use of orbital mechanics worked in. The world of this book is easily located as an ersatz European location of the past. Conan-lite done Niven style.
So of course that would be where the sequel would be set, right? Oh no. And not with any warning either. The timeline is given as 14,000 years ago. There's a large tar pit. By the second reference to "valley of the smokes" I realized they were talking about Los Angeles and the La Brea Tar Pits. There's also redwoods, but I figure during the last ice age that would have been plausible. Less plausible is the city they have nearby.
There's unfunny jokes worked throughout. An oppressed worker class wears silk neck scarves, obviously intended to be ties. They have a name (Kinless) but are eventually referred to as "taxpayers." A major location is called "Placeholder" and the MC goes by that in some places. Er...hah?
And then there's a location, "Condigeo." This is an in joke that I found very much off. It's a riff on "Condiego," a convention regularly held in San Diego. During the Gulf War the town was pretty much empty with its military population deployed. People who had never worked at a convention stepped up to make sure it could happen. A guy with dyslexia wound up handling some of the communication and referred to it as "Condigeo." He was the only person available to do it, he stepped up, and for this he gets mocked in print? So much nope.
I love Niven's works, but his stuff with Pournelle is a mixed bag. Bad humor like this is nowhere in Niven's work, so it's gotta be Pournelle. I sometimes felt like I was reading around the Pournelle to get to the Niven. I liked Oath of Fealty, but in say Mote in Gods Eye Pournelle introduces a naval aspect to the spaceships that felt off. He has teenage soldiers in a technologically advanced society, and the Moties feel like an Asian stereotype. I feel like Pournelle has a boorish aspect that for some reason Niven goes along with.
The book rambles with detail after endless detail. Probably 400 pages of backstory could have been condensed to 100 and made this a 300 page book. There's recycling from other works. In this one a wizard drags an iceberg across the landscape. It's kind of like the Taproot from Rainbow Mars. And Fist of God from Ringworld as I think about it. The final third of the book involves a trade route and the plot significantly resembles Destiny's Road.
There's some discussion about markets and how they work, or don't. I would have been a lot more receptive to that in a better written work. As it is I imagined Pournelle making joke after unfunny joke, and Niven going along. There's a sequel that I won't bother with.
I didn't re-read Network Effect this month, but read Fugitive Telemetry instead. Definitely has a different tone to the other Murderbot stories. More of a whodunnit, and a lot less in the way of armed conflict. Murderbot themself seemed much less introspective than usual. I mean it was still good, but I'm wishing that the next book will be something closer to the established formula.Also finished up the audiobook for A Desolation Called Peace. A good sequel, I thought. Possibly a little over-long for the actual plot content, but all wrapped up in the same glorious language as the first volume.
Finished with Sorrowland. The first half was a five-star read. Still good stuff, as expected from Rivers Solomon.Starting On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu.
Finally finished Planetfall by Emma Newman after taking a break from it to read the Murderbot novellas. I found it very well-written and thought-provoking but it seemed to end quite suddenly, leaving a lot unresolved. I know there’s a sequel, After Atlas, but from what others have said, it sounds like a semi-standalone. I don’t think it picks up where this book leaves off. Anyone who’s read both books like to comment?Edit: I’ve just read Jenny’s review of After Atlas and found it very informative, thanks Jenny!
Ruth wrote: "Finally finished Planetfall by Emma Newman after taking a break from it to read the Murderbot novellas. I found it very well-written and thought-provoking but it se..."Yes! The second book does not advance the story of anyone that you've met in the first book. The existence of the Pathfinder mission looms over the events of book two, but you don't need to know what happened in Planetfall to be able to enjoy it.
I'm enjoying her writing and I've just started on Before Mars, which again is not a direct sequel to either of the first two!
I finished Sabriel. It was pretty good but a little too YA for me.I'm reading The City We Became. I've been avoiding this one; although I love N.K. Jemisin, I'm not sure the themes will resonate with me. Among other things I don't really care about New York City (one way or the other). However, it is nominated for every award, so I must read it. If only to listen to the Incomparable podcast about Hugo and Nebula award nominees (after I listen to Sword and Laser, of course).
I an reading the new Penric and Desdemona Novel The Assassins of Thasalon.reasonable priced at $6.99 . All the novellas in the series are $3.99 . If you are in a spot where you need to up your reading goals total this series is for you. Now up to 10 books in the series .
Colin wrote: "Ruth wrote: "Finally finished Planetfall by Emma Newman after taking a break from it to read the Murderbot novellas. I found it very well-written and thought-provok..."I need to read book 3!
Ruth wrote: "Finally finished Planetfall by Emma Newman after taking a break from it to read the Murderbot novellas. I found it very well-written and thought-provoking but it se..."
I still think about these books, it's like you think you know what they will be and they do their own thing.
Just finished listening to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue which is V.E. Schwab best work by. along way. One of the best books I have read lately, brilliant narration of a lovely book. Finished reading In an Absent Dream which was meh...
Just started Piranesi a day before it was announced as the June pick and listening to Conjure Women
I requested both the ebook and audiobook of The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, the final Wayfarer universe story by Becky Chambers and the audiobook came in first, so I listened to that. It hits all the high notes of that universe, so if you liked the previous ones you’ll enjoy this.https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I also read Devil's Due, the 12th (?) book in the Destroyermen series. Anderson really moves the ball forward in this one, killing off main characters willy-nilly. I immediately started the next one since the series is now finished and there are only 15 books total.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read Downbelow Station. Not sure how I came to this one, probably discussed here. I'll occasionally go back and try to read old Hugo winners that I missed. This one won in 1982.I found it...okay. There's a lot of characterization, so much so that I felt the plot suffered. Not a lot happened for the first half of the book, and I had trouble telling characters apart for that period. There's also an alien (or native, take your pick) that seems to be in two places at once. I wondered if there was going to be some kind of multi-location reveal, but nope.
Some of the setup is taken from the Cold War of the time. I found it confusing with one group standing in for Communist Russia, then China, then something else entirely. Another seemed a stand-in for America, but then events went in entirely different directions. It's fiction so that's fine, but I wound up confused.
There's also inconsistency in the space travel. At one point a ship does a course correction around a planet. Fine and dandy especially given today's knowledge. Then another ship is near light speed, and quickly decelerates to half the speed of light. With acceleration like that the gravity effect of a planet is negligible. I don't mind so much that Cherryh handwaved the space travel, but keep it consistent.
There are apparently 27 related books in this series. I like stuff like that, but this one just didn't appeal. Probably that's a timing issue. Had I read this as it came out I might have liked it more. Now it's dated and the storyline just didn't grab me. I don't want to read another 26 books just to get to the end of the story. I wouldn't rule out reading more, but there is so much other stuff I want to read that it isn't likely any time soon.
Also picked up Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint after a recommendation here. It's short, silly fun intended for a grade school audience. A kid accidentally creates an anti-gravity substance in the home lab of a "leading scientist." They ping pong around the solar system apparently hitting planets in the vast emptiness of interplanetary space without any difficulty.The book was published in 1956 and, well, "Ozzie and Harriet attitudes" is about the best I can say for its setup. Mom is a domestic who works for the "leading scientist." Her husband died and of course the only work she could get is as a maid. Er...okay? We're ten years from "Rosie the Riveter" and 35 or 45, take your pick, from either of Marie Curie's Nobel Prizes.
As for the "leading scientist," he doesn't seem to have a specialty. Perhaps he specializes in "leading."
It's fine as a silly boy's adventure, but don't look too deep.
Picked up Ormeshadow in advance of attending an online interview with Priya Sharma. It’s a novella with an historical setting (late eighteenth/early nineteenth century I think) on the Great Orme hill in North Wales. It’s not really speculative (so far at least) but it has a great sense of place and local folklore and it’s very well written. In audiobook I’ve just picked up a non-fiction book by Annalee Newitz: Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age which looks interesting.
And in dead tree reads I’ve just got Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo out of the library- I tried it before a couple of years ago in audiobook and didn’t get on with it, but I’ve been inspired by the Netflix series to give it another try.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Also picked up Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint ..." I remember reading the Danny Dunn series back in the mid-60s (when I was 7 or 8). Cutting edge early reader series back then :)
^ I somehow managed to miss them! And I read plenty of stuff from the school library.Unless this is the series where the authority figure can travel by astral projection, but decides to go to some interstellar thing by rocket so he can bring his young sidekick. I've been low-key looking for that one for years without any actual hope of finding it.
I'm right in the middle of The Once and Future Witches, then I'm going to listen to Fugitive Telemetry & Driving the Deep before I start Piranesi. I have so many great books on hold that I keep having delivered later.
I was reading some things that were on the March madness ballot. I didn't really connect with Green Rider, though I acknowledge that as a teenager I might have loved it. I did really like The Blue Sword, however. I thought it was a pretty decent story, had some Jane Austen-era contemplation on manners that somehow fit, and had language and descriptions that were way more elegant than necessary (but not so flowery that they detracted at all from the story). I might read more of those, but I just got ahold of A Master of Djinn which I'm excited to begin.
I finished the third book in the Vampire Chronicles: 
The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Finished Piranesi (it was short -- either a longish novella or a shortish novel -- and very good) and started Blue Moon Rising by Simon R. Green, which is the June pick for another GoodReads group I'm in.
Finished On Fragile Waves by E. Lily Yu, the first novel I read about Afghan refugees and their harrowing journey to Australia. Very well-researched.Also managed to squeeze in a simple but beautiful book Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. These two books - as well as Sorrowland - have brought back my reading mojo.
Now starting A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark. I enjoyed the previous installments so very much looking forward to this one.
Read Fugitive Telemetry. It's good as a stand-alone, there isn't any advancement of the ongoing plot. Prequel to Network Effect and if I hadn't been warned about that I might have found the events confusing.Anyhoo, it's fine for what it is, and there is plenty of angst-filled hilarious commentary from Murderbot. Not quite as much action as I would expect from a Murderbot novel. That didn't ruin the book for me but took it down maybe from a 5 to a 4.5. There was a moment when lots of action could have occurred but didn't. To quote Fry from the Futurama episode "Fear of a Bot Planet," "Not enough human killing." Still plenty enjoyable. I'm starting to be convinced that novella is the right length for these works.
Also read the other two Pippi Longstocking books, Pippi Goes On Board and Pippi in the South Seas. Once I got reacquainted with the style these read fine. It's all absurdist fun dressed up with a family friendly premise. Many of the stories felt like repeats, as for instance a trip to the fair felt a lot like another story's trip to the circus. When in the South Seas Pippi gets visited by two thieves, which felt a lot like when two burglars came to her house in Sweden.The books end with all three taking a "magic pea" to keep themselves forever young. The two normal Swedish kids remark that it tasted like a regular pea. The audience is left to conclude whatever it wishes. Good clean kids fun.
M. R. Casey's Koli series. On the last book and it is tying up all the adventures of the previous books. 100 page increments and not even noticing! Looking at the page numbers and coming to realize that I have to slow down! Want this book to last a little bit longer. Good! Later.
I finally finished The Galaxy, and the Ground Within on Kindle. Loved it!Looking forward to reading Project Hail Mary next.
John (Taloni) wrote: "...The books end with all three taking a "magic pea" to keep themselves forever young. The two normal Swedish kids remark that it tasted like a regular pea."It always does. Then you wake up in an alleyway in Tijuana with a splitting headache and a couple new tattoos.
Currently reading, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pye, and Shogun by James Clavell. Of the two, I love Shogun, and only like Robin Hood.
Finished The City We Became. I usually like N.K. Jemisin but it wasn't for me.Next up Project Hail Mary.
Thinking of re-reading the 3 gentlemen bastards in prep for book 4 later this year…think it will happen?
Finished off Fugitive Telemetry which was great. Was about to start Project Hail Mary, opened the ebook from the library which I was surprised to find, only to open and discover it was in Spanish 😥.
The English version is in hard copy and will have to wait months.
Iain wrote: "Finished off Fugitive Telemetry which was great. Was about to start Project Hail Mary, opened the ebook from the library which I was surprised to find, only to ope..."
I kept having that problem with Artemis. First German, then French. At least the Spanish version has a different title: Artemisa. Tricksy librarians.
Finished up the audiobook for Piranesi. Not like me to be ahead of the group, but it is a short read. Loved it!Next Audible listen is Project Hail Mary, which seems to be a popular choice around these parts. Was listening to a chat with the author and the interviewer kept going on about how you should really be as unspoiled as possible going into it. So I saved the rest of the podcast for later and here we go!
Colin wrote: "Next Audible listen is Project Hail Mary, which seems to be a popular choice around these parts. Was listening to a chat with the author and the interviewer kept going on about how you should really be as unspoiled as possible going into it. So I saved the rest of the podcast for later and here we go!"Was that Imaginary Worlds? If so, the spoiler wasn’t that big. (I was distracted while walking my dogs so accidentally heard it.) PHM is next on my list, too, after I finish Mike Nichols: A Life.
Trike wrote: "Was that Imaginary Worlds? If so, the spoiler wasn’t that big. "No, it was with Leo Laporte on the TWiT network. They resurrected the Triangulation feed for a one-off show so it appeared in my podcast app. The whole programme was over an hour and they kept talking about how they would get spoilerific in the second half of the discussion.
Colin wrote: "Trike wrote: "Was that Imaginary Worlds? If so, the spoiler wasn’t that big. "No, it was with Leo Laporte on the TWiT network. They resurrected the Triangulation feed for a one-off show so it app..."
That definitely sounds like a “run away!” moment then.
Colin wrote: "Trike wrote: "Was that Imaginary Worlds? If so, the spoiler wasn’t that big. "No, it was with Leo Laporte on the TWiT network. They resurrected the Triangulation feed for a one-off show so it app..."
Heh. I did the same.
Now listening to Project Hail Mary. I'll catch Leo's interview later.
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Project Hail Mary (other topics)Project Hail Mary (other topics)
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N.K. Jemisin (other topics)Toshikazu Kawaguchi (other topics)
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Simon R. Green (other topics)
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