2022 Read All the Books: On Cloud Nine

[Marc]

if you read 'the city we became' do you get credit for reading two on the list (look on the 2nd set, and it's listed twice!!). Ditto for Jonathan Strange/Norrell.

Anyhoo, I just found this challenge, and I inadvertantly completed:
- The dispossessed (Leguin)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Clarke)
- Say Nothing of the Dog - (Willis)
- Man in the High Castle (Dick)
- Dreamsnake (McIntyre)
- Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
- City & the City (Mieville)
- Fifth Season (Jemison)
- Three Body Problem (Cixin)
- Ancillary Sword (Leckie)
- Ancillary Mercy (Leckie)
- Memory Called Empire (Martine)
- Black Sun (Roanhorse)

I'll pledge 15 (since I already got 13, it's just 2 more books)
Lathe of Heaven (Leguin)
Station Eleven (St. John Mandel) or Slaugherhouse 5 (Vonnegut)

[Anna]

Marc wrote: "if you read 'the city we became' do you get credit for reading two on the list (look on the 2nd set, and it's listed twice!!). Ditto for Jonathan Strange/Norrell."

Where are they listed twice? Do I need to activate fixing mode?

[CBRetriever]

I only see it once:

Jemisin, N.K. The City We Became 2020 9 F

[Marc]

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/menti...
you'll see two jonathon/norrell (7th from top) and just after Dr Who, roughly 2/3's down.
click on 2 (or next)
roughly 2/3's down, you'll see the first 'The City We became', and 4th from bottom, the 2nd one.

[Anna]

Oh! Weird, but that's Goodreads for you XD

(They're different editions, but I wouldn't expect GR to list them both there.)

[DivaDiane]

I have officially reached my challenge goal of 12 books!

Watership Down
The Fellowship of the Ring (not sure it's really kosher to count this because it's about my third reread, but we listened to the new Andy Serkis version which is fab)
The Man in the High Castle
Sea of Rust
Daughter of the Forest
Sunshine
Preludes & Nocturnes
Sorrowland
More Than Human
Slaughterhouse-Five
Spinning Silver
Nettle & Bone

All of these were 4 or 5 stars, except The Man in the High Castle, which might have faired better if I hadn't been reading it aloud to my husband. That was a chore.

On the deck for the next month and a half are:

Rosewater, which I'm in the middle of,
Light from Uncommon Stars and
Station Eleven.

I just might manage those.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

wowza good job! and I'm very pleased you found "good ones" that you enjoyed :)

[Liane]

Kudos, Diane!

[Ellen]

Great job Diane!
I thought High Castle was sort of meh.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

PKD has great ideas...I only wish he'd also had someone great to write them, or who encouraged, shall we say, sober reflection

[Dj]

Allison wrote: "PKD has great ideas...I only wish he'd also had someone great to write them, or who encouraged, shall we say, sober reflection "

Well someone seems bound and determined to take all those ideas and put them to film. Usually with results that are better than the books. So who knows, you may get your wish

[Mihai]

Dj wrote: "Allison wrote: "PKD has great ideas...I only wish he'd also had someone great to write them, or who encouraged, shall we say, sober reflection "

Well someone seems bound and determined to take all..."

The TV series has more clarity than the books and PKD`s ending disappointed me. The same as with Blade Runner.

[CBRetriever]

and I'm still disappointed that Blade Runner wasn't made from the book The Blade Runner by Alan E. Nourse especially since William S. Burroughs wrote an interesting screenplay for it: Blade Runner: A Movie.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Good points everyone :) And yes, I do think the adaptations so far are all more interesting than his originals, though I've only read a few of them so far.

[DivaDiane]

LOL, Allison! That and perhaps an editor?

I love PKD’s short stories, waaaay more than his novels. I read a big collection of them and was blown away by just about all of them. And I was really annoyed by the ending of Minority Report.

[Beth]

Of PKD's works, I've only experienced Electric Sheep/Blade Runner in both book and audiovisual form so far. There's at least one theme that the book handles with more consideration or depth than the film does, but when it comes to being a consistent aesthetic experience, the film does do a better job imo.

[DivaDiane]

I meant that the ending of the Minority Report *movie* was annoying! The story written by PKD was amazing and the movie ruined it.

[DivaDiane]

But in the whole, I agree that often times the adaptations do a lot to enhance the stories.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

The short stories ending was flawed. Scientifically. I still liked it though. And the movie. And the animated show PsychoPass which is based on the original short story.

But I've said all this before.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

We should watch Minority Report, AneDi!

[DivaDiane]

That would be great, if I could ever manage to be available at the same time! I’m hopeful in the new year.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

(For those interested, one of the things that sometimes happens in the Discord channel is that someone streams a movie for everyone interested to enjoy!)

[Mihai]

Yes, PKD`s short stories are often better than his novels. Though I still enjoy a lot Ubik, Palmer Eldritch (Elon Musk reminds me of him) and Time Out of Joint.

This summer, I`ve watched PDK`s Electric Dreams, in parallel with the short stories on which the series is based and was surprised that I`ve enjoyed both of them.

Psycho Pass was great in the beginning.

[Marc]

Liane wrote: "I thought High Castle was sort of meh"

yeah, I too thought High Castle ended on a meh note. more the latter part of the book was blah, ending in a meh! it made me not truly desire to see the tv series

[Stephen]

I used to love Philip K. Dick’s novels, but it’s a long time since I read any of them. I recently read a couple of collections of his short stories and thought they got a lot better in the ‘60s.

[Marc]

Knocked off Ursula K LuGuin's Lathe of Heaven. when reading, I started to remember parts of the book, I must of have read it back in high school or college (oh so many years ago). Interesting premise (what if your dreams really came true?, not desires, not goals, but real dreams)... wouldn't be surprised if there was a twilight zone or outer limits episode based on it. if there wasn't, there should be!!

Now, just gotta buy and read slaughterhouse-five!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

closing out the year with some top hits!

[Dj]

Here is my review for The Briar King

This was a book that took a long time to catch and keep my interest. The beginning bounces around between protagonists and some I liked better than others which meant I was more invested in their stories than others. This led to an unequal enjoyment early on. About halfway through it tightens up and the ending is very well done. I am still debating on if I am going to read the follow-up or not.

[Meredith]

I've read 20 and have 3 retro reads (read in previous years) for the year. My original goal for the year was to read 20 and I added one to that after I DNF'd one book. So, I am nearly at my goal for the year.

Since my last update (in June), I added:

4⭐️
Howl's moving castle
Girl with all the gifts
Charmed Life Chrestomanci
Master of Djinn
Nettle and bone
Terra nullius
I am legend
Nimona

3⭐️
Persephone Station (retro)

2⭐️
Compass Rose
Solaris (retro)
To sleep in a sea of stars (DNF)
Crown conspiracy
Foundation


Currently reading
Leviathan

[Marc]

Got my 15! Just finished Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five!

- The dispossessed (Leguin)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Clarke)
- Say Nothing of the Dog - (Willis)
- Man in the High Castle (Dick)
- Dreamsnake (McIntyre)
- Graveyard Book (Gaiman)
- City & the City (Mieville)
- Fifth Season (Jemison)
- Three Body Problem (Cixin)
- Ancillary Sword (Leckie)
- Ancillary Mercy (Leckie)
- Memory Called Empire (Martine)
- Black Sun (Roanhorse)
- Lathe of Heaven (Leguin)
- Slaugherhouse 5 (Vonnegut)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

a wonderful and varied list, Marc! any stand outs?

[Marc]

Almost all are Hugo Award winners, they are all great (well, I guess I wasn't that much a fan of Mieville's city & the city, but that's just my opinion). And I guess I was disappointed in the ending of Man in a high castle.

But standouts, of the others,

I freakin loved Fifth Season, Jemison is an amazing writer, I was fully absorbed in her universe. I read the 2 sequels immediately after that, I had to know what happened next!

Three Body Problem almost had me digging in my math and physics texts, once I was able to sink into Cixin's universe, it got great, but initially, there was some resistance! Amazing book, gotta read the sequels.

Graveyard book was a nice light romp through the graveyard!

I am positive I've read Lathe of Heaven 30 or so years ago as a high school or college kid, enjoyed re-reading it. Dispossessed was also a great read (my first time).

Dreamsnake was enchanting too, a nice weird dystopian novel!

Black Sun was also quite good, I have it's sequel on my xmas gift list, hopefully I'll get it so I can read the next one!

and the Ancillary and Memory series were also great, read them all as well!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

this made me very happy to read, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[Anna]

This time last year I was whinging and moaning about how hard it was to get to my goal of 25. This year everyone kindly voted 12 books I'd already read onto the shelf, so at first I thought it would be even harder to read 25 this year, but I ended up reaching my goal, in the end adding 39 books to my total. And I think this is the first time I'm ending the year having read all of the BOTMs! All in all, a very good year for me in terms of RATB %.

[DivaDiane]

That’s amazing , Anna!! Congratulations 🎉🎊🍾🎈

[Beth]

Closing out for the year since I'm fairly certain I won't be reading any more SFFBC books in 2022:

Goal: 7
Read: 7 complete!


Finished:


Currently Reading (it's been on hiatus for quite a while though):


DNF:


On deck (subject to change!)

[Marie]

As I thought, 30 was bit too much since I joined only in April, but I still managed 19 and about half of another.



Reading now:

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

some chonky books there, too! Well done!

[DivaDiane]

I forgot to check how many books I read for the challenge, but if I counted correctly then I managed 13 books. However, I added 3 more to my total tally of bookshelf books read, because I had already read them for a total of 16 added, which brings my total to 135.

[Bonnie]

Mihai wrote: "Yes, PKD`s short stories are often better than his novels. Though I still enjoy a lot Ubik, Palmer Eldritch (Elon Musk reminds me of him)..."

Intriguing! Unfortunately that book is not on any of my lists of things to read for some purpose. Heh.