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What Else Are You Reading?
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What else are you reading - April 2022
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Rob, Roberator
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Apr 01, 2022 03:25AM
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I've been rereading the Rivers of London novels in anticipation of Amongst Our Weapons which is due out next week in the UK and two weeks here in the US.Of the 2022 March Madness runner-up titles, I plan to read Children of Time, A Psalm for the Wild-Built and probably a couple of others eventually.
I've been a little shaky on reading lately, still picking up a book every day but without making much progress. Then Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society came in on hold from the library and I'm flying through it, so that's nice.
I've started Elric of Melniboné. I bought the new Saga Press hardcover edition. I fell in love with the cover art. Volume two is due out later this month.I've never read any Moorcock before and I'm excited to try him.
John wrote: "I finished book 3 last night and am trying to decide if I dive straight into book or take a diversion into 1920's Cairo. mmm"If you're talking about this months book pick, then it is pre-1920s.
It is set in 1912
@tassie_d - you are right and I am wrong
and it is into 1912 that I will boldly go methinks
The Rookie.Who knew I'd love sci-fi football teams so much? If you understand the game, but always wanted giant worms playing the offensive and defensive line while humans threw deep to insanely fast grasshopper receivers, this is the book series for you.
After a minor reading slump in the second half of March- caused by trying to read A River Enchanted, struggling with it, and then DNF’ing it- I am hopefully getting back into the swing of things. I’m continuing my Discworld read with Equal Rites and I’m also reading Legendborn by Tracy Deonn which is kind of a modern-day Merlin story I think? I haven’t read very far yet but I’m enjoying it.
Buddy reading Sinopticon 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, an anthology with lots of my fave SF authors.
I’m reading the book of the month (and digging it) and also reading It's All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan which is really interesting.
Silvana wrote: "Buddy reading Sinopticon 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, an anthology with lots of my fave SF authors."Ooh I have this on my TBR shelf !
Equal Rites is awesome. Before I comment on that book's place in Discworld in general, have you read the rest of the series? That is, are you doing a reread?
Finished:The Kaiju Preservation Society. It’s fine for a first draft. Dead tree version.
3 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Dead Djinn in Cairo. Really good magic mystery. Audiobook.
4 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Challenge of the Super Sons. Superboy and Robin time travel. It’s a hoot. Comic book.
5 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You Sexy Thing. Lesser-than Farscape fanfic. Ebook.
2 stars. ⭐️⭐️
terpkristin wrote: "I’m reading the book of the month (and digging it) and also reading It's All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan which is really interesting."I read this. I found it interesting as well.
I just finished Elric of Melnibone, the first novel in the Elric of Melniboné omnibus. I liked it but I wasn't blown away. I'll eventually read the other 3 novels.
I also finished April's pick and I really liked it. I listened to A Dead Djinn in Cairo too. Also, very good.
Right now, I'm reading the new paperback edition of Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman. So far, so good.
I've been binging the Rivers of London novels (but not the novellas, comics, and short fiction) in anticipation of #9 Amongst Our Weapons coming out next week here in the US. UK folks will get it this week.I started #8 False Value last night. During my re-read, I've realized that the later books in the series reference events from the novellas, comics, and short fiction. Those events haven't stuck in my brain like those of the novels. I guess what I'm saying is that a true re-read should probably include everything in this universe.
^ Yep. You can get by without them but they add depth to the overall story.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Equal Rites is awesome. Before I comment on that book's place in Discworld in general, have you read the rest of the series? That is, are you doing a reread?"It’s a read/re-read - I’ve read some of the Discworld books but not others and I can’t honestly remember which ones as in many cases it’s been a while. I can’t remember if I’ve read Equal Rites before tbh but I’ve definitely read some of the later books featuring Granny Weatherwax and the witches.
Oh gee thanks for asking. I finally hit 800/1100 on Pandora's Star....
Move novellas. Just finished Seanan McGuire's latest Wayward Children book, Where the Drowned Girls Go. Really excellent book, perhaps on a level with the first one in the series.Cora was a mermaid when she went through her Door to the Trench, but on a recent mission to save a friend, attracted the attention of malevolent entities in the Moors. To avoid them, she goes to the antithesis of the school of the Wayward Children books, the Whitethorn institute. Consider it like going from the X-Men to the Hellfire Club, except the Hellfire Club is dominated by an evil version of Professor X.
Plenty of the usual poignant looks at teen life and angst, and the feeling that the real world is just endlessly dull. In a lesser writer this could be trite; here it feels real.
Some stuff I didn't agree with. Cora is overweight, and a big part of her angst is people calling her fat. McGuire makes a point of showing how Cora is as strong and capable as the thinner people. But, who cares? Even if not she's still a person. She shouldn't have to compete to feel worthy.
Well, that's a quibble that only stands out because of the otherwise excellent quality of the story. McGuire sets up a conflict that may last several books. And I will be pulling for one big rescue of a person whose plot remains unresolved. Bring on more!
Two other books recently. First up, the book of the month, A Master of Djinn. Started slow with an endless array of diversity checklist points. I thought about lemming the book. It picked up at the 30% mark, was rolling at the halfway point, and came to a rollicking conclusion. I'm glad I stuck it out.Then a prerelease copy of Mammon: Collateral, an anthology set in Rob Kroese's Mammon universe. It's a libertarian take on financial markets in the wake of an asteroid hit, with the free fall inspired by Lucifer's Hammer. But, the falling is more of the economy than the asteroid, altho boy does that hit as well.
The long arm of Heinlein reaches over the book, and several of the stories could have been out of his anthologies with few changes. And some Gibson influence as well; Travis Corcoran of the Prometheus-winning Aristillus books takes a (heh) "deep dive" into the concept of ocean retrieval of an asteroid piece, and who would be jaded enough to plan for the post-apocalypse in this fashion.
I loved it, but then I would, I'm the target audience. One of my stories leads off the collection. More about that in the appropriate place when it comes out.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Move novellas. Just finished Seanan McGuire's latest Wayward Children book, Where the Drowned Girls Go. Really excellent book, perhaps on a level with the first one in the series."I felt like I finally understand what she was doing with everything when I read that one, very good.
As far as the fat/thin thing, I think in general McGuire is very passionate on a lot of inclusion topics from disability to size to neurodiversity. Even as someone who cares about these things, I will actually agree that it gets pretty heavy handed especially in the overall time and space of a novella. At the same time I can recognize how infrequently we see characters from those backgrounds....
Just started "Upadek Lewiatana" (aka "Leviathan Falls”), as I like to read series in the language/form I started them. In this case it means Polish audiobooks.
Rob wrote: "The madness is over for now. Will you be reading any of the non-winning books from our annual tournament this month? If so, which ones? If not, what are you reading instead?"I'm planning on reading Children of Time and Project Hail Mary. Just got the winning book from the library so will start that next.
Just finished listening to A Psalm for the Wild-Built which was exactly what I needed at the moment. One of those rare occasions you think the author has written a work for you personally. This story of a personal crisis hit rather close to home. I would also love to have a personal tea monk.
Iain wrote: "Just finished listening to A Psalm for the Wild-Built which was exactly what I needed at the moment. One of those rare occasions you think the author has written a work for you pers..."Glad the story found you, and sorry you were going through that. I just listened to it a couple weeks ago, and also really enjoyed it. The audio book is interesting since the author seems to use a slightly different voice for the narration, vs the more POV of the main character. At first I just thought it was segments that were recoreded at a different time for what ever reason, but then I figured out what I thought was going on. I'm not sure if the written book also distinguishes between these things, or not.
My preorder of Amongst Our Weapons, the latest in the Rivers of London series, has just landed in my Audible library. I need to hurry up and finish listening to A Master of Djinn (I’m about halfway through and luckily the pace is picking up).
On the subject of Equal Rites: Loved the book, (modest spoilers for series arc follow) (view spoiler)
Started Light Years From Home by Mike Chen, but wasn’t immediately engaged. Switched to Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, which instantly drew me in.
Finished The Dreaming Tree, burned through The Return of the Sorceress by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (it was a novella, so only about an hour or so to finish) and started Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri.
John (Taloni) wrote: "On the subject of Equal Rites: Loved the book, (modest spoilers for series arc follow) but the rest of the series didn't live up to the promise.A good point about the series’ gradual development of the world. I’ve previously only read the Discworld books piecemeal so it’ll be interesting to see how the overall story arc feels when I read them more methodically. I get the impression that Pratchett’s own approach was probably pretty piecemeal too in the early years, so he was making decisions in the first few Discworld books that he didn’t then return to or properly develop later.
I decided I couldn’t wait to read Amongst Our Weapons, so finished that off before starting AMoD this month. A solid entry in the series.
My wife prevailed upon me to read "John Eyre" by Mimi Matthews. I did it grudgingly as my "gothic romance" phase was a good three decades back. Welp, I'm glad I did! The book is a delicious gender-swapped take on Jane Eyre. John's a tutor where Jane was a governess, and the children are orphans instead of nieces / nephews.Of course this means there's a "Mrs. Rochester" as well as mysterious noises from the attic. Wouldn't be a modern retake without some supernatural, so let's just say "Dracula" has an influence on this work as well.
It's all brilliantly done until about the 80% mark. The book then comes to an adequate ending, not quite the great one expected from the high quality of the earlier parts. A major subplot gets skipped which gives another minor subplot from the original nowhere to show up. It's a bit disorienting if you're expecting a full map of the original book. Still well worth reading.
John (Taloni) wrote: "On the subject of Equal Rites: Loved the book, (modest spoilers for series arc follow) but the rest of the series didn't live up to the promise.So by the end Eskarina Smith has earned her rightf..."
Esakarina shows up once more. In I Shall Wear Midnight.
I think Pratchett just had other themes that meant more to him. The Unseen University changes completely after Sourcery and becomes is really only sad for comic relief and exposition.
Pritchett seems more interested in a just society in a wider world so focusses outwards. I assume that he concluded that Universities are not places society changes. In most areas equality is just starting to really take hold. Probably still a generation off.
I've finished Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. Excellently written but most of the stories were not for me, except for Monarch of the Glen. It's a novella set after American Gods.Now on to Fort Freak, a Wild Cards book.
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I started Amongst Our Weapons this morning.
I'm also soon to read Amongst Our Weapons soon. Short one for a ROL installment at 300 pages. Embarrassment of riches, the next St. Mary's book comes in on the 14th! And first I need to finish up the latest in my slow-motion binge read of Clarke, Earthlight. Well, that's a short one.Finished several works recently. I say "works" as one is a novelette and another nonfiction.
So, the novelette. H. Beam Piper's "Omnilingual" about an archaeological expedition to Mars, after the civilization has died out. They find books, but how would they ever translate? There are literally no common referents. It starts off almost identical to Egyptian archaeology and then splits off. I expected a twist, and there is one, but not the way I expected.
Some stories age well and others don't. This one has that poorly-aged feel. It's a legit classic story, but weird to have people smoking, all over an archaeological site no less! There's a female MC and other women on the expedition, but they mainly have support roles and are called "girls."
Next up the nutrition focused book "The End of Craving." I read a lot of these since I've gotten into Intermittent Fasting. Dr. Fung's works have helped me lose a metric fuckton of weight and put my diabetes into remission, but he can't fight the entire medical establishment on his own. There is still a heavy pressure from the medical establishment for low fat and "calorie in, calorie out" models despite overwhelming proof that they are dead wrong.
The End of Craving explores the idea that food supplements push the human body out of sync and cause weight gain. B vitamins in particular come in for a lashing. Artificial sweeteners, thickeners, chemical taste replication, all have their place in knocking the human body off kilter. It's an interesting concept and he provides a fair amount of evidence for the concept. There's a long way to go to actionable steps though, and the author doesn't offer any suggestions beyond the huge implied one. Perhaps he just doesn't have the energy to fight the entire medical establishment and blinked, showed his work and stopped.
The author also, for some reason, picks a fight with low-carb based on a single study and concludes it doesn't work. Er. Well, that's over 100 pounds down for me on this thing that doesn't work. Diabetes normalized, off multiple medications. Why not work together instead? Dr. Fung provides a mountain of evidence in the form of medical studies (currently ignored by the medical establishment) plus his own clinic, and I'll gladly add my own voice to Dr. Fung's chorus. No need to pick a fight with him and low carb. There is a lot still to be learned about how the body works. I'd rather they all worked together.
And lastly, John Ringo's "The Last Centurion." Written in 2009, it is set in what was then a decade away and would now be our recent past. There's a disease much like a super-Covid followed by the start of a mini ice age.
The MC is the most blatant self-insert I've seen, with a golden-child military man, former captain of his football team, irresistible to women, great leader and zzzzz. Ringo goes out of his way to have his MC insult geeks, which makes me wonder, who does he think is reading these books?
The MC is stuck in Iran (now somehow our ally) when the crisis hits and has to find his way back to the US. Along the way he brings peace to the Middle East. No lie! I was wondering when the Archangel Gabriel was going to come down and anoint him.
Ringo's an odd read for me as I generally find myself in agreement with a lot of what he says. It's the way he says it that grates on my nerves. The book reads like a megaphone in my ear with the MC shouting all day. From what I understand this is because Ringo is capturing the feel of the military as he experienced it. Okay, but Starship Troopers does the same and with a great deal more subtlety. Haldeman was in Vietnam and The Forever War contains a quality of writing not evident here.
I'm not sorry I read this book, but it will be a while before I pick up another Ringo novel. He makes boatloads of money and regularly hits the New York Times bestseller lists, so more power to him and his audience. I do not appear to be among that audience.
Having finished a IRL book club book (Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China) I am now starting The Hidden Palace because you can never have too much Djinn in your life.... (Also Listening to MoD).
Then St Mary;'s and RoL latest books to read/listen...
Tim wrote: "I decided I couldn’t wait to read Amongst Our Weapons, so finished that off before starting AMoD this month. A solid entry in the series."Until I saw it mentioned here I hadn't notice that my Audible pre-order of Use of Weapons had arrived! Started it this morning:)
Just finished the first 'Chronicles of Saint Mary's' book after seeing it mentioned here a few times. Flew through that, great stuff.
Halfway through the Book of the Month but it's getting kicked further down the road, I hope to finish it before my library loan expires.
^ AMoD picks up substantially at the halfway point. Maybe give it another ten percent and see if your motivation to read goes up. The ending is *chef's kiss*
Finished Earthlight, an old Arthur Clarke book about an undercover accountant on the Moon. Yes, really! He's looking for a spy and trying to prevent a war.The setup seems exist mainly to justify a battle scene at the end. The big thing seems to be what appears to be a beam of light, but can't be since that wouldn't be seen in the scatter-free non-atmosphere of the Moon. The funny thing is, I recall this setup but thought it was in a Bova novel. Now I can't be sure I haven't read this book before, but I otherwise have no recollection of it.
There's silliness along the way. Clarke postulates that the Moon has a tenuous atmosphere and even plant life in crevasses. Is it really possible that this was still considered possible in the 1950s, or just a sop to Wells and First Men in the Moon?
Also, this isn't a book so much as a travelogue. The MC takes no action in the resolution of events, indeed he isn't even there. He's there just to chronicle events. I hadn't realized how much of Clarke is written like this, and as I think about it, perhaps all of Clarke's works are this way. Childhood's End, the MC reports the final evolution of humanity but doesn't affect it; Rama exists solely to pass through the Solar system; Dave Bowman is acted upon but doesn't change anything. Odd to revisit a writer's work in this light.
DNF’ed Legendborn. Just wasn’t doing it for me.Started The Unbroken byC.L. Clark which is good so far.
I also read this week the non fiction book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty which was super interesting.
Started The Vor Game. Expecting relationship development, pensive emo, a big mystery, and solving problems leading to other problems. Enjoyable reading fun.
Ray wrote: "Started The Vor Game. Expecting relationship development, pensive emo, a big mystery, and solving problems leading to other problems. Enjoyable reading fun."Coincidentally, I just started Barrayar. I'm kind of moving through older series that I can find in audio at my library.
Seth wrote: "Ray wrote: "Started The Vor Game. Expecting relationship development, pensive emo, a big mystery, and solving problems leading to other problems. Enjoyable reading fun."Coincidentally, I just sta..."
Quite a few of those books are available for free as part of a Audible Plus membership.
I finished the third part of the four-part steampunk fantasy series The Books of Babel: 
The Hod King by Josiah Bancroft
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and I started reading the third installment in the Tales of the Flat Earth series:
Delusion's Master by Tanith Lee
I also started reading the fourth book in the Vampire Chronicles
The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice
Finished the audiobook of our book of the month so I’m starting to listen to the latest in the Rivers of London series, Amongst Our Weapons
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I also started reading the fourth book in the Vampire ChroniclesThe Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice"
One of my favorites of this series.
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