SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
What Else Are You Reading?
>
What Are You Reading 2015 Edition
I just started The Girl in the Road.Whoa, this is a mind trip so far! [trip is not the exact word I wanted to use ;)]
Has anybody else read this one?
Edwin wrote: "[trip is not the exact word I wanted to use ;)]...Oh, the problems with Goodreads. I have not read that one but I really want to read it. I'll have to check in a couple of weeks and see what you rated it as.
Flash Beagle wrote: "Konstantina_pap wrote: "I've just started The Buried Giant. I'm so excited about this book!"Konstantina, I'm looking forward to it as well! How is it? Did you read [book:Never Let..."
I did and it is excellent. tough subject because he talks all around the subject without ever really directly addressing it and you the reader has to put it together. It is devastating when you figure out what he is actually talking about. Very intelligent writing and he does not give you the answer, but makes you think it out for yourself.
Papaphilly wrote: "Flash Beagle wrote: "Konstantina_pap wrote: "I've just started The Buried Giant. I'm so excited about this book!"Konstantina, I'm looking forward to it as well! How is it? Did you read Never Let Me Go? ..."
I agree, it was so devastating. When a writer trusts the reader to figure it out, it's so much more meaningful. The contrast of setting versus what was going on...the whole thing was like having the wind knocked out of you. That very very last scene, as if it could not be even more poignant...I felt so sad. And nothing could be done. Grrr..(better mad than sad)...How dare anyone do that!
Edwin wrote: "I just started The Girl in the Road.Whoa, this is a mind trip so far! [trip is not the exact word I wanted to use ;)]
Has anybody else read this one?"
I hadn't heard of it. But I see it's on a listopia, "Mind Twists"!?...I may wait a bit!
I ended up putting a library hold on it. I have wanted to read it for awhile and it looks very good. I'm still waiting to read Edwin's rating before I commit to reading.
Flash Beagle wrote: "I'll be reading The Color of Magic soon.I just finished Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov. I just love Asimov, he does the whole thing without overin..."
I've read Foundation twice, but for some reason I've held off on the sequels! I will read Foundation and Empire soon though. How did you think it compared to the first one?
Sarah wrote: "I ended up putting a library hold on it. I have wanted to read it for awhile and it looks very good. I'm still waiting to read Edwin's rating before I commit to reading."Wow, the pressure........
I will report back but I am pretty impressed so far.
:) I've had my eye on that one for awhile.
Reading Crossover by Joel Shepherd and something finally happened. 145 pages of infodump and building up his protagonist as a super android woman had me skimming. Took me a week to get here.Also reading Pulse by Jeremy Robinson, which is the exact opposite: it is wall-to-wall over-the-top ridiculous comic book-style action. They are currently outrunning an erupting island volcano while being chased by insane cannibal humans who regenerate like Wolverine. Fun stuff.
Also reading The Science of Monsters: the Origins of the Creatures We Love to Fear, which is SFF-adjacent non-fiction and pretty good so far.
Edwin--I read The Girl in the Road after hearing that Neil Gaiman had recommended it--I liked it a lot. Very unique setting and I liked the shifting perspectives.
Jaleenajo wrote: "Edwin--I read The Girl in the Road after hearing that Neil Gaiman had recommended it--I liked it a lot. Very unique setting and I liked the shifting perspectives."Excellent. Thanks.
Pulse looks good, Trike. I have Island 731 by that author but I haven't read it.
I haven't been reading much. I finally started watching Person of Interest and ended up binge watching all 3 1/2 seasons and now I'm caught up - OMG I love this show!But I did read a bit - I abandoned for now The Shadow Master - wasn't bad, just not very interesting.
I also started and then abandoned The Atrocity Archives on audio - I liked the story but jeeze there are tons of acronyms and I just got annoyed by them - I'll have to try reading it later, eyes can skim those easier. Also I'm a bit OD'd on urban fantasy I think.
I read and finished The Paper Magician. This one was fun fluff with a strong romance subplot and I'm liking the magic system. Definitely going to continue the series.
I also read The Mermaid's Sister. This was a strange one - the idea was good, but the story was a bit weak and the characters were one-dimensional. It kind of dragged at times. Can't explain exactly what's wrong with it, but something was off. Anyways, not terrible.
Now reading DarkShip Thieves, pulpy space opera. Liking, not loving it.
Alice wrote: "Flash Beagle wrote: "I'll be reading The Color of Magic soon.How did you think it compared to the first one?"
Brief comparison...
Foundation and Empire is great. It continues with Hari Seldon's Rubix cube hypotheses, and it's getting a wrenching test. All his characters are very individual, many characters, and several or more have enough charisma to carry their own stories, so it adds to the fun.
He also continues with those fantastic observations/descriptions (they just blow me away): Space travel: ..."There was a claustrophobic sensation about the necessity for leaps of not more than a light year. There was a frightening harshness about a sky which glittered unbrokenly in every direction. It was being lost in a sea of radiation...." I've seen lots of leaps in movies, but never read a description that good.
And then he puts you right there, or as close thereto: how would it be, how greater the light would be, in a solar system not near the outer part of a galaxy, as ours is, but near the center: ..."And in the center of an open cluster of ten thousand stars, whose light tore to shreds the feebling encircling darkness, there circled the huge Imperial planet, Trantor...."
The first Foundation can I think be read as a standalone but Foundation & Empire is more of a cliff hanger, a race against time. So IMHO the third one is a necessity! (Asimov is so much fun)
Michele wrote: "I haven't been reading much. I finally started watching Person of Interest and ended up binge watching all 3 1/2 seasons and now I'm caught up - OMG I love this show!But I did read a bit - I aban..."
Sounds like a good series! I haven't watched it - but I love Face Off! :P
I will be rereading Jennifer Roberson's Sword-Dancer and subsequent sequels for the 4th or 5th time. If you haven't had the pleasure, I could not recommend them more highly. Incredible characters.
After that it's on to Trudi Canavan's The Magicians' Guild for another leap into an old and well loved world.
Anbu wrote: "Middle of The Name of the Wind. Can't stop reading.. 
"Should I give it another shot? I had a lot of trouble getting through the first chapter and gave up in frustration. I never stop hearing how well worth it is, though...
Michele wrote: "I haven't been reading much. I finally started watching Person of Interest and ended up binge watching all 3 1/2 seasons and now I'm caught up - OMG I love this show!But I did read a bit - I aban..."
One of my favorite shows.
Three members of the Person of Interest cast are on @midnight tonight.One of the funniest responses for Hashtag Wars I've heard was from one of them for #AdorableIllnesses: "Tickle Cell Anemia."
Bryce wrote: "Anbu wrote: "Middle of The Name of the Wind. Can't stop reading.. "Should I give it another shot? I had a lot of trouble getting through the ..."
Bryce, you have to at least get to the part where Kvothe starts telling his story...did you get that far into the book, or did you give up before that? The meat of the book doesn't really start until then.
Valerie wrote: "Just started California."Oh, that's an interesting one. I would love to hear what you think. It was one of the Goodreads Choice Awards finalists, too.
Justine wrote: "Bryce wrote: "Anbu wrote: "Middle of The Name of the Wind. Can't stop reading.. "Should I give it another shot? I had a lot of trouble gettin..."
I'm sure I gave up before then. I read avidly, but don't suffer that hunger to finish every book I start. If I lose interest, I move on. I'll have to give it another shot. If I end up loving it I'm going to kick myself because my local B&N was selling signed copies at base price a few months back and I almost bought one...
Sarah wrote: "Valerie wrote: "Just started California."Oh, that's an interesting one. I would love to hear what you think. It was one of the Goodreads Choice Awards finalists, too."
I'm about a third in, and I'm not sure if I am going to make it through. So far, it seems like the type of book that is more about the characters emotions than anything else. Being the anti-sentimentalist that I am, I struggle with this type of story.
The main thing I remember about it is that they get in every kind of godawful living situation that they possibly could. It was unbelievable. I think the time they spent in that shed was the slowest part of the book. I thought it was really interesting but I did only give it three stars, mainly because was disturbing.
I gave it 3 stars too...now that I have read Station Eleven I keep thinking how much better California could have been. I realize that they are not the same book, but I think the author was in way striving to do the same kind of thing, but didn't quite make it.
Station Eleven was the better book I think. California seemed very realistic to me though, aside from the idiotic causes of society's collapse.
Oh, absolutely Station Eleven is the better book. I just meant that I thought the author was trying to do something similar in terms of the actual mechanics of the storytelling. I did actually enjoy reading California though...I just felt it was missing...something. I can't say what exactly though. In any case, I don't want to spoil any of the plot for anyone who hasn't finished it, so I shouldn't say anything else about it. :)
It was missing them speeding through the part where they're living in that shed with just the two of them. ;) That went on and on. And on.
I just got Lazarus, Vol. 3: Conclave in the mail today. I'm looking forward to cracking that baby open :)
Andreas wrote: "Just finished Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction. Really great stuff in it, here's my review."Thanks for the comprehensive review.
Sarah wrote: "It was missing them speeding through the part where they're living in that shed with just the two of them. ;) That went on and on. And on."No, no...:) What I did in fact enjoy about the book and what kept me reading it was the "mystery" aspect...I was really interested to find out what was actually going on. Anyway...I wouldn't give up on it just yet Valerie, I don't think it's all about the emotions; I didn't read it as a purely sentimental book myself anyway. :)
I didn't think it was sentimental either. It seemed it at first but I didn't think it stayed that way. I think it's very funny that you and I seem to have had the same final result, Justine, but it's like what I liked, you didn't and vice versa. It's quite funny.
I’m playing catch-up with this post…After finishing Red Mars, I went on to read Green Mars as per my last post. I liked it ok, a little better than the first book, but I decided not to move on to Blue Mars because I wasn’t enjoying the series enough to read another 800 pages of it. And I didn’t even want to think about the related anthology.
After Green Mars, I pulled a shorter fantasy book out of my digital TBR stack in an attempt to find something that would be a good change of pace from the Mars books. That book was Fire in the Mist, the first book in the Arhel series by Holly Lisle. I’d never read any of her books before, and the story was a pretty generic fantasy story, but I really liked the author’s writing style and the book proved to be exactly the change of pace I was looking for.
I ended up reading all three books in the series in 5 days. Not that this sets any speed records, and each book was only about 300 pages, but I don’t have a lot of spare time so that was significantly faster than my normal pace. I was sleep deprived for a few days because I kept staying up past my bedtime to read. The second and third stories were less generic, and the second book was my favorite out of the bunch.
Now I’ve just started Fallen Angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. I’m not far enough into it to speculate about whether I’ll enjoy it, and I’ve avoided reading the synopsis so I have no idea what it’s about. The first chapter held my interest, though.
My reviews:
Green Mars review
Fire in the Mist (Arhel, Book #1) review
Bones of the Past (Arhel, Book #2) review
Mind of the Magic (Arhel, Book #3) review
I finished
recently, which is something of a hybrid between fantasy and mystery. Also, just finished
, which is a fast-moving, sci-fi novel. In both cases, I loved the characters. The first is more plot driven, though, while the second is more character driven.
Currently reading Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. So many books to be read.
I just finished Thieves of the Vormonde. A fun read from a new author, mafia spin on traditional fantasy. My review is here:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Just finished Midnight Blue-Light Special
by Seanan McGuire. I really love these books and her writing. So much fun.
My latest round of reviews.First I finally tried out the audio of The Fellowship of the Ring. I didn't bother with much of a review, but put down some thoughts about what that book has meant to me. (My Review)
----
Next up was An Unwelcome Quest, which is another great entry in a really fun series, especially in audio. The audio is read by the ever excellent Luke Daniels!
If you haven't checked out the Magic 2.0 series yet, you should give it a look, especially if you enjoyed Ready Player One. (My Review)
----
Finally in honor of Mr. Pratchett's passing, I finally gave Discworld a second try with The Light Fantastic and enjoyed it a lot more than The Color of Magic. I jumped right into Equal Rites and will probably keep on with the series until I've caught up.
I may have to pace myself as I seem to be reading them quickly and there will sadly only be more released. (My Review)
I just finished The Gathering Storm. So good that I am going straight into the next volume. My review
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am just about to start Eragon by Christopher Paoloni.
Brook wrote: "I am just about to start Eragon by Christopher Paoloni."My Condolences.
Aaron wrote: "Brook wrote: "I am just about to start Eragon by Christopher Paoloni."My Condolences."
I thought the first Eragon book was alright. I could hardly get through the second though.
Alice wrote: "I thought the first Eragon book was alright. I could hardly get through the second though."
I liked the first Aragon book, was disappointed in the second and hoped the third would get back to the 1st but I couldn't finish it and stopped there.
You weren't missing anything Sharon the 4th book was the worst of them all.Alice wrote: "Aaron wrote: "Brook wrote: "I am just about to start Eragon by Christopher Paoloni."
My Condolences."
I thought the first Eragon book was alright. I could hardly get through the second though."
The second book was bipolar every part that had Eragon in it was terrible, everything with Roran was probably the best part of the series.
I read Green Angel by Alice Hoffman and The Boy Who Killed Demons by Dave Zeltserman. I recommend the first one!Now I'm reading Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler on Kindle and Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo.
Next up: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Ghost King (other topics)This Perfect Day (other topics)
Our Dried Voices (other topics)
The Rabbit Back Literature Society (other topics)
I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Chuck Wendig (other topics)Elizabeth Bonesteel (other topics)
Kevin Hearne (other topics)
Ilona Andrews (other topics)
Trudi Canavan (other topics)
More...
Konstantina, I'm looking forward to it as well! How is it? Did you read Never Let Me Go?