What have you been reading this August?

[Michelle]

Ahmed, I'm in the middle of a 22 book marathon! Actually, I'm rereading them. I finished #8 yesterday. Marathons are fun, aren't they? I should be starting #9 later tonight after I finish a military sci-fi I'm reading.

[Jim]

I turned autocorrect off on my phone almost immediately. Too frustrating. I don't text or do much on my phone, though. When I do need to type much, I either get one of my kids to do it or I hook up a keyboard. Texts can go unread for days, though.

Robin, that book seems pretty neat, the best of both forms of media.

The reason I like "Thorn" so much is Vlad spends a lot of time in flashbacks to his breathing days where he meets Leonardo Di Vinci among others. There is one irritating mistake where Vlad rode a "stallion" while his lady rode a "palfrey". It’s an attempt to differentiate the horses, but 'stallion' is a sexual characteristic while 'palfrey' is a type of horse so there is no comparison since either could be both. It’s like saying the man drove a pickup while the lady drove a Ford. If he rode a stallion, she could have ridden a mare or gelding. Or her palfrey should be compared to his courser, rouncey, or some other type of horse in the Middle Ages. Oh well.

[Robin]

Hi Jim, that book exists. I own it but can't remember where I put it... It will turn up some day when I am not looking for it. It is called, "The Penguin Book of Vampires" and it starts with Byron and Polidori, then works its way forward. I remember there was Chetwyn Hayes, Fritz Leiber, Harlan Ellison and many others. If I could remember what I did with it I would re-read it. LOL ☺

[Andrea]

I've read a lot of vampire books but while I've not read Saberhagen yet I do own most of the books. Will get to it someday...not this year for sure though.

I've read the entirety of Rice's Vampire Chronicles. The first two are the best, but for whatever reason, even if the plots and characters got downright ridiculous, I still loved reading the rest of the series. But it doesn't hold true to her other books. I liked Cry to Heaven but hated the witch series (with Lasher/Taltos/etc), the incest and weird monster babies were just too gross (to be fair they are horror so I guess they succeeded in creeping me out) and Servant of the Bones just didn't draw me in.

Of course Dracula, though in fact it wasn't the first, it was actually Smith's Vampire Diaries. They ruined it with the TV series but I really loved the books. Dracula I actually read aloud with my cousin whenever we'd get together, since she had a computer game and we kept dying (and undying) so we thought if we knew the story better we'd survive (nope!)

I've read Le Fanu's Carmilla.

Read Rymers Varney the Vampire...oh man that was LOOOOONG, but I got through the whole thing just for the sake of claiming I read this crazy thing. As a Penny Dreadful he just kept putting out chapter after chapter week after week, totally inconsistent with itself, clearly dragging thing out in the most painful ways. But was a pretty epic feeling of accomplishment when I did finally finish it :D And be careful, it's often packaged in two halves, you're not done if you only get through the first half!

Read Polidori's The Vampyre, and as part of that contest I read Shelley's Frankenstein but I don't remember what Percy/Byron wrote, don't think I've read those...while I've not read the vampiric poem Byron wrote, I read a book that made Byron the vampire :)

And then a mix of all kinds of authors from Rice onwards, children, ya, adults, horror, comedy, SF, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, manga, you name it. Got 125 books on my vampire shelf

[Robin]

Andrea wrote: "I've read a lot of vampire books but while I've not read Saberhagen yet I do own most of the books. Will get to it someday...not this year for sure though.

I've read the entirety of Rice's Vampire..."

Hi Andrea... you just stirred up a distant memory for me. I am almost certain that I read that book where Byron was a vampire. I can remember very little about it... was it mostly set in Greece? There was a special Greek name for vampires, something to do with their skins getting taut and drum-like... Oh, that will plague me now as I try to remember more about it. I think I enjoyed it... at least I don't remember hating it. I also don't remember what it was called, who it was by or indeed where I might have put it if I still have it. Probably with the missing "Penguin Book of Vampire Stories," LOL :-) What was it called? Aaaargh! :-)

[Robin]

All this talk of Vampires has made me look out my one and indeed only John Carpenter CD (yes I still use them) which is now playing...☺

[Jim]

you're certainly more into vampires than I am Andrea. You made it through Varney! Wow.

I guess the last vampire series I read was Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. It was fun at first & my daughter really liked it. I barely remember the last few books, though. We also watched the TV series that grew out of it, True Blood. It went downhill toward the end & we didn't watch much of the last season, IIRC. My wife really liked the guy who played Eric, but even he couldn't save the show.

[Mary]

Captain America: Winter Soldier - The Complete Collection by Ed Brubaker

[Andrea]

There are probably a bunch of books with Byron as a vampire since the two kind of go together, but the one I read was Lord of the Dead by Tom Holland. It was also in Greece though since Byron really went there to write his Giaour it might be a common setting.

Read the Sookie Stackhouse series too :) But while it started sorta light, it got really dark at the end, I think starting from the Hurricane Katrina one I didn't enjoy them as much. I guess its hard to keep a certain feel throughout an entire series while at the same time trying to keep events evolving. Don't recall how far I got through the TV show.

As for my current readings, I finished the Antares sequence of the Aldebaran graphic novel series and started Survivants. I also started reading Descender Tin Stars by Jeff Lemire, discovered the author is Canadian, cool. The art is interesting since it's all watercolour.

[Robin]

Hi Andrea, I think it may be the same book... But it had a different name. It was called "The Vampyre a secret history of Lord Byron... " Same author... I remember that it was a sort of 'Life of Byron,' but written from the premise that he became a Vampire while travelling in Greece and subsequently faked his own death as a cover story. I remember more about it now and I do believe I enjoyed it.

I have to confess to never having read any Charlaine Harris. I did not really care for the 'True Blood' TV show and ditched it after season one. I did however, really enjoy Midnight Texas and was sorry when it got cancelled.☺

[Tony]

Robin wrote: "I remember that it was a sort of 'Life of Byron,' but written from the premise that he became a Vampire while travelling in Greece and subsequently faked his own death as a cover story."

He's not a vampire, he's just a very naughty boy 😆

[Andrea]

Finished reading Hunters of Dune (basically Dune #7). If I didn't know they were working off of Frank's notes, I would have eye-rolled a bit (view spoiler)[One word - Ghola. Think what you could do if you could recreate anyone from a bit of genetic material, I believe you can guess the rest...however I found that the most amusing part too (hide spoiler)]. But I enjoyed it, because after reading Legends of Dune, the reader is back on familiar ground, characters you know from before, a plot that had been left dangling now continued, mysteries explained, etc.

Also finished The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa. This was an impromptu grab from the library, they had it on display in the new arrivals and every week I'd see it there till finally I just took it, I mean it's about books, and cats...how could I resist? A little heavy handed in the morals about what constitutes a "good" books (honestly just because something is old or someone decided a book was "literature" doesn't always make it "good") but I enjoyed the way the tale was told, and of course...cat and books.

[Tony]

I have finished Fatal Revenant. It took me a little over a month to read, partly because it's not an easy read, mostly because work is cutting into my reading time a lot at the moment. On the plus side, it contains a lot of history of the Land, which I enjoyed. On the negative side, it's far too long - nearly 900 pages (I think it could have been 500), Donaldson has returned to his desire to make every reader have a thesaurus as a companion, and the main character remains intensely unlikeable. I think I will leave book 3 of this series until next year.

[Robin]

Tony, I was sure somebody would pick up on 'Life ofByron ' I was just waiting to see who and you didn't disappoint me... I mean, what have vampires ever done for us? Apart from endless entertainment, books, TV, films, musicals, plays and embedding themselves into our cultural consciousness... What have vampires ever done for us?

[Jim]

Andrea wrote: "Finished reading Hunters of Dune (basically Dune #7). If I didn't know they were working off of Frank's notes, I would have eye-rolled a bit [spoilers removed]. But I enjoyed it, because after read..."

Wasn't (view spoiler)[ Duncan a Ghola in the 2d book? (hide spoiler)]

[Andrea]

Jim wrote: "Wasn't..."

Duncan (view spoiler)[is the only character that shows up in EVERY book and is pretty much promoted to lead character in Chapterhouse Dune (hide spoiler)]

I see you've only read the first 3 books I think? But gholas get expanded on further in later books, they play a big role in the Tleilaxu society, and not just as a means by which to make money by selling clones to the highest bidder.

[SA]

Completed:
text:

Audible:

==========================================
Authors:
Sarah Gailey, Guy Gavriel Kay
Narrators:

[Mary]

Call of the Crow by Jessica Khoury

[Tony]

I have started reading The Clone Wars, which is the novel of The Clone Wars animated movie, set just before The Clone Wars animated series.

[Kivrin]

On my son's recommendation, I read Aurora Rising. It's very YA (lots of FEEELINGS), but I do love Kristoff's snark, and it was a pretty good space adventure. Already started the sequel.

[Mary]

Cloak of Spears by Jonathan Moeller

[Andrea]

Finished Shadow of the Giant, felt I enjoyed this Shadow book the most after Ender's Shadow, the two in between somehow just didn't have the same impact as all the Ender books did. Looks like next up is back to Ender? Will see next month.

Talking of months, how is there only a week left!!! Well I knew I had an ambitious plan at the start that I probably wouldn't manage...

I'm reading The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter next. I read his official sequel to War of the World, which was ok but not amazing, but since the Time Machine itself didn't really impress me, maybe this much longer sequel (at least 4x) will make it feel more real. In the original the science was lacking since we only had the main character trying to guess what happened, but now there's more time to maybe fill in the bits that lead from A to B.

After that I still have another Dune book which might fit, but I'll have to push out the next Asimov Robot book and another book (Cinder) that I wanted to read for my BINGO (that series fills two slots...but if I don't start soon I won't have time to finish it!)

I've also got quite the pile of graphic novels, the library is surprisingly well stocked, especially if I delve into the French ones since France has such a big comic book/graphic novel industry itself. I'm on the last book in the Descender series The Machine War (although this one is happens to be English). The watercolour art is really nice, though the plot is a bit like Dune's Butlerian Jihad reversed :o)

[Andrea]

After finishing Descender I picked up All You Need Is Kill, I didn't think too much of it when I found it at the library, I'm pretty much grabbing any SF I see. But when I flipped it open I was like, wait a minute, it says "the basis of the movie Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise"

By complete and utter randomness of life, I just watched that movie a couple days ago!!!

To be honest, the endings of both left me confused and I needed wikipedia to explain if they won or not, I had to look it up for both since they had different endings :0)

Starting now on the 6 part graphic novel version of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1

[Audrey]

I've been doing a MG reading challenge this month: a few ghost stories by Betty Ren Wright; Misadventures of Edgar and Allan Poe (delightful); Embers of Destruction (steampunk/post-apocalyptic) and some others.

[Faith]

My review of A Radical Act of Free Magic by H.G. Parry

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Tony]

I have finished The Clone Wars. which is the novelization of the animated Clone Wars movie. An enjoyable read, and it fills the clone slot in my Bingo.

I will start Cobalt Blue, Matthew Reilly's new book. This will fill the 2022 slot in my Bingo.

[Robin]

These may be the last days of August 2022 for you but for me, it is May/June 2018 and I am reading The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. ☺

[NekroRider]

I've read a few different things since last I posted, but right now I've picked up Words of Radiance again after a long hiatus. I originally started reading it during the spring, but after a particular event and then being tossed into another interlude I got a bit annoyed with it and decided to take a break from it. So now 4-5 months later, I'm back with it and enjoying it more now. I have to say, so far I still prefer Mistborn as a series. But we'll see as Stormlight goes on.

[Audrey]

I really, really enjoyed Words of Radiance.

[Tony]

I finished Cobalt Blue. It was a quick, fun superhero story - darker than an MCU story, but not as dark as The Boys. It fills the published in 2022 slot in my Bingo.

Staying on the superhero track, I have started Miles Morales: Spider-Man, which will fill the YA slot in my Bingo.

[Tony]

To finish August, I have finished Miles Morales: Spider-Man. It's a well-written story with a strong message, and Jason Reynolds is clearly a talented author. What it's not, however, is a superhero story.

[Andrea]

Last day of the month.

Didn't finish The Time Ships just yet but I will this evening. It had a lot more depth to it than the original The Time Machine which this book is a sequel of, and of course more modern knowledge around the science of time and space. Though there were definitely moments of the truly bizarre, which was quite in keeping with the original. After all, if you're trying to predict what humans would look like a million years from now, one author's guess is as good as another! Baxter did a good job of keeping his main character's personality (and lack of a name!) consistent with Wells' version, after all the nameless time traveler was actually kind of annoying and arrogant and racist, but it helped make this book feel like a proper sequel.

I'll be starting Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert next, though of course I'm not going to finish in half an evening, so that means I'll be reading 3 Dune books in September just to keep on track for end of year :)

[Audrey]

Magyk -- very good.