What else are you reading - April 2023

[Rob, Roberator]

It's April. Books!

[terpkristin]

Brandon Sanderson's "secret project number 2" dropped, so I've downloaded it and sent it to my Kindle (and will load to my phone in a little bit).

I'm reading the March S&L pick, Under Fortunate Stars, and am a little surprised by my enjoyment. I started it late, as I've been in a funk lately. I'm also reading (listening to) the latest David Rosenfelt book in the K-Team series, Good Dog, Bad Cop.

Once I finish the Rosenfelt book, I'll start the Sanderson book in audio. I love love love Kramer & Reading, the narrators. I may end up finishing it in print, since I read faster with my eyes than ears but we shall see.

[Stephen]

My only pre-order to come in April is Anna Smith Spark's A Woman of the Sword. Cool Cover to boot. Stone of Farewell book 2 in the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. Hope to get to Eleventh Cycle because of all the buzz and Aiduel's Sin.

[Misti]

Got my library hold on The Screaming Staircase. I love the series Lockwood & Co on Netflix. I didn’t realize it was based on a series of books. So, looking forward to seeing it fleshed out on the page.

[Chris K.]

I just started Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country.

[Silvana]

Reading Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and rereading Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan.

[Silvana]

Misti wrote: "Got my library hold on The Screaming Staircase. I love the series Lockwood & Co on Netflix. I didn’t realize it was based on a series of books. So, looking forward to seeing it fles..."

You will enjoy the series, it is so good!

[Calvey]

Just started Paladin's Hope to finish the series. I have enjoyed T. Kingfisher, so happy that Nettle & Bone introduced me to her.

[Mark]

Read Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka after watching the Netflix movie adaptation. Book and movie are pretty wild!

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

Just finished reading The Spare Man By Mary Robinette Kowal. I liked it fine - fun story, and all, though I did find it hard to suspend my disbelief to accepting that absolutely EVERYONE will fall about in adoration of… A WESTIE, of all the dog breeds. I’m mean, I’m sure there are some perfectly lovely westies, and I’m sure fans of the breed think they are just the bestest, but this surely isn’t universal???

Major spoiler for the end (view spoiler)[And then the bad guy turns out to be allergic to dogs, because of course! Allergy to dogs = must be evil…because we all clearly choose to get sick every time we are in close proximity to one of the only animals acceptable everywhere - eye-roll to much hated trope (hide spoiler)]

Gripes aside, a good read though.

[Jonathan]

Just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies. This is the second book in the series and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than the first actually. The first book had great intrigue but other than the deaths of some of the characters, not a lot of meaningful character development. I liked it but did not really love it. Also, excessive cursing in books tends to become a drag for me after a while. I felt like the amount of cursing in the first book was excessive. This book was better. Instead of focusing so much on the heists, it focused more on the characters and I enjoyed their development. Still plenty of fun an d humor, but more depth and emotion.

[Jonathan]

Currently readingKingdom of the Wicked

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

It is a solid space opera by the author of Children of Time

It was a 99c special on iBooks.

[Ruth]

Just finished Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, a very interesting book about how animals and plants are adapting to climate change.
I’m now starting the 2019 joint Booker Prize winner, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardino Evaristo.

[Ruth]

I’m also listening to the audiobook of Spy Hook by Len Deighton, and I’ve just started two new books on Kindle: Siege and Storms by Leigh Bardugo (sequel to Shadow and Bone) and Why We Kneel: How We Rise by cricket legend Michael Holding, a series of interviews with black sports people talking about racism and resistance.
So I’m doing a lot of reading on my holiday in sunny Spain (actually rainy these past few days) but I cannot figure out how to connect my tablet to the hotel Wi-Fi so I’m writing this on my phone and the Goodreads phone interface sucks Chupa-Chups so I can’t work out how to put links in my post or edit or anything so you just get my stream of consciousness sorry

[Mark]

Ruth wrote: "I’m also listening to the audiobook of Spy Hook by Len Deighton, and I’ve just started two new books on Kindle: Siege and Storms by Leigh Bardugo (sequel to Shadow and Bone) and Why We Kneel: How W..."

Hope you enjoy your vacation. Let us know what you think about Siege and Storm. I read Shadow and Bone along with the Crows duology, and I've been watching the Netflix series. The Crows are far more interesting to me than the hand-wavy Grisha. ;-P Maybe that's a tv thing.

[Seth]

Ruth wrote: " I cannot figure out how to connect my tablet to the hotel Wi-Fi "

On the off chance that you're having the same problem I always do, you can try to open your browser and type in 1.1.1.1 (or 192.168.1.1) and try to force the hotel's router to take you to the log-in page even if it doesn't want to do it automatically. Actually, I don't know why it would be the same in Spain as it is in the US, but it might be worth a try.

On a reading note, I started The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and am enjoying it so far. There's some getting the band back together for one last job stuff, and now a mysterious island so things are going well.

[Trike]

Ruth wrote: "I cannot figure out how to connect my tablet to the hotel Wi-Fi"

Pretty sure your boys already know how to do this. I think all kids are born with this knowledge these days.

[Trike]

Mark wrote: "Hope you enjoy your vacation. Let us know what you think about Siege and Storm. I read Shadow and Bone along with the Crows duology, and I've been watching the Netflix series. The Crows are far more interesting to me than the hand-wavy Grisha. ;-P Maybe that's a tv thing."

I was the same. Every time whatsername was onscreen I was thinking, “Just get back to Kaz and the Crows!”

No mourners, no funerals.

Season 1 Crows: https://youtu.be/-Z5f1clB6UI

Fan song: https://youtu.be/N6Z0jozgWJ4

[Joseph]

I've finally been getting around to The Priory of the Orange Tree.

[Ruth]

I’m back from my holiday and back on my home wifi! You know what they say, home is where the wifi connects automatically.

Well my trip back from Spain involved a 20-hour ferry ride across a stormy Bay of Biscay and I was too busy puking to do any reading (0/10 do not recommend) followed by a drive home from Plymouth that should have taken 5 hours but actually took over 10 (although at least I wasn’t puking and we stopped for a nice dinner so 3/10) so I don’t have any new books to report. Also my 5yo has developed an interest in history so we had some good listening en route (The Rest is History podcast if anyone is familiar with it).

However I will definitely concur with the opinions above that the Crows are way better characters than the insipid Alina and Mal. The Shadow and Bone tv show does a good job of bringing the story to life (Ben Barnes is great as The Darkling) but Siege and Storm is a little flat so far, hoping it improves. Leigh Bardugo has come on A LOT as a writer since she wrote these books imho.

[Tamahome]

Finished Frontier by Patrick Chiles. If you want something with a lot of details about orbital mechanics, this book is for you.

[Stu]

Just finished Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne and loved it. Now reading Stephen King’s The Stand for the first time. Only a hundred pages in so a long way to go

[Calvey]

Ruth wrote: "Just finished Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, a very interesting book about how animals and plants are adapting to climate change.
I’m now starting the 2019 joint Booker Prize winner, Girl, W..."

Thanks for the Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid mention - Sounds interesting (being IN FL and infested with feral iguanas).

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I started reading


The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov

which some folks consider Science-Fiction. We'll see.

[Bryan]

I'm finally making progress in The Quest for Cush. Enjoying it immensely~

[Pumpkinstew]

Its The Fall of Hyperion for me this month (and probably most of next month, April is always busy.)
ProTip - you can personalise your reading experience by Find/Replacing "Shrike" with "Trike".

[Trike]

I heard that.

[Pumpkinstew]

"...the lost tribe of colonists, resurrected by their own cruciforms so many times they had become idiots, mere vehicles for their own DNA and that of their parasites, had been priests also...priests of the Trike."

A huge improvement I'm sure we can all agree. ;)

[John (Taloni)]

And then there's the Metal band "QueensTrike" with hits like "Silent ThreeWheelIty."

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I started reading


Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Unfortunately, I think this is an "Amazeballs" book, the kind of book that people read and start their review with "AMAZEBALLS!!!" or some nonsense. I generally don't like Amazeballs books and I think people should probably just keep their Amazeballs in their Amazepants.

[terpkristin]

That is in my queue and I also own (but have not played) the board game. One day I’ll get there…

[Ruth]

Finished the audiobook of the Cold War thriller Spy Hook by Len Deighton, jumping straight into the sequel, Spy Line (yes, there is also Spy Sinker)

[Oaken]

Picked up A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders. Some light summer reading. In addition to being an author Saunders teaches creative writing. He has a, erm, I'm not sure what you would call it, an "active forum" on substack where he does some of the same type of lecture/coursework that he teaches at university but geared for a broader audience.

(and yes, it's somewhat SF&F related, no small number of his stories have fantastical elements to them but I would say they are more of a Gaiman/Marquez magical realism than adventure fantasy.)

[Colin]

I recently finished The Constant Rabbit, by Jasper Fforde. It ended up being a little less satisfying than most Fforde novels. A fun allegory stretched a little too thin? Rightfully mocking racist and xenophobic attitudes, but it got a bit too preachy, or maybe just went on 100 pages too long.

Was looking for something shorter to read to fill the gap before an anticipated new release, so I've started on One Day All This Will Be Yours, a novella by book-of-the-month author Adrian Tchaikovsky.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished the allegorical novella


The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I wouldn't really call it Sci-Fi though.

[Chris K.]

Just finished Garth Nix's The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. Loved it! 5 stars.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished the disappointing first installment in the Uplift Saga


Sundiver by David Brin
Rating: 2 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

[John (Taloni)]

Finished several books going back a few weeks, so...

Read The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant on account of Trike's recommendation. Pretty solid! About a four star read for me. It's an amusing riff on the afterlife for a shrinking violet. It's a bit too precious on the setups in spots and heavy on the wish fulfilment. Still a good read. Hell of a banger ending!

Start of the run tho was Rob Kroese's take on the Dan Brown style religious-historical thriller, Codex Babylon. This one's a time travel two-eras-interacting story set partly in the Second Crusade, involving the Knights Templar. Rob knocks it out of the park, but then, he usually does for me. I backed the trilogy kickstarter at a healthy rate and feel I am getting value for the $$$. Rob is a Christian and treats the material in the respectful manner that Brown doesn't. He's not afraid to poke at history tho, and shows violence both done to and by Crusaders.

Then there was the Jasper Fforde novel Lost in a Good Book. It continues the premise from Jane Eyre Affair, but in a much less tight fashion. Plenty of amusing gimmicks and a hella escalation for the ending, but that end was more like a sop to the otherwise slow pace of the novel. I found myself gritting my teeth against the pacing, and he doesn't even have the decency to resolve the main plotline in this book. In fact I'm a third of the way through the next one and he STILL isn't addressing it. Le sigh.

Also a Stephen Baxter, but that in a separate post.

[John (Taloni)]

Baxter. People (on Discord, I think) have talked about Baxter and the Xeelee books. So I decided to get one. It's the only one available from LA Library Overdrive and is billed as the 5th Xeelee book, but I've heard they can be read out of sequence. This is "Vacuum Diagrams" and is apparently some of Baxter's early stuff, much of which was published in semipro mags.

And you know, it's fairly good! Not as nihilistic (at least at first) as his other death-obsessed stuff. And this one even has hope for averting the dreadful end.

Buuut...this has got to be the most obvious rip of Niven I have ever seen. Didn't kill the book but wow was this obvious. First there's a take on helium-based life in the outer solar system, so Outsiders. Next life on Pluto, mimicking "Wait It Out." A riff on Niven's Ramjet-chase story - tho to be fair, a bit of a rip of Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero" in the same story. Beowulf Shaeffer's run to the galaxy's core in an experimental hyperdrive ("At the Core") mimicked by Baxter having someone go to the Great Attractor in, natch, an experimental hyperdrive. On and on it goes, and after a while I started wondering if I was seeing things. But nope, then there was a take on Niven's Integral Trees.

Anyhoo, still worth reading, but my god man the riffs are blatantly obvious.

[Gary]

I finished reading The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. It’s a science fiction horror novel about something changing people in the Maine town of Haven into something not human. I also finished reading The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson. It’s a humorous novel in the vein of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams mixed with a Jason Bourne-style thriller. I am reading The Human Division by John Scalzi. It is the fifth book in the Old Man’s War series. I plan to read Half a King by Joe Abercrombie next.