What else are you reading - May 2023

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Joseph wrote: "...on a whim, started Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn..."

There is a persistent rumor that Dave Filoni's planned Star Wars movie is going to be titled "Heir to the Empire"...

[Trike]

Finished Thrawn. Book 👎🏻. Narration 👍🏻.

[Joseph]

Pumpkinstew wrote: "Reading Dark Force Rising at age 13 (and installing X-Wing) are a big part of what turned me into a Star Wars fan. I hope you enjoy them."

Yeah, I've honestly been having a better time than I expected to. I know I read Heir to the Empire back when it first came out, but for whatever reason it didn't grab me at the time and I'm honestly not sure if I had ever continued on from there. But now I've finished Dark Force Rising and am midway through The Last Command and have been enjoying them.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished another short novel, this one an update of - or response to - The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft:


The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Although The Horror at Red Hook is not one of Lovecraft's best stories, and it is brewing over with hateful xenophobia and racism, I would still recommend reading it first in order to fully appreciate La Valle's story.

[Pumpkinstew]

OK Ruth and Zeke you convinced me. I'm 70 pages in.

[Ruth]

Pumpkinstew wrote: "OK Ruth and Zeke you convinced me. I'm 70 pages in."

Woohoo! Enjoy 🕷️

[Trike]

Reading Leech, and this is body horror all the way down. This will absolutely squick out the more sensitive.

[Ruth]

Finished I Kissed Shara Wheeler which was super cute. Now I’m diving into Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, a retelling of David Copperfield set in the modern day in Appalachia.

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

Ruth wrote: "Pumpkinstew wrote: “I was planning to read Children of Time next but I might be a bit late in the month now”

Nonsense! We’re barely halfway through May. Plenty of time to catch up. Plus CoT is a b..."

Agreed! I couldn’t start reading Children of Time as soon as I wanted to, because I had a hold come through from the library for The Deluge, which I’d already failed at getting through the first time it came around. The Deluge is a chunk of the book, often reads like a text book, and the story is very dark and complex and devastating. After I slogged my way through it (worth it, I think, but it was tough) I couldn’t bring myself to read anything at all for a couple of days. Then I got started on Children of Time, and I’m already 75% of the way through. It’s definitely a much lighter read, and very enjoyable so far.

[Zeke]

Pumpkinstew wrote: "OK Ruth and Zeke you convinced me. I'm 70 pages in."

Awesome.

[Jonathan]

Reading Skin Game. Jim Butcher finally announced that he has finished the 2nd book in the Cinder Spires series! It is coming out in November!

[Chris K.]

I finished the latest TJ Klune In the Lives of Puppets. It was pretty good. Not as strong as The House in the Cerulean Sea or Under the Whispering Door.

I also finished In Every Generation. A Buffy the Vampire novel. Much better than I was expecting. I think the author captured the vibe of the show well. I will read the sequel.

Now I'm reading Knaves Over Queens: A Wild Cards novel.

Yesterday I started listening to The Fellowship of the Ring narrated by Andy Serkis. I am almost 2 hrs in and he is doing an excellent job.

[Tamahome]

Jonathan wrote: "Reading Skin Game. Jim Butcher finally announced that he has finished the 2nd book in the series! It is coming out in November!"

Doesn't Dresden Files have like 17 books?

[Joseph]

I think he just finished the second Cinder Spires book (sequel to The Aeronaut's Windlass).

[Trike]

Chris K. wrote: "A Buffy the Vampire novel."

Uh-oh, she switched teams! We’re hosed, Davy!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished


The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading more Sword and Sorcery tales by the creator of Conan the Barbarian


Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard

[Chris K.]

Trike wrote: "Chris K. wrote: "A Buffy the Vampire novel."

Uh-oh, she switched teams! We’re hosed, Davy!"

LOL!

Should be A Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, of course.

[Jonathan]

Tamahome wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Reading Skin Game. Jim Butcher finally announced that he has finished the 2nd book in the series! It is coming out in November!"

Doesn't Dresden Files have like 17..."

Yes. I accidentally forgot to put the name of the Cinder Spires series in the post. Went back and added it.

[Trike]

Finished the Sci-Fi Gothic Horror Leech. It wasn’t for me but YMMV.

Hoopla is having another Bonus Reads month where the books you borrow don’t count against your monthly total, so I grabbed a bunch of Space Opera books.

https://ibb.co/LSjW1vZ

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I gave up on the Young-Adult borefest


Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Rating: 1 star (did not finish)
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

so I could finally start reading the "original" Star Wars "Legends" trilogy


Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

[Ruth]

Thinking I might Lem The Doomsday Book. There are some things about it I’m enjoying- like the academics at Balliol bickering over history and time travel, which strongly reminds me of my own time at university (studying history at Balliol, but no time travel). But the audiobook narrator isn’t really doing it for me and the pace is sooo sloow. Plus the scene I was just listening to had a bunch of dialogue in Middle English and the problem with audiobooks is you can’t just skim over stuff like that. Also I know the ending from listening to the podcast and reading the threads back when it was a sword and laser pick.

[John (Taloni)]

^ Yeah, the whole Oxford sequence left me cold. Oh hah, bureaucracy! And people can't cope! Described in excruciating detail! I hung on because, well, I like big books (and I cannot lie) even when they do go on and on. But it gets substantially more depressing from the depressing part you're in by the end.

On average I'll push through a book I'm not feeling just because I picked it, started the story and want to see the end, but dropping this one makes sense given your response. Lem and read no more...

[Ruth]

I have officially put The Doomsday Book on the Lem pile.
I’m waiting for the new book from Ann Leckie, Translation State, which comes out next month. in the meantime I have started listening to the audiobook of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, a classic novella of life in nineteenth century England.

[Gary]

I finished reading The Human Division by John Scalzi. It is the fifth book in the Old Man’s War series. I also read Half a King by Joe Abercrombie. It’s a novel set in a new world named the Shattered Sea. Not quite YA, maybe Grimdark Lite would be the best way to describe it. I am reading Brothers in Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold. Another novel in the Vorkosigan saga featuring Miles Vorkosigan. I am also reading Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. The third novel in the Mars trilogy. I plan to read The Dark Half by Stephen King next. This is part of my continuing effort to read all the King books I haven’t read yet.

[Silvana]

50% into Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and it is a riveting read so far. Not SFF, but more like commentary on the publishing industry and the discourse over who have the right to tell the others' stories.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Ruth wrote: "...in the meantime I have started listening to the audiobook of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, a classic novella of life in nineteenth century England."

The TV show with Judy Dench is not to be missed.

[John]

Silvana wrote: "50% into Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and it is a riveting read so far. Not SFF, but more like commentary on the publishing industry and the discourse over who have th..."

I read a short Guardian interview with RF Kuang this evening where she discusses this very thing

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

[John (Taloni)]

Read "Frontier"by Patrick Chiles which is pitched as a near-future space adventure with realistic ships and orbital mechanics. It largely succeeds. Decent framing of the underlying adventure with geopolitics easily extended from the present day. Ships move like actual chemical (or other, heh heh heh) ones would. Intrigue set among the satellites providing everything from internet to GPS to black-ops info.

Parts of the book are weirdly off, tho. The author seems to be trying to be the Tom Clancy of space. And in getting 95% of the way there, the other 5% is puzzling. I find myself wondering if he really got it right and my take is wrong, but can't get that far.

So, for example, the astronauts routinely refer to "geosynch" when they mean geostationary. Geosynchronous means the satellite is over the same part of the Earth every day, but not the same part all the time. Geostationary is ~25K miles out. The correct term finally gets used 2/3 of the way through the book, but the thread is left dangling.

Then there's a plot point where a couple is doing the mission Dennis Tito suggested: A Mars flyby. Except they're stopping at a near-Earth asteroid on the way. Er. No, I don't have the math to do the calculations, but this seems just wrong. If you have tight constraints due to using chemical fuel, how exactly would you slow down to reach the asteroid? Or is it in some magical orbit, and is also magically full of useful ores? I can't buy this one.

Also, there's a mafioso who is from New Jersey. East Orange, to be specific. Well, my grandmother lived in East Orange and it went from Italian to black in the 70s. The mafioso has an Eastern European last name and I'm left wondering what backstory exactly did the author have in mind. It's as if he took a trip through New Jersey in the 70s and hasn't been back since, and has expected that the place hasn't changed.

It's a little bit uncanny-valley, or maybe movie-hackers making declarative, wrong statements.

Anyhoo, I critique because it's otherwise solid. Realistic characters (mostly!) and motivation, good resolution. Doesn't shy away from the dangers of space travel even while presenting the dream. I'll read the other works by this author.

[Trike]

John (Taloni) wrote: "Read "Frontier"by Patrick Chiles which is pitched as a near-future space adventure with realistic ships and orbital mechanics. It largely succeeds. Decent framing of the underlying adventure with g..."

That sounds bad. Still better than Fourth Wing.

[Tamahome]

I liked Frontier, also Perigee and Farside. Frozen Orbit is different, more low key. You have to really like philosophical discussions on a spaceship and reading russian astronaut diaries. A lot of book covers look like they're about spaceships (*cough* Children of Time), but these are the real deal.

[John (Taloni)]

Next up was Lords of Uncreation. This was just one smash hit after another. A slow peel of the onion layers of Unspace and the essential tragedy of the Architects. Solid conclusion with a number of twists.

Yep, it's long, and every character gets to tell their viewpoint of the action. Could be considered self indulgent, but this is the way Tchaikovsky wants to tell the story and I'm glad to go along for the ride.

At times the scale seems off, as human-known space is one part of a single galaxy, and there's something like 200 billion galaxies. Seems like the struggle against the Lords of Unspace would be happening all the time. Welp, it's no sillier than Earth being suspiciously central in comics, with the "Sorcerer Supreme" in residence here, and a stack of Green Lanterns and so forth.

I kinda felt like we were promised (view spoiler)[ a romance between Solace and Idris. Apparently they had a fizzling one, which is dismissed in a paragraph. (hide spoiler)]But in the end, their relationship was much more intimate than romance.

And as for the coda's coda, it feels (view spoiler)[ very Quantum Leap. Like Sam, Idris never returned from his final leap. (hide spoiler)]

[Joseph]

Let's see ... recently finished Dan Abnett's Triumff and Amanda Downum's The Poison Court, and am now rereading Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars for about the hundredth time.

[Silvana]

Will be reading The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan in a few days

John wrote: "Silvana wrote: "50% into Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and it is a riveting read so far. Not SFF, but more like commentary on the publishing industry and the discourse ..."

thanks for sharing!