What Else Are You Reading in 2024? Showing 1,451-1,500 of 1,523

[Economondos]

Finished up a series with The Blood Books, Volume III by Tanya Huff

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The writing through all three volumes is consistently good. Ending with a vampire version of A Christmas Carol just topped it off nicely.

My review here

Now reading The Best of Frederik Pohl, the first story hit hard after the recent election.

[CJ]

There are things from Pohl's short stories that I read as a kid in the 1980s that still haunt me. I don't even remember what memories are from which story anymore. I really need to go back to reread his work.

[Brett]

Opening The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the [American] Civil War. Changed my mind about Avengers of the New World (Haitian revolution) for now - too many rabbit holes.

Southern Horrors, Ida B. Wells, was some grisly, uncomfortable reading, but what a woman!

[CJ]

Ida B. Wells is one of my most admired figures in US history. I have read several excerpts from Southern Horrors (it's been quoted and cited in a lot in other works by other people) but I haven't read the whole book.

I started Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams tonight. So far I'm pretty impressed, especially with the prose, even if a few of Williams' style choices haven't aged well. Stefan Rudnicki does the audiobook which isn't to my liking but I'm managing with it since it's included in my Audible membership until the end of the year. I was also going to start Hyperion tonight as well but I've had a long day, so that'll wait until the weekend.

[Brett]

Beginning Mothers of Massive Resistance, Elizabeth Gillespie McRae, about the role of white women in popular white supremacy. Kind of a follow up to Sisters In Hate.

I promise to start one on the group's topic one of these days.

[Sherene]

In the middle of Wind and Truth. hopefully will finish before 2025.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

Discuss your excitement about new releases here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Marc]

I finished Scalzi's Last Colony, a quick read, very enjoyable end to that story line (dunno if the next 3 books continue or go off on a tangent).

And also just finished Heinlein's JOB: Comedy of Justice. That one I was torn about. It would help if I were a Christian who knew who Job was. The protagonist was a hard core Christian who believed the world was only 6000 years or so old, which I know some Christians believe as well, neglecting science. It was set in a different history than the US, where one of the presidents was William Jennings Bryan (which in our history, he ran but lost).

The ending was better than I had feared reading through the book. It is a bit dated though.

Glad to now move on to a more modern author, reading Fonda Lee's 2nd book in her green bone saga series, Jade War. I read Jade City a couple of months ago...

[Colin]

Marc wrote: "I finished Scalzi's Last Colony, a quick read, very enjoyable end to that story line (dunno if the next 3 books continue or go off on a tangent).

And also just finished Heinlein's JOB: Comedy of J..."

If you liked The Last Colony, you might try Zoe's Tale, which is, essentially, the same story but told from Zoe's POV. It makes an interesting twist as opposed to the next book in a series going off in another direction.

[Economondos]

Getting over a touch of flu, which gave me time to finish up The Best of Frederik Pohl by Frederik Pohl, The stories were selected by Lester Del Rey, who knew a few things about SF.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A strong recommend for anyone wanting some good short stories from the Silver Age of Sci Fi (call it 1950 to 1970). Found these relevant to modern day issues in addition to being well-written.

My review here

Not sure what I am going to read next. Time for a stroll around the bookshelves and see what catches my eye.

[Bobby]

Working on The Obelisk Gate. I have mixed feelings about the two N. K. Jemisin books I have completed, but this one is keeping my attention. Hard to follow at times, but lots of creative detail. Thinking of reading Zoe's Tale having finished the previous Scalzi books in that grouping.

[Michelle]

Economondos wrote: "Getting over a touch of flu, which gave me time to finish up The Best of Frederik Pohl by Frederik Pohl, The stories were selected by Lester Del Rey, who knew a few things about SF.
My rating: 4 of..."

I'm glad you're feeling better! I also do walk-abouts for what strikes my fancy, but through my kindle :)

[Esther]

Colin wrote: "If you liked The Last Colony, you might try Zoe's Tale, which is, essentially, the same story but told from Zoe's POV. It makes an interesting twist as opposed to the next book in a series going off in another direction.."

I have read some reviews where people were angry, claiming it was a con because it is the same story but I found it fascinating that he showed how different a story can seem from a different POV and even though I knew the story at times there was a strong sense of suspense.

[Jabotikaba]

The Hanging City.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

@ Jabotikaba,
How did you like Hanging City? I felt it was a bit different from the author's other writing.

[Lauksme]

Oathbringer working on it.
Really hope I'll finish it by the end of the year

[Jonathan]

Orikamane wrote: "Oathbringer working on it.
Really hope I'll finish it by the end of the year"

Me too! I am re-reading to get ready for Wind and Truth. I purchased it when it came out, but t has been a little while since I read the last couple of Stormlight books.

[Economondos]

Needed a book to take my mind off reality for a while. Rereading Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. It's a Christmas book after all.

[Olga]

Economondos wrote: "Needed a book to take my mind off reality for a while. Rereading Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. It's a Christmas book after all."

Same here :)

[CBRetriever]

Economondos wrote: "Needed a book to take my mind off reality for a while. Rereading Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. It's a Christmas book after all."

try God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlepig by Tad Williams - it's set in his Bobby Dollar series and is pretty funny even though it stars a werepig

[Julia]

Just started The Midnight Lock

[Sheska]

CJ wrote: "I was also going to start Hyperion tonight as well but I've had a long day, so that'll wait until the weekend."

Just curious if you've started this one? I love Hyperion and am always keen to find out what people think of it.

***

I finally started Jonathan Maberry's Cave 13. As a bit of a Joe Ledger junky, I'm amazed it took me a year to get to this one. So far so good.

[CJ]

Sheska wrote: "Just curious if you've started this one? I love Hyperion and am always keen to find out what people think of it.
"

Ha ha...well, I'm hating it. No joke. I'm a Gen Xer who read a lot of SF in the 1980s-1990s so I know the vibe and all, but it's not holding up to the hype for me. I had to take a break from it and read some other books today before I put myself into a reading slump.

That said, today I read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin and wow, both 5 star reads for me. Two very different, masterfully written novels, two brilliant writers with very different strengths. These are the kinds of books that as soon as I finished I wanted to reread them. My reviews for each: Solaris and The Stepford Wives

[Sheska]

CJ wrote: "Ha ha...well, I'm hating it. No joke. I'm a Gen Xer who read a lot of SF in the 1980s-1990s so I know the vibe and all, but it's not holding up to the hype for me."

I wonder how different my experience of it would've been had it not been my first sci fi novel as an adult. I think having read a lot of adventure novels as a kid, books like Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, Burroughs’ The Land that Time Forgot, and especially Wells’ The Country of the Blind, the Priest's Tale was a shot of pure nostalgia and pulled on all the right strings. Hopefully, you'll find at least one of the tales to your taste.

[Marko]

Just finished Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Never read King before, and this was really good!
I have a bunch of his books at home, they're mostly my girlfriend's, so I'll definitely read more of those next year.

[Brett]

Diving into Ernie Pyle's, Here Is Your War, and David W. Blight's biography of Frederick Douglass.

[CBRetriever]

Marko wrote: "Just finished Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Never read King before, and this was really good!
I have a bunch of his books at home, they're mostly my girlfriend's, so I'll definitely..."

The Ramones did a good song for the movie of that book

I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary
I don't want to live my life again
I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary
I don't want to live my life again

[Jabotikaba]

Melanie wrote: "@ Jabotikaba,
How did you like Hanging City? I felt it was a bit different from the author's other writing."

This is obviously a very well written book. The plot is perhaps a little predictable, but that's typical of many books, so it's hard to see it as a real flaw.
Unfortunately, I haven't read any other books by this author, so I have nothing to compare it with.

[Richard]

Two NetGalley gets, one successful and one deeply disappointing:
Exordia by Seth Dickinson got 4.5* here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Wages of Sin by Harry Turtledovegot a generous 2* here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Colin]

Finished Alliance Unbound by CJ Cherryh and Jane Fancher, an excellent book! This is part of Cherryh's Company/Alliance/Union universe and takes place near the beginning of that history, prior to the start of the Company Wars. It is the immediate sequel to Alliance Rising and occurs about a generation before (by my estimate) the events in Cyteen. (note for those who are finicky: the way the history of this period is given in this book does not match, at a detail level, the way I read it in older books of the series, the preface to my 1988 copy of Cyteen for example, but the book is internally consistent.) The story in the book is about a merchanter crew working to put the Alliance together while uncovering and blocking the nefarious plots of the Earth Company. The merchanter society, its culture, economics, and politics, is richly detailed and immersive. It reminds me of Poul Anderson's Kith and the Sisu from Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, but the details here are much greater. This is a book for hard SF enthusiasts. Yes, there is FTL, but the design of it is ingenious and fun, with clear call-outs to general relativity and Aclubierre. (I managed to use "fun" and "general relativity" in the same sentence.) The "physics" of this FTL, and its limitations, have a significant impact on the story. This book has a strong recommendation from me for folks who like hard sf and space adventure. Now, I have to wait for the next one.

[Richard]

Indigiqueer fantasy novels don't get much more fun to read than Cherie Dimaline's VenCo , says my 4* review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Richard]

Question for the group. I am reading The Watchmaker's Daughter which is very different from my usual oeuvre. Is it considered a young adult novel?

[Economondos]

Just finished up Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has one of my favorite quotes: Then take this universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.

This book is a holiday classic for me and I read in most Decembers.

My 101st review:
My review here

[Gary]

I finished reading Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb. It is a fitting conclusion to the Farseer Trilogy. I also finished reading All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. I am reading Wind and Truth (Book #5 of the Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson and The Gathering Storm (Book # 12 of the Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. I plan to read The Return of the Black Company by Glen Cook next. I’m happy to hear that a new series of Black Company books named A Pitiless Rain will be published soon.

[CJ]

Colin wrote: "Finished Alliance Unbound by CJ Cherryh and Jane Fancher, an excellent book! This is part of Cherryh's Company/Alliance/Union universe and takes place near the beginning of that his..."


Glad to hear that. I had checked out a hardback copy of that novel from the library and started reading it, was really liking it, but for reasons had put it aside and forgot about it until it was due back. Have been meaning to get my own copy. I have been wondering why SFF fans don't seen to talk about Cherryh but have noticed a big uptick in interest in her works in the past few months, both here on GR and on Booktube. Not sure what's driving that, but glad to hear of someone enjoying this novel.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

Richard wrote: "Question for the group. I am reading The Watchmaker's Daughter which is very different from my usual oeuvre. Is it considered a young adult novel?"

Which watchmaker's Daughter. There are several books with that title. Generally the goodreads tag will tell you what genres a book is classifies as.

[Sheska]

CJ wrote: "I have been wondering why SFF fans don't seen to talk about Cherryh but have noticed a big uptick in interest in her works in the past few months"

This is just a speculation but I'd like to think it's because of the The Expanse and Cherryh's influence on the authors and the whole Belter culture. I've seen her works being mentioned a lot more often among the fans. I myself only learned of her through the Ty & That Guy podcast but am yet to read any of her books.

[Rachel]

I read all of her books in my twenties two decades ago so don’t mention them as much now I guess?

[CBRetriever]

I'm still rereading some of them and finding ones I missed in the past to read

also, she wrote both Fantasy & SciFi so if someone ran across her books in one genre and didn't like it, they'd not realize this so skip her work in the other genre. I like her works in both genres

[Marc]

Just finished Fonda Lee's Jade War. It was a great book! need to finish up with the 3rd and final book in the series, so that's what I'm reading!

[Marc]

Colin wrote: "If you liked The Last Colony, you might try Zoe's Tale, which is, essentially, the same story but told from Zoe's POV. It makes an interesting twist as opposed to the next book in a series going off in another direction..."

I will need to buy the next 3 books in that universe, which I will do, but next year!

[Hector]

Sheska wrote: "CJ wrote: "I have been wondering why SFF fans don't seen to talk about Cherryh but have noticed a big uptick in interest in her works in the past few months"

This is just a speculation but I'd li..."

Expanse was a great read for me, and I like the idea of digging into the influences. Any particular Cherryh book you would recommend as a starter?

Sheska wrote: Just curious if you've started this one? I love Hyperion and am always keen to find out what people think of it.

I also really enjoyed Hyperion. It definitely feels like a collection of fantastic short stories woven into each other with some larger piece of intrigue. Actually, I don't really remember the overarching story much, but everyone's personal backstory was very enjoyable.

[Julia]

Currently listening to Soul Music

[[deleted user]]

Currently listening to The Reformatory

[Alexandra]

Currently reading Odin's Child for my book club. The setting is inspired by Norse mythology, and it's great. Unfortunately, the characters are generic YA people, things just keep happening and I am losing interest. Equally unfortunately, the book is a door stopper of more than 600 pages. I'll dilute it with better books, but it's annoying all the same... ;)

[Richard]

Alexandra wrote: "Currently reading Odin's Child for my book club. The setting is inspired by Norse mythology, and it's great. Unfortunately, the characters are generic YA people, things just keep ha..."

I love Norse mythology too, but yeah that's a shame the characters are rather generic. I quite liked Neil Gaymain's Norse Mythology if you are looking for something more myth focused.

[Richard]

I just finished The Familiar, went in unknowingly thinking it was a regular fantasy and the familiar would be some kind of dragon or something, turned out to be a steamy romantasy. I still liked it though. Soon gonna read A darker shade of magic from Schwab, my family gave me a copy of it twice for Christmas, so seems like it is a must-read.

[Economondos]

Read Battle Luna by several authors including Travis S. Taylor over the past few days.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three interesting stories and four mediocre ones.

Working link to my review:
My review here

[Kaia]

I just finished Karen Lord's The Best of All Possible Worlds, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's a very quiet story with great characters and relationship-building, which I was in the mood for.

I'm currently trying to read The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, but I keep having to set it aside because I get too worried for the characters. The strength of the writing keeps bringing me back, but I'm not much of a horror reader anymore, so I have to pace myself.

I also just started a nonfiction book yesterday - The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan, which is very interesting so far.

[Alexandra]

Richard wrote: "I love Norse mythology too, but yeah that's a shame the characters are rather generic. I quite liked Neil Gaymain's Norse Mythology if you are looking for something more myth focused.

I really liked Neil Gaiman's take on Norse Mythology as well! I listened to an audio book narrated by the author, it was lovely.