Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion
What We've Been Reading
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What have you been reading this March?
Done with The Crimson Legion, bk 2 of the Prism Pentad! Oh Rikus you poor grotesquely possessed dupe, you never really had a chance but at least a lot of people died?My ☀️☀️☀️☀️ review.
I might start The Amber Enchantress as soon as next week as I'll be on blessed vacation!
Finished Undaunted. I think this was my favorite one so far.Back to Burton & Swinborne with Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon by Mark Hodder
I discovered the first book in the series was a group read here some years back before I joined.
*edit*
I also stumbled upon the fact that that first book in the series won the Philip K. Dick award for 2010. That means I can move that book to the Award Winner BINGO slot since I think one of the other books can cover the Time Travel one (I'll wait till I'm sure). Since it also covers Alt History and Steampunk, this 6 book series is filling 4 slots. I could in theory also cover new to me author but as I'm already using the first four books, the author isn't new by the fifth one anymore.
I just finished
Exordia
by Seth Dickinson, which was longer than I've read in a while and took me a surprisingly long time, but was a really interesting piece of epic SF. Definitely recommend.
Just listened to Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror
. So well done! And perfect for the Title Has Color Bingo slot! I love Dr Who!
I'm reading the 12th book of The Wheel of Time. Only 2 more left don't know what i'm going to read when I've finished them.
I'm reading Camp Zero
by Michelle Min Sterling. It's about the near future when climate change has literally ruined the planet.
Finished The Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon, very weird books but the time travel aspect was done wonderfully. I'm guessing it was originally a trilogy on which another three books were added since I have no idea where they can go from here. I'll find out soon enough.As usual, flipping back to the Kris Longknife series with Redoubtable
Book 5 of Crown of Stars: The Gathering Storm
So far this month I've finished The Sailor on the Seas of Fate and The Weird of the White Wolf both very good big WotWW slightly better. Will mostly be yet more Elric for most of this month.
I have finished The Difference Engine. I had been looking forward to it, but it was too long and ultimately a bit disappointing. It does, however, fill the Steampunk slot in my Bingo.
Finished Redoubtable, while I thought the previous one had a unique storyline this one fell back on the usual pattern. Which is fine, clearly it was a pattern a lot of readers liked since it kept the series going for 30+ books but while I like it, I don't love it.Now to practice my French with Le Cercle D'Eloan 2: Le Duel Des Apprentis by Carolyn Chouinard
I have started reading EMERGENT MARS - the author offered me a free copy in exchange for an honest review, and I am continuing The Boys with The Boys, Vol. 10: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker
Camp Zero
by Michelle Min SterlingWhen climate change has caused mass destruction to the environment, a plan is under way to build a habitat in northern Canada. Interesting protagonists in this character driven plot.
The story is okay, but the theme of global warming is worthwhile. 3 stars
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Finished reading Star Trek Discovery Drastic Measures which covers the back story of "The Conscience of the King" (of course with Georgiou and Lorcas involved, Kirk was just a teen at the time) which was interesting since I had just rewatched all the original Star Trek's not long ago and the name of the villain was ringing a bell but I wasn't sure why. Thankfully google refreshed my memory of the episode.I've been reading my eReader so rarely that took me since mid-December to get through. The next one I'm picking up will be in the Kris Longknife universe, in fact this book was written first and a lot of references to these characters are in the Kris ones so I decided to go for it and see if I was missing something or not. The First Casualty by Mike Moscoe
The King’s Justice by Stephen R Donaldson.
On to book 6 of Crown of Stars, titled In the Ruins. Kate Elliot really does put her characters through the wringer.
I read Third Grave Dead Ahead
and although it was my least favorite of the series so far (I've only read the three) I LOVED the dog and will read the next one on that fact alone! So it fills out B5, too.
I finished The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
An incredible book! It's Dystopian, it's SF, its a crime novel. Here is my 5 star review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have started the penultimate volume of The Boys - The Boys, Volume 11: Over the Hills with the Swords of a Thousand Men
Jannelies wrote: "I finished The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart TurtonAn incredible book! It's Dystopian, it's SF, its ..." Is this the same one they made a show on Hulu, do you know? B/C it was good!
I read Blood of the Earth
for the I5 Bingo slot. I loved it! I've been a little iffy about Jane Yellowrock (although I am ready to read book 5), but this one hit me in all the right spots.
Reading The Last Watch and thoroughly enjoying it. I've never read anything by this author, but the writing is good, the action is nonstop, and I'm loving the characters!
Jannelies wrote: "I finished The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart TurtonAn incredible book! It's Dystopian, it's SF, its ..."
Oh, I'm so looking forward to it.
Read Wolf Trap, Mr. Perfect on Paper, Thank You for Listening, The Circus Train -- none of them SFF -- for a library program where you read nominees and vote and maybe win a B&N gift card.Reading the one sci fi nominee, Wormhole.
Audrey wrote: "Read Wolf Trap, Mr. Perfect on Paper, Thank You for Listening, The Circus Train -- none of them SFF -- for a library program where yo..."Good luck! I won an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen once, and another time a year's free admission to Morton Arboretum for 2!! Best prize ever!
Oooo. I have won a few used books from their sale shelf, but that shiny gift card is looking good.
Georgann wrote: "Good luck! I won an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen once, and another time a year's free admission to Morton Arboretum for 2!! Best prize ever!"Talking of ice cream, during a raffle for my sister's school I won a space t-shirt (with planets and stuff, being an SFF person even then I loved it) and a HUGE tub of icecream. I mean it was like a barrel. Of course when you go to get the ice cream itself you can get several different flavours each in a much smaller standard sized tubs. But that still remains my most epic win.
Well, unless you count the cumulative Goodreads Giveaways I've won, it amazingly up to 81 times now, with the latest one still waiting for it to arrive. I've had a few disappointments where they never did, hoping that's not the case with the latest one.
I've finished Wool and Shift, the first two books the AppleTV series Silo is based on, and have already started the third book, Dust. Addictive is putting it lightly!
Robert wrote: "I've finished Wool and Shift, the first two books the AppleTV series Silo is based on, and have already started the third book, Dust. Addictive is p..."Awesome books! Enjoyed all of them immensely.
I'm reading
, which contains 4 stories. I'm about at the end of the third one."Mr Harrigan's phone" is a very good, typical King story.
The "Thanks, Chuck!" story starts more like speculative fiction and with some very funny moments—not at all the usual King—then it completely changes. I loved this one and it will stay with me for a long time. Thanks, Steve!
"If it bleeds" is a stand-alone story featuring Holly Gibney—I've not read her books (the Mr Mercedes trilogy and The outsider) but I've seen both TV shows. This is pretty good but not very original, and too close to The outsider to rate higher.
Robert wrote: "I've finished Wool and Shift, the first two books the AppleTV series Silo is based on, and have already started the third book, Dust. Addictive is putting it lightly!"
Yes, great books and ones you can't easily stop reading once you've started. Howey is a genuinely gifted writer; I've not read everything he wrote but I've enjoyed everything I read.
The TV show is a great adaptation too—as opposed to Beacon 23, yuck.
I've been meaning to read Wool for ages.
I really enjoyed it, Audrey, but it can get a little bleak at times not going to lie…
Finished The Last Watch. Excellent read. Great character that I fell in love with, interesting world building, lots of action. I love a "ragtag group of misfits" save the world story. Looking forward to starting the sequel.
Finished reading The First Casualty. Interesting to see the characters that are great-grandfathers in the Kris Longknife books doing the things that history recorded of them (and of course getting wrong). Of course these books were written first so while reading the Kris books you're supposed to already know all the "legends" are as much fabrication as they are fact :) This filled my Military SF/F BINGO slot.Back to Burton & Swinborne with The Secret of Abdu El-Yezdi by Mark Hodder, gonna fill the Alternate History BINGO slot with this one
And on my eReader I'm starting A Crystal Age: A Dystopia by William Henry Hudson for my pre-1960 BINGO slot. Since EVERYTHING else I had in dead tree was just barely missing the cutoff, I decided to poke through some free stuff I had on my eReader.
Unfortunately the eBook seems to be a scan it has some spectacular typos (like all double ll's are replaced by a capital U), I'll see how bad it is, might have to give up on it. Amazingly when I got it free it was a promotion, usually people have to pay...but who'd pay for all those typos, that's terrible....
Andrea wrote: "Unfortunately the eBook seems to be a scan it has some spectacular typos (like all double ll's are replaced by a capital U), I'll see how bad it is, might have to give up on it. Amazingly when I got it free it was a promotion, usually people have to pay...but who'd pay for all those typos, that's terrible"Really reliable OCR can be expensive. We use it a bit at work, but it's really important to get it right. I'm in the IT side of the legal industry, so replacing a ll with a U may not go down well in a lot of situations 😁 It's probably not something that is affordable for scanning old novels to make digital versions, although this is an area where the increasing sophistication of AI will be useful.
I'm sure that if I found the book on Project Gutenberg it would be typo free (unless the original had typos they wanted to preserve), and Project Gutenberg is free, rather than Kobo where I got mine which normally you'd pay for, I mean what are you paying for if its just a quick scan?
I have finished The Boys, Vol. 11: Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men and started on The Boys, Vol. 12: The Bloody Doors Off, which is the final volume of the collected editions of The Boys.
Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy
Books mentioned in this topic
The Boys, Vol. 12: The Bloody Doors Off (other topics)The Boys, Vol. 11: Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men (other topics)
Time Trials (other topics)
The Price of Peace (other topics)
Conspirator (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Mike Moscoe (other topics)Mark Hodder (other topics)
William Henry Hudson (other topics)
John H. Sibley (other topics)
Harunadon (other topics)
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Next up is The Boys, Vol. 9: The Big Ride