What are you reading in April 2015?

[Michele]

I haven't been in much a reading mood lately - I keep reading first chapters of things and then playing video games and watching tv. But there are a few books coming out this month I'm really looking forward to.

I just picked up Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1 because Ken Liu said it was the inspiration for his new book The Grace of Kings which I have preordered and I wanted a bit of background. I don't think this is the best translation, but the one I see recommended is $25 and only hard copy, so I went with an ebook that will give me a taste.

Also I preordered The Rebirths of Tao, because I really liked the first two in the series.

And I also preordered The Disfavored Hero because it sounds awesome.

All are coming on the same day...which to read first?!?

[[deleted user]]

For those interested, here's a list of significant new books coming out in April 2015:

From Tor.com:
April Releases in Science Fiction
April Releases in Fantasy
April Releases in Urban Fantasy & Horror

And here's SFSignal's listing:
April Releases in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

B&N Picks:
Barnes & Noble Bookseller’s Picks for April (SciFi & Fantasy)

DeNardo's picks on Kirkus Review:
These Are the Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Reads for April

[[deleted user]]

Michele wrote: "I just picked up Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Vol. 1 because Ken Liu said it was the inspiration for his new book The Grace of Kings which I have preordered..."

I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms a couple of decades ago because it was a source for the Giant Robo anime. :) It may have been the translation, but it read like a very dry cataloging of activity, not the superpowered wuxia action adventure it is apparently meant to be.

I'm also looking forward to The Grace of Kings next week.

[Andreas]

I continue reading The Dragon's Path and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year.
Just started our BotM Gateway.

[Bryn]

Michele wrote: "And I also preordered The Disfavored Hero because it sounds awesome."

Oh what? I'm glad I followed that link! These have been out of print; I've wanted them. To be put into ebook real soon. Super.

Jessica Amanda Salmonson's Tomoe Gozen. Woman samurai, founded on a historical personage, 12th century.

[[deleted user]]

I have obtained many gig of scans of old SF pulps, I suspect I will be wrapped up reading them for some time to come

[Garyjn]

Last month I read the first Wastelands anthology and my favorite short was "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow. Figured I should give a novel a shot so I picked up The Rapture of the Nerds: A tale of the singularity, posthumanity, and awkward social situations . Doctorow has higher rated books, but the back cover intrigued me. My next choice would have been "Little Brother" which seems well thought of so whether or not I like "Rapture" I will probably give that a shot sometime soon.

[Michael]

I've gotten off to a really slow start this year. I'm trying to focus on reading more NEW books instead of just spending most of my time rereading old favorites. The forum has been a great source of ideas on what to read, if I could just sit down and do it!

[[deleted user]]

Promise of Blood had an imaginative setting and fast-moving plot as the first book of the Powder Mage trilogy, and since it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, I'm going to have to run out and read book 2, The Crimson Campaign, immediately.



Also, The Grace of Kings comes out tomorrow! Pre-ordered, because e-book price was quite reasonable for a new release hardcover (us$7.99). There was a preview in this month's Lightspeed eMagazine, and I'm psyched!

[Bryce]

Still reading The Elric Saga Part II, almost done with it. Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 just showed up in the mail today, I blew through it. I really enjoyed the story, and the artwork is amazing. Still waiting for Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 to show up.

[[deleted user]]

Michele, that Romance of the Three Kingdoms book...there's a video game series by that name...any conection?

[Krista-lee]

You mean this one http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanc...? Then, yes. (It's not the only one.)

[Michele]

@ Spooky1947 - I believe it is the inspiration - for many things. It's like THE Chinese classic story.

I just finished Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris of Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood fame. It was...boring, but with potential? Kind of like a pilot episode, with too much character set up and not enough plot. None of the characters really grabbed me, but I'll most likely try the next one, since I liked the Sookie books for silly fun.

I grabbed several books from the library, but haven't made up my mind what's next - probably The Slow Regard of Silent Things.

I'm still not in much of a reading mood lately so I set aside Grace of Kings for now.

[Bryce]

@ Michele- The Slow Regard for Silent Things is a really good read. It's a bit different then Pat's other books, but I thought in a really neat way. It's not long, you could probably have it read in a few hours.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

               

Fool's Assassin, Shadow Study, and Unbound

Plus I've set myself a TBR challenge: to follow up on "next in series" reads that have been languishing on fictfact, to once a week read enough of a downloaded sample that has been languishing on ereaders to decide if interested in book or not, and once a month to just alphabetically read/dnf something on my ereader.

[K.S.]

Currently reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is just awesome. I love fantasy that doesn't take itself seriously and the cussing is hilarious.

Recently finished The Falcon Throne, which I started thumbing through while waiting in the library. Interesting premise, but it suffered from the typical convolution problems of epic fantasy.

[Lindsay]

Just finish On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, 5 stars in my opinion. Just started Lies of Locke Lamora, too! KS, did you pick it up because of Patrick Rothfuss' recommendation?

[K.S.]

Lindsay wrote: "Just finish On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, 5 stars in my opinion. Just started Lies of Locke Lamora, too! KS, did you pick it up because of Patrick Rothfuss' recommendation?"

No, but interestingly enough, it showed up on my Amazon recommendations *while* I was buying Patrick Rothfuss' "The Name of the Wind". Which has yet to show up on my doorstep. But yeah, am very pleasantly surprised by it, which is good; I've been disappointed by so much fantasy lately it's not even funny.

[Brendan]

Reading The Farthest Shore right now. There are magical drug addicts.

[Jonathan]

I just read Fortune's Pawn, fantastic book.

I'm now reading Dark Intelligence and just checked out The Windup Girl from my library. I'm looking forward to The Windup Girl, heard a lot of good things about it.

[Leo]

Finally got my hands on a copy of "Shattered" by Kevin Hearne, but more excited to be reading V.E. Schwab's "Vicious" afterwards.

[Kivrin]

Reread the first Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson and am in the middle of the second trilogy. Just as good as I remember.

Almost finished with Joe Abercrombie's "Half the World" which I'm really liking.

[Michael]

It's been a while since I checked in on the group, but I finished Consider Phlebas and Dust and I'm now tearing through The Republic of Thieves, which is much better than Red Seas Under Red Skies, and has me completely immersed back into the world.

I have Abaddon's Gate and Grave Peril on the shelf along with some other non SF/F stuff. I also picked up a few 50% gently used comic trades while I was in Baltimore last weekend.

[Wendy]

On book 11 of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan...loving it

[Kivrin]

Michael wrote: "It's been a while since I checked in on the group, but I finished Consider Phlebas and Dust and I'm now tearing through The Republic of Thieves, which ..."

So how did you like Dust? Were you happy with the way the trilogy ended?

[Michael]

Kivrin wrote: "So how did you like Dust? Were you happy with the way the trilogy ended? "

I enjoyed it. I like how it was a pretty clear ending for the characters involved, but still left enough up to the imagination regarding the world, as a whole. Overall, I thought it was a great series and wouldn't mind reading even more in that universe.

[Kivrin]

Michael wrote: "Kivrin wrote: "So how did you like Dust? Were you happy with the way the trilogy ended? "

I enjoyed it. I like how it was a pretty clear ending for the characters involved, but still left enough ..."

I liked the ending as well. It just took a little too long to get there. It got very dark there for a while. I read these a couple of years ago so I had to look back, and I liked the second book the best.

[[deleted user]]

Wendy wrote: "On book 11 of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan...loving it"

Ah, the last of the Jordan books. (Knife of Dreams)

In a strange way I'm jealous when you finish you will be able to read the next book in the series without having to wait 5 long years. (On the other hand, Song Of Ice And Fire fans are used to waiting 5 years between every book. :)

[[deleted user]]

Ken Liu's Debut novel, The Grace of Kings, was a bit of a surprise. In his short stories, I think of Liu as a character writer, but in this novel he wants to focus on a huge, sprawling story of many characters and events. Sometimes it feels like he wants to condense the scope of A Song of Ice and Fire, the entire series, into 600 pages.

It was an entertaining read, but I didn't love it as much as I had expected to, because it had a sort of dryness to it.

[Nikolai]

It's not science fiction, but I'm reading Vandana Shiva's "BioPiracy". Also, I'm trying to decide between the Three Body Problem and Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu. Dark Forest sounds markedly more conspiratorial, which brings things down to a level that accords more fully with my own experience.

Is the Three Body Problem about reincarnation and time confusion? Or perhaps the occupation of souls?

[[deleted user]]

Nikolai wrote: "I'm trying to decide between the Three Body Problem and Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu. Dark Forest sounds markedly more conspiratorial..."

Note that The Dark Forest is the 2nd book in the trilogy begun with The Three-Body Problem.The first book leaves the full story quite open ended, so Dark Forest wouldn't be my choice for where to start.

Nikolai wrote: "Is the Three Body Problem about reincarnation and time confusion? Or perhaps the occupation of souls? ..."

No, It starts with a mysterious... ailment, or series of unfortunate events,... affecting some notable scientists.

In the novel, "3 Body Problem" refers to an immersive - and very exclusive - videogame frequented by at least some of those scientists.

Scientifically, "the 3 body problem" refers to a problem in physics and math for describing the relative motion of 3 entities of comparable size, e.g. 3 planets or 3 stars. The math doesn't lend itself to computationally bounded solutions.

[Nikolai]

Sounds very complex. I'll have to dive in. I'm pleased that so many readers are able to tolerate the difficult passages. It's encouraging.

[Arielle]

The False Prince is what I'm reading this April, I finished another book last week but I didn't start it in April, and I'd rather forget about that one lol. I like epic or high fantasy, and some other things random like psychology but sometimes you have to just read a quick young adult book to scrub your mind of a horrible book before. Quick read into something more substantial later. That's where I'm at.

[Nikolai]

Just wrote a brief review of Liu CiXin's "The Wandering Earth".

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

Looking forward to moving onto the triology.

Rgds

Nikolai
GMT+9

[Leo]

Probably going to be finishing out April with V.E. Schwab's "Vicious." I've heard good things about her other adult novel, but not itching to shell out for the hardcover. Alternately, just finished Kevin Hearne's latest installment in the Iron Druid Chronicles, "Shattered." Good clean fun, I never get tired of his sense of humor (review to come).

[[deleted user]]

I've been reading the first three installments of KJ Parker's newest novel, which is being released in serialized form: The Two of Swords. It's been a lot of fun. I guess after the first three parts were released weekly, the remaining five installments will come out monthly, so I've got a break in reading....

An alternate fantasy world with two halves of a former empire at war for the last 90 years. (There's no sign of magic so far.) Part 1 starts with a young farm boy who gets drafted into the Eastern Empire's army, where things are definitely chaotic and anti-heroic. Part 2 swapped PoV characters to a secondary character, and part 3 swaps to yet a third character, each one being progressively more important than more interesting to follow.

Parker writes some splendid prose here. As with other books, there's a sense that the author is wearing a wry smile throughout. I'm glad Michelle suggested we discuss Parker's Academic Exercises, or I might not have given this a shot.

What are we fighting for?
“Honour. Moral imperatives, to defend our country and our way of life. Money, of course, and eternal glory, and to defend our trading interests. Because we’re right and they’re wrong. Because evil must be resisted, and sooner or later there comes a time when men of principle have to make a stand. Because war is good for business and it’s better to die on our feet than live on our knees. Because the fire god is on our side, and it’s our duty to Him. Because they started it. But at this stage in the proceedings, mostly from force of habit.”

I'll also mention that this is a pretty good bargain at 99¢ per installment, 8 parts. Each of the existing installments have been pretty hefty: novella-length at around 100 pages. (I contrast that with Scalzi's The Human Division serialized novel from 2013, which was 13 installments each half the size of Parker's.)

[Brendan]

Read The Sword of Rhiannon in a few hours for another group. It was more fun than I expected for a silly story about sailors on Mars. Now reading The Algebraist, which is one of the only Banks space operas that I haven't read yet. As expected it's totally glorious and full great dark humour. "'Heads have rolled due to this incompetence,' the image told them. It smiled. 'I do not speak figuratively.'"

[Andreas]

Finches of Mars - a fond farewell to one of my favourite authors. Here's my review.