What else are you reading - July 2024

[John (Taloni)]

Reading a bunch of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's straight up RPG action all the way through. It's very much Hunger Games by way of video games, with Earth mostly destroyed and a chunk of survivors offered a chance to live (for a while) in a live video game.

Parts are funny, and the action is good. Coy references to things like Bono and The Edge with the characters Bomo and The Sledge. The intelligent cat is really quite hilarious, and the ongoing gag with her hatred of cocker spaniels and general over the top take works well. Violence is there but at cartoon levels of description, so while there is mass death it isn't grotesque.

I modestly dislike the dystopian premise and have been lightly hoping there will be an overthrow of the existing system and restoral of Earth at the end. Five books in and there doesn't seem much hope of that any time soon. There's six books in total so far and I'll finish those, but the author has planned 8-9. And he says he writes them as they hit him. So this could go on. And on. And ON. And while I like a good series, at some point you gotta resolve the main plotline.

[Kevin]

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Paulo Bacigalupi's new fantasy book "Navola" on audible. It's fantastic. Set in a fantasy setting based on the renaissance Italian City States, it's rich in character, and world building. I know we don't like to repeat authors but "The Windup Girl" was sci-fi and this is fantasy and would be a fantastic read for the group.

[Tamahome]

Nice eyeball on the cover. I feel like it's following me.

[Jonathan]

Started reading Bastion by Phil Tucker. Interesting progression fantasy so far.

[Clyde]

Now reading:
- Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon (audio)
- With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge (library copy, paper)
- Theft of Fire by Devon Eriksen (ebook)

[Clyde]

Steve wrote: "I'm currently reading Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian, and it starts with a hard swerve into Jane Austen territory, which has taken some getting used to. It does finally get back i..."

Desolation Island is next up in my reread of that series. It was one of my favorites the first time through. Be interesting to see how well it holds up.