What else are you reading - 2024

[Ruth]

Speaking of Sword, Laser, and Carronade… I have just finished The Ionian Mission and I’m moving straight on to the next book in the Aubrey/Maturin series, Treason’s Harbour

[Clyde]

Steve wrote: "... By all means join us! (there are a small, but determined, group of us working our way through the series, with the end goal of staging a coup and renaming the group Sword, Laser and Carronade...)"

Heh. Already there with you. 😊
The Fortune of War is next up for me.

[Trike]

Sword & Musket

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

We have Supreme Sword and Supreme Laser, Who would be Supreme Carronade?

My pick would be former interviewee Brian McClellan. You need a powder Mage for those cannons. 😎

[Trike]

Sword & Flintlock

[Ruth]

I have finished The Spy Who Came In from the Cold just in time to return it to the library and avoid a fine (I got a fine last month because I was slow to finish reading one of my books- and someone else had put a hold on it so I couldn’t renew it).

Now I’m starting the new Rivers of London novella, The Masquerades of Spring.

My local library, to my great delight, has started a “winter reading challenge” for adults where you get a stamp every time you return a book to the library. Collect six stamps before the end of January and you get entered into a prize draw to win a £15 book token. My little lizard brain loves the dopamine rush of collecting stamps and there’s nothing I like better than a prize draw.

[Jonathan]

Almost finished with The Fury of the Gods! It has been great!

[Seth]

Jonathan wrote: "Almost finished with The Fury of the Gods! It has been great!"

Agreed. If you didn't like the first one, this won't redeem the series for you. But it absolutely delivers everything the first two books seem to have promised. It's more of the same, but in the best way.

[Tamahome]

25 minutes from finishing Time-Marked Warlock by Shami Stovall. I saw an interview with her on Jonathan Koan's youtube. It's a quick 6 hour read, mostly light. Kind of Dresden Files mixed with Groundhog day. I think I'm over books that take longer than 10 hours to read at the moment, so most fantasy is out I guess, lol. Actually I tried 2 Sun Eater books but didn't get it.

[Francis x]

nearly finish 'They'd rather be right (1958) by Mark Clifton. AI machine connected to the brain CC, Computed Tomography (CT) scan of the brain;

[Brian]

Currently rereading The Redemption of Althalus.

Also read this year:

Fiction

Cloaked Deception
Beyond the Code
Project Hail Mary reread
Artemis reread
The Martian reread

Nonfiction

A long list of history books :-)
Blood and Thunder reread and in progress.

[Tamahome]

2.5 hours left in Star Marque Rising by Shami Stovall (I also read the timey wimey Time-Marked Warlock). It's military sf but it's a little different in that the female captain has an edgy personality. I'm not sure where it's going. It almost has a noir feel to it.

[Steve]

If anyone is looking to scratch their cozy fantasy itch, can I recommend my most recent read: At Amberleaf Fair. This must be one of the, if not the, grandmother of the genre. A theft at the eponymous fair leads to an investigation, although the book is more concerned with the relationships between the characters. The setting is medieval-ish (although not really, if you read about the background to the story), with a smattering of magic to flavour things.

[Phil]

Just finished Going Postal by Terry Pratchett. Loved it, of course.
It was written 20 years ago and it's a little disturbing how prescient I found this. Both the hero and villain are conmen who gain power, both politically and in business, by manipulating a gullible public.
On second thought, it wasn't prescient, just observational as this is how it's always worked. It just seems a little more obvious now. One can only hope that the ending comes true once in a while and the villain faces consequences.

Next up is Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch.

[Clyde]

Finished this month:
- River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life by Richard Dawkins (Some interesting views on evolution and life in general.)
- The Fortune of War by Patrick O'Brian (Even better on a reread a couple of decades later.)
- Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible by John C. McManus (The subtitle says it all. A must read for Big2 buffs.)

Now reading:
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Tough going so far, but I trust Stephenson to deliver.)
Now listening to:
- Death's Door by James R. Benn (Seems I'm hooked on this series.)

[Silvana]

trying out kindle unlimited and read some sequels:
Descent by Marko Kloos
The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart
My last attempt on those series, so let's see.

[Shad]

Forgot about Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson coming out in time to get a reread done ahead of it. Currently reading Oathbringer.

[Jonathan]

I am also currently doing a re-read and am on Oathbringer as well.

[Phil]

Just finished Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch.
Boy, am I conflicted about this one. It's a first-person story about a 17 year old midshipman (they have to start young to build immunity to space cancer) in Earth's space navy. It's 200 years in the future and Earth has become ultra conservative and ultra religious. The navy is patterned on the 18th century British navy with its severe hierarchy and punishments. Superior officers can and do get those beneath them caned on a whim to "teach them discipline" and people get hanged for accidently striking a superior officer. Even when the captain thinks the senior midshipman is being too hard on the younger ones he can't step in because it would "go against tradition".
The main character is full of self doubt and is thrust into a position of authority through circumstance. The whole book is really about him dealing with that in this brutal society which he truly believes is correct.
The book is well written and compelling but the antiauthoritarian in me rebelled against the society and the main character with anger management problems. I for sure would have been court marshalled and hung in this setting.

Next is Scent of Magic by Andre Norton.

[Qukatheg]

Just finished Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts, and loved it! A timey wimey adventure with talking cats, set at a time travel school where everyone is obsessed with an old British tv show of which many episodes have been lost. A fun story and the audiobook narrator was great at portraying all the cats!

[Stephen]

Started Wind and Truth, got in about 100 pages which translates to 8 percent of the book. So, my final book of 2024 and first book in 2025,

[J]

Heavenly Tyrant dropped and I can focus on nothing else.

[Oaken]

Just read Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer.

I. Just. Wow. It is tremendously complex. Literary. Philosophical. Frustrating. Fascinating. Overambitious. I had no idea this book was out there. It is science fiction in the Ursula Le Guin sense - about people and society and not about technology. A post-scarcity world but not without its problems. An aristocracy in a world where church and aristocracies should not exist. An unreliable narrator who takes us through his own biased view of world-shaking events in which he is a major player. A political mystery. I just don't have the words.

Put the sequels on my to-read list but I must say this needs time to digest before I tackle them.

[Rob, Roberator]

I'm not going to lock this thread right away, but I am unpinning it. I've created a new thread for 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...