Our reads in February 2020

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Our reads in February 2020

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1dustydigger
feb 1, 2020, 4:18 am

Another month,another pile of books. Tellus what you arereading!

2dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 23, 2020, 4:35 pm

Dusty's TBR for February
SF/Fantasy
P K Dick - Ubik
Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon
Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
Ransom Riggs - Map of Days
Simon Goodwin - Hubble's Universe
Naomi Novik -His Majesty's Dragon
Naomi Novik - Throne of Jade
Naomi Novik - Black Powder Wars
Clifford D Simak - The Trouble With Tycho

from other genres

Kenneth Grahame - The Reluctant Dragon
Arthur W Upfield - Murder Down Under
Katie Fforde - A Vintage Wedding
Joan Aiken - A Necklace of Raindrops

3dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 1, 2020, 5:15 am

Trying again,after my arthritis flare up has subsided a little,to read the literally heavyweight Map of Days.I keep getting cramp in my fingers and have to untwist them! lol. Still 200 pages to go...sigh...
Almost finished Rogue Moon,mixed feelings about it.
I am enjoying watching a few astronomy documentaries about the solar system at the moment,our own backyard,as you could term it.I read Leigh Brackett's Sword of Rhiannon last month,published around 1950,the last gasp of the old planetary romances about Mars(and Venus).Now its all science fact.
But I am enjoying Hubble's Universe : a Portrait of our Cosmos a nice little book of some of the spectacular photographs taken by the Hubble telescope,learning or refreshing my mind on some basic facts . Interesting,but not at all romantic! lol
The photos really are magnificent,but daunting. When I was a kid,the general public (always 40years behind the scientists.We still had TV programmes in the 60s trying to explain Einstein's relativity) knew a little about the Milky Way as we fondly termed our galaxy.Thought pehaps there were a few other galaxies,and that was about it. :0)Now we hear of BiILLIONS of galaxies,each with billions of stars.Black holes,dark matter,etc I am starting to feel a bit like those people in Asimov's Nightfall seeing the night sky is becoming a truly scary thing,too much to grasp
So I am retreating to our own backyard!

4Shrike58
Bewerkt: feb 20, 2020, 9:47 am

5paradoxosalpha
feb 1, 2020, 10:32 am

>4 Shrike58:

I've read two of those (Kiernan and MacLeod) and enjoyed them both.

6daxxh
feb 1, 2020, 3:21 pm

I am currently reading The Supernova Era. Can't say too much about it as I have only read 50 pages. It could be interesting.

On Mount TBR, I have Brothers in Arms and a stack of novellas for a challenge - The Flowers of Vashnoi, Who Goes There?, Mapping the Interior and Sisters of the Vast Black. Also have Sector General and the rest of that series to read. Agency should be coming from the library shortly.

Just got The Killing Fog as an Amazon Firsts Read. I haven't really been into fantasy for years, so we will have to see about that one.

>2 dustydigger: I read Altered Carbon and liked it. I have the other two in the series and will eventually get to them. (too many books!) Rogue Moon was definitely dated and full of male stereotypes found in older scifi novels. I can't really say that I liked it or would recommend it. Ubik was a bit confusing. It is on the needs to be read again pile, as I think I read it when I was too young to appreciate it.

7seitherin
feb 1, 2020, 4:46 pm

Marking my spot in case I make it thru my reading slump and actually begin reading again.

8paradoxosalpha
feb 1, 2020, 6:17 pm

Looks like I'm fixing to start The City and the Stars.

9dustydigger
feb 2, 2020, 6:01 am

>6 daxxh: hey,daxhh,Rogue Moon was a bit of an oddity,with its mix of a mystery BDO with a sort of psychological drama about some rather nasty escapees from a film noir.Cant remember the reference exactly,but one stern critic of the novel Double Indemnity said at the time that he felt he needed a shower after reading it to sluice away all the nasty stuff! lol.
I was picturing Barbara Stanwyck as Barker's femme fatale ladyfriend.But for some reason I kept seeing Daniel Craig in the Lara Croft films as Barker. All that stilted conversation was a bit heavy going,but I loved the final 30 pages when we final got inside the Big Dumb Object,and learned more about the project. We never did crack the strange object mysteries at all,and I wondered if all the deaths were worth it. Pretty downbeat ending too,but for the most part I still found the book quite enjoyable,despite the testosterone fumes. And loved the inside of the BDO!And all within 180 pages.

10iansales
feb 2, 2020, 7:00 am

Finished A Memory Called Empire. Reads a bit like warmed-over Leckie, and there are a lot of words for not much plot. Plus, all the (invented) Teixcalaani words are in italics - who still does that, put non-English words in italics? Won't be surprised to see the book on a few award shortlists this year, given the way it's being talked up. In its favour, it's one of those rare space operas whose bodycount doesn't go higher than three-figures.

Now reading Metropolis - no, not the novelisation of the film, written by Thea von Harbou, Lang's wife, and who also wrote the script - this is Philip Kerr's last novel, but von Harbou does make an appearance.

11pgmcc
feb 2, 2020, 7:11 am

>10 iansales: How are you enjoying Metropolis? I have enjoyed a couple of his books and have been tempted by this one.

I enjoyed a session I attended 19 years ago where he was talking about his writing and research he had done with the Moscow police. Some interesting stories.

12vwinsloe
Bewerkt: feb 2, 2020, 7:08 pm

I'm reading The Three Body Problem. I don't know why I put it off for so long. I guess I assumed from what others have said that it would be challenging. But I am finding it to be an enjoyable read.

13RobertDay
feb 2, 2020, 5:24 pm

I am struggling with Pat Cadigan's Synners, which given the esteem she is held in by a lot of the UK fan community makes me feel a bit guilty. But: way too many characters, some of whom turn out to be central and others not, but you don't find out which is which until you're well into the book; a vague plot that only starts emerging about a third of the way in, and even then remains fairly sketchy; and language and a setting which probably seemed oh-so-radical in 1991 but now just looks pedestrian. I'll persevere, because of Cadigan's reputation (and to be fair, when I saw her at the Eastercon a few years back, she seemed like a genuine enough person).

14ScoLgo
feb 2, 2020, 9:47 pm

Just returned from dropping off a loan at the library. Took a quick peek at the 'For Sale' shelf on the way out and came away with Bradbury's Now and Forever and Tiptree's Ten Thousand Light Years From Home. Pretty nice score for $1.50! I'm especially stoked about the Tiptree; Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is one of my favorite collections ever.

15ChrisRiesbeck
feb 2, 2020, 10:28 pm

Finished Farthing and continuing with Ha'Penny

16dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 10, 2020, 4:04 pm

Hornblower - with dragons! Thoroughly enjoyed Temeraire. (aka His Majesty's Dragon) Naomi Novik's charming take on what would the Napoleonic Wars be like if dragons existed. Great fun.I have jumped straight into book 2.Throne of Jade.I'm off to China with Laurence and Temeraire,and the voyage is very sticky!Cultural disconnect at its roughest! lol :0)
.Of course it has made me want to rush off and reread,for the nth time,C S Forrester's masterly Hornblower novels,but where's the time?:0(

17ChrisRiesbeck
feb 4, 2020, 2:16 pm

Finished Ha'Penny, about to start Half a Crown.

18ScoLgo
feb 4, 2020, 2:33 pm

>17 ChrisRiesbeck: I read the Small Change trilogy a couple of years ago and really liked it. Looks as though it's keeping you engaged too.

19paradoxosalpha
feb 4, 2020, 3:20 pm

I'm reading The World War of Small Pastries, which I think qualifies as sf by some yardsticks.

20igorken
feb 4, 2020, 4:50 pm

>17 ChrisRiesbeck: You seem to be burning through money.

Just wishlisted the first book a couple of days ago, thinking it'd be an interesting quick read. Your posts certainly seem to be confirming that!

21rshart3
Bewerkt: feb 4, 2020, 5:36 pm

>16 dustydigger:
If you like Hornblower, I hope you've read the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian -- they're wonderful and quite addictive.

22guido47
feb 4, 2020, 5:50 pm

I second that >21 rshart3:.

So "Make it so".

23Shrike58
feb 4, 2020, 8:19 pm

She used to be a fairly regular attendee at Capclave (a convention in the Washington (DC) area) area and she always seemed engaged and personable.

24anglemark
feb 5, 2020, 2:48 am

25dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 5, 2020, 5:12 am

>21 rshart3: I have been putting off the Master and Commander books for ages,because the series is huge,and I tend to be a completist both with books and series,so its a little daunting.:0)
It could a bit odd that I like nautical stuff since on the whole I dont go in for historical novels. But in ye olden days when I was at school,somewhat old and tatty Captain Marryatt books were everywhere.Mr Midshipman Easy was a great favourite.We even had Two Years Before the Mast!
My school's Houses were named Drake,Raleigh,Nelson and Collingwood.Even the badge on our blazers depicted,embroidered in red thread, an old sailing ship, so the Brit pride in our seafaring history was deeply ingrained even back then,in the late 50s.So I think seafaring books strike a chord somehow. :0)

26SChant
feb 5, 2020, 6:51 am

Started Brandon Sanderson's Skyward for my SF&F reading group. So far it's a bit blandly generic YA. I'm hoping it will pick up as it's 500-odd pages long!

27Sakerfalcon
feb 5, 2020, 7:33 am

I've started Chilling effect, which is an amusing space caper so far.

28rshart3
feb 5, 2020, 12:23 pm

>25 dustydigger: I didn't read Hornblower or any of the others, for years -- just figured "I'm not into naval history". But so many people recommended O'Brian (you know that a public librarian hears a LOT of book talk) that I finally tried Master and Commander and was hooked after just a few pages. It's not just naval historical, it's the characters and the depiction of an era. Especially the characters: it's the kind of series where you grieve when someone dies, and cheer when they have triumphs. When the last one came out, as soon as I saw the title Blue at the Mizzen, I literally exclaimed "YES" with a fist pump -- by then I knew it meant Aubrey got his admiralship.

Now I'm partway through Hornblower, which is good but not as good as Aubrey/Maturin, and I think I see Dudley Pope's Ramage series on the horizon. Who knew?

I love the names of your school houses!

29rshart3
feb 5, 2020, 12:28 pm

Going on about the Patrick O'Brian books in the context of this list: I think they prepped me for an enjoyment of some military or space-adventure series, like Elizabeth Moon's Vatta series, or the C.J. Cherryh's Chanur series. Despite the huge difference in time & setting, the Aubrey/Maturin books are very similar in overall tone and in interest factors. I often recommended them to SF readers who liked that subgenre.

30ScoLgo
feb 5, 2020, 1:47 pm

>25 dustydigger: I really enjoyed Two Years Before the Mast. I read that book in 2013 and it really brought the era to life for me. As I was reading about Dana's experiences on the American West Coast, I just happened to be visiting the San Pedro/Carson City area in Southern California, which is nearby to where their ship landed ~180 years before. His descriptions of completely barren land juxtaposed with the urban sprawl right in front of my eyes brought home to me how quickly the advance of technology has changed things out here.

31dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 5, 2020, 5:39 pm

>29 rshart3: I too have a soft spot for Hornblower in space.Some favourites
David Weber's Honor Harrington. Bujold's early Miles Vorkosigan books. David Feintuch's Nicholas Seafort. Elizabeth Moon's Serrano series,Vatta series.David Drake's Lieutenant O'Leary.Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry books.(old but fun)
Actually I have been eyeing A Bertram Chandler's Commander Grimes series,very old,and also Ben Jeapes Ark Royal books,but they are a little hard to come by cheaply.
Got to get out into space again,to go a-roving! :0)

32ChrisRiesbeck
feb 5, 2020, 5:48 pm

>18 ScoLgo: >20 igorken: So far, I'm having the same reactions as I had with the Thessaly trilogy. Really liked the first book, OK but less impressed with the second. I thought Necessity finished well, and I have hopes for Half a Crown. Will know in a week. I get about 30 minutes of reading in a night.

33iansales
feb 6, 2020, 2:19 am

Now reading Unholy Land. Was going to buy a copy at the Worldcon in Dublin last August, but they sold out pretty quickly. Found a copy here in The English Bookshop last Sunday, so I bought it.

34Unreachableshelf
feb 6, 2020, 10:29 am

I really think that those who like Patrick O'Brian and are open to steampunk will enjoy The Guns Above. Aside from the fact that it took me a while to like Lord Bernat at all, I was getting pretty strong Master and Commander vibes from it; as much attention to political maneuvering and personal lives as the naval/airship action, one of the major characters is a newcomer to ship life who can act as a window in for the reader while he learns how everything works, etc. Disappointingly last I heard a third in the series did not seem to be on the horizon, although the author seems open to writing more.

35karenb
Bewerkt: feb 6, 2020, 2:52 pm

>24 anglemark: Jo Walton, I think

Back to the month: I finished The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull. It's a first contact story that takes place in the Caribbean. The book focuses on the locals, not the aliens, and somewhat realistic I thought. Pretty good, and a good book for discussing too I suspect.

Next up: One of the several books waiting for me at the libraries today. It's good to have options.

36ScoLgo
feb 6, 2020, 5:54 pm

>35 karenb: Or Pat Cadigan? It's difficult to tell without a reference to the post being replied to...

37SFF1928-1973
feb 10, 2020, 10:43 am

I'm reading In Our Hands, the Stars by Harry Harrison.

38Shrike58
feb 10, 2020, 5:26 pm

Pat Cadigan

39iansales
Bewerkt: feb 11, 2020, 2:20 am

Finished Unholy Land. Liked it, although it felt like Tidhar was recycling bits and pieces from other works. One of the plot points, in fact, is a reworking of the first short story I ever read by him, around fifteen years ago, whose title I forget.

Then started The Players of Null A, more out of a sense of duty - I have the book and I ought to read it, even if I did think the previous book in the series was terrible.

40Stevil2001
Bewerkt: feb 11, 2020, 10:50 am

I started rereading Le Guin's Planet of Exile last night, though I'm only a chapter in. Rocannon's World was good, but I found the climax thematically disappointing. I think you can see Le Guin struggling to integrate her more thoughtful approach to sf with the demands of adventure fiction, which she later moved beyond. (As I recall! It will be interesting to see her approach to sf develop.)

41vwinsloe
feb 12, 2020, 7:46 am

I guess that I picked the wrong time to read The Three-Body Problem. It left me with a feeling of profound emptiness and despair, and with the thought that I could empathize with the "Adventist" faction depicted in the novel. It is hard to be optimistic about mankind these days, and Cixin Liu captured that perfectly.

42SChant
feb 13, 2020, 4:07 am

Finally got round to C J Cherryh & Jane Fancher's Alliance Rising and finding it a little underwhelming. There's a lot of exposition - we get pages about the history, politics, and economics of the Alliance universe - but not much action. In other words, too much "tell" and not enough "show". I'm about a third of the way through and will continue, but a bit disappointing so far.

43Unreachableshelf
feb 13, 2020, 11:06 am

I'm about to start some kind of post apocalyptic fiction in the form of The Book of Koli.

44dustydigger
Bewerkt: feb 14, 2020, 4:03 pm

Finished Ransom Riggs Map of Days,and have about 100 pages Naomi Novik's Black Powder War left to read.Then its on to Ubik

45Shrike58
feb 13, 2020, 6:31 pm

Knocked off Black Helicopters (B) this evening and while it had its moments Agents of Dreamland impressed me more; we'll see what Kiernan has in store for us next in this cycle.

46DeusXMachina
feb 14, 2020, 5:03 am

Reading The Collapsing Empire right now. It's my first Scalzi, and I've honestly no idea why he has never slipped into my mount TBR before. I mean, it's not the most profound read ever, but it's very entertaining and solid.

47johnnyapollo
feb 15, 2020, 7:31 am

Just started Coyote by Allen Steele, a bit dated but thematically a bit prescient....

48RobertDay
feb 15, 2020, 10:43 am

Finished Synners; it actually coalesced together in a plot from about half-way through, but the denouement went back into weirdness. On average, a three-star read, I think. Now releaxing with the Pratchett/Baxter The Long War before diving into Bill Gibson's Agency.

49SChant
feb 16, 2020, 5:21 am

Well, after all that exposition in Alliance Rising it finally turned into a cracking good read, full of political shenanigans, divided loyalties, trust and hope. Highly recommended - a great addition to the Alliance-Union universe.

50dustydigger
feb 16, 2020, 4:13 pm

Completed a nice little primer on the universe,Hubble's Universe : a portrait of our cosmos,with simple explanations of astronomy paired with spectacular pictures taken by the Hubble cameras. Just in time for me to dive into Gregory Benford's Eater about a black hole or something even more sinister approaching earth.So maybe I will not be hopelessly adrift with a book by this hardest of hard SF authors! :0)

51iansales
feb 17, 2020, 4:56 am

Finished The Players of Null-A, which actually managed to be worse than the first book. I have no idea what van Vogt thought he was writing about but none of it made any sense whatsoever.

Now reading The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl.

52guido47
Bewerkt: feb 17, 2020, 6:33 am

I remember when Van Voght started an SF novel with "the ship hit 150 thousand light years speed. :-(". Not quite sure which story , I was all of 10/12 yo. BUT... I was already aware of "Albert Einstien's" theories.

Does any one know the story? And yes the speed/etc is probably incorrect. BUT many times C speed is ...?

Is all crap!

53bnielsen
feb 17, 2020, 7:01 am

Much of that is "space western" where the poor lonely space cowboy on his thrusty old space horse rides out to find space gold and has to fight space injuns and space rattle snakes :-)

I have "At the Earth's Core" by Edgar R. Burroughs on my TBR pile. Just as silly and "150 thousand light years speed" crap :-)

54RobertDay
Bewerkt: feb 17, 2020, 8:37 am

>52 guido47: Sounds like the opening of "The Storm", one of the stories that went into the fix-up novel The Mixed Men (aka 'Mission to the Stars'). I read 'The Storm' many years ago as it was anthologised in one of Brian Aldiss' 'Space Operas' collections, and it stuck with me mainly because of the imagery of a big spaceship going very fast into a cosmic brick wall. This sort of thing sticks with you at the age of fifteen or so.

55Shrike58
feb 17, 2020, 8:30 am

Finished The Fifth Season (A) yesterday evening; it deserves all the acclaim it received but it's not what you'd call an easy read. I'm always going to have some issues with a story that totally deconstructs the narrative of the main character (probably a necessity considering how the novel starts) but the last line in the novel made my eyes widen!

56igorken
Bewerkt: feb 19, 2020, 12:37 pm

>55 Shrike58: You have me intrigued, Mr Shrike58.

I received The Fifth Season from SecretSanta despite saying "no fantasy", "no series", and "no long books please". I did include a "or whatever you really think I should read" type clause, so I'm still happy about the gift, but it certainly didn't land on the top of my TBR pile. You've pushed it forward though!

57DeusXMachina
Bewerkt: feb 19, 2020, 4:57 am

>55 Shrike58: I really liked that series, one of the very few I read in one go. I agree that it was a bit a weird of a reading experience at the beginning, but so well and consistently executed that it was easy to fall into it anyway.

I just finished Galapagos and found it a pretty unusual Vonnegut. Another deconstructed narrative in a way.

58ChrisRiesbeck
feb 19, 2020, 7:10 pm

Finished Beyond Varallan -- definitely not a series for me -- and have begun City at the End of Time.

59SChant
feb 20, 2020, 4:22 am

Reading From the Wreck by Jane Rawson, which won an Aurealis Award in 2017. It's OK - a bit reminiscent of Joe Haldeman's Camouflage - but a bit repetitive.

60dustydigger
feb 20, 2020, 8:46 am

My reads are a bit irritating /frustrating at the moment.
Struggling through Ubik,annoyed much of the time by PDKs quirks.If I have to read just one more bizarre costume description I may have to tear the book apart. He hammers repeatedly at certain plot points which I grasped afer 2 explanations,do I really need at least 3 more musings on the topic? On the other hand important things are never fully explained. Since PKD is the darling of the critics they excuse him for things other writers would be criticised for,e.g.sloppy writing and incoherence.5 sessions have dragged me through 100 pages,90 pages still to go....sigh.....I am so not into so called literary SF.
Had high hopes for Colin Greenland's Take Back Plenty At the time of writing a female,black,freewheeling captain of a space ship,however delapidatedwould seem cool. Unfortunately this is first person POVand the woman is inept,oblivious to what is going on around her,and just a airhead. Greenland carefully leaves blatant clues all around her that any normally astute woman would see at once. I am so not happy at being in the head of this thickheaded,airheaded idiot. 450 pages to go.
Now C J Cherryh's Voyager in Night is totally bleak and depressing. I felt so sad and miserable over the terrible situation of the characters I can barely read it.
I am only inching my reluctant way between the three. My only brightness in my reading is a vintage crime story about a half aboriginal detective searching for a killer in the 1930s wheat farmland. Great fun.
Next month I think I only want light,bright and sparkinggood old exciting pulp just to cheer me up! :0)

61ScoLgo
feb 20, 2020, 12:57 pm

>60 dustydigger: Have you read The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz yet? If not, I highly recommend it as a cure for your current reading ills. First published in 1968, it is fast paced with a strong and capable female protagonist. As such, it is nearly the antithesis of other pulpy SF being written back in the day. I just re-read it this past December and it holds up remarkably well.

62iansales
feb 21, 2020, 2:24 am

>60 dustydigger: I'm a big fan of Take Back Plenty. IIRC, it's not a first person POV, although there *are* sections in first person. But the identity of the narrator of those is not Tabitha Jute and, in fact, is important to the plot. I didn't read Jute as stupid, more reluctant to be involved. The sequels are not as good.

63pgmcc
feb 21, 2020, 3:41 am

>62 iansales: I have had Take Back Plenty on my shelves since the 1990s and never got round to reading it. I met Colin Greenland a number of times and always promised myself that I would read Take Back Plenty. Your post has prompted me to once again make the same promise to myself.

64Shrike58
feb 21, 2020, 5:55 am

I read Take Back Plenty back in the day and I'll admit that little of it has stuck with me, though at the time I thought favorably of it.

65dustydigger
feb 21, 2020, 6:05 am

>62 iansales: I am only 60 pages into Take Back Plentyso its not enough to grasp the story,but enough to know I am not enjoying it! lol.
I will persevere,in small doses,and will get there in the end.
I am just a bit grumpy about how I am not having much fun with my reading at the moment. All the stresses of life and family and ill health tends to make me want nice mindless easy reading stuff......my rapidly declining brain.......sigh.....
I will compensate later by going to my comfort authors,Simak,Andre Norton,Poul Anderson,H Beam Piper and the like.
Or possibly Schmitz,as ScoLgo suggested .Or Fredric Brown,Leigh Brackett,Kuttner/Moore.I have an extremely long list of possibilities! :0)
Including the last couple of John Carter books,and also ERBs Carson of Venus series.
Mount TBR is rivaling the Himilayas in height lol.

66RobertDay
Bewerkt: feb 21, 2020, 8:03 am

>65 dustydigger: Sometimes we make a rod for our own backs. I've recently revised some of my self-imposed rules for reading (and a few other things) and I'm much happier for it.

For instance: I commented earlier in this thread about reading Pat Cadigan's Synners and how I was struggling with it (though I since note that my problems were pretty much the same as everyone else's). But the serendipity of selecting the next book from the TBR pile resulted in my picking up the Pratchett/Baxter The Long War, which has almost as many pov characters as the Cadigan, but they are all different and are in different places, doing different things. The chapters are short, and the writing style is fairly easy (though by this time, Pratchett's illness was definitely affecting his work). I know it's not great literature, but as light relief from something I struggled with, I'm enjoying it.

Oh, and I read Take Back Plenty and sequels, but a good 15-20 years ago. I remember quite a lot about the story, but not so much about the books.

67paradoxosalpha
feb 21, 2020, 2:55 pm

Just starting to tackle The City and the Stars-- the preface seems to set it forth as Arthur C. Clarke's second pass at his first novel.

68ScoLgo
feb 21, 2020, 3:39 pm

Finished Sheri Tepper's The Fresco last night and am feeling a bit underwhelmed. Overall, it's not a bad book - and I did enjoy it - but I thought it fell short of her other titles I've read, (the excellent The Gate to Women's Country and Six Moon Dance. Her Arbai Trilogy is also a favorite of mine). Nevertheless, a tepid Tepper is still far above the average.

Currently halfway through Babylon's Ashes, book 6 in the fast-paced Expanse series. Really enjoying this series. The TV show on Amazon Prime is also a good adaptation, IMO.

69rshart3
feb 21, 2020, 10:32 pm

>65 dustydigger:,>66 RobertDay:
I imagine most librarians on the list know Nancy Pearl's "Rule of 50", now pretty famous. For those who don't, check this out or search "nancy pearl 50" on youtube or google.
https://youtu.be/sR61l7F8sr4

I only need to read 30 pages now, but I confess to judging books by their covers already....

70daxxh
Bewerkt: feb 22, 2020, 2:50 am

>65 dustydigger: When I have plowed through a book I didn't like or read a book that was good, but hard to read and need something light, I read a Star Trek book. I just read The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens. You might like that one. It is an old one, and I thought it much, much better than Rogue Moon.

I also read Catfishing on Catnet by Naomi Kritzer. I probably wouldn't have read it had I known that it was a YA novel, but it was actually pretty decent. I also read Made Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I have liked most everything that I have read of his so far and really need to read Children of Time.

Right now, I am reading "Hornblower with dragons," His Majesty's Dragon. I haven't read much yet, but I like what I have read so far. Can't go wrong with dragons.

>69 rshart3: I wish I had heard of this Rule of 50 before I read The Drowning Girl. I still can't believe I finished that one. I went through a phase of "expanding my horizons" by reading books that were not space opera or hard scifi. I have always read nonfiction, mysteries and literary classic type books , but I hadn't read a lot of the newer type "speculative fiction." I tried reading award winning books of this type and hated them. I thought a lot were poorly written. Some had no plot. Some were too preachy. This year, I am reading what I like. No more "expanding my horizons" with poorly written drivel or totally uninteresting to me books.

71iansales
feb 22, 2020, 9:00 am

Finished The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl. Enjoyed the trilogy. It was a bit padded in parts, and the British voice slipped every now and again (Brit don't wear pants, they wear trousers), but on the whole pretty good.

Next up, Stephen Baxter's World Engines Destroyer.

>63 pgmcc: and others. I'm a fan of Greenland's writing, and I remember meeting him several times at cons in the early 1990s.

72dustydigger
feb 22, 2020, 10:24 am

Thanks for the replies to my post about intending to comfort myself with pulp after a tad too much heavier stuff at the moment.Some good suggestions there,folks,but,since this is Valentine month I decided to revisit one of my first literary heroes.John Carter of Mars.Its 59 years and 3 weeks since I finally got my adult library card on my 13th birthday and Princess of Mars was my first loan.
So I was delighted to locate #8 in the Barsoom books,Swords of Mars After 4 rather ho-hum tales with other protagonists,at last John Carter is back YAY!:0)Sheer pleasure,with no need for mental exertion.I have 4 family birthdays and the birth of a great grandchild within the next 3 weeks,so I need only light distraction! lol.
Not expecting too much from John Carter's visit to a martian moon,its just the whole ambience and nostalgia that grabs me,but I did enjoy a chuckle at someone's summing up of our hero's stats in this adventure over on GR

Here are John Carter's stats for this adventure:

Princesses rescued: 2
Successful prison escapes: 2
Alien worlds visited: 1
New cultures/races discovered: 3
Mad scientists bested: 2
Insanely gorgeous females' hearts broken: 2
Sidekicks attained: 2
New languages learned: 1
Enemy strongholds infiltrated: 4
Enemy airships stolen: 1
Alien disguise success rate: 100%

Number of times John Carter is saved through sheer luck/coincidence: ∞

This person could seem a tad critical of the book,but I am sure he secretly liked it (he gave 3 stars) or why else conscientiously keep tabs on all the action? lol

40 pages of Ubik left to complete sometime this month,but for now I'm off to Barsoom. What fun!!!

73rshart3
feb 22, 2020, 10:37 am

>72 dustydigger:
Thanks for giving me my heartiest laugh in days with your John Carter statistics!

I'm another one who certainly reads "serious" fiction, but relaxes a lot with "fluff" & "junk". Spent a lot of my career trying to convince people it was OK to read romance, pulp SF, etc. Besides, it may not be literary, but some of it, in its way, is quite good.

74dustydigger
feb 23, 2020, 4:41 pm

Finished Ubik.and need a good squirt of the product to return my mind to normal function,and to ensure that PKDs ideas of fashion never come withing 10,000 miles of me! lol.I'm sure there are some plot flaws somewhere,but it would do my head in trying to find them.PKD was surely on some fine stuff at that time! ;0)

75RobertDay
feb 23, 2020, 5:02 pm

>74 dustydigger: But it was safe when used as directed.

I've finished The Long War. I suspect that a lot of people wrote this off for a number of reasons (potboilery, too many hands, Pratchett's illness are three that it could be accused of), but once I got used to the pace - short chapters and quite a few pov characters - I warmed to it. There's a lot of ideas in there that are only hinted at, some of which I suspect are picked up in later volumes.

I did find that I hit an expository lump about halfway through (Baxter's, I presume) and thought "At last! Something I can get my teeth into!"

Now started Agency. 15 pages in, and so far, so Gibson.

76rshart3
feb 23, 2020, 10:33 pm

Just two or three chapters into Godplayers by Damien Broderick. It's one of those books that plunges into complex situations without much preparation, so that you spend at least the first part of the book just trying to understand what's happening. I like that -- the process of putting the pieces together. Clearly it involves vast struggles, across multiple alternate realities, between powerful antagonists. And it might be heading in the "evil machines threaten biological life" trope, but that remains to be seen.

77nx74defiant
feb 24, 2020, 7:22 pm

Biblical: A Novel not bad, a little slow in parts. What is reality?

78iansales
feb 26, 2020, 2:25 am

Finished World Engines: Destroyer. Pretty much well-travelled Baxter territory - a version of Reid Malenfant from the Manifold trilogy is woken in 2469 because Emma Stoney, who went missing in 2006 on a mission to Phobos, has just sent a radio message asking for him. Cue unknowable exotic tech, alternate timelines, a British space programme, and alien mega-engineering. It all feels a bit warmed-over, to be honest. But I'll probably still read the sequel, even if - as is the case with a lot of Baxter's series - the sequels never match the promise of the opening book.

Now reading A City Made of Words, a short collection by Paul Park from PM Press.

79johnnyapollo
feb 26, 2020, 7:20 am

Now reading The Magician King by Lev Grossman...

80SChant
feb 27, 2020, 3:44 am

Started K J Parker's Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City. Entertaining ersatz-Rome with extra engineering nerdiness - I do enjoy his books!

81Shrike58
feb 27, 2020, 6:28 am

I liked it quite a lot...and this is considering that my patience for the "secret history" story isn't what it used to be.

82Shrike58
Bewerkt: feb 27, 2020, 6:36 am

Also, I basically finished Cosmonaut Keep (B-) yesterday evening and my overall impression was a little on the 'meh' side. This is too bad as I liked MacLeod's work in the early 2K's but I'm not sure that his cyber-punk take on outre lefty politics has held up all that well. I should probably give his most recent trilogy a go. It also doesn't help that there are a number of new, bright and shiny things calling to me; Gideon the Ninth is on hold for me at the public library and I'm eager to see whether it really is the greatest thing since sliced bread!

83Cecrow
feb 27, 2020, 7:36 am

I've started Brunner's The Sheep Look Up, on the watch for eerie prescience.

84RobertDay
feb 27, 2020, 7:58 am

>82 Shrike58: I'm working through the Engines of Light trilogy, too (Engine City is coming to the top of the TBR pile), and you'll (mostly) find the leftist politics easing off in the second volume, although there is some good old-fashioned street activist campaigning in that book.

MacLeod's books up to 'Engines of Light' were helped if you knew the British Left in some detail, and that looks tired now in no little part because that is so unfashionable nowadays. How much the individual reader feels that to be A Bad Thing is a matter of taste. Of course, there's only so much mileage you can get out of that one theme, and even I was beginning to feel that MacLeod had about mined that seam to exhaustion.

85pgmcc
feb 27, 2020, 11:39 am

>82 Shrike58: & >83 Cecrow:
I enjoyed the 'Engines of Light' trilogy. I found each book "OK" as individual books, but when I had finished the third I felt the trilogy was more than the sum of its parts.

I had a discussion with Ken about the second book, which I described as a, "how-to-cause-an-insurrection" handbook. He said he had based it on the build up to the Northern Ireland troubles. He claimed the Communist Party had played a big part in the starting up of the troubles. Having grown up in Belfast through that period I had to let him know that his sources had over-egged the role of the Communist Party.

One thing that pre-disposed me to like Cosmonaut Keep was the fact that I started reading it in Edinburgh the day after I had been looking at maps of the city to get to know the lay of the land. The story of Cosmonaut Keep starts in a well into the future Edinburgh but it still included the street names and areas that I had just familiarised myself with.

86karenb
feb 27, 2020, 2:02 pm

>85 pgmcc: Good to know, about the Engines of Light; I hope I'll remember that when I start reading them. MacLeod is one of the authors I've meant to keep up with but haven't.

Finished Miranda in Milan by Katharine Duckett, a novella about what happens after The Tempest, focusing on Prospero's daughter, what happened after Miranda's mother died, etc. Part of my Hugo nominations prep.

Next is Blackfish City by Sam Miller, a future where global warming has flooded the US government (among others) out of the existence. Takes place on a constructed floating city in the Arctic. A bit jarring after Shakespearean fantasy, but the book discussion won't wait.

87ScoLgo
feb 27, 2020, 4:38 pm

>82 Shrike58: I really enjoyed The Corporation Wars, (I assume that's the most recent trilogy you are referencing). I have not read any of his earlier works but have the Fall Revolution tetralogy on tap for this year. Of the two stand-alone novels I have read, I enjoyed The Restoration Game, quite a bit more than The Night Sessions.

88pgmcc
feb 27, 2020, 5:07 pm

>87 ScoLgo:
The Corporation Wars trilogy is his last publication and I enjoyed it too.

His near future books are good too. Execution Channel; Intrusion; Descent

89ScoLgo
feb 27, 2020, 5:43 pm

>88 pgmcc: Thanks. I have a lot of MacLeod to catch up on!

90paradoxosalpha
Bewerkt: feb 27, 2020, 5:51 pm

I loved Engines of Light and the Fall Revolution. (I read them in that order, the more recent series first.) The only standalone MacLeod I've read was Newton's Wake, and while I didn't find the end of that one entirely satisfying, it was a lively ride to get there.

91iansales
feb 28, 2020, 2:12 am

>87 ScoLgo: I thought Intrusion his best so far. I've yet to read the last two books in the Corporation trilogy, however.

Just started reading Joanna Russ by Gwyneth Jones.

92Shrike58
feb 29, 2020, 8:57 pm

Finished up A Conspiracy of Truths this evening, billed as a story about story telling, and enjoyed it quite a bit; it maybe went on just a little too long.

93SFF1928-1973
mrt 3, 2020, 9:10 am

>60 dustydigger: I'm surprised to hear you describe Philip K. Dick as "literary SF". I've never thought of him that way. He does have a lot of crazy ideas that aren't always fully worked out, which could be annoying for some readers.

94paradoxosalpha
Bewerkt: mrt 3, 2020, 10:22 am

Yeah, I don't think the bulk of Dick's work is "literary" at all. He was working on the imaginative margins of an insulated genre.

He has, though, been posthumously rehabilitated for the literary establishment. I mean, a three-volume Library of America collection does leave a mark.

95ChrisRiesbeck
mrt 3, 2020, 2:51 pm

>94 paradoxosalpha: "Outsider art" might be his modern label.

96ScoLgo
Bewerkt: mrt 3, 2020, 5:36 pm

Whoops, wrong thread! Moving this post over to March...

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