It's September. What are you reading?

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Just finished Self Editing For Fiction Writers.

Some good stuff about the pitfalls of bad writing. How to pace dialog with beats etc. Speech attribution. Show V tell and the like.

However, I found some parts really frustrating - Quite a few places their 'improved' versions to me had completely different takes on the original, which jarred somewhere in the back of my mind.

All that being said, it has taught me some interesting things. It's a shame it's not available digitally (so far)
 
Wrapped up The Iron Jackal, another enjoyable romp in Chris Wooding's Ketty Jay series. Now I'm re-reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as I work my way through this series again slowly.
 
Finally finished Andy Weir's The Martian. Really fun book. It's that incredibly rare book without an antagonist character. All the characters in this book were on the same team. I'm sure that was pretty hard for Weir to pull off. I suppose a solo-existence on Mars creates conflict enough. There was a fair amount of hype when this book came out, and it was all deserved as far as I'm concerned. I'm very curious to see what he will write next as nothing could really be similar to this book. It's fair to say I have no idea what kind of writer Weir is, other a writer who wrote a compelling book.
 
Vince W said:
The Hornblower books are fantastic and inspired many copies homages. ;)
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Bugg said:
I'm working my way through Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey/Maturin' series myself and think it's marvellous :)
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Vince W said:
I've read Patrick O'Brian and you should definitely check him out Vertigo. Well worth your time.
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The Judge said:
Definitely, though I found my interest waning towards the end, and I didn't enjoy the last couple as much as the others. Still an incredible series, though.
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Bick said:
Regarding O'Brian - thirded! I've only read the first three or four but they are terrific. I'm sure I'll read more in time.
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Have any of you O'Brian/Forester supporters read any of Dudley Pope's books as he is another similar age of sail author I have considered?
 
I have, at least one of the Ramage series, though I can't now recall the title -- definitely a Ramage as there's a scene with a Frenchman who mispronounces his name (?as Ramarge, not as Rammidge?). If I'm remembering the right book (this was from years back and there have been a lot of books since...) I wasn't that impressed by it -- there was a scene where he's at breakfast with his wife and reading The Times, and Pope had obviously researched the appropriate edition so we got this terrible info-dump which was simply all his research spewed straight onto the page. To my mind, too, it was a lot more coy and Boy's Own than the O'Brian's, like something from the 40s or 50s, though I see on checking dates that they were both writing at much the same time. O'Brian also knocks him into a cocked hat for style.
 
Thanks for that Judge, a quick look at the blurb on a number of the Ramage books gave me a bit of that 'Boy's Own' impression; a sort of age of sail Biggles. I hesitate to use the description as I generally hate it, but maybe they are a little 'lower brow.'
 
Vertigo said:
They do look nice but at nearly £40 per book, I'm afraid it's not just the shelf space I'd find limiting!
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As I said, "if I had the money and the shelf space . . . " - neither of which is never going to happen! :D
 
I finished listening to the Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'm at a loss to say how well I liked it. It is far out of the norm of anything else I've read. It had some memorable parts. Some utterly gross out parts.... I mean tiger feces???!!!! It had a lot of rumination about the meaning of life and God, which I liked a lot; Utterly boring parts about Zoo keeping; and an ending that can best be described as "fade to black." My brother-in-law said I should definitely see the end of the movie. After reading the book I think I might have to see the movie because there was no moving ending in the book.
 
Needless to say, I'm surprised that you feel that way. So as not to put too much in the way of spoilers here, could you pm me and tell me what you liked so much about the ending.
 
I'm currently reading the final Hollows book by Kim Harrison. Then I'll be onto The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks, which I've been really waiting for.
 
Moved on the another of Elizabeth Moon's books following Vata's War series. I stupidly read the fourth book Command Decisions before the third Engaging the Enemy. I went by publication dates and must have missed something. I liked Command Decisions quite well, but I'll bet it would have been better if I'd read Engaging the Enemy first. We'll see how Engaging the Enemy goes knowing some major spoilers before I start.

I've also moved to listening to Acts of Contrition by Jennifer Handford. Not my usual fare. It threatens to me mostly a romance but the whole idea of an intact Christian family facing the world is very appealing to me. We'll see how it goes. The introductory stuff is beguiling.
 
Just finished re-reading...

Babel-17
by Samuel R. Delany

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Delany makes some interesting commentary on language and how it effects the way people think and act while telling an epic outer space adventure featuring a colorful full cast of characters, espionage and plenty of action.
The Earth Alliance is fighting an interstellar war with the Invaders who have developed a communications weapon called Babel-17 that is responsible for multiple deadly attacks against the Alliance. Rydra Wong a starship captain, famous poet and telepath is recruited to decipher what they thought was a code but she discovers is actually a language. When her ship is sabotaged one of her crew is suspected of being an Invader spy. After witnessing an assassination her ship is again sabotaged. Her crew is saved by a privateer whose lieutenant, a man known as The Butcher may be the key to understanding Babel-17.
 
I've finished reading the Parker collection (Academic Exercises) that I'd just started when I last posted in this thread.

Some of the stories are exceptional, others I enjoyed but thought they were nothing special. However, all the stories work together in a way that is rather brilliant, as one character after another faces moral and ethical dilemmas and the reader is introduced to any number of ambiguities about right action versus wrong action and whether the end justifies the means.
 
Finished Cabell's The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck*, which is subtitled "A Comedy of Limitations". In this case, the comedy is often particularly bitter, though nonetheless effective for that. These latter books in the "Biography", being set in and around Lichfield (or at least concerning those who come from there), are more closely intertwined than other volumes in the set, though all have a multitude of (often subtle) connections; and in some ways, it reminds me of Eddison's Zimiamvian trilogy, in that several of these overlap to some degree chronologically, allowing for an examination of certain themes from a variety of angles while often including certain incidents in several pieces.

This particular novel is, as so much of the "Biography", very Romantic in sensibility, and with a remarkable blending of the chivalric, gallant, poetic, and realistic approaches to life. Beautifully done, and the structure is almost perfect.

Moving on now to the next (#15) of the set, The Eagle's Shadow....

*The title, incidentally, refers to a passage in one of Andersen's fairy tales.
 
I am reading way of kings, book 1 of stormlight archive and moving on to reading book 2 of the sword of truth series.
 
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