It's March -- what are you reading?

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Bick said:
I think we should allow Springs to mislike the Lost Fleet books and stop badgering her to change her mind. I've never read them myself but I plan on tackling Dauntless sometime soon.

I've just started The Day of the Triffids. I really like the writing so far. I mostly remember this from the 1980-ish TV series, starring John Duttine (I think).
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I love John Wyndham's work. His short stories are also brilliant.
 
I read Day of the Triffids last year and really enjoyed it. Now I'm in the middle of The Chrysalids. It's quite different in tone and focus, but also an excellent story.
 
kythe said:
I read Day of the Triffids last year and really enjoyed it. Now I'm in the middle of The Chrysalids. It's quite different in tone and focus, but also an excellent story.
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I had the feeling The Chrysalids was more for younger readers, but I loved it anyway. I can really recommend his short stories, e.g. Consider her Ways and other Stories.
 
The Seeds of Time is another must-read collection of John Wynham stories. And I think you're right, anno: new readers have hardly ever heard of him.
 
I'm currently reading Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson - the first book I've ever read by this author.
 
The Day of the Triffids is one of my favourite SF novels, and The Chrysalids is also very good.

Last month, I re-read Web, a short novel by John Wyndham, which is well worth reading, although it seems to have been out of print for a while. However, it is probably best avoided by anyone who is afraid of spiders!

So far this month I've read:

The Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard, which was interesting, I guess, as a fictionalised memoir of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.

On Writing by Stephen King, which was fairly entertaining and had some useful advice on writing.

Mainline by Deborah Christian, a fast-paced SF techno-thriller, which was very good.
 
Finished The Martian by Andy Weir, which is about one of the first astronauts to land on Mars getting stranded there in a freak accident and having to try to survive long enough to be rescued (several years). It was pretty good, though it made me really regret bailing on engineering in order to study literature. Talk about a huge mistake.

Now I'm returning to John Connolly's Parker series for the first time in several years to read the White Road.
 
Recently read The Revolutions by Felix Gilman, a story of late-Victorian occultism that's sort of Dion Fortune meets David Lindsay. Somewhat uneven, but recommended.

Also, The Phoenix and the Mirror by Avram Davidson, set in the Roman Empire as it might have been imagined from Renaissance Italy. A strange read, full of alchemical details that might try some readers' patience, but with a strong perfume of time and place -- though which time and place, I'm not sure. Not ours, anyway.

Now started The Bull From the Sea, by Mary Renault, the tale of Theseus after he returns home. It's classed as historical fiction, but it reads almost as fantasy because to the narrator, the supernatural is real. Like Davidson, Renault masterfully puts us in the head of someone with a world-view not at all like ours. And it's beautifully written -- it's the first book in ages that's given me the same excitement of discovery I often got reading a new author decades ago.
 
HareBrain said:
Now started The Bull From the Sea, by Mary Renault,
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It must be twenty or thirty years since I read that. Thoroughly enjoyed it and I must get hold of a copy to read it again. That and many of her other works, notably Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy (both about Alexander the Great), are beautifully written.
 
Yes, The Bull From the Sea is a magical book, even though there is no overt magic, and the prose is amazing, wonderfully descriptive without being in the least ornate. Have you read The King Must Die? TBFTS is actually the sequel, but it doesn't hurt to read them in reverse order. In fact, that's how I read them.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
Have you read The King Must Die? TBFTS is actually the sequel, but it doesn't hurt to read them in reverse order. In fact, that's how I read them.
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This is my first of hers, but I think I'll be reading all her books before long. I thought TBFTS was a "sequel" to the myth rather than another novel. Glad to hear there is one, and that the order doesn't matter. I'll look it out next.
 
Weird Wisconsin (2005), which was about 2/3 ghost stories, UFO's, cryptozoology, and other stuff my skeptical mind files under "fiction" and about 1/3 unusual people and places that really existed (Ed Gein) or still exist (the House on the Rock tourist trap.)

After dithering about it for a long time, I finally bit the bullet and bought a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (2004), to replace the free copy that I managed to lose after reading two-thirds of it. (See my blog for details.) It's been so long that I have started all over on it. I remember enjoying this Austen-and-Dickens-write-fantasy novel well enough.
 
HareBrain said:
I thought TBFTS was a "sequel" to the myth rather than another novel. Glad to hear there is one, and that the order doesn't matter. I'll look it out next.
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No, it is definitely a sequel, because it refers so often to people and details of the first book that are Renault's inventions/interpretations. And it's not that it doesn't matter what order you read them in, it's just that (going by my own experience) you can enjoy the second book very much without reading the first one first.
 
Reading a book on physics and one on philosophy, and a book called Egypt: Land of the Pharoahs by Robert Morkot. Trying to write a new novel so I am not reading any fiction at the moment, though I am waiting for a book by Robert Fabbri to arrive, and I look forward to taking a break and reading that one. Since it's a novel of historical fiction, I don't think it will interfere with my writing.
 
Alongside one or two other books I'm currently reading, have also revisited one of my comfort authors in Isaac Asimov. Starting with "Caves of Steel" - a really easy read but still entertaining even after all these years.
 
A Witch in Winter. Um. So far I'm annoyed by the instant and overwhelming attraction the mc feels for the boy the blurb tells me she's going to end up with. It feels puppyish and obvious and apparently I prefer romances which start with people not getting on very well, or some kind of misunderstanding, because "He's the most beautiful boy I have ever seen" has become a phrase that makes me twitch.

I will forgive Cassandra Clare for it, just, because Will is also seriously obnoxious. Seth (the boy in A Witch in Winter) appears to be a nice chap as well as being stunningly beautiful.

I am continuing because my sister lent me the books and our taste usually coincides.
 
I finished Summer Knight by Jim Butcher and have moved on to Fluency by Jennifer F. Wells. It has me intrigued and seems promising by the 10% I have read so far.
 
I just finished The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Although I really liked Day of the Triffids, this story felt much more personal to me. I relate more to the family structure and background of the main character. There are also multiple layers of parallels between modern fundamentalist religions and the beliefs carried by the characters in this book.

Now I'm on to read The Midwich Cuckoos, by the same author.
 
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