What are you reading in August?

[GOLLUM]

Please post here what you are reading in August...

 

[HareBrain]

Finished Max Barry's Lexicon. So that was quick. Also very, very good, if perhaps not quite as good in the end as the first three-quarters promised. Still one of the best SF books or thrillers I've ever read, though.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Halfway through Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart right now and liking it more and more.

Other books I'm making my way through this August:

1. Confessions of a Sociopath which is both interesting and extremely disturbing.
2. Cassandra Clare's whopper of a series closer, City of Heavenly Fire
3. Maze Runner by James Dashner
4. Happy Hour in Hell by Tad Williams

 

[soulsinging]

Just started the Chronicles of Amber. I came across a mid-70s version of what I understand to be the first (and superior) Corwin cycle in two hardcover collections and am already pretty hooked. I ripped through Nine Princes of Amber and really enjoy his writing and restraint. Like some other early writers (Foundation trilogy, Bester's Stars My Destination), he is a master of understatement and building worlds by brush strokes that let your imagination fill in the blanks which I tend to find a lot more engaging and a nice contrast to the sometimes tedious minutiae of Martin/Jordan type fantasy.

 

[Vertigo]

Engine City (book 3 of The Engines of Light) by Ken MacLeod; generally very good but a dreadful ending. More thoughts here.

Moving on to Osiris by E J Swift. I'm a little concerned about this one as it was a freebie and I've had more bad than good from freebies.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

About to reread The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. LeGuin, for a odd reason. My better half can get to a local book club meeting which is going to discuss the book (I have to work) so I'm supposed to come up with some things to talk about. (Just based on my memory of the book, I can suggest comparing it to Philip K. Dick, discussing LeGuin's political philosophy [sort of a left-wing anarchism, I believe], whether her vision of the early 21st century is relevant to our own time, the possible influence of Taoism on her work, and so on.)

 

[thaddeus6th]

Still on the first Honor Harrington book. I've also just finished re-reading the second part of three of John Julius Norwich's fantastic history on Byzantium.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Just finished the "Engine City" (book 3 of The Engines of Light) by Ken MacLeod. I've read five of his books now, (3 in July) I don't think I'll bother with more.
Just finished a Chalet School book, Elinor Brent-Dyer.
Now reading PG Wodhouse (read Mike, Mike & Psmith already 31st July, as well as the Golden Bat last year, school stories, not the better known Jeeves & Wooster which I have all in paperback), Angela Brazil, Emerson, L T Meade, Talbot Bains Reed and other school stories (particularly boarding school) off Gutenburg.
Different to my usual diet of of SF&F and others. But I do read kids books, (Recently read most of Series of Unfortunate Events, Spiderwick and load of shoe books by Noel Streatfeild)
I'm just past 1/3rd of "A terrible Tomboy" Angela Brazil (Not a boarding school one though) and I think far better than Enid Blyton (though I'm fond of Famous Five, her Mallory Towers isn't as good?), Noel Streatfield, Brent-Dyer etc. Very good descriptions. I doubt I'll get as far as Charlotte Bronte (Villette) and Jean Webster this month (Need to re-read Daddy Long Legs as well as others I haven't read).

The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. LeGuin

I'm sure I liked this. But I've forgotten what was in it. I have it somewhere here. I never read any of hers I didn't like. Though some I like a lot more.

 

[AE35Unit]

What happened to the awesomely alliterative headings?

I'm about halfway thru Star Trek TOS -Devil's Bargain by Tony Daniels. Quite good so far!

 

[hitmouse]

Some of these were finished at the end of July, but i am back on line tonight after 2 weeks in a tent so might as well package things together. Typed on iphone in motel so apols for mistakes etc.

Fevre Dream George RR Martin competent vampire costume thriller set on river Mississippi River steamers early C19th. Not as good as some have made out.

On Basilisk Station David Weber. I am not quite sure why I bought this. Probably just to try a completely new author. Perfectly ok military sf with an engaging plot, but a bit,um, pious and lacking in any kind of wit or irony. SF for the Tea Party. The bad guys run a welfare state.

Costume Not Included and Hell to Pay Matthew Hughes no 2 & 3 in a trilogy about a socially handicapped actuary who accidentally causes hell to go on strike, which turns out to be a bit of a problem for the everyday functioning of the world. Witty and provocative moral comedy.

Railsea by China Mieville. Excellent bizarre SF in the Mieville style. Initially this looked like it was simply going to be a Moby Dick transposition, but it very cleverly veers off on several other interesting tangents. Very good indeed.

Patrick Leigh Fermor. The 3rd book of his walk from Holland to Constantinople as a young man in the early 1930s. The title eludes me and the book is buried in the boot of he car. The first two books in the series are magical. This, the final part of the trilogy hasbeen published post mortem after a wait of decades. Well worth the wait. So far he has mooched around Bulgaria and has just walked back North toBucharest. Superb stuff.

Collins guides: Insects of Europe, and Birds of Great Britain and Europe. If I am going to be outdoors for a couple of weeks then these guides help a lot. More to the point my children get quite excited trying to identify beetles, butterfies etc. Griffon Vultures, Montague's Harriers, Short Toed Eagles, Geometer and Burnet Moths, Fritillaries and Swallowtails. Whirligig and Longhorn beetles. Lots of poetry in those names.

 

[nixie]

Just finished Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes,
Started Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series
Next will be Joe Abercrombie's Half s King

 

[Vertigo]

On Basilisk Station David Weber. I am not quite sure why I bought this. Probably just to try a completely new author. Perfectly ok military sf with an engaging plot, but a bit,um, pious and lacking in any kind of wit or irony. SF for the Tea Party. The bad guys run a welfare state.

In fairness the politics do become a lot more ambiguous as the series continues with the ultimate baddies being the most right wing bunch in space rather than the most left wing.

 

[Extollager]

Patrick Leigh Fermor. The 3rd book of his walk from Holland to Constantinople as a young man in the early 1930s. The title eludes me and the book is buried in the boot of he car. The first two books in the series are magical. This, the final part of the trilogy hasbeen published post mortem after a wait of decades. Well worth the wait. So far he has mooched around Bulgaria and has just walked back North toBucharest. Superb stuff.

Collins guides: Insects of Europe, and Birds of Great Britain and Europe. If I am going to be outdoors for a couple of weeks then these guides help a lot. More to the point my children get quite excited trying to identify beetles, butterfies etc. Griffon Vultures, Montague's Harriers, Short Toed Eagles, Geometer and Burnet Moths, Fritillaries and Swallowtails. Whirligig and Longhorn beetles. Lots of poetry in those names.

That's great about your youngsters. I'm nearly 60 now, and I can tell you that it's great to be able to look back and remember how a parent helped to open your eyes to the natural world. I hear you about the insect names; in my own case, my dad would mention the names of minerals (he has quite a collection from his rockhounding days) -- feldspar, tourmaline, schist, orthoclase, obsidian, turquoise, etc. I didn't become a rockhound like him, but I get why someone would. He also knew the names of some of the wild flowers, trees, etc. He'd just mention these things on one of our rambles, not make like a lecturer.

The Leigh Fermor book you just read is The Broken Road. I'm in the middle book, Between the Woods and the Water.

I've just reread Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword after a 40-year hiatus and read his "Queen of Air and Darkness" for the first time. I'd still rate his Enemy Stars a lot higher, personally. I've posted another entry at my Groff Conklin thread (Classic SF area). Also have done some Henry James reading. As for this month, I'm likely to read Vidar Sundstøl's The Land of Dreams (first book of a Minnesota Trilogy by this crime novelist; recommended by a colleague who is quite an authority on the Scandinavian mystery writers.

 

[dwndrgn]

Should I post every day or just give a list of anticipated reads?

Let's see - so far this month I've read the final book of the Wings of Fire MG series by Tui T. Sutherland (which was very good but better on audio), the second book of the cozy fantasy series that began with Dragons of Wendal (cozy fantasy is sort of a mesh of fantasy and cozy mystery - fun, light reads), the final Hunger Games book (which I hated because it depressed the bejeebers out of me), the first book of a new series by Rachel Aaron called Nice Dragons Finish Last (a wonderfully witty urban fantasy), the latest Kate Daniels book, Magic Breaks, erm...a few others but I think that is a start. Oh, and right now I'm reading Crossed Blades by Kelly McCullough which is good high fantasy with an ex assassin and listening to the second book in the Colors of Madelaine series called The Cracks in the Kingdom.

 

[dwndrgn]

Forgot to mention above that DragonKin was an ARC so it isn't available until August 12th but the first book is, if anyone is interested.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I'm about halfway through The Puppet Masters (1951) by Robert A. Heinlein. This is an old paperback I'm reading, so I guess it's not the "restored full version" that came out in 1990.

A capsule description would be "James Bond meets the Body Snatchers," although that makes it sound kind of silly. It's actually a fast-paced yarn about a super-secret American government agency that investigates a "flying saucer" which turns out to be the real thing, full of nasty alien parasites that attach themselves to the nervous systems of their human victims and control their minds and bodies. The usual Heinlein virtues: realistic "taking the future for granted" style, a hard-boiled, semi-smart aleck narrator which fits the character and the plot. The scenes detailing what it feels like to be under the control of the alien are quite vivid. There's a pretty high level of sex (mostly teasing rather than out-and-out copulating) and violence (lots of human victims are slaughtered by the "good guys" in graphic ways) for a genre novel of the very early 1950's. I suppose this can be read as an allegory for the Cold War, although so far the only direct hint of this is this reference to "Russia" (I assume it's still the USSR in this novel's early 21st century):

The parasites might feel right at home there.

 

[j d worthington]

I'm about halfway through The Puppet Masters (1951) by Robert A. Heinlein. This is an old paperback I'm reading, so I guess it's not the "restored full version" that came out in 1990.

Correct. While the majority of the changes are relatively minor, there are a few major changes which, in the main, add to the impact of the novel, particularly the horrific aspects of it, through their utter dehumanization of the "puppets". Not all the changes, in my view, are improvements, but on the whole... yes. Still, either version is well worth reading.....

 

[Lord Soth]

Struggling through The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler, I know this middle novel of the trilogy is heavily inspired by the French Revolution but for me its not a patch on The Thousand Names.

Its got to a point now where I am considering ditching it, which is a real shame as I loved the first and he 'had' made it onto my hardback author list

 

[Null_Zone]

I'm about half way through Prince of Fools by Mark Lawrence.
After that, well I'm torn about whether to start Daniel Abraham's The Widow House or save it for my holiday.

 

[AE35Unit]

Correct. While the majority of the changes are relatively minor, there are a few major changes which, in the main, add to the impact of the novel, particularly the horrific aspects of it, through their utter dehumanization of the "puppets". Not all the changes, in my view, are improvements, but on the whole... yes. Still, either version is well worth reading.....

I enjoyed reading that years ago. Good book.