May 2018 reading thread

[Foxbat]

Just started The Tattooist Of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. It seems to be getting good reviews some I'm hopeful

 

[Pawel P Ach]

Just started reading Sapkowski's saga The Witcher again and I must say it's absolutely amazing. It's such a shame the whole artistry of the author can be understand only for people who read Polish! Have anyone red it in English? Is the translation worth it?

 

[soulsinging]

I finished The Forever War and it was very good. I'm not big on military SFF or the like, but it was very engaging and had some interesting perspective on the idea of coming back from a war to a culture you no longer understand and that no longer understands you. It does have a weird fixation on soldier sex lives, which seems strangely common in these books (Heinlen, Old Man's War).

On to Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It's got stellar reviews and is fantastic so far.

 

[Rodders]

Just finished Toby Frost’s Space Captain Smith: End Of Empires.

Very funny and chock full of sci fi references. Well worth a read if you like a little SF comedy.

Now onto Rise Of The Soldier by Neal Asher.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while and Neal is becoming one of my go to authors.

 

[Vertigo]

Just finished Toby Frost’s Space Captain Smith: End Of Empires.

Very funny and chock full of sci fi references. Well worth a read if you like a little SF comedy.

Now onto Rise Of The Soldier by Neal Asher.

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while and Neal is becoming one of my go to authors.

Would that be The Soldier; first book in The Rise of the Jain?

I'm wanting to get it but a) £10 is a little too much for me to pay for either a paperback or the ebook, and b) I think I might wait; I hate long intervals between books in series and this appears to be marketed as the first in a trilogy so I'll probably wait until at least the second one is out. Be interested to hear what you think of it.

 

[Rodders]

You are correct, Vertigo.

I really like Asher's work, so I am sure it'll be excellent.

 

[Danny McG]

I've read Last Call twice and it's one of my all-time favourite books. Declare is almost up there with it (and some of the imagination/ideas are even better) but it's a bit too sprawling

Inspired by this I got Last Call as an ebook.
Took a look at it just now, then a second look and a hasty skim.

Oh bu**er! I've already read it at some time.
still, at least I've got it again

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Year's Best S-F 5th Annual Edition (1960) edited by Judith Merril. Notable for containing "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, the finest science fiction story I have ever read.

To cleanse the palate, I am also reading The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel (1953) by Edward Gorey, one the self-illustrated, tiny little eccentric books by that noted artist.

 

[The Big Peat]

Just started reading Sapkowski's saga The Witcher again and I must say it's absolutely amazing. It's such a shame the whole artistry of the author can be understand only for people who read Polish! Have anyone red it in English? Is the translation worth it?

I read Blood of Elves and ended up somewhat frustrated because the prose felt somewhat stilted, but I know there are a lot of fans of the English translation out there.

 

[Parson]

Just finished reading Thunder and Lightening by Christopher Nutall and Leo Champion. It was a pretty solid first contact S.F. fairly original and had an interesting subplot of the motivational aspects of family. Interestingly it looks to be stand alone. I guess we'll wait and see.

 

[kythe]

So I finished "Waters and the Wild", which is a haunting story involving good people that takes place in a very beautiful setting. I started "Inish Carraig", which couldn't be any more different since it is a story about destitute people living in ruins with s**t eaters.

I'm finding this to be a strange pair of stories to read back to back.

 

[nixie]

So I finished "Waters and the Wild", which is a haunting story involving good people that takes place in a very beautiful setting. I started "Inish Carraig", which couldn't be any more different since it is a story about destitute people living in ruins with s**t eaters.

I'm finding this to be a strange pair of stories to read back to back.

I loved both. Wilds I'm still trying to decide was it fantasy or delusion, either way it didn't matter, it's a beautifully crafted tale that draws you in.

 

[kythe]

I think Wilds was a fairly realistic portrayal of a psychotic episode, and it isn't unheard of for family members to have shared delusions due to similar genetics and environmental influences. On the other hand, Ireland has been known for fairies since the time of legends....

See, when I read books like "The Waters and the Wild", I want to travel to Ireland to see the glens, the forests, the pastures, the cliffs and the sea, and all the green beauty nature has to offer. And then I read Inish Carraig and realize that Ireland is actually a desolate ruin overrun by aliens with a social environment where everyone is out for themselves, and I now longer want anything to do with the place.

 

[Randy M.]

Finished My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. Very enjoyable, a good summer read and maybe especially for anyone with some nostalgia for the 1980s.

 

[HareBrain]

Finished The Devil is a Gentleman. Even though I've only read two of Dennis Wheatley's books, and have no desire to read any more, this was a very interesting bio, with a nice line in dry wit by Phil Baker.

Now, despite a hankering to reread Somerset Maugham's The Magician, I think I'll try Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, another of those secondhand Folio Society editions I can't seem to stop buying.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Daniel Dennett, From Bacteria To Bach And Back.

 

[nixie]

Stephen & Owen King: Sleeping Beauties.

 

[williamjm]

I finished reading The Last Defender of Camelot, a collection of some of Roger Zelazny's short stories. I think my favourite in the collection was 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai. I think it could have worked even better as an illustrated edition, although I was able to refer to Wikipedia to find out what pictures the main character was looking at. Like many of Zelazny's stories it packed a lot of ideas into a small number of pages and started off very bizarre but made much more sense as it went along (even if some things were left unexplained). I thought For a Breath I Tarry, Permafrost and the title story were good as well, although some of the other stories were a bit more average. Home is the Hangman has some interesting ideas and isn't as dated as a story about A.I. written in the 70s should be, but I found the plot a bit dull. .

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

6th Annual Edition The Year's Best S-F (1961) edited by Judith Merril. Working my way through these one by one, it's odd how the title of the series keeps changing slightly.

 

[unbusy thing]

a weird fixation on soldier sex lives

You're not wrong... Started reading The Forever War a few months back but got derailed by the bit where they ‘unleashed Stargate’s eighteen sex-starved men on our women; compliant and promiscuous by military custom (and law)’. I might've had more time for the premise of co-opting soldiers with sex work if the same welcome carpet was rolled out for gay ones – but that’s a premise too far, seemingly. I might go back to TFW, but only if it has something more profound to say than War bad. Time dilation bad.

Also read The Memory Chamber by Holly Cave. A slightly stretched premise (mirror neurons in a petri dish = dead you in artificial ‘Heaven’) which is topical at least (The ethics of experimenting with human brain tissue), but unfortunately everything else was so signposted it was another let down which I can’t divulge for spoilery reasons.

Now reading The Fireman by Joe Hill, and wondering why only sff has a problem with omniscient narration.