May 2018 reading thread

[Hugh]

I finished Tim Powers' "Hide Me Among The Graves". I'm grateful to this thread for galvanising me into reading it, and thereby freeing me of the guilt of seeing it unread on my shelf, but I didn't really enjoy it. While, I'd admired his "The Stress of Her Regard", I didn't particularly wish to read a sequel. I can see why I put off reading it for a years. That said, I find it difficult to be critical as the book is impressive in its own way.

I'm very much enjoying the "Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien". I'm only about a quarter of the way through.

 

[Hugh]

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.

This was one of my favourites in the series, perhaps because I read it first, age 15. In general I much prefer the earlier volumes to the later ones, where the stories tend to become shorter and less satisfying (for me).

 

[Parson]

I've begun The Rosetta Man by Claire McCague. I'm about a third into it and am now finding it quite fascinating, but I very nearly kicked it to the curb in the first chapter or so. One of the Main Character's can talk to animals and has squirrels who "normally" surround him. I found that so off putting. It sounded like a bad idea from Dr. Doolittle and that weird wizard (I don't remember his name) from The Lord of the Rings. Being naturally thrifty I sighed and went back to it after reading another novel. I'll have to see by the end, it might be quite a good First Contact story, or it could still degenerate into one of the worst.

 

[The Judge]

Radagast the Brown? (He's not weird in the novel, Parson, though he does converse with birds.)

I've put the Elizabeth Moon Cold Welcome to one side for the moment as I wasn't enjoying it, and have gone for fantasy, namely The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman. I'm just over half-way through, but I'm still not sure what I think of it. On the plus side, it's been fast-ish paced so far, and I'm finding it easy to read. But the world-building -- what there is of it (not much) -- is irritating in the extreme as he's using the names of real world places and nationalities without adhering to real world cultures or, as far as I can make out, geography, suggesting it's alternative history but without making the proper effort involved to make it convincing. There's no hint yet of the relevance of the title, but the only religion seen so far is again irritating -- an horrifically cruel one which is Christianity, complete with Eve and original sin but skewed with a hanged Christ-figure, and with no depth only depravity, and which appears to be practised by just one military order. The omniscient narration is also annoying me, suggesting an actual narrator without that narrator being formally present. But notwithstanding the flaws, I'm sticking with it, so he's evidently doing something right.

 

[Parson]

Radagast the Brown? (He's not weird in the novel, Parson, though he does converse with birds.)

Indeed, him; I've not read The Lord of the Rings (I couldn't see putting myself through that after the horrific fight I had to finish The Hobbit). I did see the movie and I thought him weird in that.

 

[Vertigo]

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - a good fun, light, space opera that could have been so much better. More here.
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds - Not one of Reynolds best but an unusual setting and good story still make this very good. More here.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - An excellent piece of hard SF, not quite 5 stars but close! More here.

Edited to add: I should have said thank you to @Gonk the Insane and @Bugg whose recommendations drew Children of Time to my attention.

 

[ZlodeyVolk]

Appalled by Foxtel's 'reimagining' of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock, I'm at last reading the actual novel; so there's that.

Prior to this, I read Boris Akunin's State Counsellor; and probably will revisit the film in the very near future. But once I've finished Picnic, I might head into Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. And I've recently ordered a copy of Yevgeniy Zamyatin's We; so that should come along any month, now.

 

[Paul_C]

I've put Arrive at Easterwine, the Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine to one side for a bit, and picked up Landor's Tower by Iain Sinclair.

So far it seems almost as mad, but it's a lot more readable.

It's not going well this month

Landor's Tower is ok, but I fancied something else, so it's been added to the later pile and replaced by Queen City Jazz - Kathleen Ann Goonan, which is much more like it

 

[Bick]

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?

Yes, I recently read the prequel book of connected short stories, The Last Wish. (If you search you’ll feel d my comments) - I thought it was great.

 

[janeoreilly]

I finished reading Planetfall, which I really enjoyed although i generally like my scifi a little more soapy. She's got a really interesting, compelling voice. I then read Assassination Classroom which is a brilliant manga about a weird alien that has destroyed the moon and is now threatening to destroy the earth but moonlighting as a teacher in the meantime. Now reading David Weber on Basilisk Station which I bumped up the TBR after meeting a really nice bloke at follycon who was a member of the fanclub.

 

[tobl]

I finished reading Planetfall, which I really enjoyed although i generally like my scifi a little more soapy. She's got a really interesting, compelling voice. I then read Assassination Classroom which is a brilliant manga about a weird alien that has destroyed the moon and is now threatening to destroy the earth but moonlighting as a teacher in the meantime. Now reading David Weber on Basilisk Station which I bumped up the TBR after meeting a really nice bloke at follycon who was a member of the fanclub.

you never read Basilisk? weber's book begins a little slow but the series reallly improves with time.

 

[Parson]

What a treat! Not to have read On Basilisk Station! I agree that the series gets better, or at least does not deteriorate until about book 6 or 7. My favorite in book 4 On the Field of Dishonor. The last ones, and I still read them all!, are much more filled with characters not central to the conflict and more words that they should have by about half.

 

[Danny McG]

The Greks bring gifts by Murray Leinster
I started it last night and have about twenty pages still to read.

I'm finding it a very similar premise to Idiot Stick by Damon Knight

 

[anno]

So after finishing a couple of music books,I am part way through ‘A fire on the deep’
So far good but bizarrely missing my old dog Jaffa

 

[Paul_C]

What a treat! Not to have read On Basilisk Station! I agree that the series gets better, or at least does not deteriorate until about book 6 or 7. My favorite in book 4 On the Field of Dishonor. The last ones, and I still read them all!, are much more filled with characters not central to the conflict and more words that they should have by about half.

Having seen the joy in this post I went and looked on Amazon for On Basilisk Station, and got it for my Kindle for free

 

[Peter V]

Read Finders Keepers by Stephen King and The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F Hamilton on my recent holiday. Enjoyed the latter enough to download its sequel Night Without Stars and got about a third of the way into that. I really like Hamilton's Commonwealth Universe but do feel his fantasy elements are not on a par with the pure SF which is IMHO quite superb.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm giving the 1950's a go now with The Shiralee by D'Arcy Niland.

A jolly swagman on the road with his young daughter

 

[dask]

Don Pendleton's description of a dream he had where his character Mack Bolan briefly meets Sherlock Holmes in his home at 221B Baker street makes this the edition to have. That he never developed that dream into a novel is a tragedy of the highest magnitude.

 

[ZlodeyVolk]

Now that I've finished Picnic at Hanging Rock, it's time to take up Pincers of Death.

 

[Parson]

Began listening to Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne. I'm hoping it is as engaging as The Naturalist was. I've also started reading New threat by our own Nathan Hystad.