I've just finished reading Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, which I really enjoyed and will put a review up for soon. Though I thought the first novel in the omnibus - Shards of Honor - was interesting, but lacking in something, this was easily address in the second one - Barrayar. I especially love the way it's a familiar story told from an unfamiliar angle, and the reading experience is very rewarding for it.
I thought I'd try some golden-age SF during my breaks at work, starting with Orphan Star by Alan Dean Foster. It's not a bad book, it's just somewhat pulpy and superficial. I'll look to finish it, but I may go back to reading contemporary novels after.
I've been dipping into Knight of Flames by Amelia Faulkner. I really enjoyed the first book, Jack of Thorns, and it's balance between urban fantasy and romance. While I still very much enjoy the characters of Quentin and Laurence and the sensitivity of their relationship, there doesn't seem to have been much else happening in the first 15%. I'm impatient for a story arc rather than a simple will they or won't they?
Non-fiction is Brave Men by Ernie Pyle - a war correspondent's account of accompanying the Sicily landings. He spends a little too much time giving tribute to individual men for being there, rather than telling us what there is. An interesting insight into the mentality rather than war, but it needs to move on.
I'm also reading A World of Difference: An Anthology of Short Stories from Five Continents as part of my OU degree course, which starts in September. It's literary fiction, with moments of illumination in stories that otherwise underline the middle-class sensibilities of most of the writers.
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