April 2022 Reading Thread

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Some lighter stuff:

I recently finished one of those "stupid things conservatives say" books -- I can't recall the exact title, and lots of things pop up if you do a computer search. To be fair, the same publisher puts out a similar book about liberals, too. In the same vein, MAD About Trump: A Brilliant Look at Our Brainless President (2017), a collection of stuff from Mad magazine about you-know-who. (And thus you can deduce my own political prejudices.)

The Ditches of Edison County by Ronald Richard Roberts [fake name?] (1993), a parody of The Bridges of Madison County (1992) by Robert James Waller. Very goofy, silly, amusing stuff.

I Think, Therefore I Draw: Understanding Philosophy Through Cartoons (2018) by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, which alternates cartoons taken from other sources (The New Yorker, etc.) with two or three page discussions of philosophical points. Pretty much Philosophy 101, taught in a light, breezy style.

 

[The Big Peat]

Decided to go on a Saad Z. Hossain binge after finishing Kundo Wakes Up. I reread The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, which I think might be the best thing anyone's written in the last ten years, and am now onto Cyber Mage. I can't recommend his books enough for anyone looking for a slice of fantasy-meets-cyberpunk set in Asia, with tons of black humour and twisty plots.

Also rereading Pratchett's Lords and Ladies and Hughart's Bridge of Birds.

 

[Hugh]

I think a lot of the ideas and imagery are different to almost anything else and have a real power to them (Andelain is still the best expression of mystic-natural beauty I think I've ever read), and I guess the extent to which you respond to them depends on whether the prose style is to your taste. I thought they were great when I read them in the 80s, when I was much less bothered about the actual writing. My recent attempts to reread have foundered on the prose, but possibly I'll tolerate it better this time. Certainly in the couple of chapters I read last night it had a real propulsive force to it. That's not to say it won't develop a repulsive force later.

I did like its use of the idea that changes in ones inner world can create change in one's outer world.

 

[Hugh]

Decided to go on a Saad Z. Hossain binge after finishing Kundo Wakes Up. I reread The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, which I think might be the best thing anyone's written in the last ten years, and am now onto Cyber Mage. I can't recommend his books enough for anyone looking for a slice of fantasy-meets-cyberpunk set in Asia, with tons of black humour and twisty plots.

Which book would you recommend as a starting point?

 

[The Big Peat]

Which book would you recommend as a starting point?

Without having my made my way back through his entire works, I don't know just how much continuity there is between each work for sure, but so far it seems quite light - shared universe full of one-off tales - so I don't think there's any definite starting point. Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday is my absolute favourite so far - only about two quid for the novella on Amazon UK.

 

[Hugh]

Without having my made my way back through his entire works, I don't know just how much continuity there is between each work for sure, but so far it seems quite light - shared universe full of one-off tales - so I don't think there's any definite starting point. Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday is my absolute favourite so far - only about two quid for the novella on Amazon UK.

Many thanks indeed.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Watchtower by Warren Ellis - you can read for free here: WATCHTOWER: a short story by Warren Ellis

Mindf*ck - Inside Cambridge analytica's plot to break the world by Christopher Wylie

 

[Danny McG]

Into the Real - John Ringo

Into the Real

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR JOHN RINGO AND USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR LYDIA SHERRER JOIN FORCES ON A NEW SF NOVEL OF ALIEN INVASION. Ender's Game meets Mean Girls meets Pokemon Go. Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake," but...

www.baen.com

 

[HareBrain]

Into the Real - John Ringo

You left out his middle name, Paulgeorgeand

(Yeah yeah, but I bet there's someone who hasn't heard it before.)

 

[K. Riehl]

Finished Sherwood Smith's four book series The Phoenix Feather.
Moving on to a classic collection, His Share of the Glory. The complete short Science Fiction of C. M. Kornbluth. Check out the classic stories.

NESFA | His Share of Glory

His Share of Glory contains all the short science fiction written solely by Cyril M. Kornbluth. Many of the stories … Continue reading "His Share of Glory"

www.nesfa.org

 

[Danny McG]

Into the Real - John Ringo

Into the Real

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR JOHN RINGO AND USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR LYDIA SHERRER JOIN FORCES ON A NEW SF NOVEL OF ALIEN INVASION. Ender's Game meets Mean Girls meets Pokemon Go. Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake," but...

www.baen.com

DNF because too much of a YA story, I turned to the last couple of pages and had a look, "yeah, just as I thought, how very predictable".
My recommendation... avoid

Now reading an old Agatha Christie and then there were none

 

[Parson]

I just realized that I'd not gotten here this month. This has also been a month where DNF might become too regular to suit me:

First DNF: Jenny Schwartz Cajole (The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist Book 4) This series was always teetering on the edge of being just a Fantasy based Romance series. And that seems to be all book 4 is.

Finished: John Hindmarsh Violent Graduation (Jack Foster Space Opera Book 1) This was a promising beginning to what looked to be a fine space opera. Interesting set up, interesting characters, but it started to go off the rails with a crash of space ships in between stars (!!!) and not everyone is blown to atoms. (????) But I do have book two Rescue the Princess (a title that makes me think of Mario Brothers, sigh!) queued but I haven't been able to get past the title yet.

Finished: Daybreak (Girl from the Stars Book 1) by Cheree Alsop, This is a Space Fantasy, but it had a gritty edge and a character that I liked a lot. But at the end of the book they find a weapon which can collapse Galaxies. I mean: What!? And it can be fit into a smaller star ship: What!? But I bought the second in the series Daylight.

Second DNF: Daylight by Cheree Alsop. Now the plot revolves around this doomsday weapon, which is too unbelievable for me. And then everyone is also dealing with their personal agenda, and it started becoming a romance. So no steam to finish it.

Finished: Louisana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, book 1) by Jana DeLeon: If your a fan of Janet Evanovich and her "Stephanie Plum" books. You'll love this. The main character, Fortune Redding, is the polar opposite of Stephanie Plum, she is a CIA agent and an assassin. But her cover is blown and she needs to go to ground. She is sent to Sinful, Louisiana, a bayou town of 300, where she doesn't have a clue as to how to fit in. I found myself laughing continually as one "misfortune" after another comes her way. I gave it 5 stars. (And you all know how rare that is for me.)

Reading: Lethal Bayou Beauty (A Miss Fortune Mystery, book 2) by Jana DeLeon: Sorry to say I'm not finding this one as funny, but it is still holding my interest.

 

[Danny McG]

Finished: Louisana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, book 1) by Jana DeLeon

I've had a look at the series but she's now up to book 22, I don't really want to get into the possibility of getting hooked into the story and end up wading through that many books!

 

[Vertigo]

But I do have book two Rescue the Princess (a title that makes me think of Mario Brothers, sigh!) queued but I haven't been able to get past the title yet.

I would struggle with that title too!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am about to start Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015) edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. It collects stories from 1967 to 2011, some by such famous authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, others by writers not so well known to me.

 

[tobl]

I just realized that I'd not gotten here this month. This has also been a month where DNF might become too regular to suit me:

First DNF: Jenny Schwartz Cajole (The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist Book 4) This series was always teetering on the edge of being just a Fantasy based Romance series. And that seems to be all book 4 is.

Finished: John Hindmarsh Violent Graduation (Jack Foster Space Opera Book 1) This was a promising beginning to what looked to be a fine space opera. Interesting set up, interesting characters, but it started to go off the rails with a crash of space ships in between stars (!!!) and not everyone is blown to atoms. (????) But I do have book two Rescue the Princess (a title that makes me think of Mario Brothers, sigh!) queued but I haven't been able to get past the title yet.

Finished: Daybreak (Girl from the Stars Book 1) by Cheree Alsop, This is a Space Fantasy, but it had a gritty edge and a character that I liked a lot. But at the end of the book they find a weapon which can collapse Galaxies. I mean: What!? And it can be fit into a smaller star ship: What!? But I bought the second in the series Daylight.

Second DNF: Daylight by Cheree Alsop. Now the plot revolves around this doomsday weapon, which is too unbelievable for me. And then everyone is also dealing with their personal agenda, and it started becoming a romance. So no steam to finish it.

i had that problem literally with the volume 5 i think of the jack west jr. by matthew reilly, where there was something coming to destroy earth from the center of the universe and only the hero with his mind could prevent it... i kept thinking, does he even understand the distance involved?Honestly that series of his, it's by far,to me, the weakest of his.

 

[Hugh]

Jeanette Winterson "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?"
Autobiographical memoir. I've never read anything by this author and may never again, but parts of this book I thought were just wonderful.
So many writers just accumulate paragraphs to tell a story, but here I found myself reading one sentence at a time because each sentence was just so well written. And one good sentence follows another, and if it doesn't quite fit with the previous one, she just starts a new paragraph. And writing aside, I thought this was a great memoir. A 1960s childhood in which poverty and hunger were pretty much the norm, with a mother straight from the pages of Neil Gaiman, becomes transformed by the public library (books were not allowed at home other than the Bible and five others).
"I began to realise that I had company. Writers are often exiles, outsiders, runaways and castaways. These writers were my friends. Every book was a message in a bottle. Open it.
.... The wider we read the freer we become."

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I binge-read the whole Greenwing and Dart series (the whole series to date, that is) by Victoria Goddard. I especially liked the last book, where less actually happens but it had a lovely folkloric feel to it which was right up my alley.

Then something reminded me that for some reason I'd never read Juliana's Night Blade, so I did that. It has a nice pace. And even after all this time since I read the first book in the series I fell right back into the story.

Now I'm alternating (strangely enough) between books of Jane Austen criticism and some old novelettes and novellas by Algernon Blackwood. Well, not entirely strangely, I guess, since I tend to read one thing at a time, and the Blackwood stories are short enough to fit in nicely between the books.

 

[Hugh]

Arthur C. Clarke "The Sands of Mars" (1951)
The great man's first published novel. Sadly I found it very very dull though rooted I'm sure in careful assessment of all current knowledge about Mars at that time. Nothing much happens until something predictable about two thirds of the way through, and then nothing much again until the end.
One minor point of interest - it may be that the author is indulging himself a little here:
"What does one wear for formal dinners on Mars?" asked Jimmy.....
....... Evening dress on Mars, where in the heat and air-conditioned cities all clothes was kept to a minimum, consisted simply of a white silk shirt with two rows of pearl buttons, a black bow tie, and black satin shorts with a belt of wide aluminium links on an elastic backing."

 

[The Big Peat]

Finished Lords and Ladies. Stonking book. Think it might be a top five Discworld for me.

Also finished Dragonwings by Laurence Yep. Really nice book, really nice felicity of style. About a Chinese kid who comes to San Fran around 1900. Not entirely sure why I found out about it for a Fantasy encyclopedia, but any way I find out about it is a good one.

Started Gemmell's King Beyond The Great. I love how deep he makes seemingly straight-forward plots, and how he makes characters so implacably heroic and yet humanly flawed.

The rest of my currently reading list -

Silk Fire by Zade Ellor - Don't.
Tales of Neveryon by Samuel R Delany - Interesting but dense and dry.
Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance - Fun, but not as fun as Mazirian the Magician - not as mad, and Cugel the Clever is a bit of a bleh dick.
Death's Master by Tanith Lee - Utterly bonkers to start with
Cyber Mage by Saad Z Hossain - Lot of fun, but exposition heavy
Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart - An age old favourite

Since I've finished two books recently I think I'll start a few more to see if anything grabs me.