May's Marvellously Mysterious Manuscript Meanderings

[Rothgar]

Finished Martha Wells Death of the Necromancer. It reminded me a lot of The Lies of Locke Lamora.

Now I've picked up Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.

 

[Rodders]

Finished Valient, now on to The Lost Fleet: Relentless.

 

[Fried Egg]

Just finished another breathtaking installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series: "The Gods of Mars".

Now onto another collection of stories by Robert Aickman entitled: "The Wine-Dark Sea".

 

[D_Davis]

The Lost and the Lurking, by Manly Wade Wellman

The first Silver John novel I've read, and I totally loved it. In this longer form, Wellman is able to take his time and allow the language and dialect of the deep south take over. It's a really a book driven by the characters and their conversations with one another. The story is also thoughtful about religion, which is something I really appreciate. While John is a Jesus-man, he doesn't pass judgment on others. At the end of the day, The Lost and the Lurking is simply a wonderfully told tale, full of folksy charm, respectful regional characters, and some great writing. And while it's not particularly challenging, it is relentlessly entertaining and good-natured.

 

[L D Warne]

Not really SFF related books, but I'm doing a literature course at the moment and am not only covering the set books for the course, but am having to see how some books differ from their film derivatives. So, recently been reading the classics such as Pride & Prejudice, 1984, Great Expectations.

Due to a podcast I was listening to, I've taken time out to read something a bit more modern and am currently working through the Hannibal Lector stories in order of the films. I'm currently at Red Dragon and have both the Red Dragon and Manhunter films on standy [although seen them both before a while ago].

 

[Grimbear]

This Month I've read:

Michael Connelly - The Fifth Witness
8/10 - really good but still not as great as the Lincoln Lawyer which would get a 9/10 from me.

Peter Brett - The Desert Spear
6/10 - Did not enjoy is as much as the first one. Not sure why. It was less tightly written maybe.

Max Brooks - The Zombie Survival Guide
5/10 but informative and I'm now slepping better at night

Grim

 

[hormone]

I am finishing Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It is the smartest but most boring SF book I've ever read. Stay clear unless you enjoy reading Plato's Republic.

 

[Vertigo]

Just finished Chasing the Dragon the fourth of Justina Robson's Quantum gravity series. I was going to buy the latest book in the series and read that but... they have published hardback and paperback but no ebook yet (even though they only recently published all the previous books as ebooks )

So I shall probably read Neal Asher's Polity Agent instead.

 

[Connavar]

This Month I've read:

Michael Connelly - The Fifth Witness
8/10 - really good but still not as great as the Lincoln Lawyer which would get a 9/10 from me.

Hi Grim funny i have read 200 pages of The Fifth Witness and even though its not as good as Lincoln Lawyer its very good. 8/10 rating is rare and very good books to me. I would rate that high too.


Lincoln Lawyer is MC best book imo and Fifth Witness is much stronger than the last two Harry Bosch books. 9 Dragons didnt feel like a strong MC book. Harry looked silly in Hong Kong.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

New Life For The Dead by Charles Willeford which took a very 'day in the life' sort of approach to it's story, about Miami homicide cop Hoke Moseley dealing with housing problems, financial issues and parenthood in the midst of solving a few mysteries. The solution to the central case in the book was startlingly pragmatic and amoral. Very well paced, vivid and even humorous, I'll definitely look out for more by Willeford.

Now reading The Transgressors, which doesn't seem as if it's one of Jim Thompson's better works, too many repeated elements and an atmosphere of outright sordidness without that sense of a the story being related to a larger, if still dark, perspective that lifted the other novels by him that I've read.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Now reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. The theme is a dystopian America run by an oppressive Christian Theocracy.

 

[Lord Soth]

Finished Hyperion - disappointing. Then went in a different direction and read His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik, which was okay but seemed to skip many of the major incidents - the story stopped and the continuing story then referred to it in the past tense, and some of the plotting was awful.

Am currently speeding through The Folding Knife by K J Parker, which is... excellent! And for someone who actively avoids reading anything penned by female authors I have just realised I've done two in a row which is a record for me (and I have read the gender thread and decided not to participate!)

EDIT: Actually just realised I read The Last Four Things by Hoffman in between Novik and Parker, which in my (pretty rubbish) opinion a bit of a let down on the promise of his debut.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm rereading Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens. Every so often, I feel that I need to read something written with passion, intensity, and a flare for words, and revisiting Dickens usually provides plenty of that.

 

[Ursa major]

After much delay, I've started on my reread on the first four books of A Song of Ice and Fire by GRR Martin. I'm already 16% of the way into A Game of Thrones.

What usually pulls me through a book is wanting to know what happens (in the plot and to the characters). As I have a good idea of the (immediate) fates and storylines in AGoT, I find I'm surprised at how quickly I'm getting through the pages. Okay, the book was quite hard to get into the first time around, if only because of the vast cast, which isn't an issue this time around. Even so, the text just races by.

Perhaps I will be able to finish the task before July 12th.

 

[No One]

I may, possibly, start reading Eric Nyland's Halo: Fall of Reach. I'm not expecting the greatest writing, but am curious to see how far I get.

 

[thatollie]

I reread The Shadow of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Now I'm rereading Tales of The Dying Earth by Jack Vance.

 

[J-Sun]

Read Sturgeon in Orbit. If you're a fan, I'd mildly recommend it, but I wouldn't recommend starting with it as it's not his best and it's a slim collection of 5 stories of a 160 pages. Probably the most memorable story is one that wars with itself, teetering between being great and being awful. It ends as a kind of draw, though the editor tried to push it to awful with the title: "The Incubi of Parallel X". Aliens invade and want our women (but just for making an immortality drug for themselves) and we fight them through dimensions, ending up having to deal with the attack of the 75 foot earth women who went to a large dimension. The best story is probably "Make Room for Me" which hits on the frequent Sturgeonish theme of humans and aliens and togetherness and aloneness. A near-miss on a little gem is "The Heart", which doesn't have quite the impact it ought to, but is otherwise nicely structured and delivered. "Extrapolation" and "The Wages of Synergy" round it out - the latter tale of biochemical multi-murder and conspiracy being better than the former tale of the misunderstood traitor (the preface described both Sturgeon and his editor reacting to the story with tears but I have to confess it didn't remotely have that effect on me).

 

[alchemist]

Maximum Ride: Saving the world and other adventure sports by James Patterson. 60 pages in and really, really don't know what to make of this. I suspect I'll end up annoyed.

 

[elvet]

After abondoning Kristen Britain's 2nd Green Rider book, I'm thoroughly enjoying Dave Duncan's The Reluctant Swordsman. I finally found it in a second hand shop, along with the Handful of Men quadrology. I now own most of his books, and find them a reliably good read. My favorite series so far is The Great Game.

 

[bluespider100]

I'm now reading FALLEN DRAGON by Peter F. Hamilton... at last after a couple of dozens reading other authors I'm now back to one of my favorite.