It's January. What are you reading?

[tobl]

Reading t. i. wade one man's dream . nice story in the line of heinlein

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

About to start The 1990 Annual World's Best SF (1990; the stories are from 1989) edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha. (The rather sad introduction makes it clear that Wollheim's failing health made this the last one he would do.) I know I've read the ones that appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but the only one that remains fresh in memory is J. G. Ballard's excellent "War Fever."

 

[Mangara]

Ann Lyle's Alchemist of Souls was the lucky book on the to be read shelf that got picked by my random number generator. All good so far!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I read that a few years ago, and it was good fun.

Just finished Marina by Zafon, very moving. Might take a day to get over it and then I'm jumping into another Zafon - The Watcher in the Shadows. I like his stuff a lot. I still want to write like him. I never will. Bah.

 

[Bick]

Having finished "Nova" by Delaney, I'm now starting "The Book of Ptath" by A.E van Vogt. I'm really looking forward to this one. It looks like a real Golden-Age pot-boiler; published originally as a serial in 'Unknown' in 1943, and then as a novel in '47. My copy is a perfect mint condition 1985 UK imprint from Panther/Granada that I picked up in a used bookstore for $5.

Nova was excellent, incidentally. A really well crafted SF novel, with some great points to make, wonderful scale and passages of real excitement. Borders on the stylistically 'dense' occasionally, but definitely worth a read.

 

[Parson]

I read that a few years ago, and it was good fun.

Just finished Marina by Zafon, very moving. Might take a day to get over it and then I'm jumping into another Zafon - The Watcher in the Shadows. I like his stuff a lot. I still want to write like him. I never will. Bah.

I think you mean you want to write as well as Zafon. Why would you want to imitate someone when you would be phony. Be yourself. Your story is more than good enough.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think you mean you want to write as well as Zafon. Why would you want to imitate someone when you would be phony. Be yourself. Your story is more than good enough.

Yes, I think I put that badly (you're not the first to tell me off...) what I meant was I'd love to write the sort of stuff he and, for instance, Isabel Allende write, the slow, descriptive beauty of magical realism, but it doesn't suit my writing.* i suppose I do wonder about that dicotomy - how we can enjoy a style but not write in a similar style. But I also like fast, blasty space stuff, and comedy and all sorts and I suppose we can't cover all bases.

*although one of my books is sort of magical realism.

 

[HareBrain]

Well, I never. Several weeks after putting aside David Gemmell's Legend, I finished another book halfway through a bath and there was nothing else within reach, so I had another look. After some investigation, it turned out I'd put it down about a page before it got good. Or my mood had changed. Anyway, I'm really enjoying it now.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I recently discovered Mike Carey's Felix Castor series and am now reading book 5, The Naming Of Beasts. It's a very enjoyable, thrilling series about an exorcist turned supernatural/occult detective. Castor bears more than a passing resemblance to John Constantine with his irreverent wit and propensity for getting entangled in all sorts of hellish schemes, but Carey's excellent, witty prose, hectic pacing and complex plots make this more than just Hellblazer fanfic with the names changed. The books are also a lot more fun than Carey's rather gloomy run on Hellblazer.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Max Hastings, Catastrophe

 

[Randy M.]

Just started Sarah Water's The Little Stranger. Nice well-observed and nicely written so far. Apparently I'm in the mood for fiction located post-one-war-or-another and in England.


Randy M.

 

[Jay Dee Archer]

Just finished Homeland by R. A. Salvatore. I started Star Trek Nemesis novelisation by J. M. Dillard. That'll go quickly, then I'm on to Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson.

 

[tobl]

I recently discovered Mike Carey's Felix Castor series and am now reading book 5, The Naming Of Beasts. It's a very enjoyable, thrilling series about an exorcist turned supernatural/occult detective. Castor bears more than a passing resemblance to John Constantine with his irreverent wit and propensity for getting entangled in all sorts of hellish schemes, but Carey's excellent, witty prose, hectic pacing and complex plots make this more than just Hellblazer fanfic with the names changed. The books are also a lot more fun than Carey's rather gloomy run on Hellblazer.

i enjoyed it quite a lot. check out the ohter english writers i suggested in the british sci fi link. specially simon r green nightside Reading white plague by james abel

 

[vanye]

Finished Sebastien de Castell's Traitor's Blade, the first of his "Greatcoats" series. Absolutely stunning cloak and dagger stuff in a fantasy setting. Can't wait for the next one to come out!

Started The Hydrogen Sonata by Ian M. Banks. Very promising start ...

 

[Parson]

Just finished reading Guardians of the Night by Alan Russell. It was an okay kinda book, 3 stars, you know. I thought it lacked the inner workings of a sleuth which I so love reading about, and it felt like a pop music/culture test. The main character was snarky, in a way I enjoyed, but all those pop culture references sent me back to Google more than once. Finally the conclusion seemed like a tack on, and not the way for a good mystery to end. I am starting to read Under Different Stars by Amy Bartol, I am a little worried because although it calls itself S.F./Fantasy it feels like a Romance, but so far I am enjoying it. --- I'm afraid gushy is coming. I am also about to start listening to In the Blood by Steve Robinson.

 

[Gnrevolution]

Just finished Half a King and, although I thought it was a great book, it just seemed to miss a little something for me. Maybe it's because of the YA audience, or that I'm used to his darker stuff, it just seemed to have a certain something missing, still gets 4* from me. Now onto Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, again I'm hearing only great things about this, but I wonder if that was the problem with Half a King, it couldn't quite live up to the hype...

 

[Extollager]

Max Hastings, Catastrophe

Sounds like a book of exceptional interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/b...1914-by-max-hastings.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I read his history of World War II (Inferno in US edition, All Hell Let Loose). I'd tried to read a history of that war before; this was the one I completed.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/13/all-hell-max-hastings-review

Recent years seem to be good ones for historical writing -- Englund on World War I, Juliet Gardiner's books about the Thirties and the Blitz, Kynaston's chronicles of Britain from the Austerity era forward, Abulafia on the exploration of the new world, etc. -- just to mention ones I've read.

 

[tobl]

finished with james abel white plague. great book. a mix of alistair mac lean and jonatham maberry

 

[Bick]

Now onto Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, again I'm hearing only great things about this..

If you search the forums you'll find negative comments on this book too: J-Sun was by no means a fan of it. I liked it, but my view is not held by all...

 

[ratsy]

Well I finished Endeavour by Ralph Kern and was very impressed with it. It was a fun space opera like story but used real technologies and theories. It was interesting how the book was kind of split into missions and the pace was perfect. I am looking forward to the sequel, or as he said, the 'sidequel'

It was also the first book I read on my brand new Kindle Paperwhite I got or Christmas which I am really liking.

I'm going to move on to Brandon Sanderson's new book Firefight, the sequel to Steelheart. I'm looking forward to this follow up as the first one was a great, fast-paced story.