It's September - what are you reading?

[Foxbat]

Europe during the Thirty Years War by Adolphus Ward and George Edmundson

 

[tobl]

iain king secrets of the last nazi it's .... different

 

[Mark Ragland]

Just finished Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. While I liked it, I didn't like it near as much as I liked The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett. Don't know why.

Starting When The Devil Dances by John Ringo. Book 4 of his Posleen War series.

 

[biodroid]

Gone South by Robert R. McCammon, so far very good and heart wrenching at the same time.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. Okay so far.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Im struggling this month, working on a little project of mine and not getting as much time as I would normally like to read.

Anyway I finished Joe Haldemans Forever War start of this month, I was sort of nonplussed. Just to preface this - I read the version from the War and Peace omnibus edition so this is the original and unedited story. I really enjoyed the "hard" elements of the militaristic time dilation as an aspect of the war. I thought it was well done and the idea of a war throughout the ages well thought out.

However, I found the whole hetero/homo socio economic situation pretty unpalatable. Mandella homophobia to me was more of a lack of understanding than any real prejudice - as I haver commented on here before I don't believe in conflating an authors works with his real opinions. Mandellas homophobia seemed a real construct of his psyche but I just balked at the idea that any social program could "force" homosexuality on a population, much as I don't think you could force homosexuals into heterosexuality. I found the first return to earth section extremely contrived.

The ending was quite an unexpected one and left me with more questions than answers - which in this case, as I was firmly in Mandellas boots, made complete sense and left me with a satisfactory mystery.

So for Octobers reads I am not quite sure - I have a few options though. Ill post them tonight and see if any of the posters here have some recommendations.

 

[ratsy]

I still have about 200 pages in Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb, but this weekend I started The Elementals by Michael Mcdowell and am about 40% into that one. @Phyrebrat thanks for the recommendation. I can see why you love this book, and I am more than curious to see how this plays out.

 

[The Bluestocking]

My reading pile this month:

1. The Monstrumologist - Rick Yancey
2. Two Serpents Rise - Max Gladstone
3. These Old Shades - Georgette Heyer
4. Vermilion - Molly Tanzer

Heyer is superbly entertaining as usual; Tanzer is an excellent writer (must read more of her books!); Gladstone's story is just starting to hook me; Yancey is great at writing scenes that gross you out.

 

[Randy M.]

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Yancey. That series looks interesting.


Randy M.

 

[The Bluestocking]

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Yancey. That series looks interesting.


Randy M.

Just started and so far, he's doing very well with the gross-out scenes. This is hardcore Horror by YA standards.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, I finally finished Lands Beyond by L Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley. It was such a fascinating and enjoyable read. And it's inspired me to invent a new fantasy setting based on geographical myths.

Also read The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen. This is one of the works of weird/horror fiction that inspired Lovecraft. I'm a big fan of Lovecraft. Personally, I think Machen's craft is wanting. The structure of the book seems very contrived and the stories within meant to horrify were not told effectively enough to really do so. Though maybe they did at the time. They don't quite hold up anymore, in my opinion. Still, it was well worth a read.

I've also read volume 1 of the CLAMP manga RG Veda, which is based on Vedic Mythology. It is so exquisitely drawn and so far really drawing me into the story. Can't wait for volume 2 to get here!

I'm also working through the first omnibus edition of the manga Trigun by Yasuhiro Nightow. I'm a fan of the anime series, even though I always found the story lacking. (The setting and the characters are the best.) So I decided to dive into the manga after hearing that it is much longer and develops the story a lot more. So far I haven't gotten past content that was covered in the anime, but there have been some interesting differences. I'm loving it. Though I wish Nightow's artwork was a bit easier to figure out. Sometimes I'm really not sure what's going on in the pictures because there's too many explosions obscuring things.

 

[tobl]

james patterson Bennett nº8, Alert. always a ride

 

[Vaz]

Rogues - A fantastic collection of short fantasy stories focusing on the Rogue Archetype character in stories. Edited by GRR Martin very good wonderful collection, although I didn't like Joe Abercrombie's story in it

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Rogues - A fantastic collection of short fantasy stories focusing on the Rogue Archetype character in stories. Edited by GRR Martin very good wonderful collection, although I didn't like Joe Abercrombie's story in it

I didn't like it either, yet it win an award. And I was a bit disappointed in Rothfuss's. But I loved Gillian Flynn's which I saw savaged recently.

 

[Vaz]

Gillian Flynn's is one of my absolute favourites! Loved the humour and dry wit... Yeah that was the first time I've read Abercrombie and for me he changed POV far too much in the space of forty odd pages... Also the story was obvious after the first page or so.. Really Surprised it won an award

 

[Vaz]

Hey funniest line in Flynn's story.. "Books are only temporary but ***** are permanent" Lmao

 

[Vertigo]

Im struggling this month, working on a little project of mine and not getting as much time as I would normally like to read.

Anyway I finished Joe Haldemans Forever War start of this month, I was sort of nonplussed. Just to preface this - I read the version from the War and Peace omnibus edition so this is the original and unedited story. I really enjoyed the "hard" elements of the militaristic time dilation as an aspect of the war. I thought it was well done and the idea of a war throughout the ages well thought out.

However, I found the whole hetero/homo socio economic situation pretty unpalatable. Mandella homophobia to me was more of a lack of understanding than any real prejudice - as I haver commented on here before I don't believe in conflating an authors works with his real opinions. Mandellas homophobia seemed a real construct of his psyche but I just balked at the idea that any social program could "force" homosexuality on a population, much as I don't think you could force homosexuals into heterosexuality. I found the first return to earth section extremely contrived.

The ending was quite an unexpected one and left me with more questions than answers - which in this case, as I was firmly in Mandellas boots, made complete sense and left me with a satisfactory mystery.

So for Octobers reads I am not quite sure - I have a few options though. Ill post them tonight and see if any of the posters here have some recommendations.

I had very much the same thoughts on the idea that a social program could change peoples sexual orientation. Let's face it society has been trying to do that without success to homosexuals for centuries.

 

[Mark Ragland]

I made an error in my post from yesterday. When The Devil Dances by John Ringo is not the 4th book in the Posleen War series. It is the 3rd book. My bad.

 

[SilentRoamer]

I had very much the same thoughts on the idea that a social program could change peoples sexual orientation. Let's face it society has been trying to do that without success to homosexuals for centuries.

My views on this are perfectly in line with Lawrence Krauss, a huge amount of species (1500 recorded) have a minority homosexual representation in their population, so how can something so natural be unnatural?

 

[Bick]

I've started Bill Bryson's One Summer: America 1927. So far, it's terrifically entertaining. But then I'm a sucker for Bill Bryson, having read all his major work. I recall buying his 'Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' and finishing it the same day. If you're ever travelling to Australia, you have to read 'Down Under' on the plane over...