July 2017: What are you reading?

[Vertigo]

Sigh! my confidence has now gone down a further notch. But I suppose it's possible he had a lot of the books written or at least outlined before the first one came out.

Well all that said, it doesn't necessarily make him a bad author. I'll still be interested in what you think at the end!

 

[TWErvin2]

I am reading the newest release in the Iron Druid Chronicles, Besieged, by Kevin Hearne. It is a collection of short stories and novelettes featuring the POVs of different characters within the series.

 

[Perpetual Man]

I've finished Pellucidar by Edgar Rice-Burroughs, (Review Here) and moving back onto the comic pile.

 

[Danny McG]

Today I'm starting Revenger by Alastair Reynolds. One bit of the 'blurb says Young Adult but hopefully it won't give too much of the "dumb down science" that seems all too common in modern YA

 

[Vertigo]

Today I'm starting Revenger by Alastair Reynolds. One bit of the 'blurb says Young Adult but hopefully it won't give too much of the "dumb down science" that seems all too common in modern YA

Hmmm, I hadn't noticed that and have it on my wish list. However Goodreads consensus doesn't seem to match it with:

Science Fiction 191 users
Science Fiction > Space Opera 39 users
Fiction 34 users

So I guess it can't be all that YAish Though the tone of the blurb on GR does imply it:

a tale of space pirates, buried treasure, and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism and of vengeance

 

[Vertigo]

The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding - well written and loads of fun. What's not to like about good swashbuckling steampunk fun! More here.
Death’s End by Liu Cixin - right up there with the best hard SF I've ever read. More here.

Now reading Bernard Cornwell's Sword Song which is proving to be another cracking read. Looking like 3 excellent but very different books in a row .

 

[Danny McG]

Hmmm, I hadn't noticed that and have it on my wish list. However Goodreads consensus doesn't seem to match it with:

Science Fiction 191 users
Science Fiction > Space Opera 39 users
Fiction 34 users

So I guess it can't be all that YAish Though the tone of the blurb on GR does imply it:

Something called the Locus Award - Revenger has won it this year

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book - Wikipedia

 

[thaddeus6th]

Tales of the Ketty Jay are great, Vertigo. Is Sword Song one of the Viking/Saxon books?

 

[Vertigo]

Something called the Locus Award - Revenger has won it this year

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book - Wikipedia

Interesting I think I shall still read it. I'm not wild on YA writing but I do love Reynolds...

Tales of the Ketty Jay are great, Vertigo. Is Sword Song one of the Viking/Saxon books?

They are great aren't they? I'd really like to see Wooding tackle some space opera. And, yes, Sword Song is the fourth Saxon book following on from Lords of the North (

Spoiler

some few years on in fact because the book opens with him and Giselda already having two kids, the elder being around 5 or 6 I think

spoiler is for LotN not for SS).

 

[thaddeus6th]

I don't read Bernard Cornwell's stuff any more. It's not bad, I've just read so much (20+ Sharpe books, the four US Civil War ones, the Stonehenge novel, two thrillers, the Warlord Chronicles, the medieval ones, a couple of Viking books) that I feel I want to spend my limited reading time with other stuff.

 

[Vertigo]

I don't read Bernard Cornwell's stuff any more. It's not bad, I've just read so much (20+ Sharpe books, the four US Civil War ones, the Stonehenge novel, two thrillers, the Warlord Chronicles, the medieval ones, a couple of Viking books) that I feel I want to spend my limited reading time with other stuff.

That's fair enough; this series is my first, so Sword Song is only my fourth Cornwell. Not so interested in the Sharp books but may go on to some of the others later. He's certainly a very prolific author and yet still puts out quality.

 

[Bick]

Now reading Ballard's The Drowned World.

I very much liked the Wells, incidentally. Funny I hadn't read it before, but there are all sorts of peculiar and regrettable gaps in my reading. Nice to have attended to that gap at last anyway.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I've actually read two of them - Stone & The Snow.
As I recall they were both enjoyable and engrossing so I may well get The Thing Itself

The Snow gets a lot of flack, but I thought it was very well done.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Finished another 25 comics - the pile is stating to look smaller at last - there were a few that stood out, The current James Bond comics are superb, and I was asked to read The Assignment by a couple of friends and it really was something special.

As I look at the immediate to read pile and see there are only two more books to read in it! I can look forwards to building a new immediate pile!

Next up I will be revisiting a favourite book from the past, something I read 30 odd years ago and another classic, A Study in Scarlet - the first Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle.

I am reading the Penguin Sherlock Holmes collection as I was rather taken with the covers.

 

[DZara]

Just scored an entire, full (all 50 volumes) of the Harvard Classics from a non-reader who didn't know what they were giving up - they gave it to me for free for helping me clean out their backyard shed.

Felt like I'd just bought Manhattan Island for a handful of beads.

So I'm starting in on the first book, and "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" this month. Gonna be chewing on these for awhile, I think.

 

[Parson]

Just finished Desperate Fire by Christopher Nuttall. I liked it quite well. He has good ideas and understands how people think and react. I like the grand view and the clash of cultures. His battle scenes can't stand in the shade of David Webers, but he doesn't take 700 pages to get there. He might be a little lacking in character development, but all of the action is logical and well thought out. Standard 4 stars.

 

[soulsinging]

Still progressing through Count of Monte Cristo. I'm pretty hooked and it's definitely picking up steam. They don't write them like this anymore!

I did detour though... reread Animal Farm, which is a breeze. Very interesting how poorly it seems to be remembered by those that point to it as a condemnation of socialism... the only socialist is Snowball and he's driven off and killed by an authoritarian strongman whose only claim to power is being better than the capitalist. Also read I, Robot by Isaac Asimov which was fascinating and cerebral, as everything I've read from him seems to be. Looking forward to Caves of Steel after I wrap up my French monstrosity.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Snowball's Trotsky. Napoleon's Stalin. At least, that's the impression I had, back when I first read it.

 

[Foxbat]

Currently reading A Short History Of Japan by Mikiso Hane.

 

[dask]

Still progressing through Count of Monte Cristo. I'm pretty hooked and it's definitely picking up steam. They don't write them like this anymore!

I did detour though... reread Animal Farm, which is a breeze. Very interesting how poorly it seems to be remembered by those that point to it as a condemnation of socialism... the only socialist is Snowball and he's driven off and killed by an authoritarian strongman whose only claim to power is being better than the capitalist. Also read I, Robot by Isaac Asimov which was fascinating and cerebral, as everything I've read from him seems to be. Looking forward to Caves of Steel after I wrap up my French monstrosity.

CAVES OF STEEL is great. I'm confident you'll like it and afterward, if you feel the impulse to read its sequel THE NAKED SUN, don't fight it. It's either just as good or a little better. Haven't been able to figure that out yet.