August 2018 Reading thread

Anthoney said:
You were right. Less orgies more Horsemen. I just wish we had got to see them in action more.
Click to expand...
honestly i like her books. yes, sometimes there's more sex than needed maybe or more drama but it's not gratuitous. it has a point. so, ok, sometimes they could get to the point sooner but hey people are not easy. being a man i love more shooting, but i learned a lot from her books on other matters. so for me it's generally a blast.
 
I am reading Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber and John Sayles novelization for Piranha.
 
tobl said:
honestly i like her books.
Click to expand...

I haven't read 26 books in a series because I hate them. I enjoy the world and the power structure that she's created. I just prefer the books pre Narcissus in Chains (I did like Skin Trade, the Las Vegas book a lot).

I have been enjoying the Jane Yellow Rock books more than the Anita Blake books recently.
 
dannymcg said:
I think I've (maybe!) read one or two of them. Are they about this like a super clever and super fit girl? - Ell Donsaii by name?
Click to expand...

I thought about this for a bit. In the later volumes these become increasing less important. It is much more important that she is wired for physics and math. And in these middle books.... I'm reading Allotropes right now .... The main action is on star systems they are exploring by remote.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
I'm reading A Gathering of Shadows, by V. E. Schwab. I read the first volume in the trilogy quite a while ago, and don't quite know why it took me this long to read the other two since I did like it.

Only a few chapters into this one so far and so far it's quite good.
Click to expand...
I just noticed her for the first time in a book store today. Something called Vicious. Notes on the back cover sounded interesting.
 
Bick said:
What had you heard and what is it like?
Click to expand...
I've heard that it doesn't live up to the Martian. But when I think about it, it took about 80 pages for the Martian to really get going.

So far Artemis is interesting, but there is far too much info dumping about the moon going on. Weir is trying to teach non space enthusiasts about Lunar physics at the moment. He'd have been better off mentioning low gravity once and ignoring it, but he keeps banging on and on about how things move and work in low gravity. I hope that changes soon.
 
Finished Age of Assassins by RJ Barker. Very engaging writing style - perfect for me - and a fine story.
 
Now I'm on to Blade of the Destroyer/Darkblade Assassin by Andy Peloquin. He released it under the first name and it didn't do so well. He put a new cover on it and renamed it Darkblade Assassin and it did well. Well enough that the series (Hero of Darkness) is now 6 books deep.
 
Next up: Off the Wall at Callahan's (1994) by Spider Robinson. This is a compendium of aphorisms, jokes, song lyrics, puns, and the like, related to the author's series of stories about a science fiction bar. I've only read a few of them, so I don't know how much I'll get out this volume. Otherwise, it should be very light reading.
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Next up: Off the Wall at Callahan's (1994) by Spider Robinson. This is a compendium of aphorisms, jokes, song lyrics, puns, and the like, related to the author's series of stories about a science fiction bar. I've only read a few of them, so I don't know how much I'll get out this volume. Otherwise, it should be very light reading.
Click to expand...
The first volume of Callahan stories (and maybe the second, can't remember if I read it or not) was pretty entertaining. I loved his book reviews in Galaxy.
 
Four Jack Vance potboilers:

“The Blue World”(1966): eleven generations on from a space ship crash-landing on a sea-planet that has no dry land. The descendants have evolved a means of surviving and (no surprise) a Vancean caste system.

“Showboat World”(1975): riverboats travel the waterways putting on shows for the towns and villages on the banks. Devious impresarios compete with each other.

“Space Opera”(1965): Dame Isabel Grayce decides to take opera to distant planets. A slight hint of Wodehouse.

“Night Lamp” (1996): two academics researching a distant world find a five year old orphan being badly beaten. They adopt him and in time he becomes determined to investigate his origins.
 
Hugh said:
Four Jack Vance potboilers:

“The Blue World”(1966): eleven generations on from a space ship crash-landing on a sea-planet that has no dry land. The descendants have evolved a means of surviving and (no surprise) a Vancean caste system.

“Showboat World”(1975): riverboats travel the waterways putting on shows for the towns and villages on the banks. Devious impresarios compete with each other.

“Space Opera”(1965): Dame Isabel Grayce decides to take opera to distant planets. A slight hint of Wodehouse.

“Night Lamp” (1996): two academics researching a distant world find a five year old orphan being badly beaten. They adopt him and in time he becomes determined to investigate his origins.
Click to expand...
All good. Blue World and Night Lamp are excellent. Space Opera probably the weakest of that bunch.
 
About to start Tales from the Planet Earth (1986) "created" by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull. This anthology takes a theme shared, by coincidence, in stories by Pohl and Japanese SF writer Tetsu Yano and brings together new stories with the same theme from writers around the world. There are names familiar to English-speaking SF fans, such as Spider Robinson (Canada), A. Bertram Chandler (Australia), Harry Harrison (Ireland), Brian W. Aldiss (United Kingdom), and Somtow Sucharitkul (Thailand), but there are also several from other nations likely to be new to them.
 
I'm slowly, so slowly, working through Oliver Rackham's Woodlands. It is essentially a textbook about the history of...wait for it...woodlands in Britain. Tinder dry and yet intetesting at the same time but I can only take it in small doses.
 
Continuing my run through the Ell Donsaii books by Laurence E. Dahmers ... Finished Allotropes (#8) and now am starting Defiant (#9) .... this is so much fun I might just make a run through the early Harrington books again too.
 
CTRandall said:
I'm slowly, so slowly, working through Oliver Rackham's Woodlands. It is essentially a textbook about the history of...wait for it...woodlands in Britain. Tinder dry and yet intetesting at the same time but I can only take it in small doses.
Click to expand...
This is a very significant book. Thought by many to be the best in the whole New Naturalist series. It can be dry: it is written as a semi-academic piece and does not compromise in its demands on the reader.
Please persevere. It is well worth it. Read in small sections. It will give you a richer perspective on the British countryside.
 
I seem to have dropped Elizabeth Hand's Black Light, at least for the moment.

I'm halfway through Dune, which I'm generally enjoying a lot.

And I've just started Empire of the Clouds: When Britain's Aircraft Ruled the World, by James Hamilton-Paterson, because I too am the kind of person who would say "crikey!" on seeing a Vulcan bomber.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
M August 2018 Anon 100 Challenge Poll Workshop 0
Ursa major POLL -- August 2018 75-word Writing Challenge -- THEDUSTYZEBRA WINS! Writing Challenges 0
M August 2018 100 Anonymous Challenge Discussion Thread Workshop 88
TheDustyZebra Discussion Thread -- August 2018 75-word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 275
TheDustyZebra August 2018 75-word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO THEDUSTYZEBRA! Writing Challenges 43

Similar threads


Back
Top