February 2020 Reading Thread

[Extollager]

Nevala-Lee's book on Astounding is fascinating. I suppose a lot of the people here at Chrons already knew quite a bit of John Campbell's involvement with Hubbard's "Dianetics." I had had no idea that he was so involved. Yuck. Hubbard reminds me of Jim Jones of Jonestown in his lying, paranoia, and capacity to con people.

 

[Parson]

I finished Jasper T. Scott's First Encounter. It was a solid tale that reminded me in parts of Alien --- don't read that as high praise because Alien is NOT my sort of SF. The biggest trouble with it was that it is only book 1, nothing is resolved at the end (or as good as nothing) and feels like a lead up to book 2, which is coming out soon. On the whole, I liked it well enough that I will give book 2 a go. I will do so mostly because I did make a connection with a couple of the characters and want to see how they develop.

Unsure, what comes next.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I read the sequel to Beartown a couple of years ago (Us against You - about an inter-town hockey game) and I've always planned to read the first book at some time, is it worth getting?

After a couple of chapters of book two, plus a lengthy intro, I had it all worked out who was who and why the rivalry, so it was more or less a stand-alone

I don't know anything about the sequel, so no spoilers, please. I'm enjoying the first book a lot. It's an easy read, and I like Bachman's writing style. There are many characters to learn about, and when things start to slow down, we switch to another person.

 

[Galactic Bus Driver]

Finished "A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World" by C. A. Fletcher and "This is How You Lose the Time War" by Max Gladstone.

"A Boy and..." was an interesting bit of post-apocalyptica, without the "from the ashes" dystopian society. More like a less grim version of "The Road." "This is How..." was a very interesting, if confusing at times, take on time travel, or at least, time-line manipulation. Both were good reads and I'd recommend them.

Currently about 1/4th into "And I Darken," book one of The Conqueror's Trilogy by Kiersten White.

 

[Azoraa]

I've bought the compilation "Worlds of Exile and Illusion" by Ursula K. LeGuin. It contains three books in the Hainish world. In January I've read the first two, and I guess in February I'll read the third one.
They are alright, but after reading "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" by the same author, which I absolutely LOVED, I don't enjoy her other work as much.
And also - I'm always annoyed that her protagonists are male. WHY???

 

[Paul_C]

I read the first story of Greg Egan's Instantiation, and due to its subject (modern business practices) rather than its telling, I felt like reading something else before returning to the next one (the state of humanity right now feels very gloomy, so reading is very much an escape from reality for me ) so I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's (I spelled his surname correctly without checking first, which was a nice surprise) Ironclads, which turned out to be about modern business practices too, to some degree *sigh*) but nevertheless I enjoyed it. I've got one or two of his picked up cheaply from Amazon (though I'm hoping to find a more ethical source for eBooks if possible) which will get bumped up the TBR list now.

Next up, while I wait for a hardback copy of Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts to arrive (tomorrow, hopefully) I'm going for a novelette, One/Zero by Kathleen Ann Goonan.

 

[Randy M.]

I've bought the compilation "Worlds of Exile and Illusion" by Ursula K. LeGuin. It contains three books in the Hainish world. In January I've read the first two, and I guess in February I'll read the third one.
They are alright, but after reading "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" by the same author, which I absolutely LOVED, I don't enjoy her other work as much.
And also - I'm always annoyed that her protagonists are male. WHY???

I haven't read them, but the early Hanish books have always sounded -- and have been marketed at times -- as more romantic and space opera-y than The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed. In those she drilled down into previous concepts and creations and produced something deeper, and perhaps more lasting.

Remember when she was writing. Early Le Guin worked within marketing/publishing constraints, as well as within a male-dominated society, in a genre whose core readership was male, and not just male but teenage male. For serious s.f. readers looking into the changing face of the genre, part of reading Le Guin's early work could be as a study of how her writing and thinking progressed. Honestly, I am far from a Le Guin scholar, but I believe her thinking about her society and the context of her writing, her consciousness about her writing and its effect, and her approach to story-telling evolved over her lifetime. If you think of s.f. now as a freeing genre, allowing for explorations of different perspectives, it is so in part because of her evolution as a writer, dragging s.f. out of 19th century conventions and pulp traditions into the mid- and late 20th century. (I do not mean to say she was alone in that; see also Samuel Delany, Joanna Russ, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, Brian Aldiss, ...)

Randy M.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I've just started reading Confession With Blue Horses, by Sophie Hardach. It is my second book chosen by my book group, it is set in East Berlin.

 

[Azoraa]

@Randy M. I guess you're right, but still it's frustrating. I consider her a feminist writer, and I would simply LOVE to read more of her stories, but with female protagonists.

 

[Randy M.]

Azoraa, I believe you're right that she was a feminist, but to some extent her career traces the path of how feminism grew between the 1950s and now.

Have you read any of her non-fiction? I've always enjoyed her articles and essays, even when I wasn't convinced by her argument.

Randy M.

 

[williamjm]

I've bought the compilation "Worlds of Exile and Illusion" by Ursula K. LeGuin. It contains three books in the Hainish world. In January I've read the first two, and I guess in February I'll read the third one.
They are alright, but after reading "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" by the same author, which I absolutely LOVED, I don't enjoy her other work as much.
And also - I'm always annoyed that her protagonists are male. WHY???

I read those three books last year. I'd agree with your overall assessment, I think they're all fairly good stories but there's a big jump in quality when it comes to The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Remember when she was writing. Early Le Guin worked within marketing/publishing constraints, as well as within a male-dominated society, in a genre whose core readership was male, and not just male but teenage male. For serious s.f. readers looking into the changing face of the genre, part of reading Le Guin's early work could be as a study of how her writing and thinking progressed. Honestly, I am far from a Le Guin scholar, but I believe her thinking about her society and the context of her writing, her consciousness about her writing and its effect, and her approach to story-telling evolved over her lifetime. If you think of s.f. now as a freeing genre, allowing for explorations of different perspectives, it is so in part because of her evolution as a writer, dragging s.f. out of 19th century conventions and pulp traditions into the mid- and late 20th century. (I do not mean to say she was alone in that; see also Samuel Delany, Joanna Russ, Roger Zelazny, Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, Brian Aldiss, ...)

In the collection of Hainish stories I read there were some essays from Le Guin about the books. In one of those she talks about being asked about why she wrote about men so much. I think her overall answer is more complex than I can really summarise, but one she did say was that in her earliest books she realises in retrospect that she had mostly male protagonists because it was the default for genre writing at the time and it was easy to follow those defaults without really questioning them.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am making my way through Encyclopaedia Britannica Anniversary Edition: 250 Years of Excellence (1768-2018), which is a single volume containing excerpts from old articles, to show how times have changed, excerpts from articles by famous folks, and new essays speculating about the future. Quite interesting reading.

 

[Parson]

I've made a good start in Fate of Perfection by K.F. Breene. I am reading this book by accident. Really --- Somehow, one of my Kindle Unlimited books First Encounter by Jasper T. Scott disappeared from my feed. I eventually had to "borrow" it again. But at that time Fate of Perfection showed up in my feed. It's S.F. and sounded somewhat interesting and although the rating was somewhat under 4 stars, it had a 1000 reviews which usually says that there's something good about it. When I started reading it, it was soon apparent that I had either started it and quit (which is what I think) or I started something very similar. So far so good --- 23% done.

 

[Azoraa]

@Randy M. no, I haven't read any of her essays and articles. Interestingly though, her work is received and discussed academically in my discipline, Cultural Anthropology, especially when it comes to the blurring of boundaries between, gender, technology, etc. But I guess I should read some of her non-fiction work! Any recommendations?

 

[Wyrmlord]

I am making my way through Encyclopaedia Britannica Anniversary Edition: 250 Years of Excellence (1768-2018), which is a single volume containing excerpts from old articles, to show how times have changed, excerpts from articles by famous folks, and new essays speculating about the future. Quite interesting reading.

Wow. How many pages is that? That's a lot of material.

 

[Randy M.]

@Randy M. no, I haven't read any of her essays and articles. Interestingly though, her work is received and discussed academically in my discipline, Cultural Anthropology, especially when it comes to the blurring of boundaries between, gender, technology, etc. But I guess I should read some of her non-fiction work! Any recommendations?

The only collection of her essays I've read completely was The Language of the Night, which I found fascinating on aspects of writing and of fantasy writing in particular, at a time when I was trying to write fantasy. The rest of my reading has been hit and miss, but Le Guin bibliography lists 3 other collections of essays, at least one with a subtitle indicating subject matter of interest to you.

Randy

 

[Bick]

In between other things, I'm now starting A Memory of Empire, by Arkady Martine. This is likely to be nominated for a Hugo, and I need to read a few things from the last year so I can fill in my Hugo nominations form with some degree if knowledge at least. I've also heard good things about it, so looking forward to this.

 

[Wyrmlord]

In between other things, I'm now starting A Memory of Empire, by Arkady Martine. This is likely to be nominated for a Hugo, and I need to read a few things from the last year so I can fill in my Hugo nominations form with some degree if knowledge at least. I've also heard good things about it, so looking forward to this.

Let me know what you think. I don't much about it, and I've seen a lot of praise for it.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Wow. How many pages is that? That's a lot of material.

735 pages. Big, but not impossible.

 

[Bick]

Let me know what you think. I don't much about it, and I've seen a lot of praise for it.

A bit early to say, but 40 odd pages and a chapter or two in and it so far seems very good; interesting world/empire building so far, it makes me think of a cross between Leckie, and Cherryh’s Foreigner books.