September Reading Thread

[williamjm]

I finished Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish. I picked this up after having seen the Witcher TV series and while the series may have made a number of changes to various plots I think overall it did a good job of capturing the feel of the stories. One difference is that rather than the switching between timelines in the series the book has a simpler structure with a framing story interspersed between flashbacks to the individual stories in the collection. I thought that was effective at making them feel like a single narrative that is gradually filling in details of Geralt's backstory and the world he lives in. I feel that I've read a lot of stories in recent years that are revisionist versions of traditional fairy tales so I wonder if the book might have felt a bit fresher if I'd read it closer to when it originally came out, but I think it does have some interesting retellings of various myths. I think the Beauty and the Beast-inspired tale and The Lesser Evil were probably the best of the stories.

There are times when the writing might have lost something in translation and feels a bit clunky. There's a line in The Last Wish where Geralt looks into Yennifer's eyes and realises she has the eyes of a hunchback which felt particularly silly.

Overall, I'd say I have read better stories based on updating mythology such as Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver or Leigh Bardugo's The Language of Thorns, but I still liked this and will probably pick up the next book at some point.

I've now started Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane which has been excellent so far.

 

[kythe]

I just finished part 3 of the Destroyer trilogy by Brian G Turner, which I still don't think of as 3 separate books but as one book which has been split into 3 parts.

I think this is my favorite story I've read this year. It was captivating from beginning to end, and I really want to know more about what happens with the characters and why their civilization fell. The story is told from the perspective of a character who doesn't understand everything himself and since we follow his progress, we discover the unfolding of events with him.

 

[Danny McG]

I've finished Destroyer by BGT and now I'm reading The Third Man before continuing the trilogy

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

Finished Blindsight today and wow, that was good. Excellent creepy vibes, dark, dense, full of interesting meditations on consciousness, and delivers a spectacular wallop of an idea at the climax. Also very depressing and a little obsessed with introspection, which is part of the point, but also kinda like when there's an annoying, blaring alarm in a TV show that is just a little too annoying and blaring for its own good.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Alternating my serious reading with Offbeat Museums (1997) by Saul Rubin, an extensively illustrated guide to fifty unusual museums in the USA.

 

[Paul_C]

Finished The Woman Who Thought She Was A Planet which I liked a lot, very much worth the wait

I started a short one I picked up a while ago, Carpe Glitter by Cat Rambo.

 

[Pyan]

Dropped out of Dreadnought, read Mr American by George MacDonald Fraser (the Flashman author) which is set in the same era, and then slipped back into Dreadnought...

 

[dask]

Finished Detection By Gaslight edited by Douglas G. Greene, a collection of 14 tales of mystery from the era of the gaslight. It begins with a classic adventure of intrigue for Sherlock Holmes and concludes with a slam bang mystery of the supernatural for Flaxman Low, one of the many "rivals" competing with the world's greatest detective during the mystery tale's first Golden Age. Recommended.

Now reading another mystery:

Dozen pages or so, shows promise.

 

[Dave Vicks]

DIAGNOSIS
By Dr. Lisa Sanders MD

 

[Brian G Turner]

Very much enjoyed my re-read of Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - a tightly plotted and entertaining book that lacks the filler and chattiness of earlier ones. Pratchett at his peak IMO.

 

[Paul_C]

Carpe Glitter was ok, but seemed more like the outline of a bigger book than a clearly described short, too much detail included but left unexplained for me.

Next up, another short one, The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase.

 

[Vertigo]

Provenance by Ann Leckie - same universe but nowhere near as good as the Imperial Radch trilogy. More here.
Minlas’s Flowers by Alastair Reynolds - a short and rather grim novella from. A little more here.
The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O’Brian – I wasn’t expecting to much like this volume with its focus on Aubrey’s prosecution, but it was handled well without being overdone and occupied only the latter part of the book. So I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the whole.
Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky - another good novella from Tchaikovsky. More here.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - I was hugely disappointed by this. More here.

 

[HareBrain]

Did get very far with my reread of David Mitchell's Number9Dream. The bits I remembered having most impact from my first read turned out to be all near the start (and some are very good indeed), but after that it didn't really hold my attention.

I don't seem to be in the mood for fiction at the moment. Luckily a new music non-fiction by David Hepworth has just been released: Overpaid, Oversexed and Over There: How a Few Skinny Brits with Bad Teeth Rocked America, about the "British Invasion" of the 1960s to early 80s. Very readable and engaging so far, like all his others I've read.

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm currently alternating The Three Musketeers - chewy and filled with all sorts of details the adaptations don't care for - and Medieval Chinese Warfare 300-900

 

[tobl]

I'm currently alternating The Three Musketeers - chewy and filled with all sorts of details the adaptations don't care for - and Medieval Chinese Warfare 300-900

did you already found the point thar says that constance in not the daughter of the inkeeper but his wife? they always change that lol

 

[The Big Peat]

did you already found the point thar says that constance in not the daughter of the inkeeper but his wife? they always change that lol

I've ever missed that or not got there yet.

 

[williamjm]

I finished Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I thought it was very good. Gaiman comments in the afterword that it started off a short story and then expanded into a (fairly short) novel and I think that might explain why it's a bit more focused than some of Gaiman's other work which sometimes has a tendency to ramble a bit (such as American Gods. I thought it did a good job of capturing the perspective of a 7 year old boy to whom the world is full of wonders and terrors even before he encounter genuine examples of both.

I've now started Joe Abercrombie's The Trouble With Peace.

 

[hitmouse]

Provenance by Ann Leckie - same universe but nowhere near as good as the Imperial Radch trilogy. More here.
Minlas’s Flowers by Alastair Reynolds - a short and rather grim novella from. A little more here.
The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O’Brian – I wasn’t expecting to much like this volume with its focus on Aubrey’s prosecution, but it was handled well without being overdone and occupied only the latter part of the book. So I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the whole.
Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky - another good novella from Tchaikovsky. More here.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - I was hugely disappointed by this. More here.

Reverse of the Medal is in some ways quite a melancholy book. Aubrey and Maturin realise they are getting older, things that were previously certain are no longer so, the order is changing, there are disappointments both real and existential. I found it quite moving: we care about these characters by now, and this, the next stage in their development, makes them more human than the young immortals we met In the first few books.

 

[Vertigo]

Reverse of the Medal is in some ways quite a melancholy book. Aubrey and Maturin realise they are getting older, things that were previously certain are no longer so, the order is changing, there are disappointments both real and existential. I found it quite moving: we care about these characters by now, and this, the next stage in their development, makes them more human than the young immortals we met In the first few books.

Yes, I very much agree and it was exactly that melancholy I was slightly dreading. A couple of books back both of them had severe self-doubts about their own abilities and courage and I didn't feel that was well handled but this time it was much better handled and didn't feel like it was dragging the whole book down. Resulting in much relief from me!

 

[saulfan]

Just finished the fourth of Martha Wells' 'Murderbot Diaries' Novellas - I'm not sure what I was expecting from them, never having read anything by her before but I loved them - just wish I could find an episode or two of 'Sanctuary Moon' to watch.

Hopefully getting the full-length novel for my upcoming birthday.

Best Wishes,
David