September Reading Discussion.

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Victoria Silverwolf said:
I have started The Story of Emoji (2016) by Gavin Lucas, a brief history and analysis of those images that people (not me) use nowadays, along with a bunch of images.
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Seems like this would be a good pairing with Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch. A linguist examining how the Internet is changing English usage. (I haven't read it yet but it's on my TBR list.)
 
Tonight I'm starting this book - cave explorers on a distant planet find something disturbing
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I have started Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams. This 2009 edition contains not only the 1961 play, but the 1948 short story on which it was based, as well as the author's own essay on the play, another essay by a Williams scholar, an introduction by a modern playwright, and a chronology of Williams' life and work. So why this book? Because we were binge-watching the complete original series Dark Shadows at home a while ago. The connection? One of the performers on that series was Grayson Hall, who was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress in John Huston's 1964 film adaptation of Williams' play.
 
Pelquin's Comet by Ian Whates

So far it seems the standard rip roaring space opera story, fast paced and entertaining
 
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Danny McG said:
Pelquin's Comet by Ian Whates

So far it seems the standard rip roaring space opera story, fast paced and entertaining
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I enjoyed this one some 5 years ago but never quite got around to continuing with the sequels. Might have a look at them sometime, though I'll probably need to give this one a skim through first.

Ian Whates used to post here quite a lot but i don't think I've seen him around for quite a while.
 
Finished The Dead Hours of Night by Lisa Tuttle, a fine story collection that I'd strongly recommend to anyone wanting a well-written and thoughtful horror collection. I'd especially recommend "My Pathology" and her tribute to Robert Aickman, "The Book that Finds You," though there isn't a stinker in the book.

Just about to start The Women of Weird Tales.
 
Finished and enjoyed Inhibitor Phase and now on to Miles Cameron’s Artifact Space.

(Is it odd that I rather like the fact that there is a diagram of his ship and a map of human space featured in his book?)
 
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I finally read Andy Weir's Artemis. Good, as expected. I finally tried modern YA and read a space fantasy called Aetherbound by EK Johnston. Wowza I wasn't expecting quite so light on the science but I'm also not a huge fan of super heavy magicalism, so it worked out ok. I'd probably read sequels knowing to expect a cozy read. Now I'm back to my comfort zone reading Way Station by Clifford D. Simak. I'm planning on picking up more MG and YA.
 
I finished Steven Erikson's The God is Not Willing. I think it's been almost a decade since I last read one of Erikson's books, namely the final part of the original Malazan series. The time gap in the world is probably similar with this book being set about a decade after The Crippled God. Although the implications of some of the events in the first series have a significant impact here, the biggest connection is actually to a much earlier book with a large part of the plot and several of the characters following up on the opening section of House of Chains. That book had been the main introduction to Karsa Orlong and that character does cast a very large shadow over this book and provides its title but does not actually appear in person, although I assume he will show up in the sequels.

In some ways this felt very familiar, as in many of the previous Malazan books the characters are a mix of Imperial Marines and some of their potential enemies. The first part of the book is spent introducing a large cast of characters and a number of disparate plotlines which will by the end of the book all be tied together. In other ways this felt a bit smaller-scale than the other Malazan stories, it is confined to a relatively small geographical area and short timescale and the plotlines are more obviously connected than has sometimes been the case previously. It's also a short book by Erikson's standards and while the plot takes a little while to really get going the final section is very well-paced and delivers a satisfying ending to this story. There's also some subverting of expectations, the Malazan marines of this book are not the same as in the previous series and this becomes more apparent as the book goes along.

Erikson's characters have sometimes been a bit hit-and-miss but I found the characters here interesting and there was some good development through the novel and it also manages to be funnier than most of the previous books.

Overall, it's perhaps not the very best of Erikson's Malazan books but after feeling some of the later books in the series were getting increasingly difficult to get through it is refreshing to have a shorter, more focused book.

Next up I'm going to start Joe Abercrombie's The Wisdom of Crowds.
 
I have started The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (2001 reprint of 1980 edition) which brings together her first four books of short stories, plus two that appeared elsewhere. I presume there were others after 1980.
 
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