December 2021 Reading Thread

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elvet said:
The first book made a particulary lasting impression, and while bleak may be a good word for it, I was compelled to read to the end by my investment in characters.
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I thoroughly agree with "lasting impression." But I do not do bleak very well. I have no, absolutely no, desire to read further.
 
Currently re-reading KB Spangler's "Greek Key" - this is the first of the "Hope Blackwell" books - but not the start of the story. I came at the books a bit sideways as I started with the first of KB Spangler's novels, Digital Divide
but the story starts here

A Girl and Her Fed

www.agirlandherfed.com www.agirlandherfed.com
This is the first graphic novel I've followed and I've been really enjoying it. Part way through the graphic novel the chronology swaps to Digital Divide (with a different viewpoint character) then back to the graphic novel and then off to the Hope Blackwell books.

It is in a world where a working chip has been surgically added to top young agent's brains and it is also a world with ghosts. Interesting mix of sf and fantasy, has more of a near future sf to me.
Really, really, like the level of snark, sarcasm and cynicism.
 
I just read L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future, #37, edited by David Farland, from a review copy for Tangent Online. My review can be found here.

It's not bad - in fact some of the stories are really rather good. With anthologies like this where there is no central theme, the concepts, prose style and genre flits all over the place, and this anthology of 15 new stories includes SF, fantasy and horror. If you want to try some new fiction by some new writers, it's of a quality that probably exceeds the average in the magazines in actuality, so you may well enjoy it, but it rather lacks focus.
 
I'm now reading Gunfight on Europa Station, edited by David Boop (which is another ARC for Tangent), alongside some other things. This is a 'weird-west' SF anthology, and includes stories by the likes of Elizabeth Moon, Alan Dean Foster and Wil McCarthy, so I'm hoping it will be fun.
 
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I just finished The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal. The first “Lady Astronaut” Novel. I should’ve finished it earlier, but I got distracted.

Overall, an innovative effort at hard science fiction. A novel set in an alternate history where instead of Vietnam and Woodstock we get a big old meteor that wipes out Kansas and wipes out the powergrid. So, the denizens of Earth migrate to the moon, but somebody is sabotaging them.

This week I stopped procrastinating and got along with my task of finishing up books that I had started prior. I’m actually enjoying doing this. Some of the books I read were The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy, The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund, See Me by Nicholas Sparks, and The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson. Not SFF, except for Sanderson, but thought I’d mention them.

Next up is Darkmans by Nicola Barker. A weird book about a child prodigy and a lachanophobic Turk. Also not scifi, but a funny English novel none the less.
 
Robby Krieger (with Jeff Alulis) "Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with the Doors"

I seldom listen to the Doors these days, but they remain important to me. I remember where I was when I heard their singer had died. So I bought this book as soon as I heard about it. It's an easy read and provides some counterbalance to the myth-making, but if you're not into the Doors it's almost certainly a pointless exercise.
 
Danny McG said:
Galaxias by Stephen Baxter
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I'm about three quarters through this, way way too much info dumping.

The basic story is cool and interesting and I like most of the characters but I'm getting a headache from the science stuff.

This is looking like a DNF candidate
 
I'm starting this one from 1964, last read by me in about 1975.
Screenshot_20211212-044555.png
 
I finished Heaven’s River. Quite enjoyable, but the ending, (which I enjoyed) was a bit of an infodump. I’d give it. 3 out of 5.

Now on to Shards Of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
 
Finished WOOL by Hugh Howey. Next BRAVE NEW WORLD. And a Richard Dawkins book.Narrated by Lalla Ward.
 
Finished The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison. I found it enjoyable. She uses a variation on Holmes/Watson (Crow/Dr. Doyle) and takes some of the AC Doyle stories and re-configures them to a Victorian London in which vampires, werewolves, and far less pleasant beings co-exist, meantime examining the limits of deductive reasoning. I wouldn't call it a great fantasy, but the way in which she weaves the relationship between the two main characters, the needs of fleshing out her world, and the convergence of the duo with the most notorious murderer of the age is extremely clever and makes a satisfying read.

Now, better than half-way through Windy City Blues a collection of V. I. Warshawski stories by Sara Paretsky.
 
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