January 2022 Reading Thread.

[Danny McG]

Danny, have you read T. C. McCarthy’s Subterrene trilogy? (Germ Line, Exogene and Chimera) I found them to be very good. Harsh, but good.

All three downloaded now, I'll probably dip into them this month, cheers

 

[Extollager]

Continuing a leisurely rereading of Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit, which I have come to recognize as one of my favorite novels by anyone.

 

[worldofmutes]

I’m hunkered down for a lot of cozy reading time with my book tonight. I’m on pg. 400/876… David Brin’s Existence. I’m really enjoying, and trying to take my time with it. I need concentration, because if anybody is interested, I would like to post a review of it up on the book reviews forum. I’ve my bookdarts clipped on important sections.

Loving the mood tonight. All I want to do is power through this epic novel.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Starting the second issue of Short Story International. The first story, "The Shelter in the Jungle" by Eugene S. Schwartz, qualifies as science fiction, I think, as it starts with an immanent atomic attack on the USA.

 

[Toby Frost]

So, Dragons of Winter Night, aka Dragonlance 2.

It's basically not that great. It tries to cover too much ground, which means that important events are skipped or not given sufficient screen time, and it attempts romance, comedy and intrigue, which clearly don't play to the authors' strengths. At times it's like hearing someone with a low attention span retelling bits of The Lord of the Rings from memory. Dragonlance was best when a small group of characters were rushing about fighting monsters, and the attempt to broaden the story doesn't work for me.

 

[vanye]

I'm halfway through Dragons of Winter Night and it's like reading a fantasy novel at twice normal speed, that randomly skips chunks of plot. The story has cut to some characters who have stormed a castle and stolen a shamelessly palantir-type magical orb. In passing, someone mentions that they had a huge battle with "the evil walrus-men", who don't even appear in the story. Now some elves are being stupid and arrogant. I hope the evil walrus-men return, or show up at all.

I am currently on the same book, and I feel your pain.

 

[Elckerlyc]

I believe I have some catching up to do regarding posting my reading activities since mid December. Let's see...

Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. Mixed feelings about this one. Not his best or convincing. I miss the old Neal. 3/5

Chapters 8.51 till 8.60 of The Wandering Inn. (I believe this story is now over 8 million words long and still going strong.) 4.5/5

De Zwijger (The Silent), a well-written and engrossing biography of William of Orange. It took me less than a week to read the 800 pages and earned a somewhat better understanding of the man and his motives. But, he wasn't called 'The Silent' for nothing, be it verbally (transcriptions of meetings) or in writing (hundreds (if not thousands) of his letters that have survived the ages), he wasn't prone to open up his heart. Anyway, this is about Dutch history and not to everybody's interest. 4.5/5

Stolen Skies by Tim Powers. The 3rd novel about Vickery and Castine in modern LA, where they get to deal with strange phenomena. In this case alien flatland creatures from another plane of existence who are about (unintentionally) to destroy our world. A fun romp, but not above average. 3/5

Weerwater by Renate Dorrestein, a well known Dutch writer (but mostly in the Netherlands.) This book was recommended to me by my sister-in-law who thought I might like it, because a. it was SF and b. situated in the town where I happen to live. This town somehow happens to become the only place in the world to survive a disaster of unknown nature and cause, which never gets explained, and also houses a penitentiary whose inmates break out to roam the (limited) remainder of the world. As SF it didn't work for me and I skipped half of it. Also, my neighborhood didn't get a mentioning in the book. 1/5. I haven't told my sister-in-law yet.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. A Murderbot diary. I really enjoy these stories and its likeable protagonist. Just don't ask about its feelings. Or the price of these novella's. 4.5/5

Next up is Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer, 4th and final novel in the Terra Ignota series. I may have to trace the story back a little, as my memory of what I have read 2 years is increasingly prone to evaporate.

 

[Danny McG]

A new SF book this morning, Falling Dark by Tom Lloyd

From fantastic fiction:-

It’s the find of a lifetime – an ancient alien spaceship hanging in a forgotten corner of space. For Song this could change everything. She’s got as many problems with her finances as she does in her marriage, but maybe at last her passion for wreck-diving will pay off. One piece of unknown tech could set her whole crew up for life.

The ship conforms to nothing in their records and dwarfs the largest human vessels. Battle-scarred and old before humanity ever reached the stars, it’s a mausoleum of an unknown, long-dead species.

And it’s just winked at her.

 

[hitmouse]

Dirt by Bill Buford

How the slightly masochistic writer for the New Yorker, and ex-editor of Granta, moved from New York to Lyon with his young family, to try to learn French cookery in the high-end restaurants there. Very good so far. It is as much about moving to a new city and culture as it is about food.

This is the sequel to Heat where he did something similar in northern Italy, having worked on the lines in a fancy Italian restaurant in New York for some time.

 

[pogopossum]

Read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. by Walter Miller.
Seems that I have only been reading sequels for the last couple of months.

Had mixed feelings. The novel is post-apocalyptic, in the world of Canticle For Leibowitz,
set chronologically some eighty years after the events of the second part of Canticle (Fiat Lux (c. 3254 AD).)
Dense, creative, with very original characters and plot in an intermingling of church, myth and barbarism. By most standards well worth a read.
But the reason I started it, the warmth and humor of the original, wasn't there. I picked away at it for two months. enjoying Miller's creativity, but never really getting into it. For lovers of Canticle, but it's a different sort of book.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

Currently reading Talking Heads, by Alan Bennett.
Some brilliant writing, all monologues.

 

[saulfan]

Just started 'The Wizard Of Earthsea'

David

 

[Toby Frost]

I've started Wild Fire by Anne Cleeves. It's a murder story set in Shetland. I like Cleeves' books, which are neither cozy nor especially tough crime, but sometimes the actual mystery is weaker than the story around it. The writing is clear and good.

 

[Foxbat]

I’m currently reading Downward To The Earth. I’ve read a fair few books by Robert Silverberg but this particular novel is a first time read for me and, boy, have I been missing out. It’s a tale of judging differences by your own standards when you have no idea actually what you are dealing with. It’s a story of imperialism in space and the human tendency to look, in superior fashion, down the nose at anything different - especially if their way of life does not seem to meet our own narrow standards of civilisation.

It is, essentially, a retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness and even has a character called Kurtz.

I love it. Possibly and, arguably, Silverberg’s best work that I have read so far.

 

[tachyon]

Finished the second book in Suzanne Palmer's "Finder" series, Driving the Deep. Another solid scifi adventure I really enjoyed. The plot gets a bit too coincidental, just the thing Our Hero needs at just the right time, but the writing and the story flow and I'm having fun, so I don't really mind.

I will be getting the third book but not just at the moment. Not sure what's up next.

 

[worldofmutes]

I was reading Cloud Atlas. I tried to watch the movie, but it was… er… I’ve never seen a montage flick before. Kind of hard to follow.

But I expect I’ll like the book.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Currently Shirley Jackson and Eric Fromm.

 

[Parson]

Finished Falling Dark by Tom Lloyd. I was led to this by @Danny McG, he said he was going to read it, so, so did I.

On the whole this was an enjoyable book. Positively, it had an enjoyable and interesting premise. Humanity has stellar drive but no else does presently. The many civilizations who traveled to the stars before have disappeared, lost interest, or reverted to pastoralism. Some people, like the main character, Song, make money be looking for relics from past civilizations and scavenging them. Her story is told in First Person. It is a short book, almost better called a novella, (180 pgs.) and is easily read in less than an evening. This book has real potential as a movie since so much of it is painting a picture of a weirdly alien space ship.

Less positively, I found the middle part of the book frustrating. For a book of only 180 pages a considerable portion of the whole book consists of a long scene where Song is confused, sees a lot of things are unexplained/unexplainable (for someone like me who likes to understand what's being described this is frustrating) and feels pursued. The conclusion is exciting, but it just absolutely begs for another book. I'll read it if it is published.

Average 4 stars

Next up: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal, book 2 in The Lady Astronaut Series.

@Vertigo said about book 1 The Calculating Stars:

Very glad I went for it even if the anti-discriminatory bias felt a little overdone to my taste.

I understand what you mean. The anti-discriminatory theme did feel a little strong. But I can't say that the events seemed in the least out of character for the 1950's. And though Elma's stands would have made her seriously out of step with the mainstream views of women's, and African-American's rights. She did not feel at all impossible to me.

 

[williamjm]

I was reading Cloud Atlas. I tried to watch the movie, but it was… er… I’ve never seen a montage flick before. Kind of hard to follow.

But I expect I’ll like the book.

I read the book before watching the film and I did wonder how well people who weren't familiar with it would follow the narrative in the film. I think it's not hard to follow once you are familiar with the various storylines from the book but they did switch between them a lot more frequently than the book did.

 

[Bick]

God Emperor of Dune was terrific, better than I remembered it from all those years ago (roughly 35 years between readings).

I'm now taking a novel time-out to catch up on some of my 1958 issues of Astounding. I'm currently reading Jack Vance's novella The Miracle-Workers in the July '58 issue.