February 2022 Reading Thread

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Bick said:
It seemed to exist solely to showcase the value and richness of mature and caring relationships between people and aliens with diverse backgrounds and their various life choices. Yep, we get it Becky, very good. And she can write quite well, but please, a story arc would be nice. :)
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Interesting. I've not read any way of this series yet but bought the 4th mainly because it sounded like this which sounded kind of refreshingly different from most SF.
 
Killing the beasts by Chris Simms.

This is from 2005 and is the first of a crime thriller fiction series about some Detective Inspector
I've never heard of the series or this author so I'm giving it a trial run
 
A trio of decent short stories set after the events of Salvations Reach. Family, Ghosts and Bad Shadows and Killzone were loosely linked and i really enjoyed them.

Now on to The Warmaster (book 14 of the Gaunts Ghosts series).

Books read in 2022 - 3 of 24
 
Damon Knight "In Deep" (1964)
Good collection. Just seven stories, but each one plays with more than just the one idea. Three are probably fairly well known: "Stranger Station", "The Country of the Kind", and a personal off-beat favourite of mine "Four in One". In this last story, four members of a planetary exploration team slip down a bank and become absorbed within an unknown life-form. Once awake they struggle to make sense of their predicament, while arguing among themselves.
 
Mark Twain "Roughing It"
Following discussion here some months ago, I was looking forward to reading this account of his travels @1860s: by stagecoach from the Eastern States to Nevada, then his involvement in silver mining/prospecting, and finally his visit to the Sandwich Islands.
While I'm glad I read it, after a rollicking start I got bogged down half way through, and it took me longer than I'd anticipated. I tired of the writing style and tall stories and would have preferred more straightforward realism, but nonetheless it's a remarkable historical document.
This edition had the original illustrations which was a bonus.
 
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BAYLOR said:
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart . Im past the halfway mark in this book , outstanding ! , I wish Id read this years ago !
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I tend to assume you have read everything....
 
Hugh said:
I tend to assume you have read everything....
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Hugh , I can assure you , I haven't. Ive read lots of books but , I suspect that you and quite a number of the members on this site are far better read and far more knowledgeable then than I am. :)
 
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I finally finished The Jesus Incident (book one of The Pandora Sequence). The first two thirds or so I found excruciatingly slow paced (I’d describe it like watching a Villeneuve movie at half speed) but, thankfully, the pace picked up a bit in the final third and things actually started to happen. To say I enjoyed it is probably too strong a sentiment so let’s just say that, in the end, I didn’t hate it and found it thematically interesting.

I don’t feel ready to carry on with book two right now so I’m off to find something else to read before returning to The Pandora Sequence at a later date.
 
Every once in a while, in between reading other stuff, I dive into the collection Enough Rope by Lawrence Block, which contains almost all his short works. (84 short stories.) Mostly crime fiction, ranging from grim to comic, with a couple of exceptions. Many recurring characters are featured. Plot-driven and clever, with some emotional involvement as well.
 
For light reading, I also have the little book Hash House Lingo (2012 reprint of 1941 original) by Jack Smiley, with new introduction and a few annotations by Paul Dickson, as well as several vintage photographs of old diners and such. It's an alphabetic dictionary of restaurant slang, which was already fading out in the 1930's, it seems. ("Adam and Eve on a raft, wreck 'em" = two scrambled eggs on toast.) Some of the slang is still familiar ("java" = coffee) some has nothing to do with restaurants ("gam" = leg) some is amusing ("foreign entanglements" = spaghetti) and some is inexplicable ("hugger" = glass of orange juice.)
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Every once in a while, in between reading other stuff, I dive into the collection Enough Rope by Lawrence Block, which contains almost all his short works
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@Victoria Silverwolf
I'd never heard of this collection, I've downloaded the ebook version now, cheers for this.

(This again justifies the reason for this reading thread)
 
Danny McG said:
@Victoria Silverwolf
I'd never heard of this collection, I've downloaded the ebook version now, cheers for this.

(This again justifies the reason for this reading thread)
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I've read maybe a dozen stories in that collection, and would agree with Victoria that it's entertaining and with a good deal of variety. I especially like the Mathew Scudder stories, which I found surprising since the one novel I read didn't do much for me.

Finished Golden Age Detective Stories ed. by Otto Penzler. Mixed bag with a couple of stories I liked, a couple I wasn't fond of, and the others which passed the time enjoyably. A good anthology if you like reading from the time period between the wars until a bit past WWII.

Read a few stories from Darkness at Dawn, a collection of stories by Cornell Woolrich, then decided I wanted a longer narrative so picked up Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Velvet was the Night. I'm only about 30 pages in and not getting as much time to read as I'd expected.
 
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Elsewhere, by Dean Koontz
I like Koontz's writing style, which I discovered when I intercepted a paperback copy of his Odd Thomas as it was heading out the door in a collection of household discards. My wife gave me Elsewhere for Christmas.
Next up will be Your Heart Belongs to Me, which she presented to me for Valentine's Day. She seems delighted that she has found a deep well of appreciated (and inexpensive) gifts for special occasions. :)
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
Every once in a while, in between reading other stuff, I dive into the collection Enough Rope by Lawrence Block, which contains almost all his short works. (84 short stories.) Mostly crime fiction, ranging from grim to comic, with a couple of exceptions. Many recurring characters are featured. Plot-driven and clever, with some emotional involvement as well.
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Are there any Tanner stories in there or were they just novels? I read The Canceled Czech eons ago and it has always stuck in my head.
 
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