June 2022 Reading Thread

[The Judge]

I've not done a lot of reading over the last month, and only one vaguely SFF, Ariadne by Jennifer Saint, a feminist whinge re-telling of Ariadne's story (she who helps Theseus defeat her half-brother the Minotaur and then he dumps her on Naxos and marries her sister).

I'm continuing the non-genre today with The Optickal Illusion by Rachel Halliburton, based on a true story about art and a particular female artist at the end of the C18th.

What are you reading this month?

 

[The Big Peat]

Technically I read this last month but didn't get around to mentioning it, but All the Seas in the World by Guy Gavriel Kay was a hugely emotional read for me.

Think the next read will be Disappearance of a Scribe by Dana Stabenow.

 

[Randy M.]

I'm nearing the end of my (5th?) reread As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and I'm still in awe of what he could do with the written word.

In between, when my brain needs something lighter, I'm reading, The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood, a collection of Phrynne Fisher detective stories that captures the jauntiness of the "Golden Age" mysteries of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr. Fluff, but entertaining fluff.

 

[alexvss]

I started Cixin Liu's The Wandering Earth circa a week ago. It's a collection of short-stories about a plan to move the entire Earth from its orbit with giant engines, so it can escape the sun, which (may or may not) explode in a few hundred years (so the cientists say). I know what you're thinking: crazy, right? Because it is. It's bonkers, but awesome bonkers; the scope of it is just so big. I'm enjoying this read.

I'm also re-reading Robert E. Howard's short-stories. He's my favorite author, and I already read all of Conan's, as well as other character's, stories, but all in Portuguese. I'm now reading The Complete Collection of Robert E. Howard, which is almost 5000 pages. I'm not gonna read everything at once, of course, just Conan and some of my favorite characters.

Also, the usual: Daily Science Fiction every workday; and refreshing Clarksworld's webpage every 10 minutes, just to see the names of the authors of the month, and resent the dozens of rejections I keep receiving.

 

[Foxbat]

I’ve dived deep into the depths of naval nerdom. Busy reading British Cruisers Of The Victorian Era by Norman Friedman.

 

[Le Panda du Mal]

Started reading Gargantua and Pantagruel. Only a few chapters in but hilarious and brilliant so far.

 

[Danny McG]

Starting Eversion by Alastair Reynolds

 

[Parson]

Starting Acheron Rising, Federation Chronicles Novella by Ken Lozito. Too soon to have any firm idea of what I'm getting into.

 

[Danny McG]

Starting Eversion by Alastair Reynolds

Total pants DNF

 

[Bick]

I read Life, the Universe and Everything, by Douglas Adams, and it's not nearly as good as the preceding book, which itself ended rather weakly. Adams didn't run out of ideas so much as run out of good ideas, perhaps, by the time of this third book, and the plot (which involves the cast of characters splitting up for most of the book) is just too daft and all over the place to really work. I probably won't bother reading the fourth and fifth books in the 'trilogy' at this point, accordingly.

Treasure Island is proving to be enjoyable, though it's much more obviously a children's book than I think I remembered. It's very 'boy's own', rather silly, has significant plot holes and so on. It's fun though, and 12 year old boys would love it, I'm sure.

I've now also made a start on the next book in my reading of Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series, which is 1636: The Saxon Uprising.

 

[dask]

Finished SO BRIGHT THE VISION by Clifford D. Simak, a collection of four stories from the 1950s, three solid if not necessarily hard sf, and one (to my untrained eye) fantasy, a revelation of wonder type story about do-gooder “brownies.”

Now it’s time to try one of the new hot writers of the field:

 

[Danny McG]

Just starting this one, it's good so far, a space fleet comes under attack and a young ensign saves the day and is a hero for a couple of days.
Then the marines track down and board one of the enemy's derelict ships and find it's crammed full of five and six year old kids who've been killed by the ensign's torpedoes .... that's as far as I've got

 

[Dave Vicks]

Jane Pauley non FICTION

 

[Parson]

@Danny McG .... Have my eye on that one. I look forward to your thoughts on it.
I'm reading a novella: Acheron Rising by Ken Lozito and I will very likely read some of the series it introduces. Pretty good set up with interesting characters.

 

[The Big Peat]

Think the next read will be Disappearance of a Scribe by Dana Stabenow.

This was dull and I only finished it because the gym staff who saw me reading it asked how it was, so I decided to keep reading so I could answer him honestly. That's a prime example of why I have reservations about talking to people.

 

[Danny McG]

That's a prime example of why I have reservations about talking to people

Ditto

 

[Bick]

This was dull and I only finished it because the gym staff who saw me reading it asked how it was, so I decided to keep reading so I could answer him honestly. That's a prime example of why I have reservations about talking to people.

Well yes. People are the worst.

 

[HareBrain]

Finished Dominic Sandbrook's The Great British Dream Factory, a wide-ranging look at mostly post-war UK creative output. Very enjoyable.

Now going to try The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, glowingly referenced in the above.

 

[mistri]

Technically I read this last month but didn't get around to mentioning it, but All the Seas in the World by Guy Gavriel Kay was a hugely emotional read for me.

I've just read this too, but think I made an error in not reading the most recent two books set in this universe (I have read Al-rassan and Sarantium but years and years ago) and it felt like a lot of time was spent with minor characters unnecessarily. It felt loooong. But also beautifully written and a fully realised world!

 

[tobl]

just saw the midwhick cuckoos.... can someone please tell this people to stop repiting things ad nauseum? we already has a great movie from the 50s and a great book. let's not talk about that thing from 2000s i think... there's plenty of books out there, stop making the same things over again. Last year they made a remake, horrible by the way of bem-hur. can't this people learn anything?