June 2022 Reading Thread
- Thread starter The Judge
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AE35Unit
]==[]===O °
I read it in 2009, and I didn't get the ending
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I have not read any John Wyndham and with the latest TV adaptation grabbing my attention, i felt it would only be right to read the book beforehand.
I'm also rather embarrassed to say that I've not read or seen The Day of the Triffids, either.
I'm also rather embarrassed to say that I've not read or seen The Day of the Triffids, either.
Stomalomalus
Writer to Marketer and back to writer again
I finally finished The Wheel of Time.
I'm going for something completely different now, as someone gifted me A Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz. Haven't read a detective story in ages.
I'm going for something completely different now, as someone gifted me A Line To Kill by Anthony Horowitz. Haven't read a detective story in ages.
Elentarri
Well-Known Member
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- Jan 23, 2022
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My condolences. I got to somewhere in the middle and quit. Everything just dragged and went nowhere.
Finished As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. One of the great novels to come out of the 1930s, a dark comedy mock-epic of a family's odyssey to bury their dead wife and mother, full of real courage and perseverance but in the service of a quest so daft it leaves those who know them dismayed and exasperated. Also, one of the best entry points to Faulkner's works.
Skipped away from Acheron Salvation yesterday for the time being. I discovered that David Weber and Jane Lindskold have a new Star Kingdom novel which debuted yesterday. This is a Young Adult series and since my age allows me to claim young adult status 5 times over 
I find this series about the best of Weber's collaborations. When I preordered it I noted that it was book 4 and I only remembered books 1 A Beautiful Friendship written by Weber alone, and book 2 Fire Season written with Lindskold (who I am surprised to learn is a very accomplished SFF writer in her own right). The third book was Treecat Wars by both Weber and Lindskold. When I went to look at it, Amazon Kindle told me "You already own this book." --- Say What??!! --- And then "How come I don't remember it?" I did a search on my Kindle and sure enough, there it was. So I supposed that I must have read it and forgotten. --- Not true either. (Or my memory is totally gone! See above age division for YA) because I did not remember anything of it, and there were many memorable scenes and ideas. I've now finished Treecat Wars and give it a pretty solid 4 stars. It's head and shoulders better than almost all of the Weber collaborations. I have just begun book 4: A New Clan. And I can't wait to read more of it.
I find this series about the best of Weber's collaborations. When I preordered it I noted that it was book 4 and I only remembered books 1 A Beautiful Friendship written by Weber alone, and book 2 Fire Season written with Lindskold (who I am surprised to learn is a very accomplished SFF writer in her own right). The third book was Treecat Wars by both Weber and Lindskold. When I went to look at it, Amazon Kindle told me "You already own this book." --- Say What??!! --- And then "How come I don't remember it?" I did a search on my Kindle and sure enough, there it was. So I supposed that I must have read it and forgotten. --- Not true either. (Or my memory is totally gone! See above age division for YA) because I did not remember anything of it, and there were many memorable scenes and ideas. I've now finished Treecat Wars and give it a pretty solid 4 stars. It's head and shoulders better than almost all of the Weber collaborations. I have just begun book 4: A New Clan. And I can't wait to read more of it.
I am reading The Last Man by Mary Shelley (I saw it mentioned here and I was looking for something different to read). Heard of it decades ago and wanted to check it out at last.
As with Frankenstein, she adorns the text with precise philosophical observations on behavior and emotion:
But in truth, neither the lonely meditations of the hermit, nor the
tumultuous raptures of the reveller, are capable of satisfying man’s
heart. From the one we gather unquiet speculation, from the other
satiety. The mind flags beneath the weight of thought, and droops in
the heartless intercourse of those whose sole aim is amusement. There
is no fruition in their vacant kindness, and sharp rocks lurk beneath
the smiling ripples of these shallow waters.
As with Frankenstein, she adorns the text with precise philosophical observations on behavior and emotion:
But in truth, neither the lonely meditations of the hermit, nor the
tumultuous raptures of the reveller, are capable of satisfying man’s
heart. From the one we gather unquiet speculation, from the other
satiety. The mind flags beneath the weight of thought, and droops in
the heartless intercourse of those whose sole aim is amusement. There
is no fruition in their vacant kindness, and sharp rocks lurk beneath
the smiling ripples of these shallow waters.
Elentarri
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2022
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- 716
Busy with The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It's overly verbose and so far I haven't learned anything I didn't get from high school biology class. 60 pages in and Mukherjee is still on Darwin and Mendel, using lots of words to say very little.
Also busy with: The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper, which is interesting so far.
Also busy with: The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper, which is interesting so far.
Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
I have just started The Classic Horror Collection (2018), edited anonymously, and with an anonymous introduction. It collects public domain stories from 1839 to 1936. You'd expect it to be a cheap, quick production, but it's actually a decent-looking hardcover, well over 900 pages in length. The contents vary from extremely famous ("The Tell-Tale Heart" by Poe) to completely unknown to me ("The Medici Boots" by Pearl Norton Sweet.)
Guttersnipe
mortal ally
The Specialty of the House and Other Stories by Stanley Ellin
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- Mar 27, 2016
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Poul Anderson “The Van Rijn Method”
Volume One of the Baen serialisation in chronological order of Poul Anderson's "Technic Civilization" stories.
Most of these are new to me and an easy space opera read. They are also my first direct encounter with Nicholas Van Rijn - I found him more likeable than expected.
Volume One of the Baen serialisation in chronological order of Poul Anderson's "Technic Civilization" stories.
Most of these are new to me and an easy space opera read. They are also my first direct encounter with Nicholas Van Rijn - I found him more likeable than expected.
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No time for full write up yet again!
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde - More Thursday Next fun. I couldn’t sit down and read a load of Fforde books back-to-back but dipping into one every now and then always provides some enjoyable light reading. I’m not a lover of time travel books in general but Fforde’s total abandonment of any concerns about paradoxes and cause and effect (the main reason I generally avoid time travel stories) is actually quite refreshing in its honesty. Never mind the dabbling in a little cheating of death and hiding inside books. A nice reset button for getting too serious about your reading! 4/5 stars
Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K Dick - I’m generally a lover of Dicks (better) books but, though this one is generally quite highly rated, it somehow never quite clicked with me. It has all his normal themes of identity, drugs (particularly impossible drugs that result in time travel), and psychiatric issues but somehow it never really came together for me. I think the biggest problem was that all the relationships between characters felt very forced and unnatural. 3/5 stars
Emergency Skin by N K Jemisin - This is my second book in the Forward Collection of novellas curated by Blake Crouch and it was excellent. It quite neatly sets the reader up at the beginning with one particular and plausible world view and then progressively tears that view down and turns it completely on its head. At 38 pages it’s really more of a short story than a novella but within those few pages it manages to develop a very interesting twist on the common SF trope of humans fleeing a dying Earth to start afresh in a new colony. Sadly, as far as I can tell, this is the only SF work by Jemisin, the rest of her work all being fantasy, which holds little interest for me. 5/5 stars
Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami - This second book in Murakami’s debut loose trilogy about the ‘Rat’ (there is a fourth book that came later) moves just a little closer to his mature themes of the prosaic under close scrutiny, with hints of magical realism starting to appear. It’s still some way from the extraordinary surrealism of his more recent work but the signs are all there. These first two books, though good and interesting, are probably of most interest to completionists. 3/5 stars.
Off On A Comet by Jules Verne - I’m not quite sure how I’ve missed out on this famous Verne book but at least I’ve finally got around to it. And I find myself with rather mixed feelings. Written in 1877 it is frequently, and painfully, very much of its times with frankly quite unpleasant national/cultural stereotyping particularly towards the one Jewish character in the story: “Small and skinny, with eyes bright and cunning, a hooked nose, a short yellow beard, unkempt hair, huge feet, and long bony hands, he presented all the typical characteristics of the German Jew, the heartless, wily usurer, the hardened miser and skinflint. As iron is attracted by the magnet, so was this Shylock attracted by the sight of gold, nor would he have hesitated to draw the life-blood of his creditors, if by such means he could secure his claims.” Ouch! Attitudes were, of course, very different then but it was still an unpleasant thread throughout the book. To be fair the English and Spanish did not fair very much better. Considerably more interesting were the inevitable holes in the scientific knowledge of the day. Describing a volcano; “To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of Gallia’s atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive gases contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable, the volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygen of her own.” Hmmm. But never mind it is a fascinating book and, though its events cringingly improbable, it gives an insight into how far scientific understanding has come in less than 150 years. 4/5 stars
Virtual Light by William Gibson - I found this to be a slightly odd hybrid of a Gibson story. It is not cyberpunk, there are no implants in sight, but it does have other features of Gibson’s cyberpunk work with often impenetrable slang, dystopian society, very noir, Bladerunner-style underworld and distinctly punkish characters. It is rather more accessible than the likes of Neuromancer but I never really warmed to the rather self-absorbed characters. Good but not brilliant. 3/5 stars
War Dogs by Greg Bear - I thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this mostly well written military science fiction until the end. Well, actually, there wasn’t really an end at all. Right up to the last pages Bear was hinting that a grand revelation was coming but finally all the many questions raised by the events of the book were left completely unanswered. So it was a well-executed and interesting premise that was massively spoilt by having no conclusion whatsoever. Disappointing. 3/5 stars {ETA to be fair it is the first book in a trilogy (I hadn't realised) but even so the ending resolved nothing).
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - This famous book, sadly, failed to live up to my expectations. It isn’t really even science fiction, more just plain weird. The time travel aspects felt more like delusion and just an excuse to hop around in time telling the story of Billy Pilgrim and the Dresden firestorm in almost entirely flash back form. I couldn’t bring myself to like the main character in the slightest or cared very much what happened to him. The story about the Dresden firestorm was interesting and did bring those horrific events to vivid life but everything else just felt disjointed and uninteresting. It wasn’t terrible but it simply wasn’t the sort of book I want to read. 3/5 stars
[Considering how I'm not too keen on time travel books I seem to have managed three in that lot with the time travel theme!]
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde - More Thursday Next fun. I couldn’t sit down and read a load of Fforde books back-to-back but dipping into one every now and then always provides some enjoyable light reading. I’m not a lover of time travel books in general but Fforde’s total abandonment of any concerns about paradoxes and cause and effect (the main reason I generally avoid time travel stories) is actually quite refreshing in its honesty. Never mind the dabbling in a little cheating of death and hiding inside books. A nice reset button for getting too serious about your reading! 4/5 stars
Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K Dick - I’m generally a lover of Dicks (better) books but, though this one is generally quite highly rated, it somehow never quite clicked with me. It has all his normal themes of identity, drugs (particularly impossible drugs that result in time travel), and psychiatric issues but somehow it never really came together for me. I think the biggest problem was that all the relationships between characters felt very forced and unnatural. 3/5 stars
Emergency Skin by N K Jemisin - This is my second book in the Forward Collection of novellas curated by Blake Crouch and it was excellent. It quite neatly sets the reader up at the beginning with one particular and plausible world view and then progressively tears that view down and turns it completely on its head. At 38 pages it’s really more of a short story than a novella but within those few pages it manages to develop a very interesting twist on the common SF trope of humans fleeing a dying Earth to start afresh in a new colony. Sadly, as far as I can tell, this is the only SF work by Jemisin, the rest of her work all being fantasy, which holds little interest for me. 5/5 stars
Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami - This second book in Murakami’s debut loose trilogy about the ‘Rat’ (there is a fourth book that came later) moves just a little closer to his mature themes of the prosaic under close scrutiny, with hints of magical realism starting to appear. It’s still some way from the extraordinary surrealism of his more recent work but the signs are all there. These first two books, though good and interesting, are probably of most interest to completionists. 3/5 stars.
Off On A Comet by Jules Verne - I’m not quite sure how I’ve missed out on this famous Verne book but at least I’ve finally got around to it. And I find myself with rather mixed feelings. Written in 1877 it is frequently, and painfully, very much of its times with frankly quite unpleasant national/cultural stereotyping particularly towards the one Jewish character in the story: “Small and skinny, with eyes bright and cunning, a hooked nose, a short yellow beard, unkempt hair, huge feet, and long bony hands, he presented all the typical characteristics of the German Jew, the heartless, wily usurer, the hardened miser and skinflint. As iron is attracted by the magnet, so was this Shylock attracted by the sight of gold, nor would he have hesitated to draw the life-blood of his creditors, if by such means he could secure his claims.” Ouch! Attitudes were, of course, very different then but it was still an unpleasant thread throughout the book. To be fair the English and Spanish did not fair very much better. Considerably more interesting were the inevitable holes in the scientific knowledge of the day. Describing a volcano; “To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of Gallia’s atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive gases contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable, the volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal supply of oxygen of her own.” Hmmm. But never mind it is a fascinating book and, though its events cringingly improbable, it gives an insight into how far scientific understanding has come in less than 150 years. 4/5 stars
Virtual Light by William Gibson - I found this to be a slightly odd hybrid of a Gibson story. It is not cyberpunk, there are no implants in sight, but it does have other features of Gibson’s cyberpunk work with often impenetrable slang, dystopian society, very noir, Bladerunner-style underworld and distinctly punkish characters. It is rather more accessible than the likes of Neuromancer but I never really warmed to the rather self-absorbed characters. Good but not brilliant. 3/5 stars
War Dogs by Greg Bear - I thoroughly enjoyed the journey of this mostly well written military science fiction until the end. Well, actually, there wasn’t really an end at all. Right up to the last pages Bear was hinting that a grand revelation was coming but finally all the many questions raised by the events of the book were left completely unanswered. So it was a well-executed and interesting premise that was massively spoilt by having no conclusion whatsoever. Disappointing. 3/5 stars {ETA to be fair it is the first book in a trilogy (I hadn't realised) but even so the ending resolved nothing).
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - This famous book, sadly, failed to live up to my expectations. It isn’t really even science fiction, more just plain weird. The time travel aspects felt more like delusion and just an excuse to hop around in time telling the story of Billy Pilgrim and the Dresden firestorm in almost entirely flash back form. I couldn’t bring myself to like the main character in the slightest or cared very much what happened to him. The story about the Dresden firestorm was interesting and did bring those horrific events to vivid life but everything else just felt disjointed and uninteresting. It wasn’t terrible but it simply wasn’t the sort of book I want to read. 3/5 stars
[Considering how I'm not too keen on time travel books I seem to have managed three in that lot with the time travel theme!]
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Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
Tonight I'm starting The This by Adam Roberts.
Cyberpunk about an insertive phone according to one blurb I saw
Cyberpunk about an insertive phone according to one blurb I saw
It seems to me I've heard some people suggest that someone insert their phone somewhere before. Is it expensive to do?
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2014
- Messages
- 3,386
@Danny McG, could you please let us know what you thought of The This, when you finish? It's on my TBR pile. Thank you, CC
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
No probs
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
And it's an early DNF for me, he's trying too hard to be clever...a dull chapter of the protagonist dying in multiple lives over millennia and then it has page after page of this kind of double column stuff....no way!
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
Now I'm trying book one of a mil sci-fi series
Space Junk by Rachel Aukes
(Fingers crossed there's no romance!)
Space Junk by Rachel Aukes
(Fingers crossed there's no romance!)
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