April Reading Thread

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I've been reading a lot less lately. Well, I guess the best truth would be I've been reading fewer novels and more newspapers. But I have finished 2 in the last 2 weeks or so. I finished the next in the Katie Kincaid series. Katie Kincaid Commodore. It is not great fiction, but it a satisfying positive S.F. story. I'm really frustrated by dark stories, unlikable characters, and apocalyptic settings. But it definitely has to be read in order every book in this series is built pretty seriously on the book before.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed

I also finished another Honorverse anthology, What Price Victory?. A lot of really good authors Timothy Zahn & Thomas Pope, Jane Lindskold, Jan Kotouc, Joelle Presby, and David Weber. I actually liked all the stories. I didn't feel there was a dud among them.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed

I've now begun The Ancient Code by T.S. Falk. The subtitle calls it A SCIFI Adventure (The Ancient Secrets Book 1) We'll have to see.
 
Paradise-1 by David Wellington, (a SF/horror crossover)

The blurb:-

Paradise-1. Earth’s first deep space colony.
For thousands of people, it was an opportunity for a new life.
Until it went dark.

No communication has been received from the colony for months. And it falls to Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova and the crew of the Artemis to investigate.

What they find is more horrifying than anything they could have imagined
 
Starting The Battle of Maldon by Tolkien, which includes The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, etc., and Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning by Nigel Biggar.
the-battle-of-maldon-book.jpg
 
I've been on a Zelazny splurge. I had thought that I had read all of his works, but browsing the list of what was available at the library, I was reminded of several collaborations that I had not read. Ended up in the back seat, with my son driving to and from Boston, reading a lot of them
Coils. (With Fred Saberhagen) My favorite of the several. A wild talented computer computer infiltrator has to figure out what is going on with his loss of memory - and his talent.
The Mask of Loki (with Thomas Thomas) A reincarnated magician fights an opponent throughout history. Really liked the various historical settings for the first 3/4 of the book. The pasted on ending pretty well deep sixed it unfortunately.
The Black Throne (again with Saberhagen) A Poe pastiche. But weaving a dreamy plural reality plot around multiple refences to Edgar Alan Poe, does not a novel make. Some nice writing and scenes, but another disappointment.
I also finished a festschrift to Roger, Lord of the Fantastic. Some really nice stories inspired by him This one I did enjoy.
Overall somewhat disappointing. That is in a dual context of having liked all of the collaborations that he wrote with Lindskold, Sheckley & Dick that I had read previously. But even more so due to my almost total appreciation of his solo works.
Still to go. Flare & Chronoscope. Currently re-reading A Night At The Lonesome October for a little light diversion.
 
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Danny McG said:
Paradise-1 by David Wellington, (a SF/horror crossover)

The blurb:-

Paradise-1. Earth’s first deep space colony.
For thousands of people, it was an opportunity for a new life.
Until it went dark.

No communication has been received from the colony for months. And it falls to Firewatch inspector Alexandra Petrova and the crew of the Artemis to investigate.

What they find is more horrifying than anything they could have imagined
Click to expand...
DNF, not very interesting, basically a zombie story set in space.

So instead tonight I'm going back to the 1970s with the original (and far superior due to good editing) version of The Stand by Stephen King.
 
Half way through book two of Robin Hobb's the Tawny Man Series. So impressed by her work.
 
Finished Foundation and Empire, by Isaac Asimov of course. Better than the first book in the sequence, which is too episodic (unsurprisingly). It’s in this second book that Asimov really starts to imbue it all with a broader canvas, to form a connected sequence that is increasingly engaging and cohesive, most notably in the second part, concerning the Mule. This improvement is doubtless because the earliest four stories that comprise Foundation were not planned to form a larger sequence or even one book at the time, whereas Foundation and Empire comprises only two long novellas, the second of which is really a short novel on its own. I suspect the good doctor had a larger story arc planned out at this stage. From here on, my memory is that the subsequent books are all gold. And so, straight on now to a re-read of the third volume Second Foundation.
 
I has recently finished the following fantasy books

Elak of Atlantis by Henry Kuttner - It's got some charm and it's got some wonderful fantasy conceits but at heart it suffers from being a thespian's version of a blood and guts adventure. I find those feel weird to me now.

Gryphon of Light by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - It's a new Valdemar that's actually quite good! I wish it didn't have the most abrupt, in the middle of adventure ending I have *ever* seen so I could big it up more.

The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu - Not sure whether I really like this or love it. It's best I loved. It's witty, human, and does a great line in bombastic action. It didn't engage me all the way through but I suspect I'll forgive it.
 
I finished The Ancient Code by T.S. Falk. It's a book about archelogy and uncovering a lost advanced civilization. My suspicion is that as the series goes on we are going to be dealing with not a lost human civilization, but an alien one. The writing is good. I found myself being unable to quit reading a number of times. That's always a good sign I like the 2 main characters a lot, but the premise of a very advanced, very ancient, unknown civilization is a tough pill for me to swallow. I have book two The Extinction Threat in my queue.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed

I've started book 4 of the Cassandra Kresnov series by Joel Shepherd: 23 Years on Fire. This continues the adventures of a synthetic human with super-human military abilities trying to find her place in a human culture which mostly hates synthetics. The previous 3 were very interesting stories, I'm not advanced enough in the book to say this one is less, but so far it has not grabbed me.
 
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh.

The blurb:-
All her life, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the destruction of planet Earth. Raised on Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet.

Then Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons, and she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands. Alongside her brother's brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr must escape from everything she's ever known. If she succeeds, she will find a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could ever have imagined
 
I’ve started Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell. I’ve not read any Powell before, but I know this won awards so I’m hopeful I’ll like it (and hopefully more than the Hamilton novel I tried a couple of weeks back, given both are recently published well known British space opera works).
 
In the last week or so I've read:

Illuminations by T. Kingfisher
With a simple plot and 10 (almost 11) year old protagonist, this is a children's story. But it's an absolutely charming story about friends and family that are present, caring and helpful. There is just something engaging and special about a vengeful mandrake root that can scribble pesty minions (aka "scribblings") with it's charred arm; fanged radishes; a vocal, painted crow with a penchant for "shiny" things; and Rosa; that makes this something more than just an ordinary kiddies book.

In the Realms of Gold: Five Tales of Ysthar by Victoria Goddard
Five beautifully written short stories. I am definitely tracking down other novels by this author.

The Nature of Middle-earth by J.R.R. Tolkien, Carl F. Hostetter (Editor)
Bits and pieces. The stuff on Numenor was the most interesting, the rest less so.

The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a Shakespearean comedy that I actually found funny. With two sensible married women that decide to play pranks on Falstaff of the 'Dubious Honour and Suspect Morals' to teach him a lesson, this play is a cut above the other comedies where the women are all silly and the audience has to suspend disbelief.

Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces by Laurie Winkless
Despite the title "Sticky", this is a book less about gooey things that stick together and more about surfaces - "those places where one material meets another". The official term for this is "tribology" - the science and engineering study of interacting surfaces in relative motion, including friction, corrosion/wear, and lubrication. This field makes use of an interdisciplinary approach including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, materials science, and engineering.
With a combination of (sometimes meandering) interviews, personal anecdotes and research, Winkless discusses all things friction:- including gecko's feet, the design of sport balls, Teflon, the accidental invention of superglue, human touch and braille, swimsuit design, how tyres "stick" to the road, earthquakes, sound barriers and air friction, ice, gauge blocks (never heard of these before), sticky notes and how paint sticks to the wall (among other things), as well as the still unsolved mysteries and gaps in our knowledge of friction. Personally, I didn't care much for her examples including baseball and F1 racing (sports don't interest me one little bit) and had trouble keeping focused on these chapters. I found the chapters on human touch and earthquakes (making use of New Zealand's geography as an example), particularly interesting. Winkless is enthusiastic about her subject and manages to include a bit of everything. An interesting science book.​
 
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