September Reading Thread

[Danny McG]

The war against the Rull now, with my old fave "The Mote in God's Eye" to follow

Finished the Rull book but I've skipped 'Mote' to instead begin the new SF book from Gary Gibson - Europa Deep

The blurb from Goodreads :-

From the author of Echogenesis and Stealing Light comes a gripping 22nd Century adventure set among the moons of Jupiter. There is life on Europa .
The first manned expedition disappeared while exploring the vast ocean beneath the ice, and fifteen years later, Cassie White is given the chance to join a second expedition—so long as she agrees to investigate secretive experiments carried out by the first.
But the commander of the deep-space exploration ship Veles has every reason to hate her, and a hostile enemy ship is waiting for them when they arrive at Jupiter. Any attempt at landing may lead to war.
It soon becomes clear the first expedition stumbled onto a secret even greater than the existence of alien life within our own solar system—something hidden in the depths of Europa’s lightless ocean for untold billions of years.
But before she can uncover it, Cassie must first figure out who on board the Veles is trying to sabotage their mission—and why.
An astounding journey to the edge of the solar system. And a discovery that changes everything

 

[Danny McG]

the new SF book from Gary Gibson - Europa Deep

FFS!
Page 18 the character Sally has a name change, for two lines of dialogue she's Cassie and then it's back to Sally again.
I've done a search through the ebook, some chapters later a totally different character called Cassie does make an appearance for a large part of the story - no connection with the Sally at the start.

This is the kind of thing that annoys me with self publishing, he has six people acknowledged as reading the various stages of the book for him, none spotted this?

 

[Danny McG]

Further basic errors in Europa Deep and they've spoiled it for me, DNF.
Now it's a change of genre with a classic hard-boiled detective yarn - The Maltese Falcon.

 

[Danny McG]

Now it's a change of genre with a classic hard-boiled detective yarn - The Maltese Falcon

Amazing!
He gets a call at 2a.m.
Puts his trousers and shoes on, phones for a taxi and then puts his shirt and tie on - as he's donning his jacket he gets a knock on his door, the taxi is here.
He's either the world's slowest dresser or he lives beside a taxi company

 

[HareBrain]

This is the kind of thing that annoys me with self publishing, he has six people acknowledged as reading the various stages of the book for him, none spotted this?

Maybe one of them read only the two lines of dialogue in which she was called Cassie.

 

[Montero]

This is the kind of thing that annoys me with self publishing, he has six people acknowledged as reading the various stages of the book for him, none spotted this?

Well I have found stuff like that from time to time, less frequently I must say, in trad published.

I've just read Brandon Sanderson's The Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, which was alright. I found the start not so engaging, and put it down a quarter of the way in a few days back. Just picked it up and finished off the rest of it today, and liked the premise as it unspooled and the ending. He comments that it is not his usual book.

 

[Berlyn]

Well I have found stuff like that from time to time, less frequently I must say, in trad published.

I've just read Brandon Sanderson's The Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, which was alright. I found the start not so engaging, and put it down a quarter of the way in a few days back. Just picked it up and finished off the rest of it today, and liked the premise as it unspooled and the ending. He comments that it is not his usual book.

This was my least favourite of all the Secret Project novels. I know Terry Pratchett is a big influence on him growing up, but Sanderson trying to write like Pratchett just didn't really work for me.

 

[RDArmstrong]

Reading Hard Contact Republic Commando for the second time. I really like this even more than the first time back when I read it 10 years ago. Karen Traviss has really impressed me and relearning how the Mando culture thinks works well.

 

[The Big Peat]

The Apple Tree Throne by Premee Mohamed - Charming, very well written and observed, weird story about a post-war ghost. Tiny novella. Worth a shot.

Monstress vol 1 by Majorie Liu - I'm not sure I'm in the mood for this but the artist (forgot name sorry) is very talented and there's some fine moments

The Phoenix King by Aparna Venma - Sci-Fantasy with a ton of narrative energy, possibly too much; good if you like it fast-paced, but at times I found it breathless

Hero In The Shadows by David Gemmell - Laconic, taut, and filled with captivating violence and human frailty

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett - Still arguably the greatest single book in the fantasy genre ever



I'm now flitting from book to book, unsure what I want to read. Demolished a big chunk of The Dragonbone Chair, but it still remains ver' slow. Trying to romp through some Redwall with Lord Brocktree but not really feeling that either. Maybe time for Penric & Desdemona novellas? My problem is I've got a ton of very long, very slow books on the go, and the ones I'm eying up next are slow and long. Bit frustrating.

 

[Montero]

I love the Penric and Desdemona novellas. Only got on Kindle, must get paper copies so know I'll be able to keep.

 

[Montero]

This was my least favourite of all the Secret Project novels. I know Terry Pratchett is a big influence on him growing up, but Sanderson trying to write like Pratchett just didn't really work for me.

I've read very little Brandon Sanderson, had him labelled as grim dark in my head, maybe I'm wrong on that. I was just really taken by the title.

 

[Elentarri]

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher - a not particularly terrifying haunted house story. So-so.

The Plague by Albert Camus.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury [Every time I read a dystopian novel, I have this horrible feeling that someone else, somewhere, is using them as instruction manuals!]

Falling Felines & Fundamental Physics by Gregory J. Gbur - a history/science book examining everything to do with why cats land on their feet when they fall. Interesting, informative and somewhat technical.

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[Bick]

I've started Rimrunners, by C.J. Cherryh. Good thus far.

 

[Hugh]

Patricia McKillip "The Riddle-Master's Game" trilogy
Most impressive.
Many thanks @Teresa Edgerton for the recommendation. I rarely read fantasy (and definitely avoid multi-volume sagas) and had never heard of McKillip. Following your suggestions I ordered the Forgotten Beasts, but then stumbled on the first volume of the Riddle Master in a second hand b/shop.

 

[Dave]

Unfortunately, I have to report a DNF! I ran out of books on holiday abroad and the only English language book that I fancied to read was:
A Florentine Death (book 1 in the Michele Ferrara Series) by Michele Giuttari. The author is former head of the Florence Police Force (1995-2003), where he was responsible for re-opening the Monster of Florence case, so the book is written with expert knowledge.

The book may well by a "tense and evocative mystery that reveals the sinister side of a much-treasured Italian city," but I just couldn't get that far into it. The first chapter introduced the police chief, his deputy, his detective team, his wife, and the local shopkeepers and cafe owners. I struggled on to the second chapter which introduced a completely unrelated young woman with her friends and family, and I just couldn't keep track of all these characters, or why I'm interested in them or supposed to care. My wife says, "Life is too short to read a book you're not interested in!" and I now have a stack of Stephen King and Dean Koontz books to read, picked up second hand. I'm going to begin one of them instead.

 

[Dave Vicks]

STRANGE WEATHER, by Joe Hill, 2017.
4 Novellas.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I’ve just finished reading a novel by J. C. Briggs, the tenth in a series of mysteries (Charles Dickens Investigates) which I have been following for several years now as the books come out. I enjoy these books because of their vivid portrayal of Victorian London and the frequently Dickensian flavor of the prose, not to mention the complex plots and colorful characters.

In The Waxwork Man, the mystery surrounds the death of Sir Fabian Quarterman— apparently of natural causes. Quarterman, however, was a notorious “hanging judge” with a vicious hatred of women, and Dickens suspects that somehow someone who lost a loved one (guilty or innocent) to the rope found a way to murder the judge and get away with it. Moreover, the judge kept a macabre collection of life-size wax figures of famous murderesses, as well as women killed by their husbands or lovers (“harlots” Quarterman describes even these innocent victims, and therefore deserving of their fate), and when the judge is discovered dead at the feet of these wax figures, it seems that one of the waxworks has gone missing. But who would take it, and why?

This mystery has numerous twists and turns, a missing wife (with suspicions that the judge might have murdered her), a plague of black-clad wax figures posed to startle the public in graveyards and other locations, extortion, seductions, additional deaths, a kidnapping, and a villain who gleefully taunts the police with their inability to put together all the pieces of the puzzle.

Although there is much about the entertainments of Victorian London—when artistry and emerging technologies came together to produce grand spectacles never before possible—Briggs does not spare the reader knowledge of the grinding misery of the London poor, the difficulties faced by the police in putting together a solid case with none of the forensic tools available today, and the injustices visited on women and the poor in a legal system slanted in favor of those in power and against those who have none. It’s the kind of book that Dickens himself might have appreciated.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THE THEORY OF EVRYTHING:THE QUEST TO EXPLAIN ALL REALITY. By. Don Lincoln, 2018.

 

[cyprus7]

Ted Chiang's collection, The Story of Your Life.

The title story is wonderful, like living a dream in the author's mind. This is my second reading and it so moves me.
The movie adaptation (Arrival) I found to be disappointing because of Hollywood's need for suspense to sell and keep bum$ on seats, I suppose.

 

[Danny McG]

This morning I'm beginning Starter Villain by John Scalzi