January Reading Thread

[DaCrazyKat29]

Well I’ve started Scythe (young adult) but haven't got far yet... still haven’t got into the fully reading stage if you know what I mean-It’s by Neal Shusterman and so far seems good

 

[Dave Vicks]

FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW, by Giles Blunt.2000.
Mystery.

 

[Parson]

Well after having some very mixed luck with books I've read (3 did not finish out of the last 6) I read a book that beat my expectations. The book has the title Cripple Squadron -- The First Solar War by Fred Hughes. If there is a more uninspiring name, I'm not sure what it'd be, maybe Sugar and milquetoast? But the setup was interesting, the book promised that a group of cripples would be necessary to win the first solar war between the U.S and its allies and China and its allies. So I gave it shot.

Vicki is a hotshot test pilot for the U.S. many years after WW III. The world has managed to set up space stations and it's mining the asteroid belt. Tensions are growing between the U.S. and China again. Vicki flying an experimental plane which she controls mentally by jacking into the plane has a horrendous crash leaving her one arm short of being a complete pod person. But in the end this is a good thing. (I'll not say more to keep from giving away spoilers.

What I liked: This book has good science. This book has a time frame of about 200 years in the future, which I feel is much more likely timing for actual interplanetary space travel in a more than one rare shot at a time that would be possible now and likely for the foreseeable future. I liked Vicki as a person she's a flawed individual, but with some redeeming qualities which makes her all the more real to me. The space battles are very real to life (or at least as I would imagine them) and there are no "that's impossible" pieces of science.

What I didn't like: Basically comes down to politics. Which to Vicki and those around her come down to "Money to the Military" good. "Money for social programs" bad, because it builds dependency and cripples a nation. This grates on me, but does not disqualify the book because there surely are people who believe and act like this.

I liked this so well I went right out and got book 2 Apostate Cripple which is the best kind of sequel. It doesn't depend on a cliff hanger from book 1, but is a reasonable continuation. There is a book 3 Cripple Disciple which is not available yet. I'll read that too, but the end of the second book left me with the feeling that the science is about to go into territory that even half hard science, like these books were is too constraining.

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

 

[Randy M.]

If there is a more uninspiring name, I'm not sure what it'd be, maybe Sugar and milquetoast?

I hope someone goes out and writes that now. It would probably make a great Hallmark movie.

 

[Hugh]

Shehan Karunatilaka "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida"
Winner of the Booker Prize 2022.
Wonderful remarkable book.
Maali wakes up in a strange sort of in-between world in which ghosts of the dead walk among the living, and realizes that he too is dead. He cannot remember how he died, but he remembers everything else about his life, and that he has been a talented photographer, specialising in recording the ongoing violence in Sri Lanka. He gradually understands more about this (very believable and well constructed) reality, in which there are all manner of strange goings on, and is determined to (i) find out who killed him and (ii) communicate to his two best friends where his secret stash of incriminating photos are kept. This is the Sri Lanka of 1990 where the national government, the Tamil liberation movement, the Indian peace-keeping force, and the JVP communists in the South have been engaging in all manner of mutual atrocities, so there are plenty of players who could have killed him.
Despite the seemingly gory subject matter, the author has a wicked sense of humour, and I found the story truly gripping and well written, even strangely uplifting. Clearly the Booker Judges did too despite the author being unknown in the UK.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I find the vikings very interesting. There was a mini series recently in which a 1000 year old viking ship was built and sailed to America to see if the vikings could have achieved landfall before columbus, and all evidence points to the fact that they did just that!

The evidence is archaeological, also mentioned in the Vinlamd Saga.

 

[AE35Unit]

The evidence is archaeological, also mentioned in the Vinlamd Saga.

Yes, they mentioned that, and that new evidence confirms it

 

[Dave Vicks]

TO THE TEMPLE OF TRANQUILITY :AND STEP ON IT , by Ed Begley jr, 2023
Memoir.

 

[Bick]

Now reading Fleet of Knives, by Gareth L. Powell. Good so far.

 

[Vertigo]

Now reading Fleet of Knives, by Gareth L. Powell. Good so far.

Interesting I read the first book and wasn't hugely impressed. My comments were:

Given all the accolades this book has received from authors I respect - Tchaikovsky, Leckie, Hamilton and others - I was expecting to like it more but... Purple prose - far too many long-winded overly flowery similes, episodic staccato pacing - 70 'chapters' in a 350 page book, massively overly melodramatic - I'm a soldier, and if I'm going to die I'll do it with dignity - Oh. My. Lord. Does this author ever love his melodrama and finally a stylistic grumble; multiple first person POVs. Sadly I doubt I'll progress with the series unless anyone can convince me the writing improves. I notice that he's recently put out a book co-authored with Peter F Hamilton. Hmmm I might give that one a try.

I did give Light Chasers, a novella he co-wrote with Hamilton, a try. but although I thought the writing better than my previous Powell experience I also thought it much poorer than Hamilton's usual standard. And also massively derivative.

So I'd be interested whether you consider Fleet of Knives significantly better than the first book.

 

[vanye]

I finally got myself an ebook-reader, so I started with a couple of books that are not available in print: Deadly Nightshade and The Hunters of Vermin by H. Paul Honsinger. Years ago I had read his „Man of War“ series and really liked it. These are prequels.

So I did some research to see if he had any new books out (the series clearly was not finished) and found that there won‘t be any more books by this author. He died.

Which made me appreciate the reread of the the three books of the aforementioned series even more: Brothers in Valor, For Honor We Stand and To Honor You Call Us.

 

[Bick]

Interesting I read the first book and wasn't hugely impressed.
So I'd be interested whether you consider Fleet of Knives significantly better than the first book.

I don’t really expect to find it better than the first book, as I thought the first book was very good. Much better than Tchaikovsky or Hamilton books I’ve recently tried and been unable to finish, to be honest. I don’t really recognise the criticisms you note in my own impressions of the book, in any event. Horses for courses; opinions vary.

 

[Toby Frost]

Money for social programs" bad, because it builds dependency and cripples a nation.

I know it's very unfair, but my mental image is that about 80% of military SF is people shouting "You god-damn commies make me sick" in space.

Anyhow, I am currently reading Consider Phlebas by Ian M Banks, which is about god-damn commies in space.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THE MEANING OF HAPPINESS, by Alan Watts, 1940

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Some time ago I read the first three volumes in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card. (The Memory of Earth [1992], The Call of Earth [1992], and The Ships of Earth [1994], all in one Science Fiction Book Club edition bought at a thrift store.) At another used book (and other stuff) store I found the last two volumes (Earthfall [1995] and Earthborn [1995]) in separate paperbacks. I have just started the first one.

Overall plot of this pentalogy: Forty million years from now, the computer running a colony planet where folks from Earth have lived for a very long time deduces that this world, like Earth, is doomed to eventual nuclear war. It selects certain people to journey to where the starships that brought the original colonists are kept in stasis, having children along the way. (This journey takes up the first three books. The last two will be the voyage to Earth and the arrival.)

Openly inspired by themes in the book of Mormon (God selects certain people to leave the Middle East and travel to the New World), it's not bad.

 

[Logan Selmes]

Masks of the Outcasts by Andre Alice Norton.

 

[Logan Selmes]

Some time ago I read the first three volumes in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card. (The Memory of Earth [1992], The Call of Earth [1992], and The Ships of Earth [1994], all in one Science Fiction Book Club edition bought at a thrift store.) At another used book (and other stuff) store I found the last two volumes (Earthfall [1995] and Earthborn [1995]) in separate paperbacks. I have just started the first one.

Overall plot of this pentalogy: Forty million years from now, the computer running a colony planet where folks from Earth have lived for a very long time deduces that this world, like Earth, is doomed to eventual nuclear war. It selects certain people to journey to where the starships that brought the original colonists are kept in stasis, having children along the way. (This journey takes up the first three books. The last two will be the voyage to Earth and the arrival.)

Openly inspired by themes in the book of Mormon (God selects certain people to leave the Middle East and travel to the New World), it's not bad.

Another interesting book by Card, and maybe his weirdest, is Folk of the Fringe.

 

[Danny McG]

Countdown - yet another action thriller written by James Patterson in collaboration "some other writer."

 

[Chris von shannow]

Sentenced to war

its ok

 

[Parson]

Some time ago I read the first three volumes in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card. (The Memory of Earth [1992], The Call of Earth [1992], and The Ships of Earth [1994], all in one Science Fiction Book Club edition bought at a thrift store.) At another used book (and other stuff) store I found the last two volumes (Earthfall [1995] and Earthborn [1995]) in separate paperbacks. I have just started the first one.

Overall plot of this pentalogy: Forty million years from now, the computer running a colony planet where folks from Earth have lived for a very long time deduces that this world, like Earth, is doomed to eventual nuclear war. It selects certain people to journey to where the starships that brought the original colonists are kept in stasis, having children along the way. (This journey takes up the first three books. The last two will be the voyage to Earth and the arrival.)

Openly inspired by themes in the book of Mormon (God selects certain people to leave the Middle East and travel to the New World), it's not bad.

I read this many years ago (I think when they first came out) and I was never too impressed by it, but I loved Orson Scott Card and so I persevered. Then I learned it was based on the book of Mormon and I felt betrayed that he hadn't mentioned that first. I have rarely read another of works since that point.