August Reading Thread

[Elentarri]

Oh, and it would be strange not to read a book you've had for so long. Poor book, its sad fate really reminds me of Sleeping Beauty.

I have a book hoard. The stuff at the bottom... well, it gets forgotten quite often, or I just don't get around to it. So this year's challenge is to read the existing physical book hoard as much as possible. It will probably also be next year's challenge. The hoard just keeps growing!

 

[Dave]

I have a book hoard. The stuff at the bottom... well, it gets forgotten quite often, or I just don't get around to it. So this year's challenge is to read the existing physical book hoard as much as possible. It will probably also be next year's challenge. The hoard just keeps growing!

As I said earlier, I never had one of these book TBR hoards you all seem to have, until a few months ago. Recently it has begum to grow - my wife gives me books "Oh" You'll like this", I have bought second hand books that are parts of two series I'm reading, and bought new those that I couldn't find, and then my daughter bought me a book (she never does that). I now have a seven high book pile and it has grown faster than I can read them. It will be into 2025 before I can read them (at my present rate.) Now I wonder how many more I will find before then. I once used to go out and buy a book or two to read on holiday. Now I'm decided which of the pile to take. It takes some getting used to. However, there is no "stuff at the bottom" because it's a loosely "first in first out" system, and in any case, the two series both need to be read in order.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Me too + DVD'S, 'Time' - Pink Floyd

From Edvin Abbott to Roger Zelazny.

 

[Dave Vicks]

I feel comfortable with one Audible book
Going ,1 Audio CD Book.2 paper book's.
And 1 comic book going.

"There are a lot of writers, there aren't enough readers" - Kurt Vonnegut.

 

[Peppa]

Oh yes, I totally understand. I have a lot of read and unread books too, but for a long time I've preferred to accumulate them as pdf files. If they were all paper, my house would burst like an overripe tomato.

 

[feralreason]

What are you reading this August?

I'm almost finished book 2 of Stephen King's Dark Tower series - The Drawing of the Three. This is a very good book and much better than the first volume. I'll most likely finish it today.

At the same time, I'm also reading Men Of Iron by M W Flinn, which is a historical non-fiction book (but quite an easy read) about Sir Ambrose Crowley III and the Crowley family, who owned the largest ironworks in Europe at the dawn of the industrial revolution and where many of my ancestors and distant cousins were employed.

I'm not sure what I'll read after those as my 'To Be Read' pile is increasing in size rather than going down.

Reading the complete short stories of Arthur C. Clarke. Some are brilliant. Some are old-school Wellsian. A few are disappointing. But overall, worth the read to better understand Clarke.

Also still reading the Approved Heinlein biography. It's a fascinating read but very long—great insights into how he constructs a story tho. Only on 220 of 1st volume.

 

[Badgersaurus]

Finished A Wizard of Earthsea last night. It was... fine, I guess. I really enjoyed the style of the writing but found everything else about it to be less than interesting. Maybe it's just because it's a middle-grade novel I never read as a kid and have no nostalgia for. It just hit on a lot of generic Western fantasy tropes without doing anything particularly interesting to me. Truthfully the main thing it accomplished was making me want to pick up the TV cartoon Wakfu again, which is also a children's fantasy series set on a series of islands, with some dragons... and that's about where the similarities end :b

I saw The Dispossessed mentioned somewhere else the other day and thought it sounded interesting! I think in a Goodreads review of another 'utopic' novel, though I can't remember which. Going on my list for sure now.
And I'm definitely a member of the 'has a pile of unread books they haven't touched in months' club. A family member got me a copy of Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (an 'oral history' of punk-rock subculture) around December and I haven't even opened it yet. Should probably get around to that one soon...

Next for me is Joust by Mercedes Lackey. Another fantasy book and probably my last one for a while, also involving dragonriders (this time in an ancient-Egypt-inspired setting, apparently.) Lackey is another author who's new to me. This one was a case of 'it had a pretty cover and was dirt-cheap at the used bookstore' so hopefully it'll be decent.

 

[HareBrain]

Truthfully the main thing it accomplished was making me want to pick up the TV cartoon Wakfu again

Ha, good call, I really like it. (Especially with the original French voice track.)

 

[Elentarri]

Finished A Wizard of Earthsea last night. It was... fine, I guess.

I was never enthralled by A Wizard of Earthsea, and I was 12 when I read it. My science teacher lent it to me. Took me ages to plod through it.

 

[Chris von shannow]

Book one of the Crow investigation series

 

[Elentarri]

Earthlight by J. Michael Straczynski [Military SF Short Audio-drama]

International tension is rising as the Russian military forms an Eastern Alliance to create a new age of Russian supremacy. The rest of the world is scrambling for a united response. Enter Project Earthlight - a NATO operation based in space. A group of the best fighter pilots is handpicked from around the world to fly the first generation of advanced planes capable of maneuvering in the vacuum of space and inside the atmosphere.

Earthlight is a fast-paced, military, speculative/science-fiction audio-drama. In short, it sounded like one of the more intense episodes of Babylon 5 (without the pictures), which isn’t really surprising since the author is also a screenwriter, producer and director of films (including Babylon 5). There isn't anything new in terms of concept, but the scant 3 hour long story was entertaining, and the full-cast, full sound-effect production was auditory candy (and probably took more time and effort than the writing the story).​

 

[Elentarri]

The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin [historical mystery-romance]

This debut novel by Laura Carlin is a slow burner, which has difficulty deciding whether it's going to be a mystery novel or a romance novel. The pacing is also erratic. But both these issues resolve themselves as the story progresses. The writing is not polished, but it does tell a compelling story - story involving the relationship of impoverished Hester and aristocratic Lady Rebekah, of numerous mysterious and sinister disappearances, and the odd goings-on at the Brock household. Carlin's evocative prose steeps the reader in the "atmospheric" slums of 1830s London, and the horrors that reside there. A compelling and entertaining historical mystery-romance novel (especially considering that I'm not a romance reader).​

 

[Randy M.]

After reading a few stories in Golden Age Whodunits (ed. Otto Penzler), including a reread of long time favorite, "Haircut" by Ring Lardner, I've decided to take up The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager; Sager's becoming a favorite thriller writer for me. He's (Sager is a pseudonym) adept at plotting, arranging events just so and then filling in with the touches that make setting and characters believable. About 100 pages in and I'm hooked.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

Re-reading Silverview, John le Carre.
This is a brilliant read.

 

[Provincial]

I picked up three paperbacks from a stall on the South Bank in London, on my way through to Portsmouth. I already had a book with me to read, but I find it really difficult to walk by a second hand book stall.

Charles L. Harness's book The Paradox Men, perhaps not the best written book I have ever read (though The Rose is a personal favourite of mine) but still an entertaining read, ended up with Mankind being saved from destruction by someone travelling back in time to improve human nature, making it less aggressive.

Clifford D. Simak's book Way Station, a very well-written and extremely entertaining book (though I imagine my 14 year-old self would have found it slow and boring), also ended up with Mankind being saved from destruction; this time by some alien tech which put everyone near it in contact with the Universal Spirit, which calmed everyone down and stopped them being stupidly aggressive.

The third book is Robert Heinlein's Between Planets. I'm now expecting this one to end with Mankind being saved from its destructive tendencies by an external agent. Hopefully it will be a really practical solution this time because, frankly, we need one.

Has anyone ever read an SF book which had a credible solution to the problem of wars and human aggression?

 

[HareBrain]

Still going with The Wounded Land. Typical of Stephen Donaldson's Covenant Chronicles, it has episodes of rare, possibly unique imaginative power surrounded by sludge, and the former are worth putting up with the latter, but barely.

This turned out to be too harsh, and was written probably at the worst point in the book. I'm now entertaining thoughts of finishing the series.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have just started The Eleventh Commandment by Lester del Rey. First version 1962, revised by the author 1970. My copy is a 1970 paperback. Takes place in a future world ruled by an all-powerful church which promotes reproduction in a severely overpopulated planet. Controversial, I guess.

 

[Parson]

Controversial, I guess.

It certainly was. It was written in the age of "The Population Bomb" which was published in 1968.

 

[Provincial]

It certainly was. It was written in the age of "The Population Bomb" which was published in 1968.

This topic continues to be pursued. I read a more modern book, a few years back so I can't remember either the title or the author, where almost all the population is housed in buildings at least a mile high and they are required by the state both to be sexually promiscuous and forbidden from using birth control. The people in the blocks manufacture the equipment used by the remaining tiny proportion of the population to work the land and produce the food eaten by everyone - but there, reproduction is very tightly controlled, amongst other things to make sure they don't eat all the food intended for the blocks. Anyone who dissents in any way at all, even by showing curiosity, is killed immediately by being thrown down the nearest refuse chute - and parents happily do it to their own children.

At least this nightmarish and hypocritical solution was being panned by the author.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This topic continues to be pursued. I read a more modern book, a few years back so I can't remember either the title or the author, where almost all the population is housed in buildings at least a mile high and they are required by the state both to be sexually promiscuous and forbidden from using birth control. The people in the blocks manufacture the equipment used by the remaining tiny proportion of the population to work the land and produce the food eaten by everyone - but there, reproduction is very tightly controlled, amongst other things to make sure they don't eat all the food intended for the blocks. Anyone who dissents in any way at all, even by showing curiosity, is killed immediately by being thrown down the nearest refuse chute - and parents happily do it to their own children.

At least this nightmarish and hypocritical solution was being panned by the author.

Sounds like The World Inside (1971) by Robert Silverberg.

The World Inside - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org