November Reading Thread

[Vertigo]

I was slowly getting into this convoluted multi character story but now this tech garbage has got into the tale:-

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I love hard SF, I hate meaningless techno babble pretending to be hard SF!

 

[Foxbat]

I've just finished Overreach and learned an awful lot about the Ukraine/Russia war. One of the most enlightening things was the author's take on the mindset of ordinary Russians (he is half Russian on his mother's side and has many relatives in the Moscow area). I'd recommend it to anybody seeking a greater insight into the why's and wherefores of what is going on.

Now, I'm just starting The Man Who Invented The Twentieth Century: Nikola Tesla, Forgotten Genius Of Electricity by Robert Lomas

Just an additional thought of my own. I think it's a bit sad that when I googled Tesla, the first thing I got was the car company. I wonder how many who drive Teslas know who he is. Ah well, at least Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning honoured him by naming their car company after him. I guess that's something (it was another year before Musk came onto the scene at Tesla).

 

[Vertigo]

I've not done much reading in the last few weeks being heavily tied up in other stuff. But here are the three I've managed:

Emperor of Rome by Robert Fabbri
A satisfying conclusion to Fabbri’s Vespasian series but not quite such a satisfying book in itself. Whilst previously Vespasian has been presented as a strong character, if carrying his own demons and self-doubts, in this volume he comes across as weak and indecisive and is pretty much pushed into all the major decisions required in the denouement of his climb to the throne. Consequently I found it all much less engaging, though it does nicely wrap up all the threads. 3/5 stars

Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds
I thoroughly enjoyed this third Prefect Dreyfus book. Mostly a fast-paced action thriller that never lags and is uncompromising in facing up to the realities, in the sense that it’s not always the good guys that hit their target, but also a touch of SF police procedural that keeps the reader guessing and turning the pages. Altogether a great ride. When he’s good Reynolds can be very good although I wasn’t entirely convinced by the final solution. 4/5 stars.

Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
You need to know what you are getting into when you pick up this book, but the introduction from Marquez’s family, and the editor’s note at the end, are both honest; this book was written at the end of Marquez’s life when he was struggling with his memory and his writing abilities. He condemned the book himself, instructing his family to destroy it. Some 8 years later they reviewed it and decided to publish, feeling that despite it’s faults it had enough flashes of his brilliance to be worth making it available to his fans. And that is probably correct; it does not match up to his best work but some of the passages still shine with his magical prose. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s not previously read and loved Marquez but I’m glad to have read it myself. It’s short, without the editor’s notes less than 60 pages, and a quick easy read, dealing with a comparatively unusual topic. A middle aged and happily married woman makes an annual solo pilgrimage to her mother’s grave every August and takes a one-night lover. The reader is taken on an intimate and thoughtful journey. 3/5 stars.

 

[Rodders]

I've just bought the Drefuss trilogy audiobooks.



Read by John Lee, i'll start this tomorrow morning.

 

[Toby Frost]

In the Belly of the Whale is a gripping epic that takes readers on a profound voyage through time and space aboard an enormous generation ship. The narrative captures the poignant transformation of Earth's finest minds into a stifling regime, their rigid rules sparking an uprising among the hard-pressed crew. This provocative tale delves into the price of freedom, the metamorphosis of societies, and the repeating patterns of tyranny and liberation. Against this, Earth itself is undergoing a significant period of change, offering a layered, thought-provoking backdrop to the story. In the Belly of the Whale is a compelling exploration of humanity's enduring pursuit of freedom, pushing the boundaries of the genre to offer a deeply insightful study of societal evolution and individual resilience. This is more than a space odyssey; it's an invitation to delve into the heart of the human spirit and societal dynamics

Maybe it's just me but blurbs that say "This book is important and deep" really put me off. Likewise, the talk about "stifling regimes" and "the price of freedom" makes me expect that an authorial rant about goddam commies is on the cards.

 

[Hugh]

Ursula LeGuin: the short story "Dragonfly" and the Foreword from "Tales from Earthsea", and "The Other Wind"

Another thread here got me reading Tehanu again after some ten years. I loved that and just wanted to read more about Tenar and Ged, hence I had to read Dragonfly, which takes place soon after Tehanu, and then The Other Wind, which details events some fifteen years later. I don't think I've read these since they came out more than twenty years ago and at that time I was disappointed. I like them much much more on this reading and can't understand my previous criticisms of The Other Wind, some of which were voiced here ( "it seemed to me that by then she was trying to shoehorn her increasing interest in Taoism into the Earthsea universe, and sadly this was more of an intellectual exercise than a natural evolution" - what a load of nonsense! I have no idea why I talked such idiocy). Maybe The Other Wind is a little contrived in the way it builds on The Farthest Shore, but I still enjoyed it very much, particularly the section near the end where the relationship of humans to dragons is suddenly made clearer and the realm of the dragons "on the other wind, the west beyond the west" is explained. She writes so simply and from such a depth of understanding.

I found her comments on Fantasy writing in the Foreword to Tales from Earthsea very interesting:
"....So people turn to the realms of fantasy for stability, ancient truths, immutable simplicities. And the mills of capitalism provide them. Supply meets demand. Fantasy becomes a commodity, an industry. Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their actions to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitudes." I won't type out more.... but this diatribe does end up by becoming hopeful....
Her description of how she went about researching these latest books in the internal world of her own imagination is also wonderfully alive.

 

[Elentarri]

I read somewhere on the internet (many, many years ago), that one should only read Tehanu if one was older than 25. Because anyone younger wouldn't get it or something to that effect. I've read the Earthsea novels (all of them) exactly once, and don't see what the fuss was about. I might have to re-read them since I am now waaay past 25 to see if marinading them for a few decades improves anything.

 

[Toby Frost]

I re-read A Wizard of Earthsea a couple of years back and it was fine. I quite enjoyed it. And if that's not damning with faint praise, I don't know what is!

 

[Parson]

Reading my way through Imperium, by Travis Starnes, as recommended by @bwb last month. Enjoying them a lot - they rattle along at a fair pace, and he's obviously done his research into the Roman Empire, although

Spoiler

The actual plot is very similar to the Safehold series by David Weber, though with a quasi-historical basis rather than a purely SF/F one, but it's got enough differences to avoid any accusations of plagiarism. 4*,so far.

Spoiler

I worked my way through all of them and they are pretty good. In fact I would put them ahead of Safehold myself because of the depth of insight into what makes a society able to advance.

 

[dask]

I was slowly getting into this convoluted multi character story but now this tech garbage has got into the tale:-

View attachment 126924

McGuffin?

 

[pogopossum]

Put down Amongst Our Weapons by Aaronovitch (which I was enjoying) to read Tales From the Folly.
Unfortunately I can't recommend it to any but absolutely died in the wool Rivers of London aficionados
The 11 stories in the collection are short with no character development or (for me) interesting twists .
Most often they revolve around mentions of a character from series' books, put them in interesting places (Waterson's, the British Museum) but then just describe a humdrum day in the life. For several I turned the page of a story, & discovered that it was done and then reacted with "That's it???" If you haven't read the series you would question why it was even published.

 

[Dave]

If you haven't read the series you would question why it was even published.

I think they were promotional or given away free stories. I've heard the story behind them but can't remember it. This book sounds like one of those Rarities Music Albums of B-Sides of Singles that never appeared on any album. As you say, for the collector and biggest fans only.

 

[Parson]

Spoiler

I worked my way through all of them and they are pretty good. In fact I would put them ahead of Safehold myself because of the depth of insight into what makes a society able to advance.

I have no idea how that came to be in a "SPOILER." It was certainly not intended to be a "SPOILER."

 

[Parson]

Well it happened again!

Here's what I posted although it seems to me that I've spent entirely too much time on an off-handed remark.

I worked my way through all of them and they are pretty good. In fact I would put them ahead of Safehold myself because of the depth of insight into what makes a society able to advance.

 

[Vertigo]

Well it happened again!

Here's what I posted although it seems to me that I've spent entirely too much time on an off-handed remark.

I worked my way through all of them and they are pretty good. In fact I would put them ahead of Safehold myself because of the depth of insight into what makes a society able to advance.

Probably somehow the end of the spoilers in each of the posts you quoted got extended to your new post.

 

[Toby Frost]

Black Man by Richard Morgan was better on a second read than I'd remembered - and it was pretty good the first time around. It is overlong, but engrossing if you find its premise interesting. The future world is convincing (apart from the science of the Variant Thirteens, and the sense of creating them in the first place). The violence is violent, and the ideas are strong - although it might seem odd to put them into the same book. I didn't think the noir-style detective element of the plot was very strong, and it felt confusing and a bit messy in parts. Overall, though, a very good book.

 

[Rodders]

Black Man by Richard Morgan was better on a second read than I'd remembered - and it was pretty good the first time around. It is overlong, but engrossing if you like that sort of thing. The future world is convincing (apart from the science of the Variant Thirteens, and the sense of creating them in the first place). The violence is violent, and the ideas are strong - although it might seem odd to put them into the same book. I didn't think the noir-style detective element of the plot was very strong, and it felt confusing and a bit messy in parts. Overall, though, a very good book.

Is Richard Morgan still writing? I haven't seen or heard of him in ages.

 

[Toby Frost]

I really don't know. I looked at his Facebook page and some of the content felt quite odd, as if it had been hacked or abandoned. The last update I could find on his website was from summer this year, and Wikipedia claims that he has a book called Gone Machine coming out this year.

 

[Danny McG]

Oops

 

[Bick]

Oops

Exactly.

I’m now reading Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber.