April Reads: What, fool, are you reading?!?

[RedEyedGhost]

23 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Why did no-one tell me that Claire North has a new book out? The End of the Day. It's about Death's harbringer, Charlie. Seems like fun. Seems like less conspicuously Trying For A Claire North Concept than the previous two novels.

I tried:

On ‎4‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 0:05 AM, RedEyedGhost said:

I read Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year.  It was extremely readable, all of Wilson's books that I have read have been, but overall I found it lacking.  It's the story of a city full of time/dimension travelers that have gone back to 1876 to share secrets from near our present time, and to bring gold back.  As a big fan of these types of stories, I really wanted to see more depth than what it had.  I did really like what we learned about the way they gained the technology

  Reveal hidden contents

and the parallels to the story we did see.

 

Now I'm about a fifth of the way through Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig.  After this I'll either read The End of the Day by Claire North (surprising 3/5 stars from 6 reviews so far on Amazon...) or Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb, and then I'll read the other. 

 

 

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 1:28 PM, beniowa said:

I see several people answered already.    But yeah, I remember reading in Locus that he sold a third book so there's at least one more. 

Thanks, Ben!

[RedEyedGhost]

33 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Next up I think I'll read John Hornor Jacob's The Incorruptibles

Enjoy!  I'm really excited about the concluding volume being released in July.

[C.T. Phipps]

My review of Alexis Carew 1# by JA Sutherland (YA Space Opera)

I'm already through the sequel, Mutineer.

My review of Dyrk Ashton's Paternus (American Gods if it was a action horror movie)

I also have read Gideon's Curse by David Niall Wilson.

 

[Garett Hornwood]

Well after not posting anything for the first half of the month, I figured I should give an account of my reading so far this month.  I'm still working on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III (Modern Library edition that covers Chapters 49-71) by Edward Gibbon, which I started on around March 30.  I'm roughly halfway through this book (in Chapter 59) and am continuing to enjoy Gibbon's all encompassing style of writing history.

While Gibbon is my primary read, I do some exclusive home reading every day.  I started The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson (a Barnes & Noble Classics publication) in mid-March and finished it yesterday, when I purchased it I thought it was the entirety of Dickinson's work but later learn that it's not even close.  But it's a good "sampler" of her work so it was time well spent.  Up next will be Leaves of Grass (The First and "Death-Bed" Editions) by Walt Whitman, which is another Barnes & Noble Classics publication).

On Fridays-Saturdays, I read some short "tame"/g-rated or strictly religious books.  So if you're not interested then skip the next paragraph...

So far I've read Prairie Boy by Harry Baerg (I attended and graduated middle & high school with his granddaughter), in which Baerg retells events of ten years of his early life growing up Canadian prairie before moving to British Columbia.  Blood Brothers by Philip Samaan, I had this book since I attended Dr. Samaan's class in college about 17 years ago and while I didn't read it for the class I hung on to it.  Overall it's a book about how Jews, Muslims, and Christians have more in common than people realize, Samaan should know because he was born and raised in Syria as Christian (I'm talking the late 50s through early 70s) before doing missionary work around the world then later entering academia.  The book is around 25 years old and so the emphasis Samaan has is more towards Christian-Jewish relations than Christian-Muslim relations that have taken, even with that it was an interesting read.  I'm going to be finishing The Millennium Bug by Jon Paulien, this is another religious book which was published in 1999 and discusses sense of Christian and secular "anticipation" of doomsday for the upcoming year 2000.  While obviously dated, Paulien essentially shows that the anticipation of calendar changes is a phenomenon that is a human invention built up over centuries and that Christians need not worry about artificial dates.

On 4/8/2017 at 8:02 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

Finished Thomas Cahill's non-fiction history How The Irish Saved Civilization.  Very enjoyable...

Last year I started rereading Cahill's Hinges of History series, my reading updates might be among those recs you referenced.  As an avid history reader, I graduated college with a B.A. in History, I'm finding that while they are enjoyable and sometimes thought-provoking I always come away wanting just a tad more.  Originally Cahill wasn't planning on writing a series, but the huge popularity of Irish resulted in his publisher and he brainstorming resulting in Hinges of History.  Cahill admits that Irish chronologically falls between the fourth (the Greeks) and the fifth (the high Middle Ages).  If you're ever interested in my reviews of the books as I reread them, they're on my blog (link below)

On 4/12/2017 at 2:37 PM, Astromech said:

John Keegan's The First World War was very good. The only criticisms I have are its slight emphasis on the Western Front and its being light on maps.

I probably do need to read Keegan sometime, but when I was reading material on WWI back in 2014 I wanted an overall view of the actual combat of the war.  Peter Hart's The Great War: A Combat History focuses on the military history (timeline of battles, strategies and tactics) of the war in all theaters--I don't recall how many maps the book had though--and is a fantastic read if you're interested in a book that focuses on military over political & social aspects that other books tend to emphasis (not that there's anything wrong with that approach, but I always felt I didn't understand what happened on the battlefield unlike WWII or the U.S. Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars or the American Revolutionary War).

[Astromech]

3 hours ago, Garett Hornwood said:

 

I probably do need to read Keegan sometime, but when I was reading material on WWI back in 2014 I wanted an overall view of the actual combat of the war.  Peter Hart's The Great War: A Combat History focuses on the military history (timeline of battles, strategies and tactics) of the war in all theaters--I don't recall how many maps the book had though--and is a fantastic read if you're interested in a book that focuses on military over political & social aspects that other books tend to emphasis (not that there's anything wrong with that approach, but I always felt I didn't understand what happened on the battlefield unlike WWII or the U.S. Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars or the American Revolutionary War).

Thanks for the recommendation. Keegan's discussion of many of the battles on the Western Front(especially BEF battles) and some offensives on the Eastern Front were quite detailed, but other theatres were briefly mentioned such as the Middle East, and the Austrian-Italian Front. Not a big deal in most cases(wasn't expecting a detailed dissection of the numerous battles of the Isonzo). The larger issue is the lack of maps. General maps of the entire fronts from 1914-18 are all the reader has to sort out specific battles and places. Granted, I'm not one to delve into the nuts and bolts of tactics and strategies, but I really appreciate a good map to orient myself and make sense of what the author is describing.

Overall I really enjoyed it and would recommend it for anyone interested in the WWI, but it could use more maps.

[Darth Richard II]

Tried to read The Three Body Problem at has to dnf at like 30percent. Different strokes and all that jazz, but in my humble and always correct opinion, this book just fucking sucks, and the good reviews baffle me to the extreme.

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Tried to read The Three Body Problem at has to dnf at like 30percent. Different strokes and all that jazz, but in my humble and always correct opinion, this book just fucking sucks, and the good reviews baffle me to the extreme.

You didn't even get to the worst part.

I mean, I kind of enjoyed it while I was reading it despite regularly forehead slapping at the impressively imbecilic 'science' on offer, which repeatedly bulldozed past my line of suspension of disbelief (it has been a favourite peeve of mine since I read it that

 

it doesn't even have a three body problem in it

) but there's a reveal at the end that I found genuinely offensive when I thought about it.

[Darth Richard II]

Ha, I read a synopsis of the rest of the book.

Yeah it was actually

Spoiler

A four body problem, which is hilarious for lots of reasons.

I'd say I don;t like hard scifi but I'm not sure how this is hard sci fi since the science is...wonky at best. I dunno.

What part of the ending did you find offensive? I can think of a few things.

[polishgenius]

 

It was the concept that scientists, presented with results that contradict what they think they know, would (universally!) despair and start comitting suicide. It was a book about scientists by someone who never appears to have met one.

And no, it was one of my major criticisms that it pretends to be hard-SF but really isn't. I can handle soft, silly science- it just bugs me when it's presented like real science or at least ideas based on real concepts (like, Neil Stephenson writes in a similar manner and his ideas can go waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy out there but you can always follow how he got from real concepts to where he got. Not so here).

Think my favourite moment of scientific stupidity, beyond the broad, all-book one I mentioned above, was when he realised he had a inaccuracy regarding the amplitude of a signal and how detectable it would be and decided he had to fix it but used a fix that was orders more stupid and ridiculous, by my understanding, than the original problem which I, at least, almost certainly wouldn't have noticed or would at least have let pass.

[Teng Ai Hui]

Just finished Off to be the Wizard by Scott Meyer.  Liked it so much that I decided to jump straight into the next book in the series, Spell or High Water.  (The series is called Magic 2.0.)

[Astromech]

A bit conflicted with Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion. On the one hand, loved the world building and concepts. On the other hand, the story was a bit lacking for me.

Spoiler

Zan's identity was no surprise for me and her long slog through various fluids and level after level in the second part of the book bored me.  It was too long and repetitive for my taste. Hurley could have trimmed 100 or so pages of that journey.

 

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon was better than the previous few.  The plot actually moved more in this one than the previous 2 books. 

I then tore through a romance, Fantasy, and Indiana jones mashup that was actually pretty good.  The series is called The Blades of the Rose, Zoe Archer is the author, and the first book was called Warrior.

I am now reading the second book in the series, Scoundrel.

[Darth Richard II]

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

  Reveal hidden contents

It was the concept that scientists, presented with results that contradict what they think they know, would (universally!) despair and start comitting suicide. It was a book about scientists by someone who never appears to have met one.

And no, it was one of my major criticisms that it pretends to be hard-SF but really isn't. I can handle soft, silly science- it just bugs me when it's presented like real science or at least ideas based on real concepts (like, Neil Stephenson writes in a similar manner and his ideas can go waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy out there but you can always follow how he got from real concepts to where he got. Not so here).

Think my favourite moment of scientific stupidity, beyond the broad, all-book one I mentioned above, was when he realised he had a inaccuracy regarding the amplitude of a signal and how detectible it would be and decided he had to fix it but used a fix that orders more stupid and ridiculous, by my understanding, than the original problem which I, at least, almost certainly wouldn't have noticed or would at least have let pass.

Yeah, the whole book felt very ANTI science. Also probably didn't help that I know ZERO about China and it's history. That, I must rectify.

[Joey Crows]

Decided to finally read some Margaret Atwood. I've got The Handmaiden's Tale and The Penelopiad on the docket for this month.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Finished my first reread of the first Black Company omnibus . Before starting on the second omnibus,i'm reading The Remnant by Charlie Fletcher.

[Richard Writhen]

Finished my The Dead Zone re-read, it was more epic than I remembered. Also finished We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson and that was also really great. Going to give Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones a shot next while still trying to finish The Lies of Locke Lamora.

[Leofric]

Finished The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi.  Really liked it, but discovered one downside to using an e-reader, I wasn't paying attention to how much book was left, so when I finished the last chapter it caught me by surprise, because I was so ready to turn the page and see what happens next, now I need to wait for the next book in the series.

Also finished Dead Man's Steel by Luke Scull.   It wrapped up the trilogy well, though everything came together pretty quickly at the end.

Just started Revenger by Alistair Reynolds, only couple chapters in, but some intriguing developments, will see where it goes.

 

[HexMachina]

2 hours ago, Triskan said:

Decided to try to find a new fantasy series to geek out on and picked up the first book in the Brent Weeks Lightbringer series.  I have very little idea about what to expect and feel like I've only occasionally seen it discussed around here.

My two word review of the first book would be: "Utter shite." 

I never read any more.

[Darth Richard II]

5 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

My two word review of the first book would be: "Utter shite." 

I never read any more.

They seem to be a love it or hate it thing around here. I couldn't finish the first, the prose was just, uck.

[Isis]

Kind of given up posting in this thread over the years as I don't really have that much time for writing long book reviews. I occasionally give it a glance if I need some inspiration. That said I always have a massive TBR pile awaiting my attention. Especially now as I am trying to power through some classics prior to my 40th birthday this summer.

I'm currently suffering through A Tale of Two Cities and I swear this is the last Dickens I am going to read. I caved and read two of his novels last Autumn. Really, I should have stopped there. This one was recommended to me by a close friend who loves Dickens. I imagine him being paid by the word, there is so much filler in it. I am finding the only way to tolerate it is to speed read it. I cannot wait for it to be over. I find all the stuff about Lucie being just so angelically perfect just incredibly nauseous. She is just naturally amazing without having any character development, yeah? Revolting.

My other penance is Paradise Lost, which to be fair, is SO MUCH better than Dickens. My problems with it is that I find it hard to get into the rhythm of the text unless I either read it aloud to myself or read it in complete silence. That means I cannot take it out and read it in public, e.g. on my commute. So I'm actually reading it at a pace of two pages per night, sometimes more on weekends. If I stay on course I'll have it finished before July.

I completed Fingersmith yesterday which, if even possible, makes Dickens seem even more dull than he already was. To be honest I only read it ahead of going to see The Handmaiden. But I enjoyed it far more than I expected to.