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

[Paxter]

On ‎22‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 1:36 PM, ithanos said:

Seeing as it's that time of year you have any ANZAC fiction/non-fiction you can recommend? 

ithanos! Nice to see you around these parts; hope you're well.

I'm not much of a war novels reader, but the last book I read in that vein was The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Not an ANZAC book, but still worth a read, especially for the diverse range of perspectives (an Australian doctor, a Japanese general, a Korean soldier).

On ‎22‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 10:49 PM, Isis said:

It wasn't only that. As I said, that was the final note which tipped me over the edge. But it just didn't grab me.

I've just finished Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, a book which was selected for my monthly book club. I found it an effort to get through, luckily it's not that long. It just reminded me strongly of The Alchemist, with its generic wisdom on the nature of the human spirit (I kept putting it down and not wanting to pick it up again). The story is about two people who enter a relationship in a war-torn city who end up migrating elsewhere repeatedly through this magical realism device. I just found it trite and largely unmoving, it's like there is too much distance between the two protagonists and the reader, it's all kind of vague and whimsical, like nobody really cares that much about what is happening. Urgh. It's well-written but it just didn't have that much to say to me. 

I'm so disappointed! This was on my to-read list for May, I might bump it off now.

[Darth Richard II]

3 hours ago, Reny of Storms End said:

For some reason I always thought you were a huge fan of that series. 

*shrug* I'll get to it eventually. Right now I got a million new releases on the horizon.. 

[Darth Richard II]

On 4/22/2017 at 0:37 PM, Astromech said:

Late to the party but I loved Max Gladstone's Three Parts Dead. It exceeded my rather high expectations after reading many of the positive reviews. Excellent world-building, interesting characters, well-paced plot and intriguing central mystery. I'm looking forward to reading more of the Craft Sequence.

You are in for a treat.

[Astromech]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

You are in for a treat.

Good to read the reviews for the rest of the series are overwhelmingly positive. I've been hesitant of late to start new and/or unfinished series, but this one I have no qualms about and am actually excited to tackle the next few novels in the series. However, I need to read different books in between  and have been turning more and more towards history. I'm now on Hampton Sides' Blood and Thunder.

[Spaßvogel]

Just caught up on the Star Wars comic Doctor Aphra and was pleasantly surprised.  (Would talk about it in the Star Wars thread, but it's locked, and unless I just didn't go deep enough, I couldn't find the new thread)

[End of Disc One]

Surprised to see so many people showing up and hating on Acts of Caine.  Most people who read it, love it.  I think it's excellent, and that the first book is near perfect.  The other 3 are more uneven but more intellectually rewarding.

[williamjm]

Started Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which seems interesting so far.

[unJon]

1 minute ago, Triskan said:

I've had Caine on my TBR pile for a while and am sort of intrigued by the spectrum of opinions expressed here. 

I've temporarily shelved The Black Prism which I was not hating but was not loving, and I grabbed a short stories collection by George Saunders.

My impression of you, Trisky, is that you will enjoy Caine. 

[Spaßvogel]

18 hours ago, End of Disc One said:

Surprised to see so many people showing up and hating on Acts of Caine.  Most people who read it, love it.  I think it's excellent, and that the first book is near perfect.  The other 3 are more uneven but more intellectually rewarding.

I think the last book is a cop-out, but enjoyed the others a lot.  (And yeah, that first book is pretty great)

[Talleyrand]

Finished Human Acts by Han Kang which is about the Gwangju Massacre in South Korea, the aftermath and emotional fallout it had on a series of slightly connected characters.

 

Was a good read, fairly heavy and miserable unsurprisingly but it had a good pace, the various stories kept me intrigued and interested. Some clunky sentences here and there but I'm more tempted to put that down to the translation.

Quite a small book (210 pages in Paperback) but it didn't feel lacking.

[Winterfella]

Finished The Library at Mount Char.  Enjoyed it even if the primary characters weren't very likeable.  I'll be interested in what Scott Hawkins comes up with next, though if it turns out to be a sequel I doubt I'd want to revisit.

Listening to Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon.  Makes me wish I had read this 10 years ago.  So so good.

And just decided to start Reaper's Gale.  It's been (hmm, I thought only 2 or 3 but it's really) 4 years since I read The Bonehunters, so it was really time to dive back in to Malazan.  I always find it a little sloggish in the early going trying to remember old characters and get acquainted with new ones.  Trying to recall which race is subjugating which other race, etc.  It always turns out well in the end though, so hopefully I can just power through the first couple hundred pages and things will come together for me.

[ljkeane]

I just finished A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. Similar to her first book in that despite some trapping of a bigger sory it's very focused on the relationships between the characters.I liked it quite a lot actually, it's very optimistic despite some dark elements.

[Starkess]

Decided to re-read the first two books in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, since the final book comes out soon. It's nice to be back in the Six Duchies, although I'm already  at just how dense Fitz can be!!

[Iskaral Pust]

Finished volume 2 of Hinges Of History by Thomas Cahill, non-fiction history series.  This one walks through the Old Testament, building a claim that the gradual development of monotheism, individualism and progressive time (rather than cyclical) was a profound sea-change in human mode of thought and perspective.  Very well written again.  A little too steeped in religiosity but I'll allow it.  I'll read more of this series once I've taken a break. 

This series is much more about the history of culture and philosophy than history of events.  It feels a bit similar to Luc Ferry. 

[beniowa]

Put me down as another who couldn't get into The Acts of Caine.  I made it thought Heroes Die, but it did nothing for me and I have no interest in the rest of the series. 

I finished The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.  This is a character-driven space opera, light on plot, but heavy on character relationships, especially between humans and aliens.  Chambers did a good job making the aliens alien, but also relatable.  While reading I kept thinking that this book is extremely cute.  Almost unbearably really.  Nice, feel-good fiction has its place, but I don't have any interest in reading the sequel.

Also read A Taste of Honey.  This is set in the same world as Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, but sometime later with different characters.  This is a much richer and complex work in both story and worldbuilding.  A definite improvement on Wildeeps.  That being said, it's clear to me that something about the author's style just doesn't grab me.  Oh well. 

Next up will be Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan. 

[Lily Valley]

On 4/15/2017 at 3:51 PM, 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.

I am SHOCKED.   The second book was even better.  The darkness of the author's view of human nature and the nature of life in general really shines.  I am very saddened by this review.

On 4/15/2017 at 8:59 PM, polishgenius said:

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

I didn't find the science to tough to swallow.  I found it whimsical. 

On 4/15/2017 at 9:16 PM, Darth Richard II said:

 

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.

ZOMG.  I thought we were FRIENDS!!!!!

On 4/16/2017 at 3:43 AM, polishgenius said:

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.

Liu tends to run towards silly even ridiculous.  The Wandering Earth has shorter pieces that begin with a symbiotic ant / dinosaur society and get more ludicrous from there.  He's marvelous.

On 4/16/2017 at 4:15 PM, Darth Richard II said:

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.

No it wasn't.  Not at all.  It was just very pessimistic about human nature.

On 4/18/2017 at 5:22 PM, williamjm said:

 

I thought The Three Body Problem tended to be at its best when it was less involved with the scientific parts of the storyline. I thought the bits set during the Cultural Revolution did a good job of showing the oppressiveness of that time period, and I liked most of the scenes set inside the computer game, but wasn't so keen on the rest of the story.

 

:just lays down and dies:   WHY DO I EVEN COME HERE?????

[Darth Richard II]

To be honest none of that really matters, since I just found the writing to be terrible.

[Jo498]

On 16.4.2017 at 11:15 PM, Darth Richard II said:

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.

Check out Van Gulicks "Judge Dee" mysteries that are very enjoyable and have the very pleasant side effect of conveying a little about Chinese history (medieval, but many aspects were stable for almost two millenia, Old China is probably more impressive than the Orthodox church in that respect).

[Lily Valley]

17 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

To be honest none of that really matters, since I just found the writing to be terrible.

The translator of the second book was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better IMHO.  His name is Joel Martinsen. The Dark Forest had a completely different feel.   Martinsen is translating another novel by Liu called Ball Lightning, coming out in November.  I CANNOT WAIT.

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe. I know everyone was all about Liu's translation of book 1, but well, I tried reading Ken Liu's epic fantasy, and the prose in that was god awful too. So maybe I'll give Ball Lightning a shot.

Interestingly most people seem to think the translation fro book 2 was as step down and pretty awful. *shrug*