May Reads

[Garett Hornwood]

Surprised this thread hasn't been started yet, but here we go.

I'm a quarter of the way through The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.  I found The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy only so-so, intriguing and a little funny.  However before I find myself in deep water, I'm finding Restaurant at the End of the Universe better and funnier.

What are you reading?

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I found Calamity by Brandon Sanderson alright. The ending bothered me in some Way.

Now reading an Expanse novella, Gods of Risk.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm restarting The Great Ordeal by R. Scott Bakker. I got sidetracked by real=life last month.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished off The Great Ordeal. While it had its moments, this is easily the weakest of the Second Apocalypse books thus far: too little butter scraped over too much bread. I had also forgotten how incredibly misanthropic Bakker can be.

Next up is The Borgia Bride, by Jeanne Kalogridis.

[SeanF]

I've just started Assassin's Fate.

[unJon]

Starting Bennett's City of Miracles. So far it's really good. This series has really grown on me and I love the way each book skips forward several years. 

[Darth Richard II]

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Finished off The Great Ordeal. While it had its moments, this is easily the weakest of the Second Apocalypse books thus far: too little butter scraped over too much bread. I had also forgotten how incredibly misanthropic Bakker can be.

Next up is The Borgia Bride, by Jeanne Kalogridis.

...what?

 

Edit: Oh ha, I read that wrong. Carry on!

[Richard Writhen]

Finished The Lies of Locke Lamora. Next up, I've started Black House by King / Straub ... I liked The Talisman a lot when I read it for the first time a couple of years ago.

[beniowa]

Finished both Within the Sanctuary of Wings and Waking Gods.  Both were good and satisfying sequels and/or conclusions to their respective series.  

About to take the plunge into Seven Surrenders and The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories.  

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished The Borgia Bride. Characters a bit two-dimensional, but otherwise diverting candyfloss historical fiction. I'm unsure about the level of accuracy (chocolates in late fifteenth century Italy?), as that area isn't my strong point.

Next up is The Light Princess and Other Fantasy Stories, by George MacDonald.

[Leofric]

Finished Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer and rolled right into part 2, Seven Surrenders.   Had no idea hat I was getting into when I picked up these books, it was challenging at first to get into, but well worth it.   Seven Surrenders  continues with the fascinating world and story and twists.

Red Sister is next on list, to lighten mood

[Hello World]

Just started the Expanse series with Leviathan Wakes. After a prologue and two chapters in I'm not really that intrigued yet, nor do I care about the crew from [insert any spaceship movie here].

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished off The Light Princess. Playful Victorian children's literature, with a heavy dose of fairy tale material. Oh, and one story even has giant spiders as being *good*, which makes for something different.

Next up is more MacDonald. At the Back of the North Wind.

[Peadar]

Starting M.R. Carey's The Boy on the Bridge. I liked the sample.

[TheRevanchist]

Finished Thrawn. Now reading Bakker's The Great Ordeal and hoping to finish it before the last ever Fitz book will be released.

[Maester Llama]

Joe Hill's The Fireman was pretty great. Post apocalyptic sf horror that, largely thanks to the way it builds its characters, manages to be deeply bleak and optimistic simultaneously, never wallowing completely into the swamp of existential angst about how we are at bottom all gigantic dicks in which I've seen some other post-apocalyptic fiction engage. It's also one of those massive books that has the trick of flying by. When I got to the end I wished there was more, though it does end in a good spot. I might love NOS4A2 more, but if so only by a little and certainly not without doing some thinking about it, and it is of course apples to oranges. Another big winner for Hill.

 

I'm now over half-way through Guy Gavriel Kay's Children of Earth and Sky, and while I was initially less emotionally involved than I usually am with his stuff the book has finally spun up and gotten all its machinery in place and is starting to really work.

[Isis]

I'm labouring with book X of Paradise Lost, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. Also need to polish off A Short Introduction to Game Theory  which has proved far less interesting than I expected. And then I'll finally tackle Midnight's Children. 

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I found Gods of Risk novella in the Expanse world just ok. I didn't care about Bobbie Draper's nephew getting into trouble.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by Steve Olsen was great.  This was the human side of the story I didn't know much about and I am glad I filled in my gap of knowledge.

Now enjoying the heck out of the first novel of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife series, Beguilement.  

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Guinevere Seaworth said:

 

Now enjoying the heck out of the first novel of Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife series, Beguilement.  

I read that series and liked it, it's not the greatest ever, just a quiet little fantasy series.  Good light summer reading.  Hope you like it.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Finished off At the Back of the North Wind. It's primarily interesting as a proto-Narnia (Lewis was very much a fan of MacDonald), and I'm convinced this is where Lewis got the cabbie for The Magician's Nephew. The whimsical poems and story tangents also resemble Tolkien's playful side, and there are some genuinely beautiful turns of phrase, especially in the earlier and more fantastical part of the book. That said though, the thing is drenched in Victorian moralism, right down to a lecture on demon drink, and the narration is way too heavy-handed for a modern reader.

Next up is another MacDonald (I am working my way through an omnibus): The Princess and the Goblin.